"I guess you've got me, boss," he said, grinning. We had an easy relationship, he being the best photographer I had, with an instinctive eye for what mattered at a crime scene. "OK if I shoot up to K Road and get some last minute things for the kids?" I waved two fingers at him and he disappeared, whistling, down the corridor.

I spent the next half hour working on some reports without much enthusiasm, leaned back in the chair and rubbed my eyes, only to see, when I opened them, my boss, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Gentry. "Come down to give my Christmas present, 'guv'" I joked.

Without batting an eye, he said, deadly serious. "Is Barry Stevens on duty at the moment?"

"Sure," I replied, "What's the story?"

Swallowing hard, the DCI said, "His brother has been killed in an air crash in the harbour."

He must have sensed the blood draining from my face. "You alright, son."

"No, guvnor. Wayne Stevens was a buddy of mine. We were all at a party at his place two nights ago." I managed to choke out.

Wayne, Barry's elder by two years, was a talented tv cameraman and was worshipped by his younger sibling. With a wife eight months pregnant, a reputation as a top contender for the end-of-year tv industry awards, he had the world by the nuts.

"You know someone is going to have to cover the PM, don't you." Gentry said.

I nodded dumbly and muttered, "I'll do it, and I'll tell Barry when he gets back." He patted me on the shoulder, muttered, "Thanks, mate," and left me to it.

It wasn't long before I heard the main door open and heard the sound of Hairy whistling away some stupid blood Christmasy tune, when he turned into the office with an armload of wrapped gifts and a stupid grin on his chops.

"What's the matter with you, Dave," he said, "you look as if you've seen a bloody ghost."

Somehow, through my own grief, I managed to convey to him that his world had forever altered. I convinced him that I would identify the body, as a close friend, and then arranged a car to take him home. I got on with preparing myself for an ordeal I could not put anyone else through. I phoned my wife and told her that I would be late and gave her the reason why. She had already heard that a float plane with a NZTV camera crew had crashed into the harbour and that all were feared to be dead.

It is almost impossible to convey the scene at the mortuary exactly as it plays out for a copper who has to see someone he knows taken apart before his eyes. In my case, having to record the injuries photographically, burned the images into my brain each time the flash went off.

I consoled myself with something I had discussed with pathologists and fellow cops at PM's many times. When you look at the body on the slab, it is just a container, something is missing. I am not a religious man. God knows, I've seen so many of the evil things that man can do to man; and yet I believe that within us exists an indefinable entity, soul, spirit—call it what you will, that disappears when life leaves the body. Hah, maybe that's just what it is — Life!