It was the Isle of Man. The TT Races had begun.

The practice session began at five-fifteen. Two bikes at a time roared off the grid at ten second intervals. Engines screaming, front wheels pawing the air as the slick black rubber of the fat rear tyres squirmed to hold the grip of a hundred and eighty horses. A rising wail rose from the exhausts as the machines tore off down the Glencrutchery Road, Grandstand on one side of the road, cemetery on the other, then down the steep drop of Bray Hill, between the houses and the lampposts, Quarter Bridge Road, Quarter Bridge then off into the dew laden early morning Manx countryside.

It would be fifteen minutes before the leading machines reached Price who was at the Veranda, a series of four sweeping right hand bends, thirty miles out from the start and high up on the Mountain Road between Ramsey, the Island's second town and Douglas, its capital. He was on a busman's holiday of sorts. A surgeon by profession and an infrequent attendee at sporting events, he had been talked into coming once again to the TT by a colleague in the large District General Hospital in northern England where he worked. If coming to watch the races had not been mistake enough, he had found himself signing on as a race medic the day before and was now standing there stamping his feet and shivering on a bleak mountainside at a time when all sane and sensible folk would still be fast asleep in bed. He looked around; it was lighter now. Behind him the heather and gorse flecked bulk of Snaefell, the Island's highest peak rose smoothly to its still mist-shrouded summit. The road before him ran from left to right and in front of that the land fell steeply into a scree-scarred valley which itself dropped away until it reached the village of Laxey and the sea far below. In the distance he could just make out the great waterwheel, the Lady Isabella, built in the nineteenth century to pump water from the lead and zinc mines of the surrounding hills.

Price turned to Kinnish: he had worked with the man for five, maybe six years: Kinnish had gassed for him for more than half of that time and only now did he begin to realise that the man who had invited him to that little plot of earth by the side of a road in the middle of nowhere had little, if anything, really in common with him. Kinnish was a colleague, but certainly not a friend.

"So Steve, you got me out to this godforsaken place. What are we looking for, where, when and why?"

[Stephen Kinnish was a Manxmen. He was also a Consultant Anaesthetist who worked in the same hospital as Price and returned year after year to the Island of his birth to act as a race doctor and (as he had told Price some weeks earlier) "just stand by the roadside and watch the races," Price had asked dubiously "and if there's a crash?" Kinnish had muttered something about lending medical assistance, but that it didn't happen often and there was a helicopter ambulance and a casualty could be in the hospital in Douglas in next to no time. Come to think about it he hadn't said anything about this five am start business either. Price was different: he was not a Manxman: he was born and bred on the adjacent Island (as they say in the Isle of Man), but he had been to the TT Races once or twice many, many years before: he vaguely remembered the scenery, the racetrack and the bikes, but only now, in the early morning light, did those memories come alive once again.]

"This is a great spot Jonathon. Bikes come from way over there to your left - up the climb from Ramsey, Guthrie's Memorial, along the Mountain Mile, East Mountain Box then the Black Hut then this series of bends - four right-handers taken as one at speed then down to that left-hander over there," he pointed to their right "that's Bungalow Bridge or the Les Graham Memorial Shelter to give it its proper name. And then on past the Bungalow, over the tram rails, Hailwood's Rise, round the Brandywell then on down the mountain to Douglas"

"At speed?" Price asked raising his eyebrows just a little.

"Hundred and thirty, forty maybe, the top boys, but don't worry no-one crashes up here; just enjoy the racing today and tomorrow we'll have you out somewhere on your own."

"One on its way" someone shouted and Price, Kinnish and the small knot of marshals and spectators turned to their left and craned their heads, staring northwards for sight of that first machine. Suddenly there it was: only a black speck at first, but growing larger and clearer with the rising note of its engine and whine of its exhaust growing louder as it drew nearer and nearer. The bike and rider swooped into the left-hander before the Veranda, cranking over so hard that the rider's leather-clad knee scraped the tarmac, then in an ear-splitting crescendo of noise burst past them and was gone, the howl of the machine's exhaust Doppler-shifting into the distance.

"Number six, Dai Jones," someone commented.

Price shook his head. These guys were crazy. If they came off at that speed…..

A few seconds later, the rising whine of a racing engine cut through the still morning air; the shrill note rose and dipped and rose and dipped; a split second later, in a heady crescendo of sound, it flew past Price and his companions in an indescribable blur of noise, colour and motion.

"Number eleven, John Davis," the same person commentated. Another bike shot past: fast, furious, but safe. Price began to relax: another bike came past, then another, then another. They were all travelling at seriously high speed, but they seemed to know what they were doing.

Then, suddenly, he heard the screaming note of another machine, but this time everything was wrong. Men were running, waving flags and a frisson of fear clutched the pit of his stomach as he watched the rider fighting with the handlebars in what almost seemed slow motion, before the bike and rider left the road and disappeared over the mountainside. Kinnish grabbed the orange emergency box which stood by the roadside and dashed forward shouting:

"Help me Jonathon…. You others get the stretcher, someone get onto Air-med." There was no time for conversation. Price was aware of other machines approaching from his left, but the riders obeyed the waved yellow flags and slowed allowing him and the others to cross the road in relative safety and start off down the hillside to where the crashed machine and its rider were lying.

The bike had travelled two hundred yards or more gouging a scarred track down the mountainside. With some difficulty Price followed the others down the steep and rutted heather-clad bank until he reached the machine which was lying on its side, engine still running and rear wheel still turning. He was panting and sweating and his heart was still pounding with the adrenaline of the moment by the time he reached the rider, but Steve Kinnish was already in action; the local man had seen incidents like this before and knew exactly what to do. The rider's helmet was already off and lying beside him, but the signs did not look too good.

"I'm going to have to intubate him Jonathon; his resps are going off and he's starting to look cyanosed. Looks like a major chest injury"

"And the rest!" Price replied; he had now had an opportunity to look at the leather clad figure lying there on the bleak hillside and could see the other injuries: the leg bent over at a fantastic angle, the glistening shards of white bone poking through the black and gold leather, the unmoving chest, the greying skin.

It took a second or two for Price to get his breath back and take on board the locus of the crash site and the body of the victim. On that amount of reflection, the injuries looked bad, but he had seen worse in his career: the rider had a pneumo- or haemo-pneumothorax, no doubt, but the injury had been recognised, a helicopter had been summoned and within minutes the man would be dealt with by skilled personnel - he had a chance, at least. Far more than he would at virtually any other racetrack in the world.

"I've got an Ambu bag on him," Kinnish said, "can you just ventilate him while I get an IV line in, some colloid up and then I'll tube him. His pneumothorax doesn't look like a tension, so I don't think we need to put in a chest drain here and now. He'll probably need one once he gets to Nobles, but it'll be far too risky to do it up here. Not much else we can do here, but the chopper should be here in a few minutes".

Price did what he was told and as he held the breathing mask over the man's face and methodically squeezed the bag forcing air into the injured lungs, Kinnish went to work. Price looked again at the unconscious rider; not a particularly young man, probably early thirties; he recognised the face, maybe he had seen it before in a paper, or a magazine or something, but could not remember the name.

"Steve Taylor, won 6 TTs, used to be a works Honda rider, rides for Petromax now," someone spoke in answer to his unasked questions. "Never crashed on the Island in his life," the same voice continued, "been riding here for twelve years, a really safe rider, this is not like him at all."

"But didn't you see what happened?" another voice cut in, "he got it all completely wrong: it didn't look like he knew the course at all. He was on the wrong line when he went through the Black Hut; didn't you see him fighting with the bike right the way through the left hander? He'd lost it before he ever got to the Veranda; there was something wrong with him or that bike or there was something on the road."

The flat drone of an approaching helicopter brought the conversation to a premature close. The marshals knew that they had a job to do and instructions were barked against the loud chat of overhead rotors. The aluminium stretcher halves were slid beneath the rider and locked together and within minutes Kinnish and Price had transferred their charge to the airborne medical team. The helicopter had been on the ground for less time than it took to describe the medics' actions, its rotors barely slowing before the engine whined and it was off on its way to Douglas and Noble's Hospital.

Kinnish, Price and the other men collected their equipment and climbed back up the steep slope to the road where racing motorcycles were still flying past under the watchful eye of a marshal holding a stationary yellow flag. They were slower than before the crash, but not much and soon after Price and the others had come back across the road, the yellow flag was withdrawn. Someone had inspected the road and said it was safe; Price didn't know who, but normal service was resumed and the Practice session continued without further incident until the Roads-Open car flashed past sometime shortly before seven. Price yawned and walked to his car. He opened the door, fell into the driver's seat and started the engine. He had been up since before four; time now to go back to the hotel, have breakfast and then a couple of hours sleep.

Price was rudely awakened by a shrill repetitive bleat; he lay there for a moment wondering what the sound was before his senses returned. He reached out for the telephone beside his bed, picked up the receiver and answered:
"Yes?"
There was a long pause before a hesitant reply:
" Dr Price?"
" Speaking."
Another long pause and then:
"Are you one of the doctors who was up at the Veranda this morning when…when Steve Taylor…" The voice sounded tense, nervous and tailed off without finishing the sentence.
"Who are you?" Price demanded. Apart from Steve Kinnish and a handful of others, no-one knew where he was staying. The information certainly wasn't common knowledge. He suspected a reporter. He continued: "If you want any information, I suggest you contact the Press Office at the Grandstand." He was bullish, angry that the caller knew who he was and that his privacy had been invaded.

"I…I don't want information…I don't want anything…I want to tell you something…something I think you should know...I….I…" the voice hesitated again.
"What?" Price asked. His tone was less than sympathetic.
" I……I work at the hospital and I thought you should know something….I've heard that you're investigating Mr Taylor's death."

"Death!….he died? Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sorry Dr Price…you didn't know?"
"No I didn't, of course I didn't, and anyway what makes you think I'm investigating anything? I saw the man crash, but I'm a doctor, not a policeman…or any sort of investigator. What makes you say what you just said?"

"Well, Steve Kinnish has been asking around and he sort of, well, he mentioned your name. I can't say my name over the 'phone, but I…well I was the radiographer who dealt with Mr Taylor when he was admitted and I, er, x-rayed him in casualty and intensive care."
"And?" Price asked.
"I was really surprised when I heard that he'd died."
"Why?"
"He didn't really seem that badly injured……and they'd stabilised him by the time he got to hospital."
"So what went wrong?" Price asked.
"I don't know, I really don't….look I can't speak any more…someone's coming."

There was a pause of a few seconds, then a click and the line went dead. Price frowned, then shook his head; he wondered who the caller was, but knew he needed to speak to her. He tried 1471, but the caller had declined to leave her number. He was about to go back to sleep when the telephone rang again; he picked it up immediately.
"Price here," he said, this time far more pleasantly, "go on, do you want to tell me a little more?" There was a pause, but it was a different voice that spoke: a firm, confident voice with a tone of some authority:
"Constable Kneale, Sir, Isle of Man Constabulary. I believe that you witnessed an incident on the Veranda this morning, an incident involving a motorcycle ridden by a man called Taylor?"
Price frowned for the second time in the space of as many minutes before replying:
"I was there Constable. Why? Riders crash at the TT, don't they? I didn't realise that the police took an interest in motorcycle racing accidents?"
"No Sir, we don't as a matter of course, but, well you may not know, the rider, Mr Taylor died in Nobles Hospital earlier this morning and we do need to take statements when a fatality is involved, for the inquest. You'll appreciate, Sir, that we have to try and build up as accurate a picture…" the policeman carried on in this vein, but Price was no longer listening. So the rider really had died and the call he had received a few minutes earlier had pre-empted even the police. That Taylor had not made it was a shock and yet Price was also surprised - when he had helped lift that stretcher into the helicopter he really had thought that the man would survive. "…and so would it be convenient for you to come up to Police Headquarters later today to make a statement?" Price realised that the policeman had stopped speaking and wanted a reply.
"Er yes, yes certainly; what time?"
"Would two o'clock be convenient Sir?"
Price glanced at his watch - it was half-past eleven. He told the policeman that he would be there and put the 'phone down.

Price showered and dressed; he thought about phoning Kinnish, but then decided against it. Something was not quite right here; somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew it. He closed his eyes and mentally smelt the faint and far off odour of a sour and long-dead rat. He would travel to Police Headquarters, but he would be on his guard. In theory, it would be a simple enough statement to make: he had been there, he had seen the accident (well he had seen the end of the accident), he had tried to help, but somehow Price knew that something was not quite right. To paraphrase Hamlet: was there something rotten in the state of Mann?

He had a coffee in the hotel lounge and then set out for Police Headquarters. It was a long, long time since he had been on the Island, but for some strange reason he remembered exactly where Police Headquarters lay. It was a fine and sunny day and he was in no hurry so he decided to walk. He made his way northwards along the Promenade for half a mile or so before turning his back to the sea and entering one of the little streets that ran at a right angle to the promenade, making the steep climb up to Nobles Park, location of the TT Grandstand, paddock area, campsite and start and finish of the races. Adjacent to the Park stood a large squat modern building: The Isle of Man Police Headquarters. It would win no prizes for architectural merit, but it served its purpose well enough, Price supposed.

He walked into the reception area and rang the bell. He waited for a minute, two minutes before someone appeared.
"Can I help you, Sir" It was a young uniformed female officer. She had a pretty smile and Price replied:
"Jonathon Price….I've come to make a statement about the accident on the Veranda this morning."
"Oh yes Sir," she stepped back out of sight and a moment later Price heard a click and a buzz and the door to the left hand side of the counter swung open. Price stepped forward through the now open doorway and descended into the bowels of the Police station. The door clicked shut behind him.

"Dr Price?" a voice to his right asked. Price turned and caught sight of a man of medium height and probable early middle age. He was wearing a shabby brown sports jacket, brown trousers, a nondescript shirt and tie. Price was a little surprised. He had assumed that a member of the uniformed branch would have been called to deal with what must have been a very mundane task.
"Detective Constable Kneale," he continued, "please come this way."
Price followed the man down some steps into a gloomy basement corridor. Steel doors, some closed, most opened revealing empty cells beyond, punctuated the walls and the reek of stale sweat, vomit, alcohol and cigarettes hung in the air. Price grimaced; it was an unintentional reflex action, but the policeman noticed and apologised.
"Sorry about the surroundings Sir; this is the custody area, but it's the only place available at the moment. We won't be long, just a quick statement and then you can be on your way."

The quick statement took longer than he expected; it was almost as though there was a hidden agenda and the policeman wanted to prolong the whole gloomy affair. In answer to a direct question from Price, the policeman told him that they had not spoken to Kinnish. For some unknown reason, he seemed to have no knowledge of the existence of Kinnish at all.

"We must have a word with him Sir; where did you say he was staying?" he asked politely, but seemed to take little interest in the reply. He asked Price a number of questions which Price was unable to answer in any detail, technical questions about the state of the road, about oil, about whether the machine had skidded or whether the engine had seized. Strangely though, it seemed to Price, reading between the lines and judging from the body language of his inquisitor that the man didn't really care about what Price said in his answers, just so long as Price was kept in that dank and miserable basement for what was left of the afternoon. Price got the distinct impression that the officer wanted to keep him there. Was it merely because he wanted to kill time so he could enter it on his time sheet for the afternoon? Maybe that was how they did things in the Isle of Man.

He ventured a question. "What do you think happened then, Officer?"
Constable Kneale stared at him blankly.
"Can't say at this stage, Doctor, no doubt we'll learn more by the inquest." The voice was devoid of emotion, but Price could see from the policeman's face that further questions would not be welcome. At long last the interview came to an end and Price was allowed to go.

Something was not quite right and, whatever it was, it added to the doctor's growing suspicions about the entire incident. The policeman hadn't asked him a single pertinent question about Taylor's injuries and the medical treatment he had received on the scene. Price had thought about bringing up the 'phone call from the anonymous radiographer, but decided against it. At this stage, he wasn't quite convinced that the Isle of Man Constabulary were singing from the same hymn sheet as he was. A disinterested observer may have thought him a little paranoid, but things were to get far, far worse in the very near future.

Nobles Park and the Grandstand basked in the golden late afternoon sunshine as he stepped out of the dark building. The evening Practice session would soon be underway, but Price was no longer in the mood for motorcycle racing. He had not volunteered for that evening's session and fancied a walk and possibly a drink. He turned to his left and walked down past the old prison, crossed a busy road then made his way along a quiet tree-lined lane until he came to a low wall. He found himself on a cliff top and gazed out over Douglas bay. It was a beautiful sight: the bay was an almost perfect semi-circle; the sky overhead was cloudless and the sea was blue and calm, too calm for the yachts dotted about it whose sails hung limply as the vessels drifted. The dark squall of depression which had drifted close to the edge of his mind passed on and his spirits lifted. A rough path twisted and turned down from the cliff top to the promenade a hundred and fifty feet below. Price looked down and thought he could see an encouraging sign.

The descent was quickly made and Price's intuition and eyesight proved to be good enough. It was an old pub, separated from the promenade by a flagged forecourt on which half a dozen rough trestle tables stood. A swinging signboard hanging from a pole announced: "The Queens Hotel" and another smaller sign standing by the edge of the pavement added: "Open all day for food and drink" Price walked in through the open door to be greeted by the sound of raised voices. A heated argument was raging between a group of men sitting at the bar.

"Oil on the road, I don't believe a word of it. I know some of the marshals up there and no-one saw anything. Anyway where's this oil supposed to have come from?" a red-faced balding man demanded.

"I dunno, diesel from a lorry the day before? oil from an earlier bike? All I know is what they said on the radio," another answered almost apologetically.

"If it wasn't oil what else could it have been?" a third added.

The red-faced man held out his hands in a gesture of apparent despair: "what do you think? The bloody usual of course, trying too hard, going too fast."

"He was a really experienced rider, six times a TT winner," the second man, taller and older than the first replied in a soft Irish accent, "wouldn't have been rider error with him, and they've taken away the bike for inspection, but they don't think it was machine failure."

"I've heard it was a seizure; engine failure," another man said.

Price realised that he had walked into a debate on the morning's tragedy. He had no desire to take part so he ordered a pint of Okells bitter from the barman and took a seat in a quiet corner of the room. The heated voices continued for a few more minutes then the topic of conversation drifted onto something else.

The beer tasted good and Price's mood improved with each passing mouthful. When he returned to the bar, the red-faced man acknowledged his presence.
"Over for the races?"
Price nodded, took a gulp from the freshly-poured pint and said: "Yes." It was a terse reply and the other men at the bar were having none of it.
"First time?"
"Where are you over from?"
"Enjoying it?"
"You not out for the evening practice?"

Price was a little daunted by the barrage of questions. He had come out for a quiet, relaxing pint, but he did not wish to offend so he smiled and told the men that he had been before, but only once and that had been many years ago. He told them his name and said that he liked the Island and that he was not watching the practice that evening because he had been up for the early morning one and anyway, he fancied a drink instead. The red-faced man whose name, he discovered, was Richard, asked him where he had watched from. Price was wary about telling too much and simply said that he had been up on the mountain. He did not specify where. He made no mention of the accident and he did not tell them that he was a doctor, but this was the Isle of Man where, as Price was already learning, nothing was secret for long.

"You're a doctor aren't you?" Richard demanded, "and you were up on the Veranda this morning. You can tell us what happened."
Price was flabbergasted. "How, in the world?" he uttered.
Richard smiled. "Know most things" he replied intriguingly. His companions nodded. "And I do tend to keep a CB radio tuned into the appropriate frequencies when the TT is going on. Heard your name, Doctor Price, up at the Veranda this morning. Good work, by the way; by all accounts you did a sterling job. Shame the guy died."

After that short, but friendly, interrogation Price was accepted. At first he eyed Richard with a degree of suspicion, but when the man seemed harmless enough he relaxed. He listened to the local gossip and learned a great deal about the Island, about the TT races and in particular about the late Steve Taylor, not all of it complimentary or good. Richard had obviously very little regard for the man and made vague allusions to a susceptibility to bribery and corruption which Price was not prepared to entertain without far, far more evidence. The result was that he ended up staying far longer in the pub and drinking far more than he had intended. When he finally left it was gone ten. He walked back to his hotel, swaying a little, content, full of local beer and ready for bed.

With some difficulty he pushed the key into the door and turned the key and the knob; the door opened and Price stumbled into his room. It took him a moment or two before he realised that the light was on and someone was sitting on a chair in the corner. It was the anaesthetist, Steve Kinnish. Price knew straight away that something was wrong.
"Sit down Jonathon," Kinnish said, quietly, but firmly, "you and I need to talk." Price swayed a little, but did as he was told, finding a seat on the edge of the bed.
" I take it you've heard that the racer, Steve Taylor, died?"
Price nodded and replied: "I heard about it sometime late this morning," he said. His tones would have been a little angrier, but the beer had mellowed them, "telephone call from a young lady: a radiographer at Nobles Hospital who knew my name, telephone number and seemed to think that I was investigating the death of the late Steve Taylor. Now, I wonder how she got hold of that particular information?"
Kinnish raised his hand. "Sorry Jonathon," he said, "there were reasons; I can't tell you now, but it had to be said. Did you speak to the police?"
"The Police asked me for a statement this afternoon and I gave them one. They said that Taylor died in hospital, tragic, of course, but these things happen…I was rather more concerned about the call from the radiographer. I take it that you know her? what's the big mystery?" through conscious effort he managed to avoid slurring his speech, but only just. The shock of finding Kinnish in his hotel room at that time of night helped sober him up. The man's actions were positively furtive; how had he got into Price's room and more to the point why? Price voiced his concerns out loud.
"I got into your room," Kinnish replied, "because I know the hotel manager and I told him that I needed to speak to you….urgently. Apart from the police, and this radiographer, have you had any other calls today?"
"No, I haven't; should I?" Price replied.
"No calls from…er…anyone who sounded Russian?"
"Of course not; don't think I've ever had a call from a Russian in my life. Why?" Kinnish ignored the question and countered it with one of his own.
"This radiographer, what did she say?"
Price recalled the strange, anonymous call which woke him and repeated the brief words the caller had spoken.
"How did the voice sound?," Kinnish urged, "I mean what was its manner?" Price thought for a moment then replied:
"Nervous, anxious, guilty; like she and it was definitely a she, was afraid of somebody or something; she said that you had spoken to her and she said that neither she not anyone else in that hospital had thought that Taylor was going to die. I think that she would have said a lot, lot more, but she was obviously scared, really scared. Whatever else it was she wanted to say, she couldn't bring herself to say it and she put the 'phone down on me."
"Was it a local accent?"
"No, not Manx. I would have said southern England."
"She called me," Kinnish revealed, "but she spoke for a little longer. Didn't tell me her name, but I'm pretty sure I know who she is. She didn't put the 'phone down either, well, not straight away, not until she told me something…."

Price was listening closely now; the slight intoxication of a few moments ago appeared to have passed, his thoughts grew keener, more attentive.
"What?" he demanded
"Listen Jonathon," Kinnish continued, "let me take you back to this morning when Taylor came off his bike; can you remember what exactly happened?"
"No, I told the police as much, I didn't see the accident, only the result."
"Which was?"
"Well, he went straight off the road and down the mountainside."
"Did he try to get round the corner, but couldn't make it? was his bike over on its side?" Kinnish asked excitedly.
"No," Price shook his head, "come to think of it, he didn't seem to be trying to go round the corner at all. He seemed to be struggling just to stay on the bike. The marshals said that he was on the wrong line for the previous corner, but it didn't look as though he was trying to correct his line. He went straight on at the apex of that first bend…."
"What do you remember about the bike and about him, when we got to them?" Kinnish asked.
"Engine was still running, back wheel turning, so it wouldn't appear to have seized, You'd taken his helmet off by the time I got down there; he was unconscious so I assumed some sort of major head injury, chest injury, compound lower leg fractures," Price reeled off the injuries he could recall. "Nothing that you wouldn't expect in a high speed motorcycle crash."
"I looked at the crash helmet," Kinnish said slowly, "and there was hardly a scratch on it. That mountainside is all heather and peat bog; it's all soft ground. He didn't hit a wall or anything so why was he unconscious? I can accept the leg and the chest injury, but there was no head injury and besides….."
"Yes?" Price asked encouragingly; he sensed something important.
Kinnish's voice had shrunk to a conspiratorial whisper. "I checked his pupils before we put him in the chopper, Jonathon and they weren't dilated, they were constricted, in fact, Jonathon, they were pinpoint." He emphasised that last point; they both knew its significance.

Kinnish stood up.
"It's getting late. We're both up early in the morning, I'd better go." It was like a book snapping shut.
"But the radiographer, what did she say? Who was it?" Price needed to know more; half-confidences were not enough.
"No, Jonathon, not now; it might be nothing. I need to make some more enquiries. Please keep what I've said to yourself…for now."
Price pleaded half-heartedly for a few moments, but could see that Kinnish had made up his mind; he would learn no more that night. The door opened, closed and Kinnish was gone.