Cameron McGill is in Amsterdam to investigate the sudden death of her sister, Carrie.

It is a long walk across the city centre to Waterlooplein, perhaps two or three miles, but this is such an attractive city that it is a pleasant, therapeutic experience, even in this lousy weather - and I needed that therapy. I crossed the three canals that skirt old Amsterdam, the Prinsengracht, the Keizersgracht and finally the Herengracht. No Vrouwengracht, I thought, but then a 'woman's canal' would have no status at all in the canal-naming league of the
seventeenth century.

The trees that lined the sides of each canal were clinging to the last remnants of their summer leaves. I passed one of the many male urinals and smiled as I remembered Carrie's story of the feminist protests of 1969 when local women tied up these urinals with pink ribbon, waving banners proclaiming that 'women had the right to pee as well', then baring their bums in front of the world's press to do just that - into the canal. Carrie had been there - an energetic sixteen-year-old who had slipped away from the school trip and made her first friends in the city.

Once over Herengracht, I turned right and made my way along side the floating flower market, stopping next to a building where the 'Amsterdam Joffers' had their painting studio. Carrie had taken my photo there on my first visit to the city in 1988. I was 23 and fiercely feminist. My sister, having been through the revolutionary protests and sit-ins of 70s Amsterdam, was in a more reminiscent mood. She told me the story of the Joffers - eight early feminists who caused outrage at the turn of the century because they chose careers as professional artists, dressing in work clothes and flouting convention. Their paintings were inoffensive but their lifestyle was not. 'Be yourself. Live your life the way you want' was her message. I thought how Carrie never had any trouble being herself. Me, I still don't know who I am.

But I love the flower market. It's crammed full of the most colourful and exotic flowers - everything from strelitzias, lilies and orchids to tulips and daffodils. In summer, you can buy a huge selection of flowers for just a few pounds. Today, though, all I wanted was a bunch of purple Michaelmas Daisies, the simple 'September Flower' that had been Carrie's favourite.

I paid the man and cradled the precious bunch in my arm. Now feeling very sombre, I left the colour and the clamour of the Bloemenmarkt and made my way along Amstel towards Waterlooplein. When I saw the road bridge over the Amstel, I braced myself. Further down the main road, I could see the bleak white Stadthuis building and remembered the Sunday trip with Carrie to the fleamarket in the square next to it. We had bought a cheap alabaster statuette of Aphrodite, or some other Greek goddess. It had only cost a few guilders, but for me it had been a treasure. I couldn't remember what had happened to it and, for a few seconds, it seemed imperative that I should somehow find it again and keep it safe.

I stopped and leant against the side of the bridge. The barges, neatly moored in twos, bobbed casually up and down whilst other boats moved at a stately pace along the river. In the distance, at the Amstel's sluice gates, sixteen white barriers were raised like arms, as if in bleak tribute. Up above me, the gusty wind played hollow metallic tunes on the tram wires. The seagulls wheeled and dived as they were blown across the wet sky, wailing their mournful song. A police siren sounded somewhere in the city behind me. The damp iciness of the weather even seemed to penetrate my leathers. My head and face stung with the rain. Suddenly I felt very cold and very numb.

I started off again, turning right at the end of the bridge and walking the few yards to where the Nieuwe Herengracht canal meets the River Amstel. As I approached, the wooden road bridge across the canal was lifting to let a large tanker through into the river. I turned left along the side of the canal, oblivious to the people on bikes nearby who were waiting patiently to cross.

Just here, right below me, where the canal joins the river, under the bridge: this was where Carrie's body was found. This was where my sister ended her days. Dying from some unknown cocktail of drugs. Drowning in the cold, grey waters of the canal.

The tanker slid past me and into the river. I studied it as a way of distracting my mind. The dirty grey canal water lapped across the sea-level walkway that encircled the boat. It was so long that, when its stern passed me, the bow had almost reached the far bank of the river. Once out of the canal, it swung hard round before making its slow progress upstream. The wooden bridge lowered and the mass of cyclists and pedestrians on either side surged across, bumping and rattling the boards as they went.

I sat on the low rail at the edge of the canal, staring into the water, holding the flowers close to me, as if they were a lucky charm against the demons that were all around this spot.

I first heard about her death when the York police visited my house on the Sunday night. I had been out all day and they were waiting for me when I returned. When I saw them there on my doorstep - a woman officer and a man - my mind flashed back to the spring evening when two cops called to tell me about the death of my father. I was eighteen years old and, when I saw them, I was sure it was a bust.

Huh, my father had just been killed and I was relieved that they weren't after my dope.

Sixteen years later, when two more called, I guessed instantly why they were there - Carrie was the only close relative I had. And this time, it seemed like the end of my world. I was asked to identify the body, in Amsterdam, on the Wednesday, after all the tests had been completed, and then to accompany it back to the UK for burial.

The wind was growing stronger now and the drizzle had turned to cold showery rain. I wrapped my arms around myself for comfort as I thought about that dreadful day.

Dankmeijer had taken me to the Free University Hospital for the identification. I supposed that it was an honour to be accompanied by a senior police officer. Now I wasn't so sure. For one thing, if the case was so cut and dried, why hadn't it been handled from the beginning by a more junior officer? Also, looking back, he was edgy. I put it down to awkwardness at the time but, in retrospect, maybe he was just keen to see a sensitive case wrapped up. Maybe he was there to make sure I didn't start asking awkward questions?

Marriette came along to give me support and we sat together silently in the mortuary reception area staring at the decorated glass panels that overlooked the car park. There was a numbness about my feelings right then. Nothing seemed very real. But, still, I wasn't looking forward to seeing her.

Marriette stayed behind in the waiting area by choice when I went through the door into the identification room. I don't know what I had expected. I think that years of reading detective novels and watching American cop programmes on TV had prepared me for a stark, sterile morgue with bodies in drawers. In the event, I had walked into a warm, pleasant room to find my sister lying peacefully, her eyes closed as if asleep, dressed in a pretty cream gown beneath a crisp white sheet and flanked by two large candles which cast a soft, shimmering light over her face.

I was relieved to see that there were no signs of the autopsy, no signs of any cuts. Irrationally and for just a moment, I thought she really was sleeping and I felt elated. But when I brushed her cheek with my hand, her skin felt cold and strange. This wasn't the same warm, soft face I had embraced so many times in my life.

It was then that the chilling truth began to dawn on me: the body lying before me was Carrie's body but it was not Carrie. Her spirit, the vibrancy that had once spilled headlong out of every pore, was gone. All that remained was a shell - nice enough to look at, but devoid of the person I had loved and cherished. My sister had gone.

At first I felt strangely unmoved, as if insulated from my own emotions. Then an emptiness reached deep inside me and, suddenly, I wanted to find her again. I wanted to get the real Carrie back into my arms, into my life. The enormity of my loss finally came home, washing over me, leaving me light-headed and faint. I sat for a few moments, recovering my composure, pushing back the tide of panic that had engulfed me. I wanted to get out into the fresh air, to be alone, to cry. I could see Dankmeijer moving towards me, ready to shepherd me out of the room.

But there was something else that I needed to see. So I ignored the Inspector and concentrated on breathing deeply until I felt calm. Then, before he could stop me, I lifted the sheet from her upper body and drew back the sleeves of her garment.

There were six needle marks covering the inside of her left lower arm. All were still showing some haemorrhaging, so they were all recent and all probably made around the same time. Three of the perforations also showed a degree of tearing - one to a great extent. I was shocked that she could have been so careless with the needle. The bruising and the torn skin were worse than I had ever seen before. Even the most hardened users protect their veins ...

Now I threw the Michaelmas Daisies into the canal one at a time and watched them as they floated about on the water. When I visited Carrie at her London apartment, I always took her flowers. She loved them - it was almost as if they were therapeutic to her. She was always on the go, always excited or stressed, hurrying to meet a deadline, or going somewhere. But at the sight of a bunch of flowers, she would melt and relax. I liked that: it made me feel good too.

I closed my eyes and I could see her arranging the irises, daisies, eucalyptus and chrysanthemums I had bought her last autumn. She held the irises in her right hand, turning them slowly as she inserted the other stems around them, gradually making an informal bouquet which she tied and then put into a vase. I had tried it too, but I couldn't do it the way she did. It was strange, but I had been quite rritated and stung by my incompetence, probably because Carrie teased me about it. I tried and tried to copy her, but she was left-handed and I was right-handed, so her technique wasn't easy to follow.

I got up and began to walk back along the side of the Amstel towards Marriette's, thinking about this. I may only have injected for a short time, but when I did, it was easier, being right-handed, to do it into my left arm. It seemed odd that Carrie, being left-handed, had not injected into her right arm - and that she had not taken more care. She was quite squeamish - even an injection at the doctor's was an ordeal - and I was sure she would not have been so rough with herself intentionally. So what could have caused the skin to tear? Movement, perhaps: injecting in a moving vehicle, injecting whilst drunk?

Or could it be that someone else pushed the needle into her arm - someone who didn't know she was left-handed, someone she was struggling against?

And if the police were so sure there was no foul play, why did they request an autopsy in the first place?

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