The doctor told me that I wasn’t injured, and it was very unlikely the baby had come to harm. She told me that my uterus was thick and strong, and designed to keep my baby safe. She told me that pregnant women bumped their bumps all the time. Those were the things that I would remember later. The things I still remember.

There was no bleeding. There were no contractions. There was no leak of amniotic fluid. My bump was sore, but probably because I was extra-conscious of it. My perception of the severity of the blow to the abdomen was probably amplified by fear.

Those were all good signs. But I was not reassured enough, so the doctor put me on a bed and wrapped a belt with sensors around my bump, and told me the reading was looking good, and I should take things very gently over the next few days because a spell of bed rest never did an anxious pregnant woman any harm.

When the doctor asked how it had happened, Zac told her I fell, which was technically true. He played the loving expectant father, and tried to hold my hand but I shoved it away with so much force it hit the corner of the metal bedside table and drew blood. Still, he sat beside me and cried as we watched the needle move up and down the roll of paper, tracking her beautiful beating heart.

Now
A Misdemeanour

One year and eleven months later

London and Bath, Monday, 8 April 2019

I sink onto the train’s scratchy blue seat, utterly deflated since the two police officers escorted me from the building. When we are a few minutes out of Paddington I ring Eliza. Again it goes to voicemail. I remind myself that Trudy said Alice was okay, but the attempt to comfort myself fails and the knot in my stomach tightens. I picture Zac, looming over Eliza, making her apologise ten times in a row for some infraction or slight. I picture him doing far worse than this to her, too, though he is too smart and controlled to kill two women in the same week.

With a pang, I recall Alice’s pure joy when she heard Zac’s voice. Would he deliberately hurt a child? At the very least, a child could end up as collateral damage.

I try to concentrate on other things, so I close my eyes and open my mind to any possible loose end. It is easy to let time open, too, because since Jane died, the borders between my life with Zac in St Ives and my life alone in Bath have dissolved.