He stumbled down the steps beyond the door, a cry of disbelief crawling out from the depths of his body. He whispered her name, his eyes wildly roaming as he tried to comprehend the horror before him. The bedsheet she lay upon was bunched in her clawed fingers.

‘Jesus, Jenny!’

He reached to touch her cheek, but instantly recoiled, burnt by the iciness of her skin. A keening cry escaped him as he took in the waxy sheen of her face, the blue lips, the vacant stare. He did not need a physician to tell him she was dead.

It was then he saw his mother, cowering in the corner of the room, her eyes wide – whether with shock or fear, he couldn’t tell. She was clutching a towel that might once have been a faded blue, but was now crimson. From its bottom edge, blood dripped to stain the worn slippers on her feet.

‘Mam …’ Jack gasped. His jaw moved impotently as he tried to raise his questions, but there were so many crowded in his mind, churning chaotically amongst the confusion and despair that he was unable to voice them. Darkness edged his vision. He feared his chest would burst with pain. He forced himself to breathe.

‘Mam … what … what …’

His mother’s fingers tightened on the blood-sodden towel.

‘Our Jenny …’

‘Mam, for God’s sake – tell us what happened?’

Her lips quivered. She retreated further into the corner, until her shoulders were hunched against its edges.

‘I couldn’t stop it … I couldn’t stop the bleeding.’

‘But why was she bleeding? Mam, the blood! What the hell happened?’

‘She said there’d be a bit of bleeding as it came away, like, but it just flowed from her, flowed and flowed, it wouldn’t stop, it ne’er stopped, and our Jenny was moaning in agony and I couldn’t do a thing …’

‘Who said there’d be bleeding?’ It only took one stride for Jack to reach her. He grabbed the tops of her arms, his fingers biting cruelly into their loose flesh as he bored into his mother’s empty expression. ‘Mam, tell us … tell us now,’ he shouted, shaking her once, twice, until her head tipped back and forth.

‘Oh, damnit it all, Jack, she had gotten herself into trouble,’ his mother cried out. ‘She got herself knocked up and the dad didn’t want to know so I told her she’d have to get rid of it. I got a woman in to sort her out.’

‘Jesus, Mam, what have you done?’ His fingers flared open as he staggered back. He clutched his head as he caught sight of his sister’s ruined body, lifeless on the bed. ‘What have you done?’ he echoed.