She hates hospitals. That was part of the reason she resisted bringing in Betsey. The stench, the institutionalism, the uncertainty, the knowledge that the place reverberates with sickness – and she can sense bacteria and viruses multiplying a thousand-fold each second, burgeoning through the air. When she rang Ed, she had to stop at each hand hygiene station to slather antibacterial gel in between her fingers. An elderly man was slumped on a plastic chair by a pump, the sweet stench of urine emanating from him, and she imagined his germs rising up towards her. And this was just part of the problem. Beyond the swing doors, in the unknown world of the operating theatres, she knows there is anarchy: blood spewing, hearts stopping, bowels and stomachs emptying in a chaotic mess of bodily fluids. So different to the calm and order required by a hospital. So different to everything she craves.
She reaches into her bag for some more gel; welcomes the stinging. This acute fear of hospitals began ten years ago, when she had Kit. ‘Take Dettol wipes,’ Liz had told her, but with no knowledge of the shock and awe of childbirth, of the sheer bloody mess of it, she hadn’t seen the need. The hospital was a flagship one: gleaming, state of the art, with an atrium and two coffee chains; and a prime minister’s son among its recent deliveries. She had been unprepared for another woman’s blood studding the shower floor. Unprepared, too, for the sound of other women in the late throes of labour: guttural, animalistic noises she’d not been warned about in those antenatal classes. She had thought she would give birth with lavender candles burning and the slow movement of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in the background, the strings lifting her to a birthing climax. How incredibly naive.
In the end, Kit’s was a textbook delivery: apt for her easy, uncomplicated eldest. And so she insisted on having Frankie at home. It was an ideal birth. She had the soft lighting, the music playing, and Ed, who had vigorously opposed a home birth, was so proud, so supportive as this slight, slender baby – a different child entirely from his placid, nine-pound brother – slithered out of her. She felt . . . well, she felt as if she had got it right for once.
She had wanted to have Betsey at home, too. But then things started to go wrong: the baby was bigger than anticipated, Jess panicked, was blue-lit to St Joseph’s, the head got stuck and they had to cut her and use forceps; were brutal – or so it felt at the time. Then things grew worse. A rush of people in the room, an urgency once they realised Betsey’s shoulders were held fast. The focus on the registrar’s face as he rummaged inside her so aggressively she felt violated. The pain. The sheer, burning pain.
They had between three and five minutes to get Betsey out, she later learned. It’s a fact she can’t forget. Other aspects she can’t remember and had to be told later: having a massive haemorrhage tends to distract you, to muddle your mind. She only knows that as soon as she could be discharged, after a hefty blood transfusion, she was frantic to get out of there.
And now she is back. In this ward filled with over-used air and slumbering children. Sitting by her baby, who she dare not leave in case her condition gets worse. Disorientated and exhausted, her mouth tastes metallic and her calves tingle. Gingerly, she flexes her ankles and pushes down to ease out the cramp.
A tall, grey-haired man is tramping down the ward towards her.
‘Dr Neil Cockerill, paediatric consultant,’ he says, and holds out his hand. She stands and takes it uneasily. ‘I’ll be taking over Betsey’s care, since I understand you and Dr Trenchard are friends?’
She nods. Liz has distanced herself these last few hours. It’s the nurses who have roused Betsey, every hour, and Jess isn’t stupid. Her friend might be preoccupied – in work mode – but still, she would hardly say she seemed particularly warm.
‘As I’m sure you’re aware, it’s not good practice to treat patients we know.’ Dr Cockerill is still talking. ‘We’ll arrange for Betsey to be scanned to check for any retinal haemorrhage, and for a possible skeletal survey. These are all standard tests in a situation like this.’ He smiles, his eyebrows knitting together. ‘Now, all OK?’
She nods. Is he asking for her consent or just checking she understands? His words blur, the medical terminology and the supposedly familiar phrases that string them together all meaningless. Betsey being here, and this torrent of information, feels unreal.
His next question makes absolutely no sense at all.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and her scalp prickles with apprehension. ‘I didn’t quite catch that. Please could you repeat it?’
‘I need to ask if there has ever been any social services involvement with your family at all?’
She is blindsided; her chest tight; her mind befuddled as if she’s been knocked over by a colossal wave and all she can hear is the thud and rush of water.
‘No. No, of course not,’ she manages eventually.
He gives a quick, business-like smile as if he doesn’t believe her.
‘Betsey has a skull fracture and we are concerned about how this might have happened,’ he says.
She doesn’t react.
When he continues, his tone is soft, his speech slow. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Curtis, but we have to look at the possibility someone harmed your little girl.’
*
Somehow she gathers that she will need to be seen by a police officer. ‘It’s standard practice when we’re looking into this. They need to check what happened,’ says Dr Cockerill. He or Liz must have contacted the police because by ten o’clock, two officers have appeared.
They’re detective constables. One male, one female. Neither seems threatening. They’re almost mundane. And yet the sight of them, with their innate authority and their intention of seeing right through her until they get to the heart of the matter, makes her crumple like a marionette whose strings have been dropped abruptly, and she finds she is fumbling towards a chair.
‘Jess? May I call you that? Jess? Are you OK?’ The female detective lowers her into it, watching her intently. Somehow, through the fog of her anxiety, she nods her head.
‘I’m DC Cat Rustin and this is my colleague, DC Steve Farron.’ The officer pauses. ‘We need to ask you a few questions about what happened yesterday afternoon to Betsey. Is that all right?’
Jess nods again then starts to shake as they take her to a side room. A voice singsongs in her head, like a child desperate for attention – you’re a bad, bad mother - and she tries to shove it away.
‘I’m wearing a Body Worn camera on my chest,’ DC Rustin says. Her hair’s parted severely in the middle and hangs to her shoulders; she wears no make-up; looks competent, officious. ‘It will record our interview, so that there’s no dispute about what’s happened if we ever need to refer to this.’
If you ever need to refer to it as evidence - that’s what she wants to say.
Her colleague, DC Farron, clears his throat. Tall and slim, with hair the colour of weak Earl Grey and a spray of sandy freckles across the bridge of his nose, he asks if she would like a glass of water. His voice is soft with a faint West Country burr and, as he places the plastic cup in front of her, he seems quietly courteous. Perhaps he will treat her more gently, she thinks.
‘If we can go back to the beginning: when Betsey sustained her injury,’ DC Rustin begins, and Jess tries to reorder her thoughts, to think back to her narrative.