Where There's Smoke

“He started telling me to c-calm down, but how c-could I when he was going to spoil everything? If he’d just let me tell you it would have b-been all right, but he wouldn’t, he told me to sit down, and started saying everything w-would be okay, but I knew it wouldn’t be, I kn-knew he was l-lying. Then he told me not to push him, but I hadn’t, I–I’m sure I hadn’t, and then he started going towards the d-door, and I knew he was going to f-fetch them to come and get me, and I’d n-never see you again, so I–I tried to stop him. I just wanted to explain, to m-make him see, and then—”

He stopped. Kate was rigid, every muscle tense. She could hear his breathing, rapid and laboured.

“I didn’t m-mean to,” he said. “It was only because he was g-going to tell you, but there was so much blood. I just didn’t want him to t-tell you, that was all, I couldn’t stand the thought of what you’d think about me, Kate, I...”

Don’t. She wasn’t sure if she’d spoken it or not. “... I l-love you, Kate...”

No.

“P-please, Kate, I’m s-sorry—”

“No.”

“— Please don’t h-hate me, I didn’t m-mean to hurt anyone—”

“Shut up.”

“— Don’t be upset, I wouldn’t hurt you—”

“Shut up!”

“— I only did it because of the b-baby—”

“There isn’t any baby.”

It was a reflexive cry. There was a silence. “What do you m-mean?” His voice held a barely suppressed panic. “K-Kate, don’t say that!”

“I mean there isn’t any baby!”

“There is, I saw your f-fax, you s-said it—”

“It’s dead! I’ve had an abortion!”

Distantly, she felt herself recoil from the words, but there was a savage exultation in lashing out, hurting him back.

“No.”

The denial was hushed. “I had it this morning.”

“N-no, I d-don’t believe you!”

“They killed it.”

The words ran away with her.

“You’re lying!”

“They cut it out—”

“Oh. God, no, oh, G-God, no—”

“and then they threw it in the incinerator and burnt it!”

She stopped, appalled with herself. She heard him moan.

“Don’t,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”

“No, no, God, no, oh, no—”

“Listen,” she began, “I haven’t—”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no—”

The sound of his pain cut through her own. “Please, don’t! You were right, I was—”

“Bitch!” The word hit her like a fist.

“M-murdering fucking bitch!”

“No, listen to me—”

“I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking k-kill you, you murdering BITCH!”

The line went dead. The receiver hummed in her ear. Slowly, Kate lowered it.

She became aware of a weight on her lap. Looking down, she saw that at some point Dougal had come and sat on her knee without her noticing. A noise from the phone made her start, and she almost dropped it as a recorded voice pipingly instructed her to replace the handset. She dislodged Dougal and climbed stiffly to her feet. Her neck and shoulder muscles ached as though she had overworked them in the gym. She replaced the phone in its cradle and looked around the hallway as if she didn’t recognise it. But it appeared no different from how it had ten minutes before.

From the lounge, the quiz show still buzzed with gleeful laughter. Kate walked away from the sound. She went downstairs and checked that both doors were locked. Then she came back up and phoned the police.

Chapter 16

It was nothing like the clinic at Birmingham. For one thing, she was fully clothed, sitting on a hard plastic chair instead of lying on a couch. The room was a dull cream colour, NHS instead of private, and lit by a harsh strip light that buzzed like a trapped fly. The doctor was short and plump, and the nurse’s uniform nothing like so crisply ironed. But for all that, Kate couldn’t help but be reminded of the other place. Perhaps it was because one had been a beginning while the other was an end.

She had come a full, futile circle. Her hand went instinctively to her throat, feeling for the gold locket that was now in a drawer in her flat. She lowered it again.

“The procedure for an early medical termination’s quite simple,” the doctor said, and again Kate was faced with a ghost of that other time, the other clinic. “Effectively, what we’re doing is inducing a miscarriage. The drug we use is called Mifegyne, and what it basically does is stop the lining of your womb forming. You’ll have to stay here for an hour after you’ve taken it to make sure there aren’t any side effects, but there rarely are.”

The doctor gave a reassuring smile. She was a pleasant-faced woman in her fifties. “After that you can go home again. Then you’ll have to come back in a couple of days, and we’ll give you a pessary to make you pass what’s in your womb.”

“Will I be able to see anything?” Kate could hear the tremor in her own voice.

“You’ll probably see what you pass, yes. But it won’t be much different from a heavy period. There won’t be anything recognisable, if that’s what you mean. At this stage it’s still only cells.”

Cells. Kate pushed the image out of her mind. “What... what happens to it? Afterwards, I mean. What do you do with it?”