I wandered my way back along to the police station, having a slight moment of panic when greeted by a wall of medical students pouring out of the Red Lecture Theatre, but they spread around me, making me feel like Moses parting the Red Sea. The walk back also took me past a baby shop, and I couldn’t resist the siren call of cutesy things luring me from the window. We had everything we needed for the lump in the bump, and then some, courtesy of hand-me-downs from siblings and friends, and Mum’s knitting and shopping prowess, but it didn’t stop me oohing and ahhhing over new and shiny things. I stood inside the store, holding up an intolerably sweet little ivory-coloured jacket with cartoon-style kiwis on it, and matching it with some cinnamon jodhpurs.
My left-field conversation with Alistair replayed in my head. It didn’t make sense that someone would do something as extreme as cutting a baby out of a woman just for the placenta. It still felt to me that it was all about the baby, but at this point, with no great leads, nothing was off the table. What if someone needed stem cells for whatever reason. Would it be enough to kill for? Kill Aleisha Newman for?
The image of her last moments crept into my brain, playing like an old-school noir movie, and I could almost feel the trace of cold steel across my belly. In fact I could feel it, or something like it as the wave of a Braxton Hicks tightened across my abdomen, making me buckle at the knees. A rush of heat washed up my face and suddenly standing in a baby shop surrounded by women in varying degrees of pregnancy immersed in newborn-sized clothing didn’t feel like such a good idea – not a good idea at all. The small items in my hands gained a weight that felt unbearable and I bunged them onto the end of the rack in front of me before beating a hasty retreat out the door.