In the Dark (46 page)

‘Here he comes. Last one now.'

She would deal with those things.

She would beat them down as best she could, for both of their sakes. For the baby that she knew -
prayed
- was Paul's.

She felt strong suddenly, and focused. Energised. She was the fierce, still centre of the turning world.

‘Just one more good one, love . . .'

Her bowels opened, and it felt like her belly would split like a watermelon any second. She wanted to claw it open to fight the burning in her stomach, and pelvis and back. It felt as though she were being turned inside out.

But she kept pushing.

She'd known worse pain.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As always, there are a great many people without whom I would have remained in the dark . . .

Thanks are due once again to Tony Thompson, this time for pointing me in the right direction, and to Ember Phoenix and Nathan from West Camp for all the right words.

DCS Neil Hibberd was as patient and helpful as ever, though I
did
need to go elsewhere for advice on the matter of police officers working while pregnant. I am hugely grateful to Sergeant Georgina Barnard for her expertise in this, and many other areas. I must also thank Jane Maier who, as luck would have it, was two weeks away from giving birth at just the right moment and was thus able to provide some timely heartburn, nausea and leakage-related information.

Thanks, obviously, to Sasha for causing all the trouble.

I would also like to thank Frances Fyfield for saving some procedural bacon, Jane Doherty for her wonderful moderation, John Brackenridge for help I could not have got anywhere else, and Mike Gunn for the best - if not the
only
- joke in the book.

And, of course: Hilary Hale, Wendy Lee, Sarah Lutyens, and David Shelley, who has
never
eaten in Chicken Cottage.