The darkened room became intimate and safe.
Jessica smiled down at her child as she removed his white babygro. His legs flailed as she changed his nappy and redressed him in the romper suit.
Jamie was safe, right here. Nothing had yet hurt him and at this moment nothing could. As a mother it was up to Jessica to protect him. And she would.
A child who is killed will be reborn in better circumstances.
In another time the world would not be filled with cruelty and violence. Children would have the freedom to grow up without fear and intimidation. In another life, her son would be safe.
Jessica stared down into the eyes of her child as she reached for the pillow.
Jamie gurgled up at her, his limbs shooting out in all directions; happy, excited.
‘I love you so much it hurts, my darling. I know you understand that I have to protect you from this world. I cannot allow you to be hurt or damaged by anything. There is danger everywhere and I have to keep you safe. I know you feel it too, don’t you, sweetheart?’
He squealed with delight and Jessica knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she was doing the best thing, the only thing possible to protect her child.
She leaned over him and placed kisses on his chubby cheeks, his forehead and the tip of his nose.
‘We will be together soon, my darling, sweetest angel.’
Jessica lowered the pillow and covered the face of her son.
SIXTY-TWO
Shit, Kim thought, as she watched Jessica Ross close the blinds. There was something not right with this picture.
She had arrived at Alex’s practice to confront the doctor about the conversations recorded by Dougie, when Jessica had exited the building. Kim knew nothing of such sessions but she knew a patient was not supposed to leave the premises of their psychiatrist looking like they were being chased by the Devil himself.
The erratic driving and the expression on Jessica’s face while hugging the other woman goodbye had not quelled the anxiety building in Kim’s stomach. Jessica’s serene expression while looking out of the window in her baby son’s room chilled the blood in her veins.
Kim detected no other movement in the property and was guessing the woman was now in the house alone.
She swallowed, feeling her own heartbeat quicken. She did not know what she was witnessing but she did know that some kind of conclusion had been reached since Jessica had left Alex’s office.
Jesus, who should she call … Bryant? And say what? A woman is standing in her bedroom window, looking rather contented. Bryant already had enough evidence on which to get Kim committed, so she certainly wasn’t going to offer him any more.
Could she call social services? They knew Jessica’s history but they hardly operated a blue-light response. If Kim called as a concerned citizen she would probably be advised to call the police; the irony in that scenario was not lost on her. But she couldn’t just sit here. Something was definitely not right.
‘Fuck,’ she said, knowing she was on her own. She opened the driver’s door and sprinted across the road to the Ross house, then pressed the bell and banged on the door simultaneously. If Jessica answered wondering what the hell was going on, Kim would beg for help from the machete-wielding maniac that just happened to have disappeared into thin air.
She opened the letter box to see if Jessica was approaching the door but the house echoed with a stillness that chilled her to the core. No sound from the child or the parent. Damn it, she knew they were both in there. Why the hell wasn’t she answering the door?
Kim tried the gate to the side of the house. It was locked. She looked around and spotted a wheel barrow half full of dandelion weeds. She pushed it in front of the gate and used it to help her climb over. The side of the house showed no open windows and no one inside.
She rushed to the rear and tried the handle of the French door. It was locked. Kim had the sense that she was running out of time. She looked around the garden and reached for a shovel. She swung it backwards for momentum and smashed it against the glass panel. On the second attempt, it shattered. Shards flew all around her, a couple embedding themselves into her right hand. She ignored the pain and pulled the sleeve of her jumper over her fist to punch an opening big enough for her to enter.
If Jessica was doing nothing more ominous than taking a shower, Kim was in a whole world of trouble. For once, she hoped that she was.
She ran through the kitchen to the front of the house, almost tripping over a play mat littered with toys. She took the stairs two at a time, the blood surging through her ears. At the top of the stairs she was met with a closed door.
She burst through it and stopped dead, her mind taking a second to register the sight before her.
Jessica was dressed only in a towelling robe and stood looking down at the bed, a cushion dangling from her fingers.
The small, still form dressed in a dinosaur romper suit stared, unseeing, at the ceiling.
Jessica nodded and smiled at her calmly. ‘He’s safe now.’
Kim remembered another set of innocent eyes that had stared up to the ceiling, beautiful but lifeless, like a perfect doll. Back then she hadn’t known what to do when the last breath left her brother’s body. She could only sit and shake him, beg him to come back to her. She had tried everything, but it had done no good. As she’d felt the decreasing warmth of his body against her own, she had eventually closed his eyes and sent Mikey off to heaven.
Kim snapped herself back to life. She needed an ambulance but she didn’t have time to make the call and give the details.
She ran to the window, opened it and screamed as loudly as her lungs would allow. There were three people in the road who all turned and looked.
‘Call an ambulance, dead child.’ She quickly turned from the window and pushed Jessica forcefully out of the way. The woman stumbled backwards, as though in a trance.
Kim lost awareness of her surroundings as she stilled her trembling hands. She wiped the blood from her cut hand onto her jacket before placing two fingers on the baby’s neck to confirm what she already knew to be true. He was dead. But she couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t give up.
Kneeling beside the bed, she filled her cheeks with air, then covered the baby’s mouth and nose with her mouth and blew gently into his lungs. She watched as his chest rose artificially and waited until it fell before repeating the process four more times. She placed two fingers in the centre of his chest and pressed down sharply to around a third of the depth of his chest. She did this thirty times and placed her ear to his mouth. Nothing.
She stopped to give two rescue breaths, fighting the frustration of the pace. With an adult, she could have been more forceful.
‘Come on,’ she whispered on the second set of compressions.
Kim had no idea how long she’d been working, but a mixture of sirens squealed in the distance.
‘Come on, sweetheart, you can do it.’
Kim gave two more breaths and paused as her gaze rested on the tiny chest that was unmistakably rising and falling on its own. The life returned to his eyes and a small wail escaped his tiny lips. It was the sweetest sound Kim had ever heard.
The cry seemed to galvanise Jessica, who snapped from her trancelike state and moved towards the bed.
‘Get the fuck away from him,’ Kim growled as she formed a protective circle around his small body with her arms. The blood from her right hand transferred onto the bedcovers.
Jessica stopped dead and stared across at her child. Her face was filled with confusion. Kim didn’t know if this was due to her own actions of trying to kill her child or wondering how the baby was still alive.
Kim heard the crash of the front door being broken down, followed by the thunder of footsteps on the stairs. Relief flooded through her. She couldn’t bear to be in the same room as this woman for much longer.