Free Guilty as Sin by Adam Croft

which was dominant only momentarily before the sharp, searing crunch of her lower back put an end to all forward momentum with a screeching of tyres.
    She found herself looking at the front of the Volvo from an unnaturally low position, her back howling with pain as she lost all concept of space and time.

32
     
     
    Wendy groaned as she came round to find herself in Mildenheath General Hospital once again. The pain had dulled, she noticed, as she tried to sit up straight and relieve the uncomfortably stiff feeling she had in her back.
    “Good, you're awake. Now get some soup down your neck and tell them you're feeling fine and we can get back out and nick that bastard.”
    “Guv. Just the person I like to see when I wake up.”
    “You're one of few women to have the pleasure, Knight. How you feeling?”
    “I must say I've been better.”
    “You've been worse, too.”
    The whistling of no particular song increased in volume as the white door swung open and the smiling doctor introduced himself.
    “Ah, Wendy. Doctor Fraser. You've had a bit of a nasty accident. Do you remember much about it?”
    “I remember bouncing off a Volvo.”
    “Aye, you tried attacking it with your spine. Not the best weapon the human body has,” Dr Fraser chuckled, his lilting Scottish tones acting as a natural painkiller.
    “When can I get out of here?”
    “When you're better, Wendy. You've had a nasty accident and we're still waiting on some test results to make sure nothing is broken or seriously damaged.”
    The thought had lingered anonymously at the back of Wendy's mind. Now it raced to the front, shouting and screaming.
    “And what about … what … did you do scans?”
    Dr Fraser glanced sideways at DCI Culverhouse, then back towards Wendy.
    “It's OK. He knows,” she said.
    “Well, yes. We did. You knew you were pregnant?”
    “Yeah, I did. Hang on, what do you mean by were ?”
    “Wendy, you suffered quite a nasty fall.”
    “I know that. What's happened to my baby?”
    A thousand thoughts raced through her mind, a ten-thousand volt surge of adrenaline made her heart heavy with pain.
    “I'm sorry, Wendy.”
    Dr Fraser's eyes lowered with sorrow as Culverhouse squeezed Wendy's hand. A choking sob was all she could manage.
     

33
     
     
    The only thing to overwhelm her feeling of grief was that of shame. Wendy had lived through the pain of losing both her mother and her father as well as her lover in the space of a few years, and here she was mourning an unborn baby. A foetus. An embryo. A biological organism. It had no name and it had no life, but she found herself grieving harder than she could ever have expected. It had no form and it had no gender, but Wendy felt overwhelmed at the loss of what she saw as her little girl. It had always been a girl. Deep down, she knew that.
    She could not shake the invasive, destructive feeling that it was her body that had killed the baby. If not her body, then her brain. Her stupidity. Just one foolish moment could end it all. A life which had no chance to flourish. A girl who had no chance to get married. A child who had no chance to have a mother. In more ways than one, she felt empty.
    Wendy thought back to her childhood. The times when she was happy. The times she had desperately wanted her child to have. A loving parent who epitomised the perfect role model. That was what she had had, and that was all she had ever wanted to be for her child. Those long, never-ending summers spent building tree-houses and dens, all concept of time lost in the innocence and pure unbounded joy of divine youth. All of these things that she had had and wanted her child to have. The child that would never have them. The child that would never even know it had existed.
     
    For the first time since the day before, Wendy responded to the doorbell. She knew it would be Jack.
    On opening the door to see him stood there with a large bouquet of lilies and a sorrowful look on his face, she crumbled and