Dead Man's Grip

blood.’
    ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
    Cleo’s voice was weak as she explained, ‘I’d just got to work – I was about to start preparing a body for post-mortem and I suddenly started bleeding, really heavily, as if something had exploded inside me. I thought I was losing the baby. Then I felt terrible pain, like cramps in my stomach – and the next thing I remember I was lying on the floor with Darren standing over me. He put me in his car and drove me here.’
    Darren was her assistant in the mortuary.
    Grace stared at Cleo, relief mingled with uncertainty. ‘And the baby?’ His eyes shot to the registrar.
    ‘Cleo’s just had an ultrasound scan,’ he replied. ‘She has a condition that’s called placenta praevia. Her placenta is abnormally low down.’
    ‘What – what does that mean – in terms of our baby?’ Grace asked, filled with dread.
    ‘There are complications, but your baby is fine at the moment,’ the registrar said, pleasantly enough but with foreboding in his voice. Then he turned towards the door and nodded a greeting.
    Grace saw a solidly built, bespectacled man enter. He had dark hair shorn to stubble, a balding pate, and was dressed in an open-necked blue shirt, grey suit trousers and black brogues. He had the air of a benign bank manager.
    ‘Mr Holbein, this is Cleo’s fiancé.’
    ‘How do you do?’ He shook Grace’s hand. ‘I’m Des Holbein, the consultant gynaecologist.’
    ‘Thank you for coming in.’
    ‘Not at all, that’s what I’m here for. But I’m very glad you’ve arrived. We’re going to have to make some decisions.’
    Roy felt a sudden stab of anxiety. But the consultant’s businesslike attitude at least gave him some confidence. He waited for him to continue.
    The consultant sat down on the bed. Then he looked up at Roy.
    ‘Cleo came in for a routine ultrasound scan five weeks ago, at twenty-one weeks. At that time the placenta was very low but the baby was normal-sized.’
    He turned to Cleo. ‘Today’s scan shows your baby has hardly grown at all. This is unusual and cause for concern, to be honest with you. It signifies that the placenta is not working well. It’s doing its job just about enough to keep the baby alive, but not enough to enable it to grow. And I’m afraid there’s a further complication that I don’t like the look of. It’s a very rare condition known as placenta percreta – the placenta is growing much further into the wall of the uterus than it should.’
    From feeling a fraction upbeat seconds ago, Roy’s heart plunged again. ‘What does that mean?’
    Des Holbein smiled at him – like a bank manager approving a loan, but with tough strings attached. ‘Well, one option would be to deliver the baby now.’
    ‘Now?’ Grace said, astounded.
    ‘Yes. But I would really not be happy to do this. Although 50 per cent of normal babies would live if delivered at this time – and probably a little more than that – the survival rate for one that has not grown since twenty-one weeks is much, much lower. In another month that would increase substantially – if we can get your baby’s growth normalized, we’d be looking at above 90 per cent. If we could get to thirty-four weeks, that would rise to 98 per cent.’
    He looked at each of them in turn, his face placid, giving nothing away.
    Roy stared at the consultant, feeling sudden, irrational anger towards him. This was their child he was talking about. He was gaily reeling off percentages as if it was something you could put a spread bet on. Roy felt totally out of his depth. He had no idea about any of this. It wasn’t in any of the books he had read; nor was it in Emma’s Diary or any of the other booklets Cleo had been given by the NHS. All of those dealt with perfect pregnancies and perfect births.
    ‘What’s your advice?’ Grace asked. ‘What would you do if it was your child?’
    ‘I would advise waiting and monitoring the placenta very closely. If Cleo suffers further blood loss, we will try to keep the baby inside by transfusing against that loss. If we deliver now and your baby does survive, the poor little thing is going to have to spend several months in an incubator, which is not ideal for the baby or the mother. Cleo seems otherwise healthy and strong. The ultimate decision is yours, but my advice is that we keep you here, Cleo, for a few days, and try to support your circulation and hope that the bleeding settles.’
    ‘If it does, will I be