Kate shook her head wearily. They didn’t do anything.’ ‘Not to you.’ Simon’s voice trembled. Pig got to his feet and peered at the papers in his hand because looking at the words through the black stocking was almost like reading in the dark. ‘After about twenty weeks, the legs of the foetus—’ ‘Baby,’ Jack interrupted. ‘It’s a baby.’ ‘The legs of the baby –’ Pig read like a stilted schoolboy again – ‘are drawn through the birth canal with forceps, after which scissors are used to puncture the back of the head, so—’ ‘The base of the back of the head.’ Simon interrupted this time. ‘The soft bit.’ ‘Please,’ Pig protested. ‘This is bad enough without.’ ‘Sorry,’ Simon apologized. Kate was afraid she was going to vomit. Pig went on: ‘So that they can use suction to remove the brains, which causes the skull to collapse, making it easier to remove the entire foetus.’ ‘Is that what they did to your baby?’ Roger asked Kate.
