The Last First Time

by Andrea Bramhall

  Her name was Patricia O’Shea.

  If that name means nothing to you, then please accept my apologies for intruding into your life and throw the letter away. If it does mean something to you, then I have something for you that Pat wanted me to give you.

  Please let me know what you wish.

  Yours sincerely,

  Gina Temple.

  Croo Cottage,

  Station Road,

  Docking.

  Gina slid the note into an envelope, sealed it, and addressed the outside. She took a sip of her coffee, grimacing at the bitter brew that had long since cooled, and tipping it away. The kettle was set to boil again. There was nothing she hated more than microwave-heated coffee. It wasn’t the perfect letter, but she hoped it would mean something to him. All she could do now was post it and wait.

  Her phone pinged. She smiled when she saw it was a text from Kate, but the smile quickly turned to a frown.

  Definitely going to be a late one today. No idea when I’ll be home.

  Want me to take care of Merlin?

  She sent back before the phone in her hand rang.

  “You could have just texted back,” Gina said.

  “I know. But I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

  “Then I’m very glad to hear your voice.” Gina smiled. She could picture Kate’s cheeks turning pink. “So, want me to take Merlin home with me? I know it’s probably going to be manic for you right now.”

  “Thank you, and I would love for you to watch Merlin for me, but I was going to… Well, I thought maybe…”

  Gina waited, but Kate wasn’t forthcoming. “Come on, Kate. I know you’ll need to get back to work, so you should just spit it out.”

  “I want you to move in with me.”

  Gina pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it, her brain struggling to comprehend simple English. Surely Kate hadn’t just said that? She held the phone back in place and asked, “What?”

  “I-I-I’d like you and Sammy to move in with me.”

  No, she hadn’t misheard, she hadn’t misunderstood. Kate was really asking her to move in with her daughter. To be a family. It was Gina’s greatest fantasy come to life. There was nothing she’d wanted more since Kate had asked her for more than a weekend. Nothing. She just hadn’t thought they were there yet. A couple of months was fast by anyone’s timescale, and add to that the fact that she and Kate had done little more than kiss… Well, she had thought they still had a long way to go. She was ready to move their relationship to the next level. If she hadn’t been sure of that before yesterday, she certainly was now. But moving in together… Was she ready for that? Was Sammy?

  Who was she kidding? Sammy would love it. Besides having her new best friend, Kate, on tap, she’d have her own dog. What more could any Sammy want? What more could Gina want?

  She ran through the list of things she’d need to organise to get them packed up and moved out of their old house. The house that still haunted her with memories of Ally holding her captive and torturing her. Gina had to be honest, the idea of never having to step foot in that hallway again was almost enough on its own to convince her to say yes. But the idea of being with Kate every moment she possibly could…of kissing her goodnight and good morning…of cooking for her…having Kate hold her just because…of watching Kate torment Sammy about giving Merlin too many pizza crusts or doing her homework before she got to watch cartoons. The promise of living that life—of building that life—together…was so much more than Gina had ever thought she could have. So much more than she’d ever expected…or allowed herself to dream of having.

  She licked her lips, trying to wet them enough to whisper the word on the tip of her tongue. To tell Kate how much she’d love to spend every single day right there with her. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she licked again, mouthed the word, but couldn’t give it any volume—

  “I mean, just over Christmas, I guess.”

  What? What did she mean ‘just over Christmas’? What about the life they were going to build together? Had she waited too long? Had her silence been perceived as a negative? Was Kate backtracking, or was this what she’d meant all along and Gina had misunderstood?

  “I mean, Sammy’s almost finished with school and stuff—”

  “She…she still has a week left.” Gina cleared her throat, roughened by the sharp edges of disappointment.

  “Yeah, but you pass her school to and from work every day, so it won’t make any difference to her. And I thought it would be nice to spend as much time as we could together over the holidays, but I know I’m going to be busy.”

  Kate stuttered through words that should have made Gina happy. Instead, they made her feel a little sad. But that isn’t Kate’s fault, Gina reminded herself. She didn’t know what was going through Gina’s head. And she won’t if you don’t tell her. She swallowed. You haven’t even slept with her yet. How could you possibly think she’d ask you to move in—permanently—if she thought she was asking you to permanently share a bed with Sammy the buzzsaw?

  “Especially with this case now,” Kate continued. “There’s, literally, a metric tonne of this shit to get through, and then there’s the other thing with your place.”

  Gina was pretty sure she knew what Kate meant, but she didn’t want to start guessing and get things wrong. She’d already done that today, and she didn’t want to deal with any more misunderstandings. “What thing?”

  “That you hate it. And I get why. It’s full of bad memories, with Ally and everything. So I just thought we could have a nice Christmas at my place. As a, well, as a family, I guess.” Her voice dropped. “If that’s okay.”

  Gina swallowed her earlier disappointment and cleared her throat again. Her chest felt tight with a mixture of happiness at the thought of being a family—just the three of them—and disappointment that it was just for a short while. But their relationship was still so new, still raw. There was no need to rush it forward.

  “That’s more than okay with me.” Then another thought occurred to her. What if this was some sort of test? A trial run, perhaps? Kate’s way of testing the waters on this becoming a permanent arrangement? Please let that be the case.

  “It is?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Okay. Well, let me know if you need me to pick anything up.” The smile on her lips was so clear in her voice.

  Gina grinned. “Kate?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sammy and I will need to pick up a tree.”

  “A tree?”

  “Yes, a Christmas tree. It’s looking a little Grinchy in here.”

  “Oh, right, yeah. Of course.” Her voice dropped a little. “Do whatever you want.”

  “Whatever?”

  “Yeah. I, well, I want—doesn’t matter.” Something muffled her voice as she said, “I’m coming now, Vinny.” Then the line came clear again. “Okay, I’ve gotta go. Looking forward to seeing the place de-Grinchyfied.”

  “That’s not a word.”

  “It’s a good word. Ask Sammy.” Then she was gone.

  Heavy footsteps on the stairs drew Gina’s attention, and Sammy shuffled into the room. “Morning, sunshine.”

  Sammy grunted and pulled herself into a chair.

  Clearly she was still unhappy about everything Gina had had to tell her last night. She’d clung to Gina all night after they’d told her the truth of how Stella had been hurt. But at least she hadn’t woken either of them, screaming from her nightmares. It was more than Gina had hoped for. Merlin appeared and sat beside Sammy, lovingly accepting the strokes and pats to her head. Every time Sammy stopped, she lifted her paw and tapped Sammy’s knee to get her attention again, and Sammy slowly came around with a smile. It was a picture Gina could get used to. And she knew Sammy would be more than happy with the arrangement too.

  “I slept very well, thank you, Sammy. How about you?”

  Sammy stared at her through squinty eyes. “You’re happy.”

  “I am.”
/>
  “How comes?”

  “Want to come Christmas tree shopping?”

  Sammy eyes opened wide, and her lips curled into a smile. “Yeah.” Then she frowned. “But we’ve already got a tree at home. Why’d we need anover one?”

  “Another.”

  “Same difference.”

  Gina cocked her eyebrow. “Sammy, you’re nine years old. You know how to speak properly. Constantly refusing to makes you sound stupid or lazy. You’re neither. Talk properly if you expect me to respond. Otherwise, I’m just going to ignore you.”

  Sammy rolled her eyes. “Another tree,” she said, perfectly articulating the th in the middle.

  “Good. And it’s not for our house. Kate says we can de-Grinchyfy her house.”

  “Cool. That’s an awesome word.” Sammy wiggled in her seat and held Merlin’s paw when she set it on Sammy’s thigh. “We’re gonna be de-Grinchyfying, Merls. De-Grinchyfying.”

  “It’s not a word.”

  “It’s a good word. An awesome word. Kate used it, it must be.”

  “I swear, you two are more alike than you and I are.”

  “Me and Kate?”

  “Yes.” She grinned. “You’re both trouble.” She tickled Sammy’s ribs until she giggled so hard she fell off the chair.

  “Child abuse,” she cried as Merlin licked her face.

  “I’ll give you child abuse.” She tapped Sammy on the bottom as she lifted her to her feet and pushed her gently towards the stairs. “Go and get dressed while I make you breakfast. We’ve got a big day today.”

  “Okay.” Sammy started up the stairs with Merlin at her heels.

  “Oh, and Sammy?”

  “Huh?” Sammy spun around to look at Gina.

  “How would you feel about living here for the holidays?”

  “Like, for reals?” She grinned gleefully and rubbed her hands together in excitement.

  “Yes.”

  “Yay!” She ran up the stairs, screaming all the way.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

  Breakfast was a fast and animated affair, with Sammy’s eagerness bubbling over. Merlin was restless in her presence, and Gina couldn’t help but feel the same enthusiasm.

  Packing their clothes and the gifts under their own tree took less than half an hour of running around to accomplish. The trip to the garden centre to pick out a tree took three times as long, and securing it to Gina’s beat-up old Astra took almost as long again. She was grateful for the length of rope she had in the boot, but trying to tie the knots tight enough to keep the tree still was a different story. In the end, it was Sammy who managed to tie them. Gina didn’t want to think about where she’d been practising her knot-tying skills. Some days you just had to roll with what life dished out and enjoy it the best you could.

  Once the tree was back at Kate’s house and sitting in its stand, they went to shop for decorations, buy food, and post the letter she had almost forgotten about in her excitement. Then they went to the beach to give Merlin—and Sammy—a good run. She felt so comfortable settling into Kate’s house. It felt like they belonged there.

  The tree sparkled and twinkled in the corner. She’d lit the wood burner and watched how the flames danced through the thick glass window. Sammy was curled on the sofa with Merlin, rubbing her tummy and staring idly at the TV screen as The Santa Clause flickered from one scene to the next. Gina just wished Kate were with them. She could imagine her arguing with Sammy about which reindeer or which elf was the best. Making them hot chocolate and raiding the cupboard for biscuits. Domestic bliss. All that was missing was Kate curled up on the sofa beside her.

  She sighed. This was what she wanted.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Are you expecting anyone?” Gina asked Sammy with a smile.

  “Nuh-uh. I’m nine. My friends are all in bed now.”

  “Good point. Must be for someone else, then.”

  The bell rang again.

  “I guess I should get it, then.” She pulled open the door and froze.

  Her brain short-circuited.

  Chapter 10

  Kate pushed open the door to the crime lab, with its graffiti-covered door—the result of someone a long time ago getting creative with a marker pen and declaring it the home of the CSIs. There were twenty-five CSIs that carried out the crime scene work for King’s Lynn and the surrounding area. Usually they worked one of three shifts. Not today. Today all twenty-five of them were in the room, fighting for precious work space, test equipment, and the printer, which was spitting out reports on a scale to aid global warming.

  Len Wild, a.k.a “Sarge”—a retired police officer now working as a civilian crime scene tech—was signing in every new piece of evidence as it came through the doors. The mammoth task of cataloguing, securing, preserving, and then analysing each and every single scrap of evidence was ultimately his responsibility. And one Kate didn’t envy. He looked like he was drowning in paper.

  He caught her eye as she strode into the room and nodded a quick greeting before focusing on his work again.

  That was fine. She wasn’t there to see Len. Not today. Right now she needed to see the resident self-proclaimed genius that was Simon Grimshaw. As ever, he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, but his beard was a bit scraggier, his eyes a lot more bloodshot, and his temper worse than ever, as he bawled out a young tech who stood shaking under his caustic ire.

  “Mr Grimshaw,” Kate said, allowing the tech to scurry away like a bug fleeing being pinned to a board for dissection.

  Grimshaw sighed. “Detective Sergeant Brannon. I know why you’re here, and, quite simply, even I need longer than ten minutes to translate two hundred pages of handwritten Arabic.” He held up the diary she was most interested in.

  “Okay.” She smiled. “How much longer?” She glanced at her watch.

  “Tomorrow. I’m scanning the pages into the computer now, then I have to run the ORC over it. I’ll get the first digital translation through later this evening. Then I’ll need to go through and check for any anomalies, correct any ambiguities, and try to figure out anything that the computer can’t decipher.”

  “Okay, so tomorrow morning, afternoon, end of the day? Which?”

  “As early as I can, but until I see what the computer can’t tackle, I won’t really be able to tell you anything more definitive than that.”

  “Fair enough. When you get it through, send me the translation.”

  “Green said she gets it first. Then the NCTN team wants it.”

  Great. Pissing contest already. “Right. Well, if they get the originals, any chance I can get a copy? I mean, Stella was right there, Simon. Gina too. I spent nearly all night at the hospital with Stella to make sure she was okay, you know?”

  He snorted. “Does that tactic work on anyone else?”

  “Don’t know, not used it before.”

  He chuckled. “Fine, I’ll send you a copy.”

  “Thanks. Anything else I need to know?”

  “Don’t know. I’d say speak to the sarge. But he’s pretty fucking swamped at the moment.”

  “No worries, Simon. Thanks.” She turned and left him to it as her phone rang in her pocket. She pulled it out and groaned at Clare Green’s number sullying her screen. Bollocks. She slid her finger across the screen to answer. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Incident room. Now.” Then she was gone.

  “Merry fuckin’ Christmas to you to, ma’am.” She stuffed the phone back in her pocket and headed for the door. At least being busy was keeping her mind off her early conversation with Gina. Or, rather, her earlier chickenshit moment with Gina. What happened to I-know-what-I-want-so-I’m-gonna-go-and-fucking-get-it? What happened to that shit? Simple. Silence. An uncomfortable, question-ridden, question-asking silence. And it had opened up a gulf in Kate’s self-assured certainty that asking Gina to move in with her was the right thing to do.

  She caught up with Vinny Jackson and Gareth as they pushed their
way into the packed room.

  “Okay, everyone, listen up,” Clare shouted from the front of the room. Timmons sat on a chair, elbows on the table in front of him. He looked worse than earlier, but at least he was wearing a clean shirt now. “We’ve got good news and bad news, folks. So, I’ll start at the bottom. New death toll is at twenty-one. We found two more bodies in the rubble, Lauren Walsh passed away an hour ago. Marian Jones just a few minutes ago. The families are being notified.”

  Silence filled the room. As the barbaric senselessness struck her again, Kate knew she wasn’t the only one feeling it. Slowly the sorrow and despondency morphed into the determined anger that would allow them to do their jobs—to focus and do the dirty work that had to be done.

  “I know, people, I know. Let’s focus on the positives and see if we can bring their families some peace now. We have had some great results from our investigators at the perpetrators’ houses.” She pinned photos to a board behind her. “Evidence that one of the vests was stored in Nadia Ahmed’s bedroom.” She pointed to the picture of the ball bearing Kate had found. “Preliminary testing shows this has traces of explosives on it consistent with those used in yesterday’s bombing.”

  A stilted cheer went around the room. Nothing new. Just more corroboration of who had blown themselves up. They already knew that. They’d seen it. They’d even found one or two body parts.

  “DNA testing is going on to confirm identity, but we have visual confirmation of the photo from the CCTV footage by the girl’s mother.” She turned to Kate and Vinny. “Gut feeling, are the parents involved?”

  Kate shook her head. “Definitely not the mother. She was shocked when we told her. Genuinely. I can’t see her having any foreknowledge of this attack.”

  “Agreed,” Vinny said. “The dad, though, I’m not as sure. The mother said he was out looking for his daughter when we got there because the girl hadn’t come home. When he turned up, though, he said he’d been at the mosque. No mention of having been looking for Nadia.”

  “Miscommunication?” Clare asked.

  Vinny shrugged. “Possibly, but his attitude didn’t seem right for a bloke who’d just found out his daughter had blown herself and twenty-odd other people to bits. Certainly it wasn’t consistent with his wife’s reaction.”