“You brought her bag with you?”
Gina stared at the bag in her arms. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Her eyes were wide open. She clearly hadn’t even thought about it. “You have to turn around. They’ll need this to let her family know what’s happened to her. They won’t know who she is without this.”
“It’s okay. We can deal with it at the hospital. I can get it to Ruth or Len there.”
“You sure? I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“It’s fine. I promise. I’ll take care of it at the hospital.”
“If we ever get there,” Gina murmured.
“Quiet in the cheap seats,” Kate said with a snigger. She put her hand on Gina’s knee and squeezed gently. “It’ll be fine. You have my word.”
“Thank you.” Gina slouched in her seat again. “I’m not sure I could face going back there right now.”
“You don’t have to.” Kate inched forward towards the next roundabout. They were so close it should have taken less than two minutes to get parked up and inside the building. Instead it seemed like it was taking hours. “You okay?”
Gina nodded. “Just worrying about Sammy.”
Kate fished in her pocket and handed over her mobile. “Go ahead and call. Might as well make the most of the travelling time.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thanks,” Gina said as she dialled the number at the campsite. “Will, it’s Gina.”
Kate listened in as they inched another few feet towards the roundabout.
“Yeah, could you do me a favour, please… Yeah, I know… Can you keep Sammy with you for the evening too? Oh no, a friend of ours has taken a…a fall, and we’re taking her to the hospital to get checked out… Yes, sure, you can tell Sammy that, but please, please don’t let her watch TV… No, I just don’t want her to see the news, there was…an incident in Lynn today, and she knows I was going shopping there… Yeah, yeah, I’m fine… Really I am. I just don’t know how long this will take, and I’d rather tell Sammy the details I want her to know when I see her and she can see me… Yeah, she can play on the Xbox with you.” Gina rolled her eyes.
Kate knew this would lead to another amendment to Sammy’s Christmas list.
“Of course…yeah, that’s a good idea, Will. You know how much she loves pizza. Thank you…no, no, honestly, I really appreciate it. You’re a really good friend, Will. We’ll let you know as soon as we know anything. Thanks, bye.”
“Xbox tournament and pizza. Sammy won’t want us to pick her up.”
“True. He said he’d make up a room in the hostel for her too, just in case we’re really late.”
“He’s a good lad.”
Gina nodded, handed back the phone, and stared out the window.
Kate concentrated on the miniscule movements in the traffic and slid the phone back into her pocket, content to sit in silence for a few moments. Moments turned to minutes, and finally they were at the front of the queue.
“She asked me to find him for her,” Gina said eventually.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Pat. She asked me to find George. She said she has a letter in here for him.” Gina indicated the bag still on her lap.
Now Gina’s goodbye comment made sense. “She gave it to you?”
“I suppose she did, in a way. She asked me to find him so that he would know the truth. She said he deserved to know the truth about everything that happened back then.” She looked at Kate as they entered the roundabout and then joined another queue to exit it. “Will you help me find him?”
“Is that what you want to do?”
Gina nodded. “I think I have to. It was her last wish. Her last request.”
“God, that’s a morbid thought.”
“Sorry,” Gina said quietly.
“No, no. I didn’t mean it like that. I understand why you want to do that. I really do.”
“But…?”
“Maybe you should sleep on it before rushing in headlong.”
“I don’t—”
“Or at least shower,” Kate suggested.
“Fine. That one I definitely agree with.”
The car moved slowly but steadily until they cleared the pelican crossing and turned into the hospital grounds. It was surprisingly quiet in the car park, and Kate easily found a spot.
“I’ll just grab a ticket.” By the time she returned with her parking ticket, Gina stood beside the car, moving stiffly. “You okay? You’re walking a bit like John Wayne.” She grabbed her evidence bag and first aid kit from the boot of her car, stuck the ticket stub on her windscreen, and locked the car behind her.
“I feel like I fell off his horse,” Gina quipped. “Then got flattened by it.”
Kate frowned.
“When the bomb went off, Stella threw me to the ground and lay over me.” She glanced down at her clothes. “Plus this is all drying, and it’s stiff as a board.”
Kate nodded and took hold of Gina’s elbow to guide her.
“I know where I’m going, you know,” Gina said with a small smile. “I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been here with Sammy.”
“Somehow I can’t imagine that little scamp of yours ever needing to come to a place like this.” Sarcasm hung heavy on each word as Gina’s lilting laughter peeled from her lips.
“You can bring her next time.”
Kate nodded. Challenge accepted.
She led them through the automatic doors and quickly got Gina booked in. She flashed her badge to the receptionist. “Where’s Detective Sergeant Stella Goodwin been taken?”
The woman looked up and scowled. “We don’t give out information to—”
Kate lifted her badge up higher. “Goodwin’s my partner. She saved this woman’s life,” she said, pointing to Gina. “Literally shielding her with her own body, and I know she’s in here with a head injury. We tried to follow the ambulance away from the incident, but as I’m sure you can imagine, it was more than a little chaotic. Now, please, where is Stella Goodwin, and how is she doing?”
The receptionist sniffed and appeared to stare at the warrant card in Kate’s hand like she was reading the print off it. She slipped her hand under the desk and a buzzer sounded. “Take a seat in the waiting room. I’ll get a porter to show you through to her.”
“A porter?”
“Yeah. The doctors and nurses are a bit busy right now. Treating people like your partner and those with even worse injuries.” She nodded towards Gina. “They’ll take a look at her as soon as they can. I’ll let them know she’s in with Ms Goodwin when they’re ready.”
“Thank you.” Kate pushed open the door and held it open for Gina.
The porter arrived in less than a minute and led them to a family notification room. It was tiny. The chairs had been moved out, as had all other furniture, to make space for the gurney Stella lay on. Her face was pale. No, it was more grey and ashen than pale. There was a sickening pallor and rubbery look to her flesh that looked wholly unnatural. But her chest rose and fell with steady breaths, and the machine beside the bed announced the steady rhythm of her heart.
Kate crossed the tiny floor space and touched Stella’s arm, needing to feel the warmth of her. Needing to convince herself that she wasn’t cold, that the machine readings were real and not just a figment of her imagination. She let out a sigh of relief at the clammy heat of Stella’s skin, then swallowed and took a good look at the room they were in.
A family notification room with a portable gurney in it instead of a real bed. There was a bathroom next door with a shower in it so Gina could clean up. Just as soon as Kate had collected her clothing.
As far as Kate was concerned, it was pretty fucking perfect.
“Do you have to go back to work soon?” Gina asked as she settled herself against the edge of Stella’s bed.
There was nowhere to sit in the tiny room, and Kate knew they needed to get her out of those clothes as soon as possible so she
could at least try to get a little bit comfortable. They were going to be here for a while.
“Probably. Timmons said the terrorism guys are taking over. Jimmy and Tom are at the scene, with the CSIs crawling all over the place already. There’s not an awful lot for me to do right now, but no doubt there will be before long.” Kate closed the blinds to the window that overlooked the tranquillity garden in the centre of the hospital. “It’ll be all hands on deck before long: taking witness statements, following up whatever leads we find. If it’s just two people going on a rampage, it’s going to be wrapped up pretty quickly, as they’re no longer a problem. If this is part of something else, something bigger, or if they have links to a terrorist group, then it could drag on and on for months, babe. We just don’t know yet.” She shrugged. “If there’s something urgent, they’ll call me, but I doubt that’ll happen until I call Timmons.”
“Why?”
“Technically I’m still working here.”
“You are?”
“Technically.”
“What do you mean, ‘technically’?”
“My boss sent me with instructions to collect your clothes for forensic analysis. I need to get Stella’s too. And I need to get your statements. All those things will take a good long time.”
“They will?”
Kate nodded. Nope, should take about half an hour if I crack on. “Could take most of the day to get statements from witnesses and collect evidence in such a chaotic environment.”
“I see.” Gina nodded slowly, clearly not buying Kate’s excuses. “Don’t you want to be out there? I mean, not that I don’t want you here, with me. God, I do. But you love your job. You love catching the bad guys and bringing them to justice. It’s more than a job to you, Kate, it’s you. It’s what you do. But…”
“But…?” Kate encouraged.
“You’re making excuses to not be there. Why?”
“I want to be here with you. Is that a bad thing?”
Gina shook her head. “Of course not, but is that really all it is?”
“I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine. I’m not even hurt.”
“You’ve worked so hard with Jodi,” Kate said, referring to Gina’s counsellor. “You’ve seemed to be making so much progress, I’m worried this will…I don’t know, put you backwards. Undo the work you’ve done.”
“I get that. I was sort of expecting that myself. But it’s weird. I don’t feel like I can’t deal with this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s horrific. That moment I was telling you about.” She waited until Kate nodded. “I was staring at this pile of foil wrappers. Condoms. They must have been from this big bowl on the counter, but they were all over the floor in this pile.” She swallowed hard. The muscles in her throat worked as she tried to call up the words. “There was this… There was a hand half-buried amongst those packets. Just a hand. A woman’s left hand, with purple nail varnish and an engagement ring, and no woman attached to it. It was beyond surreal. I still don’t think I’ve taken it in, Kate. I’m not sure you can…not sure I can, anyway. But I know that this is different than how I felt after Ally attacked me.”
“How so?”
“Ally attacked me. Personally. She was someone I knew—had known for many, many years—and she could still…do that to me. She wanted to do that to me. As a person. What happened today was different. It wasn’t a personal attack on me. I don’t know the women who did this. I don’t know why they did it. They didn’t know me, they didn’t target me specifically. It was just a case of anyone in that shop would do. Does that make sense?”
Kate pondered Gina’s words. While they did make sense, and Kate could certainly see how it was making the situation tolerable—even better—for Gina, it made it so much worse for Kate. The randomness of it. The utter senselessness of the destruction, the violence, the sheer callousness and disregard for the sanctity of human life was almost more than she could take. But Gina hadn’t seen the child in the pushchair outside on the street. She hadn’t yet put it into the context of how it could have been Sammy walking down that road, of how it could have been her hand shorn off and half-buried in condom wrappers. She was still focused on examining the difference between the two events. And that was okay with Kate. Part of her hoped Gina never got to the stage where she could see Sammy in that crowd of destruction. Because Kate could barely see anything else.
She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat again and nodded. “That’s really great, Gina. I’m so proud of you.” And she was. She also knew that she’d be there when the shock wore off and Gina saw the rest of the picture.
“So why else don’t you want to be out there?”
“Well, you see, we coppers are a bit of a territorial bunch, and this investigation is going to be massive on a scale Norfolk has never seen. A specialist counterterrorism team will be coming because we don’t have the expertise or the number of bodies needed to do the amount of work involved. Officers, CSIs, doctors…God, all manner of people will be drafted in from all over. London, Birmingham, probably Leicester and Peterborough too.”
“Why? They don’t know the area.”
“They don’t, but we’re a small rural police force. We have less than 1500 coppers, PCSOs, and specials across the whole county. If we pulled in every one of them and did nothing to cover every other crime or complaint in the county for the duration—which could be months—we still wouldn’t have enough people to do what needs to be done. Do you know how many officers are involved in a major incident like this?”
Gina shook her head.
“The bombs on the London Underground, there were over two thousand people involved over almost six months of investigation.”
“Six months. It didn’t last that long.”
Kate nodded. “Yes, it did. It was probably longer, actually.”
“But the news, the media, it said it was resolved after a few weeks.”
“I wish. Believe me. We all wish that were the case. Just because the media and the public move on to the next story doesn’t mean our work is done. Far from it.”
Gina nodded. “I understand. So the team that is going to do the investigating—the terrorism squad—won’t they need you all the more?”
Kate nodded. “Yes. They won’t know the area or the politics of the place, but that doesn’t mean we enjoy acceding control to them.” She chuckled. “Like I said, we’re a territorial lot. And if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t like coming in like this either. They’re a team that work together and know each other. They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and, most importantly, they know what they’re looking for when it comes to terrorism. They spend months doing additional training for this stuff.”
“So they really do know what they’re doing?”
Kate nodded. “They really do.”
Gina smiled. “But you guys don’t like to admit that someone else knows more than you do.”
Kate raised an eyebrow. “You saying I’m an egomanic?”
“If the mania fits, darling.”
Kate put her hand to her chest, a pained expression on her face. “Thou woundeth me, my lady.”
Gina chuckled, as Kate opened the bag she’d brought with her from the car and laid a large plastic drop cloth on what little floor space there was. Next she pulled on a pair of gloves, and her cheeks were flushed. “I’m really sorry, but I have to get your clothes.”
“I know. I’ll undress on the plastic and put them in the bags.”
Kate’s cheeks reddened further. “I’m really sorry, Gina, but I have to collect them from you as you remove them.” She shook her head and lowered her gaze to the floor. “They’re evidence. I have to preserve the chain of custody, in case they’re needed in some way for the investigation.”
* * *
Gina felt like a fool. She wished she’d known. She wished Kate had told her. Well, she had told her that she’d need to collect her clothes for evidence. She just hadn’t specified that she’d need t
o watch her strip them off at the same time. This wasn’t how she wanted Kate to see her naked for the first time. Yes, she was ready to move their relationship along, ready to take that next step—but not here! She was ready to let Kate see her, warts and all, she was sure of it. But not in the middle of a hospital room, with Stella unconscious on the bed not even five feet away. No, this wasn’t what she’d wanted. Not even in her wildest imagination could she have come up with this as the scenario when Kate first looked at her body. And her scars.
She felt awkward, clumsy as she reached for the button on her jeans.
“I’m sorry.”
Gina shook her head. “You’re just doing your job.”
“At your expense.”
Gina’s hands shook as she dropped the zipper and clasped the waistband. “It’s okay.” She pushed them down and clear of her legs, folded them neatly, and handed them to Kate, followed quickly by her socks and her coat. The easy parts. “This isn’t how I pictured you seeing me for the first time.”
A whisper of a smile graced Kate’s lips. “Me neither.”
“Good.” Gina flexed her fingers and gripped the hem of her jumper. “Because that would be really perverse, Kate.”
“How can I make this easier for you?” Kate asked quietly.
“Keep looking at me.”
Kate chuckled. “Trust me, that’s not a problem.”
“I mean in my eyes.”
Kate’s smile widened. “Trust me, that’s not a problem,” she repeated.
Gina couldn’t help but laugh with her. It eased the tension in the small room. “I’m nervous.”
“I know. But you really don’t have anything to be nervous about.”
“And why’s that?”
“Well, there are many reasons. Where would you like me to start?”
Gina squeezed the wool between her fingers. “Wherever you like.”
“Well, reason one, you’re beautiful. So, you don’t need to be nervous that I will ever think anything different.”
“I know that,” Gina whispered. And she did. It had taken a long time for her to get to the place where she truly trusted Kate’s words, but she did. She knew that the torture marks—the scars from a gutting knife—that Ally had left on her body wouldn’t change the way Kate looked at her. Or what Kate felt for her.
The Last First Time Page 5