The Last First Time

by Andrea Bramhall

  “Good.” Kate’s voice was thick with emotion. She coughed. “Next reason, you really need a shower because you’re covered in blood.”

  Gina laughed. “Not attractive?”

  “Well, it’s not the most, what’s the word, romantic?”

  “Erotic?”

  Kate swallowed audibly. “I think I’ll stick with romantic.”

  “Chicken.”

  Kate opened her eyes wide in a look of mock shock. “Whatever.”

  Gina laughed. “So my current attire isn’t exactly floating your boat. That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But I’m not going to be wearing it for long. That kind of negates that point.”

  “It would seem to, but for one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s not conducive to that romantic mood I was trying to explain before I got interrupted.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “Then there’s the fact that you’re in charge, so unless this constitutes a romantic setting for you—in which case I’d really have to worry about you—then you really don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “All good points. But you missed one.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did I miss?”

  “You missed the fact that I trust you.” Gina took a deep breath and raised the garment over her head. She held it out to Kate. Her hands trembled, but inside she felt calmer than she thought she would. She’d expected to feel butterflies in her stomach with nerves, with fear. But the look in Kate’s eyes made her feel beautiful. She’d expected to feel a battle going on inside her, a war between her desire to cover her body and her desire to let Kate see her. Instead, she felt desired and wanted to revel in the feeling. Gina had expected to feel exposed, maybe even a little intimidated, standing naked in front of a fully clothed Kate. Instead, she felt powerful. As though she’d finally reclaimed something she’d lost. “How do you do that?” she whispered.

  “Do what?” Kate asked, as she folded the jumper and slipped it into a plastic bag, never dropping her gaze from Gina’s, not even for a second.

  “I’m stood here, covered in bloodstains, looking like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, and half-naked, while you’re still fully clothed. But you still look at me like I’m special.”

  “Oh, that.” Kate dropped the sealed bag onto the chair with the rest of Gina’s clothing. “That’s easy. You are special.” The look in Kate’s eyes was all Gina needed to know that she meant every word. “Very special.”

  “I wish this were a romantic setting.”

  Kate smiled a little sadly. “Me too.” Kate’s cheeks flamed, and Gina knew her own were just as red. She could feel the heat all the way to the tips of her ears as Kate closed her eyes and chuckled silently, her body moving with each noiseless titter. Then she shook her head, opened another bag, and simply waited.

  Gina dropped her gaze to the floor as she unhooked her bra and tossed it over to Kate. She turned to the side as she lowered her underwear. As quickly as she could, she donned the white Tyvek suit from the evidence bag that Kate had waiting for her. It wasn’t the right time, or place, or setting. But that didn’t seem to stop her body reacting while Kate busied herself collecting up the drop cloth and wrapping it into an evidence bag too.

  “There’s a bathroom with a shower in it next door,” Kate said, pointing to her left and handing her a small hand towel. “I’m sorry. It’s the best I could find. The other option appeared to be paper towels.”

  Gina took the towel and nodded. “I’ll manage. It’ll just be good to get the blood off me.”

  Kate smiled. “I understand. Take your time. Trying to get those suits back on if you’re a little damp is a bit of a nightmare. But I’m afraid it’s all I’ve got right now.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The doctors won’t be here for a while. I’ll get you a cup of tea when you’re ready.”

  The water was hot and helped soothe her sore muscles as she stood under the powerful spray. She tried not to look down at her feet. She knew the water would be running away red and then pink as Pat’s blood sloughed from her body and flowed away, almost like she’d never been there. As though all evidence of her meeting with Gina were gone. And Gina let the water take her tears along with it.

  She’d meant it when she’d told Kate that she didn’t feel as bad about this as she had in the wake of Ally’s attack. Immediately after that, just a few short weeks ago, she’d tried to pull away from Kate, convinced she would no longer be interested in a woman who was, without doubt, damaged goods. But Kate was going nowhere, and her steadfast refusal to let Gina pull away from her had been the biggest factor in her recovery from the attack.

  Just as it would be now in the wake of this event.

  It hadn’t been a personal attack. It hadn’t been directed at her. And she didn’t know either perpetrator. But it was still horrific. She’d still seen things she wished she hadn’t. The severed hand, Stella’s injuries. The lady without her legs. Pat. And that’s without even thinking about the ultimate fate she’d escaped.

  She could have died in there.

  What if she’d been stood in a different spot? Or at a different angle? Would she still be here, standing in a lukewarm shower, staring at a handful of antibacterial soap and wishing that Kate hadn’t just seen her naked for the first time in a hospital room? Or would she still be lying on the floor in the Ann Summers shop while they collected evidence from her body.

  From her cold, dead, body.

  She didn’t have time to shut off the water as she threw herself across the room, lifted the lid of the toilet, and emptied her stomach. Retch after heaving retch, she vented bile until there was nothing left.

  As the cramps slowly began to subside, the sobs climbed up from her soul and clawed their way out of her mouth, choking her with their jagged edges and expanding girth. Each cry tore at her as it escaped, let loose upon the world, over and over until there was nothing left. Until the water ran cold across the tiled floor and pooled around her feet. Her skin pimpled with the chill, and the shaking in her hands eased to a tremor.

  Her muscles protested as she crawled back under the cold spray and used handful after handful of antibacterial soap from the dispenser. There was nothing else available and Gina needed to wash it all away. She simply had to. The desire to be clean ran deeper than just needing to be free of Pat’s blood, Stella’s blood, and the shards of glass in her hair. What she really needed was to be free of the images in her head.

  No water or soap would ever be strong enough for that.

  Still Gina scrubbed every inch of her body. The strong scent of alcohol that came off the soap wasn’t unpleasant, but it stung her nose, and made her eyes water a little.

  Right now she needed a distraction. She needed something to think about that wasn’t a half-buried hand or the ragged stump of blood and bone or the death mask of a stranger, and her mind latched on to whatever passing thought gripped it.

  What was in that letter? What had Pat needed to explain to George? What truth did he deserve to know? Did he really need to know it now? After so many years, would it make a difference to him? Pat had certainly seemed to think it would. Would it affect others or just him? God, there were so many questions. So many things to think about. And if she did want to honour Pat’s last request and find him, how would she go about it? She didn’t exactly have a lot of information to go on. A name and the fact that he was a soldier who served in Northern Ireland, maybe fifty years ago.

  “Maybe some people can find someone with only that, but personally I need an address and a phone number. Or better yet a Facebook account.” She chuckled sadly to herself as she rinsed the last suds from her body. “I’ll just have to ask Kate. This is what police do, after all. They find people. Some who don’t want to be found, and with even less than this to go on.” She turned off the water and grabbed the small t
owel. She held it up to examine it. Twelve inches by twelve inches of thin towelling fabric were all she had to dry her body enough to get back into a flimsy Tyvek suit without ripping it. “This should be fun.” She started on her left shoulder. “In a kind of Krypton Factor sort of way.”

  Chapter 5

  Kate’s fingers itched under the nitril gloves as she placed items from Pat’s handbag into separate evidence bags. One bag for her purse, a separate one for the cash. Cards, in yet another, and the picture of Pat as a young woman next to a man. The picture was faded—to only yellow and brown hues remaining—and the edges were worn smooth, like they’d been caressed many times over the years. On the back beautiful, careful handwriting had penned the words George Xavier Boyne, Corporal.

  “Not your everyday garden-variety name, George. Wonder where that lot comes from.” Over the years, Kate had learned names like that often had family significance, or one hell of a story behind them. She couldn’t help but wonder at the story of Pat and George. Star-crossed lovers, from what Gina had said. The Romeo and Juliet of Belfast.

  She smirked as the photo found its way into an evidence bag too, after she took a picture of it. The letter Gina had mentioned was there, sitting at the bottom, a brick that had hung around the poor woman’s neck for God alone knew how many years. George Boyne. That’s all it said on the outside of the envelope. Her handwriting was beautiful—smooth and flowing across the paper like a dancer across the floor.

  Whilst many in her profession loved rifling through the private belongings of victims and perpetrators alike, Kate wasn’t one of them. She hated invading the privacy of the victims she sought justice for. She could only bring herself to do it in the name of justice. A necessary evil in the pursuit of killers, crooks, and arseholes, in no particular order.

  Gina had already told her that the contents of this letter were intensely private. A confession of some sort from one young lover to another. Yet her job still required her to read it to ascertain its investigative relevance. She couldn’t take the word of a dead woman.

  Kate checked on Stella, who was still sleeping, then used her finger to rip open the seal of the envelope. The contents slid easily into her palm, and she unfolded the pages with a deep sigh. It took her several minutes to read through the lengthy missive, and when she’d finished, she whistled as she folded the pages into another evidence bag and stacked them all together.

  “Wow.” She’d been right. There was nothing of any relevance to the investigation in the letter. Nothing. But the story—the history—on the pages was incredible. She’d heard many stories over the years: horror stories, sob stories, funny stories, unbelievable stories, and stories she wished were unbelievable. Pat’s was a story she’d heard in a different way a hundred times over, but one that still broke her heart. “I’m surprised you’re still going by your maiden name, Pat,” she whispered to no one as she picked up her phone. “Not sure that old bastard deserved that much respect.” Kate scrolled through her contacts and hit the button for the coroner’s office.

  “Too busy. Go away,” Dr Ruth Anderson said as soon as she answered.

  “I’ve got a time saver for you.”

  “Okay, I just found time.”

  “The lady who was killed in the Ann Summers shop.”

  “Which one? I’ve got multiple bodies from there. All women.”

  “Older woman, seventy-two, white hair.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her name’s Patricia O’Shea. Birthday 20th of December.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m looking at her driver’s licence.”

  “Why? Did you find it at the scene? I thought Timmons sent you home with Gina.”

  “No, he sent me to the hospital with Gina and Stella. Gina picked up the bag by mistake. She was in shock, you know.”

  “I’m sure. It must’ve been hell for her.”

  Kate thought about it and the way Gina had reacted. She didn’t seem like it had been hell, even though it truly must’ve been. “I’m sure it was. We haven’t really had a chance to talk about it yet. Anyway, I’ve bagged it for evidence, but I just thought if you had the ID, you could inform next of kin.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll send you the picture of the driver’s licence for verification.”

  “Thanks. I’ll sort it out. Is Stella okay?”

  “Cheers, Ruth. And I think so. I’m guessing a concussion at this point. She’s seen the triage nurse but no doctor yet. They’re absolutely run off their feet here. Did Timmons tell you? They were both in there, Ruth. When it blew up, Gina and Stella were both right there.” Kate’s voice caught in her throat, and she swallowed the sob before it could crawl past her lips.

  “I know, my friend, I know. But they’re both fine, right?”

  Kate nodded, not trusting her voice.

  “Right?” Ruth prompted.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “They’re okay.”

  “Then everything will work out. You’ll all deal with this shit and move on. We all will. Don’t let them win, Kate. Cry, scream, beat the shit out of that punch bag of yours, do whatever you have to, then get your head in the game and make sure this shit doesn’t happen again. Make sure someone else doesn’t have to live through this fucking nightmare.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  Ruth laughed bitterly. “Oh, I know. The face of terror may have changed, but it’s not something new, is it?”

  “No.” Ruth was right. Isis, or Daesh, or whatever the hell they were supposed to call them now, weren’t doing anything new. Britain had spent decades under the terrorist threat from the IRA. Bombs, shootings, kidnappings, beatings…same shit, just a different perp.

  “Wanna hear the scuttlebutt going around about Stella?”

  “Sure?”

  “Apparently she got shot in the head.”

  Kate laughed. “Bollocks. There weren’t any guns involved.”

  “Doesn’t seem to matter. Her reputation as being your unit’s badass has just overtaken yours, my friend.”

  “I’m gutted.” Kate made sure that there was an adequate amount of sarcasm dripping from her retort.

  Ruth laughed. “I’m sure you are. How’s Gina holding up?”

  “Pretty well, actually. Not sure it’s hit her yet, to be honest, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Okay. Gotta run. Tell Gina I’m thinking of her.”

  “Will do.” She ended the call and restacked the pile of evidence bags that were slipping off each other and heading for the floor.

  “I believe you mentioned tea,” Gina said as she re-entered the room.

  “I did.” Kate smiled. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  “Okay, wait here and I’ll be right back.” The vending machine was closer than the cafe, but the coffee from it was little more than coloured water with more artificial sweetener than coffee in it. She didn’t want to guess at what the tea was actually made of. The last time he’d tried it, Tom had reckoned it was gnat’s piss, so she walked the five minutes to the cafe and back in order to get them decent brews. She didn’t bring anything for Stella. As much as she knew Stella would complain if she woke up—probably including death threats—if she was suffering the concussion Kate suspected she was, the doctor needed to clear her before Kate was going to participate in feeding her.

  Gina was sitting on the edge of Stella’s bed when she returned, holding her hand and whispering softly to her. Stella’s eyes were closed; a frown marred her face. Even in sleep, she was clearly in pain. Kate handed Gina the paper cup full of steaming liquid and sat down next to her.

  “Has she woken up at all?”

  Gina shook her head.

  “Let’s hope the doctor gets here soon, then.”

  “Yeah. Did you let them know who Pat was?” Gina asked and took a sip of her tea.

  Kate nodded. “Yes, I phoned Ruth. She said to say hi, by the way. And that she’s thinking of you.”
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br />   Gina smiled. “That’s nice of her.”

  “She is nice.”

  Gina raised an eyebrow. “Is she, now?”

  Kate frowned. “Yeah, I’ve told you that before.”

  “I know.” Gina’s eyebrow was still hiked up.

  Kate turned her head a little to the side, like she could gauge what was going through Gina’s head better if she saw her from the side of her eye rather than straight on. Then it hit her. Like a plank. “Oh, no. Not like that.” Kate held her hands out in surrender. “I mean, she is. I mean, I’m sure some people think she is, but not me.”

  “Not you?” Gina asked sceptically.

  Kate nodded furiously. “Right. Not me.”

  Gina sipped more of her drink, eyes cast down.

  “I swear.”

  Gina cleared her throat and peeked at her over the top of her drink. “I’m messing with you.” She grinned widely. “Couldn’t resist. Sorry.”

  She looked anything but sorry, but Kate was so happy to see her mischievous side that she simply leaned forward and kissed her lips gently. “I’ll get you back for that one later.”

  “Really?”

  Kate nodded and wondered if the look in her eye promised all the things she was thinking about. The things she’d been dreaming of doing to…and with Gina for weeks. If the blush on Gina’s cheeks was anything to go by, it did.

  “I smell coffee.” Stella’s croaky voice reached them from the bed.

  “Hey, Stella. Glad you’re still alive up there in the comfy chair.” Kate sniggered and stood up so she could see Stella clearly.

  “You call this hunk of steel comfy?”

  “Trust me, it’s better than the floor. At least you’ve got a blanket to keep you warm.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “All Gina’s got on is a Tyvek suit.”

  Stella chuckled and grimaced. “You got nipples like chapel hat pegs, love?” Her words were slurred, but it didn’t stop either of them understanding her.

  “Now who’s the bitch?” Gina retorted and crossed her arms over her breasts.