The Last First Time

by Andrea Bramhall

  “Sarge,” Gareth greeted her and nodded to Vinny, holding out his hand. “Gareth Collier.”

  Vinny gripped his hand and shook firmly. “Detective, nice to meet you.”

  Kate stared at Mel as she stared back. She hadn’t changed. Her hair was still blond, her eyes were still blue, and she still had that dimple in her right cheek that showed even when she wasn’t smiling. And she was still a bitch. Kate had no doubt about that.

  Gareth cleared his throat and held his hand out to Mel. “Collier,” he said. “Gareth.”

  “Mel Brown.” She quickly shook his hand, but her gaze had barely left Kate’s.

  “Should we?” Vinny held his hand out towards the door and inclined his head.

  Kate swallowed, clenched her jaw, and led them out of the room. She pointed to her Mini.

  “Want a lift?” She spoke to Vinny but didn’t look around. They’d either follow or not, and, quite frankly, she hoped not.

  “That’d be great, Kate. Since we don’t know the area like you do, it’d definitely make things easier.” They all stopped when they reached the car and looked at it.

  Kate shrugged, a smirk tugging at her lips. “You sure about that?” The Mini wasn’t known for its generous backseat space or copious amounts of legroom. And the six-foot-three-inch frame Vinny boasted could definitely use more than she could supply.

  To his credit, he tossed his head back and laughed. “Shotgun,” he cried and scurried around the passenger side.

  Collier scowled.

  Kate refused to look at Mel.

  Kate climbed in and pulled her seatbelt over her shoulder. “Gareth, you got your phone handy?”

  “Yep.”

  “Plug in the address, will ya? I might know Lynn better than you do, Vinny, but that’s not saying a lot.”

  Vinny laughed. “You mean you haven’t got a map of this place in your head yet, Detective? Tut-tut.”

  “What can I say? I’m slacking.” She gunned the engine to life and coaxed it out of the carpark. “Left or right?” she asked Collier.

  “Right. Towards the Hardwick Industrial Estate. But take the first exit off the next roundabout instead of the second one. Vancouver Ave.”

  “Okay.” She quickly steered them out onto the road and dodged around the road sweeper as it clung to the kerb, clearing the drains of litter, leaves, and other nefarious detritus. As she guided the car under the archway that stood sentry to London Road and the main thoroughfare of the town centre, she noted just how rundown this part of town was looking. It wasn’t just that the streets were still dark and soaked in rain. It was the way the mid-December gloom had to war with the excessive use of Christmas lights, chipped paint on every building they passed, and the graffiti scrawled across metal boards that covered building after building. Widespread repossession, abandonment, and crime did nothing to help the situation.

  At the roundabout, Vancouver Avenue was flanked by a billboard with the advertisement peeling off on one side and a bank of stunted trees on the other. Houses looked to be cramped and squashed together…until she was a little way down the road, anyway. Then it opened up into a wider, leafy suburb. She didn’t remember ever being down there before, but it was surprisingly nice. “What are we looking for?”

  “Extons Road. Should be just before the football grounds,” Collier replied.

  “King’s Lynn Town?” Vinny asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t even know Lynn had a football club,” Kate mumbled.

  Vinny chuckled. “Some would say they don’t. They’re not even a professional team.”

  “Hey, don’t start on the Linnets!” Gareth moaned from the back seat. “Next right, Sarge.”

  Kate chuckled and turned on her indicator. She glanced through her rear-view mirror and caught Mel staring at her, a little Mona Lisa smile on her lips. It was a smile that Kate was familiar with, one that had proven beguiling when they’d first met. Kate turned back to the road. Not anymore.

  “What number am I looking for?” Kate slowed as she entered the road and eased past a large gothic-styled building on the left that read St. James’ Clinic.

  “Sixty-one. Further up on the right.” Collier pointed between the two seats.

  Kate nodded and kept her eyes peeled for a parking spot. The road was filled with townhouses with big bay windows and high steps to front doors that were covered under brick archways. Wealthy Victorian in style, but perhaps not in actual age. Large sycamore trees lined the street. Cars were parked in driveways and along the kerb—some half mounting the pavement. She’d driven well past the house they were looking for before she found a place to park, and they had to backtrack on themselves. Kate led the way and cringed inwardly when Mel fell into step beside her.

  “Hey.” Mel’s voice was quiet.

  Kate half turned her head, almost looking before she caught herself, and stared at the broken paving slabs at her feet. She didn’t answer.

  Mel sighed. “Look, it’s not my fault we’ve been stuck together like this, Kate. I can’t change what happened, we’ve just got to deal with it.”

  Kate snorted. “We did deal with it. We split up. Nothing left to deal with.”

  “Really?”

  Kate shrugged and opened the gate to number sixty-one.

  “Then why can’t you even talk to me like any other colleague?”

  Kate hitched an eyebrow. “Because you’re not.”

  She let go of the gate and let it swing into Mel’s hand as she mounted the steps and rang the doorbell, leaving Mel in her wake. She turned back and looked over Mel’s head. Vinny and Gareth were just stepping into the garden.

  There were noises on the other side of the door, a scraping sound, followed by a series of shuffling footsteps.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice called out.

  “Hello. Is that Mrs Ahmed?”

  “Who is it?”

  “Mrs Ahmed, my name is Detective Sergeant Kate Brannon. Would you open the door, please so that I can speak to you? It’s very important.”

  “My husband isn’t home.”

  “That’s okay, Mrs Ahmed. I need to speak to you too. It’s about Nadia.”

  The door swung open. The woman was clothed in a traditional shalwar kameez and dupatta that was so often worn amongst conservative families. The loose-fitting trousers, baggy tunic, and headscarf hid much of the short woman, but her face belied her worry.

  “Nadia? What has happened to Nadia?”

  “May we come in, Mrs Ahmed?”

  She looked around, seemingly unsure, but quickly nodded and stood aside to let them pass before leading them into the parlour at the front of the house. It was a well-lit room. The huge south-facing bay window let in every moment of the sun’s journey across the sky and cast soft shadows from the furniture. The large fireplace was surrounded by a faux-marble mantle and antique-styled tiles, and knick-knacks littered the shelf. An ornate gold clock sat in the centre.

  “Please tell me, what has happened to my Nadia? She did not come home last night. We are frantic with worry for her. He is out looking for her now.”

  Kate and Vinny exchanged glances, then Kate held her hand out to the sofa. She sat beside the woman when she followed Kate’s cue. She held out to Mrs Ahmed a picture taken from the CCTV footage the day before. Before the cameras had been blown to smithereens and Norfolk was forever changed. Before an act of terror tore at the heart of a community that would always remember.

  “Is this Nadia?” The image had been blown up and cropped to show just Nadia’s face.

  Mrs Ahmed took the page, smiled, and nodded. “Yes, that is my daughter. Where is she?”

  “I’m very sorry to tell you this, Mrs Ahmed, but we believe Nadia is dead.”

  Mrs Ahmed’s hands flew to her mouth, crumpling the page between her fingers. The wail that tore from her throat was a primal thing, an abject cry of pain and misery that no parent should have to suffer. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not my little girl. No, no,
no. What happened? Who did this to her? What happened?”

  How do you say the words she did it—Nadia. She’s the murderer, not the victim. How do you tell a distraught mother her child—her beloved child—has just taken the lives of seventeen innocent women and children? Children. Two-year-old Gregory Walsh. Kate clung to the image of his pushchair to help her. He was the one who deserved justice. He was the victim of this crime. Not Nadia. Not Mrs Ahmed. Gregory.

  She swallowed the gullet-burning bile of revulsion and fortified herself with the antacids of justice and the unshakable need to make sure there were no more two-year-old Gregorys. Not on her watch. “This will be very difficult, Mrs Ahmed, but Nadia was in the town centre yesterday when the bomb went off.”

  “My baby! My baby! Killed by bombers!” She cast her face to the ceiling, hands clasped to her chest, as if in prayer, speaking words in what Kate assumed was some Arabic dialect.

  “Mrs Ahmed, Nadia was one of the bombers.”

  The wailing ceased, and the woman stared at her.

  The clock on the mantle shelf ticked loudly in the otherwise silent room. One second. Two. Three. Four. Kate counted, watched as the news was assimilated into Mrs Ahmed’s new reality.

  “What?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, almost lost against the tick of the second hand moving again. “What did you say?”

  Kate licked her lips and steeled herself again. “Nadia was wearing one of the two bombs that were detonated in the town centre yesterday morning. My colleagues and I are here to inform you and to search your home.” She pulled a second document from her pocket. “This is a warrant, granted by the magistrates, that allows us to search and remove from the premises anything that we think may aid in our investigation.” She handed her a copy of the document. “Do you understand, Mrs Ahmed?”

  The woman nodded and her mouth moved like she was talking, but no words came out.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. What was that?”

  “Must call my husband,” she whispered.

  Kate nodded. “You go ahead, we’ll get started.”

  “No. Not until my husband is here.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s not how this works.” She pointed to the warrant. “We don’t need permission to do this. That gives us the right to conduct this search immediately.” She tipped her head to Vinny. “Sergeant Jackson will start in this room.”

  Jackson nodded. They both knew he would spend less time searching the property and more time babysitting Mrs Ahmed, and then dealing with Mr Ahmed when he arrived, but those were the breaks sometimes.

  Kate stood up and led the other two out of the room as Mrs Ahmed picked up her phone. Kate could hear her angry then tearful entreaties in the hallway as she sent Mel to search the rest of the downstairs and left Gareth to take the master bedroom they found. Given Mrs Ahmed’s reaction, she didn’t really expect to find a great deal through the rest of the house, but she was hopeful that there would be something in Nadia’s room.

  She sighed as she located Nadia’s bedroom with only a little snooping around . There were posters on the wall, dirty clothes on the floor, and the bed was unmade. A desk in the corner was covered with notepads, textbooks, and pens. A laptop was on the bedside table, alongside a lamp, an alarm clock, and a jewellery tree; from each branch hung a bracelet, a necklace, a ring, or some earrings.

  Just like every other seventeen-year-old’s room.

  She leafed through the pages of the notepads, reading what was in English and putting to one side all the ones that were filled with Arabic and would have to be taken away from translation. She bagged the laptop, and flipped the mattress. As a teen, she’d hidden plenty of things under her own mattress from her gran—magazines, books, her first copies of Rubyfruit Jungle and Curious Wine—the beginnings of her own journey into the woman she’d become.

  And just like billions of other seventeen-year-olds before her, Nadia had hidden hers there too. The black Moleskine diary stared up at Kate. She leafed through the pages, only to be stymied by the Arabic language again. So Kate bagged it and checked the rest of the wardrobes and drawers for anything else. She pulled posters away from the wall to check there was nothing on the back or hidden behind them before lifting the rug in the centre of the room and checking the floorboards. One seemed particularly loose, but when she pried it up, all Kate found was a mousetrap. Missing the bait.

  She was almost finished with the room when Mel leant around the door. “How’s it going?”

  “Treasure trove.”

  “Really?” Mel stepped in and surveyed the bags of evidence Kate had collected.

  “Yup.” Kate added another bagged notebook to the small mountain she’d piled up. “As soon as I learn to read Arabic, I’m certain it will be.”

  Mel chuckled. “Ah, there’s the Kate I’ve missed.”

  “Don’t.” Kate ground her teeth to stop herself continuing.

  “What?” Mel frowned at her.

  “Don’t start.” Kate ran her hand along the top of the wardrobe and felt something roll away from her fingers and down behind it. Bollocks. The wardrobe was big, fitted snugly into an alcove beside the chimney breast, made of solid wood, and bloody heavy. “Help me pull this out.”

  Mel stood at one side as she grabbed the other, and slowly they managed to ease it out of the alcove.

  A door banged downstairs, and raised voices floated up to them.

  “Sounds like Mr Ahmed’s home,” Mel said, grunting as they inched it out far enough for Kate to slide in behind it and pick up what had fallen: a small silver ball, about half a centimetre in diameter.

  Mel groaned. “All that for nothing.”

  Kate shook her head. “The bombs were filled with nuts, nails, bolts, and ball bearings.” She held the small sphere up to Mel. “Just like this one.”

  “Yeah, but you can get ball bearings in loads of things.”

  “True.” She held it a little closer to her nose.

  “What? Can you smell explosives on metal now?” Mel quipped.

  “No. But it didn’t hurt to rule it out.” She bagged and labelled the ball bearing and turned slowly to make sure she hadn’t missed anything else in the room. This was the place where they would start to find some answers.

  Why two bombers? Surely one would have been enough? Where did they get the bomb? Why Ann Summers? Hell, why did they pick King’s Lynn? There were bigger cities, better targets out there then this little rural town—not even a city.

  Or was that the whole point? The true meaning of a seemingly random terror attack: It could literally be anywhere. Anyone. Anytime. There was no safety, because there was no safe place. Everything, everyone, everywhere was a target. In picking a place many people in the country didn’t even know existed, they were making the boldest statement of all.

  We are coming for all of you.

  We can find you all.

  Kate swallowed and picked up an armful of evidence bags.

  Now she understood.

  In a world where everything could change on a split second, there was no point in wasting a single second with what-ifs and maybes. After coming so close to losing Gina the day before…Kate knew what she wanted, what she needed.

  Yeah. Now she understood.

  Chapter 9

  Gina woke to a skinny arm across her face and the hundred-decibel buzz saw that she also called Sammy next to her ear. They’d picked her up from the campsite and relieved Will of her care after midnight. Kate had offered to drop them home, but neither of them really wanted that. Yet, as much as she’d rather stay at Kate’s than in her own home, sharing a bed with Sammy was getting old. For all of them. It wasn’t her daughter she wanted to share a bed with.

  She climbed out, careful not to wake Sammy, and wrapped her arms about herself. It was cold. She slipped into the bathroom, quickly ran through her morning routine, and grabbed the dressing gown Kate left hanging on the back of the door for her. It was thick, grey towelling, and it was just what
she needed as she descended the stairs and put the kettle on to boil. She opened the fridge to get the milk and spotted a note stuck to the door with a large magnet.

  Morning gorgeous,

  Timmons called me before six a.m., had to go in. Not sure what time I’ll be home, I’ll text you later. Don’t feel you have to rush off, though. Stay as long as you like. And, please, would you mind giving Merlin a walk? She looked at me like I was abusing her when I left this morning.

  K x

  “Looks like it’s just you and me till Sammy wakes up, then,” she said to Merlin. The grey and white dappled dog watched her intently and glanced towards the door. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

  Gina opened the back door to let her out, chafing her hands up and down her arms against the cold. Merlin quickly sniffed, circled, relieved, and then hopped back inside where she jumped onto her sofa, pushed off a cushion, and settled back down to sleep.

  Gina shook her head and went to finish making her drink. Sammy still had a couple of days left until the end of the school year, but it was Sunday, and a long walk on the beach with the two of them sounded like a good idea. She glanced at the clock. Eight thirty in the morning. Sammy never slept this late. She was usually up before the sun…well, in the winter, at least. The result of the late night, no doubt. She smiled and enjoyed the quiet time before Hurricane Sammy arrived. There was something she needed to do.

  She put her mug on the dining room table and gathered a notepad and pen from the bureau in Kate’s living room. She sat down and tapped the pen to the top of the page. Trying to find the right words was difficult. She couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for Pat to write those beautiful words. A lump rose in her throat, and she swallowed it down before poising her pen to write.

  Dear Mr Boyne,

  Please excuse me writing to you like this, but I thought this might be better than a stranger turning up on your doorstep with a somewhat fantastical story. Please bear with me.

  My name is Georgina Temple. I live on the North Norfolk coast with my daughter. I can assure you I don’t want anything from you, and I’m not crazy. You don’t know me, but yesterday I met a woman who I think may have.