First Born(9)

‘Tell her about that evening, Paul,’ says Mum. ‘She deserves to know.’

He looks at her, and then he takes a sip of coffee and shakes his head and swallows.

‘Your mother and I had planned to meet Katie at an Italian restaurant in the Upper West Side, out near Central Park. We’d been here for six days and we knew her neighbourhood a little. Back then we were staying at the Best Western, part of our travel package. It was our last night with your sister and we wanted to make the most of it, have some nice pasta. But she never turned up, Moll, and you know Katie, she’s never late, she’s always very punctual.’

‘She always was,’ says Mum, looking down into her tea.

‘So we waited and waited and called and called.’

‘We went to her apartment in the end,’ says Mum. ‘Your father was getting worried. We tried her buzzer, but nothing. So we tried the neighbour and eventually a young man came out of the basement; his mother owns the whole building.’

The toast arrives and Dad takes over. ‘We ask him to let us in and he says he can’t, he needs to call his boss.’

‘The lad’s mother,’ corrects my mum.

‘Right. So he calls her, I talk to his mother for a few seconds, she tells him to let us in straight away. He finds a key and he lets us in.’

Mum rubs her face with her palms. Then she shakes her head.

‘Everything seemed normal at first,’ says Dad, swallowing hard. ‘No signs of a forced entry, no broken windows or doors. No . . . blood.’

Mum scrunches up her eyes.

‘But she was there on her bed, Moll.’ He places his hand on Mum’s and squeezes it. ‘Ever so peaceful, she was. Your sister looked like she was fast asleep. I promise you, she looked like she was asleep.’

‘The police say there was no pain,’ says Mum, biting her lip for a split-second. ‘Katie wasn’t in any kind of pain at the end. The policeman gave me his word.’

Dad nods his head.

‘But what killed her?’ I ask. ‘How did she die?’

A man in the adjacent booth stares at me through a pot plant so I lean in closer to Mum and Dad over the Formica table.

‘We don’t know anything for sure until the . . .’ Dad pauses and glances at Mum and then he mouths the word autopsy to me. ‘We’ll know a lot more tomorrow, I hope. Now, please, eat your toast, both of you. It’s going to be a long week. You need to eat.’

I butter my toast and eat it. I’m hungrier than I realised and my belly rumbles in the diner. The toast tastes different from London toast. It’s still comforting, still good. Just different. Mum picks at hers and Dad’s already finished his, smothered in peanut butter and jam. Or jelly, as it says on the diner menu.

‘You want anything else?’ he asks.

Mum looks like she might keel over and die from a broken heart at any moment. I’ve never seen her like this. I mean, I must appear utterly atrocious right now: sunken, tired transatlantic eyes and crumpled clothes. But Mum looks haunted.

Her eyes are focused just above my head. Dad looks at whatever she’s staring at. Their jaws drop. I turn my head.

It’s KT’s face on the TV news.





Chapter 6


Mum stands up and Dad calls out for the waitress to increase the volume but the story has already ended and now it’s the weather forecast on screen instead. Some kind of storm warning.

‘What did they say?’ asks Mum.

I check my phone and scroll through my newsfeeds and notifications.

‘Have then arrested someone?’ asks Dad. ‘Charged anyone?’

I Google ‘Katie Raven’ and check under the news tab and there it is.

I show them my phone.

‘Her beautiful face,’ says Mum, her hands in tight fists, her lips pursed.

I read it out. ‘NYPD are investigating the suspected homicide of a young British woman now named as Katie Elizabeth Raven. The victim was found in her apartment in Morningside Heights on the evening of . . .’

‘That’s it?’ says Dad. ‘No arrests? No suspects in custody?’

‘That’s all there is, Dad. If they’d had a suspect in custody they would have let us know first, surely.’

‘We’ll find out much more tomorrow,’ says Mum. ‘They have to arrest whoever did this to Katie, and lock him up forever so he rots in a cell.’

Dad pays the bill. The guy opposite tracks me with his gaze as we leave the diner. He has bright blue eyes and a moustache. He’s a pig if he thinks we’re his free evening entertainment.

Mum shivers as we step out into the street, and Dad gives her his scarf. A couple pass us by and they look enraptured with each other. Like the two of them are the only people in Manhattan.

‘Let’s try to get some sleep,’ says Dad. ‘Moll, you must be exhausted. It’s the middle of the night for you.’

‘I’m OK.’

‘We have to rest,’ says Dad. ‘At least try. The police will need our help tomorrow.’

We walk, Mum and me in front, our arms linked together in a way we haven’t done since I was nine years old, always with my sister on the other side. This feels unbalanced. Dangerously out of kilter. Dad is behind us. He’s got a strong protective instinct, always vigilant; maybe that’s where I inherited it from. He always taught us girls self-defence at home during the summer holidays. Basic punches and kicks and evasive techniques. He wanted us both to be safe.