Sophie poured herself a coffee from the jug beside his desk and left the office, muttering to herself. She made her way up the stairs and along a corridor to the HR reception desk.
‘DCI Sophie Allen,’ she announced to the immaculately clad receptionist. She glanced down at her own faded cord trousers and scuffed ankle boots. At least her tan leather jacket still passed muster, but she really needed a new outfit. She sighed.
‘Ms Blake asked for you to wait.’ The receptionist fingered his blue and red striped tie, looking a little embarrassed. He pointed to some chairs, one of which was occupied by a tall young woman. She was smartly dressed, with dark hair styled in a short bob, sitting stiffly upright, leafing through a magazine.
‘Phone through and tell her that I’m heading up a murder inquiry. If she doesn’t see me right now it’ll become a double one, with your boss as the second victim. Okay, sweetheart?’
He picked up the phone and made the call, quoting her exact words, including “sweetheart.” Sophie muttered and, ignoring his look of alarm, stalked past the desk and opened the door. Sandie Blake, Head of HR, was alone in the office, setting down the phone.
‘Sweetheart? What was that about?’ she asked.
Sophie shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. Maybe he’s got the hots for you.’ She looked pointedly at her watch. ‘Make it fast, please. The murder bit was true.’
‘I know. The ACC’s PA has already been on to me. Take a seat.’
‘Do I have to? Can’t you just condense what you have to say into ten words, then let me go?’
‘No, I can’t. So take a seat. Please.’
Sophie sighed and sat down. She sipped her coffee.
Sandie picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Your new DC is the person waiting in reception. But you need some information first. And it must be confidential — to you and any other officer in direct command of her.’ She paused. ‘Her name is Rachel Gregson. Until two and a half years ago she was Raymond Gregson. Rae, spelt with a letter E, is transgender.’
‘Right. And how does that affect things, exactly?’
‘It doesn’t. That’s the point I have to make clear to you. She must be treated like any other detective constable. And as I said, only you and your sergeant are to know. As far as everyone else is concerned, she’s just another woman DC.’
‘Well that won’t be a problem for me or my sergeant, Sandie. But let’s be realistic. People are likely to guess sooner or later. My understanding is that female to male TSs are far more successful at going unnoticed. This way round is a lot harder. Isn’t that right? So we’d better be prepared. Anything else I need to know about her?’
‘She asked for me to put you in the picture. Everything else is in her documentation. She’s got that with her. This sheet of paper that I’ve been trying to pass to you, and you’ve been studiously ignoring, is a summary of the procedures to be followed in this situation.’
Sophie took the sheet and glanced at it. ‘I thought people in her position were quietly shifted into back-room jobs, with little contact with the public in case anyone takes offence? Though to me that’s always seemed offensive in itself. What’s important is how well someone does their job, surely?’
‘You’re thinking of uniformed officers. It’s been decided that detectives are in less direct contact with the public anyway. And as far as I can tell, every case is to be treated individually. We were very impressed with her at the interview. She asked to be kept in a role as similar as possible to her previous one. She’s ideal for what you want, Sophie. She fills almost all of your requests, far more than anyone else in the frame. And she comes across really well.’
‘Seems fair enough. Point me in her direction and I’ll be on my way.’
Sophie put Matt Silver’s spare coffee mug down on the HR chief’s desk and left. The receptionist gave her a nervous smile as she passed.
The young DC stood up when Sophie approached.
‘Hello, Rae. Glad you’ve joined the squad. It’s bedlam at the moment, and we need you.’
She held out her hand. Rae was wearing a neat, dark blue skirt and a well-fitting tailored jacket in blue corduroy. Sophie could make out the neckline of a pale pink jumper under the jacket. Low-heeled ankle boots completed the outfit. Rae took her hand tentatively.
‘Ma’am.’
Sophie ushered her towards the stairs.
‘My good friend Sandie in HR has filled me in on your background. You’ve had a difficult time, I imagine. No regrets?’
‘No. It was the right thing for me. For the first time for as long as I can remember, I feel right in myself. I’ll work hard for you, ma’am.’
‘I expect nothing less from anyone who works for me, Rae. And I like your outfit. I have a teenage daughter at home who acts as my unofficial style adviser, so I’m fairly up to date.’
‘I thought quite a bit about what to wear. I suppose my clothes are a sign that I’ve arrived where I’ve always wanted to be.’
Sophie looked again at her watch.
‘We need to get moving. Time’s slipping away like the wind, and even I, Sophie Allen, can’t slow it down. I’m only human — despite what you may have heard. I see you have a file for me.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Slip this in.’ She handed over the policy page as they got into her car. ‘While I’m driving, you can read it all out to me. Then you’ll know everything that I know, and you can fill in any gaps. I’ll need to tell my sergeant, Barry Marsh, since he’ll be your immediate superior. He’s a careful and thoughtful bloke, and I’m sure you’ll get on well with him. But you may need to give him some time before he relaxes.’
‘You’ve taken it very well, ma’am. I’m grateful. I know you weren’t told in advance.’
‘Well, I’ve been through it before, a few years ago when I was still in the West Midlands. That time it was a female to male transition, so it was easier for him. People get a much easier ride that way round, as far as I can tell. It’s easier to create a more androgynous, slightly masculine look, I suppose.’
‘It’s also the hormones he’ll have had. Testosterone is much more powerful than the oestrogen I take. The effect kicks in quicker and is much more marked. It even causes the voice to get lower. Oestrogen does nothing for that.’
‘Your voice isn’t bad. Have you been for coaching?’
Rae nodded. ‘I paid for the lessons myself. It’s possible to get them on the NHS but I decided not to wait. I hope it was worth it.’
‘I’d say it was. You sound midway, if that makes sense. It certainly doesn’t stand out as masculine. I guess the only problem is when you’re on the telephone, because when people can see you, they get the whole you, and you’re very convincing visually. Your skin tone is good, Rae. Half the battle is trying to maintain a good complexion and I’m afraid I’m losing that particular one.’
‘I don’t think you are, ma’am.’
Sophie accelerated out onto the main road, heading east towards Wareham. ‘Do you want to tell me about your background? Your reasons? I mean the stuff that isn’t in the file? Don’t feel that you have to, by the way. It’s just that you’re earmarked as a permanent member of my team if the trial period works out. It might help us understand each other.’
‘It’s not a problem, ma’am. I suppose I fit the pattern pretty closely. My childhood wasn’t particularly unhappy. My parents were great. But I didn’t fit in well with the other boys in my class, even when I was at primary school. I gravitated towards the girls, though I don’t think I was overtly feminine in any way, certainly not pre-puberty. I just didn’t enjoy the rough and tumble of being a boy and I kept myself to myself for much of the time. Once I was in my teens I occasionally had these strange feelings of wishing I could be a girl, at least some of the time. It wasn’t constant, it wasn’t particularly strong and it didn’t dominate my life, but more and more often I found myself connecting socially with the girls of my age rather than the boys. In my mid-teens that feeling got s
tronger and I suppose that’s when I realised that maybe something wasn’t quite right. That’s when I took some wrong steps, all in an attempt to get myself back on track, as I saw it. I started to copy the behaviour of other boys, but tried to outdo them. I drank, I swore, I was vile to the girls I went out with. I’m not proud of that time.’
‘But you came through it, obviously.’
‘My parents knew that something was wrong, but didn’t know what to do about it. All the time I was battling with this conflict inside of me and I felt as if I was being torn apart. Then two things happened over the course of a couple of years. I went on a couple of army taster sessions, looking for the ultimate masculine, macho lifestyle that I thought might cure me, if that’s the right expression. But I became almost physically sick because it was all so repellent to everything I really felt, and so I joined the police instead. Still fairly macho, you see, but a bit more moderate. And the second thing was that I fell for a young woman who saw through me. She could see how unhappy I was and she started trying to draw out my feelings. I loved her, but I couldn’t let her know it. I think she loved me. The trouble was that as she tried more and more to get me to look at myself, the worse my behaviour towards her became. I treated her like shit for a while, I really did, and I’m ashamed of it.’
Rae fell silent. Sophie sensed that the young DC was becoming upset. ‘You don’t have to tell me all this, Rae. If it’s causing you pain, you can stop.’
‘No, it’s okay, ma’am. It’s probably good for me to get it out in the open. I’ve not really had a good chance to talk things through with anyone since I stopped my counselling sessions after I transitioned.’
‘Well, if you’re sure you want to continue, that’s fine. But look, why don’t you read me the stuff in your file first? Then decide if you want to tell me the rest of your personal account once we’ve got that out of the way.’
Rae read through the contents of the personnel file that Sandie Blake had prepared. Then she returned to her story.
‘Hettie and I had been together just over a year when we realised that things just couldn’t go on the way they were. I was still feeling depressed, and was feeling physically sick again, just like a few years earlier with the army trials. I was making Hettie miserable. Things came to a head and I told her how I really felt about my life, and my place in the world. The strange thing was, she wasn’t really surprised. She told me how much it all fitted together. It was her that got me to contact a counsellor and a transgender group . . . I walked in on a social event and I suddenly knew I had found my spiritual home. Hettie knew. She came with me, to give me support and she could see how things suddenly fell into place for me. I found inner calm and peace, probably for the first time since my early teens. There was never any doubt in my mind once I’d been for some psychiatric assessments. Some of the other girls who were there for consideration at the same time as me, were discussing possible best answers to questions that might be put to us during the assessments. Trying to outwit the system. I didn’t bother. I just responded with what I felt in my heart and I sailed through, a perfect example of gender dysphoria. I had surgery two years ago and here I am now, just as you see me.’
‘Are you still in contact with Hettie?’
‘Oh, yes. We’re best friends. She’s getting married next spring and I’m going to be one of her bridesmaids. She met a bit of resistance from her fiancé’s family about it, but being the person she is, she stuck to her guns. I’m looking forward to it, even though I’ll be full of nerves.’
‘And have you had any relationships yourself since you transitioned? Have you got close to anyone else?’
‘Not really. The problem is that I still don’t like men very much, nor the thought of getting intimate with one. Maybe that would change if I met the right bloke, but he’d probably have to be one in a thousand. I still like women much more, but a lot of lesbians distrust male to female transsexuals. You know, they think we’re pretend women. Maybe that’s true in a way. Anyway, the right man hasn’t appeared yet, though I still think it’s more likely to be a woman. Or maybe a TS man. I met quite a few during the group counselling sessions.’
‘Bernie, who I worked with for a while in the Midlands, had similar thoughts about relationships. He’s the female to male TS I mentioned earlier. I think he’s found someone now, though I don’t know the details. We’re not in contact any more. Well I hope things work out for you, Rae, especially with the job. As I said earlier, you’re joining us at a hectic time and you’re going to be too tired for anything much.’ Sophie smiled wryly. ‘I’m already running on adrenalin, and it’s only two days since we discovered the body.’
* * *
On arriving in the incident room, Sophie introduced Rae to Marsh and Melsom, and then showed her to her desk. She called Barry Marsh into her office and explained Rae’s situation.
‘No one else is to know at the moment, Barry. Just you and me, as her superiors. Under no circumstances can you talk about this to anyone else. If anyone asks, do not confirm it. Instead, just sidestep the question and speculate. Her deep voice could be due to childhood tonsillitis. Anything else could be put down to possible hormonal problems. What I’m saying is that it’s better to have a response ready prepared than to be caught on the hop. If there are issues with other staff, I want to know. Don’t keep things from me. For this week, you and I can have a quick chat together each day, no more than a minute or two. From then on, once a week will do. You’re down as her official immediate superior, but this kind of thing is probably new to you. Is that right?’
Marsh nodded. ‘Doesn’t she want to be open about it?’
‘We decided that this is the best way, considering we’re up to our eyes in this case. I don’t want people losing focus and, believe me, this would be a huge distraction. Maybe in the fullness of time we’ll decide differently, but not now.’
‘I thought we could put her onto background checks at first. There’s a lot we don’t know about all these people. That means I can free up Jimmy for more direct inquiries,’ he said.
‘Sounds good to me. I’m off to see Benny Goodall now. He’ll have already started the post-mortem and I want to have a chat while it’s all fresh in his mind. I’ll see you all later. Thanks for that message this morning, by the way. I’ve set the wheels in motion to move them to a safe house.’
‘Does it need to be both of them, ma’am? Surely it’s only Mrs Corrigan who’s in danger? Ed Wilton only met them by chance.’
‘He was a witness, Barry. And meeting by chance might equally well apply to Rosemary.’ She turned to Marsh with a slight smile. ‘Anyway, I have a feeling that the two of them might now be an item. I’m a soft-centred sentimentalist at heart, you know. I don’t want to put a spanner in the works at this early stage.’
* * *
Sophie caught sight of the tall frame of Dorset’s senior pathologist ahead of her in the hospital corridor as she approached his office.
‘Morning, Benny!’ she called. ‘How are you on this bright, sunny morning?’
A particularly hard flurry of raindrops hit the window beside him, and he turned.
‘All the better for seeing you, O golden-haired one. How’s Martin?’
‘A bit down. Work problems, so I’m sure he’d appreciate an evening out with you in the pub, if you fancy it. I’ll leave it to you. How did the PM go?’
He ushered her into his office. ‘Interesting. As you surmised, some of the bruising was caused prior to death, and there’s a fairly serious contusion on the left side of her head that would have concussed her, and some severe bruising around her midriff. But she died from drowning.’
‘Really? So she was alive when she was dumped on the shoreline?’ Sophie sat down on a soft chair.
‘No. The water in her lungs was from a tap. The only sea water was in her mouth and nose.’
‘So she was concussed by a blow to the head, then drowned, then taken out and dumped in the rock pool? Is that what
you’re saying?’
‘I’m not saying anything, Sophie. I don’t do speculation, as you well know. It was also fairly obvious that she was sexually active prior to death. Very sexually active.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We found traces of semen in all three major orifices. It’s all safely bottled up and off for DNA analysis. But there were no signs of rape. No significant rupture of any tissue, and a lubricant had been used in her anus.’
‘So it seems as if it was consensual?’
‘No evidence to the contrary is as far as I’d go. But as I said, there were no signs of tissue damage to the throat, anus or vagina. Make of that what you will.’
‘Is there any evidence of the order of events? Did the sex happen before the blow to the head?’
‘Okay, I will hazard a guess on this one, and I’d say very probably the sex did occur earlier. It’s hard to imagine how such sex could happen with an unconscious body. And since the semen traces were still present, she obviously didn’t have time to bathe or shower afterwards. But what are your thoughts? You’re the detective.’
‘From what you’ve told me? She had sex with three men, maybe at the same time. Something quickly went wrong and she was hit around the head. She was drowned in the bath or basin while still unconscious. Then they dressed her, smuggled her out into a car, and dumped her body on the shoreline, hoping it would look like a simple case of falling and drowning while drunk. Did she have much alcohol in her blood, by the way?’
‘Some, but not a hugely excessive amount. She was over the drink-driving limit, but wouldn’t have been incapacitated. She didn’t have any underwear on, by the way, so that fits in with your theory.’
‘Yes, I remember. She had nothing on under her jacket. We also spotted that the zip on her jeans was only half pulled up, and one of her boots was also not fully zipped. It all helps to back up the story.’
‘A bit of an adventuress, was she?’
SECRET CRIMES a gripping crime thriller full of suspense Page 8