The dust had just about settled by the time I came to my senses. I realised that I was lying on top of Jemma. I felt her groan and move so I knew she was alive.

As my head cleared, I realised that Bathroom door had been blown off its hinges and was lying on top of us. The fact that it was solid had probably saved our lives.

For some strange reason, I remembered cursing the building inspector for insisting on it being a ‘fire door’ because the Central Heating Boiler was in the Bathroom. I moved a bit and didn’t get very far at all. The extra weight of the door would make getting out from under it a lot harder. You win some and lose some.

I chuckled to myself. It is strange what passes through your mind at times like this…

Less than an hour after leaving the base camp, we said goodbye to the RSM outside Abergavenny Railway Station. He gave both of us a big hug and said,
“Watch your backs ladies. You never know who is really a bad guy in disguise.”

Jemma had a hard time keeping a straight face but we both gave Jock a kiss on his cheeks and then made a hasty exit.

I looked back at him in the rear-view mirror and saw Jock give us a wave. It made me go all gooey inside for a few seconds.

The revelation from my Doctor that I no longer had any ‘dangly bits’ as he called them was not altogether a shock but the realisation that I would have to ‘pee’ sitting down for the rest of my life was the real downer.

“There is an alternative to life as a eunuch you know?” he offered.

“Gee, thanks doc,” I replied slightly sarcastically.

“We could make… a vagina.”

“What to do you mean make a vagina?”

“We didn’t cut the remains of your penis off. All we did was repair the damage and re-route your waterworks. Your Penis was pretty badly damaged from a function point of view but the fleshy bits are not that bad. There is plenty of bits that still have a decent blood flow that can be used to make a very passable vagina. From my POV as a surgeon, it would be that different from a run of the mill sex change operation.”

I sank back onto the bed and started to weep.
“I’d end up looking like some poor tranny then, but for real?”

[At a second floor flat in Chelsea around 21:00 on a Monday evening.]

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry, there is no Roy Meier on this number. I’ve only just moved here so he might be a previous occupant.”

“Yes, I am sure that he does not live here.”

“No, I won’t give you my name. I don’t know who the hell you are. You could be a serial rapist for all I know.”

“Goodbye.”

I put the phone down. I was shaking like a leaf. I had been named this Roy Meier but in a previous life. If the caller really had put 2 and 2 together then I was well and truly up shit creek big time.

An opportunity presents itself or striking while the iron is hot but sometimes it isn’t hot enough

The first time I saw her it was slightly embarrassing for me. There I was underneath ‘Bessie’ trying to fix a troublesome exhaust. ‘Bessie’ is my 1959 Morris Minor soft top. The place was at the Goodwood Revival meeting that is held at the Goodwood Motor Racing circuit every September.

Tony Rendell was a dreamer. He’d been one for as long as he could remember. All the dreams he’d ever had since he was old enough to remember them, involved him becoming a famous woman. From an early age, he knew that he had been born wrong. His parents reinforced that view by embarrassing him by telling the family at almost every opportunity that his breech birth meant that he had to be wrapped in cotton wool all through his life. He didn’t but once his family had decided that this was how it was going to be, there was no way in hell that it would change.

As a result, the kids at the various schools he attended, and there were many, made his life hell. He was different to everyone else in that he loved classical music especially Opera and often dreamed of playing Brunilda in the Ring Cycle. His problem was that he was tone deaf, could not sing to save his life and could not play an instrument.

Hanging on the Telephone Line (with thanks to ELO and Jeff Lynn for the inspiration)

“Hello. How are you?
Have you been alright, through all those lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely nights
That's what I'd say. I'd tell you everything
If you'd pick up that telephone yeah yeah yeah”
I looked at the phone for the umpteenth time.

Why didn’t it ring?

What was wrong?

Has something happened to him?

[This story is based upon a conversation I overheard the on the train to work in 2011].

“Hi Wendy. I’ve not seen you on this train for a while?”

“Oh, hi Kylie. Yeah, I’ve been at the branch in Slough for the past few months. I could drive there in twenty minutes from home. Now I’m working in Reading for the next six months. The assistant manager is off on maternity leave. So here I am on the commuter express that stops at every station!”

“How are your kids?”

“Davy is a real handful. All he wants to do is play football.”

Sometimes you encounter a person who just stands out from the crowd. When they do, you remember it for a very long time. The day I saw her was one of those.

The day began as normal as I like hundreds of thousands of others with a commute into London by train. On this day of all days, I alighted from my train which had arrived at Platform 2 at Waterloo Station. I can even remember the time. It was 08:29 on a Monday morning. So, what was so remarkable about her then?

I didn’t see her face but her hair shone just like those adverts you see on TV for shampoo. You know the ones that when you try that very product out, you find that your hair does not look anything like the Advert yet you still but the same product until you see another advert for a different product and so the cycle goes. But I digress…

I was stunned by what Barbara had just said about becoming a sperm donor.

“Say something even if it is ‘No’?”

“I never even considered having another child.”

“Well, and thanks to the bracelets, we are going to have a new start in life, aren’t we?”

“This is a big… A big surprise.”

She laughed.

“And?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

Being a parent is stressful even at the best of times. You are always worrying about your children no matter how old they are.
But, being a single parent is just doubly or even triply so. Since ‘she’ left me to go off with ‘him’ because of … well, just about everything, it had just been my son Jonathan or, as he preferred to be called ‘Jon’ and me.

Jon was growing up fast but the worry of being a patent didn’t reduce as he grew older. Teenagers have their own special set of issues.

This particular Friday night, he was out god knows where with some friends. At least that’s what he told me via a text message earlier. The weather was filthy so I’d stayed up waiting for the inevitable phone call, ‘Dad, can you come and pick me up?’

Sarge-03

Pritti came in from outside just in time for lunch. The change in her that one week in the country had done was remarkable.

“Hi there. I saw you arrive. I was out collecting the eggs.”

I smiled.

“We’ll make a country girl of you yet,” I said jokingly.

“Sorry, but the smell of animal poo still makes my stomach turn,” replied Pritti.

[Ten Months later]

“Hi Jayne. I’ve been expecting you call. Good verdict?”

“The judge was certainly harsh but that’s good, isn’t it?”

“A Twenty stretch is fair in my eyes but he’ll appeal, won’t he?”

“Oh! That’s not good. When will they be pulled out?”

“That soon?”

Then I thought for a second.

“Can you swing it so that they are on the job until the weekend?”

“Ha-ha. I might have an idea. That girl needs a few friends in her life.”

“Sarge? What are you doing?”

I sighed. Someone up there really has it in for me. Why do I always get the rawest of raw recruits to mentor? Didn’t they learn anything at Hendon?

“Constable, there are times when the rulebook is just not right. That’s when common sense is needed so that the problem can be solved with compassion.”

“Sarge? At the Police College, we were told that common sense has no part in law enforcement in the 21st Century.”

I smiled.

“Well Constable, what does your 'Police Academy' learning tell you about this situation?”

Mary and I spent three days talking about everything to do with us. One sticking point was her son and another possibly bigger one was her parents. How they’d accept me was a big unknown. She had her doubts that they would accept me and it was fairly obvious that she was being torn apart internally over the subject. She talked very little about it but I could tell that it might tear us apart. How that would affect me was concerning but I knew that… well, what would happen, would.

We also discussed our futures. I had the job offer from Sir Richard but there was still the issue of Mary/Caitlin’s future and where were would be based.

Before I could render a full explanation to the single officer in the first car, another Police car drew up at the house. Inwardly, I groaned when I saw the officer getting out of the driver’s side. It was none other than 'Ian 'I'm not one' Pratt. He was the class bully when I was at Hendon. His Sergeant's stripes shone brightly in the light from the porch.

He entered the hall and looked hard at me. Then he looked again before turning away to speak to his colleague.

“What is the problem Sadik?” he asked.

“We have this person here claiming to be an undercover police officer. She had only just started to explain why she's on our patch unannounced.”

When I came around, I felt strange. At first I couldn’t understand what was happening or for that matter what had happened to me.

I soon realised that my hands were bound behind my back and my legs were tied together. I was lying on something hard and dirty.

Slowly I opened my eyes.

“Ah, you are awake,” spoke a voice from out of the shadows.

I moved my head towards the sound of the voice. A man was sitting on a chair looking at me. From my position on the floor, I didn’t get a good view of him but I knew straight away that it wasn’t the man in the picture that Maxine had showed me… Then I realised that I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious.

Dinner more than lived up to its promise. I ate some Cornish Lobster that was out of this world. Mary, on the other-hand played safe and ordered a ‘Rack of Lamb’. This was all washed down with some of the best wine I’d ever had. Mary just licked her lips as she savoured each glass.

As the meal wore on, my mind turned to the task ahead.

“The last week or so has really been a rollercoaster. Did you ever think we’d end up here?” I asked Mary after our dessert plates had been taken away.

Mary as ever brought the scene down to earth with a bang.

“Well, if we don’t catch this monster then we will have an awful lot of egg on our face.”

When we arrived at the office the next morning, we didn’t get much time to talk things over. Crime Stoppers had received a tip off that the killer was living in a terraced house in Crouch End. Naturally, we went mob handed which included full riot gear and body armour. In the end, it turned out to be nothing more than a man who had systematically killed almost all the local tomcats because they kept him awake at nights. Many of us felt like real idiots but the press seemed to be satisfied that we were taking the murders seriously.

We did finish the day with one less serial killer on the streets of London. Unfortunately for us, it was the wrong one but at least the press had something to crow about.

Standing in one of the darker recesses of the Pub, I could see that Caitlin was getting a little worried by the time the Karaoke session started at 8:30pm and there was no sign of me. I was trying to get up enough courage to approach her.

Her evident anxiety persuaded me that I needed to act. I took a deep breath and walked over to her table and sat down.

Caitlin saw someone approach,
“I'm waiting for....”

Then she realised exactly who it was who was sitting in front of her.

“Jamie? Is that really you?”