OUT WITH THE OLD
“What’s her indoors packed for you, Tom?”

I showed her the plastic box of sandwiches.

“Stock cube family, Jen”

“Ah. Turkeyish, then?”

“Oh yes. Joys of the season. Only two of us to eat the leftovers, so…”

“Foxtrot one five, foxtrot one five, Central”

“Hang on, Jen. Go ahead, Central”

“Cycle and pedestrian collision, Queen Street, Castle end. Head injury. Can you attend?”

“Show us dealing, Central. In five minutes”

“Confirming five minutes. Police in attendance. Watch your backs, Tom”

“Understood. On way”

I put the handset down and called for Jen to get settled, before hitting the light and sound buttons. We were only at Mill Lane, so I took the risk of rolling up Hayes, despite the crowd. Head injuries came behind chest pains in priority, but only just. The police were there in force, with at least four on foot as well as a sergeant in a car, the blue lights bouncing back in repeated reflections from the shop windows as music pumped out from the Live Lounge. A delivery e-bike lay on its side, a handcuffed figure entirely in black sitting on one of the benches with a copper either side, as a woman shouted at the sergeant and two other officers messed about with a first aid kit to what was clearly the casualty. I parked up with the rear towards them, and we stepped down to get the SP.

“Hi Tom, Jen”

“Hi back, Dai. And HNY in advance, et cetera. What we got”

“Usual—MADAM, I need to speak to the ambulance crew. They are here to help your friend”

Ye gods, she was strident, as well as persistent. Sergeant Gould called over another copper.

“Seren, can you take over here, while I brief the paramedics? Ta”

We walked a few yards further and he did just that.

“Usual illegal e-bike and food delivery wonk. No lights, too fast, pedestrian area. I suspect that the casualty is refreshed. Believe she may have lost consciousness for a short while. Rider’s coming with us; no injuries”

Jen nodded.

“Hospital run, then. I’ll just do the usuals”

She pulled out a small torch as Dai continued a run-down of the more minor details, until we were interrupted by a very loud screech.

“GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF HER YOU PERVERT! FUCKING TRANNY! OFFICER, IT’S A MAN! GET HIS FUCKING HANDS OFF MY MATE!”

Both of us spun round to see the strident woman slap Jen in the face.

“AGP RAPIST!”

‘Seren’ and a male officer grabbed an arm each and took her swiftly to the ground, as Sergeant Gould muttered a quick “Excuse me, Tom” and joined the group, just as the now-cuffed woman was lifted smartly back up and pushed down onto the same bench as the errant rider.

“Facts, PC Elias?”

“Paramedic was just starting assessment of the casualty. This woman started shouting at her, and I trust you heard that. Paramedic started to explain head injuries, and this person slapped her in the face”

“She been arrested?”

“Not formally”

“Go for it”

Seren said the words, assault on an emergency worker, then rattled through the caution and stuff about the arrest being necessary, etc, and once she had finished, Dai nodded.

“Get her back to Central in a van. Add Section 5 to the arrest and get it listed as a hate multiplier”

“THAT’S A TRANNY!”

Dai turned to the screecher.

“Body cam, recording in sound and colour. I suggest you think carefully about your future words. You are warned under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 against further outbursts. Do it again, and it will be section 4a. That is deliberately saying hateful things, with a bigger penalty. Think on that and make a sensible choice. Have we reached understanding on this?”

She glared at him, but her mouth stayed shut, thankfully.

“Right. Seren, these two need to get off to the hospital. Where you taking her, Jen?”

“St David’s has a better turnaround time at the moment. Royal’s got a hell of a queue”

Dai groaned.

“New Year’s Eve. My favourite shift of the year, not in any way. I’ll have someone over to take a statement once she’s assessed. When are you on till?”

“Seven in the morning”

“Right. If you get a break, can you let Central Dispatch know where you are? I can task someone to pick up your own statement, assuming you are willing”

Jen nodded sharply.

“Getting a fat lip, I am, the cow. Love to see her take that gob into somewhere like the Smugglers, transphobic bitch that she is”

Dai laughed, almost happily.

“Aye, and I’d buy the popcorn. First one tonight?”

“First one like that”

“There’ll be more”

I couldn’t keep the laugh down, and as three of us corpsed, Dai muttered something about what a little ray of sunshine he always was. After he had climbed into the back of our ambulance to get a photo of Jen’s mouth, we loaded our thankfully-walking casualty and headed off for St David’s, where triage was far quicker than I had expected. We were back on the road in forty-five minutes, our casualty on a trolley in A and E until a bed could be found. She had a suspected simple fracture of the skull, which was why we had given the incident such priority.

We parked up on Mill Lane again, Jen in a pensive mood I slowly began to realise was actually anger.

“You okay, butt?”

“Not really, Tom. That one was a cow as well”

“The casualty?”

“Yeah. She had a go at me as I signed her in. Even had a pre-printed bloody form for the hospital, all about her dignity and requirement for bloody sex-based rights to have her intimate care provided only by biological women and all that absolute shite”

“Bet that went down a storm”

“Absolutely. The duty doc told her she’d get whichever staff were available, and if she didn’t like it, the door was over there and if she were staying, she would start by shutting her mouth as there were seriously ill people there”

“If she’s cracked her skull, that’s pretty serious, woman”

Jen glared at me.

“For once, I don’t give a shit”

“Yes you do”

She kept the glare on for as long as she could, but it had to fade, and she shrugged.

“Suppose I do. Life’s a life, after all, and, well. Job’s what it is”

“Yup. Now, back to that question. Turkey sandwiches for me, as well as a slice of the Christmas cake her Mam sends us every bloody year”

“She hasn’t done it again, has she?”

“Yup. Extra slice for you is in my other box. With sausage rolls and mince pies”

“Your house must be full of junk food”

“Same every year, because if it wasn’t, Connie’s parents would complain. They are traditional as all hell, them and her little brother”

“So, Christmas, then? You take yourselves off the mains gas?”

“Eh?”

“Sprouts, Tom. Sprouts”

A much louder bark of laughter.

“If you had an allotment, you could grow your own. With those solar panels you’ve got, you’d really be saving on fuel bills. Like having your own oil well”

“You are one sick puppy, woman. Anyway, fart jokes are for men. Now, what have you brought with you?”

“Ah, mixed leaves salad, chicken tandoori strips, mint raitha and a box of samosas. Lamb ones and veg. Yes, I’ve brought spares! Amina insisted, cause she knows you, and while she doesn’t know your family, I’ve told her about their firm grasp of tradition. Anyway, she tells her own fart jokes. Right: you okay for a few? Going to pop into Heidi’s and grab a refill of the flasks. Got an old flame on tonight, so she’ll shout us the necessary”

“Not round Caroline Street?”

“Chippy Lane on New Year’s Eve? You have got to be bloody joking! Back in five”

She set off for the bar, and I watched her walk through the crowds. Not the largest of arses, stubble, size nine feet, and the uniform did her no favours. Who the hell did those two women think they were? Did they think they could prebook an ambulance? ‘Yes, that will be two biological females for us. Please have proof of their chromosomes ready for inspection’. I had an awful moment of flashback, remembering the man beaten to death in the park for looking a bit too gay, and I started to feel really uncharitable about ‘our’ two women. Sod what I said to Jen, they were two I could happily drive past.

I jerked back to reality as someone knocked on the passenger window: a copper for Jen’s statement.

“Hop in the back, mate. She’s just getting our flasks topped up. Back in two or three”

I opened the door for him, just as Jen returned, and after she had dictated her statement, including that horrible bit of outing on the back: ‘Have you ever been known by any other name?’, the policeman, Leigh, gave us an account of the fun and games at Custody.

“You’ll love this, Jen: she’s demanding you get arrested for sexual fetishing and perving her mate, or something like that”

My laughter almost sounded convincing to me, but not quite.

“She pissed, butt?”

“Somewhat, but I think she’s just like that. Oh, and we’re adding criminal damage to her list as well. Handbag full of those stickers all the pink pubs have been complaining about”

Jen’s head jerked up.

“Stickers?”

“Aye. ‘Lesbians don’t have penises’; ‘This toilet is a single sex space under the terms of the Equalities Act 2010 section such and such’. That sort of thing. Been cropping up in the loos all over. Oh, and we warned St Dai’s about your casualty, for Little Miss Gobshite also had a pack of those fake NHS ones, the ones that look like real Health Service notices. We’ve had complaints from the Royal about those”

He paused a few seconds.

“And they are such legal experts they don’t even know the name of the bloody act they think they’re quoting”

Jen looked furious, but shook her head and dragged out her professionalism.

“That delivery rider?”

“Ah, shedload of stuff there. Illegally modified e-bike, so it’s actually a motorbike. No lights, tax, insurance, registration, licence, helmet, you name it. And a positive drugs wipe for coke and dope. Blew bugger-all on the intoximeter, though, so that’s something. Bloods have been taken”

He looked around our workspace.

“I smell nice things! Only got turkey sandwiches for later, but the missus has packed me a flask of her cawl, so I’ll be fine. Shitty shift, this one, as always. I’m off back with this for the CPS; you two be careful out there. Getting a bit feral”

He was off, and we took the chance to get outside some of our supplies. To be honest, while it was indeed turkey yet again, Connie had added some slices of brie along with cranberry sauce. Her Mam would have killed her, but it worked well from my viewpoint. Sod tradition, said my tastebuds. Amina’s chicken, and the samosas, were even better.

The evening passed in episodes, thankfully minor, such as the gravel rash on the knees of a young woman wearing what looked like three handkerchiefs and a bra, who had fallen off her extremely high heels, shoes I doubted she could walk in safely even if she were sober, and a number of similar drink-related cuts and grazes. Midnight caught me by surprise, as I was dealing with said underclad woman, and as the traditional shouts went up, she grabbed me and attempted to stick her tongue halfway down my throat. I left it a second before breaking away, and she grinned blearily at me.

“Happy New Year, my lovely!”

“Um, same to you. I would grab a taxi home if I were you, and keep those cuts clean. Chemist will sort you some antiseptic cream, and some more of those padded dressings”

“Here!”

She thrust a scrap of paper into my breast pocket before hobbling off barefoot with her friends, and of course the paper carried a phone number. Jen was struggling not to corpse.

“She trying to get a DNA sample, Tom? Checking YOUR chromosomes?”

“She’s a bloody smoker, Jen. You don’t need to ask how I know. I need a cuppa; get the taste out of my mouth”

I waited until she was sipping her own before I told her the rest.

“Wasn’t just smoke, butt. She’d had a kebab as well”

“Ych!”

“And eaten it twice, I think. Once each way”

“Oh god… Eat a mince pie. Straight away”

One thing you come to know very quickly in the ambulance service, the smell of other people’s puke. That was the first time I had ever been given a taste of it, though. That copper, Leigh, had been spot on. What a shitty shift.

We got the next call half an hour later, and it was an odd one.

“Say again the location of the casualty, Central”

“Casualty is in the Elaine Powell bar, the Smugglers public house. Police on way. Believed to have been an assault. One male victim”

“Show us as dealing, then. Should be there in ten to fifteen, depending on traffic”

“Caller says they are holding space for you outside front of pub”

“Thanks. Moving now”

I pulled away, lights only as the traffic wasn’t that bad, and called the details back to my mate.

“The Smugglers, Tom? That’s normally a bloody safe space. I mean, it’s where I met Her Indoors, after all. I know things can get shitty, this night above all, but, pardon my French, what the actual fuck?”

“Don’t know, Jen. I mean, they had that gang a while back, but that got sorted tidy, and I think they’re all still banged away”

“Aye. Got a bad feeling about this one, Tom. Back watching head on, aye?”

“Agreed. And make sure we lock this properly before we go in”

In the end, I did have to use the siren a couple of times, along with the horn, as there were too many Ubers and black cab taxis arguing over our road space, but we made it to the pub in twenty minutes, to find six leather-bear men sitting on chairs in the road, which left me wondering what else my short-term girlfriend had been ingesting. When they saw us, they each rose with a grin, dragging the chairs out from what was obviously our ‘held space’. I parked us up, Jen took her Big Green Bag, and we entered that well-known ‘possibly the best’ bar. Well, ‘probably’ or ‘possibly’, I couldn’t remember, because I had that back-watching head on.

Seren again, with just one of her oppos speaking to a customer, and what they would have called a twink sitting on a bench, white T-shirt ripped and splashed with blood from his nose and mouth. One eye was nearly shut, and as Jen unpacked her kit I realised this was another that might need a proper head injury assessment. As she knelt down, I spotted further injuries, to his right hand.

“Jen, careful. That looks like a couple of dislocations. Right hand”

“Got it, mate. You want to get the story from Seren or her colleague?”

“Will do. We got space, Seren?”

The drag queen who ran the place stepped round from the bar.

“Foot of my private stairs do you? Coppers just got here, so do this in one hit”

Seren nodded.

“Thanks, Marlene”

Through a door near the bar, and into a lobby. Marlene stared at me for a moment, then indicated the staircase.

“My flat’s up there. We can talk here, or up there, as you prefer”

Seren looked upwards.

“Easier to write sitting down, Marlene. Also less easy to eavesdrop if you want to put anyone in the frame for this”

“Oh, bollocks to that. Nobody from here’s involved except for the lads who found him. Come on up, anyway. Cuppa?”

She had a couple of armchairs as well as a settee, and slumped into one of the chairs with a groan.

“I do love my heels, but they get fucking painful at the end of a long night, and this one is always the longest of all. Ready?”

Seren had her notebook ready, but I held up a hand.

“Just need to know if the casualty has said if they were knocked out at any stage”

“Yes, he was. Or so he told my little boys”

“Thanks. Give me a second”

I rang Jen.

“Hi, girl. Just a quick one: they say he was knocked out for a while”

“Just got that, and there’s more damage. Tell you in the wagon, okay?”

“Got you. In a few, then”

I turned back to the other two, as Seren set her book down and invited Marlene to give us ‘the quick version’.

“Ah, everyone wants to be quick, and Marlene always prefers it nice and slow… Sorry. My way of coping with shit. Two of my boys found him, in an alley. They can give you further details”

Seren looked expectant.

“Your boys?”

“Customers. Regulars. Happy couple. Only one of them has already had his own kicking. Dai Gould’s nephew’s other half. No, no problems for him tonight”

The policewoman smiled.

“Dai’s on tonight. Want me to let him know?”

“Yes please. Scott gets a little wobbly around things like this. Anyway, Scott and Omar were in for the evening, stayed for the bongs and snog, then set off for their hall of residence. Popped into an alley for a--- popped into an alley, anyway. Found the kid behind some wheely bins. With their history, well, this is a safe space, so they brought him here. Kid told me he’d been to the Ram. You’ll want to lift their CCTV discs”

Seren stared at her for a second.

“You know they have cameras?”

“Darling, after the Duncan nail bombing, and then that arsehole Evans family and their mates, we ALL got cameras! Anyway, I suspect I know why your patient got his kicking”

So did I, and I did my best not to shudder.

“I think I saw what you did, Marlene. Ripped T-shirt, yes?”

“What’s your name, love? Not seen you in my bijou little place before. Your mate, yes”

“I’m Tom, and if I were to come in here, it would confuse the hell out of my wife”

“Hmm. I see. You clocked his scars, then?”

“Yes. Top surgery?”

Seren looked a little lost, so Marlene explained it, almost in words of one syllable. Despite that, I didn’t get the impression she was talking down to Seren; more like throttling back on her own anger.

“Yes, love. What they call chest reconstruction. I do believe your client is a trans man, and being trans brings a whole world of extra shit, and do not look at me that way, because, as I like to say, while Marlene makes a fucking fabulous woman, a woman Marlene most definitely is not. The Ram is a misogynist shithole, full of clones. If some of their clients read your boy, that will have been enough to set them off”

“Why?”

“Why would any man go to a gay bar for gay men who like other gay men and definitely not women?”

“But if he’s trans…”

“If he’s a trans man, then according to them, he’s a woman. A fish. A breeder”

I could see it all now, and it tasted worse than that recycled kebab.

“Seren?”

“Yes, Tom?”

“Not trying to teach you to suck eggs, but I’d like to get our boy into the wagon for a proper assessment, and I suspect Jen really needs to. That hand is a mess, and we need to check facial bones. I’m sure Marlene can sort you out with the details of the lads who found him, but I think you need to let Dai know. I remember what happened to his lad’s partner”

She smiled, nodding.

“Good call, Tom. Shall we get started?”

In the end, I brought the trolley to the bar, with the help of some of the bears, and once the lad was secured, we reversed the process to load him as Seren took the necessary details from the witnesses. Jen and I settled ourselves in the workspace, and I started the questions. Working through the checklist as Jen assessed the damage.

“Grant, love, I am going to need to hurt you. Going to leave it till after the copper’s done her bit, and I’ll give you an analgesic, but I need to set those fingers”

“How badly will it hurt?”

“Sorry, but quite a bit. Here she is now; get that out of the way, and I’ll sort the painkiller”

Seren settled onto a jump seat, and started her own routine. Grant Morris, twenty-one, from somewhere in the Valleys, forklift driver in one of the big factories up towards Ystrad Mynach. Previous name, damn that bloody question, Helen.

“You two won’t understand. Always known I wasn’t a girl. Took me ages to get someone to listen. Had to leave home because Mam and Dad were so shitty about it, and you know what was worse? It would have been okay, they said. What’s the point, they said. If you think you’re gay, that’s even better, because it means you fancy boys, which means you’re really a girl, so isn’t that a lot easier?”

Seren shook her head.

“Sorry, but you’re right. All of it is foreign to us. None of us has been there. We’ll do our best, though, so just talk us through what happened. Nobody here is judging you in any way”

His head turned to stare at Jen.

“But I thought… I can see the stubble!”

Jen shook her head.

“Little secret, Grant, but I’ve got PCOS. Polycystic ovaries. Causes me a lot of issues, but one of the minor ones is facial hair. Get mistaken for a trans woman a lot, so I have a sort of patch of skin in the game”

He looked even closer to tears.

“I am so, so sorry! Being so rude to you and that”

“Not so, love. Nothing at all wrong with trans people; plenty with bigots, though. Want to tell Seren what happened, and then I can get your hand sorted”

He sniffed back a tear.

“What’s to tell, really? Just my own stupidity. Had my top surgery nearly a year ago. Sorted my paperwork. Got my hysterectomy due next… this year. It’s this year now. People at work, making all sorts of jokes about New Year and resolutions, and I made my own. Out, aye? Out at work as a gay man, and someone mentioned the Ram, place for men, and, well, I decided. New Year, new life. Booked a hotel room, the Ibis on Tyndall Street, and that was going to be my night out, my Big Night really, really out. So I go to the Ram, and there’s no bears there, it’s all clones, and lots of Twinks, and it’s my place, and it’s like I’ve gone to heaven without needing to die!

“So I’m at the bar, then on the dance floor, and there’s so many gorgeous men, and they’re looking at me just like I’m looking at them, and I have a few more drinks, and then it’s getting towards midnight, and there’s this really lovely man, all ripped and fit, and we’ve had a few dances, and then it’s Big Ben. We’re snogging just like everyone else, and that’s the thing, just like all the other gay men there, and I’ve made it, and, well…

“We don’t stop the snogging when the bings and bongs finish, and I am so worked up… So I say ‘I’m in a hotel’, and he says ‘Good’ and ‘You are making me so, so horny’ and…”

I glanced at Seren as she wrote, and there was dampness in her eyes.

“What happened then, Grant?”

“He took my hand, and we set off for the Ibis, not that far a walk, and he kept telling me how I was giving him the horn, and we were passing this alley, and he said ‘want to feel how horny I am’, so I’m working out how to be with him, what to do for him, because I haven’t got, well… We go into the alley, and there’s more snogging, and I put my hand down, and he is so hard, but then he tries to grab mine”

He paused, as a fit of shaking took him.

“And I can’t afford a decent packer, and god knows when I can get bottom surgery done, if at all, so all I have there is a pair of socks, and he swears, and I think that’s when he wrecked my fingers, pulling my hand away, and then he’s punching me… Yeah, I was out cold. Sorry. Won’t be able to sign anything”

Seren wiped her eyes as unobtrusively as she could, then smiled at him.

“Don’t worry. Tom and Jen here witnessed it, and my body camera here was running, so it’s all recorded. I’ll stop by the hospital once you’ve been booked in, but for now we need to get the ball rolling in finding Mister I So Horny. Ready to sort those fingers out, Grant?”

He nodded, and as Seren and I secured his arm, Jen efficiently set his fingers after giving him a large dose of painkillers. Seren hugged each of us before we set off for the hospital yet again.

Bastard. Absolute fucking bastard.

As I drove, I found my left hand idly tracing the lines of my own scars, and thanked god that I was straight, and that Connie would be there for me when I got home.