CHAPTER 27
Sar was on the phone that evening, almost the moment I got in, bubbling away.
“Lainey, you will NOT believe this!”
“Sister, sweet girl, can I at least get a cuppa before you get into full flow!”
“Get Siân to get you one. There’s a lot to tell”
“I’ll put the phone on speaker then. Do you mind, cariad?”
My wife smiled and started the kettle going. “Right, Sar. Off you go”
Something was really getting to her. I’d never heard her quite as wound up as her voice was telling me she was.
“Lainey, you know I’ve got all booked up now? Wedding in June, surgery after Christmas, aye?”
“Yes. We are assuming we get the invitation to one but not the other”
She paused at that, and then her voice was quieter. “Always, Lainey, always. It’s just… look, one thing I always felt bad about, always hurt, was being a freak”
“You are not a freak, Sar”
“Hear me out, Lainey. It’s all about being unusual, abnormal, aye, and it’s, well, it’s Alan, my boss, and he half hears a conversation about the op, and he’s known since before I moved over there, aye? Well, there’s no easy way, but, well, she’s called Alice”
“Bloody hell, Sar! You infectious?”
Siân had caught the last exchange as she brought the cups in. “Who is it, Sarah?”
Her voice was clear but tinny over the speakers. “It’s Alan, the boss. Alice. But there’s more!”
I laughed in some relied. I had been half-expecting bad news, for it was hard to tell when Sarah got wound up by something whether it was good or bad, at least at first. She wore her heart on her sleeve. Siân, as usual, asked the sensible questions.
“How is she, Sar? What can we do to help?”
Shit. Sarah was crying at the other end. “She’s fine, thank you. Tony’s mam has been great, and so’s Jim, and, well, my man’s just how he always is. Just like you, Siân. Just, well, I was thinking I was one of a kind, aye? And then there’s Alice, and Janet…. And Stephanie”
I put a hand on my wife’s arm so I could grab some of the talking for myself. “Whoa, girl! Janet? Stephanie?”
“Jim’s been being picked up from school by Alice”
“By Alice?”
“Yes, she is going out now and again. She wants to go full-time. Anyway, Jim’s headmistress asks me if it’s a recreational thing, and so I explain, and she slips out that she’s, well, that’s Janet. And I sort of slipped as well, didn’t I? So I’ve gone from one of me to four of us”
Siân lifted my hand to kiss the palm before taking back the conversation.
“Four of you? That’ll be this Stephanie, aye?”
The tears changed to giggles. “Oh dear yes! Tony had this game up by Brum, aye? Sort of interregional championship? There’s this player, absolute mad thing, I’d seen Tone up against him before, no sense in his play, aye? He’s on Tone’s side this game, and he’s playing just the same way, and clattering people left, right, centre. Hits their full back, all legal like, hits him so hard he doesn’t get up for half an hour, and they give him man of the match…”
She was now laughing so loudly I thought the phone might break, or she might choke, or something else terminal for sister or electrics, but my wife was making the usual soothing sounds. Sarah eventually brought herself back to sanity.
“Yes, so they give him man of the match, and when he comes in he’s in three inch heels and a lavender ball gown, and he’s, she’s got TITS and she walks past the full back and he says ‘fuck me’ and she tells him she did and she’s called Steph Jones and she’s from just down the road from home and…”
Tears again. We waited until her small voice was back. “And it was never true, Lainey. I was never alone, never a freak. It’s more than just me”
She was silent for almost a minute, just the sound of her breathing to tell us she was there.
“Lainey? You still there?”
“Always there for you, chwaer fychan”
“Tone and I, we’re off to Australia, aye? With Jim? I’ve got rid of the flat and we’re going to have a proper holiday, just the three of us, before I go in for the surgery. I am absolutely sure about this, aye? That man is all I ever wanted, all I could ever dream of. I’ve got to be right for him”
Siân felt me move and clapped a hand over my mouth before I could get the words out about patriarchal bollocks and priorities, then turned back to the phone.
“Sar?”
“Yes?”
“Be right for yourself first, cariad”
This time I could feel the smile. “Being with Tony, being with Jim, being right for both of them, that IS being right for myself. I know that now. If you two and Arris hadn’t played that little game, I would never have realised it. I love you both. You know that. Now…”
She drew a long breath. “I want a family Christmas. In Dover. You two, Mam, Dad. And Alice will be there. Do you think Mam and Dad can deal with that?”
This time, my wife let me speak. “Absolutely, cariad, absolutely. We’ll be there. Oh, and this Stephanie? Where’s she from?”
“Oh, Treffgarne. Was called Steve Jones”
“I will ask quietly, aye? And we want postcards”
“Love you, Lainey, Siân!”
We said the words back in unison. It was most definitely a busy year.
SOCO’s report was in my inbox when I got to work the next morning, and for once it looked as if the tree was being properly shaken. I didn’t know whether it was because the latest victim was a neighbour once-removed of a policeman, and I didn’t care. I wanted this one given full attention.
The vehicle was a large vehicle of some kind, but not a 4x4. Tyre tracks had been left from both offside wheels, which gave a wheelbase in fitting with a Ford Transit, and the front and rear tyres were different patterns. That suggested an older vehicle rather than either a new one with original tyres or a hired one, in which the tyres came from a central supplier. A private vehicle then, or an older works one.
The way the wheels moved under steering had shown which way the van was parked, which had suggested another little trick to SOCO, as the driver’s door would have opened into the hedge. It was most definitely his day, for he had produced three bundles of fibres and two strips of paint scratched off the door. I couldn’t believe the next find, but it showed that our little ferret had really been earning his crust. There was a small cottage a little way further up the lane, with its bins out by the road. In the bin, tucked under an old copy of the Daily Express, was a condom. Used. DNA typing was underway on the fibres and both the inside and outside of the rubber johnny. Obviously, if the outside came up as Omar, then the inside gave us at least one rapist. Bless you, retired Met man!
Alun caught my eye when I walked into our incident room.
“Ma’am?”
He was holding an A5 piece of card. “I couldn’t sort out the LIO’s filing system, in the end. So I just asked him straight, innit?”
“Give his keys back?”
“Er, no comment on that one, ma’am. Look. This is a copy of one of his little drawings. He’s got photos somewhere, looking for this one now”
“He not file them together?”
He laughed. “Data Protection Act, aye? He thinks if it’s hand-written it doesn’t come under the Act, so he files the photos, which come from a machine, in the most awkward way possible so he can claim to have forgotten them. On bloody Planet Intel, innit? Anyway, he’s chaining up his dragon or whatever looks after the photos, and he’ll have it for us in a bit. Now, look at this one. By the way, he files them alphabetically under body part types”
“What, ‘A for Arm, B for Buttock’?”
“Just about, ma’am, but each---member has the names in alpha order of those who’ve got some work there”
Diane had caught the last. “Does he…?”
Alun grinned. “Aye. Under ‘P’ for, well, just under ‘P’. Anyway, look at this drawing”
It wasn’t lifelike, just a set of four outlines of hands marked front and back, left and right. Crudely drawn depictions of the tattoos were labelled neatly with full descriptions. This card noted four tattoos on the back of the right hand, which were neatly labelled “Bluebird, dragon, ostrich feathers, dragon”
Diane had the print from the CCTV image. “Yes, ma’am. See the feathers? I lay odds on that when the photo’s found we’ve got the watcher. Got a name on that card?”
I flipped it over, and the anger rose up as Diane’s breath caught.
Jamie Richard Evans.
Comments
One of a kind....
Just, well, I was thinking I was one of a kind, aye? And then there’s Alice, and Janet…. And Stephanie”
Learning that you're not the only one is so vital to what we experience, but in the midst of that, she still is one of a kind; unique, precious, and with much value. Thanks for your talent and insight.
Love, Andrea Lena
In the old days, I think we
In the old days, I think we felt a lot more isolated than younger folks do, today. At least I hope things have improved for them. Before the internet, I imagined there were only a handful of people with transsexuality in the world. I'd heard of Christine Jorgenson, and I remember the publicity around Renee Richard's tennis career, most of that being "Hey, look at that freak!" in tone, even if they bothered to try to paint with more substance. But beyond that? Oh, there might have been a few dozen more, worldwide, I thought. The internet has opened many people's horizons on many subjects, and it certainly did for me. But still, meeting others in person and knowing you're not alone carries so much more weight than ethereal online presences. The doctor that oversaw my HRT was trans, and my first appointment with her did more to put me at ease about this than all the so-called therapy mandated by the Benjamin Standards ever did.
"I was never alone, never a freak. "
Nothing like finding others like yourself
One of a kind, -
Yes, back in the day, it really was like that especially in the early years. And yes again, kids today do have it easier what with the internet and transgender sites catering for the sisterhoods. But those venues still have to be provided and maintained; resources still need to be made available where they can start emerging with some degree of confidence. For often they have no transport and sometimes they need changing facilities for their first efforts.
The risks are still there so there's always safety in numbers. Have not some of us older girls occasionally had a young-un approach timidly and as often as not in drab. I've had it happen twice now and both times while sitting alone in a street café just watching the world go by.
Still enjoying the saga Steph and thanks for the insights to the police.
Bev.
Transport issues
I would have thought you'd be concerned by this chapter, Bev.
That Transit sounds familiar, no?
:)
Penny
I am a freak.
I'm referring to the way my brain is wired as an emcee. I don't consider it as a derisive term because of this.
Freak doesn't necessarily have to be a derogatory term depending on how you own it.
Fifty-Five Years Ago
At age seventeen I really did think I was a freak and there were absolutely no support networks..never even heard the term. You were on your own. To find others like you is serendipity, just like this site.
Situation painted so well Steph,
Joanne
Thank you
They do say 'write what you know'. I will be visiting some people in Charing Cross tomorrow.
It's partly why I set the monster that was 'Sweat and Tears' at the time I did, to avoid running into both the internet and the wave of care-home abuse cases that went on back then. The Net makes such a difference, with sites like this suddenly available after a ****** lifetime of feeling alone.