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?”

I smiled back at her.

“Yes Sarge. It’s me. Can I call you Caitlin? Sarge seems so formal and we are not on duty now are we?”

I sat down in front of her. She looked me over several times. Each time her expression was one of increasing incredulity.

Caitlin couldn't get an answer out.
Eventually, she said,

“You have done this before haven't you?”

“Call me Isabel. Yes I have. This is the reason why Division got rid of me.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“I'm transitioning.”

“What? Transitioning? I don't understand.”

“I'm a transsexual. I'm becoming a woman. Now do you understand?”

Before Caitlin could answer, I stood up from the table and said,
“That is my number that is coming on, don’t go anywhere.”

I leapt up on stage as fast as the impossibly high heels I was wearing would allow and gave a what I hoped was a fantastic rendition of 'I will survive'. There was a very good round of applause at the end of the song.

I was quite out of breath as I returned to the table and sat down in front of Caitlin.

“Well, what you think?”

Caitlin’s mouth was still wide open as I sat down after my performance.

She tried hard but no meaningful words would come out. In the end, she downed what was left of her drink in one go and literally dragged me out of the pub.

Once outside, she carried on dragging me along the street until we reached her apartment on the river close to Greenland Dock.

Her grip never weakened as she led me inside and plonked me down on a leather sofa.

“I’m so sorry Caitlin. I didn’t think...”

“Silence!” commanded Caitlin as she finally got her brain and mouth back into gear.

I shut up.

Caitlin disappeared into the kitchen. She soon returned with a tumbler half full of a golden brown liquid that I presumed to be whisky. She downed it in one go.

“I suppose you think that was funny. I know I have a reputation as someone who swings on the female side but that stunt was just too far. I suppose that you had someone in the audience videoing it all? What is it going to be uploaded? U-tube, Facebook or whatever?”

She glared at me.

She was certainly living up to her nickname. “Scarlett O’Hara” was being her usual dramatic self.

I tried to look serious as I began my reply.

“Caitlin, I am not joking and I certainly did not have someone from the team videoing my performance. No one in the squad knows about my true self. No one apart from you that is...“

I added,
“Besides, who would be the butt of all the jokes from the team eh? Not you, I’d wager next months salary on that.

I paused for a second before lifting up my blouse and bra.

“See these scars?”

She didn’t reply.

“They are from where I had my breast implants implanted just over three weeks ago. These are going to be filled with saline to give me some breasts. That’s why I was on holiday.”

Her mouth started the fish impersonation again.

“I’m not just someone who dresses up in women’s clothes, well that is part of it but I’m going to live the rest of my life as a woman. One day soon, I’ll come into the office and ask to be known henceforth as Isabel.”

Caitlin glared at me.

“Are you really trying to make me the laughing stock of the squad if not the whole Met Police?”

“I didn’t ask to be your partner. Then you made it abundantly clear for quite some time after we’d been teamed up, that I was not the one you wanted to partner with. If you recall, you didn’t speak to me for nearly a week when I first replaced DS Clancy.”

She ignored me.

“You are going to as the boss first thing tomorrow for a transfer or at the minimum a new partner.”

I shook my head.

“You know he won’t do anything in the middle of a major case.”

“Then you will have to resign. He can’t stop that.”

“Why should I? I can perform my duties perfectly well as Isabel as I have done as Jamie. Besides, Godzilla knows all about my transition.”

Godzilla was the nickname for Assistant Commissioner Victoria Bishop, the champion of gay rights in the Police. Many officers tipped her to be the next Commissioner even though she was openly gay.

“I don’t care if God himself approves. You are not going to be my partner wearing a skirt. Only one of us can do that and that one is me! Got it?”

I almost retaliated by saying that until tonight, I’d never seen her in a skirt but I bit my tongue and said nothing.

Her outburst made me look at my partner in a completely new light. What I was seeing now was the one I’d been warned about when we were first teamed up, the rapid temper and quick mouth. Until now, she’d been so different towards me.

“Then why did you drag me back here? You could have told me all that in the Pub?”

She didn’t answer.

I decided to change tack a bit.

“What about my idea? Don’t you want to know about it?”

“Not really,” she mumbled.

I decided to tell her anyway.

“Do you remember that seminar we went on a few months back?”

No answer except a stare.

“The one about ‘deep cover’?”

Then it dawned on her.

“Are you trying to get me killed like all those other women?”

“No. I’d be the bait. I can look after myself.”

“You? Don’t make me laugh!”

Then she laughed.

“So that was what all this was about?”

Her laughing continued for several minutes.

“Now I’ve seen it all. I really have.”

Then she laughed some more.

Eventually it stopped and I got the steely gaze once more.

“Just how in your wildest dreams did you think you could actually persuade the boss and then his boss to agree to this fantasy?” asked Caitlin somewhat sarcastically.

I took a deep breath and began my explanation.

“My idea was that I’d be the bait and you would be my lesbian partner. I’d look…”

“Just stop right there, buster. I’m not a lesbian. Understand?”

I smiled back at her.

“I know that but for the purposes of the operation, we would appear and act as a lesbian couple.”

“I don’t know.”

“You know all the facts we’ve discovered about the victims. Well, the ones we know about anyway. They were all lesbian couples or that the flat shared with another woman and they all had one member with hair that was dyed red.”

“I’ve got red hair so why not me?”

“Two reasons. Firstly, you know what would happen to your hair if you tried to dye it the shade of red that the victims had, it would go a horrid shade of green. Secondly you aren’t a 4th Dan black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and a 2nd Dan in Karate. That’s why.”

“You?”

Caitlin laughed when she saw me nod my head.

“You are mad, totally mad.”

I smiled back.

“You might be right. You might very well be right. But given where we are in solving this case something has to be done to move it forward.”

She looked at me long and hard.

“I have a lot of thinking to do about you and this bonkers idea of yours.”

I knew that I wouldn’t get much more out of her that night so I bade her goodnight and headed back to my flat in Kensal Rise.

As I waited for the London Overground train to Dalston at Surrey Keys I reflected on what she’d said about thinking. I knew that I also had a lot of thinking to do. I’d been running on adrenaline for several days and could not continue for much longer.

[to be continued in Part 3]