I had a busy day at the office, continuing to scour the records Carl had given me and following up with online investigations into the companies he had highlighted. Work had distracted me from thinking about my medical problems, and I was feeling a lot calmer and more confident again, so on the way home I called to see Caroline to update her on the corruption story.

“Hello Jane, lovely to see you again, Martin won’t be home for a while, come in and we can have a chat about your investigations.”

“That’s why I’m here, a lot of what has happened is down to that recording you made, it was what really broke the ice and allowed the story to be pieced together.”

She went off to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a tray of home-made biscuits and pastries, and a big pot of tea before settling herself down to hear all the details.

“ I’ve been reading all your articles in The Post, you have done a brilliant job, you have really started to dig deep and the articles are so well written. I was glad to help, I had met Ridgeley and Hargreaves at previous Rotary do’s and never took to either of them, they were both too full of themselves, and too smooth by half, my instincts have been proved right.”

“ What hasn’t really featured much in the articles is that we think that there is much wider corruption going on in this town, more people on the take in the Planning Department, widespread fraud in many of the contracts for building developments and a lot of it is still to be uncovered. Please don’t repeat this but James Cartwright’s company has been getting ripped off for years by his accountant paying overpriced invoices and getting kick-backs for doing it.He has lost hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years.None of this is proven to the satisfaction of the police or prosecutors so we haven’t been able to publish it”

“Keep on with it, you are really shaking things up, but be careful you will be upsetting a lot of people who won’t be happy, and will be only too willing to get their revenge on you. How are you keeping anyway, it’s a while since we last had a chat, what have you been up to, anything exciting happened to you?”

Despite having put my medical situation to the back of my mind at work, with Caroline asking if anything had happened to me it now came flooding back along with a lot of tears and sobbing.”

“There, there, darling, come and cry on my shoulder and tell me what is worrying you, I have obviously hit a sore point with you.” Caroline took me in her arms in a consolation hug and held me until I had calmed down.

After I had got myself under control again, I decided to be open and honest with her. “ I have a medical problem and am really worried about what is happening to me.”

“It goes with the territory of being a women dear, we all have all sorts of medical problems, but most can be overcome or at least controlled nowadays.”

“That’s the big part of the problem, I am not really a woman.”

That brought on another flood of tears which gave Caroline time to think and change her look from confusion, to horror, to questioning, to sympathetic.

“What on earth do you mean, of course you are a woman, what makes you think otherwise.”

She sat silently and listened while I told her the story of being approached by Darren, the girls transforming me from Jack to Jane, how my life had changed so that Jane was now the new normal for me, and the doctor’s suggestion that my body systems were confused as to my sex.

“ Sorry to dump all this on you Caroline, but it’s been like a floodgate opening, once I started I just couldn’t stop, I just needed to tell someone and get it off my chest.”

“Right, just stop this nonsense and self-pity this instant, the Jane I’ve known is an attractive, confident, smart, and really nice girl, not the wimpy over-emotional person you have shown me today. If you are turning into a girl, so what, you have been living it for a while now, very successfully too, and that is now you. You may not change any more, and hopefully the doctors can sort you out, but what would be so bad if it turns the other way and you become more female than male. You are still you, you still have all your talent and knowledge, all your friends, and women nowadays can live a full and fulfilling life, unlike when I was younger and we were all destined for a life of domesticity.”

“Aren’t you shocked and disgusted at how I have been living and deceiving you all?”

“ My dear, when you get to my age, you have seen a lot of surprising, amazing, worrying, and tragic things in your life, shock and horror have been left behind and I now just accept things as they are. What’s the point of worrying about things that I can’t change and don’t really affect me? Now that you have told me everything, if you need to talk through your worries or need a shoulder to cry on, give me a call, I’ll be glad to see you, and that applies whether you come as Jane or Jack.”

Her no-nonsense, non-judgemental, attitude calmed me down and I realised that for the moment I just had to accept things as they were, nothing was going to change before I had further examinations by the specialist. I stayed with Caroline for a while, chatting about life in general, she was a chatterbox and a good listener and offered lots of sensible opinions on what was happening in the world and by the time Martin arrived home and I left, I was a lot more content, and relaxed again.

That only lasted a short time until I got back to the flat. When I walked in Jenny was sitting with her arm around the shoulders of Mum, who was sitting sobbing.

“What’s up?” I asked worried about what could have happened.

“Dad and Mum have had a major row, mainly about you. He saw mum looking at the photo of you all dressed up to go to dinner with Sir Charles and when he realised that it was you he blew his top. He accused her of encouraging you to dress as a girl all those times when we were younger, and her not telling him about what you were doing as he said he would have brought it all to an end before you got in too deeply. It all led to an opening of old wounds and arguments about other things and he has stormed off telling her that he needs to think about his future as he felt he could no longer have any relationship with you.”

“I’m sorry to have caused this for you Mum, would it help if I changed back into Jack and went to talk to him to explain what I have been doing? He should be proud of me for the way that I broke this story and exposed all the corruption.”

“ I don’t think that would help, you are only part of the problem, we haven’t been getting on very well for ages, but have kept it hidden from you and Jennifer, you have just been the trigger to bring up a lot of other things between us.”

“Stay the night here with us, you shouldn’t be alone, I’ll sleep out here on the couch, you have my room. Besides if he is still angry and returns home nasty words might turn into physical abuse. He does have a temper on him sometimes and I am worried that he might snap.” I offered.

For the rest of the evening most of the conversation was about Mum and Dad and their problems. I didn’t really get the chance to tell them about my conversation with Caroline or to tell Mum abut my medical problems, so it came as a big shock to her when she saw me wearing my nightie after I changed for bed, with my budding breasts showing obviously through the thin material.

“ What on earth, Jack, or Jane.whatever, what are you doing to yourself?” She shrieked, staring at my chest.

“It’s not by choice Mum, but my body seems to be changing. It’s too late now to have this discussion we’ll talk tomorrow.” At that I lay on the couch, turned my back to her and Jenny, and pulled the quilt over me.

First thing in the morning Mum was straight into the attack, even before saying ‘good morning’.

“What do you think you are doing to yourself, it’s one thing wearing women’s clothes to get your story, and I can live with that, but it’s a totally different to taking drugs to change your body into a woman’s. Maybe your father was right after all, and I have been too soft with you over the years.”

Wiping the sleep from my eyes and standing to stretch my muscles after an uncomfortable night on the couch, I went over to her and put my hands on her arms.

“Calm down Mum, you’ve got it all wrong. I have not done anything to cause this, it’s nature playing games with me, sit down and listen, I’ll explain everything.”

Once I told her about the consultation with Doctor Stewart, the tests she had done on me, what showed up in the results and what she had told me in the follow-up consultation, she changed completely and started sobbing.

“ When you were younger, your father kept telling me that you were not growing as you should and that I should take you for an examination at the doctors, but I just ignored him and didn’t bother, thinking he wanted to turn you into a gym-obsessed muscle man like himself, maybe I should have listened and done something about it. Maybe if you had treatment earlier you would have developed differently and would not have this problem, it’s all my fault.”

“ Look Mum, what’s done is done, there is no point worrying about it. Let’s see what happens and find out what can be done.” I replied, remembering the wise words from Caroline the day before.

When she had calmed down, I got dressed for work, hugged her goodbye, and left her with her thoughts, but I couldn’t help noticing her staring at me, taking in my appearance, and shaking her head as I went out of the door.

At work later I was surprised to get a call from Marshall at Bolton Manor. “ Good morning Miss Harrison, I’ll put you through to Sir Charles, hold on please.” His formal politeness never ceased to amuse me, but I supposed that was what was expected of him.

“Good morning my dear, have you anything planned for this weekend?” A cheery Sir Charles greeted me.

“Nothing important, why are you asking?”

“William and Elizabeth will be up at the Manor this weekend. I thought that it would be a good opportunity to discuss with them the proposal for you to write a book chronicling the family history. Would you like to come over and stay the weekend and get to know them a bit better?”

“It’s a bit awkward this weekend, My Aunt is staying with my cousin Jenny and me, we have a bit of a family crisis at the moment.”

“That’s not a problem bring them with you, we have lots of rooms for them to use. Without sounding pompous I’m sure that they will jump at the chance of staying at the Manor, a story for them to tell their friends. It will all be informal, a country weekend, no need for you all to bring all your fanciest clothes.”

“I’ll ask them and see what they think, but I will come up to meet your family, even if it is just for the day. I’ll come back to you later to let you know what we have arranged.”

Jenny jumped at the chance having heard my stories about how grand the Manor was and how I had been treated and was very excited about it, Mum was a bit more reluctant, she was not really in the mood for socialising, but Jenny convinced her eventually and they both started making plans for what they would take with them. I called back to Marshall and asked him to make arrangements for the three of us, arriving Friday evening and leaving early on Monday morning.

Meanwhile over at the police headquarters, Chisholm had been hit with the evidence of his corruption in regard to the Cartwright accounts. James had decided that he would be more likely to get some of his money back if he kept it as a civil claim rather than a criminal matter, and that any court appearance would be lower key and less embarrassing. The fraud against his accounts was not directly relevant to the corruption between Hargreaves and Ridgeley, where there was no option but to treat it as a crime, so the police and the prosecutors accepted that there would be no direct involvement from them in any follow up, unless it became relevant to the corruption of the council officers.

The police however were quick to use the accounting swindle as a lever to break down Chisholm’s silence over what he knew about Ridgeley and Cartwright, and once he realised that he would be the only one carrying the can, he cracked and told them everything he knew, meetings, dates, times, extent of the bribes and, of much wider interest to the police, other people in the Planning department and other construction companies that were guilty of similar things.

With all this new information the police were able to bring formal charges against the pair, which allowed The Post, with other reporters assisting me, to run a series of detailed articles about the extent the corruption.

“Jane, can you pop into my office, there is someone who wants to talk to you.” Mike Bradley called me in the next morning. Perplexed at what was going on, I quickly redid my lipstick, fluffed up my hair, smoothed my skirt and went in.As I entered, a young man, casually but expensively dressed, who looked like he was off the front page of a celebrity magazine, stood up to greet me and shake my hand.

“ Good morning, Miss Harrison, or may I call you Jane, I’m Graham Walker, the director of ‘Spotlight’ the evening news programme on North TV.”

“ Pleased to meet you Graham, calling me Jane is fine, what can I do for you, what is this about?”

“I understand that you are the one who carried out the investigation and broke the story of the corruption of council officers. It is obviously a major local interest matter and we will be running a brief bulletin on it tonight, but we will be doing a much more extensive special feature on it in tomorrows edition. We would like you to come in to talk to us, on air about what you have been doing and discovering.”

I looked over at Mike, who nodded his agreement, and smiled back at Graham, “I’d be delighted, but I’ve never done anything like that before, I’m not sure how I would come across.”

“Don’t worry about that, we are used to dealing with first-timers. Mr Bradley has agreed that you can come over to the studio this afternoon to see how we operate, we can have a chat about how we would like the interview to go, and find out what you have to say. Our researchers can then put together a set of questions and a rough script of what we want to talk about. Tomorrow we can do a couple of runs through to get your responses, sharpen it all up a bit and get ready for filming. Are you happy with that?”

“So long as you do not try and put words in my mouth to fit a political agenda, that sounds ok, I look forward to it and will see you later. Thank you for asking me.”

When Graham had gone I stayed to talk with Mike. “Are you sure that you are happy with this, I don’t want to say anything that is still controversial or sub-judice.”

“You’ll be fine, you know what you can say, and what you are not allowed to reveal. At this stage keep it to the council officers and do not left them drift onto party-political agendas or specific politicians. Give The Post a few mentions, we always welcome a bit of positive publicity, and enjoy the experience. You are a bit of a a local celebrity at the moment, make the most of it. Clear up or pass on what you are working on this morning, get yourself ready and make your way to the studio, and we’ll see you in a couple of days.”

I quickly popped in at home, to freshen up, get changed and tell Mum what I was going to do, which caused a bit of alarm, as she felt the TV people always tried to catch people out with unexpected questions or accusations. I made my way to the studio, pausing to get my thoughts together before going in, and was soon greeted by Graham who introduced me to the people I would be appearing with.

A question-and-answer session with two of the researchers for them to get the gist of what could be discussed was followed by a makeup session before I was put in front of a camera for a screen-test. Everything went well and I was pleased to leave the team to make their preparations, with instructions to arrive the next day without too much attention to hair and makeup as their people would deal with those, in casual clothes ,with a change into the outfit I would wear for the interview.

I was surprised to see on that evenings edition of ‘Spotlight’ a clip from my screen test as a preview of the main programme the following night, there had been no mention of that to me. For the next hour my phone never stopped ringing, all the girls now my friends as well as Jenny’s, Caroline, Darren, Angie, Mike and some of my colleagues from The Post, all very complimentary about how I had come across and looked on screen. James Cartwright called later to wish me luck and to ask me not to say too much if anything at all about how his company had been defrauded by John Chisholm as he didn’t want to prejudice his civil claim against the various companies that had overcharged him.

Mum had heard from my father that he had gone to stay with his brother at the other side of the county for a while and would not be home, so she went back to her place, leaving me with the comfort of my own bed again.

Jenny wanted to get the girls together for a night out to talk about my TV appearance, but I wanted to keep a clear head for the interview and we put it off for a few nights until after it would all be over, and I had a quiet night in with Jenny in front of the TV before an early bedtime.

Nervous about doing the interview, I only managed a light breakfast before getting dressed casual in leggings and light cotton top, little makeup just lipstick and mascara, packed the outfit we had chosen for the recording, and soon arrived at the studio, not knowing exactly what to expect. I signed in and was shown the way to the ‘green room’ where Graham was waiting for me.

“ Hi Jane are you all ready for today?”

“ As ready as I will ever be Graham, what are we doing first?”

“After you left yesterday and we had a good look at your screen-test and decided that you presented yourself and came across a lot better than we expected. Unless you don’t like the idea, we would like to scrap the formal question and answer interview and instead, record it as a documentary with you doing the lead commentary, still covering the same ground but in a different format. We have already prepared the script and have picked out some location shots of the council offices, Acumen’s offices, Bolton Manor, and the site of the proposed development, to use as backdrops behind the ‘green-screen’ images of you discussing what is going on , and it is all fully scripted, although we can change that if there are some things that are not as you would like to say them.”

“ Does that mean that it is all done in the studio and we don’t have to go out for the location scenes?”

“Exactly, images of you speaking in the studio are all merged digitally post-production onto the backdrops of the location shots, and it all looks like you are actually at the locations. Have a look at the script and we will have a quick run through to see how it comes together.”

The first run-through was poor and flat and my nervousness showed, I was not expressive enough, no hand gestures, my voice wavered in volume.The next time it improved a lot and by the fourth try , Graham was happy that it would work. While the camera crew and technicians modified lighting and camera locations, and adjusted some of the background images I was sent off to makeup to get me ready for the actual shoot.

The makeup girl really went to town with me, re-styled my hair, applied a lot heavier foundation and more dramatic eye make up than I would normally use, even fixing on false lashes, and redid my nails to match the lipstick.

“This is all a bit much, particularly the heavy foundation, is it really necessary.”

“With the lighting and the high-definition cameras you really need it to be a bit more dramatic and heavy than you would wear for work or going out. Don’t worry, when you see yourself on screen you will find it looks ok.”

I put on the cream silk blouse and slipped into the pale pink skirt and matching bolero jacket and that I had brought with me, and went back to the studio to do a final rehearsal, mainly for the technical team.

The filming went well, most of it was good first time, some shots had to be retaken, but Graham and his team told me that retakes were a normal thing and that they were happy that they had enough good footage to pull together the report. While they were cutting and editing, another crew filmed a short interview of me by the show’s hosts to use as an introduction to the report and to wrap it up afterwards.

Later we all sat down to watch the final version that was to be aired and everyone, including me, was impressed with what had been done.

“You were great Jane, you are a natural at this, I’ve had a lot more bother with people who were supposed to be professional actors or experienced politicians. Do you want to go home to watch the broadcast with your family, or do you fancy going for a meal with me after it has been aired and I am off duty?” Graham surprised me by his unexpected approach.

Still full of adrenaline and excited after my experiences of the day, I jumped at the chance to keep it all going for as long as possible. I went back to makeup to get cleaned up and back to my normal daytime style, what they had done to me looked super on screen but was way over the top for going out into the world.

We ended up at Shipley Lodge, one of the high-class expensive restaurants, the type of place that served artistically presented, minimal but expensive portions, the type of place that I wouldn’t normally pick, but Graham was being charming and obviously thought that it would impress me, so I quietly went along with it. Despite my feelings about the place, the food tasted wonderful, Graham was a very attentive and amusing host, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself with him.

He walked me back to my car and gave me a big hug and a quick kiss on the mouth. I sensed that he was expecting more, but that was not possible, despite how I looked and acted, I was not attracted to him or aroused by him. My body may have been changing but in the back of my mind I was still male.

Back at the flat, Jenny was sitting waiting for me, with Susie and Babs, an empty bottle of wine and a fresh one not long opened.

“Where have you been Jane, we were expecting you home ages ago to watch the programme on TV?”

“ Sorry Jen, and girls, but after the show went out, the director Graham took me out for a meal at Shipley Lodge.”

“Oh, get you, the Nags Head won’t be good enough for you now.” joked Babs. “Tell us all about your day then and don’t forget to include the meal with Graham, What’s he like?”

They were enthralled as I told them all about how the recording went, how friendly and professional the normal programme hosts were, and how charming and encouraging Graham was. “ What did you think of the show girls, how did I do?”

“You did great , you looked like you had been doing it for ages, so confident and authoritative, I bet they will have you back again. “ Anyway, you haven’t finished your story yet, what about your night out with Graham, what’s he like?”

“ The way you lot were talking the other night you would hardly be able to control yourselves, and would frighten him to death. He is tall, dark, very attractive, and ever so charming.”

“ What are you doing back here with us then girl, didn’t you want the night to continue.”

“Don’t be silly Babs, you know why.”

“ Jen has told us about your medical condition, if you are turning into a girl you need to start getting used to being with boys.” Babs snapped back at me.

“ I wish Jen hadn’t told you, it was supposed to be a secret until it is all sorted out. I just don’t have the feelings for boys , even if my body is changing. I’m going to just get on with my life at work and see where it all takes me.”

“ What a waste, any chance of an introduction to Graham then if you are not interested, he sounds like a catch,” chipped in Susie “it’s a while since I had a hot date.”

Later in bed, before I dropped off to sleep, I thought about what Babs had said. When the doctors had sorted me out, I would really need to think about what sort of relationships I wanted.

To be continued