Darkness.

As thick and as black as molasses.

I lift my hand and hold it so close to my face that my finger is touching my nose.

Nothing.

Maybe I’m blind.

There was that dazzling yellow light. I thought I was dying.

Who am I?

Where am I?

How did I get here?

Blind.

And alone.

More alone than I’ve ever been.

An intense sense of loss engulfs me. It’s very nearly intolerable.

Why do I feel like this?

Why can’t I remember?

Why can’t I remember?

Why can’t I remember…

Shadows.

Monochrome refracting into a suggestion of colour.

A face. Behind it, another.

The first is female. Not young. Not quite.

The second is male, and strangely familiar.

Cunningham?

When he steps forward. When he grabs hold of my waist and pulls me against him, so that my hands are resting flat on his chest. When his face comes so close I can see the stubble beginning to form on his chin. When I close my eyes and understand that in a moment or two I’ll know how it feels to be a woman being kissed a man. When that warm, moist softness brushes my lips and I part them in instinctive surrender. When his tongue has explored the inside of my mouth for so long that I can hardly breathe and I’m hanging on to his shoulders for dear life...

But that wasn’t me. It can’t have been.

Who am I?

Why can’t I remember?

I try to speak. The woman hushes me. She holds something in front of my eyes. A sudden brightness blinds me once again.

“It’s possible that she may show symptoms of post-traumatic amnesia.”

“How severe and how permanent?”

“Hard to predict at this stage.”

She?

They must be talking about someone else.

A name forms in my head.

Richard.

Is that me?

Why can’t I remember?

Now a sharp pain in my left forearm.

Faces, colours and voices fade.

Why can’t I remember?

I’m lying in a hospital bed looking up at the ceiling. It’s day, though the blinds are drawn across the window to my left.

Snapper Brookbank! It is you! Don’t you remember me?

Yes I do!

You were the blonde lass on the…

On the…

It’s no good. It just won’t come.

But you called me ‘Snapper’. That’s a start.

I lever myself to a sitting position. The room is small and sparsely furnished, but there’s a recess equipped with a lavatory and a washbasin. On the right-hand wall hangs a framed image featuring an anchor, a pair of wings, two crossed swords and a crown. Below it is printed a single word: HASLAR.

Haslar!

The naval hospital in Gosport!

It’s just that I’ve been told to deliver this dead expensive piece of machinery to HMS Almandine. I can’t hang around ‘cause apparently the order came from as near to the top as you can get, and if I’m late I know for a fact my bollocks are going to end up nailed to that flagpole.

I was talking to that bloke! The one who was standing behind the doctor last time I regained consciousness!

Only before he was dressed in a sentry’s uniform…

And I’m a civilian. If I’d fallen ill or something why would he bring me here?

This needn’t end in tears, Richard, but you must do exactly as I say.

Richard.

Richard Brookbank.

Of course. How could I have forgotten?

It’s all flooding back now!

I feel the hair at the back of my neck being parted. A feminine fragrance fills my nostrils. At the first touch of cold metal against my flesh it’s all I can do to keep the contents of my bowels in their current location.

Survival becomes my only wish. What would I not give, how many hours of unpaid charity work would I not perform, what humiliation would I not willingly endure in return for the sweet sound of her telling me I’m free to go?

The pressure at the top of my spine increases, and the watery scene in front of me swims sickeningly in and out of focus. Then everything coalesces into a brilliant yellow light. I don’t feel any pain, just an overwhelming sense of dissociation.

So this is dying. No choirs of angels. No glittering ladder climbing to heaven. No loved ones dressed all in white beckoning me to enter the afterlife. Silly to think there would be, really.

Just my consciousness shutting down to spare me the trauma of an agonising last few moments of existence.

When my vision clears…

I raise my hands from the blanket. My fingers are pale, delicate and covered in tiny freckles. My palms are softer, my wrists slimmer than they were before the weird experience the blonde put me through.

But that’s nothing.

Because I don’t need to undo the buttons of my pyjama top to see that I’ve got breasts.

And my hand doesn’t have to explore my groin to confirm the fact that it won’t find a penis or a pair of testicles there.

I’m a girl.

Somehow I’ve been turned into a girl.

Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

Can’t think of one right now.

My bladder politely suggests that I leave questions such as ‘what the fuck is going on?’ until its requirements have been met.

Climbing out of bed brings on a brief spell of intense dizziness. More worrying are the bandages I can feel when I touch my forehead.

Have I suffered a cranial injury? Could that be how I lost my memory?

You know it isn’t, Rich.

Rich…

I can’t very well be him now, not with these massive mounds of flesh bouncing and swaying every time I put one foot in front of the other.

I might have to wear a bra.

Might have to?

I lift the toilet lid and pull down my pyjama bottoms. Sitting to urinate feels natural, which it shouldn’t, but relief outweighs the addition of yet another piece to the puzzle.

As I flush I remember that I’ll have periods. Being female is going to prove quite a challenge.

Let’s have a look at the face I’ll be meeting it with.

Trying hard not to admire the womanly profile between my wide hips and strong, well rounded thighs, I step over to the washbasin and peer into the mirror above the sink.

Oh fuck…

And as Ruth Pattison’s reflection brings more of my memory trickling back, I begin to get the feeling that having nothing hanging from my crotch could turn out to be the least of my problems.

Dr Beverley Sanderson is brisk, blonde and has a bedside manner Attila the Hun might have envied but one I suspect few members of her profession would wish to emulate.

“Three times a day if you can manage it. Twice at the very minimum,” she insists, handing me the tub of thick green paste she’s just rubbed into my scalp.

“Feels all wet and sticky,” I complain.

“You can always keep the golf-ball look. It’s bound to come into fashion eventually.”

She fits my wig, which is ginger to match the colour my hair will be when it’s grown back. It’s long enough to brush my shoulders, and has a fringe that can be combed forward to hide the reddish-purple scab in the centre of my forehead. The rows of tiny black gemstones adorning my eyebrows are staying; Beverley thinks I need them to remind me of the hideous creature I became, and make me grateful for this second chance at learning how to be a girl.

Because I have to go through the adjustment process all over again. The transfer device may have given me back my humanity, but it did so by returning my subconscious to the condition it was in when Yvette de Monnier first swapped bodies with me. That means my mind has yet to attune itself to this body’s habits, tastes and preferences. The months I spent as Ruth might never have existed.

My only consolation — and it doesn’t seem like one, believe me! — is that provided I don’t fight it, the worst should be over within a couple of weeks. True, from a neutral observer’s point of view I have no incentive to rebel. No one is holding out false hopes for me to cling to. I’m going to be a woman for the rest of my life, so I may as well get used to it.

First I have to find out how serious the consequences of my actions in Northcroft are likely to be. Although de Monnier’s people appear to have done some sort of deal with the MoD that’ll at least keep them from bundling me into the back of a van with a view to leaving my corpse in a ditch by the side of a country lane, neither organisation is above the law — and attempted murder isn’t a charge that can easily be swept under the carpet.

I still can’t remember being converted. I have a few sketchy recollections of my time at Sunny Hollow, but they don’t amount to very much. As I explained to Beverley when she began my psychological evaluation the day before yesterday, it’s as if a whole section of my mind has been ripped out and shredded.

She didn’t have to fill in much of the gap to have me praying it’ll remain that way.

A kuzkardesh gara queen?

Me?

De Monnier, Egerton and Cunningham playing musical chairs with one another’s bodies?

Where did the real world go?

My wig secure, I pull on the blouse, slacks, popsocks and shoes Beverley’s young assistant Fiona brought for me in a box that also contained the make-up I managed to apply without smearing lipstick all over my chin and getting mascara in my eyes. As I fasten the buttons, I watch the cream-coloured cotton stretch and strain across the swell of my breasts. I’ve seen this so often before that it shouldn’t cause me to bat an eyelid, yet it does.

They’re part of you, Rich. They always will be. Like it or lump it, this is for keeps.

“What d’you reckon?” I ask Beverley once I’ve practised walking around in my shoes and discovered that one thing I won’t have to worry about is wearing heels. “Not bad for a first try. Well, it feels like a first try.”

She fusses with my collar, my cuffs, the button above the zip at the side of my slacks, even my turn-ups.

“You’ll do. She isn’t looking to hire a new secretary.”

“Your boss is a she?”

“She isn’t my boss. She’s been assigned to supervise your case, which technically makes her my superior.”

I twist in front of the mirror in an attempt to see my profile from as many angles as possible. Yes it’s a very feminine thing to do, but if I’m wearing popsocks…

“I hope she’s a bit less of a cold fish than the one I had last time.”

On the other hand, if she manages to rescue me from an extended holiday at Her Majesty’s Pleasure she can have the personality of a Bird’s Eye frozen cod steak for all it matters to me.

The door opens to admit Fiona.

“I thought you should see this, Dr Sanderson. It came back from the lab last night, but you’d gone.”

She passes a document to Beverley, whose brows lift as she begins reading.

“Oh my,” she grins. “Have you told them?”

“I’ll leave that to you.”

As Fiona departs, I’m almost certain that she winks at me.

“I’d recommend that you sit down,” says Beverley. “I’m serious. I have some news for you.”

“Can’t be any more of a shock than finding out I was a hive queen.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure. What are you doing on February 26th next year?”

“Next year? How should I know?”

“Well, you’d be wise not to plan anything you couldn’t put off for a while.” She hands me the document. “Congratulations, Ruth.”

And as I look in horror at the words her finger points to, another phrase crashes through my head.

Charlotte Annabel, D.O.B. 28/7/74, Bromley, Kent, UK

It never rains but it fucking pours.

There are two small bulbs on the panel to the right of the door. The red one is lit, and has been since Beverley left me standing here nearly ten minutes ago.

She’s doing it to prove how important she is. I bet she’s sitting at her desk with a copy of Cosmopolitan munching a Danish pastry.

Keep it together, Rich. You’re about to start fighting for your liberty.

And I’ll be delivering every punch reeling from the devastating double blow of discovering that not only am I expecting a child but that I already have a four year old daughter.

As if being female wasn’t enough to deal with.

But I’m not giving up just yet. Fate owes me, and one day I intend to collect.

A buzzer sounds.

Green.

Here we go…

I knock once and enter. The office is tiny, the window at the back giving an invigorating if somewhat constricted view of the sun-sparkled sea and cloudless azure sky.

Not that I’d have spent more than a fraction of a second looking at it if I’d seen a fleet of Spanish galleons anchored offshore.

You work for us now. You always will.

The woman who stands to greet me is none other than Mitsuoko Tatsukichi.

“I hear you’ve been taking good care of my body,” she grins.

“You can have it back for the next nine months if you want.”

“I don’t think Sir Kingston would approve. He’s keeping that device under lock and key. He’d have buried it at the bottom of the Mariana Trench years ago if the powers that be had let him.”

“Would have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“Some good’s come out of this. We understand a lot more about the infection vector than we did.”

“That makes me feel a load better.” I take a deep breath. “Get to the point, Suki. Am I going to prison or not?”

“Sit down.” Not the most heartening answer she could have made when I recall the last time I was given that instruction. But I do so, crossing one sturdy thigh over the other. “I’ll be honest with you, Durham Constabulary have been after your blood. If Jeremy Egerton hadn’t got you out of there I doubt whether even someone as influential as Sir Kingston Ferens would have been able to keep you from standing trial. But Mrs Russell is on the mend, and that helped us persuade her daughter not to press charges. Just don’t expect a birthday card from either of them this year.”

I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. Removing the threat of a jail sentence has left the way clear for the full force of my guilt to wash over me.

“I think I need a cigarette after that,” I mumble.

“I imagine you do. But you’re not having one. Not in your condition.”

Something else to brighten my day.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Okay, so what’s the plan? I mean I can’t go back to Northcroft, obviously.”

“We thought you might help us explore the nature of your gift.”

“I’m not sure I’m altogether with you. What gift?”

“You have the ability to transmit your subconscious thoughts. That’s putting it crudely, of course. The phenomenon is a complex one, and no theoretical basis for it has so far been established. But if what we’re beginning to believe is true, it holds the key to our struggle against the kuzkardesh gara.”

“You’re still making no sense.”

“Why do you think you became their queen? It was because you could broadcast the meme. The questions to which we need answers are,” and here she starts counting them on her fingers, “how many others are there like you? How do we identify them? How widely does the potency of this gift vary? Is it hereditary? Does it grow stronger or weaker with age?”

She says I’m gifted. Not as much as her, of course! No one is.

Gifted?

Yeah, but it’s not like being good at Maths. It’s more about working out what people are thinking deep down. That’s how I can tell mum isn’t frightened of boats any more. She was worried about something else, probably what she’s going to tell auntie Shannon and auntie Clare when she goes to see them. She’s gifted too, she just hasn’t learned to use it properly. Not sure about you, though. Strange one, you are.

Then there was that word…

“If it’s any use, I remember Niamh Latimer telling me something about a gift. What’s the score with her and Cathryn, by the way?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s classified.”

“It would be.”

“I don’t make the rules, so stop acting towards me as though I did. Just think about how lucky you’ve been to come through this in one piece and try to show a little more willing.”

Did I hear her correctly?

Did she just call me ‘lucky’?

I don’t care if she has saved me from having to wear a maternity dress with arrows on the front, it’s time I stopped letting myself be dragged from pillar to post and spoke my mind.

“Sorry, that’s not on. I was thrust into this body against my will while you lot stood and watched. Why? Because I just happened to have once been Helen Sutton’s favourite pupil. Then I get pulled off the street by that arsehole Cunningham, after which you tell me that basically the MoD are going to control everything I do for the rest of my life. And what’s my reward for playing along? Framed for blackmail and lured to a kuzkardesh gara hive, where because of some ‘gift’ I didn’t even know I had they make me their queen. I get one break, and even that came with a sting in the tail ‘cause now I’ve got to go through the whole adjustment thing again. You can add to that a crime I can’t remember committing, a kid I can’t remember having and another one on the way whose father I can’t remember sleeping with. So no, I don’t think I’ve been ‘lucky’. I think I’ve been anything but.”

I brace myself for the inevitable counterattack, but it never comes.

“Let’s go for a drive,” she says. “I want to show you something.”

A few miles west of Gosport town centre, the sprawling council estates finally give way to a narrow belt of green open space — though the airfield and the military buildings that have encroached on it negate the impression that this could ever be regarded as a slice of genuine countryside. In any case it ends too soon, the road now become a verdant suburban avenue lined with mock-Tudor detached houses screened by box hedges, trellised fences and a profusion of arboreality still tinted with the lushness of spring.

“We’re offering you a position on our new psychic research team,” says Suki as she urges her Austin Allegro past a pedestrian crossing and a roundabout that takes us into a less exclusive neighbourhood of post-war semis. “It’s based in Portsmouth Polytechnic, which I know you graduated from, and carries a starting salary of  £3800. If that doesn’t sound much, bear in mind that there’s a flat and a company car thrown in.”

“I won’t be a guinea pig, then?”

“It would be beneath me to dignify that with an answer.”

She pulls in opposite the entrance to Stubbington Nursery School, and it doesn’t tax many of my brain cells to work out why she’s brought me here.

“This is about Charlotte, isn’t it?”

“She lives with Tim’s parents. I can’t say it’s an ideal situation. That’s no reflection on them, you understand. They couldn’t do any more for her.”

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” I confess. “That I’m pregnant, I mean.”

“It won’t, not for a day or two.”

“I don’t know the first thing about child care.”

“I’d just turned eighteen when I found out I was expecting. What d’you think I knew?”

“You knew how to be female.”

“So do you. Put your hand on your heart and tell me you’re having as much trouble as last time.” She smooths the front of her skirt. “I’ll let you into a secret. The reason I kept quiet about Charlotte was because I rejected her. I didn’t try to expose her on Biggin Hill or send her floating down the Thames in a basket of reeds but I may as well have done for all the affection I showed her. It wasn’t far short of outright neglect. I only agreed to fight for custody of her when mum and dad said they’d give her a home. You can never repair that sort of damage, you know. I’m not talking about the kids, they’re much more resilient than we ever give them credit for. But as a mother you lose that vital connection…”

“What makes you think I can do any better? I’ve got the same subconscious you had before de Monnier barged into our lives with all guns blazing.”

“Ah, but older is wiser. You became the Ruth who regretted what she’d done, not the Ruth who went to ridiculous lengths to hide her bulge, the Ruth who revised for her A levels knowing that even if she passed them she wouldn’t be going to university, the Ruth who was bludgeoned down the aisle to exchange vows with a guy she couldn’t stand. Besides, I read a transcript of Trish Hodgson’s debriefing. I’d let you see a copy, but–“

“It’s classified,” we say together.

And look at one another and laugh.

We’ve never done that before, not even at Hart Street.

I lay my hand on the sleeve of her jacket.

“The decision you’re asking me to make…”

“I haven’t.”

“But you will.”

“I want you to try being pals with her first. Much as I’ve come to love Charlotte, she’s a contrary little so-and-so. You might not hit it off right away. But I hope you do. It’d be nice if we both had a shoulder to cry on when she introduces us to her first boyfriend or later, when she announces that we’re going to be grandmothers.”

There’s a limit to how much the human mind can process in the course of a single morning. The feeling that I may be starting to forge a deep, lasting friendship with this woman stretches it to the uttermost.

I’m a girl.

Okay…

I’m going to have a baby.

Terrifying, but still…

I’m mates with Suki Tatsukichi.

Yeah, and tinned mixed vegetables are delicious.

We leave the car and cross the road just as the children begin filing out of the building. I already know which of the little girls will skip over to the railings and say hello to auntie Sooks and her new friend Ruth.

It isn’t her hair, honey blonde with an intriguing dash of ginger.

It isn’t her ingenuous aquamarine eyes.

It’s something I inherited not as I thought from Yvette de Monnier but from Charlotte’s birth mother.

It’s her gift.