Chapter 2

I carried on with my case-load for the next few days. The fingerprints did not match with anything we had on file but were close in a couple of cases. I took notes of these and waited for the DNA.

Gwen and the DI were off getting as much data out of the house as possible and I asked if I could have all the results on the room that Betty was in. A couple of weeks later the DNA report came in and I ran against our data base. Amazingly I got a 95% positive match from a break and enter where the culprit had cut themselves on a piece of broken window getting out. There was a long list of likely suspects that had been compiled at the time but there was not enough evidence to pull any of them in, especially as they all said they were at a football match in London on the day in question. I asked the examiner if there was a small scar on an arm and she checked, getting back to me that there had been a small laceration on the left arm.

I retrieved the case notes on the B&E and found that the team had spoken to all of the suspects except one but all of the others had sworn that he was with them. That one was a certain Albert Ward, then aged sixteen. I went over to Gwen and asked her for a list of her missing boys and there, in the middle, was one Albert Ward. I said “I think you may have seen that one die outside that house the other day.” She wanted to know why I said that and I took her through the evidence trail I had, which caused her to whistle, saying “So we may be looking for girls as well, now.”

I was side-tracked by other cases for a few days but was able to get some good photos of Albert from the examiner so I could go asking about him / her. My first port of call was the parents where I had the task of informing them that he was now dead and that they would be surprised when they retrieved the body for burial. They assured me that he had been a total male in every way and would have never changed into a girl voluntarily. I took a couple of pictures of him away with me and noted that, although there were similarities, the feminine version could have been his better looking sister, not Albert in a dress. His parents did tell me a few places where he hung out over the week-ends so I went to the usual Friday evening haunt, a video game parlour.

When I asked about Albert I got some guarded answers but they opened up a bit when I told them that he had died in a vehicle accident. I found out that he was generally well liked, if a bit of a tear-away. He had no history of violence but always stood up for himself as well as looking after some less well built. I was told that everyone was surprised when he stopped turning up at the Friday evening sessions but had thought that he may have been caught and was spending some time inside. I then asked if they had seen Betty and showed them her picture and was told that she had been around a couple of times and that one of Alberts friends, a certain Julian Banks, had been very tight with her, until he stopped coming as well.

On Saturday evening I went to the pub that Albert had frequented. Showing the picture I got much the same answers as the night before. Showing the picture of Betty had no return. I was not surprised as it wasn’t the sort of pub that a young girl would like. On the off-chance I asked if there had been any regulars who had suddenly stopped coming and the landlord told me that there was quite a big group, about half a dozen, who had been good regulars but he had not seen a few of them for a while. The barman was able to give me a list of some of the names and when I checked with Gwen on Monday we discovered that all of the Christian names featured on their list so we pulled up the most likely among the locals and the two of us went off to speak with the parents.

The first was home to Leslie Johnson and we found out that he fitted the same mould as Albert, a bit moody but not violent, a strong personality but did not throw his weight about and that he had just disappeared. We asked to see his room and also got permission to search. We found his weed stash which we bagged, and an interesting note taped to the underside of his underwear drawer that just said ‘My friends are leaving and I may be next. God, I hope that the Surgeon doesn’t get me! If you find this and I have gone, look for the enforcer at the half-way house’

Gwen said that she thought that the house we searched may have been the half-way house as questioning the neighbours had come up with the fact that several different young girls had been seen there for two or three week periods before they were gone. One, a typical aging crone that all policemen love, even had a list of vehicle number plates that she had seen. These had been checked; some belonged to a local locum service whose records, when checked, showed that a certain Mary Smith was very susceptible to minor ailments. Another couple, which she had said were ambulances, belonged to large vans that had been written off from the London area. All of the rest were from vehicles that had been reported stolen and later found burnt out.

Our second visit was to the grandparents of a certain Julian Banks that I had been told about on Friday. He, too, had just upped and gone and, when we were allowed to search his room, we found a diary in which he professed his love for Albert since they were young and his wonderment when he turned up as Betty, complete in every way. He described, in great detail, a night of unbridled sex they had enjoyed. This was entered into the book the morning he was last seen. A few days further back he wrote that Betty had told him that she was for ever grateful to ‘The Surgeon’ and that she would love it if Julian could meet her benefactor. I took the diary with me when we went back to the station, for a little quiet reading.

The next day I sat and read the diary. It showed that Julian had been infatuated with Albert and admired his dominant attitude. He had been distressed when Albert disappeared. The diary was full of daily notes and I picked up a trend that should have been followed the day he disappeared himself. He worked part-time at a video store and usually had a visit to a cafe on his way to work. I took my picture of him with me and went to visit the café and found out that the owner remembered Julian well, especially the day he collapsed. I got him to describe the day and he told me that Julian had been sitting by the window with his raisin toast and coffee and suddenly fell off his chair. He said it was lucky that a couple of paramedics were at another table and were able to treat him, taking him away in their ambulance. Outside, I checked the street for CCTV cameras and saw one at the road junction further down.

Back in the office I got in touch with the road traffic division and asked for any recordings they had from that camera on that morning that showed an ambulance. Later in the day they sent me a photo taken from a sequence where an ambulance had come from the direction of the café and turned left. It was a good picture and clearly showed the driver. He was the shooter from the house we raided. There was no identifying numbers on the side of the ambulance; instead, there was the logo ‘We change lives, for the better.’

On a hunch I looked at the list of missing boys and checked the reported dates of their disappearances. Albert had gone some eight months before and had reappeared three months ago, just two weeks before Julian went. I surmised that any ‘new girls’ showing up at the moment would have been taken around five months ago and found four that fitted the bill. There was a pair of brothers in the list, Terry and Tony Smith, as well as a Michael Young and a Jerry Howard. I made copies of their photos and took them along to our in-house artist, asking him to give me his impression of what they would look like, feminised. I gave him the before and after shots of Albert to give him some idea of the work done. He gave me a long look as he told me they would be ready the next day.

In the afternoon I had a meeting with Gwen and the DI to show them the photo of the ambulance and to describe the time-line of Julians’ abduction, because that is what it must have been. I had checked all the local hospitals and none had admitted him that day. They were quite excited by this turn of events and I was instructed to carry on with my investigations. The next day I got a call from the artist and went to his office to see what he had come up with. One by one he showed me his take of the changes and I could see that every boy made a good looking girl, so it could mean that they were targeted for that reason only.

He then showed me another picture he had done. I looked closely at it and wondered where I had seen her. She was really pretty in an angular way and I asked him who it was. He said “Ethan, I hate to tell you this but that is a picture of you if you had gone through the same procedure. You fit the mould, if not the age range.”

Marianne G 2020