Joe Chapman was left alone for the rest of the week. The team were kept busy trawling through phone and email messages from Harry Tate and Fred Lyle to him, and from him to his supplier contacts to try to find anything to tie him to anything illegal. However, frustratingly, he was very shrewd and always spoke in ambiguous statements, which although the inferences were obvious they were always vague enough for a smooth-tongued lawyer to talk his way out of. We needed a breakthrough and it was set up for another visit by me to The Dolce Vita.

Rather than go on a day when we knew Joe would be there I went in on the Tuesday instead.

“Good evening Dave.” I smiled at the doorman as he let me in, “Is Joe here tonight?”

“No Miss, he’s not, but I believe that you met one of his colleagues Jeremy Scott when you were here last week, Jeremy is here, over at the poker table.”

I went over to the bar, grabbed a Mojito, which was now becoming a favourite of mine, and sashayed over to stand across the table from Jeremy watching the game play out.

“Hi Charlotte, I’m Jeremy I was here last week with Joe Chapman. You did well here last week, do you want to join the game tonight?” He asked with a charming, disarming, friendly smile.

Not wishing to appear too eager to get to know him I smiled back. “Thanks Jeremy, I’ll just watch for a while to see how the cards are running.”

“Well at least come and stand next to me, maybe some of your luck will rub off onto me.”

After a few hands I joined the game, which again paid for my night out, mainly at Jeremy’s expense. He soon got fed up with losing to me and decided to leave the game. He and I retired to the bar for a chat and a drink, with him being very touchy-feely as we walked over, with his arm over my shoulder.

After a couple more drinks and general chat, with him making a lot more contact, putting his hand on my knee or my arm, his tongue loosened a bit and I started to push him.

“You were bit unlucky at the table tonight Jeremy, I almost feel guilty about taking some of your money from you.”

“You certainly know how to play the cards Charlotte, you are obviously not a beginner.”

“Put it all down to a misspent youth in the less salubrious areas of Cardiff, before I moved up here to put it all behind me.”

“We all have skeletons in our cupboards, it’s best just to leave them there and keep them secret.”

“And what secrets could you possibly be hiding Jeremy.” I gave him a gentle playful tap on his arm.

“I’m a businessman darling, a bit of this a bit of that, but you don’t make money by playing by the rules all the time.”

“That’s true, some of the people I knew back in Wales sailed a bit close to the wind and I had to get out before I was too involved. What part of town are you from, from the cut of your suit I guess it must be one of the more expensive areas.” I asked just to confirm to myself that he was who I thought him to be.

“ Wow,” I said when he told me, “You must be good at what you do to live there.”

“Even in these frugal times, there are ways to make money if you know the right people.”

“You mean like Joe Chapman?”

“Don’t ask and you will get told no lies. Let’s just say that him and I go back a long way to the benefit of both of us.”

I decided that I was asking too many questions and needed to back off, so just went back to general chat for a while before leaving the club and going back to the hotel where Megan was waiting for me.

“Jeremy Scott is definitely one of the people that I dealt with for Joe Chapman, he was included in my briefing notes but I never had a full name for him, I just knew him as Jez.”, Megan was delighted to have another nail to put in the coffin.

“Now we know he is definitely involved we’ll give his background a good going over, bank accounts, phone records, social media, if there is anything to be found we will find it. You did well tonight, but be careful how much you drink in future, you could get as loose-tongued as he did.”

“I’m not that daft, the potted palm on the table next to me will have a hangover and droopy leaves in the morning.” I gave a smug self-satisfied grin.

Within a few days Scott’s accounts had been unravelled to the extent that he was brought in for questioning on charges of fraud and tax evasion, jointly with investigations by HMRC, the tax authorities. To try to keep a distance between me and him, there was no mention of Joe Chapman or drug dealing, it was treated as a purely financial investigation. However it gave the opportunity to ask for explanations as to the source of his wealth. He had several legitimate companies that were shown to be fronts for laundering cash transactions that he could not explain, their official accounts and trading figures did not stand up to detailed scrutiny by the financial experts. The first link in the chain connecting him and Joe Chapman came when a lot of coincidences were found between payments in and out of fictional bank accounts linkable to him and Chapman, which gave the team more paths to follow up on.

The following Wednesday I was back at The Dolce Vita, got my drink, walked up to where Joe was playing at the table and joined in the game.

“I was here last Tuesday and met your friend Jeremy, he seemed quite a cute guy.” I told him as we sat in the lounge afterwards.”

“Jez is not as sweet as you think he is, be careful around him. I don’t know what he has been up to but he’s been in with the police for a few days now.”

“Oh dear, he did tell me that he did a lot of wheeling and dealing that sailed a bit close to the wind. You are not involved in any of his businesses are you Joe, you don’t strike me as someone like that?”

“Anyway, we are not here to talk about him, tell me a bit more about yourself Charlotte.” he quickly changed the subject.

“Since moving up here from Cardiff, I have been leading a quiet simple life, working at a boring job in an accounts office, and have just started to come here for a bit of light relief, but when I was younger I got in with a bad crowd and it was best to leave the area.”

“Well if ever you want to do anything a bit more exciting just ask, I am sure that I could find something useful for you to do.”

Back at home later with Megan she had a worried look.

“Be careful Rhiannon, you are asking too many questions, he’s not stupid, he’ll get suspicious of you.”

Unfortunately her warning was proven to be justified. The next Wednesday as I was approaching the Dolce Vita, a large black saloon pulled up alongside me and I was bundled into it by a couple of heavies and felt the prick of a needle in my arm before blacking out. When I came round it was pitch black and after my brain had slipped into gear, it was obvious that I had a hood over my head, my wrists and ankles were tie-wrapped to the chair I was on, and it felt like I had already been stripped down to my bra and panties. After a while I heard the rattle of a door handle and felt a presence of someone in the room.

“Right darling, we need to have a talk.” A male voice with a Cardiff accent quietly whispered to me. “Who are you and what are you up to?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean, who are you and why am I here.”

“Well, we’ll start of with who you are. I’ve asked around my patch in Cardiff docklands and nobody has heard of Charlotte Rees, especially those involved in questionable activities, no records of someone your age ever living in the area. So I’ll ask again who are you and what are you up to.

“Look in my bag, my driving licence and bank cards are in there, they’ll confirm who I am.”

“Come on darling, do you think we are stupid,? I can get a new false driving licence and bank account anytime I want one. We can play this the easy way where you tell me what I want to know or we can play it hard, but sooner or later you will talk.”

“Why are you doing this to me, I am just a secretary going out for an evening of fun, I’m not up to anything.”

“Ok have it your way, come on over boys, strip her completely, there was no obvious hidden mic under her dress but check under her bra and panties.” It had seemed a bit extreme when Megan had suggested that I needed breasts and a female looking groin, but I was now thankful for that. If they had found that I was really male, it would have confirmed that I was not who I said I was and that is when the real violence would start. I was soon sitting almost naked, they at least had the decency to replace my panties after checking for concealed microphones, shivering with cold and with fear while they were deciding what to do next. The door opened again and someone entered, the next voice I heard was Joe Chapman’s.

“OK Charlotte or whoever you are, you have been asking too many questions about me, and one-by-one my underlings or my associates are being called in by the police. That may be a coincidence but I think that it may be something to do with you.”

“Is that you Joe? When we have been talking at the club I have just been making conversation trying to get to know you, I enjoy your company, and I like to get to know people, that’s all, As for any involvement with your friends being held by the police that is nothing to do with me.”

“My contacts in the police have told me that there is someone new in the squad, a Welsh woman who from their description bears a remarkable likeness to you, Rhiannon Davies, does the name ring a bell? Apparently she has a direct link to someone I would like to talk to, Andrew Carmichael, again does that name sound familiar?”

“I’ve never heard of either of them, I don’t know how I can help you, please let me go.”

“Sorry I can’t do that, I’ll leave you to the tender touch of my friends here from one of the drug gangs I am linked with in Cardiff, and when I come back I hope for your sake that you have the common sense to talk before they do any serious damage to you. I’m not too interested in you, what I really want is that scumbag Carmichael, what the lads did to his family for me is nothing compared to how he is going to suffer when we catch up with him. He will regret getting some of my crew charged with the murder of that low-life Abbott for me, and for one of my main suppliers being investigated for tax fraud linked to illegal activities.”

They started off reasonably mildly, a few slaps and mild punches but the more I refused to talk the angrier they got and the punches became more violent. Despite that I couldn’t really give them what they wanted, once they found out that I was Rhiannon Davies, an undercover police officer, or even worse Andrew Carmichael, that would be it. If I was lucky it would be a quick bullet to the brain, if I was unlucky it would be a long drawn-out session of violent torture.

I was about to pass out from the beatings when I heard the door burst open, there was lots of shouting and the hood was pulled from my head. When I got my eyes in focus and attuned to the light I saw the room full of armed police followed by Megan. She quickly came over and covered me with a blanket and led me out of the building to her car.

“Sorry that it took us so long to come in to rescue you, when the tracker showed that you had not gone to the Dolce Vita, we followed you here but needed to wait until we had enough information to bring charges against Chapman and the Welsh crew. Let’s get you to the hospital to get you checked over. I’ll take you to the clinic that did the transformation work on you, it’ll save a lot of explanations.”

After a check up which showed nothing more than superficial bruising and swelling, along with a lot of pain and discomfort, I was discharged and returned to the house with Megan.

“We had people watching the Dolce Vita looking for Chapman and they saw you being snatched. We tracked you to the warehouse on the edge of town and watched as Chapman drove up and went in, all the time listening in to what was going on, your microphone implant worked wonderfully. Although we knew what was going on and that you were suffering we had to wait until Chapman confessed to his involvement with the deaths of your family and ‘Spider’ Abbott. Everything was being recorded and the armed squad’s body-cams filmed the state you were in when they burst into the room. At the moment Chapman, his associates that were with him, and the crew from Cardiff are all being held charged with kidnap, false imprisonment and grievous bodily harm, which is cut and dried, while investigations are continuing to gather evidence to corroborate his confessions regarding his activities in general and the murders in particular. You did a wonderful job, if you were formally with the police you would be getting a commendation and an award, but that will have to wait for the moment.”

“What happens now?”

“Take a few days off to fully recover then we would all love to see you back in the office, and I can assure you that there will be no more patronising sexist comments from any of your colleagues, you’re a bit of a heroine now. Obviously until this is all cleared up, you will need to continue as Rhiannon, as long as you are happy to do that. We will obviously need formal statements from you detailing what was said and done to you.”

A week later I was back at the squad room, being congratulated by the rest of the team, when I was called in to see Chief Superintendent Harrison.

“Welcome back Rhiannon, I hope that your aches and pains have eased and that you are feeling fine again. I would like to personally thank you for how you have helped to bring Chapman to justice, he has been a pain in our backsides for a long time, but until now we have never been able to directly connect him to any particular crime. The team are building up a case against him and his known associates using the information you have provided. Unfortunately the way these things operate we will never be able to totally eradicate drug dealing and the associated criminal activities in the town, but at least we are now more in control. You may have noticed that two of your colleagues are not in the office, we were able to identify them as the sources of information being passed to Chapman and some of his suppliers, they are now on remand charged with various corruption offences. We owe you our sincere thanks.”

“Thank you Sir, but if the truth be known what I have done has been more in revenge for what happened to my family rather than public duty.”

“That brings me to the main reason for why I want to speak to you. During your time here you have fitted in well and have proven yourself more than capable, have you considered a career in the police? Obviously you will have to go through basic training like everyone else, but after that you are too useful to be be a foot soldier pounding the streets and would be fast-tracked up the career ladder straight in as a detective constable. If you keep your nose clean it would not be too long before a promotion comes your way. We need more successful women like Megan to fill the ranks and there is an unwritten policy of positive discrimination to meet that goal.”

“It’s complicated Sir, I have some personal issues that need to be sorted, and if I do go ahead, I don’t think that it would be sensible and safe for me to be stationed here, it’s a small town and sooner or later I would be identified as the one who brought down Joe Chapman.”

“I see your point, but after your training I was going to suggest that you relocate out of the area, I am sure that I can get you a posting somewhere you are not known. Think about it and have a discussion with your cousin Superintendent Jones. She may not have mentioned it, but the way she has driven this investigation has earned her a promotion. Let me know what you decide and I will see what strings I can pull to smooth the path for you.”

Back home that evening Megan was keen to know why the Chief Superintendent had called me in to see him, and if that was the reason that I had been in a quiet thoughtful mood all day.

“He really complimented me on the way I had worked with you, and suggested that I join the police officially, promising that after the initial training that I could have a successful career as a detective.”

“That sounds wonderful, and well deserved, what’s the problem?”

“The conversation was all on the basis that I am Rhiannon and the opportunities for women to progress. You have never told him about my life as Andrew have you?”

“To be honest I was not certain whether or not he was corrupt and tied in with Joe Chapman, and although he seems to be in the clear, I am still not 100% sure, so as far as he and everyone else in the drug squad and this station are concerned you are Rhiannon, and always have been. Your identity change and associated records were carried out under a witness protection scheme and there is extremely limited access to your records.”

“All day I have been giving this a lot of thought and have almost decided that Andrew is in the past and that my future will be as Rhiannon. Two reasons, firstly that I don’t think that I will ever be totally safe as Andrew even under a false identity, and secondly I have adjusted to living as Rhiannon for the last few weeks, and the way I have been treated by you, Amanda and Lucy has been an eye-opener for me. All my life it has been stressful, living on the poverty line as a boy, and my involvement with the drugs gang. But in my time as Rhiannon, apart from the incident with those boys and the kidnapping and assault, I have been much more relaxed and comfortable with my life and have the prospect of a long-term professional career. Does it sound weird that I would want to become a woman?”

“It’s not weird at all, I have seen you grow into the woman you obviously are now, and it really suits you, if that’s what you want to do, go for it, and I’m sure that the witness protection scheme will assist you in your transition. Anyway, there is no rush to decide immediately, there is still a lot of work to be done on the case against Chapman and his associates, we will need Rhiannon around the office for a long time yet for you to decide if it is really what you want to do.”

Over the following months I settled in as Rhiannon and made my decision to transition, and was started on hormones which gradually slowly began to make adjustments to my body and to how I behaved. I also decided that I wanted a career in the police, but before I signed up for entry to the training programme I underwent surgery at the clinic to finally make me physically completely female.

While all this was happening in my personal life, the details of the case against Joe Chapman was finally wrapped up after an enormous amount of detailed investigation and after a drawn-out court hearing he was convicted on multiple charges. He was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for the murders, along with many of his associates on drugs-related and money-laundering charges.

Finally, after a very emotional farewell, it was time to leave Megan all my friends and colleagues behind and go off to restart my life as Rhiannon at the police training college in West Yorkshire and Andrew was left to disappear into who knows where. The tragedy of the deaths of my family had led me to change sides from a drug-dealing criminal to an honest officer of the law, and from a wayward youth with only bad future prospects into a respectable attractive young woman with a career ahead of her. It was time for a new chapter in my life story.

The end

( Until the sequel next year )