[The following April, the week after Easter]

The looming spectre of the end-of-year exams made Dido concentrate on her studies during the week. At weekends, she was able to help John with Joanne's rehab. Slowly, the memory and trauma of the attack in the club receded into the past until they had an unexpected visit from a DI Farmer, who said that he was part of the Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command, which was investigating a series of attacks on women that were a lot more than just rape.

“I’ve come to interview Joanne,” said the Detective after showing his warrant card.

“Please come in, Detective Inspector. I’m John Proudfoot.”

John showed the DI into the front sitting room. The room was a bit chilly as it was only used for special events. The house was silent. John could tell that the DI was listening out for other signs of life.

“Please take a seat. Can I get you some tea or coffee?”

“No, nothing for me,” said the DI.

John decided to take the initiative.
“DI Farmer, I am sure that you must appreciate that Joanne is still mentally very fragile. Any aggressive questioning will probably set her recovery back weeks, if not months. I will be present during any questioning just to ensure that you are not overly aggressive. Do I make myself clear? The Toxicology reports indicate that she was drugged with a couple of date-rape drugs. As such, I am sure that you are aware that she can remember very little of what happened beyond going out for a takeaway.”

“Who the hell are you to dictate how I question a suspect?”

“DI Farmer, it is clear that you were not briefed before coming here. I was formerly a Chief Superintendent in the Met. Now? Are my rules clear?”

“I only have your word for that.”

John smiled at the DI.
“If you would like to turn around, you will see a picture of me receiving the Queen’s Gallantry Medal from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. I’m in full dress uniform as you can see. Is that proof enough?”

The DI took one look at the photo and went white in the face.

“Sorry, Sir.”

“Right. Why did you call Joanna a suspect? Do you honestly think that she drugged herself and rammed a beer bottle up her back passage for fun? If you have read the medical reports, they clearly indicate that one of the drugs was administered at the back of her neck. Quite how she could have done that is a question you should have asked yourself before coming out here.”

“Sorry, Sir. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Let me be perfectly clear with you, Detective Inspector, if you even hint at Joanne being a suspect, then I will make sure that you are patrolling Liverpool Docks on foot for the rest of your career in the Police as a constable.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good. Now we are clear on the rules of engagement, would you like to share with me the real reason for this visit?”

“Sir, I just wanted to know if… Joanne has been able to remember more about the incident, and especially those who attacked her.”

“Di Farmer, don’t you think that question could have been asked over a simple phone call?”

The DI seemed to be perplexed by his question, so John carried on.

“DI Farmer, don’t you also think that if I were aware of any new information, I would not have conveyed it directly to your task force commander, DCI Adams, whom I know very well as I was his Chief Inspector when he graduated as a PC from Hendon. Therefore, I conclude that there is another reason for your ham-fisted clod-hopping visit.”

There was an awkward silence between the two men. Finally, it was John who broke it.
He took his phone out of his pocket and said,
“Perhaps you should read this email?”

John flicked through a few emails before giving the DS the phone.

Once the DI had read the email, he handed the device back to John.

“So?” asked John.
“Who sent you on this wild goose chase, or do I call your boss and let him drag it out of you?”

“I’m not saying a thing,” said the DI in an angry voice.

“Perfect. You do realise that everything you have said and done since your arrival has been recorded and uploaded to a cloud server. Oh, and by the way, Joanne is not here. I have an agreement with the Met Police Commissioner herself that no unannounced visits would happen because of her diagnosed PTSD. That leads me to suspect that you are not exactly on the straight and narrow when it comes to being a copper.”

The DI could not hold his gaze; instead, he glanced towards the door. John knew what was coming next. To him, it didn’t matter if the DI did a runner; he was done with the force.

DI Farmer, as John expected, headed for the front door. As he opened it, a Police Car with lights flashing pulled up outside. The DI stopped dead. John joined him in the hallway.

“DI Farmer, you also clearly don’t know that Senior Police Officers have alarm buttons that go directly to the security command at Scotland Yard. That even applies to retired Chief Supers. When I invited you in, I pressed one of the several switches that alerted the cavalry, and as you can see for yourself, they have just arrived.”

DI Farmer swore under his breath.
“Go on, swear. All my good friends in the AC-12 Anti-corruption team will want from you is who is pulling your strings. You might think that you are important, especially now that you wrangled your way onto the task force that is investigating the abduction, drugging and rape of several women, plus the organised disintegration of their lives.”

The DI didn’t have time to answer. A uniformed Sergeant arrived at the open door.

John smiled. He knew the local Sergeant from the Ford Cortina Owners Club.

“Sergeant Willis. This is someone who is calling himself DI Farmer. He is to be handcuffed and personally escorted to the AC-12 Operation in Blackfriars and handed over in person to DCI North. He is a suspect in a wide-ranging investigation that they are carrying out. Are you clear about that?”

“Sir! My instructions are to do whatever I can to assist you. If that means taking a possibly bent copper to face questioning, then it will be my pleasure.”

The mere mention of AC-12, the department in the force that went after corrupt officers, was more than enough to tell the Sergeant that this man was not to be let loose.

“Thank you, Sergeant, but please don’t take any chances. Your handcuffs, please?”

The Sergeant handed the former Chief Super his cuffs. John wasted no time in cuffing his hands behind him. John was smiling. DI Farmer looked at something in the distance. He was done.

“Sir,” asked the DI as John locked the cuffs in place.
“How did you know about me?”

“From the information that I received earlier today, it seems that you have been under suspicion for some time. I don’t have any of the gory details naturally, but I had just enough time to get Joanne taken to a place of safety before you arrived.”

He didn't have time to argue. Sergeant Willis led him away. He was done as far as a career in the Police was concerned. All that remained was for him to bargain down the time he would spend in prison. If he cooperated, he might escape with just being dismissed and the loss of his pension. If he didn't, then time behind bars might be the next career move for him.

Once the real police had left, John opened the door to the cellar.

“Joanne, Dido, the coast is clear. You can come up now.”

She appeared a few seconds later. Dido followed her out of the cellar. It had been lucky that the incident happened on a Wednesday when Dido didn’t have any classes due to the Easter holidays. Since the arrival of Joanne on the scene, Dido had taken to visiting her and John on Wednesdays.

“I heard what he said. He didn’t hold back,” said Dido.

“The man was an idiot. Thanks to the warning we received, we were prepared, and he walked right into the trap. I gave him plenty of chances to change his approach, but he didn’t. Searching records for my home address raises all sorts of alarms. The same goes for all former high-ranking officers. These are all part of the anti-terrorist measures that have been put in place since 1995.”

“What now?” asked Joanna.

John smiled.
“Why don’t you and Dido get us some lunch while I forward the video of our unwanted visitor to the Anti-Corruption team and write up my statement?”

Dido smiled and said,

“After lunch, Joanne, we should start to build a plan for your rehab.”

Joanne was about to argue, but John got in first.
“After lunch. We are both operating on adrenaline at the moment. Plans made in haste hardly ever work out. You can think about what you want while we eat. Just remember that I have done this before with Dido, and she was very much the truculent teenager when she was in your place. You are a bit older than Dido when she and I met. You are perhaps not as street-wise as she is, but you are like her in that you have a decent brain. That gives us something to work with.”

“John is right,” said Dido.
“At first, I was very quick to fly off the handle when he made a suggestion. I didn’t want anyone bossing me around. Gradually, it began to sink in that Daddy here was merely directing me in a certain direction. He let me make the choices about my future, but he was always here, ready and able to listen. John’s greatest attribute is that he never jumps to conclusions. It can be frustrating, but he is a good man. That’s why I call him Daddy.”

Dido played her part by sticking her tongue out at John. The slightly tense atmosphere disappeared in a flash.

Instead of starting to plan Joanne’s rehab, the three of them went for a drive in John’s Cortina. Joanne was noticeably nervous for a while, but with John driving and Dido at her side, she soon relaxed and enjoyed a trip to the Science Museum outpost at Duxford near Cambridge. It gave them something to do after the excitement of the morning. It took their minds off the episode with DI Farmer.

---

[one week later]

Once lunch was over and the dishes washed and cleared away, John sat Joanna down at the dining table. In front of him, he had a pile of folders. Dido joined them but sat well away from John and Joanne. She was only there for moral support; besides, she had a report to finish that was due the next day.

“It seems that you have everything already worked out?” remarked Joanne.

“As I said, I’ve done this before with Dido. These are her records, but you are a very different person, and any one-size-fits-all model will not work. Ok?”

That seemed to placate her for the time being.

“The first thing is your new identity. You need to choose a completely new name. One that can’t be tied to your old and now very toxic identity. I would suggest that you choose nothing starting with a ‘J’. Here is a list of suggested names that I received from my contacts.”

“That is a big decision, isn’t it?”

“It is, but you have already done it once when you chose Joanne. Think about it for a few days. When you have chosen it, we can get the ball rolling. The people who will create a new identity for you are perfectionists. It will take at least a month to get a perfect identity with a verifiable backstory, including things like job history and educational records. Don’t worry, it is an iterative process. You will have input on the process naturally, but it has to be verifiable. The idea is that it will be your life from now on, so it makes sense to make it as good as it can be. Besides, you are going to have to memorise it. That’s why we want your input on it at all the key places in the process. Yes, it is a lie, but like all the best lies, there is a lot of truth embedded in it. Your early life will be used for a lot of the background. All that will be changed is the location and things like date of birth by a few months. As I said, it has to be totally memorable.”

Joanne didn’t look that impressed.

"Believe me, Joanne, these people are professionals. Their main job is to provide new identities for people entering the Witness Protection Programme. Those new identities have to be foolproof. If they aren't, then the lives of those in the programme could be at risk.

Joanna was a little overwhelmed by John's preparedness. Then she began to understand that this was normal for him. Being prepared for all eventualities is one of the key skills for a senior police officer to master. That, in turn, gave her the confidence to trust him and the people who would be working in the background to help her.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Joanne.

“John, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but exactly how did you and Dido come to know each other? From what she has told me, she was living on the streets before she met you.”

He laughed.
“It was simple, really. She tried to steal my car. Not my BMW, but my lovingly restored Cortina that, as you know, sits in the garage below the annexe. I was out shopping, and when I returned, I found her trying to master the art of using a slim-jim on my car’s windows.”

“Oops!” remarked Joanne with a smile on her face.

“Indeed. When I approached, she didn’t leg it as you would expect… I showed her how to do the job properly. That started to build some sort of rapport between us. From the wounds on her face, it was clear that she’d recently been beaten up, but I didn’t mention them. If I had, you would not have seen her for dust. Instead, I offered her a place to have a shower and get her clothes washed, plus I put some steak on the BBQ. That was enough to get her to come here. Then I gave her a key to the apartment over the garage.”

“There has to be more to it than that?”

“The whole process was a bit of give and take. It was clear to me almost from the outset that she had been born male, and as such, she needed help. It wasn’t easy to get her to trust me. You know only too well about trusting someone you don’t know that well. I went on the charm offensive with a few good meals, a nice bed, letting her come and go as she pleased, some new clothes, plus being able to talk to someone who was not going to molest her, which slowly began to work.”

“How did you know… about her past? Most people don’t have a clue.”

John smiled.
“My partner was trans. As a child, he got testicular cancer in both of them at the same time, so… he became a she. We fell in love, and yes, I knew about her from our first date.”

Dido smiled before leaving John to talk with Joanne. The memories of her introduction to a new life were, at times, embarrassing.

John took up the conversation.
“Because of my position as a former senior cop, I was able to get people in to help Dido mentally, but only when she was good and ready. The same will apply to you. I have already been in touch with the experts who helped with Dido. They are on board with doing the same sort of work with you. That includes counselling with a woman.”

Joanne looked a bit stunned. It replicated what Dido had told her in the Hospital.

John added,
“The trauma that you have been through will scar you for life. As with Dido, it is more of a case of managing it. This is all based on how servicemen and women with PTSD are treated. There is no cure. Dido still has some bad days and… well, she is a work in progress, but the challenges of the course have really helped focus her mind.”

Joanne sat silently as she tried to process what he’d been saying.

“One thing that you should be aware of is that the front door is open. If you want to walk out at any time, you can. The door will also be open should you want a place of safety. Dido used that several times when her search for the enemy got on top of her. This place is not a prison or mental home, but your home until such time that you no longer need it, and you can walk down that drive with your head held high. If you need something, then I will always be here to help if I can. If I can’t, then I probably know about someone who can and those people will not ask awkward questions. That includes Dido. Because she went through the same experiences as you did when you were held captive, her experiences since then can and probably will help you. She can’t help with what happened to you at the club, other than being there for you should you need it.”

Joanne managed a small smile.

“Part of Dido’s rehab was putting together a plan for her to get even with him. That plan is still in place today. Studying criminology is all part of that plan. I think that detail was added in revision nine or ten. When I outlined the possibility of studying criminology, she laughed and laughed. After a bit, she realised what it could mean in the grand scheme of things, especially if she was going to bring Fox to justice. The other skills that she has learned will all come together at some point in the future, and allow him to be dealt with by the law. I fully expect that your plan will lead to you joining forces with Dido at the right moment and taking him down, but that is all in the future. You are two very different people, and as I said earlier, the one-size-fits-all model does not work. Eventually, you will find something that interests you, and we can work it into your plan for the future.”

“But… that could be years away?”

“True. But the plan for Dido involved creating a career for herself beyond bringing him to justice. It happened that way because she has a very inquiring mind. I saw that right from the start and worked on that. A nudge here and a nod there. Then there is a lot of truth in the saying that ‘time is a great healer’. Dido was a classic angry teenager when we first met. Now look at her!”

“She does seem to have her head screwed on…” remarked Joanne.

“True. As such, don’t you think that she is a good role model? After all, you are sisters in adversity…?”

“Thanks, John. No one has ever taken the time to lay things out like that.”

John smiled.
“See. We are making progress already, but… I want to impress on you that this is your plan, your life and there is no rush. You have been through more than one severe traumatic episode. Your mental health comes first, last and everything.”

John and Joanne sat talking for the rest of the afternoon. Dido spent time away from the others to work on her revision. It was hard for her to concentrate after being reminded about how she was living before she met John. She shed several tears when she thought back to those days. Everything had seemed so simple then. Being a 'queen of the highway' meant no responsibilities. Things were very different now.

Then a mental image of Trish formed in her mind. Things were indeed very different now. Dido knew that sooner or later, Trish would have to know about John. Whichever way she rolled the dice, they said that Dido would have to come clean to Trish about her past and her relationship with a former Chief Super. And then there was Joanne. Her two nicely separated worlds seemed to be on a collision course, and Dido might not be able to do anything about it.

Slowly, Joanne began to understand what John was going on about. It wasn’t about him at all, but 100% about her and making her ready to face the world after they had dealt with the evil man who had ruined her life and, hopefully, the people who had ravaged her in the club.

Joanne also began to realise that her life before the attack had been just treading water. Working off the books for cash made just enough money for the bedsit, food and travel. She was existing to survive and not end up on the streets. It seemed that Dido had been doing much the same before meeting John. Dido was one person whom Joanne could look up to. If she had done what she had, then so could she!

Joanne went to bed that night with a possible future starting to form in her mind. She had hope for the first time in years. She thought about John and why he was doing what he was for her and Dido before her. Slowly, it began to dawn on her that with his undoubted skills was gently imposing his will on her, but at every step, she could say no. That was just so different from the man who had held her and Dido captive, and who had demanded instant obedience or she would have been beaten again and again until she obeyed.

John had given her hope.
Hope is a 4-letter word. She fell asleep, determined not to let ‘hope’ turn into ‘shit’.

Dido continued studying hard for her forthcoming exams. Moving from an almost full-time career as a ‘dip’ while studying a couple of days a week and then to a full-time student had been a huge culture shock at first, but now, she felt that she had the time to revise properly for the first time in her life. She was determined not to, in her words, ‘fuck this up’.

While she had extensive knowledge of some of the subject areas in the course, there were others where she was a complete beginner. Forensic Science was one of those. Her lack of Chemistry and Biology to at least an 'O-level' standard was a big obstacle.

Thankfully, Trish proved ready and willing to help Dido in those areas in return for Dido’s help with the application of the Law to real events, and then there were the Ethics subjects. Their very different viewpoints provided some lively conversation in tutorials.

Even so, Dido had a good deal of apprehension about the exams. This was heightened when one creep of a fellow student let it be known that in the past, almost all of those who hadn’t come through the Public School system failed their first-year exams.

There were times when Dido had to almost physically stop Trish from giving away that she was a serving Police Officer. There were a few fellow students who were very anti-law enforcement, which seemed rather ironic as they were studying criminology. They reasoned that there were always two sides to any story and that some large law offices employed their own criminologists and subject matter experts just to take down the 100% corrupt ones used by the 'pigs'.

Then there was Dido’s big secret. If that came out at the wrong time, then Fox could get wind of the game that she was playing, and if his track record was anything to go by, Dido’s life could be in more danger now than at any time since her escape from Fox’s prison. All these unknowns and uncertainties worried her.

To Dido, the fake socialist creds of many of her classmates would go right out the window as soon as they got their first month's salary post-graduation. She filed their names in the ever-bulging drawer marked 'to be taken down' if and when she had a chance. She planned to drop the idea of some easy pickings to a couple of her former associates. A little electronic dipping might make them a little more careful with their stuff once a few choice purchases appear on their credit card statements. It would be sweet justice for their almost constant slagging off of both the Police and the Legal System to have to resort to using them because they had become a victim. One of them was more of an anarchist than a socialist. He would need watching if he passed his exams, but given the low marks that he'd received on virtually every assignment, it would be hard for him to pass the year.

Dido wisely kept those thoughts to herself and got back to revising for the exams.

She took the weekend before the exams off and went to the country to breathe some clean air and get her mind reset. Two days of walking along the coast of the Isle of Purbeck did the trick. She returned to London ready to take on the exams.

John Proudfoot and his associates had been working hard on Joanne's rehab. They had to deal with the trauma from her attack and the horrific time she'd had after her abduction as an 8-year-old boy. She was different to Dido in that she was nowhere near as street-wise. That would make her reintroduction back into society a little more problematic. It would all just take a bit more time and effort. John was certain that Joanne should learn to walk before trying to run in the big, bad world.

It was nearly the end of May before she revealed her name before the abduction.

“Francis Read,” she said quietly.
“My given name was Francis Read. They took me from the street in Derby, not far from the old Derby County football ground. I was coming home from school football practice. It was a Wednesday. The next day was fireworks day. Dad had promised us a bonfire.”

Those few simple words were delivered in the voice of a child. It was almost as if she’d transported herself back in time to that very day. Nevertheless, it was a breakthrough.

John engaged a P.I. to look for her family in the Derby area. There was always the chance that they'd moved away years before, but it had to be done. He'd done the very same operation when Dido had finally revealed her past. Her parents were long gone from her former family home. That home had been repossessed six weeks after her disappearance. The trail went cold after her parents stepped off flights to the USA and simply disappeared. It all tallied with her story about them selling her to clear their debts.

Joanne's case turned out to be a little different. Her parents now lived in the Uttoxeter area but had just disappeared overnight from their home in Derby. While they were using what he assumed were their legal names, the disappearance of their son Francis had never been reported to the Police. John's agents dug deeper and found that his very existence had been removed from all official files. The record of his birth had been expunged from the Derby Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, but was there on the national register. Only a few school photos of Francis with his parents at school sports days in the local paper archive as proof that he had ever existed. None of their investigations revealed why Francis’s parents and others had gone to such great lengths to remove all traces of their son from their lives. Someone somewhere had an awful lot of influence. ‘He’ had given her the name of Joanne when he took ownership of her. Like Dido, she’d been punished for insisting on using their old male names.

The PI reported that the police in Derby had no files on her parents, but their backgrounds only went back just over twenty years, which was very strange indeed. In normal circumstances, that would demand further investigation, but John was not a serving officer any longer, so it would have to wait.

John read the report more times than he wanted to remember. If Joanne’s coming into their lives had complicated things, this revelation had elevated it to a whole new level of complexity.

With a sigh, he put the report in his safe. He needed more time to plan an approach to finding out the truth about Joanne’s family. There was no rush at all. From the details in the report, it seemed that her family had put down roots in Uttoxeter. Those roots included a mortgage, whereas in Derby, they’d always been renting. Where the money came from for the deposit was unknown.

While the news about putting down roots pleased him, it made bringing those responsible to justice a much larger task. He'd had his suspicions from the results of the investigation into Dido's background. Now Joanne's results had more or less confirmed that there were darker forces at work in the background. He didn't want to alert them to his search, so he would tread softly from now on.

Whatever step he took next, the last thing he wanted to do was alert Joanne’s parents that someone was investigating them. Moving forward would require a deft hand. Going in like a bull in a china shop simply would not work.
[to be continued]