Lee sent over what the FBI had on the cases that could be released to Donald's department without all sorts of very lengthy approvals. Even with huge amounts of redaction, it took Donald two days to go through the files. They didn’t make pretty reading because it was as if he was reading a report from West Midlands rather than one from West Virginia. The similarity between all the cases was uncanny and slightly unnerving.

The victims were all very much loners. None had steady girlfriends, had been married or had significant financial problems. The most any one of them owed was just over $1000 and that was the balance outstanding on a car loan.

None of the US cases had any student debt outstanding which puzzled Donald. He didn’t know much about the US education system but he did know that student debt was a huge millstone around graduates. It was also a small but growing problem in some parts of the UK.

All but one of the missing persons in the US were graduates. Someone must have paid off their debt. Donald sent an email to Lee asking that very question.

Less than an hour later, Donald’s phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Son? Where are you? Are you safe? Are you well?”

“Yes, I’m listening.”

Donald listened to what his son was saying for almost a minute.

“But William! Your mother is worried sick about you.”

“Yes son, I’ll tell her that. Why can’t you come home and tell her yourself?”

“I know that it is your life but…”

“Ok son. I’ll tell her that you love her. Don’t leave it too long before you come home ok?”

The line went dead.

Donald sat thinking for several minutes. Then he picked up his phone and called the number that the call had come from. Even before it connected, he knew that it would fail. The number, while apparently presenting itself as being from the Newcastle area, had too many numbers. It was a non-existent number.

The automated response telling him that the phone system was unable to connect to the number came as no surprise.

That alone made life even harder for him. It was good that his son was alive, but it was not good that he or someone that he was associated with had gone to so much trouble to hide his whereabouts. It was very, very troubling.

Over the course of the next hour, Donald picked up his phone to call his wife. Each time, he put it down again. Telling his wife would have to wait for him to speak to her face to face.

There was little he could do on that front. At least he could keep Lee and his colleagues in the USA up to date.

Donald sent off an email to Lee outlining the call he’d received before heading off home.

---

“What are you doing home at this time of day?” said Donald’s wife Eileen when he arrived home. He was a good two hours later than normal.

“I have some news. Please sit down while I tell you?”

“Noooooooooooooo!” shrieked Eileen.

“He’s not dead.”

“But you told me to sit down?”

Donald nodded.
“William called me today. He said that he is fine and well.”

“Where is he? What is he doing?”

"I don't know where he is. He called from a spoofed number in Newcastle. All I know is that he is fine and well and that we should stop looking for him."

“Didn’t you try to get him to come home?”

"I did but, he was firm in that he has a new life and they… well… we… I… should stop looking for him.”

Eileen was silent. Her pain was evident as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Why has he done this to me?” sobbed Eileen.

Donald put his arm around his wife.

"He's ok. Isn't that what matters?"

“He’s my baby boy. I want him back!”

“Shhh, darling. He's a grown man. He's not your baby any longer."

“I want him back.”

"He was clear that he has started a new life, and from the tone of his voice, he seemed happy."

“How can you say that! He walked out on us!”

“He’s an adult darling. How could I have stopped him? He has done nothing wrong, broke no laws.”

“He’s my son!”

“And mine,” said Donald as he held his wife tightly.

Donald spent the rest of the day consoling his wife. Eventually, she came around to the fact that William had the right to choose his own future. As it was a Friday, Donald spent the weekend wondering what to do next. Nothing was the easy course of action but, deep down, he knew that there must be something he could do but what? That question remained unanswered.

---

Several emails were waiting for Donald when he arrived for work the following Monday. Two of them were from Lee in the USA.

Several dozen more cases had come to light from all over Europe. They all followed the same pattern. Firstly, the delivery of some red roses, then a disappearance. All of those involved were adults and without any dependents. The various Police Departments were reluctant to get involved because of those facts.

A further email detailed the payments of the student debt. All the money had come from a reclusive Swiss organisation called the Mashley Foundation. Its source of money was a multitude of offshore accounts located in various tax havens around the world. Lee also said that the US Treasury was already looking into those accounts. The general opinion was that these accounts were being used for money laundering.

Lee had some bad news to go with this information.

He told Donald that almost all of the funds that had come from the Foundation were used for the settlement of student debt. Because of that, the US Government were reluctant to pursue the matter further. Lee had given Donald a heads up about a message that was to be sent from Washington to the UK government about the missing persons. Lee had used the words 'hands off' at the end of his email.

Donald knew that it would take at least two days for any 'stop' directive, to work its way through Whitehall, then to the Scottish Office, then to the Scottish Government and finally to his boss in Holyrood.

He had 48 hours to continue his investigations before the official word to stop would reach him. His only problem would be where to start.

His only lead was this shady Swiss foundation. Donald spent most of the rest of the day researching the funding of the Mashley foundation, its origin and particularly how it got its funding.

All too soon, it was the end of the day, and Donald had gotten nowhere. This in itself, puzzled him but, there was little he could do without any firm leads. He had one problem with the student debt. Because of the policies of the Scottish Government, the level of student indebtedness was an order of magnitude lower than in England. Due to the lower level of debt, it wasn’t uncommon for students to pay off what debt they had incurred in one go. Nothing in the records available to him showed anything suspicious relating to payments of debt.

In the case of his son William, he hadn’t been to university so his name would never come up in any of those lists. Another dead end.

Donald went home feeling frustrated. Frustrated at his lack of progress, and that he'd used half his time before the official 'cease and desist' notice, would be applied to him.

---

Donald was no farther forward by the time he went for his usual lunchtime stroll the next day.

As it was a Tuesday, he headed for the Botanical Gardens. He only stopped along the way to pick up a sandwich from a shop in Cannonmills. A brisk walk later, he arrived in the haven that was the gardens. In the spring, the sheer variety of flowers that were in bloom always astounded him. He was a total jinx when it came to gardening. Any living thing he touched would soon keel over and die but Donald did appreciate the beauty of the natural world.

That left his wife Eileen, in charge of their garden at their home in Warriston. She'd made it an oasis for anything in the insect world. Every spring, a beehive would mysteriously appear at the bottom of the garden. When the hive was removed in October, a few pots of honey would make breakfast times very enjoyable. Donald enjoyed the fruits of nature but from afar. He also kept his distance from the hive. He was not a fan of insects in general and even less of those who could fight back. A bee had stung him up his nose when he was seven. Since then, he’d been afraid of insects that flew.

The relative silence of the gardens would also make his lunch enjoyable. The faint hum of traffic from Ferry Road was downed out by the rampant birdsong making the place a veritable oasis in the middle of the city.

Donald sat down near a large Forsythia. Its vibrant yellow flowers were nearing the end of their life but he didn’t mind. They’d been a constant patch of yellow since March.

As he ate his sandwich Donald contemplated what he could do in the few hours he had left before the order to stop his investigations arrived on his desk. He felt empty in that everything he'd tried had led nowhere. It wasn’t often that he had to admit defeat but this was one of them.

Donald contemplated staying there for the remainder of the afternoon. But Donald was not a quitter. He felt that he had to do something. The question was what that something was.

His daydreaming was interrupted by someone sitting next to him. His nose told her that it was a woman. Her scent was alluring. He didn't want to stare, so out of politeness, he didn't turn to look at her.

"Hello, Dad," said a soft voice.

Donald almost leapt out of his skin. The voice belonged to his son. He turned around, wanting to know just who had mimicked the voice of his missing child.

Then he saw the face. It was Williams but…

“Son?”

"Sorry for startling you dad, but I knew that you would be here today. I'm not William any longer. My name is Dianna."

“But…?”

"I know that you have a million questions but, that's not why I'm here. You have been looking into the disappearance of people like me, haven’t you?”

"Yes, but?"

"Dad, just stop it. Stop trying to find us. We are all living a new life. Lives that were not possible before we left. I have been given, the chance to be the person I could never be if I had stayed here in Edinburgh. We have all been given that chance so please, just stop and ask yourself why that is?"

“You mean your mother, Eileen?”

Dianna smiled.
“Exactly. Mum would never in a million years accept me looking like this.”

Donald looked at the person sitting next to him. Deep down, he knew that his dear wife would never have accepted William, becoming Dianna. He'd always been put on this pedestal by his wife. She'd sulked for months when William told her that he wasn’t going to university. That wasn’t the future that she’d planned for him ever since she’d given birth to him at the Western General Hospital.

Donald nodded his head.
“Good,” said Dianna.

Then she carried on with her story.
"I was offered the chance to be the person I've always dreamed of being. I'm just starting on my journey. Many of us have completed that journey and are living out in the open, in society as the person we have always wanted to be. That is the journey I want to take myself."

“You talk about ‘us’?”

"Yes, Dad, 'us'. I am living with others just like me while I complete my transition. Then I'll find a partner and live my life as I want to, not as mum wanted me to."

“She only means well.”

“I know that but in her eyes, I should have gone to university, started working for a bank or insurance company and be married to someone from a good Morningside family, live in a villa[1] out near Penicuik and have a child on the way. Am I right?”

Donald had to admit that Eileen's plan for their son had been well telegraphed many times over the years to anyone who would listen. It wasn’t Donald’s plan and to his pleasure, William had rebelled against her plan right from the start. In recent years it had become clear to Donald that William was not going to even remotely fit the mould that his mother had cast him in. What Dianna was saying made perfect sense to him.

"You know your mother. I'm a failure in the eyes of some of her family, and I'm the Procurator Fiscal. Nothing short of First Minister would do for them, and we get the 'wee poison dwarf' as the first minister.

“Dad! That’s no way to talk about the leader of Scotland.”

“She’s not my leader. Never will be and never could be.”

Dianna laughed.
“That’s as maybe, I never wanted to be like her.”

The words ‘be like her’ hit Donald hard right in the solar plexus.

“I love your mother.”

"I know but, your grandmother had a plan for her daughter. As soon as her mother saw you, you were doomed. Your mum told me about it when I became a teenager. She told me to enjoy my time before my mother's plan for my life was put into action. I was to do as I was told to if I valued my life until I found my course in life. I have done just that."

Donald laughed.
"Your gran was a formidable woman before she went doo-lally."

"I know. I got the sharp end of her, tongue often enough. I just wanted to be me, and that was not remotely like the model that mum had for me."

“But to be a woman?”

“Yes. I’ve always wanted to be one. I knew from an early age that I was born wrong. Mum would have nothing to do with it. I told her once and she went mad. She told me in no uncertain terms that I could never ever be a woman and that I was to be the man that she’d wanted me to be since the day that I was born.”

Dianna looked down at the floor.
“When I was approached at last years ‘Pride’ I never hesitated to say yes. I’d pretty much forgotten all about it until the bunch of roses arrived. I had to leave when I did or my chance would be gone.”

“You never told me? She never told me?”

"I know. I was scared too. I was going to tell you when we met after the match, but you got delayed. Everything was in place for my exit later that night, so I had to go right then."

"Was that you, we saw getting on a Ferry to Ireland?"

Dianna laughed.
“No, it wasn’t. I went down south in a van. It picked me up when I got off the train at Falkirk High.”

“You say that there are a number of you?”

"I can't give too many details, but yes, there are. I don’t know the true number but my guess is that it is around a hundred at any one time. We are here and in a few other places around the world including the USA. All those missing people that your friend Lee told you about? They are alive and well. One of those told us about your enquiries."

“You have a mole in DC?”

Dianna shook her head.
“I don’t know the details but there is one of us who is living their life as they want and is working in a certain US government department. She alerted us about the investigation that led back to Scotland. As soon as I heard the word ‘Edinburgh’, I knew that it would be you who was behind the investigation. I’m here today as a result and to ask you to in legal terms, ‘cease and desist’.”

“You want me to stop looking for others like you?”

“Please. You know that I’m ok. What you tell Mum is down to you.”

“Will I see you again?”

Dianna shook her head.
“Not for a while. I might come back when I have finished my transition, but I honestly don't know. Lots of things are up in the air. Mum and how she would react to me is just one of them."

“Can you promise me one thing?”

“I’ll try but please don’t ask me to speak to mum just yet.”

I shook my head.
“No. I wouldn’t ask you to do that yet.”

“Ok, what is it?”

“Can you try to get whoever is running the… the thing that you are with to get all the others to at least put their parents and loved ones out of their misery. Just not knowing is beyond cruel. Just to know that their sons are alive and well will help them deal with life a bit better.”

Dianna smiled at me.
“I will try. Just being here today has helped me no end.”

“Please do what you can. Now that I have seen you, I know that you are in a better place than before. It would be nice if at least some of the other parents could… you know what I mean.”

“I do dad, I do.”

Donald just sat there in the sun, trying to understand what was happening. His son… now living as a woman looked happy and content within herself.

"I have to go now, Dad," said Dianna.

She gave him a hug. That was something that William would never have done.

“When you have become the real you, try not to be a stranger, ok!" said Donald as Dianna stood up.

“We’ll see dad, we’ll see,” she said as she walked towards the exit to the gardens.

Donald sat there for another half an hour trying to think what, if anything, he would or could say to his wife. In the end, he decided to say nothing of the encounter. He knew how his wife would react to the news about their former son and now new daughter, Dianna.

Donald left the Botanical gardens with the outline of a plan in his mind but it would mean telling a lie and that was something he’d never done in thirty years of marriage. He’d buy his wife a nice bunch of flowers but definitely not any red roses. They were off the menu for the foreseeable future.

[The end]

[1] A villa in this case is a local term for a bungalow. A single storey house on its own plot of land. Many have extra rooms built into the roof.