Chapter 1

It was lunchtime Friday, and I was having a ploughman’s lunch at the Fountains Coffee Shop and Restaurant. It was my favourite eating place, just a few steps along Wormgate from my office. It hadn’t been a busy week, something I didn’t mind. I really didn’t have to work too hard to earn enough to live on, my police pension helping a lot.

The problem with that was that the reason behind the pension had increased my weekly spending a bit. After all, a girl has to look her best, doesn’t she? I wasn’t always a girl, no, I had a good career as a policeman. I had reasonable results from school and joined the police in Derby, rising from a lowly cadet in my teens, to a detective sergeant by my late twenties.

I had bucked the trend, as I was barely tall enough for the minimum height limits but had a black belt in karate when I joined. The force, at that time, was looking for big guys who could manage the growing trend of violent street gangs. I was able to slide in as a junior constable in the white-collar crimes area, moving up the ranks as my arrest list became more impressive. It was my success that led to my downfall, as well as the reason for my pension.

Detective Sergeant Peter Ibbotson. That was who I used to be, whenever I gave evidence in court. Polly to the guys in the squad, due to my love of peanuts. It was always having a packet on my person that saved my life. I had just wound up a case against a particularly vicious construction union boss, who had been syphoning off money from his members to fund a second life overseas. He had been given ten years and had vowed to get even with me. A lot of criminals said that, as they were taken away. It was their last shout of defiance before they joined the prison population.

It wasn’t him that got revenge, though, but his mistress. His wife had been glad to see the back of him and had not been party to his activities. The mistress, however, was the one expecting to live the high life in a sunny climate. I had forgotten about him and was deep into another case when I got a call to visit a builder’s yard. The message was that the secretary had information about her employer that she wanted to pass along.

The yard was one that had been involved with the union case, and I already had my suspicions that there was something fishy there. I was shown into the office where the secretary started telling me about her employer. I was taking notes and it all seemed right, when someone hit me with a bat, in the face, knocking me out.

When I regained consciousness, I was in one of the garages, hanging by my wrists from the side of a large truck, naked and with my feet spread apart with what could have been a bondage spreader, that was how it was described to me afterwards. The woman now started raging on about how I had deprived her of her future. After some minutes of this she shouted that she would deprive me of mine, taking a box cutter, lifting away my penis and taking my scrotum in one slash. That’s when I passed out, only coming around, some days later in hospital.

The patrol that had saved me had been advised that I wasn’t answering my phone and that my car GPS showed where I was. They had found my packet of peanuts on the ground outside this garage and had entered to find my attacker dancing around, waving her bloody box cutter, while I was bleeding out against the truck. The secretary had left the building and was eventually arrested trying to get on a cross-channel ferry.

The upshot of all this was that the doctors decided that I was too damaged to remain as I was, her box cutter slicing off some of my penis on the way; and had given me a full transition operation, to match the look of my newly rebuilt face. I had gone along with them when shown a computer generation of how my face would look after all the bandages had been removed. My time as a Detective Sergeant was certainly over.

The police union worked hard for me to get a full pension, due to my career stopping from activities of a sentenced criminal, the mistress having received eight years for assaulting an officer. I was starting to move around and was getting brave enough to look in a mirror, when I was visited by an old acquaintance. He had been one of the seniors in one of my early postings and had retired to take up a Private Investigations job, ending up as a sole trader after buying out the owners of the business.

I was at my lowest ebb, wondering what I would do now. It wasn’t not being a policeman that worried me, more, it was the idea of how I could spend my life as a woman that was uppermost. What he proposed fitted the bill. He would sell me the business, including the office, for a reasonable sum. He told me that the work was steady, interesting, and reasonably profitable, none of it a lie, but more like skirting with the truth. It was based in Boston, Lincolnshire, far enough away for me to re-appear as Polly, a newbie to the town, but not so far that I lost all of my police contacts.

The business name was a case in point. Private Investigations and Security Services wasn’t too bad on the office door, it was the ‘P.I.S.S Upstairs’ sign in the reception of The Beauty Lounge that rankled. The office entry was through a side door and over the salon. There was parking out back for my car, and a good view over the River Witham as it flowed through Boston. I didn’t get many walk-in clients, as much of the initial contacts were by phone, with meetings done in homes, places of work, or quiet places where the client felt more secure.

I had found a place to live in the town, had come to grips with living as a woman and now had the salon, downstairs, who were only too happy to keep my appearance as a pretty woman up to scratch. Actually, the surgeons had done an amazing job, as I looked like I had been born with this face and only had to learn to act as if I had been born with the rest of my new body.

The work had been steady, in the beginning, and it did look as if I had made the right choice. Only later did some of the clients start moving elsewhere, citing that they needed a man to handle the business. I found that I needed to shift focus, so started dropping my card at pink pubs, gay bars, and transvestite hangouts. After all, I knew, from firsthand, what they were going through. My card now read ‘Polly Ibbotson Security Services’ as did the sign on the office door; so that I kept the company initials. The business did pick up, after that, and I was starting to do quite well. I was doing a lot of work finding runaway children who had shown a tendency for living as the opposite gender. I never promised to return them, only to ensure that they renewed contact with their families.

That brings me to that Friday, in the café, eating my ploughman’s lunch, trying hard not to drop anything on my skirt. I had always been fond of the dish but didn’t have too many of the onions these days. I had also swapped the usual beer for a glass of white wine. I was starting to think that I had better find something more feminine to have for lunch when my phone buzzed in my bag.

When I answered it, I was asked if I could take on a case where the police had decided that a person had died by accident, but the caller, his partner, was certain that he had been murdered. I agreed to meet her at the place where the body had been found, in the Fairy Dell Pool, on the seafront of Skegness, later that afternoon.

I went back to the office, hung the ‘Out on a case’ sign on the outer door, and got into my car to drive to Skegness. On the way, I wondered about the scant details I had been given. The police will often call a case suicide or accidental death if there’s no signs of foul play. I did know something about this case, already. She had said that her husband had been found, floating, in the Fairy Dell. I knew, from the times I had spent as a kid at Skegness, that there was no way you could float in the Fairy Dell, as it was only about six inches deep, at the most.

Skegness was a place I knew well, from my childhood holidays. In the boom times of day trippers, it had been known as Skegvegas, because of all the bright, flashing lights of the amusement arcades and fairground rides. Lately, however, it, like many other seaside towns, had become a refuge for the elderly and unoccupied, taking over the old hotels as convalescent homes and homeless refuges. Its nickname, recently, was Brexit-on-sea because of the high vote for Brexit. I really don’t think that Alfred Lord Tennyson would recognise the place these days. It had changed a lot since his childhood visits.

I had plenty of time before my appointment so stopped at the Police Station, now a grand building, as befitting the Divisional Headquarters. Luckily, an old friend was manning the desk.

“George, it’s good to see you. Do you have a minute?”

“Polly, I’d been told about your troubles. You’ve certainly come up a treat, lass. What can I do for you?”

“I’m on my way to see Angela Williamson, she thinks that her husband, Bernard, was murdered but you lot are not interested. Can I get copies of the reports and forensics after I’ve seen her? I want to show willing as she sounded at the end of her tether when I spoke to her on the phone.”

“No problem, lass. That woman’s been a right pain, writing to the papers, ringing the boss, pestering us. There’s nothing to go on, so I was told by the Constable that looked at it. The boss will be happy if you get her off our backs. Drop in on the way home and I’ll have them ready.”

“Thanks, George. I’ll buy you a drink if I see you in the pub.”

“That’ll be the Ship, lass. I get off after six. Perhaps you could join me for a pint and some crisps before you go home, today.”

“That sounds good, George. Once I’ve picked up the papers, I’ll head for the Ship and go through them until you get off.”

Happy with what I had achieved, I got back into the car and went to the Festival carpark that was east of the park area where the Fairy Dell was. I sat there, thinking about things, until I saw a woman, in black, walking towards the Dell with a small bunch of flowers in her hand. This just had to be Angela. Getting out and locking my little hatch, I went and met her as she stood alongside the Pool. She threw the flowers into the water before turning to greet me. I bet the council workers loved her as they cleaned the pool.

“Hello, you must be Angela. I’m Polly Ibbotson. I’m sorry for your loss. Now, let’s get over to a bench where we can sit, and you can tell me all about it.”

“Hello, Polly. Thank you for coming to see me so quickly. I’ve reached the end of my patience with the local police, nothing I do seems to get them moving.”

We moved to a bench and sat.

“How did you find out about me, it’s always good to see where referrals come from.”

“An old friend of my husband saw how I wasn’t coping and gave me your card. He said that a friend of his had lost his son. He told my friend that you had found him and put him back in touch with the family. I didn’t ask, but there seemed to be a lot more to it.”

“Thanks for that. I do get a number of missing children these days. Now, tell me about your life with your husband, right from the time you met him, so that I can build a picture in my mind. If you don’t mind, I’ll record it on this little gizmo, so I don’t have to come back to you with questions you’ve already answered.”

“All right. We met, just over there, in the carpark where your hatch is parked. It was a Sunday in summer, and the Triumph Owners were here, in force. I was looking for a Herald, my parents had one when I was little, and I loved it. Bernard was there, with a Mayflower. I knew he was a local, as I’d seen him around, and I asked him if he knew anyone who had a Herald they wanted to sell. He took me to a guy who had one there and helped me negotiate a price. We took it for a run up the coast and back, and I met the owner during the week and paid for it. I still have it, at home, but it makes me cry when I drive it. Too many memories.”

“And then?”

“Well, I started going out with Bernard and we married. We lived in a flat until his parents decided that they wanted to go off to Spain and live the rest of their life in a warm climate. We took out a mortgage and bought his old home. It’s not far from here, just off the main road.”

“What about children?”

“We didn’t have any. It didn’t bother me as I had my job in the bank, and he was being very busy with his job. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but nothing ever happened. I was tested and was all right, but he wouldn’t have a test to see if his sperm was good. A few years later, I found him wearing a dress when I got home early one day. I didn’t go mad, just asked him to sit down and discuss it. I have to say that he looked good as a woman, I could have passed her in the street and not know it was Bernard, or Bernice, as he called himself.”

“How did that work out?”

“It was all very adult, really. I stayed with him, and he promised to stop dressing. I know, now, that it’s a compulsion and that he wasn’t able to do that. The clothes, however, came out of their hiding places and disappeared. I never saw him as a female again. About five years ago, he developed erectile disfunction. We shared a bed but haven’t had sex since.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“He was a salesman at the car showroom in Arcadia Road, and he did other work for the repair shops in the Wainfleet Road industrial estate. He was very good with fifties and sixties cars, and used to source them, to order, for the repair shops to restore and resell. They paid him a set amount over what he had paid for each one. He was off getting a Sunbeam Rapier the weekend he died. I had expected him home on the Saturday night and it was Sunday morning when the police contacted me.”

“How was he found?”

“He died in mid-February. It was a dog walker who saw him. The police said that he was face-down, in that pool over there, and the water had frozen over. It had dropped to below zero during the night so they think he may have been there since about midnight. They haven’t told me anything about any blood results, but the guy that came to see me, Hutchins, his name was, seemed to be happy that my Bernard had been fully dressed as Bernice and that he had cum in his anus.”

“If that was the same Hutchins I knew, it’s no wonder the case went nowhere. The man is a homophobic misogynist and a bully. I doubt that he ever went out and investigated your husband’s death. I’ve got a couple of friends in the local station; I’ll talk to them and see what else I can find. Now, can I take you home and look around. I’ve got several ideas about Bernard, but it would be good to see where he spent most of his time. I’ll come back up on Monday and talk to his employers and ask around. I expect that, somewhere in this town, is a shed, lockup, or room with his Bernice clothes. I’m surprised that nothing has been turned up on that side. Maybe Hutchins just never bothered.”

We went to my car, and I drove her home. It wasn’t that far from the Fairy Dell. From what she said, he wasn’t on his way home when he died, so the placement of his body in the paddling pool was odd. At her home, she made a pot of tea while I made by search. The small garage gave me nothing, except a few places where he may have hidden his outfits. The Herald was truly lovely, as was the Mayflower that took up most of the space. I had a look in that and found a key in the glovebox. It was a Yale and was likely to be from a padlock. I put it in my jacket pocket. The house was typical, with nothing that was standing out as his, except for a line of car oddments on the mantlepiece. I asked her about them.

“They were things he would bring home for me when he was off on his buying trips. A lot of the cars he bought had bits in the boot, which he would souvenir and put up there. There weren’t many that he missed, except for one that he bought late last year. That was an S Type Jaguar. He gave me the keyring but there wasn’t anything else we could put up there. He was very quiet, for a while, after that trip. He only brightened up just before Christmas.”

We sat and drank the tea, and I could see that I had, at least, given her some hope. I told her that I would take the case and we agreed on a price. I said that I would be meeting a friend for a meal, later, and that I hoped I would get some inside gossip from him. She wrote out a cheque for my services and we hugged before I went off to the station to pick up the paperwork.

George was as good as his word, and there was a folder waiting for me, with photocopied paperwork, including some handwritten notes. I was told which table to commandeer at The Ship and I went there to look at what the police had on our Bernard Williamson.

The first thing I looked at was the Toxicology Report. Now, that was interesting! When he died, he had fentanyl in his system, in a big enough dose to have brought on side-effects. There wasn’t any alcohol or other drugs in his blood. The pathologist had not found any bruising on the body, other than blood pooling as he lay on his front but had noted that the water in his lungs wasn’t as much as you would expect of a drowning and surmised that Bernard may have been close to death from the drug, the water merely finishing him off.

With the freezing night, the time of death wasn’t easy to guess, but the likely time was between ten and two, on Saturday night. The residue in the anus was definitely sperm, along with traces of a lube, so the pathologist expected that the sex was consensual and also made the note that the anus showed typical signs of having sex often.

The official report told me that Bernard had been found wearing a jersey dress over a silk slip, with black bra and panty set with a black garter belt. The stockings were expensive and only damaged on the front, the falsies were also top of the line, as were the heels found near the edge of the pool. The blonde wig was estimated to be worth close to a thousand pounds, new, and had been well looked after. Bernice was made-up to look like a woman out on a Saturday night and the photocopy of the head and shoulders showed a middle aged, but pretty woman. A handbag was in the water, alongside the body, with his wallet and a Yale key in it. When I looked, the number on that key matched the one I had put in my pocket.

When George sat down opposite me, I had a lot of thoughts running through my brain. He put his glass on the table and grinned.

“Double malt, whiskey, if you’re wondering. I told the barmaid that you’ll be paying when you order our meals. Mine’s a steak and chips if you’re asking.”

“What I’m asking, George, is who was the idiot that put Hutchins in charge of a case like this?”

“That was our new Chief Inspector, just up from London. He obviously thought that it would be a good case for a guy who wanted to be made a sergeant. As you, and I know, it was nowhere near something Hutchins could get his head around. The CI caught on, after hearing Hutchins sounding off about poofs and queers, and sent him off to the Merseyside Division, to be with like-minded officers. Not one to procrastinate, our CI Dawlish. You have an appointment with him, at the station, on Monday at ten. He knows your record and I think he wants an autograph. Now, are we going to eat, or do I have to go home and heat up something the missus cooked two days ago.”

We had a good meal and a better talk. I left with a lot more inside knowledge of the Skegness station and the activities that they were trying to control, if not stamp out. When I got home, I put myself to bed and slept like a baby. You know, the one that wakes up every two hours for a pee.

On Sunday, I lounged around and read through the report again. I made a list of all the repair shops in, or around, the Wainfleet Road estate. I also made a list of the things I now knew, and another of the things I guessed. The main thing I had to find was his changing room. Where it was would be a big clue, and what was there would be another. The car collection last year worried me. I wondered if he had found something in that car which led to his murder, as it was murder that I saw, as plain as the red nose on Hutchins’ face. Those S Types were the go-to cars for the bank robbers and hard men in their day, and were still a potent tool on the road, even if they were a bit cramped.

With my appointment, and the list I had made, I was going to be a busy girl on Monday.

Marianne Gregory © 2023