It covered the area right up to the Denhams that bordered with the Metropolitan Police area to the east and Hertfordshire to the north. To the south was Slough, in Berkshire, a large industrial town with all the advantages and problems that one normally associates with such a place. To the west was South Bucks West, including Burnham, Taplow and the Farnhams.
Last year the robbery statistics for South Bucks East caused the senior management team severe depression because the numbers of robberies doubled – from one to two. And the second one was a fourteen year old who was pushed over at Beaconsfield Fair when another fourteen year old took his mobile phone.
Debbie was somewhat startled and surprised when she had to brake suddenly as a man appeared in the middle of the A40 in front of her police car.
She got out of the car quickly and walked up to the man, with her right hand on her CS spray canister on her belt, just in case.
“Are you bonkers? You’ll get yourself killed if you fuck about in the middle of the road!” she said angrily.
Ray Lewis wasn’t listening, as he was staring into the sky and dribbling gently. It was at this point that the officer noticed that his arms were bound with duct tape and there was a notice pinned to his chest.
She read it out loud.
“Hello, my name is Ray Lewis. I’m a nasty little man. I was trying to steal cars from five properties in Dukes Wood drive this morning. My fishing rod is still stuck in the door of Honeysuckle House. I live in Vermont Road on the Britwell Estate in Slough and there are three stolen cars in my lockup round the corner. The keys for the lockup are in my lavatory cistern at my house. The man I steal cars for is called Michael; he’s a Pole, and lives somewhere in Langley. I don’t know the address, but he drives a BMW on a 54 plate. We meet at the Ghurkha Pub.”
The girl stopped reading, as disbelief hit her expression.
“Is this right?” she asked.
“Huh?” said Ray, still staring up into the sky. She noted that a small puddle was slowly growing at his feet, and there was a distinct smell of urine.
“Have you been trying to steal cars, as this note says?”
“Yes, love; just, take me in, please?”
“Yes? You mean this is all true?”
“Fuck me, what more do you want? Just get me somewhere safe, away from here, please!” the last please was almost a shriek, so Debbie arrested Ray and cautioned him, as she was trained to do. Ray ran to the back of her car and tried to open the door, but without free arms he couldn’t.
“Let’s go, now!” he said, still staring into the sky.
“No way, mate,” said Debbie, as she used her radio to call for a van. “You’re not getting in there with piss all over your pants!”
As they waited for the van, neither observed the girl who floated up by the top of the trees.
Keira smiled as she felt a feeling of satisfaction.
Ray was her third attempt at administering justice. He was her first success, as the previous two had been messy and hardly what anyone would class as a resounding success.
Kenneth’s second visit to the doctor was due in the afternoon, after school a week later. The dust had settled at school, and he was a lot more at ease than before. Spending all the time at home after school as Keira was excellent, but it was just a shame that he had to return to being Kenneth for school.
On the previous evening, Keira had met one Ray Lewis, as he attempted to steal cars. Much to her delight, this event had gone right, and so she felt justly proud to have completed it.
She was also quite tired when she finally got to bed at around three in the morning, so it took a supreme effort to return to being Kenneth and go to school. His mother was not in evidence at breakfast. Kenneth checked her room and saw that her bed was still made. That meant she had probably stayed over with Yvonne for the third night in a row.
He sat through his lessons with his mind soaring the skies as Keira.
Meanwhile, Linda was actually at the doctor’s surgery; a different one to the one her son/daughter was seeing. She was seeing her doctor for very different reasons.
John Chapman had been the Frost’s GP for a little over fifteen years. He was a friend of the family as well, and so the concern in his voice was genuine.
“Why exactly do you think you’re having a breakdown, Linda?” he asked.
“I think I’m hallucinating.”
“Go on.”
“This is so difficult. I have been working very hard recently, as my work is very demanding, as you know. Well, it all started when Kenneth got into a fight at school.....”
John listened, but with only half an ear. He had known Linda and her husband for many years and, yes, they were friends, but not close friends. Linda was a rather pretentious woman, with airs and graces that quite annoyed John when taken in large doses. John got on well with Graham, playing golf with him occasionally.
His ears pricked up when Linda said something ludicrous, he even stopped doodling on his notepad.
“Kenneth was a girl?” he asked, unable to mask his confusion.
“No, but yes, well, no, because she called herself Keira.”
“Sorry, you’ve lost me. Who was this girl?”
“It was Kenneth, but she had breasts and called herself Keira” Linda repeated.
“So, where was Kenneth?”
“You don’t understand, she was Kenneth, but obviously had changed sex.”
John stared at her. He had initially thought she was just having one of her silly moments, but now he started to believe that she was genuinely sick.
“Okay, go back a little. Prior to this you mentioned that you had a conversation in which Kenneth mentioned that he felt he was transgendered and wanted to become a girl, yes?”
“Yes, but..”
“No, please, let me just get there slowly. If I’m to help, I need to know where the problem lies. Now, after this conversation; what happened?”
“He said some cruel things and went to bed.”
“Cruel things?”
“They don’t matter,” said Linda, unwilling to go into their extramarital affairs with the doctor. “What matters is what happened when I came home early on the next day.”
“That’s when you came into the kitchen to see Kenneth dressed as a girl; yes?”
“Yes, well, no.”
“Which is it?”
“He was wearing his tee shirt and shorts, so he wasn’t dressed as a girl, he was a girl. Those were his normal clothes.”
John stared at her.
“Was he, sorry, was she wearing makeup?”
“No, I don’t think so. She had a lovely complexion and a very nice figure, though.”
“A girl’s figure?” he asked, making the curves in the air with his hands.
“Yes, well, she was a girl, wasn’t she?”
“Okay, what makes you so sure that she was a girl?”
“She showed me her boobs, for goodness sakes. They were quite substantial, I can tell you!”
“That’s when this girl said she was called Keira and not Kenneth, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And you fainted?”
“Yes, I think so. I woke up in the sitting room, on the sofa. Kenneth was there, doing his homework.”
“Kenneth or Keira?”
“Kenneth, this one had no breasts.”
“Ah, that’s nice; how easy to distinguish between them. So, Kenneth was sitting doing his homework, without breasts; yes?”
“Yes, but...”
John held his hand up again.
“He was sitting there, having moved you somewhere comfortable, yes?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then he told you that he was able to switch between being a girl and being a boy, right?”
“That’s what he said.