by Tanya Allan
You see, people fill their garages with junk and leave their £100,000 cars on the drive. Okay, so they lock them, but then walk in the front door and plop the keys on the hall table next to the door.
You would be surprised to learn the amount of cars that are stolen by the crooks using the keys that have literally been fished through the letter box off the hall table.
Ray was fishing.
Gerrards Cross is one of the most expensive places in the UK (outside London) to buy a home. Within just twenty-five minutes of a central London railway station, most of the bigger homes on the Dukes Wood estate were valued at somewhere in the region of one to two million pounds, and many were double that!
Apart from the occasional fishpond, there is not a body of water in Gerrards Cross that one can consider catching a fish.
Still, Ray was using a fishing rod in Gerrards Cross. To be specific, he as fishing at Honeysuckle House on Dukes Wood Drive. On the drive behind him was a Bentley and a brand new Range Rover Sport. He might have been pleased to know that in the large, locked, double garage was a rack of indifferent wine, four bicycles that no one used any more, two sets of golf clubs, a windsurfer, a kayak that was last used four summers ago and a go-cart that was last used in 1997. Oh yes, and six old kitchen units stood where the workman had left them in 2006 because the lady of the house wanted to put them up in the garage to put things away for storage, but no one could be bothered to get round to it.
Ray was aiming for the Bentley keys, but wouldn’t mind if he could snaffle the Range Rover keys as well.
It was three in the morning, and Ray knew that there were no police at the local police station any more. The government cuts reduced the police to one Police Community Support Officer operating two days a week out of Burnham.
“Ah!” he breathed. “Got one!”
Delicately he handled the fishing rod, so as not to displace the keys that he had just snared on the end. With a big blob of sticky stuff, the keys were now secure.
He started to pull the rod back, and with it the set of keys.
“Excuse me?” said a pleasant female voice from behind him.
Ray froze.
No, it was his imagination, there’s no one behind him, for he would have heard them on the nice crunchy gravel.
Without moving his hands, he risked a quick peek behind him.
There, nothing!
“I’m up here,” said the same voice.
He turned a little too quickly and the keys fell off his fishing rod on the parquet floor.
They lay there forgotten as Ray looked up at the girl who floated five feet from the ground.
“You’re a naughty man, stealing these nice people’s cars, aren’t you?” she said.
Ray looked at her. She was a pretty girl, with long fair hair. She had normal clothes on, just a black sweater that showed off her boobs okay, and a tight pair of black leggings. Her pink trainers were hardly the superhero type. He guessed she was around sixteen or seventeen.
“Shouldn’t you wear a mask?” he heard himself ask.
“Why should I bother; who the hell would believe that you were caught by a flying girl?”
He blinked a couple of times.
“Caught?”
“Oh yes, you see, you’re nicked, I think they say.”
“Like fuck I am,” said Ray and set off across the gravel at a run.
Now, in being pretty mediocre at most things, Ray was actually quite nimble on his feet.
He wasn’t fast enough, for he felt a hand on the hood of his hoodie, and then next moment his feet no longer touched the ground. It was as he realised the rooftops were below them that he started to panic. You see, poor Ray wasn’t good with heights.
At around one hundred and twenty feet, the girl stopped. Ray took a swing at her with his fist. All that happened was that his fist hit something akin to an invisible brick wall and he felt shooting pains from his damaged hand.
“Okay,” said the girl in a cheerful tone. “We’re going to play a game now. I will ask you a question, and you will answer the question. If you refuse to answer or lie to me, I drop you. It’s easy, really, if you want to live, you just answer the questions and answer truthfully; okay?”
Ray was too busy looking at the ground below.
“Oi!” the girl said, raising her voice. “I was talking to you. Do please have the decency of attending to me when I speak!”
Ray stared at her.
“Huh?”
Sighing, she repeated her statement about the game they would play.
“You’re mad!” he said, feeling more than slightly worried.
“No, I’m very dangerous and you are possibly going to die very soon. Now, question number one – what is your name?”
Police Constable Debbie Harris was bored. Contrary to Ray’s inaccurate idea of how many officers were on duty, Debbie was actually a police officer and on duty. She was one of six that covered the South Buckinghamshire area this fine night.
Night shift in the Eastern Sector of the South Bucks division of the Thames Valley Police area was hardly the centre of crime and disorder. Boasting the towns of Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield, plus several substantial villages in between, it managed to include some of the most expensive housing in the UK. It also managed to possess a minimal amount of more basic housing, so most of the criminals that preyed on the wealthy came in from outside.
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.
<
br /> “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.
“And you believed him?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I did.”
“Why?”
“Well, the girl looked very like him.”
“But not identical?”
“No, she was a female version of Kenneth.”
“Did you ever see them together?”
“No.”
“Have you seen her since?”
“I haven’t been home; I daren’t.”
“Quite. Perhaps it’s best I speak to Kenneth about this.”
“No, you can’t!” Linda said, quite heatedly.
John was intrigued.
“Why on earth not; there could be a very rational explanation for what you think you saw?”
“Kenneth might say things that I don’t want him to say!” she said, clearly getting distraught.
John frowned. Linda was showing some clear symptoms of paranoia and a real sense of being disconnected to reality. He had seen this before in people with high-powered and stressful jobs. There was a general inability to deal with both home-life and work. Often, one or the other would descend into an unreal type of chaos, involving hallucinations and the imagination creating an artificial reality in which rational and logical thought was conspicuous by its absence.
“Where is Kenneth now?”
“I hope he’s in school.”
“Good; now, does he attend as Kenneth or the girl?”
“Keira.”
“Quite; does he attend as Keira?”
“He says he has to go as Kenneth until he’s legally accepted as a girl.”
John nodded, making some notes on his pad.
“Does anyone else know about his intended transition?”
“He says the Headmaster knows, and some doctor that the school sent him to.”
“What doctor; do you know?”
“No; just that it’s a woman.”
“You don’t know her name?”
“No.”
“Now, I understand that in gender dysphoria cases where the patient is under seventeen, parental consent is necessary for the doctors to undertake various courses of treatment. Have you been made aware of this?”
“Oh yes, he made me sign a form.”
“Made you?”
Linda balked. If she mentioned what Kenneth threatened her with, then ...
“He told me I had to.”
“Why?”
“He said he’s been a boy long enough and he has to be a girl now.”
“Have you spoken to Graham about what has happened?”
“He’s abroad, on business, again. We haven’t spoken in days.”
John was aware, as were most people who knew the couple that Graham was screwing his secretary, but he thought that Linda didn’t know. Clear
ly from her tone of voice, she did!
“Okay; so I think I have an idea of what you believe has happened. I’m not a psychiatrist, so will confer with a colleague of mine. In the meantime, I’ll prescribe some medication that will calm you down a bit. If these help and some of what you might be imagining disappear, then we’ll reconsider, but if things continue, then I might have to refer you to someone more qualified.
“I will also contact the school. As Kenneth’s GP I should have been kept in the loop if he’s been referred to another doctor. However, as I am a friend of the family, he might consider that I am too close to you, as a family, to deal with this little problem objectively. I can understand his reasoning, although I’m sure I could handle this little problem without much difficulty.”
He wrote her a prescription and handed it to her.
“Come and see me in five days. If anything untoward happens in the meantime, give me a ring; okay?”
Linda was convinced that John thought her own diagnosis was correct and that she was having a mental breakdown. However, she took the prescription, thanked him, and left. As she drove to the chemist, she called Yvonne and told her the news.
“How have you been since I last saw you?”Anne Dobson asked Kenneth.
“Okay, I guess.”
“No headaches or anything?”
“Nope.”
“About the other issues, did you tell your mother you’d seen me?”
“Yes; but I think she’s having a breakdown.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She’s behaving very oddly. She hasn’t been home for about a week.”
“So, you’re on your own, or is your dad at home?”
“Dad’s still abroad on business.”
“You’re on your own, then?”
“I’m used to it.”
“Does your mother drink?”
“A bit.”
“Tell me a bit about her.”
Kenneth did, keeping it clean, but stressing how important her job was to her, and how unimportant he felt. He alluded to, rather than explained, his ‘suspicions’ of his parents’ infidelity but was not specific. The picture he painted for the doctor was of a young man with obvious dysphoria and a definite conviction that he should be female. He was subject to neglecting parents who were wealthy and so career orientated that it was almost to the point of abuse.
