Act 3: Justice

Justice mid-12c., “the exercise of authority in vindication of right by assigning reward or punishment,” from O.Fr.

The case was difficult from the onset. The victim refused to say anything. That he had been attacked and seemingly neutered he seemed completely unaware of. He was quiet and staying quiet. DI Chris Bentley was sure that the victim must know his attacker and be planning revenge of his own. It was imperative that he find and bring to justice the attacker, before the victim could take matters into his own hands.

“There is quite a cocktail of drugs in his system,” the doctor had said. “Synthetic opiod, probably Oxycodone, for one; flunitrazepam also known as Rohypnol for a second; prochlorperazine which is a phenothiazine anti-emetic drug for a third; and Sildenafil, aka Viagra for a fourth. The phenothiazine would stop him vomiting and so keep the drugs effective in his system longer”

“Shit,” Bentley had interjected before the Doctor had continued.

“Quite. There was also methylenedioxyphenethylamine, aka MDMA. This patient had one hell of a party.”

“Maybe so Doctor, but he seems to have ended up without his balls and that is what concerns me. Also, the fact that he won’t speak and tell us what happened.”

“I doubt,” the doctor had replied, “that he has a clue what happened if this was an assault. The mix of psychoactive drugs would have left him detached from reality. The opiate would have dulled any pain as the procedure was undertaken. It was not in any way a professional or competent removal. The odd thing is the high amount of oestrogen and progestogen in his blood. That may indicate that he was a willing participant. He does have small but definite breasts and possibly he went to a backstreet and untrained doctor to willingly be feminised?”

“You think he was trying to turn himself into a woman? But that makes little sense, you can get that done through your GP these days.” Chris Bentley had seen many strange things in his police life and his mind was more open to oddities than most of his colleagues. Everything he saw told him that was an assault, not a willing procedure. “Thanks doc, when can I get a copy of your official report?”

“You can’t. He is alive not dead, so my report will be part of his medical notes and you can’t see them. I have told you more than I should and I am not going to repeat any of that to you in writing. Sorry.” Chris Bentley turned away, pissed off, but knowing the doctor was right. He had told him a lot, a lot more than could be expected and unless the victim chose to make a complaint, there was little he could do. He needed to chat this through with his DS and see if it made sense to her. He pressed his speed dial. “Christine, I need to pass something by you”

Detective Sergeant Christine Jackson sat nursing her diet coke as DI Chris Bentley outlined what he knew. This was as bizarre a case as any she had worked with him and if she had learned anything, it was that the slightest detail, no matter how bizarre might create the breakthrough. She listened intently before summing up.

“So, he appears to have been taking female hormones for a while, certainly long enough to start developing breasts. His body was full of opiates and roofies, and his testicles have been removed. And you think he has been a victim of a crime rather than someone trapped in the wrong sex body trying to get the right body?”

“Absolutely I do. He was found in a confused state, unaware of who he was or where he was. The PCSO that found him knew that something was wrong and called for an ambulance. If, and I do mean if, he had wanted a sex change, he could have just popped along to his GP and started the ball rolling, no pun intended. He wouldn’t have ended up sitting on a bench in the High Street. No, this screams crime to me, and I want to find out what would prompt someone to take a mans balls.”

“Sir, the obvious person is someone he attacked sexually, but equally, this could be gang or crime related, someone he crossed getting even. The thing I don’t get is the female hormones, I don’t get that at all. You can attack someone, overpower them and cut their balls off, but how do you force someone to take hormones for long enough for them to grow boobs? Makes no sense.”

“Exactly Christine and that ‘makes no sense’ is part of why I am convinced he is a victim. At the moment he is not speaking, but he may still be under the influence of all the drugs in his system. They were apparently at a very high level, verging on lethal, it may take a while for to come down. The doctor said that depending on how long he was on those drugs, it might take quite a while for his body and brain to readjust.”

“What do we know about him? I mean, him as a person?”

“Nothing yet. He isn’t in the system, no prints or DNA. He had nothing in him that would give us a clue to his identity; his clothes are just ordinary, bought from any high street in any town. No house keys, no car keys, nothing.”

“Amnesia boss?”

“No Christine, the doctor thinks not, just confusion. I don’t think he is avoiding, I think he is simply spaced out. My worry is what happens when he lands and realises what has actually happened to him. He is seriously going to get mad and want to get even. I want to find who did this to him before he does.”

“Fair enough sir, but finding out who he is would be a great start.”

“Check all the missing people reports, see if there is a match. Plus he has to get around, so he either has a car or uses buses and trains. Go back four weeks and get images from local CCTV and pass it on to the face recognition people. We might get lucky. If we can find him, place him somewhere, at least that gives us somewhere to start.”

“Sir.” Christine picked up her phone and started dialling, there was much to do.

Christine was sat at a terminal in the CCTV control centre with the archive files from when the unsub was first found. She had the CCTV from the High Street and watched as a woman walked down the street embracing their unsub and left him sat on the bench before walking on. She managed to track the woman along the High Street until she disappeared into The Central Hotel. She never reappeared. Christine tried to follow the woman back along the High Street, but they just did not have enough camera coverage. She came into view of the first camera with the unsub on her arm. She tried scanning back through CCTV on surrounding streets, but no joy. Nothing, no clues. The couple just appeared, and then split up and the woman vanished, leaving the man for about half an hour before the PCSO turned up and started speaking to him.

She rang the Central Hotel and asked to speak to the duty manager and explained that she needed to review the CCTV as they were trying to identify an amnesiac that had links to the hotel, and gave the date and approximate time she was looking.

“I’m sorry DS Jackson, but I would have to ask for a warrant from you to view that footage, as you know, the Data Protection act is very specific.”

“Ah, yes,” Christine interrupted. “I think sir that you are misinformed. The act concerned is the Regulatory and Investigative Powers Act, and that gives us, the police, the right of access to your CCTV images. Once you hand them over to us, then it is us that are bound by the Data Protection Act.”

There was an intake of breath at the other end. “Oh. I see.”

“Indeed. I shall be with you in about twenty minutes. If you could have copies of the recordings available for me, on CD or Memory Stick, either is fine and I will sign any receipt that you care for.”

About an hour later she was sat at her desk, a CD of the CCTV images in her PC. She saw the woman who had been with the unsub as he was left on the bench enter the hotel lobby and go through into the dining room, but she never reappeared. She was not on any lift cam recordings, nor any of the recordings for the various hotel entry and exit doors. Going back to the reception cam she watched all the women going up to the reception desk. One caught her eye. She had a totally different hair colour and style, but she was the only single woman that checked out of the hotel. She was back on the phone to the duty manager, she needed the name of that woman.

Emily Jones. Christine checked credit card entries from the Visa card used by the woman checking out. Nothing notable. A few train tickets, a few supermarket shops. Nothing that caught her eye. She checked with the DVLA and got details of her car and then entered her index number into the ANPR system with a request for all loggings going back six months.

‘What do we know Christine?” Chris Jackson asked as he entered the office.

“Not sure yet sir. I have a woman who may or may not be connected to our unsub.” She explained how a woman had checked into the Central Hotel and then not reappeared until checking out, and how, during this woman’s stay at the Central, a woman looking totally different had left the hotel and then returned after dropping the unsub off at the bench.

“So what makes you think they are linked?”

“Well, once she checks in there is no sign of her, but later a woman, who I can’t find checking in, leaves the hotel appears in the street with the unsub, goes back to the hotel, disappears, and then this woman, Emily Jones, reappears and checks out. Could be the same woman.”

DI Jackson looked at the footage of the two women. “Bloody hell Christine, I could not tell from that if they were the same woman or not. The heights look different, but that could be shoes, the hair is different, but that could be wigs. The resolution is just not good enough to tell. What does the face rec software say?”

“Inconclusive sir.”

“Let’s go over her with a fine tooth comb before we bring her in for a chat. I want to know where she has been for the past few months, where her car has been seen, what she has been doing, where she works, what days she has had off and why. I want to know absolutely everything there is to know. She is either the key or a massive red herring, no hair pun intended. The sooner we know which the better. Meanwhile, I am going back to the hospital to see if I can get anything out of matey boy yet.”

Christine just nodded. Her boss had a bit of a habit of instructing her to do what she was already doing. ‘I’ll make DI one day and be gifted with 20-20 retro vision’ she muttered under her breath.

Over the next few days as the various data came in, Christine plotted a timeline of all Emily Jones known movements, she also marked them on a map, trying to get a sense of where the woman went, if there were any patterns to her movements, patterns that might show deviations.

She had details from the DVLA of her old car and her current one. She had a trace for each car, although there was a gap between old and new cars of about two weeks. She put that gap down to Emily Jones not being especially quick to reregister the new car and a delay in processing at the DVLA. It was a worrisome gap, but hopefully not critical. There was a definite change in location about 3 months ago, and that tied in with her change of address. Although Emily Jones had not changed her driving licence registered address, she had registered the new car at a new address. A check with the council showed new people now living at her original address. She had moved. That in it self was not an especially suspicious event, but there was an on overall view that for some reason, around three months ago, Emily Jones made some major changes in her life. She sold her house and car and moved out of the area. “I wonder why that is?” Christine mused aloud.

The face recognition software so beloved of the spooks didn’t yield anything. The biggest data source had been the APN that tracked her car and Christine began to concentrate on that. Going over and over her known routes, Christine began to notice gaps, gaps where Emily Jones car would drive into an area, and then not reappear for a few days. Odd. Christine looked closely at what was in the areas concerned, was it a hotel, a train or bus station? None of those things seemed consistent. There was a possibility though. She looked up the number and made a call.

“Hi, this is Detective Sergeant Christine Jackson, I wonder if you confirm if an Emily Jones hired a car from you on the 12th of last month?”

So. Emily Jones had not only changed her house and car, she had a habit of hiring a car for a few days at a time. Christine took the registration numbers and dates given to her by the hire company and fed that into the ANPR.

A picture of a woman leading two lives was beginning to emerge. Emily Jones who lead a completely normal life, working, shopping and seemingly without a boy or girlfriend. And Emily Jones who disappeared off the net, drove in hire cars and visited places normal Emily didn’t. Was it for a lover perhaps, a married lover possibly, or was it for something more sinister.

DI Chris Bentley came in for an update. Christine showed him what she had, a lot of mystery but nothing that could definitely link her to the unsub.

“I couldn’t really get much out of him,” Bentley said. His name seems to be Richard, but I could get no more than that out of him. He seems to have no recollection beyond getting on a train. Until he started coming out of it in hospital, his memory seems blank. The doctors have not discussed any medical issues with him, so he would appear to be unaware of what has happened to him.”

“Unless of course, it is something he asked for?” Christine said,” he has got women’s breasts and they don’t grow over night. The evidence points to this all being self-inflicted. I have stumbled a cross a woman with a seemingly double life, but that could just be because she is having an affair that she doesn’t want to come to light. There may actually be no connection.”

Chris Bentley leant back in the chair and sipped at his cappuccino from the plastic cup. “I don’t know Christine, it feels like a crime to me. Look, put this Emily on a back burner. Get a warrant for her full bank records, and whilst that is going through the system, see if you can find our unsub on a train. Most of the stations have CCTV, lets see if we can find him. If there is a cross over, it should show up.”

“Sir.” On a hunch Christine decided to concentrate on the stations that the ANPR indicated that Emily could have used when driving the hire car. All the car parks were operated by the same company and a close working relationship existed between them and the police. She sent them the registration number of Emily Jones hire cars and asked them to return any video footage that they could that included those cars.