This work is the property of the author, and the author retains full copyright, in relation to printed material, whether on paper or electronically. Any adaptation of the whole or part of the material for broadcast by radio, TV, or for stage plays or film, is the right of the author unless negotiated through legal contract. Permission is granted for it to be copied and read by individuals, and for no other purpose. Any commercial use by anyone other than the author is strictly prohibited, and may only be posted to free sites with the express permission of the author. If you enjoyed it, then please Email me and tell me. If you hated it, Email me and lie.

This work is fictitious, and any similarities to any persons, alive or dead, are purely coincidental.

I have based the tragic incident in the first chapter on a real event, and I salute those public servants and volunteers who worked so hard to manage the event, from every angle. My heart goes out to those directly and indirectly involved in the whole horrible affair, and I hope that I can, in some small way, pay homage to those who sought to bring relief and help.

I dedicate this work to the police officers, fire fighters, paramedics, doctors and nurses and all the other professionals and volunteers who give of themselves on a daily basis for the sake of others.

Mention is made of persons in public life only for the purposes of realism and for that reason alone. Certain licence is taken in respect of medical procedures, terms and conditions, and the author does not claim to be the fount of all knowledge.

The author accepts the right of the individual to hold his/her (or whatever) own political, religious and social views, and there is no intention to deliberately offend anyone. If you wish to take offence, that is your problem.

This is only a story, and it contains adult material, which includes sex and intimate descriptive details pertaining to genitalia. If this is likely to offend, then don't read it.

A young Police Constable's head popped round the open door of my office just as another airborne firework exploded some distance away from the station, illuminating the trees and buildings nearby. I didn't like November, as it was always a noisy bloody month.

“Inspector Stewart, what should we do with the vehicle?” he asked. He advanced into my office; thereby proving his head was properly attached to a body.

I attempted to disengage my brain from the report I was writing, rejoining the rest of the real world. Taking my reading glasses off, I looked at him.

“Sir, the car used in the robbery. It's still at the scene, what should we do?”

I frowned, why was he asking me? I was the duty Inspector; the Sergeant should be around to help with this.

“Sir, he's taken an IRU (immediate response unit) to the rail crash just the other side of Reading.”

“Ah.” I remembered now. A train had hit a car on a level crossing about an hour ago and there was chaos on the track. The westbound express had derailed causing fatalities and serious injuries to the passengers. As it happened at 18:45 on a Saturday, it was a miracle there weren't more deaths. I dreaded to think what kind of mayhem would have been caused on a packed weekday commuter train.

“As the car was used in crime and we have two suspects, recover the car for SOCO. Seize clothing from the suspects and make sure you tag SOCO so they can get it done as soon as possible. Have you searched the car?”

“Then get that done, carefully, so as to avoid cross contamination. I don't want officers involved in the arrest at the search scene. If you can get a SOCO there now, that would be brilliant, but I doubt there will be one on at eight o'clock on a Saturday evening. Don't forget the search pack. As far as the law is concerned it is a premises and I need to sign the authority to search.”

The PC looked relieved. He was very young, younger even than my own children. I shook my head. Twenty-nine years and six months I had been a copper and I was so glad that the end was now in sight.

I wondered about the crash. Annie, my daughter, was twenty-two and a nurse at a hospital in Reading. She would probably be dealing with the horrendous aftermath of this incident, so I was tempted to call her. Then I decided not to, as she'd have enough to do without her silly old Dad fussing at this time.

“Hi you. What's up?” she always sounded so pleased to hear from me, my heart warming at the sound of her voice.

“It was on the news. I suppose they'll take all the casualties into Reading,” she said.

“She called, she was on the early shift and they've kept her on. It's likely to be madness in there.”

“Tom, she's not a kid anymore. You'd been a copper for two years by the time you were her age.”

“With the crash scene? No, there's enough to do here without that. Besides, that's the Transport Police's patch.”

“We've sent a Sergeant and six from here and I guess other areas will do the same. It's Saturday night in Slough and I have to lose men I can't afford to lose!”

Maria was almost two years my junior. She was a dark-eyed Latin beauty who, at forty-seven, still retained her slim figure and wonderful, long, dark hair that had attracted me to her all those years ago. We had met in 1975, just after I'd finished my training and was pounding my first beat in Reading. I'd been called to a disturbance on the farm where she had been brought up.

There had been a break-in at the farm shop where she worked, so I spent some time reassuring her. Afterwards, I dropped in for tea whenever I passed. I'd found her attractive then, and still found her so today. To see her was to adore her and our initial friendship developed into something much deeper. I invited her to the Christmas dance. I proposed two months later and in 1977 we were married.

Her father had been an Italian POW, a Colonel in the Italian Army. Captured in North Africa in 1942, he was sent to a camp deep in the wilds of Berkshire. Unlike the Germans, who were disruptive and needed constant careful supervision and high security, the Italians were the opposite and willingly walked in and out of the camp, working on farms and market gardens throughout the war.

It was while helping on one such farm that he had met an attractive little lass called Jean Francis who, at just seventeen was very young and naïve. He was tall, very distinguished with excellent English. Jean's father, Ron Francis, was too old to go off to fight in the war so, missing his usual farm hands, was simply grateful for any help he could get. He used to make his own beer and wine and Colonel Francisco Callibretti had actually owned and managed his own vineyard before the war.

The Italian fell for the little English rose, yet was mindful of proprietary and the stigma of what would happen if seen to besmirch the honour of the English girl through fraternisation. Francisco bided his time and became firm friends with Ron. Jean was equally smitten and would use any excuse to spend time with the tall and sophisticated Italian. He was highly educated and intelligent, but was flattered that the girl found him good company, particularly when there was tough competition from younger and much more eligible allied servicemen. However, Jean found the local lads all too young and immature, lacking the finesse and grace the tall Italian seemed to possess.

Jean was the youngest of five children. Her two brothers were already in the services and so she and her sisters were put to work on the land. It was a hard life, but far better than working in wartime factories.

Jean's sisters snagged boyfriends who were either serving British or American servicemen. Indeed, Pam, the eldest, eventually married an American pilot and settled near Phoenix after the war. Susan's fiancé was killed in France shortly after the D Day, but after a mere six months of mourning she met and subsequently married a British army Lieutenant who was recuperating after being wounded on the push for Arnhem.

The day the war in Europe ended, Francisco formally requested permission from Ron for his youngest daughter's hand in marriage. There was a twenty-year age difference, but that seemed not to matter. They married and in the next twelve years had six children. Maria was born in 1956, when her father was fifty-six.

Ron and Francisco went into partnership and the farm expanded, diversifying into greenhouses containing tomatoes and other more unusual soft fruits and vegetables. They built their own farm shop, which expanded until, on Ron's death in 1964, they owned two local supermarkets as extra outlets for their produce.

Francisco died in 1982, but Maria's mother was still alive today, living in the house that she and her husband had built a couple of hundred yards away from her childhood home. Jean was now in her eighties, still an active woman, wonderfully involved with her family. The two supermarkets were bought out by a large chain in the early seventies, giving the family sufficient capital to guarantee a comfortable retirement. The farm shop was still in the family, as was the farm itself. Maria's eldest brother still ran the farm, earning a decent living by all accounts.

It had been a different world, almost a different life, back then. I sighed and went back to my report. It was a complaint against police, and once again, I was pleased to be finishing soon. This particular complaint was simply over a parking ticket. An officer had given the man a ticket, and he had objected, claiming he'd stopped to answer his mobile phone. The officer had watched as the man's wife or girlfriend had alighted from the vehicle and entered the shop adjacent to the car some five minutes earlier.

Whilst the man had an altercation with the officer, the woman returned and swore at the officer. It ended up with her being warned to curb her foul language and the man was given the ticket. He then claimed the officer assaulted him and he wanted the ticket voided or he would press charges.

I warned the man that to make a malicious complaint was as much an offence as the alleged assault and, in any case, I was not authorised to void the ticket.

He eventually backed off, declining to make a formal complaint, but it took an hour of my time, caused excessive stress to the officer and there were many more important matters I could have been dealing with.

I concluded the report, printed it off and sent it through dispatch to Professional Standards Department. My phone rang; it was the Custody Sergeant.

I went down to the Custody block, which was teeming as usual. I reviewed the two detainees, writing up the details on their log sheets. I then authorised four search packs and sorted out yet another complaint at the front desk.

The Custody alarm went off, so I dashed back in to find a young female officer struggling with a large black man, twice her size and obviously off his head with crack-cocaine.

I shoulder barged him to the floor and then grinned as Pete leaped on him as well. Together we managed to restrain him and, with another couple of officers, dragged him to the cell and deposited him there.

As Pete and I recovered over a cup of tea, we were both panting like a couple of foxhounds after a hunt.

“Shit, Tom, we're too old for this fucking about!” Pete said. He was about my age and due to retire at much the same time. He was overweight and balding and, like him, I was certainly not in the same shape I'd been in when I'd joined the job. We'd been good friends for years.

I then attended a fight at a pub near the Britwell estate, where two young constables were in danger of receiving a good hiding after trying to break up a drunken squabble. A small crowd had gathered, so I threatened anyone hanging about with arrest and found myself rolling on the ground with an inebriated Irish bricklayer. With the two constables, I managed to subdue my man, placing the three detainees in the van when assistance eventually turned up.

Exhausted and dishevelled, I gratefully returned to the station to hand over to the on-coming Inspector.

“Bloody hell, Tom! What have you been doing?” Inspector Alan Evans asked, as soon as he saw me.

I then told him about the crash and that six of his night shift had already been called in to go to assist at Reading.

“No laugh. They've pulled in a few off a rest day as well. If you need some of mine to stay on, let me know now and I'll keep them on until 02:00.”

“I'm just knackered. This is a young man's game now, Alan, and I'm tired. The shift-work fucks my system. I don't recover nearly as well as I used to and my sleep pattern is shot to hell. I eat all the wrong food and don't get enough time at home. I just can't wait for retirement.”

“Well, don't overdo it. Old Steve Edgeson died two days before he was due to retire!”

I put my kit away in my locker and drove home. We lived in a small village called Shiplake-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. We'd been here for the last twenty years and I was amazed at how much our house had appreciated in value since we'd bought it. I'd just managed to pay off the mortgage and it felt really good!

I was tempted to stop off at the Baskerville Arms for a quick pint, but felt too knackered. I just wanted to get home.

Maria was watching some inane drivel on the TV, but she kissed me warmly. I was only half an hour late and that was a bonus. I had two days off now and was looking forward to them.

I told her and she tut-tutted for a bit, but then her attention was drawn back to the television.

“No, but I wasn't expecting there to be, not for a while. How many have died?”

“Half a dozen, or there about. I expected there to be more, for some reason.”

“I'm not sure. I think he was a chef at a local pub. He was a bit of an odd character, by all accounts, and somewhat unpredictable. An off-duty police officer witnessed it and tried to prevent it.”

“As far as I know. At least he's not hurt, but I can't see him sleeping well for a while, can you?”

She shook her head and I wandered into the study. I sat at the computer and logged onto the Internet. I went straight to Sapphire's Place, and indulged my secret life for a while.

I was nearly fifty, and for the last forty-six years I had lived with the certain knowledge that God had made a mistake. I should have been born a girl. Every night, as a youngster, I had prayed to wake up a girl and every morning I had been disappointed.

I was six foot four and very much a man's man. I enjoyed all those aspects of life that men were supposed to enjoy – rugby, golf, DIY, mechanics, the occasional beer or six, and being a father. Hell, before I married I was the drummer in a rock and roll band. Now, although those days were long gone, I was going to be a grandfather very soon.

The guilt I carried sometimes threatened to overwhelm me and yet nothing I did seemed to rid me of my overpowering desire to be a female.

I had left school, joined the army and from there gone into the police. I had shut my feelings away securely in my subconscious and tried to be the best man I could. I think it had worked, as I had married, had a family and was now successful in my chosen career.

My son, Matthew, was twenty-six and married himself. Sally, his wife, and he were expecting their first child in the New Year and we were all excited for them. He and Sally were teachers, and it was so rewarding to see one's kids with solid lives of their own.

I had become aware of my inner problem very early, but had neither the opportunity nor the courage to do anything about it. I was a product of the 1950s, so my family circumstances were such that there was no way I could ever have considered a sex change.

The disruption to my family would have been too great, an only son, after four miscarriages and a stillbirth, I shuddered to think of the reaction from my very proud and old-fashioned parents.

Then, at eleven, I had started to grow. By sixteen, I was over six foot and broad across the shoulder. I had never dressed as a girl, simply because I knew I'd look a freak and I wasn't prepared to be a public spectacle. I wasn't interested in short bursts of sexual release in women's clothes. It wasn't the outward appearance that mattered to me; it was the inner identity being the same as the outer!

So, it had lain deeply hidden, successfully too, for most of my life. But now my parents had died, the kids were away leading their own lives and retirement beaconed, the feelings had less restraining them. In a way I was dreading leaving the regulated life the police brought me. I would be free, but free for what?

Maria wanted to stay in the village, but I was tempted to move to warmer climes where my pension would be worth more. She had a life here, whereas I had simply slept here and ventured forth to my place of work. I had few close friends and once one took the job away, there was little to keep me here.

I read a couple of new stories and sighed deeply. I so wanted to be a woman and yet I knew that after half a century of being a bloke, the chances of it happening were very slim. Even if it did, being able to live amongst that alien race successfully would be so hard as to be almost impossible.

If I was anything, I was a realist. I was only too well aware that there was so much more to being female than just wearing the clothes and walking in the high heels. Some of the stories on the web were sexually orientated, to allow an outlet for those who existed in such a fantasy world. Some stories, however, were written by those who clearly knew what it was really like. I could readily identify with them and their tales.

No, I wouldn't ever do it, as I didn't want to be a construct with a foot in neither, or both camps. For me the dream was to be a perfect and complete woman, with all that entailed. Half measures were not acceptable to me. I was neither brave nor desperate enough, and besides, there were too many people to hurt in the process and I wasn't ever going to allow that to happen.

“Why don't you go see Doctor Milne on Monday? You haven't been for a check up for ages.”

“Maybe, I think it's just a spot of heartburn. I'll be fine after a good night's sleep.”

She smiled and my heart lurched. I couldn't betray her love for me. Not after nearly twenty-eight years of marriage. I felt a real fool.

“A nightmare. It was chaos for ages. It's still rough, but I've been relieved after seventeen hours. It's really awful, Dad.”

“No, thank God. It was amazing, only five at the moment. I think one or two have serious injuries and may die, but there could have been so many more.”

“There's one girl, only sixteen, brought in with crush injuries and a fractured skull. She's still in a coma, but her mother was killed. She needed constant attention and her Dad is really cut-up. The problem is that her brainwaves are virtually nil and yet her other life signs are reasonable. I had to look after her and it was really hard, Dad.”

“I know what it's like. Often the relatives are harder to deal with than the casualties. Is there any hope?”

“The doctor says if she is still not showing any brain life after another couple of days, they'll pull the plug. It's so unfair, Dad, she's only sixteen and so pretty. Her name's Jenny and she should have her whole life ahead of her.”

“You sound just like your Mum. I'm going to make an appointment on Monday, maybe.”

I gave the phone to Maria and went up to have a bath. I smiled. Annie was a sweet girl, she'd inherited her mother's dark looks, but more my build. She was several inches taller than her mother and at five eight, she was strikingly attractive. She was totally committed to her job and didn't seem to have time for a social life at the moment. There was a time I had been like that.

After getting out of the bath, I felt slightly dizzy and had to sit on the edge of the bath to recover. Once I got to bed, I went to sleep almost immediately.

I slept in until almost ten and felt as tired as when I had gone to bed. I had a lazy Sunday, just pottering about the house. I watched the news and saw the horrific sights of the rail disaster. Iraq was still in the news, with more soldiers from the Black Watch being killed by a suicide bomber. It was such a shitty world.

Matt called and I had a long chat with him. It was unusual, as he was never as chatty as his sister, but it was nice. He was clearly excited at being a potential Dad and I was so pleased things were going so well. We all adored Sally, she was perfect for him and I couldn't have picked a better girl for him if I'd had to.

I still felt awful when I went to bed, so Maria persuaded me to make an appointment with the doctor in the morning. I tossed and turned for ages, finally slipping to sleep at about two am. I had a surreal dream.

I was standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down to see there was no bottom below me. It was just a dark void. I looked up and there was a bright light in the sky. I was drawn to the light, but I became aware of a presence beside me.

It wasn't a person, for it had no form. It was just an awareness of something there.

I looked at the light again and for some reason I knew that it represented love, peace and warmth.

“You've carried the burden for a long time, you deserve the light!” the presence thought at me.

I knew that I was an open book, with everything about me and my life, there for all to see. I said nothing.

“There is one who needs the light greater than you. You have strength and she has none.”

I knew, somehow, that I was being given a choice. I wasn't sure of the details of that choice, but the light meant rest in death and the other was life, but not as I had known it. Somehow, my life experience was such that it had prepared me for whatever was expected of me.

The presence knew of my secret burden, of that I was certain. To live as a female, was that the opportunity being offered?