, Whittaker’s 26-footer on which he lavished so much care and attention.
So Whittaker had lied to her about his whereabouts and another serving officer had placed him at the scene of the crime. Furthermore, Ashworth had gone on to accuse Whittaker of bullying, coercion and perverting the course of justice. All the time Whittaker had been protecting his own interests. His squashing of Garanita had been designed to stop her from breaking the serial-killer story – it had nothing to do with protecting Helen or the team.
It was an incendiary situation and one that Helen needed to handle very carefully indeed. The success of the investigation – not to mention the future of Helen’s career – depended on her making the right move.
The Porterhouse Clinic in Loughton was plush and professional. Inside, the lobby was immaculate, the staff likewise, and the whole place had a distinctly soothing feel. The clinic carried out many types of surgery, but specialized in resolving issues around gender dysphoria. Therapy was the first stage on a journey that nine times out of ten ended in surgery and full gender reassignment.
The team had sent detailed information out when conducting the search for Martina. The timescale was wide enough to make the search tricky – they thought the op had been done three to five years ago, throwing up a large number of possible contenders. But still, gender reassignment wasn’t massively common. And given that they could provide height, blood type, eye colour and a good stab at ‘her’ health history, the chances of a match were good. None the less, Helen felt nervous as she was ushered in to see the clinic’s manager. There was a lot riding on this one.
The manager, a smooth surgeon with surprisingly hairy hands, wanted to be reassured that the clinic was not going to be on the end of any unpleasant publicity in connection with ‘this prostitute’s murder’, as he put it, and Helen had to work hard to get him to play ball, but when she gently reminded him that, in a case as serious as this, he could be compelled to help them, his attitude changed.
‘I think we may be able to help,’ he said, pulling out a file. ‘A young man in his mid-twenties came to us five years ago. He’d obviously been through a bad time, physically and mentally. We advised counselling to deal with his situation before committing to gender reassignment and suggested he might want at the very least to reduce his list of additional treatments. In the end we got him to drop a couple of procedures but that was it. He was determined to have an extensive rebuild. In addition to gender reassignment, he had some buttock augmentation, leg and arm toning and a lot of work done on his face.’