Chapter Text
Fidel stretched and turned on to his side. His eyes opened as he heard a contented sigh from the beautiful woman beside him and smiled, content to just look at his gorgeous wife.
It had been a tough time, trying to figure out what went wrong, what had driven Juliet from their home to her mother’s with little Rosie. Fidel was ashamed, not telling anyone about his separation from Juliet, about going back to an empty house. After an explosive visit that had ended with the two of them on the kitchen floor in a passionate embrace, plus both getting a wise talking to from his mother in law, Fidel and Juliet gradually came back together. By the time Inspector Poole had been released from hospital, Juliet had moved back home and the process of starting afresh had made Fidel more humble, attentive and happy. But now it was time to get up, sort out Rosie for Juliet and get to work.
The gentle knock on his state room door woke José. It would be Samuel, his trusted valet.
“Come.” He called, and didn’t look up as Samuel prepared the tray of food and placed it carefully over his master’s lap.
“Thank you Samuel. I’ll be busy this morning conducting business. Please extend my apologies to our guests but I cannot be disturbed until lunch.”
“Signor.”
Samuel gave a slight bow before leaving.
Waiting until the door closed, José placed the tray aside and leaned to pick up a tablet on his bedside table, connected with a satellite internet service and started the day’s business which included the transfer of ten million US dollars to the Cayman account, checks on goods traffic. Also he mandated the order to plan and terminate a few headaches he had discovered a small island called Saint-Marie during a transfer that had badly failed.
However, taking over the little island would have to go on the back burner for a while as well as looking again at sorting out a certain British detective, but he could help out a friend in trouble in Miami by getting rid another headache he had discovered there.
Putting such thoughts aside, José started to organise the day’s work, first by scrutinising the Cayman accounts.
Dwayne opened up the face boards, swung open the doors and walked in to the small station. He placed the keys to the Enfield on his desk and set about turning on various bits and pieces. Fidel and Camille would be arriving shortly, then Marcus and a few others for a team brief. It was going to be a while before the Chief would get back to work, and Dwayne was praying to whoever was the Saint of small police stations it would be soon. They were starting to see far too much of the Commissioner.
Suddenly the phone rang on his desk, a frantic call from a local market tradesman about his stall being robbed by a small gang….
Camille stared at the number coming up on her mobile phone, hesitating to answer but she knew it was only going to be a matter of time before the Commissioner would need to talk to her. She looked up at a small picture that she had still kept on her dresser, sitting still as the memories began to cause tears well up in her eyes. It had been almost four years since an international undercover operation had gone disastrously wrong.
It was her first big assignment out from Paris as an undercover operative, and she was impatient to join in. With her were three others from Paris who were forming a team with the Americans and some Canadians. They were to infiltrate parts of a gang operating out of Miami, who exported to the USA, Canada and Europe from South America, up through the Caribbean and Mexico. Camille’s Creole background would serve her well as her role was to monitor local trafficking on the street, through the local prostitution rings and Pimps. For that, she had to pose as a table top and pole dancer and was well qualified as her second love - which she tended to keep a secret from her colleagues - at the time was interpretive dance.
But it had gone horribly wrong on so many levels. Camille went in to her character too deeply, gradually finding herself falling in to the ever dangerous trap of losing herself. On one occasion she actually had turned a....
No, she didn’t want to think about that, Marcel, Bob, Julie, Danny, Arianne, Lou or Mike. Of being trapped in a boathouse, or the hiss and glowing eyes of alligators approaching her as she lay immobilised and bleeding on a back road somewhere close to a swamp.....
She really needed to talk to someone, but not Maman, not for now. Camille didn’t want to reawaken such painful memories for her mother, or maybe she was avoiding doing that to herself. But no, it was time and needed to be done and faced. She fervently hoped that a dear friend would be willing to listen, and understand.
Richard carefully set his towel on the sand, close to a palm tree he was using for shelter against the sun. He had taken a few minutes to carefully inspect both the area and tree itself for any sign of coconuts. Having spent a month in hospital and now nearly two weeks recovering in his shack, Richard had no desire to then become a casualty of locally grown projectiles dropping from trees.
During his recovery, Richard had taken time to think, to mourn not just the loss of his mother but also his former life including wasted opportunities, living too much for duty and not enough for adventure. But then ‘adventure’ for Richard usually meant being sat somewhere surrounded by books, puzzles and plants, not under a palm tree lamenting his life and no longer being able to avoid having to figure out in what direction his life was going.
Certainly, it wouldn’t be in Croydon nick with a promotion.
Richard also wondered when he had become such a *hippie* as well. He had un-tucked his shirt from his trousers, rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, and had the first five buttons undone. Ok, so he still didn’t quite *trust* sitting on sand but he was getting used to hopping about on it in his bare feet.
‘Of course,’ he thought to himself ‘it’s happened since you nearly bloody died and not one sod bothered to check up on you from the UK. As for Dad....’
And he could no longer deny that sand, sun, bad tea, a battered Land Rover Defender and the best bloody police force this side of anywhere had become his new adventure. One he would no longer waste his precious life span regretting.....
...but the suit and pyjamas were staying!