Chapter Text
Bomber Dupuis staggered happily from the club. He had a good sup this evening, especially from the bottles set out the back of this particular place, which usually contained enough dregs to make the hunt worthwhile. Stretching himself up to his full height, he gave a loud belch and stumbled forward in an effort to aim himself in the general direction of his digs by the harbour.
Rounding one corner, Bomber hit a trash can, sending both it and its contents clattering across the narrow back alley which made him jump. Cursing, Bomber tried to catch the rolling lid while also attempting to pick up the litter at the same time but came to a sudden stop at the sight of a pair of legs poking out from under a stack of full bin bags.
“Aiye sorry man! Didn’t mean to….” Bomber started to say, while leaning forward thinking he had disturbed a fellow vagrant. But instead he froze as it was becoming very obvious the person the legs were attached to was very dead.
Bomber pulled back with a strangled cry and turned to run, but instead found his head being grabbed and his face being smothered, where he was held until he could no longer draw air into his lungs.
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Camille half ran up the ramp to the main entrance to the station. She was uncommonly late after a night out with some of her old school friends. It was the anniversary of Aimee’s death but rather than stay in to have a bad evening, Camille and some of Aimee's other friends had congregated at Juliana’s before hitting one of the three night clubs on Saint-Marie.
Most of the night life in Honoré consisted of street side bars and beach cafés. Some of the larger bars would have local music, with some organising beach parties for both local and tourist alike. But of late, Honoré’s tourist industry had been taking off as Saint-Marie was increasing in popularity with cruise ship tours and more visitors from both Europe and the US. Also with the hotels came more sophisticated night life, and it was in the largest and oldest hotel, The Royal, Camille had found herself dancing to a frenzy with five other women to the early hours.
Now the only thing that was dancing into a frenzy was her head! She just hoped that Richard would go easy on her this morning. The man would be at risk of developing his own headache with Hurricane Bordey if he didn’t. Pausing at the door to calm her breathing and composure, Camille straightened her blouse, then made her way inside. Fidel looked up from his desk and made a jokey show of looking at his watch. Dwayne in turn smiled, said nothing but handed her a cup of steaming hot locally grown fresh filtered coffee and a wink. Camille gladly took a sip then cautiously looked around, breathing a sigh of relief when it became apparent Richard was not in the building.
“Phew! I thought I would be in for a lecture on time keeping. Sorry for being so late!” Camille said, while organising herself behind her desk, “have I missed anything?”
“No,” Fidel replied, “the Chief is at a meeting with the Commissioner about manpower, and we’re just trying to clear up of the paperwork on the Lily Thompson case.”
Camille noted the flicker of sadness on the faces of both her colleagues. Lily Thompson was the Police Sergeant of the station back when Richard Poole had first arrived on Saint-Marie to investigate his predecessor’s murder. Camille herself was surprised when she found out who Detective Inspector Charlie Hulme’s murderer was, and why. At the time, she had risked going back undercover to investigate a trafficking ring between Saint-Marie and Basse-Terre, with James Lavender one of the main suspects, only to find herself also arrested by Richard Poole!
In a split second, her life had changed with being seconded to Saint-Marie as a Detective Sergeant to work with Poole who had also found himself seconded, and whom she would have cheerfully thrown in the island’s volcano at the time. But instead they began to make a good working team, and along with Dwayne and Fidel, now a police sergeant, had become well known in the Caribbean for their successes with solving murder cases and generally improving the crime rate on Saint-Marie.
Of late, petty crime had been on the increase and two recent murders had opened a whole can of worms, with the team had been working much harder in trying to keep a handle on things. Lily Thompson was serving a life sentence for the murder of Charlie Hulme and James Lavender, a businessman who had a huge stake in human and conflict diamond trafficking. Lily was on the take and had much to lose, which was everything eventually including her life, murdered by arsenic poisoning by a prison warden whose boyfriend had been framed by Lily in a case, and who had also died in prison during an argument.
Lily's killer, Juliana Peters, had been arrested the day before, after Richard had managed to track how Lily had been poisoned, and as was his usual style, exposed Peters in front of the other suspects in grand Poirot style. Camille had made a note to get around to teasing him about that, including the fact even one of England’s greatest crime writers knew the impact a good European detective could have, for all that he was Belgian and fictitious. Smiling at the thought, she began to search through the emails and reports on her computer.
The morning continued on with each police officer going about their business. Dwayne had taken off on patrol on his trusty Enfield, Fidel chatted with Camille about Juliet and Rosie, about his plans on taking them for a little break across to St Kitts to stay with a cousin, and with a smile noting that there wouldn't be much of a change in scenery. Their conversation was broken by Fidel’s desk phone ringing. It was Dwayne.
Two bodies had been picked up by local fishermen in Honoré Bay.