He'd never understood the Chief Super's interest in conferences. As far as he was concerned, conferences were full of boring talks accompanied by bad food and worse tea. Oh, sometimes there were interesting ideas and he did like the chance to talk to other coppers over a pint down the hotel pub, but generally he'd much rather be catching criminals than talking about catching them.
This conference was even less useful than usual, as far as he was concerned. He was close to retirement and James wasn't too far behind him. It didn't make any sense for Innocent to send either of them to a conference and it really didn't make sense to send them to a conference in Majorca! He'd tried to suggest that DC Lockhart (soon to be DS Lockhart) would be a better choice, but the Chief Super had been adamant that he and Hathaway were the best choice. Hathaway had tried to argue against it too, in his Hathawayish way. Hathaway's arguments often worked when Lewis' didn't, if only because Innocent eventually gave in just to stop him talking. In this case it hadn't, though, so they'd resigned themselves to cramming into tiny seats on a large aeroplane and going to Majorca.
He hadn't been able to be on the same flight as Hathaway due to some mix-up with the arrangements, so he arrived at the hotel the day after after his soon-to-be former sergeant. The front desk clerk was more cheerful than Robbie thought was really necessary, but did provide the information that Hathaway had arrived and had left him a message with his room number.
Once he got into his sea-view room and got settled, he called his bagman's room.
"Hathaway," James answered crisply on the first ring. He nearly always answered on the first ring, even when Robbie knew he was in the middle of something. It was an admirable quality in a bagman.
"It's me," Robbie said. "Flight okay?"
"On the whole," James replied neutrally, and Robbie chuckled. No one really enjoyed flying unless they were in first class, and the police budget definitely didn't stretch to that. "On the whole" was about all anyone could expect.
"Mine was about like that too. Have you looked around for the meeting rooms yet?" he asked, fully expecting the answer to be yes. James was the kind of person who not only looked at the provided maps but also looked around the actual conference center. The maps weren't always exactly right and sometimes they were completely wrong.
"I haven't," James said, and Robbie frowned, even though James couldn't see it. Wasn't like him not to do that. Maybe he'd got sick on the aeroplane, though he'd never been prone to it before as far as Robbie knew.
"I'm going to do that now. You can come with me," he all but ordered.
"I'd rather not, sir," Hathaway said stiffly, and Robbie frowned more.
"Y'can't sit in your hotel room reading Embeerta Icko all afternoon," he said. "It's a resort. And the talks start tonight."
"Umberto Eco," James corrected him. Robbie rolled his eyes, even though James couldn't see it. That wasn't an answer.
"Ten minutes, by the pool, or I'll send housekeeping up," he warned, and put down the phone. James' innate politeness would require him to clear off if housekeeping came through and Robbie fully intended to take advantage of that, if only to keep his sergeant from sitting in his room instead of enjoying the resort. It was Majorca, after all.
Nine minutes later, Robbie was looking over the programme under the shade of a large umbrella when he noticed a furtively familiar figure out of the corner of his eye. James slouched anyway, but he was practically trying to roll himself into a ball now. A longer look told him why.
His sergeant was wearing bright floral shorts and a lime green "Majorca is for lovers" t-shirt. Robbie fought to keep the grin off his face as James flopped unhappily into the chair opposite him.
"Nice togs, Sergeant," he said, suspecting that his mouth was still twitching despite his best efforts.
"Sir," James said, but the one syllable conveyed several meanings, none of them pleased.
"Bit of a problem with your luggage?" he hazarded.
"Got routed to Minorca," James said shortly. "And despite it being just the next island over, they've got no idea when it'll actually get here. And the gift shop is overdue for their next shipment, which might have contained something that won't burn out the retinas of everyone I meet."
"Ah, give over," Robbie said seriously. "You won't blind everyone you meet. Y'might make them wish they were, but you won't actually blind 'em. Laura'd tell you that if she were here."
Of course, if Laura were there, she'd be laughing more than Robbie was, but she'd tell James it wasn't possible all the same.
James didn't bother to reply to that, just glowered at him and then picked up the conference booklet. The maps were particularly bad this time.
"So the opening plenary and 'breakout session' is in Ballroom A," he said, glancing back and forth between the schedule and the maps. "Which is either next to the Fitness Centre or behind the overpriced sushi fusion restaurant."
"That's how I read it," Robbie agreed. "And seein' as how we've got to be there for a discussion of our 'personal views of the future of policing' in two hours, we probably ought to find where it actually is."
Neither of them was going to be involved in the future of policing, but they were here now and Robbie didn't believe in not attending conference sessions. He knew James felt the same way. If the department had spent money to send him to a conference, he would do his best to get the most out of it that he could.
"Yes, sir," James said heavily, and got up from the table reluctantly.
"Cheer up, sergeant. Everyone understands problems with luggage. Besides, you actually look better than half these people," Robbie said bracingly, glancing around the pool to confirm the statement.
"Sir, half these people are pensioners wearing what my Australian schoolmate would have called 'budgie-smugglers'," James pointed out as he pulled a pair of neon orange plastic sunglasses out of his pocket. "It's not a particularly high bar."
He had a point there, but Robbie was more interested in the sunnies.
"I think I had a pair of those in 1982," he observed. "'Cept they were green."
"According to the shopgirl, they're back in fashion," his sergeant observed, putting them on, and from his expression, he wasn't joking. Robbie shook his head.
"Everything comes back eventually, James. Sunglasses and luggage both."