Dedicated to my fellow Huxon and Juart fans... the boys get to try and tame the worst bar in London, mayhem will ensue, taking in dodgy dealings involving greyhounds, diamonds, horse tranquillizers, cars and money. And the scariest loos in Britain! Will they need Sam and Jo to come to their rescue? With grateful thanks to Toby Keith for loving this bar, and Garth Brooks for having friends in low places...

DI Iain Robertson surveyed the assembled ranks of Sun Hill's finest, CID and Uniform, as many as possible crammed into the one briefing. They really have no idea... lambs to the slaughter, he shivered, that was a really unfortunate choice of words. He looked across at Superintendent John Heaton, as the man was coming to the end of his part of the briefing. Heaton nodded to Robertson.

Robertson moved to the front. Pressed the remote, and a picture of an extremely ugly building appeared behind him on the wall.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the objective. The Slaughtered Lamb," he paused, "Welcome to hell!"

And that was one hell of an opener. The younger officers had sat up and taken notice. The older and more experienced ones were looking just a little skeptical.

Robertson stepped back slightly, "Since 2000 this place has had five different owners. The first, Josephine March, fell down the stairs in 2001, broke her neck, coroner found to be an accident. The second couple, John and Marina Davies left after three weeks, the third owner actually lasted for three years, disappeared one night in late December 2004, and has never been seen since, that was Jim Cowden. The place was empty for eighteen months after that. The new owners took over in June 2006, Jim and Freda Mason, they left after just fourteen months. Refused to say why, but according to the few locals we've talked to about it, they legged it as though the hounds of hell were after them." He paused again.

"Now we come to this little charmer," up onto the screen came a mugshot of a reasonably familiar face "Colin Fraser, local hard nut, old style criminal with a seriously violent history. Until last week, when he was found in the gents screaming his head off, shaking like a leaf, since then no one has been able to get any sense out of him. If you mention the pub, he starts screaming the place down, begging us to protect him. Unfortunately we have no idea what he wants protecting from."

Robertson looked round at his attentative and fairly skeptical audience, looked across at Heaton, "which brings us to the crunch, since this place is now your responsibility, and it currently has no owner/manager, we decided to put two people on the inside. DS Stuart Turner and DS Phil Hunter have agreed to go undercover as owner/managers. They needed to fit in with the delightful clientèle..."

Jack Meadows looked at his two Sergeants, who were trying to pretend that they weren't there. The pained look on Phil Hunter's face was a picture to beholdand Stuart had pulled the baseball cap down as far as he could manage, staring at the floor and wishing it would open up and swallow him whole, he'd foolishly mentioned that he had once owned a motorbike.

Jo glanced across at her lover's miserable expression. Stuart was seriously unhappy about this, even being partnered with Phil Hunter wasn't as bad as trying to pass himself off as a biker. She looked him over, he actually looks good, heavy duty black biker boots, washed out faded jeans, western check shirt with no sleeves, baseball cap, even got the attitude... She checked out his new partner in crime, Phil. Phil looked, if anything, even more miserable than Stuart. Jo figured that the western shirt in a very loud multi-coloured stripe was probably an affront to his dignity, very Garth Brooks, she caught Sam's eye and their lips twitched, Jo had to look down at her hands to hide her laughter. Phil's king of cool style was seriously under threat here.

Robertson was winding up his little homily and Jo tuned back in.

"... and the loos are supposed to be haunted."

"What if it's true?" Beth Green looked at Sally Armstrong and shivered. Sally rolled her eyes, sometimes Beth could be a little too credulous for her own good.

"Of course it isn't true..." Sally trailed off, her partner's attention was elsewhere, DI Neil Manson stood at the end of the corridor talking to Robertson, the guy who'd just filled Beth's head full of ghosties and ghoulies. Beth and Manson seemed to be looking at each other, and Sally wondered for a brief fanciful moment if there was anything between them. Course there isn't, he's a DI, must be nearly twice her age, not to mention chilly and stuffy... but there was something in the look that his dark eyes were giving Beth that lent some credibility to Sally's fantastical thought.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of a deep voice behind her. "We don't have all day ladies, so if you please." Sergeant Callum Stone, the source of Sally's own confusion. Sometimes she felt close to Stone, sometimes he pushed her so far away that she felt she hated him, then came tragedy and they were thrown all of a kilter again. She'd fallen weeping into his arms, and found comfort there. But ever since he'd been more distant than ever. Sometimes Sally thought that he was made of the substance he was named for.

Sally glanced back over her shoulder and caught a fleeting look in his eyes, unguarded. A look of abject misery gone in a flash. Just as she was beginning to armour plate her heart against him, having finally convinced herself that he was just exactly what he appeared to be, a tough career cop not afraid to turn anything to his own advantage, he had to go and show her what was inside. Dumped her right back to square one again. Shit. To cover her confusion, she grabbed Beth by the stab vest and picked up her pace, ignoring Beth's wriggling and protests, pushed through the double doors at the end. Anything to get away, before he sees me looking at him like a starving dog at a pork chop.

Stuart reluctantly took the baseball cap off and stuffed it one of the bulging panniers on the bike he'd been given. His protestations that his biking days were long over, and that he'd never ridden a chopper in his life before had fallen on deaf ears. Someone from the motorcycle division had shown him the basics and they'd driven round the back streets until he was getting the hang of it. Irritably aware that a fairly large crowd, including Phil, had gathered to see him off, he shrugged into his jacket and crammed the helmet on his head. Swung his leg over and sat down, flicked the key on and stamped on the starter. He was rewarded with the low powerful roar of a very large engine, now to get out of the gate without making an idiot of myself. He slipped the clutch and the bike slid smoothly forward, as he picked up speed he could see Phil grinning at him, Stuart had enough confidence to flip him the finger as he headed out to the road.

Stuart's easy rider exit from the car park didn't do much for Phil's psyche. He looked down at himself, he could just about live with the boots and the jeans were his own, but the shirt was giving him a fit, almost as much as knowing that all the rest of the clothes in his bag were every bit as bad, including a couple of Hawaiian shirts that Ken Drummond would have been proud of. At least no one had expected him to ride a motorbike. And the F250 he'd been given had a certain street cred. Phil climbed in, and set off after Stuart. This is going to be a breeze.

Three quarters of an hour later, he wasn't so sure. They had been let in by the guy who was cleaning the place, who turned out to be one of Robertson's men on long term cover, a certainly weaselly individual who introduced himself as Don Tucker. By the time he'd shown them around, the pool tables, the space where the bands played, they were starting to wonder if they had bitten off slightly more than they could chew.

"The piece de resistance!" Don flung open the Gents' door, "decorated in serial killer hot pink, this would be where they found the last owner."

Stuart and Phil peered over his shoulder. Seeing the facilities they could almost understand how Colin Fraser had lost it. The pink colour combined with the harsh overhead lighting and the green floor tiles was enough to induce nausea in anyone.

"The whole idea is to keep people out of the toilets." Tucker explained "if they don't want to spend time in there, less likely to be drug deals going down in there. At least, that's the theory..." he looked at his watch, "good lord, is that the time...I have to get going... report back to Robertson." He handed the mop and bucket to Stuart. "You'll be fine. Just be quick."

Stuart was about to protest, but Tucker was gone before he could. He looked at Phil. "I'm not doing this..."

Phil smirked, "he handed it to you..."

"Toss you for it"

"No way."

"I'm not doing it..."

"Are you sure..." Phil reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. He'd kept this secret to himself for almost three months, since that night in hospital where without trying he'd struck the mother lode of office gold. He scrolled through the pictures and came to the one he'd been saving for just such an occasion. "What if ... I said that I wouldn't circulate this to the entire station if you do."

Stuart squinted at the picture, it was quite dark, but it was perfectly obvious who the two people in the picture were and just how intimate they were as well, me fast asleep in Jo's arms that night I begged her to stay. "What the... How did you get that?" he scowled and made a grab for the phone, Phil jerked it out of reach.

"Ah ah ah, no way. And deleting won't do any good anyway, I've got a copy or two stashed away just in case." Stuart was fuming, but he knew he didn't have a lot of choice, do the loos or the whole station would become privy to his and Jo's private life.

"How did you get that anyway?" he grumbled.

Phil grinned. "The night nurse came round at 3 am, got her to take a few shots for posterity.." He winked at Stuart and handed over the Jeyes fluid. Stuart snatched it from his hand and pushed the bucket into the Gents.

"Don't forget to do in all the corners" Phil just couldn't keep the gloating out of his voice, this one was set to run and run and never get old.

Stuart scowled irritably, his mind turning over ways of getting his own back ... if Phil already knows, Jo and I can have a little fun and he can't give us away without losing his advantage... you're not the only one who can plan Detective Sergeant Philip Hunter... He smiled. I'll play along for now.