Four

Camille shook her head. She had been ogling so much at the picture, she had not heard the approaching footsteps behind her until almost too late. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw Richard approach but he was occupied with snatching garments from the surrounding bushes and trees. Quickly gathering what she could and placing the items back in the box, she hid the calendar underneath the photo albums and records she had picked up, and putting on her best serious face, called out to Richard.

"Over here! I found this box! There are some things in the sand. Did you want me to..?"

Richard had walked up to her, saw the box and had paled a little. He coughed.

"Thank you Camille, I'll deal with that if you don't mind..."

He had swooped down and started to pick up the box. Camille leaned backwards, but as she did, her arm slipped and she fell to her side, knocking Richard's leg which in turn sent him off balance and the box falling from his hands.

Camille could only stare as the contents spilled back out on to the sand, with the calendar falling open. Richard quickly snatched it in to his arms looking mortified. As much as Camille had kept a straight face and tried to pretend that she had not already seen the contents, one in particular, she could tell that he just knew she had.

Quietly, Camille helped pick up the rest of the contents, placed them back into the box and held it up to Richard. At the same time she took the calendar out of his hands, placed it on the top as he took the box from her. Looking him right in the eye she whispered

"I won't tell anyone about 'August', but I want to hear *all* of the story behind it!"

With a wink, she left an even more mortified Richard with his box of secrets with another parting whisper in his ear of "by the way don't you worry, you still have un beau corps, Sir..."

All Richard could do was groan again.

It took another couple of hours but eventually all that could have been found in the vicinity of the shack had been gathered up. A call from the local bank had confirmed someone had tried to draw cash from an ATM unbelievably close to the police station and the evidence was available on CCTV. Leaving Richard to guard his home, Camille, Dwayne and Fidel headed back to town.

Sitting down at the small table come desk, Richard quietly started sorting through the stack of paper that had been picked up from around the shack. Most were odds and ends, bills, letters, notes and the like. He was grateful there was nothing confidential or revealing about any of the cases the team were working on as he tended to bring a lot of his work home to fill the hours.

What surprised him even more was the fact his laptop was still untouched in the bottom draw of the dresser. Obviously apart from the 'joy' of trashing the place, the thieves were obviously bright enough or not too stoned to go after anything not on show. Sadly for Richard, his wallet was on show as he did not want to risk losing it at the beach, presuming he would be ok, just taking his keys with him and had left it on the table. They were obviously not so bright as to try and use one of his cards to draw cash.

"You Berk!" He loudly chastised to himself as he picked Lucy up off the floor, grateful at least that she had not been swiped as well. The weight of the instrument had made it inconvenient enough for Lucy to have only been dragged to the door. Checking the instrument over, Richard was sad to see the view finder was cracked, but at least that could be repaired.

Now of course, the whole atmosphere of the shack had changed with Richard realising just how vulnerable the tiny house actually was. While being isolated away from the noise of Honoré was one of the few pleasant advantages of this place, Richard suddenly realised how vulnerable he was too. When he had been struck down with a fever the year before, no one in the UK would have missed him that was for sure, but only because Fidel had been worried enough about his absence and had come looking, Richard was convinced he would still be in bed and off his head to this day.

His attention returning to the cardboard box placed on the bed, Richard wondered just how much Camille had actually seen of its contents because she was *too* calm when he dropped it. Apart from Lucy, the box was the only real keepsake of his past that Richard had.

Lifting out the photo albums that had been hastily piled in, Richard carefully placed them side by side in his bed. Next he pulled out the record collection he never told anyone about preferring they only saw his 'classical' side. It wasn't even as if he particularly liked the music, but they had been a reminder that at some point in his life, he had been willing to try new and different things, when he had dared to try and *be* different.

Then of course there was the calendar which had been put aside first, done as part of a bet that he had lost, evidence of his greatest dare and a huge lift as well. He had *almost* broken out of being introverted, rude and literal as a shield – he was not unaware of his faults and short comings, but they had helped to bury the pain of his past too – but could not quite manage it.

Richard sat heavily on the side of the bed, carefully placing the calendar beside him. He knew Camille would badger him about its contents, but right now he couldn't care less.

And for the first time in nearly two decades, his vision started to blur as tears welled up in his eyes.