LONDON'S BURNING

Merry Christmas

"Do you reckon George will be getting wet on a Chandelier now?" Hi-Ho asked dreamily, without realising what he was actually saying.

"You mean a Gondola!" Recall corrected him.

"Yeah, that's what I said!"

Recall just grinned. "The jammy git. He gets to spend Christmas in Venice with the love of his life while we're all here slaving away…"

"I think it's romantic," Hi-Ho cut him off.

"Yeah? Well, you would!" Recall replied.

Blue Watch were slowly arriving for duty, having drawn Christmas Watch. Recall didn't mind, he didn't have much else to do anyway.

"It's not snowing…" Sally moaned as she looked at the dark clear sky above her.

"This is London, Sal," George's replacement Abbey Harrison reminded her. "We don't do snow!"

Adam was lugging a large brown sack with him as he arrived for work from the direction of the Oliver Twist and into the front of the station.

"What is that?" Recall asked him.

"Well it's…" Adam grinned and opened the sack.

He pulled out a little plastic model of Santa Claus and flicked a switch. The model started moving as a strange version of Merry Christmas played.

"What song is that?" Hi-Ho wondered.

"I dunno," Recall grinned. "It's not English though!"

"It's German!" Abbey pointed out.

Adam frowned.

"It didn't do that before," he tried to figure out how to change the language. "Um…"

"Did you get those from Ten-A-Penny?" Abbey asked. "Off the market?"

Adam looked at her, but didn't reply.

"You did, didn't you?" she guessed.

"Why's he called Ten-A-Penny?" Hi-Ho wanted to know.

"Cos that's what he gets that junk for!" Abbey pointed at the sack at Adam's feet. "You should just chuck that lot in the Thames!" she told Adam.

"What were you going to do with them anyway?" Recall asked.

"Well, I er… thought they would brighten up the place," Adam was still trying to find some sort of switch, without any luck.

"Yeah, they'll certainly do that!" Recall had to laugh.

"How many have you got?" Sally wanted to know as they trudged upstairs towards the locker room.

"Um… ten."

"And how much did you get ripped off?" Abbey grinned.

"Enough," he had given up on trying to find an English version. "How do you turn this thing off?"

"What have you got there?" they met Geoff Pearce on the stairs.

He had spotted the German Santa straight away.

"It's er… a Christmas decoration," Adam explained. "Here," he handed the now silent Santa to Pearce. "Take one, Eve might like it."

"I er…" Pearce looked at it suspiciously, then beamed. "Thank you Adam, I'm sure she will," he left them to look at his new toy.

Elaine and Maggie were in the mess, discussing their arrangements for Christmas Dinner as Hi-Ho arrived to help them out.

"I've got Brussels, potatoes and carrots," Elaine was saying.

"What about the turkey?" Maggie wondered.

"I thought you were getting that."

"I thought… You said you were doing it," Maggie argued.

"What? We agreed…"

"That you would…"

"What's going on?" Hi-Ho tried to interrupt.

"You were supposed to get the turkey," Elaine was reminding Maggie. "And I was doing the veg!"

"I'm sure it was the other way round."

"Ladies!" Hi-Ho tried to make himself heard.

They both looked at him.

"What's going on?" he asked again.

"We haven't got a turkey," Maggie started.

"We would if…" Elaine was about to say, but thought better.

"Oh. What have we got then?" Hi-Ho asked.

Elaine took the lids off the three pots she had placed on the workbench. One was full of carrots, the next contained potatoes and the third contained Brussels sprouts. Maggie then removed the lids from her three pots to reveal the same vegetables! Hi-Ho frowned.

This was not looking good!

"Are you going to give to the kids home then?" Abbey was asking Hyper.

"What?" he seemed a little distracted.

"The kids home," she repeated. "It is Christmas!"

"Yeah, don't remind me," Hyper closed his locker quickly as he thought Abbey was trying to look inside it.

He hoped she had not seen the Christmas present he'd been keeping, as he didn't want to answer awkward questions in front of the Watch. But she didn't say anything about it, but continued to shake her collection tin at him. He reached into his pocket for some coins.

Recall had noticed that Sally was looking a little distant.

"You ok?" he asked.

"Yeah," she managed a smile. "I was just thinking about Joe."

"Oh. I suppose this is the time we miss everyone we can't be with."

"Do you miss your kids?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "I do anyway, but there's no point dwelling on it. Ben's coming over tomorrow."

"That's something then."

"Yeah," he agreed.

"I still miss Joe."

Recall put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"We all do."

Later that morning, DO Griggs arrived at Blackwall, for an "important meeting" with Pearce.

"Morning, sir," Abbey greeted him, still with her collection tin handy. "Would you like to help the local kids home this Christmas?"

Griggs looked at her as if she'd asked him to steal the Crown Jewels. "Sorry?"

"It's tough at Christmas when you don't get many presents and stuff," she pointed out.

"I suppose it is."

"So?" she shook the tin at him.

Griggs reached into his pocket to pull out some spare change. "Here you are then. And carry on doing what you're doing."

"Thank you, sir, and merry Christmas," she watched him go up the stairs then noticed what he had put in her tin. "Cheap skate," she muttered.

"What's he doing here?" Recall asked. "I'm surprised he's working today."

"Well, let's face it," Hyper replied. "No one would want him for Christmas would they!"

Coleman sat in his houseboat, alone. He had turned down the offer of Christmas Dinner with Alison Hemmings, the local councillor. Well, actually, he hadn't given her an answer and she had assumed he was going to say no. To be honest, he didn't know what he was going to say. He wondered if Alison was alone as well. Or maybe she had found someone else to share her lunch with. A councillor friend perhaps. Not that he would blame her.

He decided to see how Blue Watch were doing. It was better than sitting at home feeling sorry for himself anyway. The bells were going down as he arrived.

"House fire, Lyndell Road," Recall was saying. "Pump only."

The pump crew, Hi-Ho, Pearce, Recall, Sally and Hyper, scrambled into the appliance, which then screamed out of the station.

"You didn't buy anything else from Ten-A-Penny did you?" Abbey was asking Adam.

"Um… no. He wanted to sell me a Christmas Tree!"

"Yeah I bet he did!"

"How do you know him anyway?"

"I thought everyone knew Ten-A-Penny! Obviously I was wrong!" Abbey grinned.

"What's all this?" Coleman sidled up to them.

"Nothing Guv," Adam decided not to get the senior officer involved.

But Coleman could already guess that something was going on. He left them to discuss their market trading as he went up to the mess to see how the dinner preparations were going.

Maggie and Elaine were still disagreeing over who should have brought the turkey.

"I think maybe I can help here," Coleman thought. "I'll be right back," he promised before leaving them.

"It's just junk," Abbey was holding a plastic model of Santa Claus and demonstrating it's shoddy workmanship to Adam.

She dropped the Santa on the floor. The foreign music slowly drowned out as the Santa split open, exposing wires.

"See?" she felt she had proved her point.

Coleman frowned, but decided not to ask as Adam retrieved the bits of Santa from the floor of the appliance bay. He left the station again, in the hope that his turkey was still waiting for him.

The pump crew tackled the house fire, under Pearce's command. A family of two adults and three kids were waiting safely outside, the kids were in tears at the sight of their Christmas presents going up in smoke. Geoff went over to talk to the parents.

"Any idea how it started?" he asked.

"I think it was the lights on the tree," the man started to explain as he comforted his wife who was almost as hysterical as the kids. "I just plugged them in and whoosh… The next thing I know the whole room's alight!"

"We have a lot of problems with decorations at this time of year," Pearce commented.

Hyper and Hi-Ho had been tackling the fire from inside. They emerged after completing the task and reported to Geoff.

"It's a mess in there," Hyper told him, in an undertone so as not to upset the family further.

"Better take a look then," Geoff started towards the house.

"Adam Benjamin?" a tall man in plain clothes had arrived at the station where Adam and Abbey were still discussing the Santas.

"Er, yeah," Adam looked up. "Who wants to know?"

"Mark Langley," the tall man spoke, flashing an id card and then indicated his shorter colleague. "Paul Kingsley."

"Oh, I didn't think CID worked on Christmas Day!" Adam tried to joke.

But Langley didn't find anything funny. "We're not CID," he corrected Adam. "We're from Customs and Excise!"

"What?"

"Can I have a look at these?" Kingsley moved to take the bag of Santas.

Adam let him take them.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"Can I ask where you got these Mr Benjamin?" Langley questioned.

"I er…" Adam paused.

"He got them from Ten-A-Penny," Abbey spoke up. "But you already knew that didn't you?"

Langley eyed her suspiciously. "We are in the process of conducting a very serious investigation here, Miss Harrison."

"You mean you're looking for evidence. He doesn't know what Ten-A-Penny's like," Abbey explained. "But I'm sure he's learnt his lesson now!"

"What were you going to do with these Mr Benjamin?" Kingsley asked.

"Um… Well I wanted to brighten the station up a bit," Adam answered.

Kingsley looked at Langley, who shrugged.

"Do you mind if we take these?" Kingsley took the sack.

"Be my guest!" Adam was glad to be rid of the useless objects.

"You can tell Mr Lyons that we are watching him," Langley shot at Abbey.

"You'll have to find him first!"

"And we will get him sometime. This junk he sells could kill someone one day."

"I have tried to tell him."

"Well it doesn't look like the message has got through yet," Langley spat. "Do you know where he is?"

"I'm not his keeper you know," Abbey pointed out. "There isn't much difference between you and what's in that bag, Langley, you're both full of crap!"

Kingsley had to stifle a laugh. Langley glared at him.

"I do hope for your sake that you are not involved in any of this."

Abbey shrugged. "What that cheap skate does is his own business. Would you like to give to the kids home this Christmas?" she had found her collecting tin again.

Langley grunted. "Come on," he told Kingsley.

Kingsley picked up the sack and felt around in his pockets for some change. "Here you are," he dropped it in the tin. "Don't mind him," he apologised for Langley. "He's got the hump cos it's Christmas!"

"Yeah, he kind of reminds me of the Grinch!"

"And don't buy anything else off the market!" Kingsley warned Adam.

"Don't worry, I won't!" Adam made a mental note never to buy anything else from a dodgy guy on a market stall.

"Kingsley!" Langley yelled from the car parked over the road from the station.

"Better go," Kingsley looked round. "See you, Abbey," he left the station.

"Yeah, see you Paul!" she called after him.

"What was that all about?" Adam demanded as the two customs officers left.

"Told you they were after Ten-A-Penny."

"And what does that have to do with you?"

"He's my brother-in-law."

"Oh."

"He's in the business of ripping people off. I got Customs to confiscate a load of dodgy Christmas Tree lights last week!"

"How come they don't arrest him or something?"

"He moves around a lot, but as long as they get that stuff off the street, they're happy," Abbey explained. "I told you to chuck them in the River!"

"Ah well, as long as they are off my hands!"

"It was a good job you didn't try to sell them. You weren't going to were you?"

"Um… no… would I do that?"

"Knowing you, yes. Maybe you should get some tips from Ten-A-Penny on a good sales pitch. I mean he must be good if he convinced you to buy something!"

"You take this very well you know, considering," he was amazed by her lack of compassion for her family troubles.

"Yeah, well, I hate being related to criminals! I wonder how the dinner is getting on," she changed the subject and took off towards the mess.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Adam muttered before following her.

He knew all too well about being related to criminals.

Christmas Dinner was still on hold as the pump crew returned. Elaine had gone back over to the pub to open up and Coleman had still not returned from where ever it was he had disappeared to.

Hyper found Adam in the locker room, trying to figure out how much he had been ripped off by Ten-A-Penny.

"What happened to the Santas?" Hyper asked.

"Don't ask!" Adam replied.

Hyper went over to his locker to retrieve the Christmas present that he had been storing there. It was a long thin box wrapped in red and green paper.

"I've got a little something for you," he handed it to Adam.

Adam took it, half-wary and half-shocked. "Um… thanks… I didn't get you anything, sorry…"

Hyper shrugged. "It's ok," he meant it. "I just wanted to say, well thanks for being cool about the whole…well, you know."

"Er… yeah, ok…Um, do you mind if I open this later?"

"No… sure…. Whatever."

"I er… have to sort out how to get my money back from this rip off merchant!"

"Yeah, sure…"

"But thanks," Adam waved the present.

He went to put it in his own locker.

"Well… I've got a report to do about the shout…." Hyper made a move to leave the locker room.

"What happened?" Adam asked.

"Dodgy Christmas Tree lights," Hyper explained. "That's one Christmas ruined," he left the room.

Adam frowned and wondered who else was passing round dodgy Christmas items. Perhaps Ten-A-Penny had a lot of explaining to do when Customs eventually caught up with him.

He decided to open the present that Hyper had just given him since there was no one else in the room. He ripped off the wrapping paper to reveal a plastic box. Suddenly he heard a sound of cheering coming from the mess. He opened the box and couldn't believe his eyes at the sight of the contents.

In the mess, Coleman had produced a good-sized turkey, along with Alison Hemmings, his current love interest.

"Where did you find this?" Maggie asked.

"Just bung it in the oven Mags!" Sally yelled from the table.

"Yeah, we're starving!" Recall joined in.

"I was going to have some people over," Alison started to explain. "But they had to cancel, they were coming from Switzerland and their flight had been cancelled. It's too much for me on my own, and John thought you could make use of it."

Maggie smiled. "I think you've just saved someone's life!"

"Would that be Elaine's or yours?" Hi-Ho asked in a low voice as he stood behind her in the kitchen.

Maggie just smiled and continued to prepare dinner as Adam entered the mess.

"What's going on?" he wondered what all the noise had been for.

"We've got a turkey!" Maggie explained.

"Oh," he didn't seem as enthusiastic about it as everyone else.

He took his place at the table next to Hyper, so they could talk without the others hearing, as they were all busy investigating the paper crackers.

"I can't accept this," Adam tried to give the present back.

"Why not?"

"It's just… I just can't."

"There's nothing wrong with it!" Hyper assured him.

"I know but… it must have cost a fortune!"

"It's not as if I have anyone else to buy presents for!" Hyper pointed out.

"What about Sally?" Adam asked.

"Yeah, she got one too."

"I feel I should get you something now!"

"You don't have to."

"You can have a Santa."

Hyper grinned. "I don't think so."

"Yeah, well I haven't got them any more anyway!"

"Why, what did you do with them?" Hyper looked at him suspiciously.

"Nothing!" Adam tried to express his innocence. "They were a load of junk."

Hyper grinned. "Are you going to keep that then?" he nodded to the present on the table in front of Adam.

"Well…" Adam took another look at the present lying in its presentation box.

A strap of real gold sparkled in the light, a large round clock face was set in the middle, its numbers denoted by Roman numerals.

"It is real," Hyper assured him. "I don't buy cheap things from dodgy market stalls!"

Adam had to smile. "Yeah well, remind me not to go there again!"

"Cracker?" Hyper offered.

Adam accepted. He won a little toy car.

"Oh yeah, I've always wanted one of these!" he threw the purple paper hat aside to play with the toy.

Hyper laughed. "Merry Christmas, Adam."

Adam smiled back. "Merry Christmas, Rob."

Hi-Ho checked on the progress of the turkey in the oven. It seemed to be nearly ready. The others were still waiting patiently and Elaine had arrived back after shooing all her punters out to their own Christmas lunches. She had decided to call a truce with Maggie, but wasn't happy when Maggie won the contents of the cracker they had just pulled!

It had been a quiet day, in terms of shouts. Finally, Maggie was ready to serve the long awaited Christmas Dinner, when, as luck would have it, the bells went down again!

"Fire in a lock up on Camberton Road," Recall read out the address as he grabbed the print out. "Shadbrook in attendance."

"What number is that?" Abbey got a look at the address. "Oh," she paused. "Well, we did try to warn him."

"What's that?" Adam joined her.

"It's Ten-A-Penny's," Abbey explained. "Looks like Customs were too late, again! I told him it would catch up with him sooner or later!"

The pump ladder sped out of the station. Christmas Dinner would have to wait.