Chapter 2 - Reflections

Jack stood on the porch of the shack looking out at the sea, the dark grey clouds he was not used to seeing here dampening his mood and causing him to reflect on the events of his time in the Caribbean as well as the constant aches in his heart. For as long as he had been resident on Sainte-Marie he had not experienced a particularly bad storm but he had heard stories from some of the locals he had befriended of times they had come out of nowhere and left the island in near devastation. Thankfully such damage was largely unheard of in recent years due to advances in technology, but at the last emergency services briefing he had attended just that afternoon it had been confirmed that storm Theodore was expected to be the worst the island had encountered in the last twenty years and there was no guarantee that this shack, which had been his home for the last two and a half years, would remain standing, and having packed a small overnight bag, he was just waiting for the call to vacate and join thousands of other islanders and tourists in the safe haven of Honore High School, after helping with the evacuation itself.

He had first come to Sainte-Marie a mere two months after his wife Kathleen had passed away after a long battle with cancer and so his initial enjoyment of the beautiful view of the beach and sea and the experiences of his new life had a bittersweet backdrop. He knew that particular ache would always be there regardless of what he did with the rest of his life.

The following year, his daughter Siobhan had left the island and returned to London to attend university leaving another hole in his heart and a very empty shack. She had returned for the summer holidays this year and last, as well as an unexpected month earlier this year following her split with the boyfriend who had cheated on her, and she had once again brought bright young life to his home. Part of him was sad she had decided to leave a few weeks earlier this year in order to settle into her new flat and spend some time with her friends before the new term began, but at the same time he was relieved she was safe and would not be in the middle of the coming storm.

Life had gone on for Jack on Sainte-Marie and he had gotten to know his colleagues well and gotten into a good working routine with them. But the dynamic had drastically changed when Dwayne had decided to leave the police force in order to go travelling with his father, after finally making his peace with him last year. Ruby had come along and taken his place, and although she had been a bit of a challenge to begin with, particularly in light of the fact she was the Commissioner's niece, she was now settling down and turning into a promising, if unconventional, young police officer. Then earlier this year there had been the horrific incident following the resolution of the murder case at Belle-Mere where Florence had been shot and almost died, and her fiancée Patrice had been murdered. This had resulted in Florence leaving the island due to the memories being too painful to live with, leaving yet another enormous hole in the team and in his life. And on top of that there had been the ordeal of the Internal Affairs enquiry which had almost cost him his job. He was glad he still had J P on the team, a loyal and hard-working young officer who had stepped up on more than one occasion to assist him in interviewing murder suspects. He hoped J P would get the opportunity to take his exams and become a sergeant and eventually a detective, and possibly work alongside him on a permanent basis in the future, but that would take some time, and so for the time being he had had to rely on a series of temporary Detective Sergeants that had been sent over from other islands as well as from Paris, the latest of which had only yesterday flown home to Antigua to attend a family wedding. Then there was Madeleine, the Internal Affairs officer who had reported on him and who had stayed on to assist with the murder of the horse rider following a milder storm a few months back. The Commissioner had informally offered her the vacant position before she returned to Paris and she had said she would think about it, but her decision had so far been delayed by her involvement with a high profile investigation back in France that had gone on for several months. He would not be sorry if Madeleine did decide to come back as they had started to get along well during her last few days on Sainte-Marie and the awkwardness of the circumstances of her coming in the first place had gradually begun to be forgotten. She was also very intelligent and he could think of several cases where her input would have been invaluable, especially murder enquiries where the guilty party had turned out not to have been one of the suspects identified at the beginning of the investigation.

Jack heard a small thud to his left and looked down to see that Harry the lizard had appeared on the railing as he often did. 'I hope you'll be okay old fellow' he said, not knowing whether his reptile friend was likely to survive the storm. As he stood watching the waves, Jack noticed it getting even darker, possibly due to the coming sunset or the worsening of the weather or more than likely both, and his heart had felt the same way recently. Missing Kathleen and Siobhan was nothing new, but he now had to acknowledge there was another ache there too, almost as strong. Over the past six months there had been many an evening where he had nobody to discuss things that were on his mind with, and he had even gone to bed on more than one occasion without having eaten a proper meal. J P had his wife to go home to every night and Ruby had her young life. Catherine often came round with food for him when she knew he was working late, but between being Mayor and running her bar she did not always have a lot of time to spend with him. And so he had to acknowledge that he really missed his best friend Florence.

Back at the airport, the last flight to be allowed to land before the early closure was now disembarking. It was a domestic flight from Martinique carrying only forty passengers. Florence hurried through the terminal, overtaking as many fellow passengers as she could, anxious to get out to her brother Gerard who was waiting for her and who would update her on the situation with her father. She had received a hysterical telephone call from her mother that morning just as she was finishing breakfast with her aunt and uncle before setting off for work. Her dad had had what appeared to be a major heart attack and been rushed to hospital, and at that point it was not known whether he would survive. Without giving it any further thought, she had gone online and booked herself on the next flight home to Sainte-Marie. Even when she began to think of the memories her visit would bring back, and even when her uncle had warned her about the coming storm, she did not change her mind about travelling. She could not let another man she loved dearly die without her being there with him.

As she had sat on the plane, not noticing or engaging with the people around her as she normally did, a film roll of images and memories went through her head. Playing with her dad as a child, his pride when she passed her school exams, her graduation, when she was accepted into the police force, and more recently when she had got engaged. Then she saw the sorrowful look on his face when she had lost her fiancée and then said goodbye to him before leaving for Martinique. Would she see that face again? Then she saw Patrice waiting for her at his bar in Belle-Mere, holding a bunch of roses, their weekend away when he had proposed to her, the chapel on the hill where they were going to get married. She wondered what her wedding day would have been like, imagined their honeymoon, wondered how their life together would have turned out, if they would have had a family and what their children would have been like. Then the nightmare returned and she recalled following Patrice to the abandoned building, wondering what he knew about Tiana's murder, then being shot and thinking she was going to die. Waking up in hospital trying to remember what had happened, Jack breaking the dreadful news…at this point she started to dread landing in Sainte-Marie and seeing places that were part of this memory. If it wasn't for her father she would have gone straight to the booking desk and bought a ticket on the next flight back to Martinique without even leaving the terminal, even if it meant staying there for several days while the storm passed. Then as the plane had descended and the turbulence had eased, she began to reflect on her time with the Sainte-Marie police team, the murders she had helped to solve, all her different colleagues that had come and gone over the years and the fun they had had off duty, Humphrey, Camille, Dwayne, JP , Ruby, and finally Jack. She smiled as she thought of the drinks and laughs at Catherine's and at the shack and wondered if she would see any of them while she was back. It would all depend on her dad.

In the first two months after arriving at her aunt and uncles' house in Martinique, she was still weak after her ordeal and hurting for the man she loved, so had spent most of her time in the house and had not done anything except helping with household chores. Then, encouraged by her aunt and uncle she began to go out with her cousins and meet new people and she also started helping her uncle run his grocery store. But after a while she realised that this was not what she had spent years studying to end up doing, and so she had gotten a job with the Martinique police, assisting with investigations into burglaries and fraud allegations, but having no exposure to murders as yet. She had started to make some new friends and feel more settled, but she couldn't help missing her Sainte-Marie colleagues, in particular the friendship she had with Jack. Since his arrival on Sainte-Marie, he had been the one she had gone to with any worries and she had enjoyed cooking for him and looking after him in his early days on the island. And he was the one who had been there for her when she and Patrice had their first major tiff during the murder investigation after which the nightmare had occurred. There had been several occasions over the past few months when she had wished he had been there to talk to.

Finally she was through to the front of the terminal building and Gerard opened his arms to give her a well-needed hug.

'Oh Florence, what a scare we had! But it's so good to see you!'

'It's good to see you too, Gerard. How is he?'

'Stable now, thank God. He was sitting up when I left him a couple of hours ago!'

'Oh that's such great news!' Florence let out tears of relief and got another hug from her brother before they headed out to his car. Twenty minutes later they arrived at the hospital. Their mother and another of their brothers were sitting at either side of the bed, and their father, who was obviously weak but awake and alive, attempted to sit up and smiled when he saw his daughter.

'Florence!'

'Papa!' she gave him a very big hug and a big part of the cloud above her head lifted.