Chapter 3: Tuesday 9 May 2023 – Monday 15 May 2023

No, Poole hadn't gotten the souvenir chocolates he had hoped would bring him back into the good graces of his wife and mother-in-law. What he had managed to bring back with him were a very chaffed abdomen and a hideous cold.

The first one he was aware of (he could hardly help that), but the second did not make its appearance until he set foot on the runway of the Saint-Marie airport and saw his beautiful wife impatiently holding back his little son, who had finally found his dad after days of fruitless searching. Poole made his way to the building, thinking that perhaps producing the toy soldier for Jacob William right now might soften that fierce look in Camille's eye, but he never even got a chance to open the carry-on before he let out a tremendous sneeze, right in front of her in the one and only terminal.

"Pardon me!" he said, fishing for a handkerchief with one hand as he patted his son's head with the other. "Yes, Jacks, it's daddy. Camille, I – I'mm – I, ah, uhhh,"

Camille pulled her son away as her husband did a second bellow into his handkerchief. "Don't think just because you fake a few sneezes, you can –" she began, before she noticed her man was looking a bit flushed; that is, more than the heat on Saint-Marie would allow for. A swift wrist to his forehead told her everything else she needed to know.

With a short, quaint French expression she had picked up in Pigalle, Camille herded both the men in her life toward the Defender, parked on the yellow line outside the terminal. She did not need this. The weekend had been rocky but manageable, what with every bar crawler on the island using the coronation and Bank Holiday as an excuse to party, and then going on to act on the resulting poor judgement. She had not planned on her stint in station admin carrying on for a week while, at the same time, she nursed a man descending into fever.

"I'll be all ride, you doe," Richard said as Camille bundled him into bed. "I'b dot a child. I can look abter byself. I was a badelor for some dibe before –"

"What is that?" Camille interrupted him, peeling back the waist band of the boxers. She had caught sight of a red mark she could not account for on his fair English external oblique muscle. Richard pulled the boxers back up and covered them with the pyjama bottoms.

"Nudding," he said. "It's just – duh drousers were doo sball and I had do – couldn' – cha-, chaooo!"

By the time Dr Johnson was able to attend on Wednesday morning his patient was drowsing off again, having slept the night through and taken his cold meds like a lamb. According to the doctor it was an ordinary virus and the rise in temperature was just what you'd expect as the body attempted to fight off the infection. As for the redness, Johnson shrugged that off as just a bad fit in trousers. He had no notion, of course, why Richard hadn't been wearing his own for a while.

Now, Camille loved her husband. He was the center around which her life revolved, and she was unashamed to admit it. She had waited a long time for him to come to the realization that he loved her as well, and most of the time she was secure in the knowledge that he had no interest whatsoever in any other woman. But . . .

A tiny little voice deep in her French brain asked, now and then, casually, how it was that England, and London in particular, did not just go away and leave him alone. Richard had come to accept that life in paradise was manageable if one allowed oneself things like lighter-weight material for suits and the loss of a constricting tie. He had even learned to do without a duvet under the mosquito netting. But let some little thing like a coronation pop up and he was off to the other side of the world, leaving his perfect children, his beautiful sunny home and his charming and even more beautiful wife behind for a cold, rainy stint by the side of a glitzy processional way, waiting for one moment when a gilded folly would pass with an ordinary man inside. It was ridiculous!

(It was even more ridiculous that she had sat in her desk chair at work with the live stream of the event going on her monitor, all eight hours of it, grudging every moment she had to look away to attend to her duties. She told herself it was to catch a glimpse of Richard somewhere in the crowd. She hadn't found him. Not that she had been watching the crowd so much, or the lines of soldiers and policemen on the roadside.)

Meanwhile, beginning on the Friday, life on Saint-Marie was settling back to normal. The party-goers were melting away off-island. Dwayne and Fidel were competing even now to see who could get through the most of the mound of paperwork on their shifts. Juliet graciously said of course she could keep looking after Amélie and Jacks in the afternoons, with Rosie's help. Catherine gleefully promised her largest stockpot of soup.

And Richard remained very close-lipped, almost incommunicado. He himself suspected his fever had returned, despite Dr Johnson assuring him he was on the mend. Poole used tissues, took medicine, sputtered through soup (eating it only because he couldn't taste it), or slept, and it was when he slept that he talked, mostly about butter.

...

At first, Camille just rolled over and ignored him. Dr Johnson had advised her it would be better to sleep on the rollaway for a while, but Camille had smiled and agreed and then climbed into bed with Richard anyway when nightfall came. She was too used to being next to him now to resist. So, when he began to mutter on the Saturday night, she let slide the mention of butter, the price of tin, and chocolates, but when he brought her into the story she rolled back over and focused on him.

"Buddery," he said, two or three times, still under the influence of the meds but becoming quite restless. "Cabille's buddery. Boundbree asssssssor."

Bound? Camille thought. Perhaps the trousers made him feel that way?

"Two boxes brotestor, bleaz. Best I cah do," said Richard, waging his head. ". . . Cabille . . . I'b sorry. Once in a lifedibe – id was susbicious. Dam drousers!"

Camille edged nearer, heedless of any fever. Sorry for what? "Richard?"

"I'b dot for rent!" he shouted.

For rent!? Rent for what? "Richard!"

"Yessir. Keeb id quied! Whad?"

"Richard, wake up!" Camille flailed around for the lamp beside the bed and turned it on to see her husband staring back at her in a cold sweat. "Cher, you were dreaming, I think."

"Wazzi? Oh. Dorry," he answered, and pulled imaginary blankets up over himself protectively.

"Richard, what happened in London? You must tell me!"

But he was shaking his head, avoiding her eyes. "I cand. Cand. Orderz. Bozz womad . . ."

"Boss woman?"

"Sshhhhh," Richard replied, looking shamefaced before settling onto his other side and back into slumber.

...

By the time Poole dragged himself out of bed Sunday morning, Jacob William had beaten his Coldstream Guard on his daddy's bed frame several times and Amélie had managed to gum off Paddington's hat in her enthusiasm. So much for any collectible value they may have accumulated over time.

Come Monday Poole was up and around but he remained at home, doing the housework and entertaining Jacob William. Camille, meanwhile, having parceled out the day's tasks at Honoré station, sat down at her desk and opened Richard's email, because of course she knew the password, and began scanning the contents of the inbox.

Camille would admit that there was, perhaps, just a touch of jealousy in her makeup. Just a soupҫon. It was entirely reasonable, since she had in her possession the most brilliant, most adorable man in the western hemisphere, the father of her entirely darling children. What she was savage to discover was what he had been doing in the eastern hemisphere a week before.

What she found was a neat little package in Richard's inbox from the Met Police UK with an attachment, which proved to be the 'Understanding Our Investigation' booklet from Professional Standards. That was right above Commissioner Selwyn Patterson's cc'd reply acknowledging the receipt and questioning, in the most respectful terms possible, the use of the phrase 'inappropriate conduct' with regard to Detective Inspector Richard Poole.

...

Note:

Boundbree – um, I mean Poundbury, is an experimental community west of Dorchester in Dorset, England, whose planners intended it to be a people-centered town relying on pedestrian and public transport rather than cars, with an integrated association of shops, businesses and housing. Meant to be the town of the future, its traditional architecture and layout are designed for sustainable development. Charles III is one of its keenest promoters and one of the businesses is a chocolate factory, hence the 'Poundbury assortment,' the buttery little crowns in the turquoise box.