"Daaad!"

Richard Poole nearly dropped the best turkey platter (the antique breakable one, of course) into the little sink of the washup-pantry in Catherine's bar. Despite his soapy hands he managed to keep it from snapping in two, or even chipping, but he hardly had time to feel proud of himself before Jacob William Poole, his firstborn, was upon him.

"I don't suppose you'd consider standing down, Jacks . . ." he began, only to switch it to "Steady, son, steady! – uuughhh."

"Daddee!" Jacob Willliam's mouth was outlined in mango raspberry trifle, as were his hands. He was using them to grab fistfuls of his father's cargoes to try and pull himself onto the stool by Poole's side, intent as he was on "helping".

Well, that was one more thing for the burgeoning laundry pile later on.

Not that Poole minded, not really. He sighed and smiled down at his son, now straining over the counter to plash his little hands into the sudsy water in imitation of his father. There were men in the world right now, Poole knew, who would give anything to be in his position, trifle-smeared trousers included: happily married to a smart, mostly sensible, gorgeous wife, with two incredibly bright and beautiful children, a mother-in-law who seemed inclined to like him and an actual future to look forward to.

Poole had been up since approximately 0500 hours, before the sun, carrying boxes from Catherine's van to her kitchen, checking water heaters, firing up stoves, mixing batter and whipping cream, and eventually tending bar for an hour or two late on Christmas morning, so Catherine could be free to work in her kitchen. Poole rather liked tending bar; serving out drinks to those few islanders who simply could not exist without a convivial glass of Christmas cheer to toast the Day. On this occasion he had issued two cautions and put limits on refills for three other enthusiastic patrons. Proper pub landlord stuff, he was sure.

Lending a hand with Catherine's Christmas lunch (an annual invitation-only event for those lacking any other suitable place to be on the holiday) had occupied most of the rest of his stay, what with serving, busing tables and washing up those items not suitable for the automatic dishwasher. It still surprised him how many of the crowd were pleased to see him there, and how he himself remembered and regretted those now sadly absent from any future festivities.

More melancholy still, this might be the last time Catherine hosted Fidel Best and his growing family. Fidel was in line for a promotion to Inspector which, if he got it, would place him in a station off-island somewhere, possibly St Lucia.

Poole carefully set the platter aside into the drainer, having lifted it well above the level of his little son's reach, before hunting down a cloth to clean him up. "Hold still now . . . no, let the plate be, Jacks. Jacks, here, suppose I tell you a story."

This was a tactic that almost always worked at bath time. That word 'story' resonated with Jacob William, who stopped grabbing at the platter and reached for his father instead, giving Poole the perfect chance to scrub off his hands. "Now, once upon a time, there was a man called Edmund Creighton Duff. He lived in Croydon, and one day he started to feel quite ill, you see . . ."

...

"You found it?" Camille breathed.

Catherine pulled the gaily wrapped package out of her secret taking-cash-to-the-bank pocket and slipped it to her daughter. Richard was now safely in the pantry and would not see; she had been ever so careful to avoid any hint of the gift she had planned for him. "Selwyn got it, through some Police site he knows of. We would never have found it ourselves. Gustav has made it up nicely."

Camille clutched the package to her breast in shock. For one thing, she was less sure than her maman that her detective husband would not pop out of the dishwater, catch one glance at the packet and know immediately what his Christmas surprise was to be. For the other thing, "Gustav the porn man?" she gasped. "Maman, how could you?!"

"Reecharr will never know! Selwyn has enough on Gustav to make sure of his silence, and I have seen it, petite. It is decently boring enough, even for an Englishman." Camille drew in breath to protest further but Catherine beat her to it. "Now tell me, chère, what did your so-romantic husband give you this year?"

It would be utterly amazing for the people who only knew Sergeant Camille Bordey-Poole, the beauteous, ready-handed thief-taker who could tell at a glance if you were planning on snatching a purse, to see the bashful smile that blossomed on her face then. Her glowing eyes checked right, then left at the servers returning plates and flatware to the bar, then she bent forward swiftly. "I will tell you later, en confiance," she whispered, and Catherine beamed.

"Je peux difficilement attendre!"

...

The special Christmas dinner Catherine prepared for the Honoré Police was winding down for another year, and as Christmas lights began winking on all over the harbor and town, the diners lingered; to talk, to exchange gifts and now and then push a dessert bowl to one side. Fidel was in two moods, both anxious to rise in his profession and sorry to leave his present post. Juliet was still glowing with the excitement of showing off her new son, Richard Dwayne Best. Rosie, now too grown up and dignified to be made a fuss over, was amusing herself by teasing Amélie Catherine Poole with the new toys given just that morning to Richard Dwayne, for the entertainment of her best friend Cleebie Dee.

Dwayne Myers, meanwhile, seemed to have finally settled on a lady, Darlene Someone-or-Other, who apparently could give Honoré's most prominent playboy as good as he had given every other woman he had loved and left. Rumor had it that if Dwayne's gift to her this year was not a ring, that was only because of a certain financial setback he had suffered at his favored game of chance.

Between Fidel beginning to be mawkish about leaving Saint-Marie, Amélie's delighted shriekings, Dwayne hovering around this Darlene and Camille and Catherine whispering and giggling over at the bar, Poole hardly knew where to look. True, the Pattersons had departed for their traditional round of hobnobbing with the highest on the island, but Jacob William, having wiped his hands dry on his father's shirt, was now dozing against it, threatening to slip off dad's lap in his sleep. So with all this going on, Poole was totally unprepared when the call came.

"Everyone! Attention, s'il vous plait!"

That was Catherine, no doubt announcing it was high time they all picked up a plate or two and began packing this year's feast away. Poole cast about, looking for a place to safely stow his son while he set the tables in order for Boxing Day opening tomorrow.

"We, ma fille and myself, have a special presentation to make," Catherine was going on, advancing from behind the bar. Camille followed to stand beside her, bearing the best turkey platter in her hands. On it rested a brightly wrapped flat package, all garnished about with silver and gold confetti.

Ah, thought Poole. In honor of Fidel going in for his Inspector's exam. What has Catherine heard, I wonder? Is it possible . . .?

But Catherine wasn't looking at Fidel.

Oh, well, then it's Dwayne. Dwayne is finally settling down with this lady here, Darlene ah, Umm. Catherine's sure to be the first to hear about a thrilling thing like Dwayne finally taking the . . . plunge . . .

But Catherine wasn't looking at Dwayne, either.

Uhh, Juliet and baby Richard, maybe . . .?

With a measured pace worthy of a solemn procession, Camille brought the platter forward, and her husband took just a moment off the puzzle of what was happening to admire the way his wife moved, more graceful and majestic than any queen, even in her short shorts and sleeveless holiday blouse. He only started shrinking back in his chair when she came to a stop in front of him, extending the platter as if it bore some coronet or chain of office.

"What –?" he got out, and then went dumb.

"Seven months ago," Catherine was saying, "our chief of police returned to his home in England, for the coronation of a king. While he was there, he prevented a serious crime."

"A potential crime, rather," Poole put in. "With the omission of an actual commission of a crime, it would be – I mean . . ."

He stuttered to a stop. His mother-in-law had raised not one, but two imperious eyebrows at him.

"Until now," Catherine continued, when a respectful silence had been restored, "his work there has gone largely unnoticed. Camille."

Catherine's daughter took one step back and let Jacob William's grandmère scoop her son out of her husband's lap. Then she leaned in with her stern police look, and Poole had no choice but to accept the contents of the platter in front of everyone. That the whole front half of his face was burning red was either ignored or noted as just what one would expect of Richard Poole when he was forced into the spotlight.

"Voila," Catherine said simply, folding the sleeping Jacks against her shoulder. "The proof of our Inspector going about his duty, and so of his cleverness in preventing that terrible crime – what was that?"

"Nothing," said Poole, quickly. He had been grumbling under his breath about it not following that because he had been there, he had actually prevented a crime . . . although he'd like to think he actually had.

He took a breath, balanced the platter on his knees and excavated the gift out of its confetti and its wrapping both. It was an 8x10 color photo, framed, of a gilded monstrosity that he recognized instantly, trundling along amidst a flock of scarlet coats and black caps, with a small pod of horsemen jostling behind against the backdrop of what was undoubtedly Whitehall. In the foreground, bottom right, was a man in the uniform of an Inspector of the Metropolitan Police – cap, jacket and XTS5000 squawker on his shoulder – looking fixedly to his right past the back of a young man in navy and wearing a white helmet. The young man facing the State Coach on its way back to Buckingham Palace was a Royal Marine, there to do honor, while the policeman, unmistakably one DI Richard Poole, was facing a motley crowd, to do duty.

Seeing that picture, the memory of the day came back to him: the shiny dampness of the whole scene after the rain, the water smell, the clamminess of the clothing, the cold, the interminable noise of the crowd, the distorted muttering of the squawker, the triumphant blare of the bands, the thicket of raised smartphones that made viewing the public so difficult, and of course the intolerable ill-fitting of those blasted trousers! All the details were there, except . . .

Except Richard Poole happened to know that where he had been posted when the State Coach passed by was in a blind spot; no camera coverage. There had been no crowd, either. He and the Marine, amongst a few others, had been there simply to maintain the line between Trafalgar Square and Admiralty Arch. What he had actually been policing at that moment was an empty stretch of roadway called Spring Gardens.

Where he had been facing a crowd was about four hours earlier, when the arrests had taken place in Trafalgar Square. He had been outside the barriers, freeing up other officers to do their Job, and the whole fracas had drawn the protestors to his attention. By the time the procession had begun and the Diamond Jubilee Coach to Westminster had passed, he was looking up the particularly boring stretch of the Gardens, down which no desperate mob was coming or was ever expected to come.

But now he thought of it, being in just that place when the State Coach had passed behind him was how he'd been able to spot those Two pesky Protestors slipping past with their bundle into St James' Park.

Everything happens for a reason, his mum always said.

Meanwhile, judging from the angle of the shot, the State Couch with the Whitehall background had been taken from the lowest tier of the press stand just to the left of the statue of Charles I, while the bit of himself and the Marine could only have been snapped by some anonymous police photographer from a higher level of Trafalgar Square during the arrests four hours earlier.

"Oh, of course!" he got out then, as it all slipped into place in his mind. "It's –"

And there he stopped. How much time would it have taken to find the shots necessary to make up this one photo, from among the ten thousand hours of video and the millions of uploaded snaps of the event, not to mention the work that must have gone into it to make it look this seamless.

"It's . . ." Everyone was watching, he knew, with Catherine and Camille beginning to look apprehensive. Poole was fighting every instinct he possessed to not make an exposé out of this. This was not a crime he had been set to solve; this was a gift, a token of someone's esteem, possibly even of love.

"It's . . . perfect. I – I don't know what to say," he finished, honestly.

The Bests and Dwayne crowded in close to look, with Rosie and Cleebie bunching together behind the chair. Even Darlene seemed interested. Camille had taken charge of her youngest and was now holding her up over her father's right shoulder so she could see the photo, whispering to her that that was her daddy, who had caught the bad guys. In response, Amélie kicked her bootlets and fussed for the bright red toy Cleebie still held in his hand.

Poole heard the fondness in his wife's voice and saw the pride in Catherine's face, and he wondered at the feeling of being part of such a close-knit family: being husband, son, father to Jacks and Amélie, mentor and even fosterer, in a way, to Fidel and his flock, and . . . well, and whatever you could call his relationship with Dwayne. There was truly nothing like being with family on Christmas. In fact, he would take his place here on Saint-Marie over being a King in England any day of the week.

The photo and its presentation being duly admired, the junior officers of the Honoré police and their guests turned to folding up another Christmas dinner. Poole delayed a bit, admiring the picture. "You know, Catherine," he mused thoughtfully, eyes on the State Coach, "someone should tell Gustav that if he can do photoshopping like this, he doesn't have to rely on um, 'special interest' work to make a living. Don't you think?"

"Richarr!" Catherine gasped. "Are you accusing me –?"

"Yes, how dare you?" Camille jumped in.

"What? What did I say?"

No, there's really nothing like a family Christmas, is there?

THE END