Antigua, six months before

"You haven't finished the Highland case?"

Commissioner Patterson had driven up to the Honoré police station expecting to have the results he needed. Instead, he was being told, that it wasn't concluded because they were still waiting for fibre samples and organic material matching to be done.

He ranged his three officers in front of him.

"There seems to be a delay, a lateness, in your results? What happened when you called them? What did they say? Have you been to see them?"

Questions, demands, fired like shots from broadsides, landing in the ears of Camille, Fidel and Dwayne.

"Well, we, er, have been doing our cases, Commissioner," Fidel told him, remembering the DI's words. He glanced sideways, and Camille picked up the story.

"I went," she told Selwyn Patterson, "I got the files for the Bay case.".

"And look what happened," chided the commissioner, "You solved that case, because you had evidence. Dat was two weeks ago!" the commissioner added, his Trinidadian accent coming out with his undisguised admonishment. "You tellin' me dat you 'av not been ova dere and collected more?"

"They say they are short-staffed, sir," Camille interceded, berating Richard Poole in her head - berating herself - that she hadn't been more insistent, demanded to know his reasons why they were giving Antigua a wide berth. Berating herself more for her instinctive loyalty to him.

Not that she was in a hurry to see the lab manager again - what was her name…? Oh yes, Charlotte Brook.

"Well, I am tellin' you somethin'. Short staffed is what dey are. The head of forensics' colleague, Harris Kerr, left a week ago, they were already a person down, so dat makes two down. And from the storm damage and the cruise liner that sank, dey are overwhelmed wit work.". Commissioner Patterson looked at his two sergeants in turn and then glanced at Dwayne Myers and took a deep breath.

"So, while DI Poole is on the north of the island, speaking to immigration about the deportation of the two drug runners back to the UK, I took it upon myself to speak to you three."

"I - " began Camille, ready to jump to Richard Poole's defence, but then took in the commissioner's expression and fell silent.

"Which is why, when I spoke to my counterpart on Antigua, Commissioner Somerton asked if an officer could be sent to alleviate their problem.

"Me?" Camille asked, her heart sinking. "Sir, I - "

"No, Camille," Commissioner Patterson told her. "I need you here; I need both my sergeants here. Particularly if I send a new recruit who'll need training."

"You're sending a new recruit…?"

"IF! I said if, Sergeant Bordey! No, what we want is the ability to carry out our own analyses here. We have funding to develop our own forensics facility here, on Saint Marie. It won't be as big as Antigua's; we will still have to send some work there. But…DNA testing, fluid analysis, poison analysis, refraction…all of this is possible to be done here, to speed things along, to solve cases faster."

Camille looked at Fidel and then Dwayne. If it wasn't to be her, then -

"So, I have proposed you, Constable Myers," the commissioner told him. You will be there for several months, and in that time you will learn the basics of the techniques that we will have here.". He looked at Camille.

"You will go with him," the commissioner told Camille. "Come, Sergeant Bordey," he urged, "I need to tell the Detective Inspector he will be a man down for a short time. But, he will be pleased. It means his cases will be speeded; crucial time will be saved.

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He supposed he understood. He wasn't a sergeant, had no wife, no dependents. But he had friends, though, and his life was on Saint Marie was full, relaxing, pleasant

He'd heard about Antigua - nasty, hot, crime-riddled place with lazy cops and unlicenced shoreline bars and restaurants and tourists that swarmed like ants on a hot day. Thankfully, Saint Marie was not like that.

Why him? To learn forensics? He was no good with his hands.

Well, in that respect…

Dragging himself out of his gloom, Dwayne Myers saw the twin lights of optimism shining ahead. It wasn't forever. And he was to be working, learning the skills of forensic science that he could show off to his two superiors, something only he would know.

From a woman who wasn't at all shabby-looking.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he pictured Charlotte Brook.

No. Not shabby looking at all…

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"No! I am not going!" A cross Camille was stomping around the police station, arms folded. "Why do I need to go? I have the Highland case - "

"Which you can't finish without the forensics report," Fidel pointed out, unhelpfully.

"Uhhhhh!" Camille groaned. From his desk, Richard Poole looked up. He was tired from coming back in the early hours of the morning from St. Paul, where the customs house was.

It was too bad he didn't speak French; the inspector based at customs just about spoke English. It had taken far longer than expected and he had driven in the waxing dawnlight south back to Honoré.

A few hours' sleep and he was back up, showered, dressed and had driven very carefully back to the station.

"Sir, you said so yourself," Camille appealed, her slender arms folded across her strim stomach. "Avoid going to Antigua - do you still stand by that?"

"Well, yes," DI Poole replied. But he had his own reasons for that, his own suspicions. "But, as the commissioner has arranged for Dwayne to go, I can hardly over-rule him.". He looked to Dwayne. A less likely forensic scientist he had ever seen. And yet, Commissioner Patterson was rarely ever wrong.

"Just…be careful, Camille. Take the reports you need for the Highland case, and any more they have managed to do. Come back in the light, while there is still light left on Saint Marie."

"...Sir?". Richard Poole nodded, and glanced to the report - the lengthy report - that had been waiting for him on his desk from the commissioner when he arrived that morning.

Dwayne was to be going to Antigua to learn the basics; the head of forensics would return and help establish their own forensics laboratory in the building that would be built to one side of the police station, on a plot of land that had once been the local hospital - that had been rebuilt fifteen years before a mile away with all modern equipment.

A new constable would be joining them; he had been in the Met and was on his way home, but had agreed, after a call from Commissioner Patterson that he would stay in Saint Marie, in Dwayne's house, rented as it was, from the police.

All the arrangements had been made. And their being made the dim embers of discomfort flare in his stomach. Something - something was wrong. All he could do is go along with it, and hope that he was alert enough to it at the time before trouble began. Or, lack of trouble. That was more of a concern.

"I know what I said, Camille," Richard told her, getting up from his desk and trying not to let his weariness show.

"And I know what is happening now. Please, will you do this? For me? Then we will try to avoid Antigua.". He glanced to Dwayne. "Not you; we won't be avoiding you," he told his constable, seeing the look on his face. "We will see you. And remember," Richard added, in a tone of voice brighter than he felt, "You are doing this for us, no, not for us, for Saint Marie, for our island, for our people. You will come back, be able to train us. We will be able to solve crimes quicker, because of you, Police Constable Dwayne Myers."

"Yes, Sir!" grinned Dwayne, his voice full of confidence, confidence in his boss. And confident he could get used to a pretty face like Charlotte Brook's.

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"Something is wrong, I'm telling you," Camille said to Dwayne Myers stay together on the ferry. "I don't know what it is, but…" she looked at her colleague "- It's got something to do with that woman!"

"That woman being…the lab manager? Charlotte Brook's figure came to mind.

"Dwayne, I'm being serious!"

"So am I!" Dwayne insisted. "Serious about a qualification that I couldn't achieve anywhere else. Serious about this opportunity, ya know.". Camille turned her head towards him. She had known him for a long time. Even when she was small, PC Dwayne Myers was there, putting the neighbourhood to rights.

"I know, Dwayne," she told him. Then added to herself, I just don't trust her.

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"Here's where you will be staying.". It was not Charlotte Brook who met them from the ferry but Dr. John Gold. Antigua, about the same size as Saint Marie, also had its capital's police station within sight of the waterline. Better to observe waterborne activity, Camille supposed.

The apartments were just around the corner from St. John's police station, the forensics centre visible from the window of the bedroom. "Harris Kerr has gone home, back to the UK," Dr. Gold explained. "So, whatta you think?". His dark face broke into a smile.

"Looks good," Dwayne replied, noncommittally, but secrely thinking, six months here? Wish my room in Honoré was like this.

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"Welcome, Constable Myers," Charlotte Brook held out a hand. Dwayne took it and glanced back over his shoulder at Camille and grinned. "Dr. Gold is in charge of chemical analysis…spectroscopy, chromatography, DNA and the like. I do the physical samples. It works." She smiled, and nodded to Camille.

And the day dragged as surely as if Camille had been asked to fill in paperwork: every five minutes or so she showed her and Dwayne something new, then organised the administration: computer login, security, work area.

"And here's your development programme," she told Dwayne, handing him a textbook. "You will have…weekly tests on the work we have taught you, rather than one big test at the end.". Her eye travelled to Camille. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay?" Charlotte asked.

"No, no," Camille replied. "Just come to collect our analyses, so we can get on with our own work.". She glanced to Dwayne.

"Give me a moment and we can sign out," she told them. "Can I buy you a drink?"

Outside the St. John police station was a bar jotbtoo dissimilar to Catherine's. But, of course, it would not have her Maman there.

"Rum, if Antigua has any.". Charlotte nodded to Dwayne, then looked at John Gold, who has come with rlthem.

"The same."

"And for you?"

"Oh no, I'd better be getting back l," Camille told her, outrage building like a wave at what she was seeing.

"Perhaps you want a soft drink?" Charlotte Brook suggested. And the pressure egrew higher.

"Actually, I will have a rum," Camille told her. Ha! Soft drink, indeed!

"So, what brings you all the way from the UK?" Dwayne asked, after his second rum. Camille, whose ferry was not due to leave for another hour, leaned back, wanting to know the answer, as well.

"Family, I have family close by.". She looked to Camille. "You have your reports, Sergeant Bordey?"

"Yes, Miss Brook," she replied. If she was annoyed at the slight misuse of her title, Charlotte Brook did not show it.

"Dr. Gold, would you be able to show Camille to the docks?"

"Just a quick word with Dwayne before I go," Camille insisted and walked across the sand a few moments later.

"You are angry," Dwayne observed, accurately.

"And you are pathetic, hanging onto her every word! Do you see what she is wearing?". Dwayne Myers smiled.

"I saw a lot. She is wearing…" he glanced back to the bar, "The tiniest little - "

"She's wearing my clothes!"

"She is? Dwayne looked back up the beach. "Yours?"

"Not my actual clothes, her clothes, but they're the same…look - " Camille stood back, cotton sleeveless shirt in white; drill cotton green shorts. Dwayne looked back to Ms. Brook again.

"Shorts…sleeveless top, perhaps you just shop at the same store?"

"H-aaaah!" Camille groaned, defeated. There were some things men just did not see.

So she said her goodbyes and allowed Dr. Gold to take her back to the ferry with her precious analytical reports, sore that she had left Dwayne behind with that - she-monster.

So that is how PC Dwayne Myers came to leave Saint Marie, with a small bag and a big smile, watching the last ferry sailing south that evening and wondering what he had done so well to be placed in the company of Ms. Charlotte Brook.

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Constable Neil Stevenson arrived two days later, in the company of Commissioner Selwyn Patterson. He was shown to his desk and given his duties and a distracted DI Poole had asked him about his division, his area in the Metropolitan borough.

"Hackney," Constable Stevenson told him. "And then I took an overseas posting.". He grinned. "Like you, sir."

"Like me," Richard Poole replied. He nodded to PC Stevenson and watched him place his belongings on his desk and settled into the Honoré station.

As he passed his desk that evening, on his way to lock up DI Poole picked up a small figurine thatbhad been placed by the pens and pencils, a small, gnome-like figure which was, in fact, a viking.

It would take Richard Poole a little while longer to notice that the little viking had no horns on his helmet.