And as much as Camille actually liked Charles Champion, she found that in that moment she really missed having a casual lunchtime sojourn at Maman's with Dwayne and Fidel and Richard, engaging the DI in a battle of wills and wits while Fidel fretted away at today's minor calamity and Dwayne tried to pick up tourists on his paid lunch hour.
Camille shook the thought out of her head as Champion paid for their lunches. She blamed it on the shock reappearance of Roger Sadler in her life for the sudden rush of nostalgia, not helped by Dwayne dropping by on his ongoing world tour.
Gathering her things, she and Charles Champion left the café and headed back toward the station.
"So I'll need all your paperwork."
"Yes, sir. I just need it signed off on."
"Forward it to me." Champion said casually as the two of them slipped through the crowds of gawking tourists with a practised ease. "You'll need to be back for the trials, of course. Any ETA on when you'll be back?"
"Honestly, Charles, I'm still mentally processing the arrests. I'll message you when my brain's random access memory starts functioning at a normal level."
"Wait until little Aimèe starts to walk, you will never have time to think again." He laughed. "Wait until the first time she asks to borrow the car."
Honestly, if Aimèe was anything like Camille at all, there would be no asking. It was simply easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission, after all. Already she was dreading her daughter's teenage years, knowing all too well the absolute terror the 16-year-old Camille Bordey had been.
"You know, as my mentor you should be offering words of encouragement and advice, not terrifying me out of my mind."
"I am preparing you for future endeavours." He said seriously as the two of them stepped out into the pedestrian crossing.
She laughed.
Her boss heard it before she did, the crunch of tyres picking up stray rocks and sending them flying, the increasing growl of a driver stomping on the accelerator, the squealing rubber of someone weaving in and out of traffic. Champion spun in front of her, his grip on Camille's arms bruising, and bodily shoved her toward the sidewalk, her hip slamming into a car's taillight before she fell into the space between parked cars.
And time seemed to slow as with a sickening crunch her boss, her friend connected with the SUV. Blood bloomed across the front of the vehicle as the fender bounced him up onto the hood and against the windscreen as the SUV's brakes screamed.
Camille watched dumbly from where she had fallen as Champion's broken body rolled limply off the hood of the vehicle, the SUV rocking on its suspension.
The SUV reversed slowly until the tinted front window was facing her and Camille drew her legs up instinctively to bolt, knowing that the occupants were eyeballing her, knowing in that instant that this wasn't a random hit and run, not in the least. All she could see in the tinted window was her own dazed reflection as she pulled herself upright on the car in front of her. For a moment, a horrifying moment that seemed to stretch on forever, Camille was absolutely certain that that the window was going to buzz down to show the muzzle of a gun. Certain that she was going to die today.
But as the sounds of sirens cut through the air, the driver gunned the accelerator and shot off into traffic.
There was no noise but a ringing in her ears as Camille limped toward her fallen friend. There was so much blood. Hands reached out to try and help her but Camille kept up her lurching pace until she was sinking down by his side.
In an instant all the noise that had been muted rushed back in, assailing Camille's ears with screaming and shouting and a cacophony of car horns and emergency sirens. Trembling, she reached out to search for a pulse. His legs were broken, probably pelvis and ribs too, face a pulsed mess.
"Charles." She whispered. "Charles, please-"
Camille moved her fingers slightly, and-
There. A slight fluttering against her fingertips saying that he was still here. Still here. Still. Here.
Camille kept her fingers pressed against her friend's pulse point until the paramedics pried her away moments later.
Time seemed to have blurred together as people in white fussed her around. She was vaguely aware of standing alone in a waiting room when the door burst open and Catherine was there. Camille looked up at her maman through the blur. Catherine's face was pinched and pale and Camille could only remember seeing that expression a handful of times.
The times she had been shot.
Her maman hugged her tight like she was never going to let her go again.
"Where is Aimèe?" Camille said. She couldn't hear her voice properly.
"In the car with Dwayne." Catherine said. "I've packed for you, were leaving for Guadeloupe now."
Her brows knitted. "Tonight?"
"Tonight." Her maman tightly gripped her chilled hands.
"But I can't go when Charles – I have to find out-"
"Non." Catherine said sharply. "You need to make sure that Aimèe safe. You are a mother and that priority overrules everything else. Everyone else. Even yourself."
"This is my job-"
Catherine's grip was starting to get painful. "She is your daughter." Under the onslaught of her mother's fury, Camille felt herself begin to thaw from her numbness. She saw Charles bounce off the hood. The SUV slowly crawling backwards to look at her.
Charles Champion was far from the intended recipient of the hit and run.
Aimèe.
"I need to talk to Renard first, I need to-"
The door swung open again. Camille looked up to see Renard standing there, looking both impressively suited and well-presented and yet massively haggard at the same time. She stood up straighter and her knees twinged.
"Ma'am."
"Tell me about the vehicle."
Catherine straightened to her full height. "Veronique Renard, now I know you aren't going about addressing people like that."
"Maman." Camille groaned.
Renard flicked her fingers at the uniformed officer at her shoulder and he flipped out a notebook, pen poised.
"Black unmarked SUV, tinted windows."
"Did you get a plate?"
"No, ma'am. By the time the vehicle had reached the intersection, Commissaire Champion had grabbed me-" she indicated the bruises on her upper arms where the clear indentations of fingers stood out even on her darker skin. "And propelled me to where I fell between two parked cars." She said. "I already went over all of this with DuPont and the SOCOs."
"Yes, I know." Renard said. "But while everything is currently pointing toward a simple hit-and-run-"
Catherine snorted at 'simple hit-and-run'.
"We can't rule out the possibility of something coming off the end of the last op."
Catherine linked her arm firmly through Camille's. "I'm taking her home, to Saint Marie." She said flatly. "We are leaving tonight."
"Maman!"
"I will have HR move up your leave." Renard nodded briskly. "You will go now. We will escort you to the airport and officers will see you on to the plane to Saint Marie. The plane has been searched and you are the only last-minute tickets for this flight. When you arrive on Saint Marie the Commissioner of Police will touch base with you."
Camille blinked. "You've spoken to the Commissioner?"
"We will keep you in the loop regarding Commissaire Champion's condition, but right now you need to leave."
We need you to leave to keep everyone safe.
Camille felt her control beginning to slip away. Even though logically she knew it wasn't the case at all, she felt rather like she was being banished. She briefly wondered whether this was how Richard felt when he found out he was being sent away.
Like being exiled.
Dwayne's eyes darted around him the whole time he was driving, like he expected a big black SUV with a dented front end to come flying out of a side street at any time and plough them into a wall. Meanwhile, in the passenger's seat, Catherine was sitting stock-still and staring intently in front of her. Camille sat in the back with a dozing Aimèe in her capsule, but occasionally glanced out the rear windscreen at the escort car, following a decent distance behind but not so far that they couldn't intervene if needed. Renard was taking no chances.
Camille could still see in her mind's eye the SUV reversing to look at her.
They pulled up at Charles de Gaulle airport and as Dwayne and Catherine grabbed bag after bag Camille unbuckled her daughter's baby capsule.
"Should we really leave the car here?" Dwayne asked. "Maybe we shouldn't leave the car here."
"It's an unmarked, just get everything and I'll get someone to pick it up later."
"Okie dokie."
They made their way toward the boarding gate, looking for all the world like a couple going on a flight with their adult daughter. Camille was aware of some of the side-eyes she was getting from some of the other passengers. Not in a suspected-undercover-killer way. More of a merde, there's a bébé on the flight, I hope I don't get sat next to it.
Boarding was a relatively smooth process, mostly due to little Aimèe being completely conked out. The girl could sleep through a hurricane. Camille wished she could be so lucky; her years of policing and undercover work meant that she was entirely awake at the second there was a sound that shouldn't have been there. She was functioning on a minimum of sleep even before she became a mother.
Speaking of – While Dwayne was fussing and Catherine was stuffing bags into the overhead locker, Camille pulled out her phone.
The call went straight to voicemail, as she suspected. After all, he was currently wrapping up a long-running operation in Vice. He was too busy to follow her here. Or at least that was what she told herself.
"Salut, Leo, it's Camille. I've decided to take the rest of my annual leave, so Maman is dragging me back to Honoré. I have Aimèe with me, she says she loves her papa. I'll message when I land. Call me when you can."
She hung up and stared down at his contact in her phone. Her maman gave her the look she always did when Camille was speaking with Leo. Catherine had wanted her to get married and produce grandbabies for years now, but no one had managed to stick long enough except him. But of course there had only been a matter of time before it too imploded. Leo was a good man and a good co-parent and a good cop, but ultimately they were not good for each other.
Maybe Erzulie had cursed her.
For a long time now, Camille's body, heart and head had never seemed to be in complete agreement when it came to a man. If her body and head were in agreement, her heart never seemed to be in it. But then if her heart was blinded, her mind whispered traitorously that she was a fool.
Pointedly ignoring her mother's look, Camille fussed around with her own seat before looking around the cabin.
"So this will be exciting." Catherine was saying. "All of us home in Honoré. And Aimèe's first time on Saint Marie!"
There was a very obvious accusatory tone in the statement.
"I've been busy, Maman." Camille murmured, still studying the other passengers. There were excited backpackers swapping itineraries. There were disgruntled husbands out of place in cut-off jean shorts that had been dragged off by wives who just couldn't take the tedium anymore, kids that were celebrating their graduation to actual adulthood by going on their first grownup adventure, retirees going on their last hurrah and businessmen glued to their phones. The man that she had immediately pegged as the air marshal sat on the other side of the plane two rows down from them, and Camille wondered whether he was on this particular flight because of her.
There was a flash of blue in the corner of her vision, and her eyes followed it, before Camille went entirely rigid in her seat.
"Something wrong, Camille?" Dwayne asked.
"Not at all." Camille said.
Across the aisle, tucking his carryon bag away and making a show of ignoring her entirely, was Roger Sadler.
The entirety of the flight to Guadeloupe Camille kept her eyes on Roger Sadler as he sat there casually flipping through a paperback novel. She thought viciously that Sadler must have been one of MI5's internal officers since she had made him so easily, but then, if the day Richard Poole had been murdered hadn't been burned into her brain, Roger Sadler would have just looked like another pasty, middle-aged Englishman woefully unprepared for a vacation in the Caribbean.
Unless he wanted to be seen, wanted his presence known. Camille briskly told herself she was being a paranoid fool. While MI5 were investigators, they weren't spies. That was a whole other organisation.
With every passing minute she could feel herself getting more and more antsy while Sadler looked annoyingly unconcerned. She was so tempted to march over there and confront him, but was all too aware that with the way she was feeling right now outright confrontation would be a good way to spend the rest of the flight zip-tied to a seat.
The eight hours passed in agonising silence.
Catherine and Dwayne managed to doze, but although Camille was physically exhausted she couldn't seem to be able to close her eyes, for even a moment. Changing and feeding Aimèe, Camille settled back into her seat, her gaze being reluctantly drawn back to Roger Sadler.
The horrid little man had the nerve to be asleep!
DuPont messaged. The SUV had been located, burned out, just outside the city. Forensics was working on it, but he wasn't hopeful.
Neither was Camille.
The temptation to march over to Sadler, shake him awake, and demand answers was increasing.
Renard sent through an update on Champion. Charles was out of surgery, but was in intensive care in a medical coma. Her guilt was eating her alive, but Aimèe's safety was paramount.
Camille had finally managed to doze off when the plane began to descend, and her maman shook her fully awake.
"Time to go home, chèrie."
Camille didn't bother to point out that Saint Marie hadn't really been her home in a long time now.
Roger Sadler grabbed his bag and left the plane without a backwards glance.
Her maman and Dwayne grabbed their luggage from the carousel, and the three of them, with little Aimèe drowsing against her chest, approached the hanger for the charter to Saint Marie, a few babbling tourists around them deciding that rather than going on to one of the larger islands, they were going to slum it by island hopping some of the smaller hotspots.
"Do we have seats?" Camille asked. "This was all last minute."
"Felix always has seats for me." Her mother said boldly. Of course. All the businesses on Saint Marie operated on a set of rather I'll-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine principles.
"Sure." She demurred, slipping on her sunglasses. Moments later something caught in the corner of her eye and Camille's head whipped around, determined that if Roger Sadler was following them that she was going to punt the smug bastard into the Caribbean.
Instead the man caught in her line of sight was tall and lean and stood straight and tall. He immediately seemed familiar, but it didn't click into place for her until he flicked his sunglasses off and stared at her disbelievingly before cautiously starting to walk toward them.
"Mon Dieu, Fidel!"
"The gods were listening in." Dwayne dropped the bags he was holding and attempted to sketch a messy cross before grabbing the man in a crushing embrace, slapping him on the back. Camille also stepped forward to hug her old friend as well as she could with Aimèe strapped to her chest.
"What are you doing here?" Camille demanded, the weight of all the coincidences starting to bear down on her.
"Going to Honoré." Fidel said. "It's the school holidays, so me and Juliette are taking the kids to see all their grandparents." He nodded his head toward where Juliette was standing with their son sitting on her shoulders, and a tall, preteen Rosie looked up from her phone long enough to give them a piercing look before dismissing them entirely. Oh, good. She was entering that stage. "Are you as well?" Somehow Fidel still had that earnest innocence that made it seem like he was entirely incapable of lying.
Camille glared at her mother. "If you have anything to do with this, I am going to kill you."
Catherine's answering look said I'd like to see you try.
"Maybe the Loa have their eye on you." She said innocently.
"Great." Camille sighed. "Another thing to worry about."