Juliette's dad picked the Best family up from the station as Catherine, Camille and Dwayne stood on the tarmac. They had first attempted to call the local taxi company, but Camille had pointed out that it was after lunch and that there were likely to be no cabs until the next morning. Catherine proceeded to call the bar, but none of the waitstaff were available to dart down to pick them up. Camille was coming to terms with the idea of walking back to the bar with her luggage and the baby when Juliette said something to her dad and he nodded, flipping out his phone and dialling a number. She waved at them, offering Camille a bottle of water from the back of her dad's jeep.

"Come and wait with us in the shade." She gave a friendly smile. "My brother is coming with his car to take you back to Honoré."

Camille took the bottle. "Oh, you don't have to."

"Don't worry about it." Juliette dismissed. "I wouldn't want you walking back to Honoré with the little one."

And there it was. Juliette and Fidel were so good and sweet that it threatened to give her cavities.

Juliette's eyes twinkled cheekily. "Besides, it gets Michael out of my parents' basement into the fresh air for a little while."

That startled a laugh out of her. Maybe Juliette wasn't quite the shy shrinking violet she had been ten years ago.

While the boys chatted casually with Catherine, Camille and Juliette leaned against the jeep in the shade. Aimèe had awoken and wriggled this way and that, seemingly entirely taken with her new surroundings, and Camille unbuckled her. Juliette held out her arms and Camille deposited the baby into the arms of another mother. Aimèe stared up at her for a long moment, but then Juliette proceeded to bounce the fussy baby around in a way that Camille hadn't quite managed to gain the confidence to do even after all this time, Aimèe shrieking out in laughter.

Camille's smile started to wobble a bit. Maybe she should have made more of an effort to make more friends in her prenatal classes.

The Bests' son was watching his mother out of the window, his nose screwed up in contemplation. "She's real little."

"She won't always be." Juliette said.

"The baby can probably kick your butt already." Rosie said slyly, and her brother smacked her with the book he was holding. Juliette ignored them both, pulling faces for Aimèe. Despite herself, Camille felt herself beginning to wind down and relax.

"You're really good with her."

Juliette cocked her head to the side, seemingly detecting something using the mummy-sense that had yet to kick in for Camille. She dipped Aimèe again, the baby giggling and clinging to her shirt.

"I'll get Fidel to send you my number." She said matter-of-factly, speaking like everything had already been decided. "We can go do drinks, for just the girls."

"Oh." Her first instinct was to refuse the younger woman, but Juliette's gaze was clear and steady and broke no refusal. On reflection, having drinks with someone who wasn't 'the boys' or her mother would be rather nice. "That'd be… nice."

Part of Camille could barely believe that she was the age she was, with a baby of her own, but here she was once again in her childhood bedroom. Though there was now the addition of a beautiful new crib in the small connected study and Camille had to wonder exactly how long Catherine had spent staring at it in a desperate hope to manifest grandchildren.

After changing and feeding and settling Aimèe down, Camille made sure the baby monitor was working before she headed back to her maman's kitchen to Dwayne and Fidel idly chatting about the cricket. Both men glanced up at her and Camille was suddenly struck by the confidence straightening Fidel's spine and the grey that had crept into Dwayne's hair. So many years had slipped through her fingers in the time it had taken for her to seemingly turn around twice.

She sat at the kitchen table and Dwayne pushed a bottle of beer towards her.

"Your maman has gone down to the bar." He said. "Apparently there's a new barman she's training up as a manager, says he's a good 'un even if you can't understand him half the time."

Her eyes briefly narrowed.

"Scottish." Fidel elaborated.

"Ah." Camille said. "It's about time." Catherine had plenty of employees, of course, but thanks to the Bordey stubbornness she never seemed to find anyone she felt she could leave with the running of the bar. The three of them drank, and there was something comforting about the familiarity.

Dwayne's bottle clinked down on the tabletop.

"So."

"So?"

The stern expression seemed out of place on Dwayne's face, and after a moment Camille realised that Fidel was avoiding Dwayne's eyes.

"Gonna tell us what's going on?"

Fidel didn't say anything for a moment, spinning his bottle around. "I'm thinking of coming home."

"Permanently?" Camille asked, surprised. After all, he had taken the job on St Lucia to create more opportunities for his family in the first place.

"Yeah. I mean, our families are here, and Richie is about to start school…" He shrugged. "And Juliette just got her masters and I'm pretty sure she's got a job lining up."

The two of them stared at him and after a moment Fidel sighed heavily.

"I think my boss is crooked."

The kitchen was silent as Camille and Dwayne stared wordlessly at him.

"What-" Dwayne finally managed. "How-?"

"Have you told anyone?" Camille asked.

Fidel scrubbed a hand across his eyes, looking suddenly so much older. "You're the first. I haven't even told Juliette."

And Fidel told Juliette everything. Camille frowned.

"You need to go to your Commissioner if you have suspicions." The man didn't answer and she read his silence. "You have suspicions of him, too."

"Internal Affairs?" Dwayne offered weakly with a wince. After all, a police officer, retired or not, didn't invoke the spectre of Internal Affairs lightly.

Fidel's free hand balled into a fist, absolutely furious under the carefully cultivated mask of control.

"I don't have anything to take to Internal Affairs except a gut feeling and little coincidences that don't add up." He said. "Unless I have something concrete, I could be putting my family at risk."

Richard Poole had trained him well. Good lad, the mental phantom of the Englishman whispered approvingly in her ear.

"Tell us." Camille urged.

His eyes were sharp and focused. "This doesn't go beyond us."

"Oui, of course."

"I'm a vault." Dwayne said. "A hoard of beautiful women couldn't drag it out of me."

The three of them laughed.

"Now that's a worthy oath." Camille said.

"Please, a gallon of prosecco and a bucket of oysters and they'd have it out of you in no time." Fidel chuckled, before scratching his temple. He sighed. "It was all good at first, smooth, and then my old Super left. The Assistant Super stepped into the role until the Commissioner could fill it officially. A week later, he was dead in a hit and run."

Camille's mind bounced back to Charles lying broken in the street, and she shivered.

"Two days later, our old Superintendent hung himself in his flat."

"Foul play?"

Fidel shook his head. "Not that I found. Superintendent Harris had gone through a messy divorce, his son had died the previous month from a brain aneurism, his gambling was out of control. And his oldest friend had just died."

"No suicide note?"

"None."

"That's unusual."

"That's what I said." Fidel said. "But with no solid evidence, it was deemed that he was severely depressed and killed himself."

"And the case was shelved." Dwayne said. Fidel nodded. Camille flashed back to Roger Sadler talking about the English cabal that was banishing or arranging 'accidents' for honest cops.

"And then what?"

"The Commissioner got someone sent over from the UK. Superintendent Max Dooley. He came in and sacked a bunch of the civilian staff. Which we did probably need, but-" He sighed. "Do you remember Operation Restoring Confidence?"

"Yes." Camille said.

"No." Dwayne snorted.

"'No one can hide anymore'." Fidel quoted. "It was a push to restore tourist confidence in the security of St Lucia after the murder of a British tourist."

"Got to keep that sweet English tourist money rolling in," Dwayne chuckled darkly, but Fidel didn't smile.

"An independent team from Jamacia went in in 2015." Camille said in a low voice. "And determined that many of the shootings that the police were getting into with the criminal element were unlawful."

"Unlawful." Dwayne's eyes narrowed, intuitively knowing where this was heading. After all, even though he played the part, the man was no fool.

"They were executions." Fidel said bluntly. "And then evidence was planted to make them look like lawful killings."

"Was your station one of the ones implicated?" Camille asked.

"No." Fidel shook his head. "But that doesn't make much of a difference, does it? All of us get tarred with the same brush."

"Do you think Dooley had something to do with Restoring Confidence?"

"No." Fidel said. "But is he using it to his advantage? I believe so."

"His advantage?"

He nodded. "I think he's holding Restoring Confidence over my colleges' heads. An inconvenient complaint will suddenly disappear after a meeting, and then the person who made it would deny that they'd ever made one. Investigators are gaslit into prioritising certain leads over others. Anyone with the guts to stand up and insist on anything Dooley doesn't agree with seem to be reassigned to menial duties or get stood down on trumped-up charges."

"What are you still doing there?" Dwayne demanded. Camille couldn't exactly blame him for the outburst, not really. The whole time they had worked together, it had been Camille and Dwayne that were a little more economical with the rules, but even Dwayne would have been immediately out the door if there had been a suspicion that their boss was involved with a string of executions. The idea that Fidel Best was intentionally ignoring the situation was unfathomable.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Fidel snarled back at Dwayne. "This is probably the only island where I feel safe. That I feel my kids are safe. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."

Camille reached across the table to grab his hand. "First, you speak to Juliette and tell her why she needs to stay here." She said firmly. "Next, we make a plan and you speak to the Commissioner. Our commissioner."

Fidel looked up at her, eyes big and wide and suddenly he was a uniformed PC again, looking for guidance among the full officers that were more concerned with having a good time.

"Come with me to Patterson?"

There was no question. Not at all.

"Of course."

Camille Bordey genuinely hated how the older she seemed to get, the closer and closer the disasters in her life seemed to occur until the whole thing seemed to furl into a ball of chaos.

She sat in the sand at the edge of the beach with Aimèe between her knees, giggling every time the water came up to lap at her toes. Camille's heart ached as she kissed her daughter on the top of her head. Maybe it was time to finally walk away, leave the police life and become the mother her daughter needed. The mother she deserved.

"You already are the mother she needs."

Camille raised her eyes, and there he was, her phantom. She knew by now that it wasn't really him, of course, but there was still something comforting about seeing his face. Her mind had even conjured a towel for him to sit on.

Richard Poole smiled at her tightly, like he wasn't used to his facial muscles moving that way.

"Don't talk to me." Camille murmured. "You'll make me look insane."

"You can do that all on your own." He snorted. "You're the one with the brain that gave my face to your subconsciousness, you know."

"I suppose."

"Besides, the baby's not exactly paying attention. She's more interested in eating sand."

She brushed the handful of sand from Aimèe's hand and the baby pouted at her. She was going to have a lethal pout one day. All the boys would be wrapped around her finger. "You could have told me that earlier."

He gave her one of his signature you are an imbecile but I'm too polite to actually come out and say it stares.

"Exactly what part of 'figment of your imagination' do you not understand? I see what you do, know what you know."

Camille squeezed her eyes closed. "I need therapy."

"I've been saying that for years."

Fidel borrowed the jeep again to pick both of them up, he and Camille in their island-professional clothes and Dwayne in shorts and flip-flops and a ratty, wide straw hat with ridiculously oversized sunglasses. Honestly, how he was so successful romantically Camille would never know.

"Are you drunk?" Fidel immediately demanded.

"I'm not drunk. I'm hungover. I was drunk yesterday." Dwayne enunciated the word clearly.

"That's very professional."

"I'm retired. I can drink what I want, when I want."

"Like that ever stopped you before." Camille snorted, and her friend flashed a toothy grin.

"At least take off the hat when we go in to see the commissioner."

"No promises." Dwayne cocked his hat to a rakish angle. Fidel sighed.

"Get in."

The older man etched a jaunty salute. "Guv'nor!"

Camille read Fidel's look. "No, you can't throw him out a moving vehicle."

"Can we get ice cream on the way back?" Dwayne asked as he scrambled into the back seat. Camille looked back at him.

"Exactly how old are you?"

"Never too old for ice cream." He retorted.

They were almost at the entrance to Government House when suddenly the traffic seemed to become thicker, and the jeep slowed to a crawl. Surprisingly, it wasn't just the tourists that were standing around and gawking blankly like chickens, but even the locals where whispering among themselves.

"What's going on here?" Fidel asked.

"Some sort of new festival?" Camille frowned.

"In the middle of the day? No music? No rum?" Dwayne snorted. "Pretty lame festival."

The jeep managed to creep along a little further until Fidel had to stand sharply on the brakes, the jeep jerking to a stop and rocking a little on its tyres.

"What the hell-?" Dwayne breathed as the three of them stared dumbly out the windscreen at the road leading to Government House. Flashing red and blue lights were up and down the street, and Camille could faintly make out the battered old Honoré Defender right in the middle of the mele. She exchanged a look with the boys, and the three of them immediately got out of the car.

"Look at all these police." Fidel sounded astonished. "They must have pulled personnel from Guadeloupe." He paused. "Why would they pull personnel from Guadeloupe?"

"D'you think there's been a murder?" Dwayne asked.

"Let's find out." Camille growled, pushing through the crowd that was already starting to assemble around the police cordons. Police officers that she didn't recognise left Government House with boxes of documents, and she searched for a familiar face.

Nothing. Nothing.

And then someone she finally recognised left the building, squinting into the sun before wiping his face with a hanky.

"Detective Inspector Parker!"

And somehow over the other voices that were already shouting his name, Neville Parker heard her, squinted eyes widening as he recognised her in the crowd. She could see his mouth incredulously form her name as he made to move toward her, waving off the uniform on the cordon. "What are you doing here, Inspector Bordey?"

"I… was here…" She trailed off as more boxes were carted out of Government House. "Look, what's happening here? Has someone died?"

"Not… recently." He said vaguely. "I'm sorry, why are you here? Now?"

Camille really didn't like the way he asked that. "Mon Dieu, is Selwyn all right?"

"We should probably do this back at the station-"

"Neville!"

"Camille." DI Parker's face twisted from cautious to sympathetic. "Commissioner Patterson has been arrested."

AN: Operation Restoring Confidence was regrettably a real thing.