Chapter 2: Richard, a prophetic name
Summary:
A chapter of contrasts. The contrast between the happiness of a couple (and their parents, friends, acquaintances on the island, etc...) and the unhappiness produced by injustice, miscalculation and hatred.
Chapter Text
"Camille, it is often said that our gift, any kind of gift, can also be a curse."
The pair of senior officers at Honoré police station are absorbed and pensive watching the waves caressing the beach. As they have been loving and caressing each other not too long ago. They are sitting under a tropical blanket of stars on the steps of Richard's veranda. The point is that they are not yet in the real world and they want to enjoy their time listening to the waves.
"What are you talking about, Cherie?" asks Camille slightly apprehensive.
Richard tries to explain.
"Our mission according to our friends the Loa," at which point he looks at the lizard, who is enjoying an opulent feast of mango and insects. The Loa nods wordlessly without stopping eating. "...is to help the island by keeping criminals of any kind away from Saint Marie or punishing them if they have already committed the crime, helping the victims. Is that correct?"
Camille nods with her eyes closed. She loves to hear his voice.
She thinks on this occasion his enthusiastic affirmation. That's the good thing about being able to read each other's minds.
But, as Camille suspects, Richard loves to hear the sound of his own voice, so he keeps talking.
"That curse ties us to the island of Saint Marie during our lifetime and after we die. Personally it makes me happy to spend the rest of my life and death with you, my love. Does that make you happy?"
This time Camille looks at him and explains loudly.
"I've already made my choice, Richard, and I'm not backing out. You know I love you. Even though you can't help admiring other foreign and local beauties."
He looks at the waves, then at the sand on which his bare feet are resting - surely that in itself is a miracle! And, trying to choose his words well, he finally makes a statement.
"I want you to understand that when I feel the desire, almost the need, to caress you, to kiss you, to feel you in my arms, to sink inside you and, for an instant, to believe that we will always be this close, its only and exclusively with you. I have never felt it with anyone else. I guarantee it."
She can't even think of an answer, let alone reply to what he has told her.
He keeps trying to put his thoughts in order. "I don't think I can say 'I love you' all the time or call you by affectionate names that, frankly, sometimes seem ridiculous to me. But I can show you what you mean to me. I'm not good at talking about these things..."
"Oh, Richard! I don't need to hear any more. I have to tell you that what you said to me is so romantic! You've only felt that way about me and not about anyone else!"
Richard looks at her excitedly.
"As I can see that this special day doesn't seem to be over, I wouldn't mind continuing to show my love for you a little bit m-"
But the loa's don't seem to give them another minute and Camille says as she feels that she will vanish at any moment...
"Tomorrow or today we can continue this talk, mon coeur. I'm afraid our time is up..."
Richard blows her a kiss. But when he wakes up and sees that it is only six o'clock in the morning, he considers that he has plenty of time to catch up on the book on the history of slavery in Saint Marie.
But before he starts reading, he sighs and remembers that he must get started on the business of renovating the shack.
When Camille arrives smiling and rested at the shack the next morning, asking him if he still feels the same way he felt last night when he said all those romantic things to her on their special "date night", Richard can only reply:
"Who says that date is over? I'm lucky enough to be with you most of the time. Even though part of that time we're working."
Camille lets out a laugh, although she knows full well that they are now just two cops tasked with solving a hairy case.
They decide to return to the plantation and, as Richard gets out of the vehicle, Camille looks back at the girl with the hair full of red bow ribbons that seemed to vanish into thin air when she looked away for just a second. This time she wants to make sure Richard sees her.
Camille smiles at her and waves, but the girl runs away. Camille runs after her and Richard, with a little more effort, runs after Camille. He has not seen the girl. They arrive at the scene of the crime, but the girl is nowhere to be seen.
"I could have sworn the girl was headed this way!" exclaims Camille in frustration.
"Who?" asks Richard in confusion.
"The little girl. The one I saw yesterday!"
As Camille searches for the little girl, Richard begins to go over the case in his head, replaying the same details over and over again, all the while looking at the crime scene.
At least Camille gets one piece of evidence of the girl's existence: a small red bow on the floor. It is one of the hair ornaments the girl was wearing.
At that moment, Camille's mobile rings and Richard approaches her. It is Fidel. Seymour had only changed his will four days ago, leaving everything to Kim Neville.
At that moment they drive to the family home on the plantation to ask Kim, now with more insistence, who the stranger in the photos provided by Seymour's nephew is. The stranger she appears to be talking to in one of the streets of the village.
To the questioned woman, thats not important, she doesn't know the stranger, and furthermore, she claims that if she had to sleep with all the strangers she meets in the street, she would be short of hours in the day.
That seems funny to Richard until he looks at Camille, who, with her famous watch what you're doing expression, makes it clear to him that this is neither witty nor funny.
On the way to the police vehicle, Camille informs him that Kim is lying, body language is not deceiving.
"My judgement is not clouded, Richard. I don't like her. I'm telling you this as your sergeant and not as a jealous woman. "
As they enter the vehicle, he reassures her:
"I know, Camille. Anyway, this is an unfortunate case."
"By the way, you can't tell me that the girl wasn't there when we were talking at the side of the vehicle. This time there was no doubt about it.
Richard looks at her quizzically.
"I haven't seen any girl."
Camille doesn't know what to think anymore, but she forgets about it when they arrive at the station, where Dwayne, Fidel, Camille and Richard discover new clues to help solve the case.
The book of the history of the slaves of Saint Marie and the little girl's ribbon that Camille found on the floor of the crime scene explain the little pieces of glass from the lantern also found on the floor. Quickly Camille and Richard return to the scene of the murder.
There is a tunnel that Richard thinks connects the mill to the family home.
"That tunnel is how your little girl, Camille, has appeared and disappeared."
Camille smiles at him. He listens to her more than she thinks.
Camille calls Fidel on Richard's orders and, as she knows the DI hates dirt and cobwebs, disobeying Richard, she goes into the tunnel with him. After all, Fidel is left guarding the entrance at the mill. And there's a killer on the loose...
The darkness is also welcome, so much so that Richard thanks Camille with a kiss that is shorter than either of them would have liked for picking up that little ribbon from the floor. But they make it to the end of the tunnel and from there they speed back to the station.
This case is a revenge for something that happened a few years ago. The victim's descendants are the ones who orchestrated it all, that's what DI teaches DS. The victim's children are in the house right now. They arranged for Seymour to pay for what he did years ago.
Richard and his team solve the 1820 mystery of 50 slaves escaping or rather vanishing into thin air on the same plantation as well as the 2011 murder of the plantation owner. The tunnel that the slaves once dug to escape was later discovered and has been used by the Seymours ever since, although they kept it secret.
And, when Fidel emerges from the tunnel at Richard's signal, it is discovered that it was also used for Louis to murder Roger Seymour from behind without the poor man seeing him. Louis needed a torch for the dark tunnel and dropped it on the ground in the mill. Although he picked it up, the small glass shards denounced his presence at the scene of the crime. Because the tunnel did not go just to the house, but to the storage barn Louis was working in as well.
Fidel found Louis Nelson's fingerprints. But that's not his name. He is one of the children of a plantation worker killed by a faulty machine belonging to Roger Seymour. Without compensation of any kind, alone and without help, the dead employee's girlfriend left the plantation pregnant. She bore twin children: one is Louis... Peters, son of Johan Peters and the other is Kim Neville. Both are guilty of murder.
Murder they could have spared Seymour, as he only had a few months to live. And his new Will would have given them the plantation. If only they had known!
"I need a drink" comments Camille when they all meet back at the station after solving the case.
"I'll take three," says Dwayne.
"Sir, aren't you coming with us? You know, to celebrate?" It is Fidel who asks Richard.
The DI hesitates.
"Well, I don't know if that's possible."
"Now don't you want to come with us, Richard?"
"I thought you and I had a date today, Camille. Although I seem to remember we were meeting your mother and my parents at La Kaz earlier."
"Right! I'm leaving first, I've got to change. Bye!"
"Sir, you'll see, you'll get used to having your parents around." Fidel reassures him.
"I like my system better. I don't have to deal with anyone's parents!"
"It's not a bad system, Dwayne. But I have to meet with them. Don't you have an appointment today too, Fidel?"
Fidel grins from ear to ear.
"Of course, sir. My mother-in-law will look after the adorable but terrible Rosie. The child demands all our attention!"
His two friends agree that the child is a restless beauty.
"Well, it's getting late. Will you close the station then?"
"Right away, Chief. Have a good time!" Dwayne bids him farewell as Richard is on his way to La Kaz to greet his parents.
It's evening, Richard and Camille, Camille in a lovely red dress, are chatting amicably with his parents. Catherine has been chatting quietly with them for a while, but the bar patrons have demanded her attention.
"Glad to see the shack renovation is still going ahead, Richard." His mother comments.
"Actually it's stuck, Alice. But we promise we'll get right on it." Camille replies instead of him.
Arthur and his wife look at each other in dismay. Somehow they know that until the shack is fully refurbished, there will be no marriage, let alone grandchildren.
"Fidel has told me about the case, Richard. A pitiful case. I am truly sorry. But I have to say, I hear you were brilliant."
"Dad... The whole team was brilliant too." Richard feels uncomfortable.
"It's true. He's always brilliant, even when he's terribly stubborn. Or when he's talking for hours..." Camille teases him.
"It's part of his charm, my dear. That's the Poole way. Don't try to change him. It would be useless." Alice says, looking away. She's already tried that with her husband.
Camille, to change the subject, asks curiously.
"Alice, why did you name him Richard?" she asks pointing to Richard.
"After King Richard the Lionheart."
"My parents were always very confident in my future, Camille." Richard comments with veiled irony.
"And we still are, son. Your mother and I are already proud of your present. " Arthur says earnestly.
"Well, I don't think they were wrong. You may not face wars and crusades now, but crime is a crusade in itself. My lion's heart."
Richard smiles and his parents decide it's time to leave them alone.
It's Erzulie's night after all!
Notes:
I have tried to innovate in a few small ways. A certain amount of dialogue may deserve to be read by those over 18, but it is still another expression of love.