Work Text:
"I'd like to report a missing person."
Officer Dwayne Myers, Sergeant Fidel Best and Detective Sergeant Camille Bordey of the Honore Police, Sainte Marie, all looked up at the attractive, well-dressed Englishwoman.
"Yes, Madam, may I take some details, please?" asked Dwayne, who was nearest the entrance to the police station.
"Yes, my name is Sasha Moore and it's my friend, Richard Poole, who's missing."
There was a deafening silence in the station as Dwayne and Fidel exchanged astonished glances and Camille stood up. She eyed up the woman as the latter proceeded to explain.
"You see, Richard was at a party at our villa the other day. Well, not exactly a party as such, just an intimate gathering of old friends. I was expecting to meet him this morning but he never turned up."
Camille did not like the good-looking woman's use of the term "intimate" in connection with Richard. She approached her with one eyebrow raised and asked Ms Moore what made her assume that Inspector Poole was missing after so short a time. So this must be one of Richard's old university friends, and this so-called intimate gathering was the reunion he claimed to be dreading. Camille felt a possessiveness rising in her which she tried, but failed, to quell.
"I'm afraid you have to wait 24 hours before reporting a person as officially missing. And anyway, Inspector Poole is not missing, he is on a week's leave of absence," she explained rather curtly.
"But I only saw him two days ago," the woman persisted. It then dawned on her that Camille had referred to Richard as Inspector Poole. She said, "I didn't know you knew Richard." Camille's hackles began to rise again but she remained calm and professional.
"He is the Senior Detective at this station, the Chief of Police in Honore, Madame."
The words were polite enough but the tone was cool, for Camille Bordey had feelings for her boss that went beyond professional respect and friendship. After a rocky start, she and Inspector Richard Poole had grown close, and a mutual trust coupled with an undercurrent of romantic tension, a frisson of thinly disguised (and as yet undeclared) desire on both sides, had created a very special bond. And here was this proper-looking English "friend" talking about him as if there were something going on between them. Camille took a dislike to Sasha Moore on the spot; yes, she was a definite threat and one which Camille had every intention of seeing off at the earliest possible opportunity.
She continued somewhat ruthlessly, "Surely you knew he was a policeman? Especially if you were such...." Camille could hardly bring herself to say it...."intimate friends?"
Sasha Moore looked flustered. "Of course I knew he'd been a policeman in England but I thought he must have come out here for a change of....." she broke off, not really knowing what to say as she realised it was obvious to them that she knew very little about Richard now. It also began to dawn on her that this stunning - and considerably younger - colleague of Richard's might prove to be an obstacle to her plans.
"Oh dear," she mumbled, "there must have been a misunderstanding. Can you tell me where I might find him, please?"
"I'm afraid that's confidential information, Madame." Camille managed to use the latter term of customary politesse as if it were a veiled insult, perhaps an oblique reference to the Englishwoman's more mature years. As it happened, Camille had no idea where Richard was, but wild horses wouldn't have dragged it out of her even if she had known or had been permitted to say.
By now it was clear to Sasha that she was going to get nowhere with the Honore police, particularly not with this beautiful but suspicious female Sergeant. She made her excuses and left.
Fidel asked Dwayne if he knew what was going on, but the older man said he thought it best to stay out of it. The Chief was on holiday as far as they knew (even if they didn't know where), and if women wanted to argue over him, it would be safer if the fellas kept their heads down. Fidel couldn't help wondering if there was more to it than that, but he kept his own counsel.
Earlier that morning when Camille had turned up for work, she'd found a message from Commissioner Patterson advising her that the Inspector had taken a week's leave of absence with immediate effect, and that she would be the acting Chief whilst he was away. No more information was proffered and Camille was left wondering why Richard had gone away in such a hurry and, more to the point, why he hadn't told her in person. After all, she was not only his colleague and second in command, but the closest friend he had in Sainte Marie. She decided it was time she had some answers and, after repeatedly getting no reply from Richard's mobile, went off in search of the Commissioner.
Unfortunately for Camille, Commissioner Patterson was not very forthcoming with explanations. He made it clear to Sergeant Bordey that it was a private matter and that since the Inspector was not on duty, it was entirely his business how and where spent his time off. Only he, the Commissioner, needed to know the details.
As she lay in bed that night, Camille had a bad feeling about it all. She determined that the next day she would start looking into Richard's sudden disappearance, albeit in a discreet and unofficial capacity.
********************************
On the other side of the world - or at any rate, of the Atlantic Ocean - Inspector Richard Poole was on his way to his parents' home in the suburbs outside London. He was at a loss about what to do; he had been truly shocked by Sasha's revelation to him at the group's rented villa the afternoon of the little reunion party. It was for this reason that Richard hurriedly booked himself onto a flight to the UK, and hoped that explanations could be handled at a later date. There were some things he just had to know, to be sure of, and it was here at the family home that he began to search for answers.
Poring over old photo albums, scrapbooks and diaries from his university years, Richard sought to revive memories and relive the thoughts and feelings of those relatively carefree days. He closed his eyes and remembered how comfortable it had been at first between Sasha and him. She was a girl after his own heart, simultaneously beautiful and brilliant, and his best friend to boot. Endless evenings a deux of putting the world to rights; of intense discussions about science, literature, history, art, philosophy, et al had worn down his natural reserve and the inevitable happened. Richard fell in love.
Richard winced as he recalled the pain of rejection and humiliation he had felt when James had been chosen over him. So Sasha's latest words to him back at the villa in Sainte Marie were like an ice pick in his heart. He laughed scornfully at the irony of it all, and it made him a little angry that she should have put him in this position.
But, of course, there was more to it than that. When he had been at university, Richard had been young and, in spite of some unhappy experiences at boarding school, basically callow and trusting. Time and disappointment had hardened and disillusioned him to a degree, although mercifully not entirely. He was not hard at his core, he had merely built himself a protective wall; a metaphorical drawbridge, moat and portcullis to ward off any emotional pain from the so-called fairer sex. So why don't they play fair? he lamented. He needed a break; opening his laptop again, he clicked onto a website for train tickets and booked a day return to Cambridge.
***********************************
Camille was tapping her foot impatiently. Something was definitely wrong. Richard would not just disappear - not even back to his precious England - without telling her. The man may have been reserved and emotionally stunted, but he had opened up to her quite a lot recently, certainly by his standards. And even if he didn't want to talk to her on the basis of their growing mutual affection, he did at least trust her professional judgement. No, there had to be something wrong, and Camille was sure it had something to do with that winsome English lady who'd been making inquiries about Richard without good reason.
She picked up the phone and dialled a number in London. She had met Detective Inspector Christopher Ricketts a little over a year ago when their investigations had crossed. Rose Duchamp, aka Nadia Selim, had been murdered after reporting her boyfriend's criminal activities, and Inspector Ricketts had come to Sainte Marie and met the Honore team. Richard, of course, had solved the case but relations between the two Inspectors had been cordial and DI Ricketts had said to get in touch with him back in the UK any time if they ever needed any help or information.
The call was put through to Inspector Ricketts and he agreed to make some inquiries and get back to Camille - unofficially, of course. There would be nothing further Camille could do until she heard back from him - which could take another day - so she went to her mother's church and lit a candle for Richard.
*************************************
Three days after his arrival in England, Richard looked around his old alma mater with mixed emotions. In many ways it still looked the same, which was hardly surprising given that most of Cambridge with its magnificent historic buildings was listed and protected against architectural vandalism. He'd used his policeman's credentials to get into his old Halls of Residence and then wandered through the rest of the hallowed halls of Academia.
It was a bittersweet experience; the memory of all that hope and promise unfulfilled. True, he had become one of the Metropolitan Police's most successful murder detectives in recent times, but he'd left his innocence behind in Cambridge. His failure to progress emotionally ensured that even with a clear up rate that was the envy of forces up and down the country, he'd remained essentially a loner; definitely not one of the boys, as Doug Anderson had been so quick to point out.
As he passed King's College Chapel, Richard began to suspect he was being followed. He decided to test his theory and carried on walking along the quaint cobbled streets that were closed off to all but pedestrians and bicycles, and acted as if he were about to enter a coffee shop. When the person approaching him drew nearer, Richard turned around abruptly and stared into the startled face of Sasha Moore.
**************************************
"Okay, thank you so much, Inspector. Okay... Chris... yes, I will. Thanks again. Bye." Camille put the phone down after her call from DI Ricketts and immediately rang Commissioner Patterson. She was very much on edge and could not disguise the anxiety in her voice. She told the Commissioner that she'd discovered that Sasha Moore and her sister, Helen Reid, had been involved in a tragic road traffic accident several years previously; the accident had badly injured one of the women and claimed the life of the other. Camille theorised that Helen might have stolen Sasha's identity: what if the victim who died had actually been Sasha and not Helen? What if Helen had either engineered the accident or at the very least taken advantage of it to steal her sister's identity and her life, thereby helping herself to Sasha's millions?
Perhaps Richard had recognised Helen and she, unwilling at all costs to lose her fraudulently acquired life of luxury, decided to silence him before he could unmask her?
The Commissioner thought it seemed rather far-fetched, especially as there was no corroborating evidence, but hearing the rising panic in Camille's voice, and recalling the anxiety in Richard's own voice when he had urgently asked for a week's leave, decided to trust his Sergeant's instincts and indulge her for the time being, and acceded to her request. He would make arrangements for a temporary acting head for the next few days. And so later that evening, Detective Camille Bordey boarded a plane for the overnight flight to London.
***************************************
The next day an elegant French beauty walked up the path of a suburban house on the outskirts of London, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.
"Camille?!?" exclaimed a wide-eyed Richard. He was absolutely stunned. Am I dreaming or is this my Sergeant standing on my doorstep?
"What on earth are you doing here??" He struggled to take it in; for a second he thought he might be hallucinating so he blinked again and of course saw that she was still there.
Camille suddenly felt rather foolish and self-conscious. She had flown nearly halfway round the world - at her own expense - to make sure Richard was alright, to "save" or "protect" him from some abstract threat or danger, but now here he was in front of her alive and well, without so much as a bruise.
"Sorry...I...um...was worried about you...You disappeared so quickly and you weren't answering your phone so I kind of...oh dear...thought you might be in some sort of trouble or something....?" For a normally witty and forward person, Camille was remarkably lost for words.
Richard was still standing there frowning like an owl and gawping like a codfish.
"But why would you think I was in danger?" His astonishment at both seeing Camille and trying to get his head round what she had just said caused him to temporarily forget his manners.
"Well..." Camille looked sheepish and chagrinned. Richard's eye suddenly caught a little shiver and he realised he'd left her standing outside on the step in the cold British air.
"Sorry, won't you come in? You can tell me inside."
Camille looked unsure and her eyes began to dart around a bit.
"What's wrong?"
"What about your parents? Isn't this their house? It might seem a little strange to them that your Sergeant should turn up unexpectedly at their home; it might even alarm them if they thought it meant there was a sudden emergency?" Nevertheless, Camille gratefully stepped inside the warmth of the comfortable house.
"Oh don't worry about them, they've gone away for the next 10 days. When I rang them asking if I could stay for a few days at very short notice, they thought it was ideal - even though they wouldn't get to see me, of course - because there would be someone in the house. Um...would you like a coffee or juice or anything? Sorry we've only got instant coffee. Go on through to the living room," he gestured to an open door just off the hall, "and I'll be with you in a minute."
He was being as solicitous a host as he could, but Richard was still mentally shaking his head, wondering what could have possessed this woman to just drop everything in Sainte Marie and rush over to the UK. The irony was lost on him that he had done exactly the same thing, albeit not for the same reasons.
Camille nodded and went into the room Richard had indicated. It was comfortably, if somewhat blandly (by her tastes) furnished, and there were a number of photos of Richard in various stages of childhood upward, including his Cambridge University graduation portrait proudly displayed. She smiled at these and her heart did a little jump as she realised she was getting a little peek into Richard Poole's private world.
A couple of minutes later he joined her in the lounge with a mug of coffee for her and the ubiquitous cup of tea (milk, one sugar) for him. He settled himself on the sofa next to her and, as they sat facing each other, Richard half-smiled and raised his eyebrows at Camille in that way which she knew meant that he was expecting her to say something.
"Sorry," she repeated her apology, "I just kind of had a bad feeling about things," she began to try to explain. He looked confused by this, but she went on, "I knew you were dreading that university reunion thing you'd been invited to and when you not only didn't come back to work, but had left Sainte Marie altogether without saying a word, I thought it was a little odd."
Richard felt a pang of real guilt that he hadn't told this dear friend and occasional - when he could bring himself to open up - confidante where he was going. But therein lay the paradox; Camille was herself (unwittingly) part of the problem. He had been in turmoil after his encounter with Sasha and, for a man who was already a bit of an emotional ostrich, this sudden dilemma, coupled with his deepening feelings for Camille, frightened him and he did what many an emotional coward has done. He ran away.
"I know, Camille, I'm sorry." He was looking at her with such a mixture of sadness and regret in his face that her former feelings of alarm were replaced by compassion and concern for his state of mind.
"Why did you come back here all of a sudden? What happened with Sasha Moore that day of the party? You know, she came into the station the other day and asked to file a missing person report for you."
Richard groaned. "Oh no, I'm so sorry you all got caught up in it too. She's a very mixed-up lady at the moment."
Camille clearly had no idea what he was talking about. "Were you afraid of her? Did she threaten you or anything?"
A glimmer of understanding began to form in Richard's head. Camille had come all this way at great personal cost to herself to try and protect him, or warn him. Wonderful, darling Camille! Richard was sure then and there that he had made the right decision.
"I'll have to sort of start at the beginning and talk you through it, if you don't mind. Otherwise it might not make a lot of sense," he began.
Of course I don't mind, that's what I'm here for. She simply smiled and nodded.
"It started back at uni when Sasha, who was reading French among other things [ok, maybe she's not all bad, mused Camille], and I found we had a lot of interests in common and became best friends. There was a core group of us: Roger, Angela, James, Sasha and me. Someone dubbed us "The Famous Five" after Enid Blyton's classic children's stories, and for a while we were inseparable. We were all friends together, although James and I were less at ease with each other, but certainly Sasha and I became especially close, practically joined at the hip, as they say."
Richard was watching Camille's face as he breathed in deeply for the next bit. "I know you may find this hard to imagine as you're always reminding me how uptight I am," a little wry smile was visible at the corners of his mouth and his eyes revealed the merest hint of a twinkle, "but I actually fell in love. With her, with Sasha. She was the only girl I'd ever really had the chance to get to know, having been to a boys' boarding school, and I was dazzled by her. It was a combination of a meeting of minds and her undeniable physical beauty."
The look he was giving Camille was melting her heart. He was being open and revealing more than ever before and she knew there was a lot more to come.
"Well, one day I took my courage in both hands and told her how I felt. I probably would have asked her to marry me after we'd graduated, but it never got that far. She looked at me with a mixture of horror and pity and I was just crushed. Not only was I heartbroken that the girl I loved didn't want me, but I kicked myself for having been so blind and stupid. It should have been obvious to me that she far preferred James in that way. She was just a friend, but a good friend who used to support and defend me, even against James (looking back now, I suppose he may have felt threatened by our close friendship) and Roger.
"Things were never the same again; I had unintentionally destroyed the close friendship, and the whole dynamic of the group changed. Roger got kicked out for cheating, Sasha eventually married James, and Angela - who was, and is, a lovely person, but whom I've never...um...fancied - went off to law school. We all just went our separate ways. At the reunion in Sainte Marie we sort of caught up a bit on what we'd been doing with our lives, but I found that I didn't want to say much about myself. I was a bit vague about things.
"Anyway, I got the shock of my life when, while the others were playing their rather drunken party games (ugh, how I hate those), Sasha cornered me and started pouring out how she felt she'd made a huge mistake marrying James, and how she'd spent years wondering whether she should have chosen me after all. She said that seeing me again brought it all back to her and that she now found me....ahem..." Richard coughed somewhat embarrassedly, "attractive. She told me she was going to divorce James (who had been serially unfaithful to her, apparently) and asked if we could make a fresh start.....together."
Camille must have looked like she was going to faint. Oh no, what an idiot I've been, and what a fool I've made of myself. He's not stupid, he'll probably guess why I'm really here.
"Are you alright, Camille?" Richard's voice was full of concern. "Should I stop now?"
"No, no, please go on." I have to know whether I am about to lose you and I need to hear it from your own lips.
"Okay. Well, my head was spinning with all this. I'd spent more than 20 years trying to put all this behind me and then she goes and rakes it all up again. But it was also exhilarating in a way because, suddenly, here was the opportunity to go back in time and re-write history, as it were. Part of me was feeling extremely tempted, as if this were a kind of vindication of everything I had said and felt and wanted back in those halcyon days. Maybe this could erase years of being mocked for not having a wife or girlfriend, for being a bit of a workaholic, a stickler.....a loner. But common sense reminded me that you can never turn back time for real. You can only relive things in your mind and your emotions, but you cannot actually alter the past."
Camille was staggered by the depth of sensitivity and self-awareness that was flowing from him. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wanted him and she would fight for him if necessary. She would fight Sasha and win.
Richard carried on. "So, I decided to try and re-trace my steps from the past, so to speak. I went to Cambridge to try and soak up the atmosphere, to have one of those kind of Proustian experiences" [Camille liked the reference to Proust - one of her favourite French authors], another wry smile as he added, "and while I was there I bumped into Sasha herself! Of course it wasn't a coincidence, she'd actually been following me...."
"You mean stalking you? I knew that woman was dangerous! I had her checked out and even thought she might have been her own sister, Helen, masquerading as Sasha, in order to get all the money."
Now it was Richard's turn to be amazed. "Did you think she meant to harm me in some way? To stop me revealing her 'true identity'?" That's very sweet of you Camille, but she really is Sasha and poor Helen really was the one who died in the accident.
"No, my 'danger' was more psychological. I was by turns being tormented by awful memories of rejection and humiliation and at the same time being tempted by the apparent prospect of 'putting it all right again'. Until I realised two things: first of all, life doesn't work that way. I could find healing and a sense of closure on a painful chapter in my life, but nothing can actually change or undo what has been. Do you know, finally understanding this was what gave me a sense of peace for the first time in my life.
"And the second thing I discovered was that Sasha is not the woman I really want. All those years of assuming I'd missed the love of my life and it was just a mirage. Also, Sasha is no longer the sweet, innocent young girl she was back then. She's a disillusioned, unhappy wife who is looking for someone to take James' place. I would have been a fall-back guy, a second best; I was a little annoyed that she had opened old wounds for purely selfish reasons, although I suppose she wasn't thinking straight. She wanted to be with me for all the wrong reasons; and I turned her down for all the right reasons."
He was looking at Camille very intently. "I didn't turn her down because of you; that would have been wrong too. I had to be completely free of that entanglement and all the baggage of the past before I could hope to be a whole person. I know this sounds unbearably maudlin, but I had to let my heart be momentarily lost all over again before I could reclaim it - or hope to have the slightest chance that someone like you could ever want someone like me............." He was trembling now.
Camille had tears in her eyes. "Richard, I've loved you ever since I caught you crouching down and feeding - or trying to feed - Harry. In spite of your impossible, pedantic ways and your occasional pomposity, no one who was really cold and stern would have done that. I saw a tenderness and care for others there that I know you've done your best to hide, but you can't fool me..." She was smiling through tears of joy. She loved Richard so much it almost hurt.
Richard reached out and held her in a tight embrace before bending down to kiss her with all the depth of feeling his newly healed heart could express.
"You know, I don't think I've ever kissed a French woman before," he joked, feeling slightly embarrassed by the situation and attempting to diffuse some of the heaviness with humour. It would take time before his emotional armour was fully dismantled, even with Camille. " I wonder if I'll like French kissing?"
She responded by playfully punching him on the arm.
"Ouch, that hurts. Do you usually hit the men in your life?"
"Only the English ones." And she gently punched him again.
"Hey, I just gave up £18 million for you....Sasha's a wealthy woman!"
"Not quite, she would have had to give half to James in the divorce."
"Even so, allowing for the interest on investments................"
The banter was back and Camille and Richard were laughing and hugging and kissing until it got more serious and they had to go upstairs.
Sometime later, Richard said, "I can't wait to get back to Sainte Marie. I want to go home and reclaim the rest of my life. Will you share it with me, for better or for worse, Camille?"
"I thought you'd never ask. And by the way, Richard, you do know that I've just reclaimed you too, don't you?"
He laughed and they experienced their own little taste of paradise again.