Title: The Wildlife and Countryside Act

Rating: T

Category: Richard/Camille, Romance, Jealousy, Bird watching

Summary: Richard has gotten a taste for encouraging young officers to reach their full potential, but Camille isn't sure she likes the latest person he's taken under his wing.

A/N: As you may know, I write whatever I feel like writing rather than struggling to finish something. Largely because if I am enjoying writing it, I feel the quality of what I produce is better. This means sometimes multi chapter fics are finished very quickly, sometimes left for ages and then rapidly finished, sometimes updated regularly. Also, this is not really about birds…even if this chapter really sort of implies it is! Special thanks for Virginie31 who provided me with information about French laws regarding egg collecting.

Chapter One: Act One

Camille supposed the young woman had sort her out because she had overheard her speaking French to one of the stall holders and wished to receive directions in her own language. She got extra lucky when she asked for directions to the police station as Camille was on her way in to work.

"Is everything ok?" She asked, assuming the woman may have some sort of crime to report. She did look rather nervous.

"Oh yes," she reassured her. "I've not been mugged or anything! I have an appointment with a…" she paused to consult a scrap of paper. "Detective Inspector Richard Poole. I'm Lieutenant Dominique Combes, from Guadeloupe."

They were about to mount the stairs to the station, but Camille paused to ask, "You can speak English, right? Because Richard doesn't know much more French than 'Bonjour' and 'Merci' I'm afraid. And he won't even use those if he can get away with it."

"Oh yes," she told Camille, switching to the language in question. "Though my accent is terrible."

Camille gave a small shrug, "I'm sure he'll cope." Though he might not fail to comment on it. Perhaps it would be best if she prepared the Lieutenant. "Richard is a little, um, eccentric. He is an absolutely fantastic police officer, honestly, and not nearly as bad-tempered or finicky as the persona he presents. He's actually very sweet, really, but a bit shy and it can take time to, um -" Camille realised perhaps she was going into a little more detail than necessary, especially since Lieutenant Combes was watching her with a barely suppressed amusement. "Well, anyway, don't be too offended if he is a bit brusque."

At least Camille could say she had warned her.

Richard could tell from the tone of voice that Dwayne used when he called out a greeting that an attractive woman had just walked in the door. This meant he had a moment to mentally prepare himself to not ogle. Not that he was admitting he actually ever did ogle women…at least, he never did it on purpose. He looked up to see a young woman, probably not much more than 26 or 27, smiling politely at Dwayne. Her hair was relaxed, a term her had learnt when forced to suffer through Catherine and Camille debating the merits of the process when he was trying to enjoy his tea in peace. When they had begun to discuss the cost, he had choked on his tea at the excessive amounts of money involved.

"Why would you spend that sort of money? Your hair is fine!" Catherine had given him a look to indicate that perhaps fine was not the best adjective to go with but before she could say anything Camille had shrugged and agreed it was unlikely to be worth the money. Apparently the woman Dwayne was attempting to chat up did think it was worth the money, and considering it rather suited her perhaps this was true. To go with the nice hair she had big brown eyes and bright smile that led Richard to conclude that he could see why Dwayne was turning on the charm.

They were speaking in French, and it was a surprise to him (and also to Dwayne) when he heard his name mentioned. He apparently knew enough body language (with maybe just enough French by now) to understand the woman was making her excuses and crossing the room to talk to him. Thankfully, she switched to English.

"Detective Inspector Poole, I'm Lieutenant Combes, we emailed?"

Well, she was so not what he had been expecting, "Right, of course, yes, you did say it would be around this time, didn't you? Um, nice to meet you." He was blathering in an attempt to hide his surprise. Unfortunately her keen skills of detection picked up on this.

"Is everything ok?" She asked, looking a little concerned. "Is now a bad time?"

"Yes, I mean no, I mean - well yes to everything is ok. And now is fine, I'm just, um, well, truth be told I was expecting a man." She raised both eyebrows at this, and he was struck by a sudden fear she would think he was some kind of sexist who didn't like working with women. "Not that I have a problem with the fact you are a woman!" God, his defensiveness probably just made him come across as more guilty. He might as well have started the sentence with 'I'm not a sexist, but…' "Its fine you're a woman, honest. And I didn't think you were a man from the way you wrote the emails or anything…" Why couldn't he stop speaking? Behind her, he could see Dwayne physically cringing whilst Camille was attempting to suppress a fit of giggles.

"Then why did you?" She asked, wide-eyed.

He looked at the floor in embarrassment, only to find his eyes lingering a little too long on a pair of legs which he sincerely doubted could ever belong to any man. "Um, I went to a school with a Dominique," he offered by way of an explanation, and then realised it clarified nothing. "It was an all-boys school."

"Well that explains it then," She said, smiling. Richard stared, and she continued, "Why you would think I was a man!" He wasn't entirely sure that was all she thought it explained though, and he suddenly realised that she had been teasing him. Which, considering she was the most junior rank a detective could hold in the French police forces and he was the local Police Chief, was bloody cheeky. He should reprimand her really, or at least make some show of seniority to remind her they were professionals, but he found himself inexplicably reluctant to do so.

Instead, he clapped his hands together and said, "Right, what can I help you with?" He sat back down behind his desk, indicating that the Lieutenant should take the seat opposite. She did so, pulling her shoulder bag on to her lap and removing a file that she placed on the desk between them. A photograph of a middle aged, rather middle class looking white male was removed and pushed towards him.

"This is Henri Punt, 55, a French National," she explained. Richard noticed that Camille was listening in, considered inviting her over but decided to leave it until he was certain this would require her attention as well. "He arrived on Guadeloupe about a week ago. Punt is a known egg collector. Don't let the appearance fool you, he is an accomplished climber and is suspected of stealing rare eggs to order as well as for his own collection." Richard would admit that if Combes hadn't told him otherwise, he would not have imagined the man shinning up trees.

"Under French law only a specific subset of bird species are protected from egg theft. Whilst on Guadeloupe Punt has had all the appearances of a man on holiday, however he was aware he was being watched closely. He took a few eggs of common, unprotected species – I am not even sure he wanted them for his collection, it was just him showing off that he knows the law. I'm sure you have dealt with similar criminals."

She paused, probably hoping he would sympathise or something, but that wasn't really his place and he was still waiting for her to get to the point of how this was all relevant to him. He indicated she should continue with a slightly impatient gesture of his hand. She looked chastised.

"Punt is booked on to a ferry to Saint Marie tomorrow. We have evidence that he has an order for eggs from, um, I forget the English word. Pandion haliaetus?"

"Osprey," Richard supplied quickly.

"Oui, merci." The Lieutenant looked impressed, and so did Camille behind her. "You like birds, then?"

"Not particularly," he replied. She looked disappointed.

"He went nowhere near the 2 nesting birds on my island. I think he is coming here to go after your nesting pair who have unfortunately decided to do so outside of your nature reserve. No doubt he thinks the police force here is too small to be able to deal with him, and would not even notice he was here."

Richard considered this information, and said with a small nod, "Shouldn't be too difficult to get enough people to volunteer to guard the nest. People are pretty passionate about the wildlife round here."

"You say that almost as if it was a bad thing," Camille piped up.

"No, not at all," Richard told her firmly. "But volunteers can't make arrests, can they? And there is no way we can guard it 24 hours a day and I'm not willing to let him disturb the nest in order to make the arrest. It seems unlikely we'd get the chance to charge him with anything, that's all."

"Under French law only a specific subset of bird species are protected from egg theft," Lieutenant Combes repeated.

Richard frowned, "Yes, you said that earlier. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act in England and Wales all birds are protected on the nest actually." She smiled at that, and suddenly Richard realised what she was saying. "We don't have to wait for him to steal Osprey eggs. We could arrest him for any egg."

"Any egg? Even a pigeon egg?" Camille asked disbelievingly.

"Yes, any bird egg. I would have thought you'd approve."

"Well, I suppose I do, but why would anybody steal a pigeon egg?"

"Well there are no members of the Patagioenas on mainland France, so he probably would want one for his collection," Dominique offered. "These people are rather obsessed by ticking off as many genera as possible."

"Oh," said Camille, seemingly embarrassed by her lack of pigeon knowledge. Richard hadn't know that fact either – he assumed Lieutenant Combes must want to specialise in wildlife crime or had studied zoology at university. Possibly both.

"And you think if he stumbled across another nest he would take an egg?" Richard asked for confirmation.

"Yes, having read the reports of the officers who followed him, I am certain he would."

"We could follow him for a couple of days, might get lucky I suppose. Do you think he knows the English law? I mean, would we have to be subtle about it?"

"I can help! My commanding officer has given me a few days, Punt is very likely to know the law and I would bet he even goes as far as to familiarise himself with you and your fellow officers so he would know if he was being watched. But I was never part of the team trailing him on Guadeloupe. I could film and call if an arrest needs to be made!" She seemed completely filled with enthusiasm, obviously pleased as punch he was intending to attempt to arrest this Punt fellow. Her smile was really rather nice as well, and he was reminded again of how pretty she was.

"I am sure we can arrange something, yes." She beamed, and for a second he surprised himself by returning her smile – before he realised what he was doing and put on a more professional face. "Would you like me to take you to where the Osprey nest?" He surprised himself again by offering.

"I thought you didn't like birds!" Camille cried, before Dominique could respond to his offer. "But you know where the Osprey are nesting." Well he had rather shown his hand there, hadn't he?

The Lieutenant glanced at him and must have felt sorry for him, because she decided to speak in order to save him from having to reply to Camille, "I would love to see them."

"Right," he said, standing and feeling a little flustered under Camille's stare. "Let's go then, shall we?"

"You wouldn't think it would take all morning to look at one nest," Camille grumbled. It was lunch time, and they had headed over to her Mother's bar for a drink and a bite to eat. She had text Richard to tell him where they were, but had yet to receive a reply. She kept glancing over her shoulder, hoping he would walk in, and was getting increasingly annoyed at herself for doing so.

"Are there any other rare birds on the island?" Dwayne asked.

"I think we have some sort of endemic species of wren, don't we? Wouldn't surprise me if that Punt fellow went after them as well. Though they are pretty well protected," Fidel told him. Camille wondered if everybody on this island knew more about birds than her. "Why, thinking of taking up bird watching?" He held up a hand when Dwayne opened his mouth to reply, "Don't make a joke about watching women already."

"I wasn't going to! I was going to say I was going to offer to show the beautiful Dominique some more of our local wildlife. That wren sounds ideal."

"I just dropped her off where you find them, actually," Richard said, appearing at the table. "You'll have to think of something else Dwayne."

"And you didn't offer to stay with her, Chief?" Dwayne knew he was being cheeky, his smile said as much.

Richard levelled him with a look, "No, because that unlike the trip to the Osprey nest, would not be directly related to work."

Dwayne leaned back, he knew when to let something go. "She has got to be the most beautiful police officer I have ever seen."

Camille decided not to take offense, she did know the officer in question was prettier than her, but there was one thing she couldn't help but point out, "We do have a rather small police force, Dwayne."

"Well, true, but I'm still willing to bet she's one of the hottest police officers in the world. What do you think, Chief? The Met has got to be full of female officers, would you say Dominique is the prettiest officer you know?"

Richard was a bit distracted, trying to mentally work out how many volunteers and shifts would be necessary to protect the osprey nest, and as a consequence rather than avoid answering the question he gave an honest reply. "Close second," he said absently, then instantly regretted it. Everyone at the table was looking at him, expecting him to explain who the most attractive police officer was in his opinion. He cleared his throat, "Um, we had this PC who we used to send in undercover in rough pubs. Men would brag about crimes they had committed in order to impress her. She was, um, rather attractive." They seemed willing to accept this, which was a relief. He hadn't lied, that PC did exist, it just wasn't who he would actually put in first place…