Chapter 1
"Well," Gina's partner replied from the depths of the bathroom, shouting to make themselves heard over the noise of the state of the art power shower, "firstly, this is a fantastic hotel."
Gina glanced around the very lavish and spacious room and smiled, "Conceded."
"And secondly."
The smile on Gina's face immediately transformed itself into a grimace,
"Ah," she interrupted, "you see this is the problem. It's the secondly I'm worried about."
A throaty chuckle came from the bathroom, "Secondly, we're here for the official 'Sun Hill Beat of 2002 reunion'."
Gina took a long drag on her cigarette, "We must be bloody mental."
It had seemed like such a good idea all those months ago when she'd been safely tucked up at her computer desk, logged on to 'workmatesreunited.com', scanning the list of her former colleagues. After all what could be more fun than meeting up with people you've not seen for 14 years, reminiscing over old times and getting almightily drunk?
Plenty of things, she now realised in retrospect.
"I'd rather have my teeth pulled out." She shouted, "I'm sorry, but I think we've made one hell of a mistake here."
"Well it's a bit late for that now." A figure clad in a white terry-towelling bathrobe appeared in the doorway, "We're meant to be meeting everyone downstairs in 45 minutes."
"45 minutes eh?" The grimace that had been all over Gina's face just seconds before faded away as she found herself distracted from her concerns by the contents of the bathrobe, "You know what we could do in 45 minutes don't you Miss Osbourne?"
Gemma grinned slightly, undid the belt of the bathrobe and smiled widely, "Now now, I thought I'd taught you better than that. In 45 minutes we could do it at least twice." As she walked towards the bed her eyes fell onto one of the bedposts. "Ma'am," she gave Gina a crafty wink, "you know when you left the force, you didn't hand in your handcuffs did you?"
Gina immediately stubbed out her cigarette, reached into her suitcase and pulled out a pair of Metropolitan standard issue handcuffs, giving Gemma an equally crafty wink back.
"Ask a stupid question�"
While Gina and Gemma were upstairs playing 'cops and robbers', downstairs in the hotel bar Mickey Webb was pondering the state of his love life. Recently divorced from a wife who accused him of being 'married to his job', he'd had a meaningless string of sexual encounters with women whose shoe sizes were larger than their IQ's (and no, they didn't have abnormally big feet). He wasn't denying that the sex was good, but at the end of the day it all seemed so, well, meaningless and while meaningless had been fine once upon a time he was older now, wanted something more stable. It was a bit ironic really, for someone whose marriage had just collapsed. Still, he blamed Tara. She didn't understand the job, the pressures - working for CIB wasn't exactly a piece of piss. Then again, maybe it was his fault for marrying a civilian in the first place - perhaps he'd have been better off marrying another copper.
"Mickey?"
Hearing his own name distracted him from the slightly disheartening pursuit of performing a post-mortem on his now defunct marriage, and when he looked round to find its source, he was thrilled to see Jack Meadows walking towards him.
"Jack." He held out his hand, "Great to see you again mate." He stopped in his tracks, "I suppose I ought to call you Sir."
Jack laughed, "You never did before. Why start now eh?"
"Yeah but you're the Borough Commander now." Mickey pointed out, "Are you not expecting some respect?"
Jack laughed harder, "From you Mickey? It'll be a first that's for sure. The shock would probably kill me."
Mickey looked at Jack and wondered if, Borough Commander or not, he could still get away with taking the piss. Eventually he decided he could, as Jack knew full well how much Mickey looked up to, and respected him. He grinned, "It wouldn't surprise me. I mean you are getting on a bit."
"Cheeky upstart." Jack replied, "You can buy me a pint for that."
Mickey got a round of drinks in and they found a table in one corner of the bar to await the arrival of everyone else.
"So, who's coming?" Mickey asked, glancing around, seeing if he could spot anyone.
Jack shrugged, "Gina wasn't sure exactly. The advert she put on the site was a bit of an open invite. Jim and June have been in touch though, and Samantha's coming. Oh, and Cathy and Brandon."
Mickey raised his eyes; "Cathy's still with us then?"
"Alive and kicking." Jack confirmed, "She's hardly had a day off sick in 14 years. Odd for someone with HIV don't you think?"
Their eyes met across the table and without a word being spoken Mickey realised the sceptical look in Jack's eyes was probably echoed in his own. "You think she's lying about it don't you?"
Jack shrugged, "Put it this way, if you wanted to look into it for me I'd appreciate it. Unofficially of course."
"Of course." 'Just like old times' he thought. 14 years on from Chandler-gate and Hunter-gate and Jack was still assigning him secret missions. And in truth, he couldn't have been happier about it.