Harry sighed heavily as he stepped from his office onto the Grid floor. The next hour or two could potentially test him as a man, and not in the way he was familiar with being tested. The continuing state of terror threats against the nation – and in the case of Nightingale, the world - was a continuing concern, and deep inside himself he suspected that little he did could alter that momentum. His next test, however, was to be happening much closer to home.
He stood silently in the shadows and watched his small team while they worked. Ros sat at her desk, flicking a pen back and forth between her fingers as she quietly spoke to Lucas, himself sitting on the edge of her desk, his arms crossed over his chest, while he watched her closely. Harry had thought there to be something going on between the two of them, but then Lucas had begun meeting Sarah Caulfield more frequently than he needed, resulting in an increase in sarcasm from Ros. He now believed that the younger man's interest lay elsewhere. This saddened him, as the closeness Ros and Lucas had shared had spilled over into their working relationship, creating the kind of working intimacy which he and Ruth had once shared, and he hoped were on the way to sharing once again. He knew Lucas' incarceration in Russia had changed him - damaged him - and his odd and capricious attachments to women seemed to reflect that.
As if he could talk. What did he know about women anyway? He'd known a lot of women, loved only a few, and yet the past five or six years of his life had taught him that he knew almost nothing about what went on in the heads and hearts of the majority of women. All it had taken was for him to have formed an attachment to just one woman, and all he thought he knew about the fairer sex had again and again been proven false. He had no answers other than the realisation that everything he'd previously believed about women had been formed from either massive assumption or poor judgement. In truth, he suspected that his previous knowledge of women had been gleaned from the responses of a certain part of his anatomy, one with only an unconscious connection to his brain, so that when it spoke, all reason had flown out the window, along with his underwear, and frequently his good reputation.
At the desk right in front of him sat the object of much of his confusion, her head bent over some pages scattered on the desk in front of her, while Tariq leaned over her shoulder, pointing to something on her monitor, while he spoke quietly and she listened. Both were engrossed in the work in front of them, their physical closeness all terribly innocent. He indulged himself for another moment as he watched Ruth at work. She spoke animatedly with Tariq, granting him a rare smile, and yet her interactions with her section head were still wary at best. He would wait for her. He must wait for her. To do otherwise was unthinkable to him.
Harry was proud of his team. Jo's death had shattered them all, but they were recovering ….. or at least, going through the motions of recovery. Life went on, even if there had been times of late when he had wished it didn't have to …... that he could step out of his life for a moment – however brief – and take a few deep breaths, catch up on some sleep, and turn his face upwards to bathe in the sun's rays.
Right at that moment – at 2.08 pm on a Monday – what Harry wanted most was to speak with Ruth. He wanted to explain a few things which were threatening to complicate his already complicated life, and yet nor did he wish to disturb she and Tariq. As he turned and headed towards the stairs to the roof balcony for a spot of fresh air and some thinking space, he suspected that had he a moment alone with Ruth, he'd not know where to begin. He had a little over twenty minutes in which to concoct a reasonable explanation, since to his ears the truth seemed so timeworn. The very worst response from Ruth would be that she didn't care, and that what could potentially turn his life inside out – even if only briefly – would leave her completely unmoved.
Ruth's sudden return to London had been at once both tragic and bittersweet. As occupied as Harry had been by the demands of his job, there were too many moments in the day when he found himself all over the place emotionally, wanting to make a personal and heartfelt apology to Ruth one minute, while the next he'd be overwhelmed by a sudden surge of frustration towards her …... having little idea what it was lay behind either of these extremes. What had happened that day, the day George had died, and Nico had been rendered fatherless, had been about the best outcome they could have hoped for, and Harry knew that Ruth would not appreciate him reminding her of that.
At 2.23 pm Ruth heard Tariq say, "Who's that?"
"Who are you talking about?" replied Ruth, looking around the Grid. All she noticed was that Ros and Lucas had disappeared, leaving she and Tariq alone, apart from three junior officers and a smattering of admin staff.
"Look ahead of you, Ruth …... there's a woman hanging around the door to Harry's office. She looks -"
And Tariq did not finish his sentence, because without even thinking about it, Ruth had stood and was headed towards the woman, whose hand was already about to open Harry's office door.
"Bloody cheek!" Ruth said under her breath. "Excuse me …." she called out, so that the woman halted in her advance towards Harry's private domain, and turned her very clear grey eyes on Ruth. "You can't actually go in there without permission."
Ruth managed a small smile, because she believed that a polite approach would gain results, where rudeness would only attract antagonism. The woman stood, her hand remaining on the door handle, and Ruth noticed she'd lifted one eyebrow, and her expression, if not belligerent, was not welcoming of Ruth's interruption.
"I do have permission to be here, as it turns out."
The woman was older than Ruth – perhaps in her mid fifties – and she was elegantly dressed in a pencil slim dark grey skirt and fitted jacket in a lighter shade of grey. She had dark blond hair, which fell just short of her shoulders, and was perfectly coiffed. While no longer slim, nor was the woman overweight. Giving the woman a quick once-over with her eyes, Ruth determined that she was not used to being questioned. She was clearly not secret service – the clutch bag held tightly under one arm gave that away. Women in positions of power in the secret service rarely carried anything, other than perhaps a slim briefcase, but then only those in the highest echelons of power carried anything at all, and most had minions to do their carrying for them. Presuming this woman was not lost on her way to another department altogether, she must be here to meet Harry, and their connection was private.
"Excuse me," Ruth said, stepping past the woman, and into Harry's office, heading towards his desk, and his appointment diary.
"I didn't know Harry had a secretary," the woman said, her voice soft and with a hint of a playful tone. "Things must be looking up."
"I'm not his secretary," Ruth declared, looking up from Harry's appointment diary, to stare daggers at the woman. "I'm his intelligence analyst." And why she'd felt the need to qualify the `I am not Harry's secretary,' Ruth could not say. She was annoyed, and yet she barely knew why. There was something about this woman which had set her teeth on edge. "And he has no appointment scheduled for this time in his diary."
"That's because it's personal," the woman said, stepping into the office, and standing half way between the door and the desk.
"This is a place of work," Ruth went on, barely knowing where she was going with this line of information. "He's out of the office at present, and -"
"Oh, he'll be here …... if he knows what's good for him."
"What are you doing in my office?" Harry's voice growled from the doorway.
Ruth turned to see him standing there, his eyes blazing, his attention fully on the well-dressed woman.
"There's no need to show off in front of staff, Harry. I already know you're the boss."
Oh, God, Ruth thought, noticing the heightened colour of Harry's face. Harry is about to have a coronary, and it'll be my job to perform CPR.
"Your secretary invited me in," the woman continued.
"As you already know, I don't have a secretary. Ruth is my intelligence analyst, and she has work to be getting on with, rather than swanning around after you."
Sensing that her presence was not required, Ruth ducked past the woman, and then slid past Harry, who only acknowledged her presence with a quick flick of his eyes in her direction. Harry's personal liaisons were none of her business, and judging by the tone between he and this woman, Ruth figured she had dodged a bullet. So why did she feel so wretched, and ….. and jealous? She crossed the floor of the Grid to her desk, and sat down. Not once did she raise her head to check on what was happening in Harry's office.
"Who is she?" Tariq whispered loudly from his desk a couple of yards away.
"I have no idea." Ruth hadn't even lifted her head to look Tariq's way. "It seems she's someone Harry knows rather well."
"She doesn't look like the sort to be his girlfriend. Like …... he hasn't kissed her or anything."
"Tariq ….. it's really none of our business."
"Aren't you even a little bit curious?" Tariq still spoke hoarsely, his voice still rather loud.
"No. I'm not."
Liar, she thought.
In Harry's office, he pointed to the chair directly across his desk, while he sat in his own chair, the desk providing a physical barrier between them. He had barely looked at her since Ruth had left.
"I thought the arrangement was that when you arrived at the front desk Security would call me, and I'd go downstairs to meet you."
"I thought I'd surprise you."
Harry sat back in his chair and watched her. He knew that the death stare had little effect on her (she had been known to collapse into giggles when he'd tried it in the past), and yet he stared across the space between them, hoping to convey even a small fragment of his irritation.
"That was the Ruth, wasn't it?"
"That …. is none of your business."
"She's the one …... isn't she?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, come on, Harry. I know you. She's the woman who was away for three years, and you were lost and forlorn the whole time."
"Whoever told you that?"
"Our daughter. She was worried about you."
Harry dropped his eyes, and made unnecessary adjustments to some of the objects on his desk – his mouse pad, mouse, and then the pile of files on the desk in front of him.
"Did I just step over a line?" the woman asked, her voice low and quiet.
"Not only did you step over the line, Jane, but you sent an army of jack-booted commandos in ahead of you. You seem to have forgotten that my private life is no longer your business."
"Sorry," Jane said, and she seemed to mean it. She watched her ex husband as he again fiddled with the objects on his desktop. It was clear to her that he didn't welcome her presence in his work place, but she had been curious, and her curiosity had paid off. She had met Ruth, the woman who had knocked Harry Pearce for six, although what it was he saw in the woman was still not clear to her. As Jane saw it, the resulting discomfort from any anger Harry directed her way had been worth it.
"About our son," she said, and Harry stopped fiddling, and looked up at her, his face serious.
"Is this what this visit is all about?"
"Mainly, and to touch base with you, Harry."
"I don't believe you. You wanted to come in here and check out Ruth for yourself."
Jane smiled widely at his words. "I must admit, Harry, that you still know me better than anyone."
Harry broke eye contact, and in that moment, he hoped Ruth wasn't watching them from her desk. "Get on with what you came here to say," he said.
"It's about Graham -"
"If you seriously wish to discuss Graham with me, then we'll not being doing it here." Harry stood, and straightened his jacket. "Come on ….. let's find a coffee shop," and as he headed for the door, Jane quickly got to her feet, grabbed her clutch bag from the edge of the desk, and followed him off the Grid.
Neither Tariq nor Ruth noticed them leave.