WORLDS APART
She stood hesitantly just outside the office, watching him through the crack in the half-open door. It wasn't a good idea just to walk in on Harry Pearce at the moment – certainly not without knocking. Since the explosion at the conference hotel five days ago his mood had oscillated between a deep, morose silence and unpredictable, indiscriminate outbursts of expletive-strewn rage. Out on the Grid officers rolled their eyes, shook their heads and muttered to each other behind their hands, but most chose to cower behind the shelter of their computer screens until the storm blew over. Only Lucas North – now the senior field officer in the Section – went into the office regularly, usually summoned by a drill sergeant's roar from behind the desk, and on at least one occasion encouraged to leave smartly when a ledger was thrown at his head. Even Ruth had curtailed her previously frequent visits to scurried, nervous deliveries of coffee and, when required, information.
She flinched as Harry shoved the documents he was reading away across the desk with a gesture encompassing both disgust and despair. A smeared glass with an inch of Scotch whisky in it was knocked to the floor, where it smashed. Harry muttered something inaudible, massaged the bridge of his nose with one hand, and with the other, carelessly scooped the scattered papers back into an untidy heap.
She recognized the old-fashioned beige cardboard file. They were all on computer now, of course, but this was a tradition when an officer was lost. The original file was signed off by his or her superior, and then sealed – literally sealed, with a blob of crimson wax. It was a gesture of respect, more … dignified … than merely pressing the delete key on a computer, with its instantaneous whitewashing of a human life from the institutional memory. As she had expected, it was Ros Myers's photograph – thin-faced, tight-lipped and unfathomable - that she could see in the pool of light shed over his shoulder by the angle poise desk lamp. Personnel had been sending increasingly urgent memos to Harry for almost a week asking him to close her file and forward the paperwork to them. At first he had ignored them, but when their sympathetic requests began to morph into insistent demands, Ruth had tried to cajole him into complying. He had cut short her stuttering, flustered explanations about insurance and beneficiaries, and she had fled white-faced from the office with his bellow of 'I will not make her into a bloody Home Office statistic!' ricocheting off the walls like the bullets from a carelessly-fired sub-machine gun.
Abruptly, he got up and strode to the side table where he poured yet another shot of Scotch into a fresh glass. She froze as he swept past the door, but he seemed far too deep in his own thoughts to have noticed her presence. Had things been different she might have tried to offer a gentle rebuke to him but this was hardly the time or the place. For one thing she wasn't even supposed to be here; as far as Harry was aware, she had long since started her journey home. She hadn't meant to come back, but her worry about him had got the better of her. He had been drinking more than was good for him ever since the emergency services had officially confirmed the discovery and identification of Ros's body in the debris of the hotel's upper floors. It was strange, how hard he appeared to be hit by her death. Unexpected. He had been saddened and regretful over the loss of Jo Portman, but his reaction this time was in a different class altogether. He was taking the loss of his section chief far more personally – ironic, really, considering that Ros had been the epitome of impersonal for most of her time with them.
She watched him as he slumped back into the swivel chair, cradling the glass in one hand and idly turning the disordered pages of Ros's file with the other. Her legs were itching to take her through the door so that she could give him support – the way she'd done so many times before when she knew instinctively, without the need for the words to be spoken aloud by either of them, that he needed it. She forced herself to check the movement. Somehow, Ros's death had created a distance between Harry and herself that had grown steadily over the last five days. She hadn't always been able to find the right words to say to him in the past, but she had always, somehow, known what to do. Now she wasn't sure. From being so close just a week ago, it now felt as though they were worlds apart. So for a moment she stayed still in the shadows, thinking. There had to be some way in which she could console him that wouldn't trigger the wrong reaction. Even now.
She knew, of course, that there had been whispered gossip and giggles, especially among the junior staffers in Section D over the years, about her and Harry. Since her return, it had been Ros Myers who had quashed the snide remarks by sitting on those who made them – hard. A couple of freezing glares and a few scathing comments had been enough. Ruth had been surprised by the fierceness of other woman's reaction. After all, it had been out of character for Ros to be protective of someone's reputation like that. Usually she had treated all office gossip – light-hearted or malicious - with an icy, indifferent contempt.
Next of kin. She hastily gathered her wandering thoughts as Harry spat the words into the silence of the office. She knew what that meant. Ros had never been reconciled with her family, and at her request, Harry had agreed to act as her executor. Now he scribbled something impatiently on one of the documents. The nib of his fountain pen, an old-fashioned affectation in these days of e-mail and Twitter, scratched aggressively across the paper. Despite her anxiety for him, she couldn't help smiling. However much mayhem and chaos seemed to swirl around Section D, some things never changed, and in a way it was comforting to know that Harry would still be using his Parker to sign the evacuation order when the hordes finally broke down the gates.
He made several more notations, and added what she thought was his signature. Then he slowly shuffled the papers back together and reached for the envelope that lay next to them. His movements were slow, reluctant and laboured, like those of an old man. She had never thought of Harry Pearce as old before. She glanced at the clock just visible on the Grid proper. He was nearly done, and her chance to take advantage of their momentary privacy was almost gone. For once she was going to act with decisiveness when it really mattered.
Oh, Ros. Harry's words carried out of the office on a deep sigh. If only, for once in your life, you'd been less bloody conscientious. He angrily thumped the envelope closed with his fist. The wax seal would be affixed in the Registry when Ros Myers's career with MI-5 was officially declared over and the details filed in the bombproof basement two floors under the building. Harry picked up his glass, swirled the contents around and lifted it in a toast. Well, lass, wherever you are now, you'll be in good company. Tell Adam he still owes me his dog-racing debts. God, I am going to miss you. You were one hell of a section chief. I wish I'd had the sense to say that to you while you could still hear it. He sighed and tossed down the last of the whisky. She just caught the muttered 'thank God for Ruth'.
That was her cue. Swiftly, she slipped through the door.
The crash in the semi-darkness made Harry Pearce jump out of his skin. He swivelled his chair round and shone the lamp on the remains of the oriental statue of a horse which now lay mingled with the shards of broken glass.
"How the hell did that –" He stopped as light sliced across the office and Ruth Evershed appeared through the concealed second door on the far side of his office – the one that allowed Harry to beat a quick and discreet retreat from bureaucrats and politicians he had no desire to see.
"Oh Harry, what happened?" She pointed at the smashed ceramic scattered all over the floor. "How did you manage to knock that over? Wasn't it on the shelf behind you?"
"I didn't." He was looking around the office. "I didn't."
She remained still, watching the slight smile gradually sketching itself on his face, knowing that although neither of them could see it, it mirrored her own.
"She hated it." Ruth looked puzzled. "Ros. She always loathed that statue. Said if that was a work of art then she was Mother Theresa."
"Harry …" Ruth said uncertainly, looking at the half-empty whisky decanter.
"Don't you remember?" he insisted. "She told me once that if she ever stopped a bullet and I hadn't got rid of the thing she'd come back and haunt me and do the job herself."
Ruth was fidgeting uncomfortably with her necklace. "Is – um – is that – is that her file? Have you finally done it?"
"Yes." Harry picked up the envelope. "Yes, I've done it." He smiled towards the door. "She can leave now. Go home. And so can we."
Ros Myers smiled, turned, slipped back through the office door, and, for the last time, left Thames House.
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