A small town in Germany - Tuesday:
She walks around her flat once more, from room to room, her eyes darting nervously over the furniture which had served forty years of tenants before her. At one end of the sofa a pale blue scarf pokes out from beneath a cushion. She rushes over to retrieve it, stuffing it into one of the deep pockets of her cardigan.
In the bathroom she catches a glimpse of her reflected image in the mirror above the basin, and stops to stare. Her eyes are wide, fearful, hopeful, more grey than blue, and her hair sits on her shoulders, unruly from her earlier jaunt outside. She is no longer a mid-thirties woman embarking on an adventure partly of her own will and design. Over two years have passed, and her time in exile weighs heavily upon her. The price she has paid has been too high. The lines around her eyes and mouth speak of disappointment – lonely days and nights during which she has doubted herself and her decision to leave.
She'd visited her neighbours – Marie and Jacques, Martha, Greta, and of course, Jerome – and then she'd popped into the bakery one last time to purchase a freshly baked bread roll. She is all hugged out, feeling ungrateful for wanting to leave this place where people have so freely opened their arms and their lives to her. While she looks forward to leaving, her heart is heavy with the knowledge that it is unlikely their paths will cross again.
Then there's her rescuer - her spy, her very private spy. How will she react to him when she sees him? At least he is alive. She sees this as a lone positive to emerge from her sacrifice. His message, encrypted for the sake of safety, was brief and to the point.
I'll pick you up from your flat at 2 pm on Tuesday 15th. I look forward to seeing you again. We have much to talk about.
Harry.
`We have much to talk about.' She has pondered his message in an attempt to squeeze some deeper meaning from those six words. All she has to talk about is two years of running and struggling and hiding away and looking behind her, always looking behind her. Why would he want to hear about that? Well, why not? She'd endured long nights when she couldn't sleep, days when she could do little more than cry, and other days when she'd stared through a window, watching the world turn around her while she sat inside her protective cocoon, the shell she'd woven around herself to keep those who would hurt her or Harry at bay.
On this day, the day Harry is to arrive to take her home, she can no longer hold on to the belief that she sacrificed herself for the greater good; it is the kind of reasoning one uses when no good reason exists. She hopes Harry's life has been enriched during her time in exile, but not too enriched. She knows nothing of Harry's life now, but she hopes he is happy, and that his job with Mi5 is intact. After all is said and done, isn't that the reason she'd left?
So she sits across from her front door, her hold-all at her feet, while she waits.
2 pm passes, but she is not worried. She expects that he'll be late. She sits on the hard wooden chair, feet together, her hands folded on her lap. She doesn't look at the door in case her focused attention serves to keep him away.
3 pm comes and goes, and then 4, followed by 5. Then sadness, her constant companion, creeps in to push away the hope, the hope she has barely dared entertain.
By 6 o'clock her hope has all but drained away, and so she eats the roll she'd bought earlier, along with two slices of fresh ham, accompanied by a mug of sweet tea. Disappointment is now her companion. She considers unpacking her hold-all, but one last rebellious flicker of hope says, `maybe not yet'.
It is after 6.30, while she is in the bathroom washing her hands after having used the toilet, that she hears a sharp rapping on her front door. She hurries to the door, placing both palms against the wood while she peers through the spy hole. What she sees has her heart rate racing, and her face flushing. She quickly opens the door, and just as quickly he steps inside her flat, closing the door behind him, and then leaning his back against it, his eyes closed. For a moment she is a voyeur, watching this man unseen as she has done so many times in their shared past.
He appears older, and strangely, far more attractive than the sad and defeated man who had fareweled her two years earlier. There are lines at the corners of his eyes, and his jaw is set, as if he rarely smiles. He wears black jeans, a grey open-necked shirt, and a hooded jacket lined with lambswool. He breathes heavily, his chest heaving as though he's been running. She already knows about the black Saab parked diagonally across the street, its two occupants curved languidly in their seats, apparently disinterested in their surroundings while barely bothering to hide their presence.
"Harry? Are you all right?" she says after minutes have passed and he has not moved from the door.
She waits as he brings his breathing under control, and then opens his eyes, seeing them soften as he gazes at her, drinking her in. It is only then that he nods. Her need to hear his voice, his deep, mellow, soothing voice becomes critical. "Please say something," she says.
He pushes himself away from the door, and stands watching her closely. Then he takes a step closer, and then another, until she can smell the unique scent of him, and feel his warm breath on her forehead. "I've waited over two years for this," he says huskily, and then slowly he lifts his hands from his sides to grasp her shoulders. He draws her against him, slowly so as to not frighten her, all the while watching her. He wraps his arms around her and gathers her against him. Ruth does not hesitate. She winds her arms around his waist, and rests her cheek against his shoulder, allowing herself to breathe out her fear and disappointment in a heavy sigh.
It is only then that Ruth feels free to allow the tears to fall, but this time they are tears of relief and joy.
Harry allows her to cry. He says nothing, only once she is again calm, he pulls away from her and with the pads of his thumbs he wipes under her eyes while closely scrutinising her, his eyes roaming over her face, his lips turned up in a half smile. "It's so good to see you," he murmurs. "I'd convinced myself you wouldn't want to see me."
Ruth shakes her head. "You'd best come in," she says, avoiding his eyes. "Do you need something to eat? I only have cans of soup."
"Soup would be good," he says, his eyes tired.
She has led him into the tiny kitchen alcove, barely big enough to accommodate two bodies. "I can't offer you bread. This morning I bought a fresh bread roll, but just before you arrived I ate it." Her eyes flick up to meet his. She is embarrassed by her absence of pre-planning.
"Just soup will do," he says, his voice deep and quiet, its rumbling reaching right inside her to reverberate against her bones, "and I could do with a cuppa."
Ruth turns and smiles. "It's been a while since anyone has asked me for one of those," she says, her eyes lifting to his. She reads something in his own eyes – weariness, exhaustion certainly, but there is some other quality, something familiar there also. Then she remembers. What she sees is longing – longing for her. She has missed him; she has missed this, this .. undefined, unspoken vibe between them.
Ruth turns away from him and back to the bench, where she fills a kettle and gently places it on a burner on the stove. While she is searching for the tea bags, she feels him moving closer to her. Despite how cold it is outside, his body radiates heat. "Can I do anything to help?" he asks.
Ruth opens a cupboard above her head and takes a can of soup from the shelf. "It's beef hotpot or beef hotpot," she says, not looking at him. She has her own longing. She longs to lean against him, to sink against his solid body, allowing him to support her weight for a while. She allows herself to fold into a deep part of herself, a part which knows how much she has missed having someone to share her burdens, someone to lift her spirits when she doubts herself, someone to watch, someone reliable and decent and honourable, someone like him. She opens the drawer beside the sink. "There's a can opener in there somewhere," she says, unable to look at him in case he can still read her thoughts.
She makes their cups of tea, while he heats the soup in a saucepan on the stove top. They sit at the ridiculously tiny table just outside the kitchen alcove. It is only when he is wolfing down the soup that Ruth watches him closely. His hair is a little longer than it had been when she'd left, so that the ends curl, and she is sure she can detect greying hair at his temples. He is not the same man she had left behind. He is quiet. There is a dangerous quality to him, but perhaps there always had been, and she'd chosen to ignore it. The man in black jeans and lambswool-lined jacket is a far cry from the smart section head who'd dressed in a suit.
When he has finished the soup, and has rinsed his plate and spoon and upended them on the dish drainer, he sits once more across from Ruth, and sips his tea. Then he outlines the plans he has for that evening, for when he plucks her from beneath the noses of the men in the black Saab. "Do you know who they are?" he asks, when she mentions the black car across the street.
"Not personally, no. I've been told they're Russian."
"Who told you that?"
"Jerome. My neighbour at number 8." He smiles then, the first smile she's seen since he arrived. "What?" she asks.
"Do you know everyone in this building?"
"Not everyone, no. There's a woman on the third floor who shouts if anyone plays music. I can't say that I know her, and she speaks to no-one .. other than when she shouts."
Harry nods, a slight smile turning his lips. She watches his lips – another thing she's missed, and forgotten how much.
"The car will be in the lane at 10.50 this evening. Theodore can only wait for ten minutes. If you're not there by 11, he will leave without you."
"I'll be there. How will I know which car?"
"I'll take you there."
"But -"
"I can't go with you, Ruth. Together we'd stand out, but I'll meet you later. Don't worry about me. I'll find you."
"Sure?"
"I wouldn't be doing this otherwise."
For several minutes neither speaks. Harry appears preoccupied, and Ruth, as always, is sensitive to his mood. She knows her extraction will be dangerous. Timing will be everything. Harry is clearly worried, and if she knows him like she used to know him, he'll be going over and over in his mind the steps he has to take later that evening. He'll be previewing her extraction in every detail, like a golfer previews each stroke of the ball before he lines up to strike it.
"We have three hours until we need to be ready to leave," Harry says at last, his eyes on his empty tea cup. "I could do with a .." Ruth's thoughts wander into personal territory. Is he asking her for sex? Harry had never before asked her for sex .. at least, not with words. "Do you have a spare bed?" he asks, and she sits up straight.
"A bed? Why?"
"I need to sleep. I'll set my alarm for 10.30. Can I perhaps use your bed, Ruth?"
She nods and slowly rises from her chair. "My bedroom's through here."
Harry follows, barely registering the pictures on the walls, or the dark, old-fashioned décor, along with the dank smell of an old flat in a very old building. It has been hours since he has had a decent sleep, and he is out on his feet. Ruth shows him the bathroom, toilet and her bedroom, neither of which occupy much floor space. "I'll turn back the bed for you," she says, and vanishes through the door to her bedroom, where, only hours earlier she had stripped the bed and re-made it, just in case Harry hadn't turned up for her.
She has only just plumped the pillows and turned back the duvet when Harry enters the room. She steps away from the bed, a little embarrassed to be discovered fussing over the bed in which he will be spending a brief few hours. He takes his phone from his pocket and sets the alarm, placing it on the low cupboard beside the bed. Ruth turns to leave the room, and he reaches out and grasps her hand. She turns to watch his hand holding hers. How could she have forgotten his hands? Square and strong and clean, Harry's hand grasps hers – gently, but firmly. She lifts her eyes to his, and reflected in them she sees her own deeply buried pain – the pain of one loss too many. She watches and waits. "Stay with me until I fall asleep," he says, his voice so quiet she barely hears him.
Ruth nods, and points towards the bathroom. "I'll just go ..." she says. He drops her hand, freeing her to scuttle through to use the toilet and the bathroom. By the time she returns to her bedroom, Harry has removed his outer clothing, and is standing by her bed, wearing only trunks and a black t-shirt. She hovers in the doorway, not sure whether he is happy being seen in a state of undress.
Harry's smile is gentle, even amused, as he lifts the duvet in preparation for climbing under the covers. "You're welcome to join me," he says.
"I'll .." she says, taking a step towards the chair at the end of the bed, on which he has dropped his clothes. "I'll just put these here," she adds, grasping them between her hands and draping them over the foot of the bed. Harry's clothes are warm and they smell of him.
He is already under the duvet, and has it pulled up to his chin. He is watching her, his eyes dark, his expression unreadable. She wonders does he hope she'll crawl into bed with him. She'd like to, but she thinks it unwise. They have a stressful night ahead, and any personal feelings they still harbour for one another will have to wait. She is hopeful there will come a time when they are free to concentrate on themselves, without worrying that in an instant one of them may be taken. She curls up in the armchair, having removed the blanket from over the back of the chair, so that when she is settled and comfortable, she drapes it around her knees and over her lap.
Ruth turns her head so that she can watch him. His eyes are still open; he has watched every move she has made since she returned from the bathroom. "What is it?" she asks, embarrassed. She has never enjoyed being the centre of someone's attention, especially his.
"It's such a relief to see you again, Ruth. I'm afraid to close my eyes in case ..."
There it is again – the almost-finished sentence. She knows what he is trying to say. She nods and smiles. "I'm not going anywhere," she says quietly, "so sleep."
Ruth is jerked awake by the sharp sound of the alarm on Harry's phone, closely followed by his voice, barely awake. "Bloody hell," he says gruffly.
What follows is a flurry of activity by them both, as they prepare to leave, each visiting the bathroom one more time. Harry's visit to her flat has been brief, but she has lived there for fifteen months, and despite the strong friendships she has formed with a few of her neighbours, she is never returning. "I think I have everything," she says as she meets him by the front door.
"Did you mean to leave that light on?" he asks, nodding towards the kitchen alcove.
Ruth nods. "I need it to appear as if I'm still here."
Harry opens the front door, and they both slip silently into the corridor. "Is this the way to the back lane?" he asks, turning right.
"Follow me," Ruth replies. "I don't usually go this way, but if we want to get to the lane unseen ..."
They hurry down the narrow corridor to the side entrance, through the large garden at the back of the building, to the (normally unseen) gate behind the large maple tree, a tree which had provided Ruth with a shady spot under which to read during summer afternoons. Harry places a hand on her arm, stopping her from opening the gate. She looks up at him to see his dark eyes watching her closely. She lifts her eyebrows in a question.
"When we go through that gate, Ruth, I will be taking you to Theodore's car -"
"What kind of car is it?" She finds that she's whispering.
"It's a BMW, dark blue, late model. I've known Theodore for over 30 years, and I trust him. I would never leave you with him otherwise." He watches her for a moment while she takes that in. "I'll open the back door and see you and your luggage inside, and then I'll close the door and disappear. I have to move quickly .. just in case."
Harry lifts his left wrist and checks his watch. "10.50 on the dot," he says, and Ruth feels her heart beating at the back of her throat. "Time to go," he says, "but first .." He grasps her hand and turns her to face him. For a long moment he searches her eyes with his own. "It won't be long before we'll be seeing one another again." Then he reaches down and kisses her. Given the occasion, it is a surprisingly tender kiss.
"You'd better be there," she murmurs against his lips, although in that moment she has little idea when and where she will next see him, only that she will.
Harry turns from her and, carrying her bag, he pushes open the gate and steps onto the pavement. In the lane outside Ruth counts five parked cars. The one just in front of them is a white Volkswagon Golf. Harry is ahead of her; having turned right, he is walking purposefully towards the BMW only forty metres away. He reaches the back door, opens it, slings her bag inside, and then turns to grasp her hand. "Inside," is all he says, before she slips past him. The interior of the car is very warm, and smells like leather, with an overlay of masculine cologne and cigarette smoke. As Harry closes the door behind her, she looks to the interior rear view mirror to see the grey eyes of the driver. He nods to her before breaking eye contact and starting the motor.
Remembering that Harry is on the street alone, she turns in her seat, but there is no sign of him. He has vanished, absorbed by the night. "He'll be fine," her driver says. "He's done this sort of thing many, many times. I'm Theodore," he says. His accent is clipped, but clearly not German. "I was born in Amsterdam," he says, smiling. "You're on the way to my home town."
Ruth sees the lines at the corner of his eyes as he smiles at her, before looking away to concentrate on turning a corner at speed. Ruth looks left and right, but there is still no sign of Harry. "Where is he?" Ruth asks, embarrassed by how needy she must sound.
This time Theodore doesn't take his eyes from the road, as he takes a winding, confusing route through the streets of the town. "He's safe, Ruth." He speeds through the streets, the engine purring quietly. She sits back, giving her life over to her driver. Harry trusts him, so she must also.
While Ruth is being spirited through the streets in a car driven by Theodore Jansen, Harry is negotiating a series of lanes on foot. He walks quickly, but without the appearance of hurrying. He reaches the club at 11.22 pm, two minutes late. He enters the club, wandering between the tables until he sees the empty table – #3 – close to the stage where an unenthusiastic stripper is down to just her g-string. Harry glances around, but other patrons seem to not notice him, nor is their attention on the stripper. He takes the seat closest to the stage, effectively turning his back to the floor show. He picks up the glass of whisky which has been left for him, savouring the warmth it brings as he gulps it down. He resists checking his watch. He can trust Wolf.
Sixteen minutes later Wolf Jaeger - tall, sturdy, head shaven - sits in the chair opposite. "There is a card game in the back room," he says in rapid German. "Would you like to join us?"
Harry nods, stands, and follows Wolf through the curtained doorway to the area behind the stage. They pass the room where a card game is in progress, and eventually out into the cool night, where a grey Mercedes is parked.
"We'll never make it to Munich in time," Harry says, trying to hide his anxiety.
"I know," Wolf says, swapping to English the minute the car door is closed behind him, and then he starts the car. "The train is about to make an unscheduled stop at the next town."
"Unscheduled?" Harry turns to watch the face of his companion, but Wolf is concentrating on negotiating the narrow streets.
"You'll see." They are already on the road to the next town, just fifteen kilometres away. Wolf turns to grin at Harry, his perfect teeth gleaming white in the dark interior of the car.
Ruth is alert throughout the circuitous journey, and it is soon clear to her that they are headed for Ingolstadt. Once they reach the autobahn, Theodore relaxes and engages her in a sentimental discussion about the best cities in Europe. Ruth suggests Prague, while Theodore is torn between Paris and his home city of Amsterdam. "I haven't visited them all," Ruth says, "so I'm afraid I can't comment on say, Edinburgh, or Copenhagen."
"You've not been to Copenhagen? You must. It is .. unique .. like a beautiful woman."
Ruth cannot determine Theodore's age, but given the amount he has travelled, and the revolutions and coups he has witnessed, and those he's taken part in, he would have to be older than Harry, perhaps in his early sixties. He is still a handsome man, his jaw defined, his eyes all-seeing, and his steel-grey hair thick and wavy.
"Have you lived in Spain?" he says after a long silence. When Ruth nods, he smiles into the rear view mirror. "Spain is best experienced during times of chaos."
Theodore never qualifies his bold statement, because he turns off the autobahn, and heads towards the train station, weaving the car through the streets before he takes the most direct route, eventually parking the car in an underground car park.
"You're coming with me?" Ruth asks, as he takes her bag from her hand, and then a bag of his own from the boot of the car.
"Just to be on the safe side," he says, hurrying her towards the escalators. "The train is due in ten minutes."
It takes twelve minutes to reach the platform, Theodore having produced their tickets when required. By the time Ruth stands ready to board the train she is shaking with tension. She can't fault Theodore at all. He has been a pleasant and entertaining driver and companion.
"Will I see you again?" Ruth asks, as he helps her onto the train, noticing her anxiety, and so grasping her hand to steady her.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not." He has already given her her rail pass, and pointed her towards the door which leads to the sleeping compartments. "Go," he says, patting her arm.
"What about you?"
"Go. Go now."
So she does, although she'd rather he come with her, showing her which sleeper is hers. She is too anxious for sleep. She could have shared a compartment with Theodore. She has little idea where Harry might be. She hopes he is safe, and that he will be waiting for her in Amsterdam.
She drags her bag down the corridor to the sleeping compartment which is to be hers. She pushes open the door, and as she enters the darkened space she notices a figure sitting in a chair, their form silhouetted against the window. Ruth stands still for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
"Hello," he says, "you took your time."
