Even in the muted light of the Grid, they all notice the reflected light from Harry's wedding ring. It serves as a painful reminder of the life he and Ruth had planned for themselves. `After retirement,' he'd said back then, back before the Gavrik family had arrived in London, `Ruth and I plan to live somewhere in the country …... somewhere we can't hear traffic, or see the London Eye.'
"They were married less than three months," Calum muses to no-one in particular, as the glass doors close behind Harry for the last time. "I can think of nothing worse to happen to a man …... other than having his bollocks blown off."
"Thank you for that observation, Calum," Erin says sharply, before she marches towards her office, the one Harry had vacated only a few minutes previously.
"What do you think will happen to him?" Dimitri asks. "It's not as though he's that old, or anything."
"I don't know," Calum replies. "Maybe we should plan to visit him. You know, give the poor bugger something to look forward to. Maybe we can drop in on him at Christmas. That's sure to be a hard time for him."
Dimitri smiles, shaking his head. "Did you notice him leaving a forwarding address? I think he wants to be left alone."
"Nah …... how hard can it be for a couple of spooks to find another spook. Piece of cake, right? Harry'd like that."
"Sure, Calum. Pull the other one. This is Harry. He'll be heading somewhere none of us can find him."
Dimitri shakes his head just a little. He'll miss Harry, just as he misses Ruth. He also knows that when someone leaves, no matter how much they are loved, someone else always steps in to take their place. Dimitri knows that in time, memories of Harry – and Ruth before him – will fade like the faces in an old photograph, and in time, they will be spoken of less and less.
Harry has only one more visit to make before he heads to his cottage in the country. He'd planned to drop in on Malcolm, but perhaps it would be easier to invite him to the cottage …... maybe some time in the new year. Malcolm is the only one from his old life who will be welcome in his new life …... other than his children, of course.
He pulls up in front of a Georgian house which nestles behind a neat hedge and equally neat trees. Judith Conner is the only friend Harry still sees from the time he was married to Jane. This is to be his last visit to her. He is erasing the past. He is beginning his life with a clean slate.
"Harry," Judith exclaims, showing him to her conservatory, where she has a coffee pot bubbling away, coffee on tap, biscuits at the ready. "Things must be bad in your life for you to be visiting me." Judith's pale blue eyes are intelligent and all-seeing. Harry notices that her once shoulder-length greying, blond hair is now cut short in a sensible style. She wears pale blue jeans and a white shirt, with a grey jumper draped around her shoulders. She shows him a chair, and sits opposite him in the wicker rocker he's noticed she always occupies.
"I was sorry to hear about Roger," Harry begins. "I only heard about it from one of the section heads in MI-6 who'd played tennis with him."
"It's been almost a year already," Judith replies, her face clouding over briefly, as her mind takes her back to the time of her husband's death. "It will be a year on December 30th."
"I'm sorry I don't know the details. I just heard that he'd died in an accident."
"Yes," Judith replies, pouring them each a cup of coffee. "It was a Saturday morning, the day before our fifteenth wedding anniversary, and I sent him out to get some milk. I expected him to take the car, but he walked. It was a cold, crisp morning, and he wanted to get some air. As he was crossing the road, he stepped out from between two parked cars, and a car came around the corner and hit him. He was dead before he hit the road."
"I'm sorry," Harry says, sobered. "That must have been terrible."
"It was worse for the driver of the car. She was only eighteen, and she'd bought the car only the day before. Last I heard, she still hasn't been able to drive it. I, of course, felt terribly guilty about it all. I'd meant to get the milk the day before, but there was always something more important, more pressing. Just like that," and she clicks her fingers together, "a life can be snuffed out."
Harry hesitates before he speaks. "I know," he says quietly, "my wife was killed just over eight weeks ago."
"Your wife? Oh, Harry. I hadn't even known you'd remarried …... but now I see you're wearing a wedding ring. I'm so sorry, and here I am, bleating on about Roger's accident. Do you want to talk about it?"
Does he? Not terribly, but he knows he must. After all, it is the chief reason he's here. He takes a deep breath, and carefully places his coffee cup on the table.
"I told you about Ruth back when she had to go into exile."
"Yes, I remember. You were very low at the time you told me."
"She came back – under difficult circumstances – and it took us a long time to regain the ground we'd lost when she had to go away. Around a year ago I was suspended from work, and we …... saw one another privately during that time, and then …... when I asked her to marry me, she said yes, and a month later we were married. Then …... only eight weeks ago, she was stabbed by an FSB agent, and whilst the injury should not have killed her, it did. Like you, I feel responsible. I could have prevented it."
"Should have, could have …... pointless after the event, Harry."
"I know it is, but I feel that I have to put my energies somewhere."
"You seem …... quite calm about it all."
"I'm not. Not really. I have to keep up the pretense of being calm. Privately, though …..."
"I know. Privately we weep buckets."
The two friends sit in silence, the exchange of personal information exhausting them both.
"Do you still keep contact with Jane?" Judith asks after some minutes.
"No," Harry replies. "We have nothing to say to one another. Not any more. What about you and Charles?"
"God, no. If I ever saw Charles again, I'd only be reminded of some of my less wise decisions."
The remainder of Harry's visit is spent reminiscing about the years they had all been friends at university and beyond – he and Jane, and Judith and Charles. Harry is sad that this is to be the last time he sits with Judith and drinks her coffee in her beautiful Georgian house, and he is sorry for the little lie he'd had to tell her, but this is the way it has to be. He needs a fresh start, and his old life must not in any way bleed into the new.
Harry drives out of London, taking care to remain within the speed limit. He has no wish to be remembered, even on CCTV. He knows he will be back sometime, but right now, he can't say when that will be.
It is not long before he bypasses Brentwood, and then Chelmsford, after which the traffic thins out, and he can speed up. It will be dark by the time he reaches the cottage. He had stayed with Judith for longer than he'd planned. Despite her appearance of strength, he knows her well enough to see that she is very lonely. He felt it best to stay longer, but not too long. Judith – like Jane – is part of his past, and so much of his past does not belong in his future. Once he reaches home …... and how strange it still feels to him to call the small two-bedroom cottage `home' …... he will close the door on his other life, and step into a different life altogether. MI-5 will be forever behind him.
He reaches the turn-off to his village, and takes a right turn, his car sliding almost silently between the hedgerows. He and Jane had often talked about where they wanted to live in retirement. Ironically, he had always wanted a house by the sea, with a fishing boat and all the fishing gear he could pile into it, while Jane had dreamed of a small, intimate cottage at the end of a hedge-lined lane – just like the one he is now headed towards.
Harry drives slowly through the village, and notes that only the pub shows signs of life. He pulls into a parking space on the opposite side of the road, and quickly crosses the road to purchase a few bottles of wine. One can never have too much wine, and the day has been stressful …... not nearly as stressful as the day Sasha Gavrik had stabbed Ruth, or the day of her funeral, but stressful in other ways, ways which are difficult to define. Deception has always come to him easily, but even that must remain in his past.
Harry drives slowly down the lane to the cottage, all the time watching for the unusual, the out-of-place – people, vehicles, signs of that which doesn't belong. It will take him some time to break the habit of his adult lifetime. As he sees it, too much caution is far better than too little, or none at all. On the day Ruth had been stabbed by Sasha Gavrik, he had exercised too little caution, presuming that the boy was too distressed to be able to carry out his threat. How wrong he'd been. Since then, he has become hyper vigilant. He has to believe that from now on, nothing will escape his scrutiny.
He parks the car outside the front gate, locks it, and with the bottles of wine tucked under one arm, he walks down the path to the front door. He can unpack the car later. He wants to get inside the house. It is not the green door of the cottage Ruth had wanted, the door with the peeling green paint. He'd found another cottage – one which is tucked away down a lane which winds between field maple trees, now bare of leaves. There are no close neighbours, and this is for the best. He slips the key into the lock, and silently opens the door, then steps through, gently closing the door behind him.
Upon entering the house, he becomes Michael Browning, retired businessman.
Inside it is dark, but for a soft glow from the living room. The house is warm, and he smiles in anticipation. He walks down the hallway to the back of the house, his shoes making barely a sound on the carpet. He places the bottles on the kitchen table, and removes his coat and jacket, tossing them over the back of a chair, before he turns towards the living room. The fire glows in the grate, and the lights on the small Christmas tree in the corner of the room cast a soft glow over the features of the woman lying on the sofa, her face peaceful in sleep. Harry quietly walks towards her, and kneels down beside her. He doesn't want to have to wait for her to wake, so he lifts her left hand, and places his lips on her wedding ring. Her eyes open slowly, and once she adjusts her eyes to the light, she smiles up at him.
"You're home," she says.
"I'm home to stay," he replies, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on her lips. "It's just us now …... in this house. You and me, Ruth."
She struggles to sit up, and Harry lays a hand on her shoulder. He knows the wound in her side can sometimes still be sore.
"Welcome home, Harry, or should I say Michael," she says, sliding over to make room for him to lie on the sofa beside her. "Why didn't you let me know you were coming?"
"I wanted to surprise you …... an early Christmas present."
He slips off his shoes, and lies beside her. They both turn to face the other, and it is only then that he slides his arms around her, and pulls her against him, so that their faces are close enough to feel the breath of the other on their skin.
"Having you here is the very best gift of all."
"No, Ruth, having you here is the best gift. I almost didn't have you at all." He watches her face for some minutes, drinking her in. "I can't tell you how good it is to be home," he says quietly. "It's been so long."
"I've missed you terribly," she replies, leaning away from him so that she can watch his face, the dearest face she knows.
"We need never be apart again," he says, before leaning into her, and kissing her gently.
Harry and Ruth Pearce no longer exist. Michael and Alison Browning have stepped into their place. They are in their safe house, where they will live out their lives – together.