A very end-of-series 9 Ruth. She's fine. Really.

Driving Position

Despite the sobbing, the voice on the phone was instantly familiar. Mike quickly made his way out of the on-call room and into the concrete gloom of the underground car park.

'Miss Evershed? What do you need?'

'C-c-can you pick me up out the front? In a car without a tracker and-and with false number plates. Right now? It's for Harry.'

'Yes, of course. I'm coming. Silver Audi A4. Lima, Yankee, sixty-one, Delta, Papa, Delta.'

A breath caught. Another sob. A connection cut.

She looked tiny against the black leather of the back seat. Without turning his head, or reducing his speed, he opened the compartment between the two front seats and got out a packet of tissues. He held them up and she leaned forward, accepting them in silence. Another glance in the rear-view mirror showed her shakily struggling to open the polythene wrapper.

'Should I call the emergency services?'

'Already done,' she replied hoarsely before blowing her nose. 'John Bateman has committed suicide.'

He had no idea who John Bateman was. 'Sir Harry?'

'I don't know. That's all he told me. He phoned, said those exact words, and hung up.'

'We're three minutes away.'

She sat up straight, took a deep breath and cleared her throat; her eyes red-rimmed but wiped dry. They glanced at each other in the mirror. She frowned. A moment later, Mike could see that she was thinking hard about something. With thirty seconds to go, she leaned forwards to get a better view through the windscreen.

They arrived before the police. He was fairly sure he had never driven so fast in London. Sir Harry was standing on the pavement with blood on his face and lips gone grey with shock. Miss Evershed had the door open before he could bring the Audi to a halt. She scrambled out and ran straight into Sir Harry. Even over the honk of a nearby car alarm, Mike could have sworn he heard their bodies collide. She had her hands on Sir Harry's chest, on his shoulders, on his back as her arms wrapped around him. Constantly shifting, constantly touching, lips shaping a stream of muttered words.

Sir Harry didn't move. He was staring at something to his left and Mike instinctively turned his head to look in the same direction. Flashing hazard lights. A strange arrangement of red meat, white bone and dark fabric draped over a dented car. He tried to tell himself that it couldn't possibly be human. He noticed a shoe with neatly tied laces on the road in front of him.

He quickly went back to watching Sir Harry and Miss Evershed. She had her hands on either side of his head and she was trying to pull his face around towards her. She shouted Sir Harry's name and deliberately jabbed a thumb into the cut above his brow. Mike winced. So did Sir Harry. Spell broken, he jerked his head free and took a pace backwards. And then took a pace forwards. And then meekly followed Miss Evershed as she led him towards the car.

'Back to Thames House. Quick as you can.'

He turned in his seat and watched her put a hand on top of Sir Harry's head and guide him into the Audi. She could have been an experienced traffic copper. She slammed the door, ran around to the other side and jumped in too.

'Witnesses?' she asked as Mike put his foot down.

'Two,' Sir Harry rasped.

'Did they see you on the roof?'

'They might have. I went to the edge. To check. One of them was female. She was screaming. There was a man dragging her back. I didn't notice them look up, but ...'

'Right. We have to work out what your story is. In case anyone decides to put you in the frame for murder.'

'Murder?'

'There are two obvious ways to deal with you: find you guilty of the murder of Lucas North, or have you assassinated. It's virtually impossible to try you for Treason; nobody can afford to let even a hint of Albany out into the public domain. Plus the government won't want a spy scandal right after they've announced a billion pound increase in the security services budget but cuts everywhere else.'

'Right. I see.'

'We have to take control of this. Make it work for us.'

Mike always tried his best not to listen. He concentrated hard on the road. On traffic. On checking for tails. But he knew that he would be able to repeat Miss Evershed's words verbatim until death or Alzheimer's got him.

She phoned people. Tariq was tasked with gathering all the CCTV footage of Sir Harry's trip to meet John Bateman. Beth and Dimitri were tracking all the police communications, finding out exactly what they were doing about an unidentified jumper, and who was asking for information about it. Someone called Alec was sent to interview the two witnesses.

There were CCTV blind spots in the Thames House car park, near the east and west staircases. All the drivers knew about them. Mike pulled up in one of them and turned off the ignition.

'Both of you get out of the car, but stay right next to it,' Miss Evershed said, opening her door and standing up.

Without hesitating, Mike complied. Sir Harry eased out more slowly. 'What's the plan, Ruth?' he asked.

'John Batemen attacked you here. He knocked you out, stole your car, drove to a high-rise building and threw himself off it. He was practically hysterical when you saw him. Babbling about Maya being killed and his life being worthless. In the state he was in, he might have thought he'd killed you.'

Sir Harry shook his head. 'I'm not sure how convincing that is.'

'No. So I'm going to make it more convincing.'

'How, exactly?'

Miss Evershed walked around the Audi until she was standing by Sir Harry's side. Mike watched them across the roof of the car. 'I'm not sure you want to know how. I'm not sure how much of this conversation you're going to remember, either.'

'Oh?'

'Did you hear me tell you I love you?'

'Um. Yes. Yes, I did.'

'Did you hear me say that I'll marry you?'

'Yes. And you thought my timing was inappropriate?'

'Sorry. I meant it, though. I mean it. Really.'

They weren't even looking at each other. Mike couldn't look away. Very hesitantly, Miss Evershed reached a hand up towards Sir Harry's head. Then she clutched his scalp and shoved his forehead against the Audi as hard as she possibly could.

Mike let out a yell of shock. Sir Harry dropped like a stone. Miss Evershed used one of Mike's tissues to wipe a small smear of blood off the car before kneeling down. 'You'd better raise the alarm,' she told him. 'If you ever breathe a word about this, I'll kill you myself. And your wife while I'm at it. Do you understand?'

He knew she'd recently emptied a clip into a man at close range, and she'd just poll-axed her own fiancé. Yes, he understood.

Mike ran for help. Someone called the duty doctor, Sally Chapman. She arrived at a run, carrying her leather doctor's bag. 'What's he done this time?' she snapped.

'He's unconscious,' Miss Evershed told her tearfully, kneeling on the floor of the car park and stroking Sir Harry's face. 'Oh, God, he looks awful! Is he going to be all right?'

'Let me have a look at him. Yep, there's a pulse. Breathing shallow but regular. He's taken a terrible knock to the head, though. He needs a hospital.'

'All right. I'll stay with him.'

Sally got out her phone and spoke to the paramedics directly. Within minutes an ambulance had come and gone. All that remained were a few drops of blood on the floor near the Audi. Mike left them where they were and walked away.