Set soon after the events of 6.1/6.2. The office is Ruth-less and all is not going well.
She would not have forgiven him for today. She would have looked at him with judgemental eyes and he wonders if she had been here, would he have made the same decision?
Blowing up trains on foreign soil, killing innocent people and then causing the largest case of plague in 300 years. It was safe to say it wasn't his or the service's finest hour.
He stood swirling the amber liquid around the bottom of his glass. He'd had one too many already. It seared its way down his throat and he enjoyed the heat of it, the burn of it.
He looked at the pictures of the bodies being removed from the wreckage, he scanned the list of victims at the hospital. And he wished she were here to admonish him.
Wished she were here and not in Cyprus.
He wondered how hot it was there right now. Not for the first time he imagined her sitting reading a book, a light sundress rising up above her knees, the sea lapping close by. He imagined her blue eyes shining brighter than ever within a tanned and smiling face.
Since she had gone he had often wished that he knew where, so that he could think of her somewhere safe, somewhere she would enjoy. But from the day an officer at 6 had contacted him to say he was certain he had seen the deceased Ruth Evershed alive and well in Polis, he wished he didn't know. He had denied it, naturally, recounted it was he who had identified her body, that they were mistaken. But now it haunted him.
"Malcolm!" Came the bark from the office.
He turned patiently from the pod doors, withdrawing the arm that had got as far as his coat sleeve.
"Yes, Harry."
"How secure are we?"
"Secure?"
"Our feeds, satellite, or otherwise."
"They are secure."
"Within this department, who has access to check the history of satellite scans?"
"All code 1 clearances."
"Make it only you and I, Malcolm."
"Of course."
"And Malcolm…"
"Harry."
"And only if you have to."
Malcolm nodded and slid the door shut.
That is when it began.
