The runway of Paphos International Airport appears to diminish in size, as the plane quickly ascends. From his window seat, Harry doesn't look back at the island, surrounded as it is by the bluest sea imaginable. He can't bear to. He will leave her there, knowing she is happy in her life, and that she has moved on. Now it will be his turn to move on, although he has no idea how he should go about that. He can barely remember what his life had been like before he began loving her, and the prospect that some time in the future he may no longer love her brings tears to his eyes. The idea that there may come a day when she is not his first thought as he awakes each morning is frightening to him, because it will mean that he will have lost the capacity for loving another.

He'd booked into the little hotel just off the square in Polis – the Agora Inn. He'd planned to stay for ten days, but had been prepared to spend two weeks in Cyprus, three if circumstances called for it. His replacement in Section D had been aware that Harry may be away from London for anything up to a month. He'd questioned the owners of the hotel, the woman who ran the organic fruit and vegetable stall in the market, and then, while having a coffee, he'd sat next to one of the nurses from the hospital, and this young woman had mentioned the English woman called Ruth who worked at the hospital.

"She's from London, also," the nurse had said, in perfect, but heavily accented English. "She might like to hear from someone from her home city. I think she must get homesick sometimes."

Harry had thanked her, especially after the woman had told him where to find Ruth. He'd walked along the beach to the path which led up to the white house on the headland overlooking the sea. It had been further than he'd expected, and by the time he reached the grove of trees from where he had a clear view of the house, he was panting and sweating, and his face was flushed – not exactly how he wanted to greet her after having had no contact with her for twenty months. He had to see her that day.

And see her he did.

He heard her voice before he saw her. Then he heard the voice of a boy, and then a deeper, masculine voice. Then he heard Ruth laughing. "Oh, you two!" she said. No-one had mentioned a man and a boy. Harry stayed in the shade behind some bushes, and looked towards the house.

On the patio, enjoying a meal, was his Ruth, and a dark-haired man, and a boy of about eight or nine. The man reached out to Ruth, and touched her arm, and she replied by putting her hand on his cheek, and laughing. To his eyes, she looked as beautiful as ever. Her hair was shorter, waves framing her face, and she wore a summer dress with straps over her shoulders, showing off her tanned skin. Her smile was wide, and her eyes took in the man and the boy.

"I know you're just teasing," she said lightly.

"You're so easy to tease," the man replied.

Suddenly, the boy began coughing and choking, as though he had something caught in his throat. The man quickly got up, and grabbed the boy and held him against his stomach, and pressed his hands against the boy's stomach. The boy coughed some more, and then he coughed up something and spat it on the ground.

"Are you alright, Nico?" the man asked.

The boy nodded, as Ruth bent to examine what he'd spat out. "It's a piece of bone. I should have been more careful preparing the fish," she said.

"It's not your fault," said the man, putting his free arm around her. "It's my cousin. He should have been more careful when he cleaned and filleted the fish."

Harry no longer listened to what was being said. He just watched as the man checked that the boy was alright, and then turned to Ruth – his Ruth – and placed both his arms around her, and held her against him. As painful as it was to watch them, he couldn't help himself. He watched for another fifteen minutes or so, before leaving the way he came.

As he walked back to the town centre along the beach, he went through the scene at the house. There was no other way of interpreting it. It was clear that Ruth had moved on. He was tempted to check out of the hotel, and return to London that day, but it had only been four days since he'd left London, and to return so soon would be wasting his time away from work. There was one problem …... his realisation that he had lost Ruth forever - probably because of his own stupidity - and his pain at that loss could only be assuaged by working. He needed to get back to work, but he also needed to spend time away from the place which for him still held so many memories of her.

Once he reached his hotel, showered and changed his clothes, Harry had calmed down a little. His body did not respond well to the heat. He tended to overheat, and his thoughts had also become overheated. Once the sun was lower in the sky, he returned to the coffee shop where he'd met the nurse. He was pretending to read a London newspaper when he heard a voice say, in heavily accented English, "Do you mind if I join you?"

Harry folded his paper, and indicated she should sit in the chair opposite him.

"I have the next three days off. My feet will thank me," the nurse continued, smiling. "Have you caught up with the English woman? She's also taking some days off."

"I saw her," he replied, "but I didn't get to speak to her." Harry had waited before he continued. He needed to choose his words carefully. "I see she's with a man. Is she married?"

"Ruth? No. She lives with George and his son. George is a doctor at the hospital."

A doctor! That's rather stiff competition. It was then that Harry had to remind himself that he was no longer in the race, and that Ruth - his Ruth – had chosen another. There was no competition. Harry had lost her long ago.

He couldn't bear to hear any more about Ruth, so he changed the subject, asking the young nurse about her work at the hospital, and once he'd finished his coffee, he excused himself, and left.

Out of some deep sense of needing to punish himself, next day Harry again walked along the beach to the path which led up to the house where Ruth lived. He waited in the shade of the grove of trees, as much from a need to cool down, as a desire to see Ruth one more time before he left the island. After about fifteen minutes, he saw her step out on to the patio with a book in her hand. He was too far away to see what kind of book she was reading. She sat on a chair beside the table, her head and shoulders in the shade, her eyes protected by sun glasses. After around five minutes, she looked up from her book, and he was sure she was looking in his direction. Harry had only just decided to come out from the trees and show himself, when he heard the man's voice, calling Ruth, and asking where she was.

"I'm on the patio," she called back, "and I'm reading, so I don't wish to be disturbed."

The man, George – he looked like a George – stepped outside, and approached Ruth from behind her chair. It was when he put his arms around her shoulders, and Ruth laughed, and slapped his arm, that Harry decided he had seen enough. There was only so much he could take. He could hide in the bushes watching Ruth for the rest of the afternoon, but his surveillance of her had left him feeling like a peeping Tom. As much as he longs to see Ruth, and to talk to her and more, he doesn't wish to observe her unseen. It's not right.

That had been three days ago. Harry had spent only seven days in Cyprus, and he'd seen Ruth for no more than a half hour, but had not spoken to her, and she had been unaware of his presence. Harry has come prepared for the four hour flight home. He plugs in his earbuds to his iPod, and takes from his carry-on luggage a 700-page murder mystery. With a Wagner opera blasting his eardrums, and a gory tale of distorted human values and behaviour filling his mind, he plans to leave no space in his head for thoughts of Ruth. Who is he kidding? He turns the page, having read twenty-five pages of the story, to realise that he has no idea what has happened so far. He has seen the words, but there has been no room in his head to absorb the narrative.

His head is filled, as usual, with thoughts of Ruth.

He is not expected back at work for another three weeks, and he has no idea how to spend that time. He is a man who likes to work. Work is the only activity which has the capacity to occupy him totally.

Harry has no sooner carried his bags into his front hallway than he notices the message light blinking on his answering machine. Five messages, all from Catherine. He decides to ring her back before he gets busy unpacking.

"Dad! It's about time. I was about to ring Mum to see whether she wants to keep me company up here on the edge of the known world."

"Which is where?"

"Hexham."

"Hexham? Why Hexham?"

"It's where Michael's folks live. I insisted we stay in a B&B, because – Dad - I'm sorry to be saying this, but I have no idea what anyone's talking about!"

For the first time in well over a week, Harry laughs aloud. His daughter, his precious little girl, who has travelled to places in the world where languages and dialects so totally different from English are spoken, is having difficulty deciphering the Northumberland accent.

"I'll be there tomorrow," he says, without giving the idea too much thought.

Ruth seemed to not want him or need him anymore, and Harry really wants to be needed by someone. He also welcomes the opportunity to get away from his familiar environment, the place where every corner, every street, even the grey sky all remind him of Ruth, and what can never be.