It was late in the day. Harry sat in his office, blinds drawn, with only the dim yellow glow of a desk lamp illuminating his important work. He had decided to survey the footage on his computer once more.
It was a grainy surveillance feed from Whitehall. Harry rewound. He watched the suspect stride out of the meeting room. He followed the man's progress through the labyrinth of passages that connected various dens of power. There. Harry paused the feed as the suspect collided with a small female figure, whose head was down, and hands were laden with registry files. Clicked print.
Clicked play again. Both figures kneeled to the floor, collecting the scattered files. Some seconds later, the suspect rose, and held out his hand to help the woman up. Glancing up at him, her face finally met the camera, and she became Ruth Evershed.
Harry paused the footage again. Drummed his fingers once, twice, three times. Picked up the phone and dialled her extension.
"Ruth, come here a minute."
Harry hung up and clicked print twice more, as Ruth peered through the doorway.
"Yes, Harry?" she asked, approaching his desk.
"Sit," Harry gestured.
Ruth took a seat opposite Harry, compliant, but poised in expectation.
"Tell me, Ruth," Harry began after a couple of seconds of contemplation, "Are you happy with your current role in this department?"
"Yes, of course," she frowned. Harry observed her quick eyes darting to the printer.
"Desk spook," he enunciated, "Some officers find that… rather dull, in the long term."
"Not me," Ruth answered cautiously, peering at him from behind her lashes.
"Oh no?"
"No."
Harry gave her a look, then. As if he didn't quite believe her. As if he could see right through her, Ruth thought.
That was something that had always thrilled and terrified Ruth in equal measure, and something that she went to particular pain to conceal. Plausible deniability.
She met him with stony coolness this time too.
"Two operations, in the past months, you've been asked to go out in the field," Harry pushed on. "And if memory serves me, you carried those operations off with aplomb. First the Shining Dawn case, and then the British Way. And with limited training on both occasions. Isn't that right?"
"W-Well. Yes." Ruth wrung her hands in her lap. Peered at Harry through her lashes some more.
"I wonder," his voice dropped to a low rumble, "Just how more you could achieve with some support on your side?"
"W-What did you have in mind?"
Harry passed her one of the screenshots he had printed out.
"Do you recognise this man?"
"No. Well, yes, but-"
"You just ran into him. Or rather, he ran into you."
Ruth pursed her lips.
"That's Laurence Cheapside," Harry continued. "He's the Senior Advisor to the Defence Secretary. Heard anything interesting on him, lately?"
"Yes, I know the name. Just… nothing unusual. Oxbridge, up and coming. Father's someone big in Big Oil, took him around the Middle East growing up. Now he's considered something of an expert on the Arab World. I didn't recognise him, Harry, really, it was just a second. He barely said two words to me."
"Ruth, I'm going to bring you in on something… sensitive. For the past few months, I've been investigating a series of high level leaks from the Ministry of Defence. Somebody's been giving away crucial intelligence on our position in Afghanistan. To some very serious people. Now, I've narrowed it down to our man Laurence Cheapside. He's the only one who could have had access to this particular pattern of evidence, on this particular pattern of dates. But I haven't any hard evidence, and Cheapside has powerful friends in Whitehall."
"Right," said Ruth.
"I need someone on him, Ruth, someone I can really trust," Harry murmured.
"By which you mean me. Not, for some reason, Fiona, or even Caroline, if you're going the way I think you're going."
"You're perfect, Ruth. He's already made contact with you, and of his own accord. He won't suspect a thing. I couldn't have planned it better myself. And we know he's attracted to you."
"What? That's ridiculous," she scoffed, "How could you possibly know that?"
"I've seen the footage."
"It's ridiculous," she repeated, jaw set.
"There's no need for modesty, Ruth," Harry said, reaching for the other prints.
He handed the first to Ruth, admiring the indignation that lit up her eyes.
"Here's Cheapside with his hand on the small of your back."
"That's nothing. He was helping me up. I overbalanced."
"Here he is smiling at you."
Ruth grasped the third print between her hands, brow furrowing in concentration.
"And here he is… watching you leave," Harry said diplomatically. The fourth print depicted Cheapside staring at Ruth's backside as she walked away.
Across the desk from him, she went very still, before pushing the print back to Harry in distaste.
"I told him my name," she said after a beat, eyes flashing.
"Your last name?" Harry countered.
"No, just Ruth."
"Your occupation?"
"No."
"Good. You'll be Ruth Hartley, Junior Analyst to the British Consul-General in Qatar. You've just returned from a stint in Doha. You thought it would be exciting; instead you ended up stuck inside the Embassy, pushing papers. You're a highly intelligent, intriguing woman who longs for adventure still, who has become bored and disillusioned with her work for the Government. The perfect snare for Laurence Cheapside."
"Snare."
"Yes."
"You mean honey trap."
"Yes."
"Right."
Harry ploughed on. "I believe Cheapside has been passing the information along to them from his city flat, a bolt hole he stays in during the week. I just need someone to get a bug in there, prior to the next meeting. Rifle through his computer, his files, maybe."
"And will I have to… will there be… sex?"
"You know very well MI5 doesn't instruct our operatives to do that anymore, Ruth."
"Don't patronise me. You and I both know that's crock."
"Not if you don't want to," he demurred softly.
"Well, of course I bloody don't, Harry!" Ruth felt heat creep up her neck.
"We will work a plan out."
"Right. Work a plan out. I just have to figure out a way of getting into his flat, somehow. Seduce him, then knock him out long enough to plant a bug and tip his flat outside down. But not with sex."
"Maybe you'll slip something in his drink. He'll wake up the next morning, hung over, thinking he's… that he's-" Harry struggled for the polite wording.
"Had it away with me?" Ruth provided.
"Ruth!"
"Oh, don't you dare act shocked. Not with what you're asking me to do."
"I'm asking you to help me bring down a very serious, very dangerous mole in the upper levels of government," Harry said squarely.
"You're asking me to put myself in an incredible amount of danger, Harry."
"There's no indication that Laurence Cheapside is anything other then a middle man for these people. He won't spot you. He's not dangerous. He's a public school boy. Wife in the country."
"The worst kind."
Harry smirked, and Ruth couldn't help but meet him in détente.
"Backup limited, I suppose?" she asked.
"I'll be with you on comms, the whole time, Ruth."
She sighed. "I don't know about this, Harry. What you're asking…"
"Come on Ruth, I know you. I know you fancy it," Harry said, leaning forward across his desk.
"I'm not like that," Ruth protested, but she didn't lean back.
"Yes you are. You're just like me. There's nothing like it, to get the blood pumping. The seduction, the game."
"I'm not any good at that."
"Liar," murmured Harry, voice gravely.
And Ruth agreed. A barely perceptible nod of her head, and Harry knew he had won.
After she had gone home, Harry poured himself another whiskey, and leaned back in his chair. In the dim of his office, her presence lingered still.