"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
- Ernest Hemingway.
Friday afternoon - 16th July:
The worst thing about being a spy is also the best thing. Dealing day by day with people whose job it is to lie for a living can be dangerous, heart-stopping, and often heart-breaking, while at the same time it can be exciting and addictive. Beth isn't even sure how many of her colleagues she trusts, or whether her colleagues feel able to trust her, but there are times when they all have to take that giant leap, and just get on with it.
Take Lucas, for instance. While on an operation with him, she trusts him with her life, but here on the Grid, she is sure he is dodgy as hell. And as if manifesting him from her thoughts, Lucas strides across the Grid and sits – uninvited – on the corner of her desk, a manilla folder in one hand, his expression unreadable.
"I've just had a strange phone call from this woman, and I thought you might like to look into it."
Beth wrinkles her nose in distaste. "So long as it gets me out of this place for a few hours, I'll do almost anything."
"It won't. You can give the deep investigative stuff to Tariq, but a few quick searches should sort it out."
"Why can't you do it," Beth whines, "or better still, Ruth?" She chances a glance across the Grid to where Ruth appears buried beneath folders, pages of A4 paper, two staplers, a pale blue scarf, and a very large pair of head phones.
"I don't want Ruth to know about this," Lucas says quietly, leaning a little closer. "The subject matter is .. sensitive."
"I'm sure Ruth can -"
"It's about Harry. You'd best read it." Lucas places the manilla folder on the desk in front of Beth, and then stands. "Harry is due back on Monday, so this needs to be wrapped up before then."
"Can't you just …?"
"What?" Lucas appears irritated.
"Summarise. I hate reading files." The truth is that Beth was about to head off to visit one of her assets from before she'd left for Africa. She needs to breathe air which hasn't first passed through an air conditioning system. She needs to walk. She needs to mingle with those in the world outside these walls – normal people, who have no awareness of how tenuous life is, people who think about nothing more than what they plan to have for dinner tonight, or whether their kids need new school shoes.
"You know what to do, Beth. Read the contents of the folder, make a list of tasks, and if necessary, delegate some of those tasks to Tariq."
"But leave Ruth out of it."
"Yes. Keep this from Ruth."
"It must be bad, then," she says, seeing her day out slipping from her grasp.
"Potentially it is. It will be your job to see how quickly we can clear Harry's name."
"What if he's not innocent?"
"He is."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Read it and you'll see. Just get it done."
"Before Monday?"
"Yes. Before Monday."
"So … given today is Friday, this means my weekend is -"
"- to be spent here .. at least until Harry is in the clear," and Lucas turns and leaves by the very door through which Beth wishes she could disappear. She looks around the Grid to see very few agents at their desks. Ruth glances up to smile at her and then – thankfully – drops her eyes to her monitor.
Ruth is only pretending to be busy. Being Friday afternoon, she is filling in time until it's time to go home, or more accurately, she is only waiting to see whether Harry drops in on his way home from the planning conference for section heads. Ruth is sure the five day in-house conference in Canterbury is little more than a perk for management. Surely they could have achieved similar results were they to have met on the sixth floor of Thames House.
It is a week since she has seen Harry, and the time away from him has allowed her to see `them' with fresh eyes. In her private moments she has examined their recent interactions – including his proposal of marriage, which she had met with her usual resistance – and she has concluded that she should no longer resist any advances he makes towards her. She no longer wishes to push him away. To do so only results in confusion and hurt in him, and a continuing deep sadness in herself. It makes no sense to continue punishing him – punishing them – in an effort to honour the deaths of those who have lost their lives while serving their country. Continuing to sacrifice their chance at happiness will never smooth the wrinkles left in the fabric of time by the senseless deaths of their colleagues, and the tragic loss of George. She has lost George, and he has lost Ros, along with so many others, and maybe, just maybe, together they can provide some much needed comfort for one another. Perhaps together they can make sense of the unfathomable.
Sensing someone approaching, Ruth looks up to see Dimitri bearing down on her. She smiles into his eyes. "Hi, stranger," she says.
"Evershed," he says, his usual greeting, "coming to the pub after work?"
"I thought I might … finish up here. It might take me until seven or so."
"You know … when you're on your death bed, no-one'll thank you for having worked until seven each Friday night."
Sometimes Dimitri can be a strange man .. almost as strange as Harry. "I'm sure that's true, Dimitri. I don't work late every Friday night .. just this one."
She watches him as he plants his backside on the corner of her desk, displacing a pile of files. "Sorry," he says, standing to gather together the files which have fallen on the floor. When he's satisfied that they're all in order, he looks at her closely. "Are you expecting Harry to drop in tonight?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Nothing." Dimitri feigns innocence. "I just thought that you might be thinking of … welcoming him home."
Now he's gone too far! "I thought that with Lucas being elsewhere, at least one of us should inform him about the week's happenings."
Dimitri watches her closely, before being distracted by Beth crossing the Grid floor to the Technology Suite. "I wonder what those two are up to," he muses.
Ruth turns to see Beth taking the seat next to Tariq. "Perhaps you should investigate." She grants him an innocent smile. "Then report back to me."
"I just might do that, but first … coffee."
"I need you to find everything you can about this woman," Beth says, sliding a sheet of paper in front of Tariq, who has been in a world of his own, eyes on his monitors, headphones blocking all extraneous sounds. "Margaret Meredith. All I know is that she used to be married to Neville Corrigan."
Tariq looks up at her, a frown on his face. "Wasn't he something to do with the Chancellor of the Exchequer?"
"He had some kind of shadowy role in that office, yes, but it's his ex-wife who interests me for now."
"What's she done?"
Beth waits, watching Tariq closely. Can she trust him? She barely knows him. Tariq and she rarely have reason to speak. "I shouldn't say anything. It's .. delicate .." she says warily.
"So tell me anyway. Who in this section is more discreet than me?"
Beth knows she should say no more, but once she'd read through the information in the folder given her by Lucas, she was completely drawn in. What better than a juicy mystery with a sexual twist? So with her head bent close to Tariq's, Beth shares the bare bones of the accusations against Harry Pearce.
"I need information on her most of all," Beth continues, putting space between them. "Everything. All the dirt, the grubbier the better. I need to know Margaret Meredith's habits. Who she sees on a regular basis, and who she sleeps with. I also need the CCTV footage from inside the hotel."
Tariq lifts his wide eyes to Beth, and frowns. "What makes you so sure Harry didn't do this?"
"Because if he had, he'd have to have been drugged."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I just am. Besides..."
"Besides what?"
Beth breaks eye contact, realising that she's already said too much. She doesn't want Tariq's search to be influenced by prior knowledge. She chances a quick glance at Ruth, who is once more bent over the files on the desk in front of her. "Harry isn't prone to … that kind of thing."
Tariq nods. He's beginning to get the picture.
"Hello, you two," Dimitri says, entering the technology suite. "Who's for the pub?"
"It's not even four o'clock," Beth snaps, "and some of us have work to do."
"Anything interesting?"
"No," say Beth and Tariq together.
Dimitri's interest is further piqued, but he'll bide his time. Who was it said patience is a virtue? Probably Confucius. Or Shakespeare. Or his mum.
Ruth soon forgets about what might or might not be happening in the technology suite, as she at last decides that the files she has accessed all week are tidy and in order. On her way back from the registry she passes by the technology suite where Tariq is busy, and doesn't even look up as she passes. Back on the Grid floor, Dimitri is sitting at his desk, reading something on his monitor, while surprisingly, Beth is still at her desk.
"That must be interesting," Ruth says, gliding silently into Beth's work space, and as she does, she notices how quickly Beth minimises her screen.
"It's not really. Lucas threw some extra work my way, and I thought I'd do it now."
"Mmm," Ruth muses, almost certain that Beth is hiding something.
For the next twenty minutes Ruth focuses entirely on reviewing her tasks for the week, while still keeping an eye on Beth. Her patience soon pays off, as Beth eventually heads to the loos, leaving her desk unattended. With the stealth honed from years working at Section D, Ruth glances around her, to see Tariq busy, and Dimitri with his back to her – checking Facebook, no less! Very quickly she heads to Beth's desk, and opening the manilla folder, she speed-reads the top page on which the summary of the phone call has been written in Lucas's sprawling handwriting. When she sees the names, Margaret Meredith and Harry written in the same sentence, it knocks the breath out of her. Is this true? Would Harry do something like this, especially only a few short months after he'd asked her to marry him? Was he that fickle? If so, she'd definitely dodged a bullet.
So why does she feel such devastation? Why does her heart ache so? Because what she has just read is an accusation by Margaret Meredith, and so may be being made for some other purpose. That is how the intelligence community works – lies upon lies, ducking and weaving, smoke and mirrors.
Ruth quickly looks around the Grid, and with no-one watching her, she wakes up Beth's monitor, thankfully not locked, to see an image of a middle-aged woman elegantly outfitted in a dark suit over a lavender shirt. The image appears to have been captured on CCTV, and her head is bent towards a middle-aged man – a balding, fair-haired middle-aged man. She flops back in Beth's chair as though punched.
"You're not supposed to see that," she hears Beth say from behind her. "That's for Tariq's and my eyes only."
Ruth spins around, embarrassed to be caught snooping. "How long have you known about this?" she says accusingly.
Beth sighs, grabbing a chair from the desk next to hers, and pulling it close to the chair in which Ruth sits. "Just a couple of hours," she says quietly. "This is not for your eyes."
"Why not? Don't you think -"
"Because Lucas instructed Tariq and me to wrap this up quickly. He's certain the accusation is false." Despite the bubble of rage inside her, Ruth can detect how carefully Beth is speaking, as if to a small child … or an armed adversary.
Hearing a noise from the doorway to the Grid she looks up to see Harry entering. He is wearing a dark suit with a blue tie, his black coat folded over one arm. She watches while he settles himself behind his desk, glancing at the pile of memos she had left for him. Despite her anger, Ruth feels a familiar tipping in her belly at the sight of him. Harry suddenly looks up, his eyes moving from Ruth's unattended desk to the rest of the Grid, until his gaze settles on her. As he watches her his eyes soften, so she offers him her best death stare.
She can't bear looking at him any longer, so she turns to Beth. "I have to go home," she says. "I can't stay here. Please give Harry my apologies."
As she returns to her desk and quickly tidies her things, locking her computer, and then gathering her coat and bag, she feels Beth's eyes on her. Ruth doesn't know what's so confusing about her leaving. She sees it as her only option.
She hurries towards the door, sensing Harry's eyes on her all the way. "Ruth .." she hears him say as she passes the door to his office, but she can't look at him. It is only once she is in the lift to take her down to the ground floor that Ruth relaxes, surprised to find tears running down her cheeks.
Beth has witnessed Ruth's sudden departure, and has a kernel of understanding. Beth has only ever been properly in love once in her life, before the object of her love had died horribly in a shoot out between two rival rebel gangs. From the moment she learned of Anders' death, she swore she'd never love another, and she hasn't, but she understands love. She understands how all-consuming love can be, how it swallows a person whole, so that nothing is ever the same again. Beth isn't even sure that Ruth is aware of how completely she loves Harry, but Beth knows … she recognises the signs. Ruth's escaping the Grid and Harry's presence is a sure sign that the older woman is hurt in a way that only those hopelessly in love with another can understand. Ruth sees Harry's actions as a betrayal, and with Ruth being Ruth, she has deemed Harry guilty without trial.
Beth decides to sort this out once and for all … for Ruth's sake. She heads back to the technology suite, where Tariq greets her with a wide grin. "I think I've figured it out," he says.
"Everything fine here?" Harry asks, as Beth enters his office, the explosive manilla folder in her hands.
"Just tickety-boo," Beth replies. Harry lifts one side of his mouth in a half smile.
"Sorry to interrupt," Beth says carefully, "but Lucas has given me a task which, despite his instructions to the contrary, I have decided to bring to your attention."
Harry waves his hand in the direction of the spare chair opposite his own, and not for the first time, Beth wonders what it is Ruth sees in Harry, although she is in no position to judge another's tastes in men. Anders was a tall, balding Scandinavian with a terrible sense of humour, and a penchant for Country and Western music, which he'd play into the early hours while she tried to sleep. He also had a wife and two children back home in Oslo.
"This is … delicate," Beth says, watching Harry for any sign he might already know what this is about. Harry sits up in his chair and leans forward. "It's personal," she adds, watching Harry.
"To me or you?"
Beth takes a deep breath. "I'm afraid that it's about you."
Harry nods, so Beth drops her eyes to her notes. With her eyes firmly on the notes in front of her, Beth shares how Lucas had approached her earlier that afternoon, having received a phone call from Margaret Meredith. "Margaret Meredith runs a media company." Beth pauses, watching Harry closely, but he shakes his head, momentarily widening his eyes. "Her company makes videos – promotional videos for business and corporations."
"Still not following you, Beth," Harry says, wishing she'd get on with it.
"She says that around a month ago she met you at an inner city hotel, and … you and she took a room in the hotel for the night, where you … you know ..."
"Am I supposed to have slept with this woman?" Harry's voice is cold.
"She claims you did. This photograph," she adds, pushing towards him the image of him and Meredith at the bar, "seems to imply that at least you met her."
Harry stares at the image, and then pushes it back towards Beth. "She asked me for a light. I didn't have one. That doesn't prove I slept with her. I'm not in the habit of sleeping with every woman I meet."
"The problem we have," Beth continues, almost certain that Harry is telling the truth, "is that she even provided some … personal details which are said to … identify you. She rang Lucas today to say that there was … pillow talk, during which you shared with her the details of a group of people who are .. planning a coup."
"A coup? On whom?"
"The British government."
"That's utter bullshit!" Harry is staring hard at Beth, but then he sighs, passing his hand across his forehead. "I have no idea who this woman is, and I have even less idea what she was talking about."
"She described you, as well as … other details." Beth pushes a sheet of A4 paper across the desk to Harry, who quickly peruses it. It describes him as having a stocky build, fair hair, greying, balding, gun shot wound to the left shoulder, uncircumcised, a flower-shaped mole on his right testicle, old scar on his left inner thigh.
Once he's read it, he lifts his eyes to Beth. "Everything mentioned here can be found in my personal medical file, which I seem to remember was illegally accessed around seven weeks ago. The whole story is fabrication."
"I was hoping you'd say that." she says, gazing hard at Harry, "but I had to be certain. Her tale of the proposed coup, however, just may be true."
Of course. That's it. How better to get his attention than to accuse him of misconduct? He passes his hand over his face in a gesture of weariness. "Does Ruth know about this?" he asks, his eyes burning into Beth's, who nods.
"She accessed the information while I was .. away from my desk. It's the reason she left in such a hurry." Beth waits, watching while Harry appears to be formulating a plan. "If you hurry you can be at our flat before she arrives home. I'll … not be going home tonight. I'm hoping Dimitri might let me sleep on his sofa."
Harry has barely heard her. He is already on his feet, and is shrugging on his coat. Beth watches while, without saying another word, he disappears through his office door.