London – Monday 12th August, 2013:

She's always just out of his reach.

Sometimes she's in a dinghy, drifting out to sea. Sometimes she's crossing the road, and as a bus rumbles past he loses sight of her. The most common nighttime image he has of her is of her being bundled into a helicopter, and before he can climb aboard, the helicopter lifts off, hovers, and then swings away, and within minutes is out of sight. In that dream, he always crumples to the ground, feeling powerless to do anything to save her.

On this night, the dream is different.

He is following the helicopter from behind the wheel of his car. He keeps it in sight, his eyes lifting to see it just ahead of him. It reaches the hospital before him, and by the time he has parked in the carpark beside the large grey building, it has dropped her off, leaving her to the ministrations of hospital staff. He reaches the fifth floor of the hospital building only to be be met by the Home Secretary and Erin Watts.

"We're sorry, Harry," they say – together, like they have been rehearsing while they waited for him to arrive. "Ruth has gone to a better place, and the baby has gone with her."

"But I need to see her," he says, close to tears. "I never said goodbye."

"There's nothing we can do. We're very sorry. She's gone, and she's taken the baby with her."

He's not aware that he's crying until he wakes and feels the wetness on his cheeks. He lifts his hand and quietly wipes his cheeks, while beginning the familiar process of distancing himself from the dream, pushing his automatic emotional responses down into his body, and calming himself by thinking about the day ahead. It is when he feels Roxy's hand on his shoulder that he remembers he is not alone.

"Are you alright?" she asks, her voice calm, gentle, her fingers caressing the skin of his neck.

"Of course."

"You were thrashing about, Harry. You were moving your head from side to side and saying `no, no, no'" When he offers her no reply, she barrels ahead. "You were dreaming of Ruth again …... weren't you?"

Harry lifts his hand and massages the skin above his eyebrows. It is only six in the morning, and already the day weighs heavily upon him. "Yes," he says at last. "It was … the same dream, too." Harry feels Roxy turn in the bed, and he knows she's watching him. Without turning his head, he knows she is gazing at him with concern and compassion. He also knows that he doesn't deserve her, just as he didn't deserve Ruth. He recognises that because she loves him without conditions he will lose her. It is only a matter of when.

"Do you realise that you only ever dream of her when you're home …. in your own bed?"

"Yes."

"And do you know why that is?"

He does, of course, but he's not yet ready to share that with Roxy. He's not yet ready to tell her that the one and only time he and Ruth had made love was in the very same bed they are now lying together. He is sure he loves Roxy – she is a good and loving woman – but he loves her out of gratitude, rather than passion. He is not sure if he loves her or needs her, but he suspects he stays with her from need rather than from love. She has become his anchor, his tether to sanity. Without her he may simply unravel. She came into his life when he needed someone to care about him, because he no longer cared about himself. She entered his life knowing that he had loved another, and despite her having gone forever, he will always love her more than he can ever love this woman who now comforts him. She knows that, and she cares for him anyway.

It had been a little over a year earlier that they had met. Roxanne Waterfield represented Waterfield Security – which she ran with her brother and sister-in-law – and they had submitted a tender to provide 24-hour security for foreign dignitaries attending the London Olympics. It had been Calum Reid who had brought Harry's attention to the tender, suggesting that Waterfield were a good option.

"I know the family," Calum had said, his enthusiasm clear. "Roxy's and Felix's mum was my Gran's best friend, and my mum's first boyfriend was their oldest brother, Julian. I could have easily been a Waterfield, except that my mum found my dad irresistible. I get my good looks from him, so I'm not complaining."

Harry had raised one eyebrow at Calum, hoping he'd take the hint and stop talking. Three days later he'd met Roxy and Felix at their office in Central London. For the first three months their relationship had been purely business. He'd offered the contract to Waterfield, and they had provided the security for a number of minor foreign heads of state. When the Olympics had come to an end, there had been the Paralympics, and Harry had offered a small contract to Waterfield, and so he had again negotiated with Roxy.

It had been early in January, four months after the London Paralympics had ended, that Harry had run into Roxy Waterfield at a conference for British security personnel at a hotel in Hampshire. They had sat together at dinner, and had spent two companionable hours talking in the bar before they'd headed – separately – back to their rooms. A week after they'd returned to London, Roxy had rung Harry and asked him to dinner. Although he was sure nothing would develop between them, he had accepted her dinner invitation. He'd surprised even himself when, at the end of the evening, he had asked her to accompany him to the Home Office's New Year dinner, held that year in late January, because of the reshuffle in the Home Office when William Towers had suddenly retired due to ill health.

They had dated – casually, Harry had believed – for another two months, until one evening when Roxy had pinned him down when they were saying goodnight at her door. Until then their relationship had been chaste, with only brief kisses exchanged at the end of an evening out. Harry had assumed they were both satisfied with that.

"Would you like to come inside, Harry?" she had asked, her voice low. "I'm offering you more than coffee."

Harry had hesitated, feeling embarrassed that he'd not seen this coming. Roxy and he were the same age – they had been born in the same year, she in May and he in November – and he'd thought of her as a friend. He'd not ever contemplated the possibility of her becoming his lover.

"Come inside anyway," she'd added, when she saw his reaction. "Perhaps we need to talk about this."

Over coffee, Harry had told Roxy about Ruth. When he reached the part where Ruth had died, he stopped, unable to continue.

"I already knew some of that story, Harry, but thank you for telling me." When Harry lifted his eyes in a question, she continued. "Calum had told me the essence of what Ruth was to you."

"She still is ….. that …... to me."

"I know. I'm not expecting I'll replace her. I'm only offering ….. comfort. Besides, it's a long time since I last slept with a man."

"How long?"

"Around twelve years. I had a fling with someone I used to know at university. We'd each been recently divorced. It was fun, but not terribly serious. You?"

Seventeen months and three days. "Four days before Ruth died." He hadn't added that he and Ruth had only had the one night together ….. that one glorious night which they'd both known would unlikely be repeated, but just not for the reason of her death. They had been prepared – almost – for Harry to be extradited three days later. He had expected to end his days rotting in some prison off the shores of the US. He hadn't been prepared for Ruth's death, and he still hadn't fully come to terms with it.

"I'll not plead with you, Harry, but I find you attractive, and I'd like to share my bed with you. We will just be satisfying a physical need. Nothing more."

So he'd stayed the night, and had been pleasantly surprised by how much he had enjoyed both Roxy as a lover and as a companion. Her body reminded him of Ruth's – rounded hips, full breasts, strong legs – and he had lost himself in her for those few exquisite moments of coupling. When he came he'd been careful to not call out for fear the name which left his lips would be Ruth's.

Over the following five months they had seen one another no more than twice a week, and at first they only ever spent the night together in her house, and in her bed, but only three months ago he had warmed to the idea of Roxy staying over at his house. It had been a watershed moment when he had asked her to sleep with him in his own bed. That had been where he and Ruth had spent their one and only night together, and to share that with Roxy had seemed wrong somehow. Theirs was not a passionate relationship, but it was respectful, and of late, Harry had admitted to himself that he had grown to love Roxy Waterfield. She was kind and gentle, forgiving, loving and understanding, and when they went out she looked good on his arm, her honey blond hair shining in the light. At this time of his life she was the perfect woman for him. He could see himself spending the remainder of his life with her. He could not, however, see himself marrying her. Apart from his one unwise and painful experience of marriage, he had only ever wanted to repeat that commitment with one woman.

Harry stays in bed while Roxy dresses and then leaves. He feels bad. She calls his dreams of Ruth his Guilt Dreams.

"You only have them when we're spending the night together in your bed," she'd pointed out to him a month or so earlier. "Perhaps we should only sleep together at my house. It could save us both a lot of anguish."

He had apologised, and said he'd think about it. What he hadn't told her was that he'd only begun having the dreams after they had begun sleeping together. His first disturbing dream about Ruth had occurred while he'd slept alone two nights after he'd first slept with Roxy. Harry agreed with her that they were fed by guilt. Despite the younger Gavrik being the one who had fatally wounded Ruth, Harry is sure that had he acted in a more forthright manner, she might still be alive today. He cannot get past the truth as he sees it …... that when she needed it most, he had failed to protect her.

It is only when Harry hears the click of his front door as Roxy leaves that he rolls out of bed and heads to the shower. As he stands naked under the hot water, allowing his skin to turn red before he adds the cold, he wonders how long it will be before he no longer thinks of Ruth with guilt and regret.


Across London, Malcolm Wynn-Jones stares at the still image on his monitor. He often works through the night, but on this morning he woke at 5 am, and so he thought he may as well check the images he has been capturing with his CCTV hack. With the myriad CCTV systems in operation across the UK, and most of them incompatible with one another, it has taken Malcolm over a decade to be able to access any CCTV system at will. With the exception of several areas in Scotland, and much of Northern Ireland, he can access video surveillance from most of the built up areas in the UK. His scans over the past 48 hours have been of the streets of Birchington-on-Sea in Kent, as well as the central part of Margate, just along the coast. While his scans have not given him any sign of Robert Seymour or Allal Harrak, there is one image which has shocked him to his core.

He waits until 7.30, and he has finished eating his breakfast before he makes two phone calls. The first is to Calum Reid, and the other is to Catherine Townsend.