14

Rescuing Love.

My take on the inquiry…spoilers for 9.8.

I haven't written a fic in a while…I guess I needed a break! But I was enjoying those on the site so much that inspiration struck again…

Chapter One.

1.

He makes his way to his house having asked the driver to drop him off a few hundreds yards away, wearily, his briefcase weighing more in his tired hand than it actually does. After his phone call from Towers, he'd given a very quick briefing to the team, studiously avoiding Ruth's eyes, and locked himself in his office, blinds drawn, to write up his report – knowing that he was signing his early retirement sentence, if not his jail term. Then he'd left to go home, automatically glancing at Ruth's desk to check whether she was still there, and quelched his disappointment at her absence. Not that he was expecting gratitude from her but still…

He rummages in his pocket for his keys, eyes gritty with exhaustion, bones aching with bitterness for the 30 years of sacrifice which, he knows, will be made to pale into insignificance in comparison to his treason, by the powers that be….

'It's easier for us women…at least we have handbags.'

He freezes and raises his head. She's sitting on his doorstep, huddled in her coat, looking at him somewhat uncertainly.

'What…you shouldn't be here' he says harshly – more harshly than he means to, shocked by her presence. 'You've probably been tailed by Internal Affairs' goons ever since you left the Grid.'

'Bugger Internal Affairs…Harry, are you alright?'

He sways on his feet. She is sitting there, and all he can remember is the younger her, barging into the meetting room, arms full of files, and the words, 'Bugger the Home Office', which she had uttered then and which had made him realise from the very start that here was someone different, someone quirky, someone….He shakes his head to dispel the memories. 'I'm fine. Look…..it's one thing having my own career going down the toilets. There's no reason why you should…'

She shrugs. 'I would say my own career is pretty compromised anyway. I mean…I'm the woman for whom the great Sir Harry Pearce sacrificed everything…there's no way they'll believe that you'd have done this for any of your officers, so…Harry, can we…'

He doesn't hear the softness in her voice, nor does he see the concern in her eyes and the lingering terror at the thought he might have died. All he can hear are the words themselves, and he can't believe she's just said them. He stiffens. 'Yes. Well. I'm sorry I put your life above your reputation. Look, it's been a harrowing day, and frankly, I'm not in the mood for doorstep chit chat. So if you don't mind…'

She steps away from him, as if he had slapped her. It takes her a few moments to collect herself. 'Fine', she says in a curt, clipped tone which matches his own. 'Just tell me. What are you going to do to save your career then?'

'For God's sake, Ruth…everything we're saying now is being picked up by multidirectional…'

'No it's not. Well. Not for another 20 minutes anyway. Tariq put a scramble around your house. He could only set it up for 20 mns tops though – enough time for them to wonder whether their systems are screwy but not enough for them not to figure out what he is up to. So', she repeats with as much calm as she can muster through the pain gripping her guts. 'What are you going to do?'

'Nothing', he says wearily, defeated. 'All I can do is hope that they will offer me early retirement. If so, I'll take it. With or without pension. If not…'

She stares at him incredulously. 'What? You're not going to fight them? You're going to let them…'

'I don't have that fight left in me, Ruth. It's one too many.'

'But you know so much about…about them. You know where every single Cold War skeleton is buried, where every single dirty Northern Ireland secret is filed…surely you can…'

'I can't', he cuts in peremptorily. 'I simply can't. Or rather…I won't. I can't be bothered. The Service has cost me too much over the years and…anyway. At the end of the day…it's my decision. It doesn't concern you.'

'How can you say that…you gave away a state secret to save my life, Harry. So whether you want it or not, I'm implicated in this!'

He is oblivious to the cold permeating his clothes, and to the fact that they have been standing in front of his house for the best part of half an hour. All he knows is that she has not once said she loves him. 'I'd have thought you'd only be too happy not to be implicated', he counters coldly. 'After all, you thought I was wrong…how did you put it? That it was wrong of me to…' He stops, balking at self-crucifiction.

'But that was different! That was when I thought you were willing to give a WMD to the Chinese!'

'And why would you find it so abhorrent, Ruth?',he raises his voice. 'After all, you did the same yourself!'

'What?'

'When Mani…. you told him where the uranium was. Well, where you thought it was. For George's sake, and Nico's, you too were willing to give a state secret and…'

'They were civilians! They had done nothing to get involved! They were innocent! But me…I am one of your officers. It's like being a combatant in war, Harry. You know what you sign up to when you join! So how can you even compare the two and…' She takes a deep breath, tears threatening to overwhelm her, aware somehow that they have both lost control of the situation. 'I'm a British Intelligence officer, Harry. And you are my commanding officer', she repeats softly, overcome with exhaustion.'

He walks past her and opens his front door, showing no sign of inviting her in. 'Yes. I am all of that. But if that is all you can focus on right now…then you have no understanding at all of who I really am. Good night, Ruth. And I think that from now on, it'd be best if we don't see each other again.'

He shuts the door behind him, and them, firmly, irrevocably.

2.

She stares at his frontdoor without seeing it. Perhaps she should ring the bell, regardless. Perhaps she should ignore the way he dismissed her. Perhaps….

She shakes her head. In his shoes, she would have done exactly the same thing, come to think of it. How can I make it up to you, Harry…she wonders bleakly. How can I make up for the way I have rejected and treated you…always keeping you at arms'length, never letting you close, never…Tears prick her eyes, as she makes her way home wearily, not caring whether she is followed or not.

Past caring too when she finds Alec sitting on her doorstep. 'If I were you I'd make sure not to drop off the radar', he attacks without preamble. 'Might give some people the wrong idea. Like plotting with Harry to get him his job back, for example'.

'I'm not plotting with Harry', she sighs, tired beyond description. 'What do you want?'

He shrugs. 'For some bizarre reason I have been asked to lead the investigation into Harry's career. I need you to find out why. I'm a drunk who was kicked out of the Service in disgrace months ago, and dragged out from under the cobwebs by the very man whose head they want. Doesn't make sense. Can we talk about it inside? My balls are freezing out here.'

'Ever the charmer', she mutters under your breath as she lets him in. 'What makes you think that I can find out? That I even care?', she challenges him whilst making him a cup of tea.

'Ruth. Please. You of all people can find out those things. Surely you have a contact somewhere who owes you a favour. As for not caring…give me some credit.'

She looks away. 'Why have you accepted the job?'

'Are you kidding? It's my chance to get back in. For a clean start.'

'At Harry's expense. Great' she snorts.

'Oh don't be ridiculous', he retorts. 'He put himself into this mess. For you, if I might add. Anyway. I want back in, but I don't like being manipulated. This thing stinks. I need to know whether I'm expected to dig the dirt on it, to make sure that I don't find it, or to bury it.'

'And if I find that you're expected to dig it out, what you will do?', she asks, hating the tremor in her voice and the shakiness in her hands.

'Don't know', he admits openly. 'Did you speak to him today?'

'No', she lies.

'Right. And I'm the Pope's lovechild. You need to work on your poker face, Ruth', he says as he gets up and makes his way out.

'Why?'

'Well, to convince the inquiry that Harry couldn't possibly have betrayed the British state which he has served for over thirty years out of love. That he acted in the best interest of the British state, in fact, by giving a state secret away.'

'And why would I convince them of that?', she asks, fatigue, pain and fear addling her brain.

'Because let's face it, Ruth. If you don't, your career goes down the toilet, and with it Harry's best chance at not spending the next ten years of his life in jail. And your own chance to have some sort of a life with him in the bargain. Now if you don't mind…I have some digging to do.' He opens the door and peers into the darkness. 'Christ, the IA goons are there', he mutters. 'Now I'll have some explaining to do.'

'Alec!',she calls him back. 'Why…why are you doing this?Helping him…'

'Who says I am, Ruth? Who says I am not laying a trap for you both? Textbook IA stuff: get your main suspects to trust you….' He takes pity on her. 'He gave me a chance when no one else did. I owe him. And as I said…this case stinks. And I've always had a sensitive nose.' He waves her goodbye without looking back.

She gets back inside. Her list of phone calls to place is already ten-names long.

3.

'Towers insisted on putting you in charge', she tells him three days later in a dark coffee shop off Brick Lane, late at night, having shaken off the IA people thanks to the tube rush our.

He raises his eyebrows. 'Mmm…how did he and Harry get on?'

'Harry didn't rate him very highly as a person. Towers finds him infuriating, but seems…seemed to respect him.'

'Did your contacts find out why the DG and PM went along with it?'

'No else from IA would do it, apparently. Surely that's good, no? That means that there are some people out there who believe in him, who don't want to be linked to the inquiry and…', she urges, her eyes brighter than they have been of late.

'Yes, it does', he says thoughtfully. 'So Towers basically described me as the last chance saloon guy. The guy who was so desperate to get back in that he'd do anything, even destroy the career of the legendary Harry Pearce…' He falls silent, mulling it over.

'Are you?', she asks directly.

'Depends', he says enigmatically. 'By the way, I know you haven't spoken to him in days. Had a tiff? For someone whose life he saved you seem rather…detached from him.'

She looks at him straight in the eyes. 'I have not been in touch with him. As per protocole. Now what?'

He shrugs. 'Now you wait til I formally interrogate you. You'll probably be called to testify to the formal inquiry which I will recommend that they hold.'

She clenches her fists. 'You'll recommend….so now you've already made up your mind', she snorts. 'How can you even know that you'll recommend an inquiry given that you've barely begun…'

'I have no choice but to recommend it, Ruth', he cuts in. 'It's clear they want it. Whoever they are. And it's equally clear that some of them want the inquiry to crucify him, and others to exonerate him. Towers, probably. Make no mistake. Your part in this will be crucial. So if I were you, I'd start thinking very carefully about what I would say. Or not say.'

She looks at him levelly, calmly, the coldness in her voice belying the turmoil in her heart. 'The truth, Alec. I will say nothing but the truth.'

His answering stare is equally calm. 'Good. I would expect nothing less of you.' He gets up. 'You will be notified of dates and places for all of this in due course. Meanwhile, get back to work. That's the best thing you can do under the circumstances.'

4.

5 January 2011

Sir Peter

I have now completed my review of Sir Harry Pearce's career at MI5, starting with his very first posting. It is my recommendation that a full, formal inquiry be held: whilst there is not enough to warrant criminal prosecution at this stage, it is worth ensuring that the Service be seen to do as much as it can to maintain the high standards of conduct from its officers to which the British public is entitled. In this case, there are reasons to believe that Sir Harry did not exercise good judgement in the Albany incident: it would be opportune to assess whether his lapses have deeper roots in his past as a MI5 officer, or whether there were just a one –off episode. The role played by Ms Evershed, whether wittingly or not, in that episode deserves further scrutiny as well. I enclose a fuller report on the matter with this cover letter, together with all relevant documents from Sir Harry's file.

I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely, etc…

5.

'Malcom? It's Ruth. All in place? Good. Camera feeds, sounds? Excellent. I've found a second hand unmarked van. Paid cash. I can set you up as soon as you are ready….No, not on the first day. He goes first. Alec reckons Harry's testimony will take about three days. Then I'm on. Of course I'm scared…No, I haven't spoken to him. Our last conversation was….sorry? Don't worry, I'll be fine. One way of another it'll soon be over. Alright. Thanks Malcolm. See you tomorrow.'

6.

Harry's defence is simple: he would have done the same for any of his agents, especially in the light of the funding crisis. Given that he had been told posts would not be refilled upon the death or departure of anyone in the service, he was not willing to sacrifice crucial expertise at the altar of a dummy WMD, for the sake of protecting an out-dated Cold War secret. Straightforward, and simple.

She watched his testimony. Three long days of relentless, revoltingly intimate questioning. She knows what's in store for her. She knows too what she has to say to hammer the final nail in the coffin of the inquiry. She hopes, she prays, that Harry, if he ever were to find out what she is about to do, will see it for what it is. She hopes, though, that he will never find out.

She's wrong.

7.

He dials the number at last and at the tenth ring is about to hang up, relieved not to have to talk to her, when she picks up. 'Hi. It's me', he says unnecessarily.

'Harry!' – her voice is tentative, almost shy but with warmth underneath. He doesn't hear the warmth, he only hears the cold, harsh words of her testimony to the inquiry.

'Can we meet? I need to talk to you. Ten minutes from now on the rooftop?'

'Have you…have they told you…?'

'Ten minutes. Please.'

He snaps the phone shut, steeling himself for what is to come, and makes his way straight from the front lobby to the roof. She is there already, looking over the skyline, and his heart constricts. She turns round to face him, a smile lighting up his face – and fading fast when she takes note of how dark and forbidding he looks. 'Harry, what…'

'They've dropped all charges against me. I won't go any higher than this in the Service – not that I care – and I have to take another month off to let things calm down a bit. But basically I'm in the clear.'

She gapes at him. 'But that's wonderful! How, Harry, I'm so pleased, so happy for…what's going on, why are you…'

'In a month I will be back here. We'll have to work together. If you want to stay, that is. That's up to you. At the inquiry…' He steels himself against his own feelings. 'You made it perfectly clear how you felt. About me.'

She pales. 'But that material is classified, how…'

He throws her a withering look. 'Please. Give me some credit. You're not the only one who can access that stuff. Anyway. I read the transcript of your testimony. It goes without saying that if I had had any inkling…I would never have proposed. I would never have opened up to you as I did after Ros died – my fears, my disgust with this whole business…I trusted you. Despite everything. And had I known…' He shakes his head, oblivious to her shocked, stricken face.

'Harry, please, let me explain.', she pleads.

'There's nothing to explain', he cuts in coldly. 'Your testimony speaks for itself. Actually, there is one thing. Those things you said that night…those pathetic, worthless words of yours…we can never be more together than we are right now…At the time I thought that was as close to an admission of lo…Anyway. Clearly you didn't mean those words. Why did you say them, then? Who do you think I am, that I need to be fed crumbs off George's table?' He clenches his hands into fists in his pockets.

'Are you going to let me explain?', she asks hotly, fighting against her tears.

'You know what, I don't care anymore. All you need to know is that if you decide to stay on the Grid, I will treat you in exactly the same way as I do all the others. With the same respect, and the same demands. I wanted to make that absolutely clear', he says flatly. 'I have to get back downstairs now.'

She stares at him as if she had never see him before. 'Would you have given Albany to Lucas? If you had known how I feel…would you have made the trade, Harry?'

He looks at her with such contempt in his eyes that she recoils from him. 'How dare you ask me this. How dare you.'

'Would you have?', she challenges him, holding on to the last vestiges of her self-control.

'Yes. I would. Because as I told them, and as you put it yourself so eloquently to them, I would not have risked losing the Service's top analyst for the sake of protecting a now useless Cold War secret.'

'Is that why you did it all along, Harry?', she asks, trembling.

'Yes. Ultimately, yes', he says coldly.

'I see. And if Mani had threatened to kill me, back then….would you have given him the uranium?', she whispers. 'Would keeping your best analyst have been worth handing over the means to manufacture a nuclear bomb?'

His fists are so tightly clenched that they hurt. 'No', he states flatly, closer to breaking than he has ever been, hating himself, and her, for that necessary lie.

She draws a deep breath. 'Well. At least I know where I stand. Thank you for making that clear to me. Now, if you don't mind…my work day is over. So I will see you in a month's time. Assuming I decide to stay.'

She walks past him, head averted, back ramrod straight.

He doesn't go after her.

8.

'Welcome back, Harry'.

He smiles at Alec bleakly. 'Thanks. Not merely for this. For…everything.'

'Don't thank me. The whole thing stank.'

'Tell me one thing though. A few….documents went missing. From my file. Any idea where they might have gone? It's just that….I wouldn't want them to fall into the wrong hands.'

Alec smiles enigmatically. 'I don't know what you're talking about, Harry.'

Harry looks at him levelly. 'Ah well. It's quite fortunate for me though that they disappeared. A happy coincidence, wouldn't you say?'

'Again…I simply don't know. Anyway. Thank Ruth. Without her…'

Harry stiffens. 'What do you mean?', he frowns.

'Well, Harry….let me put it that way. Your performance was pretty good, but hers killed the inquiry stone dead.'

'I read the transcript of her testimony', he cuts in flatly.

Alec frowns. 'So you see what I mean, then.' He gets up. 'I'll get out of your hair now. You probably want to have a word with the team. They've been pretty cut up about the whole thing.'

'Where are you off to?' Harry asks curiously as Alec makes a hasty departure. 'Oh…things to check at home. Boiler problem. You know.'

Harry nods. A half smile plays on his lips.

9.

Alec rushes up the stairs, breathless. He goes straight to his bedroom, ignoring the squalor of three days' worth of dirty dishes and smeared glasses. He lifts the third floorboard to the right of his bed, feverishing searching the hidden cavity underneath. It's empty.

He swears. And then smiles with grudging admiration. The wily old fox…how on earth did he know where to find the stuff…

10.

He looks at them, Tariq, Dimitri and Beth. So young. So innocent in so many ways. And already so loyal. His throat tightens. 'I can't thank you enough…' he begins. 'For your support. For…'

Beth shrugs. 'We did very little. Well. Tariq did, and Malcolm helped but really, in the end…'

'It was Ruth', Tariq says. 'By the way, where is she?'

Harry grits his teeth. 'I don't know. But look, what you did, all of you…'

'It's all down to her', Tariq stays stubbornly. 'She should be here with us, to celebrate.' He smiles. 'I'll text her, tell her we're at the George's and…' At last he notices Harry's forbidding expression. 'Harry, you do know what she did, right…'

'I read the transcript', he says tightly, for what seems the umpteenth time that day.

Tariq faces clears up again. 'Oh good. So you know. Well.' He punches into his phone again.

'Tariq'. And Harry's voice is so flat, so devoid of any inflexion, that Tariq can't but look up. 'I do not think that Ruth wishes to be here tonight. And to tell you the truth…I have been ordered to stay off the Grid for a month. I think it is best if I go now. And when I come back, I will take you all out for a meal. Meanwhile….take three days off, all of you. Alec will need you fresh during the last weeks of the interim period. That will be all. And again…from the bottom of my heart, thank you.'

'But Ruth…' Tariq says.

And Harry's composure slips. 'Why the hell does it always have to be about her?' he grinds out.

Tariq takes a step back. Beth takes a step forward. 'Come on Tariq. Let's go for a drink. You and Dimitri…go. I'll catch you up.'

She looks at Harry strangely while rummaging into her drawer. She finally takes a hard drive out and hands it to him. 'I don't want to meddle with what is none of my business', she tells him, not unkindly. 'But I think that you should take a look at this. It's the video of her testimony.' She makes for the doors. 'Oh. And by the way. That day…when you went off to meet Lucas…John..Lucas. Anyway. She was distraught. I had never seen anyone cry that way. It was as if her guts were being wrenched away from her, Harry. You might want to remember that while you watch this.'

And he is left alone, on the Grid, a disk in his hand. A disk he doesn't want to insert in his computer. A disk he knows he has to watch.

11.

The disk sits, glaring, on his coffee table. He's had a shower. Fed and walked Scarlet. Called his daughter. Tried to get hold of his son. Read the newspapers. Half-heartedly eaten some food. Allowed himself half a small tumbler of Lagavullin. Taken Scarlet for another walk. Switched on his computer. Checked the BBC website. Tried his son again.

And the disk is there, its silvery reflection a taunt, and a challenge.

He's lost the battle. He sticks the disk in. Hopes against reason that his computer will choose this precise moment to crash.

To no avail.

12.

She's chosen to wear simple, dark, sober clothes. Good choice. He can see her profile, never her face. He can hear her voice, perfectly, every single one of the words she utters in response to the panel's questions. Every single word he read, having accessed the file the day before. Every single stroke of the devastatingly brutal picture she painted of him. He forces himself to sit through the five hours of her session.

I may once have been vaguely infatuated with Sir Harry, I cannot hide it. But not anymore….I respect him as a boss, but have no desire whatsoever, and never have done in truth, to have an intimate relationship with him. Nor do I love him. Why not? Sir Harry will sacrifice everything to the defence of the realm. That is his single goal, and he will allow nothing to stand in his way.

On what basis do I say that? Well. His record speaks for himself. Time and time again, he has chosen to sacrifice lives for the sake of the greater good. He has destroyed his relationship with his children by systematically putting the Service first. He has been able to expunge from his mind those agents who lost their lives for our country, without showing grief for them. He thinks of this, our job, as a simple arithmetic calculation: how many British lives saved by sacrificing this one person. He has no life outside the Service. No friends. No family. No outside interests…Nothing. He has no wish to travel anywhere other than as a way to recruit agents. He sees the world, in its entirety, as a chessboard on which Britain is the king which he, the Queen who can move almost anyhow she chooses, must always defend.

And she had gone on to detail all his failures. His single mindedness. The bleakness of his life. His casual exploitation of his assets – visiting and handling them as long as they were useful, dropping them when they stopped having anything to contribute….all of it, subtly altered to depict him in the worst possible human light, never raising her voice, always calm, composed, and collected. This is not a woman angry with the man she perhaps once loved; this is not a woman bent on putting a performance to save him. This is a woman who has analysed, and thought, and computed, and who has come to a verdict about the man with whom she has worked, on and off, for years. An outstanding leader in the shadowy world of espionage. An utterly failure as a human being.

Watching this, seeing her deliver her judgement of him, is unbearable. He stops the video, biting his lips. Reading the words was one thing; but this….

Out of some masochistic impulse he keeps going. You're describing a machine, Simon Towers pipes up.

No. Not a machine. But a man who over the course of the years has allowed his soul to be destroyed til there is none left. A machine doesn't have a soul to begin with.

She had looked at all of them, sitting across her, at that point. I don't know why he did what he did, she had said calmly. All I know is that I cannot and will not love him. Not ever. She had paused, and added, killingly softly, For how can one love a frozen man?

She had been dismissed then. He watches her rise from her chair, standing very straight, her face briefly turned towards the hidden camera feed. And if he hadn't been observing her every move so closely, he would have missed it. He freezes the frame, brings the screen closer, backtracks, and freezes again, increasing the size of the image.

When she gets up, she is clutching her handbag. And he can see, clearly, her knuckles. They are white. And he can see her eyes, and her face, and how for a brief second or two, as she is turning away from the panel's table and towards the camera, the mask is slipping, and reveals features contorted with grief and fear, and eyes dangerously close to showing the sheen of tears.

He swears softly, and goes back to the beginning of the video, all thoughts of sleep banished from his mind, instead groping for the one and only single false note in her performance – the one moment which struck him as odd. He urges the movie on inwardly, desperate to find what he now feels, deep down, is the clue to one of the most brilliantly conceived charades of that kind he has ever seen.

And suddenly, it hits him in the face. He has no wish to travel anywhere other than as a way to recruit agents. He sees the world, in its entirety, as a chessboard…

That is a lie.A pure, blatant, obvious lie – but obvious only to him. A lie which the panel members could take at face value, but also one which speaks to him, directly, and which she did not need to tell at all to make her point to them. He closes his eyes, overcome by the memory of their one and only diner…The Grant Tour, he had told her, more or less inviting her to join him. She had known at the time what he meant. And she must have hoped, when telling the lie, that its very gratuitousness would send him a signal, should he ever read or see her testimony. He fast forwards again to the end of her testimony, to the white knuckles and the desperate eyes.

He holds his head in his hands. 'Ruth', he whispers softly. 'Oh, Ruth.'

TBC.

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