Kim Castleman felt a large, warm presence beside her left elbow, so she took her eyes from the series of three tug boats chugging slowly along the Thames, and turned to look into the eyes of Tom Quinn, former MI-5 agent. He'd filled out a little since she'd last seen him, and his eyes were a trifle softer. That'd be married life, she thought, envying for a moment Tom's landing on his feet with Christine Dale. When she'd first met him, he'd fallen in love with every mildly attractive woman he'd met. His conversation had always been punctuated with Ellie-this, or Suzie-that, or Marnie-something-else. That had been around twelve years ago, and so much had happened to them both since.

"I guess you're wondering why I called," Tom began, his eyes following the tug boats as they chugged past the Houses of Parliament.

"I never imagined you'd be asking after my health, Tom. How is Christine?"

"She's fine, and so am I. You?"

"I'm still fighting the good fight."

"That's good, because I need you to do something for me."

"You have to know that I no longer leap tall buildings at a single bound. I turned forty-eight a month ago."

Tom turned from scrutinising the river to looking into her face. One thing Kim liked least about Tom was his propensity for treating casual acquaintances like specimens under a microscope …... second only to his absolute inability to engage in small talk.

"You look perfectly capable to me. Besides, what I'm offering you won't demand very much of you... and you'll get to travel."

Kim waited. She didn't actually want to be talking to Tom, and had almost declined his call, except that curiosity had won. She also missed normal human contact. Living from day to day, week to week had taken its toll.

"I heard that you met Harry Pearce."

"Ah …..."

She'd been contacted by someone deep in the Home Office - code name Henry V, a stupid code name in her opinion – and her brief had had her attending the reception for the EU delegates. She'd had to turn up, dressed as though she belonged there, and she'd be given her orders when she arrived.

6 weeks earlier:

She was nursing a glass of champagne, eyeing off the people in the grand ballroom, when a grey figure stood just behind her shoulder, and began talking in low tones.

"There is a man who has just stepped through the double doors to your left. He is on the patio. You are to follow him, and then report back with your findings."

God! Don't these people just long for us to return to the Cold War?

"Do I stay in the shadows, or can I speak to him?"

"That's up to you. You can befriend him if you wish. One thing you need to know. He is very upset, and didn't wish to be here tonight."

When he finished speaking she turned, but he was gone. God, she hated these little assignments, where she was expected to use her charm and her easy way with people. Some day she wanted to be a right bitch, and create a massive stink. She'd once been rather good at that.

Slowly, she edged her way to the double doors, and stepped on to the patio, a wide, paved area, mostly under the cover of the roof of the building. Once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she spotted a figure standing at the foot of the steps which led from the patio to the garden, his hands in the pockets of his coat, a light-coloured scarf flung around his neck. She watched him for a while, and she was sure he was speaking, although she couldn't hear what he was saying. Slowly, she walked closer, standing at the edge of the patio, protected by the roof from the light drizzle which fell. The man she was watching had no such protection, and the drizzle settled in droplets in his light-coloured hair, and on the shoulders of his woollen coat. She stood no more than three yards from him, just behind his right shoulder. She heard him sigh heavily, as he slumped his shoulders.

"You need to know," he said at last, "that I can see you."

She'd said nothing. Maybe he was talking to someone else, although there was no-one else out there.

"The window of the summer house is slightly open, and I can see you in its reflection."

He's a bloody spook! So, why are the spooks checking up on their own?

Kim moved a few steps closer, and the man turned so that in the pale light which fell on them from the windows of the ballroom, she could see his face. She hadn't expected to see such deep pain etched into his face. His cheeks were tear-stained, and his eyes were the saddest she'd seen in a long time, and she saw sad eyes every morning she looked in the mirror. There was something familiar about his face, and she knew she should recognise him. She also knew that she was staring at him.

"But you're …..."

"You must be the only person who doesn't know."

Kim turned as if to go. "I'll leave you to it. I'm sorry -"

"Don't go," he said.

So she didn't. "We need to find somewhere out of the rain. You look like you need to talk."

The man put his hand out for her to shake it. "I'm Harry," he said, "and I think we're probably in the same business."

"Probably. I'm Kim, and the name after Harry is Pearce, am I right?"

He nodded, and led her to the summer house. He was right. The window was ajar, but inside it was warm, and the lights from the ballroom illuminated the seats by the window. They sat down, their seats a comfortable distance apart. Were this a normal operation, Kim would not have accepted any invitation to enter an enclosed space alone with a man. Not that she hadn't done that in the past, but she was not as agile or athletic as she had once been. These days she valued her life more than her job.

"You're not five or six, are you?"

"No. Strictly freelance."

"You've been sent outside to keep an eye on me?"

She nodded.

"I'm not about to throw myself in the lake."

"I didn't think you were. But I can see why others may have thought you might."

Harry pursed his lips in a gesture of irritation.

"Bloody Home Office," he said.

They sat there saying nothing for quite a while. Kim was with him, and that was her task …... to keep an eye on him. He was an enigma to her. For a man of his age – late fifties – he was rather attractive, but that may have been the public persona which he'd had to develop as part of his job. She'd heard of him, of course, but there was some history, some snippet of information about him which she needed to know, but had forgotten …... something quite recent.

"You're wondering why I'm not inside, smarming it up with the rest of them."

"Not at all. I consider you to be the most sensible man here tonight. This summer house is far more congenial than that ballroom. Politicians, economists and security services shoulder to shoulder is not my idea of a fun night out."

Harry Pearce smiled then for the first time that night. "You're my kind of person, Kim."

"You mean anti-social?"

He laughed at that, and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely clasped. Suddenly his face changed – from a smile to one so sad that Kim felt herself holding her breath. This was turning out to be one of the strangest jobs she'd been on in a while.

"I lost someone," he said after a long silence. "I'm out here because had she not died, we'd be inside together, talking it up with the members of the EU, dancing …..."

"I …... had heard …... something. She was -"

"My former senior intelligence analyst."

"Yes. I remember now. How long …...?"

"It was one month ago today that she was buried. Her funeral was the day of my fifty-eighth birthday. I'll not forget that day. It was …..."

Kim noticed how he clenched and unclenched his hands as he spoke.

"The pain doesn't diminish. They say that time heals all wounds, but that's bullshit."

"I seem to remember there being a furore over it all."

"It became mixed up with the death of a former Russian agent. It was her son who killed Ruth. He'd meant to kill me, but she stood between him and me – to protect me. I can't get past ….."

"The guilt."

"Yes." He took a deep breath, and let it out, dropping his head so that she couldn't see his face, but she heard a sigh which may have been a sob.

They sat together in the summer house for another hour. Harry sighed often, and occasionally cried quietly, and Kim sat there and let him. She had no words of comfort for him. What was there to say? When someone was dead, that was it. They were no more. This man was grieving what could have been, what should have been, and now would never be.

"When I first saw you tonight," she ventured after a while, "you were talking. Were you talking to her?"

Harry looked up at her, and wiped his eyes. He nodded. "I talk to her quite a lot. It helps me to …..."

"Believe she's still alive."

"Not really. I know she's dead. That's the problem. It helps me to feel a connection with her."

"I know. My husband …... he was the closest person I've lost."

"How long ago?" Harry asked quietly.

"It will be five years this June. You're right. The time which passes means nothing. Five years feels like five weeks, sometimes like five days."

"Do you still cry?"

She shook her head. "I have no tears left. For two years I was like you are now, and then one day I woke up and decided that I'd better live my life, otherwise I'd be known as that old woman who cries every day."

"I'm afraid that if I stop crying I'll forget her …... that I'll forget how much I love her and miss her."

"You never forget that. You don't have to grieve openly to miss her. She knows how much you miss her."

Harry had turned to her then, and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

"It gets better?"

"No. It just begins to be part of the way your life is. You embrace your grief, and accommodate it, like a dodgy boyfriend your daughter brings home, and insists is `the one'. You go to work and manage, and then you go home and fall apart."

"The man who spoke to you at the reception," Tom continued, "that's my contact in the Home Office. His name is Julian Welles."

"He calls himself Henry V."

"Yes, well, he's a fan of the Shakespeare play. He knows the whole play by heart, word for word, which is harmless enough, I suppose. He's been seconded from GCHQ, and is a trained analyst. Not as good as Ruth Evershed was, but no-one ever will be."

"You organised my contacting Harry Pearce?"

"Yes. Rather creative, don't you think?"

Kim shook her head, mouthing the word, `stupid' to herself. "We both felt like guinea pigs, Tom."

"Couldn't be helped. I had to get you together in a way you'd not run away from one another. Did you like him?"

"He was alright. You do realise he's grieving the death of the woman he still loves, and I'd prefer to find my own bed companions."

"Of course. I had an assignment for you, and it involves Harry Pearce. Cancel everything you have in your diary for the next couple of months."

And then he told her his plan. If it worked, it was a good plan. It's just that Kim Castleman wasn't sure that it was a good plan. This was Harry Pearce they were dealing with.