Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this, it means a lot. Thank you also to Batteredpen, who inspired some insights into Harry's character.

Chapter Two: Unto the Breach

Harry remembered the sea, most of all. A vast, shivering expanse of flat slate-grey badly illuminated by the full moon; fading into an ever darker blackness as he looked out over the prow. Cold iron rails were rough under his skin as he steadied himself against the sway of the swells. He could smell the salt; taste the acrid tang of it whenever he wet his lips. Even in the pitch black of night, he could hear gulls swooping and wheeling overhead, diving for the catch and coming up with beaks full of salty-seaweed. Better luck next time, he thought as he caught sight of another silver under-belly, plummeting down for the kill.

The cold. It was so cold at sea he thought his hands were frozen to the rails. He had been fooled by the soaring early July temperatures back on land. This far out, at this time of night, it was always winter. Beside him, a cigarette glowed orange in the darkness and a plume of smoke is caught on the wind, blown into his face. Bill inhaled again, leaning casually against the rails with his back to the seas that Harry finds so entrancing. No smoking in the cabins, so Harry had been prised from his bunk to stand outside with his friend while he chains his way through a pack of twenty.

He could sense his friend looking at him; those dark eyes boring into him. So dark that if Harry turned to face him, he could only see a flash of the whites. But Bill remained silent.

"You're going to say something," said Harry, resigned. "Or, you want to say something, but it's nothing you haven't already told me a hundred times-"

"Shush!" Bill cut him off and flicked his cigarette butt overboard. "I told you already: Debs and I will help you out. Jane enjoyed the picnic we went on last weekend, didn't she?"

Harry shrugged. "I suppose she did. No, I know she did. She got on well with Debs. What I mean is, I don't know if it's doing any good."

This was meant to be their honeymoon period. The time spent fucking like rabbits in every room in the house, on every surface and at every moment. The newly-weds; the insatiable lovers united at last. Instead, he had spent his post-wedding bliss breaking up stilted silences with desperate declarations of: "I couldn't find the right time to tell you," and "I was going to tell you the truth, I swear!" His lines were so worn Jane could repeat them before he said them. She may even have moved to giving them numbers by now.

As ever, Bill had stepped in.

"Once Jane gets to know a few of the other wives she'll realise she's not alone," he opined. "My Debs was in the same place-"

"But you at least told Deborah before your wedding day," Harry cut in.

"Well, okay, you got me there," Bill admitted. "There really is no getting around your hideous sense of timing, Harry. Anyway, Debs will call in on her while we're gone, make sure she's okay and all that."

Harry raised a pained smile. "I am truly grateful," he replied, a tad embarrassed. "Especially under the circumstances."

The circumstances being that Deborah Crombie was now nearing her sixth month of pregnancy. Already, he was casting around for ideas on especially lavish Christening presents as some mark of gratitude.

"It's nothing, Harry."

But it wasn't 'nothing'. It was everything. Jane meant the world to him. She would be his gateway into a normal life. He would come home from work, shut that front door and be with her and their future, notional children and it would be just them. A cocoon from the harsh realities of counter-terrorism. Their children would play with Bill and Debs' children. They would stay for their tea and sleep over at weekends. Grow together… stay together. A germ of normality in a life that promised to be anything but.

"Ay-up, here she comes," said Bill, nodding to the distant shores.

Harry looked out over the opposite rails, to where distant harbour lights now penetrated the sea mists. Pin-pricks of light diffusing in the fogs, nebulous and fuzzy. Cranes and forklifts stood stark against the pre-dawn sky, black and hulking in the ports. Night lifted its shroud, slowly as a strip-tease, to reveal the smoking, sulphurous ruins of Belfast City.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…" said Harry, watching the docklands draw closer.

Bill laughed. "Or close the wall up with our English dead," he added.

Harry watched as he light another cigarette, the flame of the zippo briefly catching the gold of his wedding band.

Now Will twisted the ring round his finger, nervously. He found the nick in the gold with the pad of his thumb; pushed down on the dent as though trying to make it worse. It was a nervous habit that he ceased as soon as he realised he was doing it. He almost apologised, before remembering he was alone now and returned his attention to the red front door he had just knocked on. In such a fluster, he could only manage that for a second before he had to glance over his shoulder again, making sure he remembered where he left his car.

Before he could do that, however, footsteps sounded from within the semi-detached house, jolting him out of his frantic reverie. He gulped and tried to gather his wits.

"Ms Townsend?" he asked, as the door opened barely an inch before snagging its chain.

She was a slender woman, much shorter than him and with pale blue eyes. Her once dark hair was now liberally streaked with silver, but still he recognised her from the photographs.

"Oh, hello there," she replied, soft-voiced. "You must be William?"

No one had called him that since he was a small boy. He found himself wondering if that was just the school teacher in her. Regardless, she let the door off its chain and opened it fully, granting him entrance. He thanked her as he passed, finding himself in a plushly carpeted hallway. Open archways led into the kitchen and living room, while a flight of stairs led up to the first floor. Standing there made him feel ungainly, like a stray piece of furniture, he was out of place. But rather than letting him linger there, she led him into the living room, where the table had been set for two. A tea pot complete with knitted tea cosy, a tray of biscuits set in the middle and a Victoria sponge on a china plate. He wondered whether she was expecting more intimate acquaintance along later, or whether she had really gone to all that trouble for him. After all, he had called out of the blue and was nothing more than a completely stranger to him. Still, she gestured to a chair at the head of the table.

"Please, sit," she said. "And don't look so alarmed. It's only tea and cake."

He laughed at his own awkwardness. "Apologies. I'm at that awkward age where half my friends are married and the other half are still too drunk to find their phones. This level of hospitality is beyond the reach of both sets."

She laughed as she poured them both tea and settled in the chair directly opposite his.

The room was pleasant. Wide, with French doors left open to tempt in a summer breeze, bringing with it the scent of the garden. Flowers he could not put a name to, lined the borders and a washing line rotated slowly on a pivot, pushed by the weak wind. Inside, a sofa was lined against the wall and two armchairs were positioned on either side of a small TV. But, everything was in silence as they made small talk about the weather and the state of the roads. But when they did get to the matter at hand, she did so readily.

"I was ever so sorry to hear of your mother's death, William," she said. "Deborah Crombie was very kind to me, back then."

He raised the ghost of a smile. "She was always very caring," he stated, blandly. "I honestly didn't think you would remember her."

She looked surprised. "I remember her well," replied Jane, before cutting herself off. Her expression grew distant and she bit her lip, before adding: "I well remember your father, too."

Will set down his teacup and his thumb once more found the ring, twisting it and pushing in the dent. Nervous, automatic. Guilt welled up in him again. He and Lisa had gone to extraordinary lengths to track Ms Townsend down, including calling every woman called Jane who happened to be living in London. They found her eventually. What surprised him most was her lack of surprise at hearing from him. Then, at that moment, she sipped her own tea and looked across the table at him.

"But you're not here to talk about your parents, are you?"

It was a statement, more than a question. Her cold reading abilities made him blush, as though he should have thought up some better excuse for intruding upon her life.

"Not really," he replied, drawing a deep breath. "It's just that I got some more information about my father's death. That was all."

He wanted to blurt it all out: the whole sorry story. But now that he was here, he was beginning to doubt his wisdom in tracking her down. It was all beginning to feel embarrassingly futile.

"What, exactly?" she asked.

"Back in the autumn, my ex-girlfriend got a note that was meant for me. All it said was that Harry Pearce killed my father. I don't have a hope of tracking Mr Pearce himself down, all I know is he's MI5 – like my Dad. So, er, here I am," he explained.

He watched her reaction carefully, trying to sense whether he had angered her or dredged up painful memories. But her face remained passive, unsurprised. She set down her cup, carefully in the saucer and toyed with the handle, distractedly. He could see that she was picking her words carefully, forming and framing the events as she recalled them. But he could not think what to read into it.

"Harry didn't kill your father," she stated, with an air of finality. "No. He wouldn't. Couldn't. I owe that man nothing. I'm not saying this out of a lingering affection, nor misguided sense of loyalty. But I believe in fairness and even Harry deserves that. He is not a murderer. A killer: yes. A murderer: no."

The last part of that answer snagged in his mind, causing his brow to crease as he fit his head around it. "Right," he replied, at length. "So, there's a difference?"

Jane smiled. Not a mocking smile, just a familiar gesture almost borne of affection.

"I was like you once," she explained. "It's like your brain only registers the black and white, while the grey passes you by without a trace. But when you're married to a man like Harry Pearce, even for a brief time, you soon learn to see the hue and the shape of the grey areas. Had your father lived, you would have known that too."

Even when she spoke of such things, she maintained her air of stillness. Will found it almost unsettling.

"I suppose," he answered, vaguely. "My mother did say marrying into the service was difficult."

It sounded like an unthinking blandishment, something he didn't think Jane would hold much truck with. But if she found his comment as such, she was too polite to let on. She simply picked up her cup again and gazed down at the surface, once more lost in her own thoughts.

"There really isn't a lot else I can tell you about your father's death," she said, after a long pause. "Other than that Harry was not responsible. Well, not much…"

But Will was at a stage where he was willing to latch on to anything. "Even if it's small, I would love to know, Ms Townsend."

She drew a deep breath, letting it out again in a long sigh. "It's difficult, because all I can tell you really is the effect it had on Harry. He changed after your father was killed. He came back from Belfast different. Altered. Looking back now, I would call it 'traumatised'."

Traumatised. The word made Will's heart palpitate and his mouth run dry. He swallowed another mouthful of tea just to wet it again. Meanwhile, Jane leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Long, slender fingers pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment, a second in which to steel herself for whatever she had to tell him. She had composed herself again by the time she lowered her hand and looked back at him again.

"You see, Harry never told me about his job. At least, not until we were married. On the same day in fact," she explained. "And it was your mother who tried to help me through that. I think your father asked her to do it, but she didn't seem to mind and God knows, I needed a friend: someone who understood. Sometimes, looking back, I wonder whether I was being unreasonable to be so angry. But I felt like I had been lured into a trap. I felt like Harry had entrapped me in this marriage, and only told me the truth once I couldn't escape."

Will raised a brow. "That's not an overreaction," he said. "Pearce sounds like an arsehole, to be honest."

"Oh, Harry gets better and better, believe me," she replied, with a mirthless laugh. "To all intents and purposes, I put our wedding day revelations behind us. So he's a spy? Did it really matter in the long run? Even if it did, I decided to give our marriage my everything. Your father's murder traumatised him so much we left for Paris within weeks of it happening. He couldn't have stayed in Northern Ireland, not after that. But even then, Harry didn't confide in me. There were other women he confided in."

Will picked up the implications easily. "I'm sorry if this is dredging up bad memories," he said. "We don't have to talk about it."

She waved a dismissive hand. "I'll spare you the details. But, Harry wasn't one of these men who rolled home at three in the morning smelling of another woman's perfume, or with lipstick on his collar. He's a Spy; he's used to being undercover and he's far too clever for that. No. I only found out about his affairs because one of his adversaries deemed it convenient that I should know, so they made sure I found out."

Will's brow creased. "Seriously?"

Jane nodded, still eerily at ease despite the topic of conversation. "You see, that's the world Harry operates in. Your emotions, your feelings, anything that could be perceived as a weakness, will be turned into weapons and used against you. Your loved ones become bargaining chips; leverage to be held over you like a Damocles Sword. I was that leverage and my children – in their turn – would have become likewise. That's what killed us, in the end; his wedding day moment of truth was merely the beginning. If you're wondering why I'm even telling you all this: it's what I want you to know and understand, before you go jetting off into Harry's peculiar orbit."

"Oh, Ms Townsend, I'm not interested in joining MI5," he replied, quickly. "I just-"

"Maybe not," she cut in, quite effortlessly. "But you still want the truth, don't you?"

He had no answer. There were times when he ached for the truth about his father. Other times, when he was a child, he just built a father in his imagination: moulding him into something superhuman and calling it 'Dad'. But that child was gone, his fervent imagination set to flight by the realities of the world outside his bedroom window.

"I need the truth now," he replied, quietly. "But I don't think I need to go off down a dark and dangerous path of MI5's making."

She was smiling again. "Don't be so sure," she cautioned. "Anyway, I can't help you get in touch with him. But Catherine, my daughter, can and she's agreed to help you. But promise me you'll think this through, first? Consider everything I've told you and everything you already know about your father. I may not know what happened, but I saw the effect it had on a man I loved and extrapolating from that: it wasn't pretty."

From that dire warning, she moved fluidly to cutting the Victoria sponge. Will watched her, already contemplating all that she had said. It hadn't come from some angry place, deep inside her. She spoke calmly, she still had an air of stillness – almost serene. She spoke about deeply disturbing aspects of her ex-husband's life as if it was a trip to the supermarket that went wrong. Ancient history. But a warning nonetheless and one that he didn't take lightly.

"I've got to do it," he said, softly. "I don't have a choice."

"Well then," she answered. "That settles it. But do have some more tea and some of this cake before you go. It's actually quite nice to have a visitor, and from an old friend – almost. I meant to stay in touch with your mother, but after the divorce and what have you … with the best will in the world, people still drift apart."

Will nodded his agreement and thanked her for the cake. "We moved back to York anyway, after Dad died and I was born. She needed help from her parents."

"More than understandable," she replied, before stopping what she was doing. She met his gaze from across the table. "You look like him – your father that is. The hair and the eyes. You have his colouring. That could have been his ghost on my doorstep."

"A lot of people say that," he laughed.

Only dimly could he recall his paternal grandparents. He was so much like their son that they couldn't bear to look at him. But that was a memory that brought a flicker of sadness curling around his heart, one he quickly cut away before he could grow maudlin. All of that, before even making a start on the cake.

"You were dreaming again last night." Ruth's tone was flat, neither disappointed nor overly concerned. She followed the statement up by flopping down on the edge of their bed and removing her shoes. She did not dig for further information, nor did she seem to want to be drawn on the matter. But, underneath that glacial exterior she was itching to know what it was all about.

Harry knew this was his cue to volunteer the information himself. But his mood was less than obliging. He thought back over the years, to when the first green shoots of their feelings for each other first poked through their frozen winter surfaces. Sometimes, it seemed, he had been jumping through hoops for her ever since. From tiptoeing around her fluctuating feelings – that seemed to vary from one minute to the next – to trekking all the way to Cyprus to dig her out of the bother she'd gotten herself into there. He had done the chasing, the running and the jumping through hoops. Now, it was her turn.

"I'm sure they were very pleasant dreams," he replied, equally devoid of feeling.

He pulled at the knot of his tie, loosening it before giving it a good wrench. Once off, it hung limp and crumpled from his wrist like a stray nylon entrail. Before letting it fall to the floor, he fixed it with a look of utmost loathing. All the while, Ruth was sat at the edge of the bed with her stockings half pulled over her ankles and fixing him with an imploring look, wide blue eyes unflinching under his solid death glare. It might have worked before she made those remarks about his parenting skills and refused to apologise. But hasty words were like broken plates. Broken and the damage had been done.

That doleful gaze continued to follow him around the room as he hung up his shirt and dropped his trousers.

"You know something, Harry," she began. He steeled himself for the deep, undoubtedly insightful analysis of his shortcomings that was inevitably forthcoming. "Sometimes, I think there's so many secrets buried in your past that there's huge, emotional explosion just lurking round the corner. That you're keeping something from me that's so huge and I'm just treading through this minefield, hoping I don't say or do the wrong thing-"

"Oh really," he cut over her. "Sometimes, I get the feeling I'm living with an emotional vampire who feeds off other people's misery and will use whatever emotionally manipulative, cod psycho-babble to wheedle her next fix out of me. Frankly, Ruth, you're bleeding me dry and I've nothing left to give."

She looked as though he had struck her. Stunned into silence, she carried on gaping at him wide-eyed and silent. Inwardly, he resolved not to give an inch and carried on preparing for bed. No one – not even Harry Pearce – felt like a row when they were in the nip.

"That's not what I'm doing, Harry," she finally said, gathering her wits. "Believe it or not, I'm actually trying to help you."

She spent half her professional life on the Grid acting like he didn't have feelings, that she was the only one with the capacity for grief. Sometimes, the memory of it rankled him. It kept coming up at him from the shadows, and now it was in plain sight. An elephant in the room made up of harboured resentment and years of chewing glass to keep her happy.

"If telling me I was a hopeless parent was your way of 'helping', you have very unorthodox methods," he replied. "Now I'm exhausted. I just want to get some sleep."

He switched off the lamp before climbing into bed. But as he rolled on, Ruth rolled off. The mattress dipped suddenly, before springing back into shape in the absence of her. He heard the bedroom door open and then slam shut. With a heavy sigh, he groaned up at the ceiling and closed his eyes.

"There really is no getting around your hideous sense of timing, Harry."

Perturbed, Harry opened his eyes again. The room was still in darkness, he could feel the weight of the cat curled up at his feet. But it can't have been the cat who spoke. He turned his head, to where Ruth normally lay. Where now Bill smiled back at him, the duvet pulled up to his chin. The smile reversed into a frown.

"You're all right, she'll come round," he added. "Just call our Debs around. Bring her out for a picnic. I'd come along myself if it wasn't for McCann's handy work. But hey, maybe Jane can take my place? You can regale them all with tales of how you got me killed!"

Harry was appalled. "Fuck off, Bill!"

He tried to roll over, but he couldn't move. Eyes shut tight, he counted to five in his head, willing the paralysis to wear off. Which it did, with an almighty wrenching effort on his part. Back in the real world, he rubbed the residue of the dream from his eyes, before sinking back into his cold, empty bed.

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