A/N: Thank you to all you lovely reviewers. I hope that you enjoy the remainder of this story. I have compressed what could have been a much longer and more detailed story, with a view to simply covering the salient points. This chapter is all Ruth and Jude.

Polis, Cyprus. 6 days later, Sunday 12.10 pm

"I'm quite relieved to have found a friend here," Ruth said, keeping her eyes downcast as she tossed the salad. "It's been quite lonely these past eight months."

"It's a beautiful place. It's hard to believe anyone could ever be lonely here."

Jude had met Ruth every day since their first brief conversation on the beach. Uncharacteristically for her, Jude had allowed Ruth to determine the nature and the frequency of their meetings. That first day – six days earlier – had been a brief exchange of information before they'd each moved on. Since then, they'd met for coffee twice, gone swimming together three times, and this day, Ruth had invited her for lunch at her small house near the beach.

Jude had not expected to like Ruth Evershed. Being the woman Harry Pearce had loved for years, she'd expected her to be just like all the other women Harry had courted and then promptly dumped in the years following his divorce from Jane. Ruth was the antithesis of all those women. She was shy, kind, highly intelligent, careful and wary of sharing too much about herself, and most surprising, she seemed to lack confidence. Harry's women had always been brashly confident, and sexually aggressive. Jude simply couldn't imagine Ruth ever behaving in that way, which meant that either Harry had mellowed, or in the time since she had worked with him he had undergone an emotional renaissance …... perhaps both.

Ruth and Jude sat on the front verandah overlooking the sea, their lunch of shellfish and salads and white wine sitting on the table between them.

"I told you before that I was a widow," Ruth said carefully, "but that's not entirely true. George and I were not even married."

"You told me he died in London. How did that happen?"

Ruth was quiet as she painstakingly picked the meat out of the crab claws. Jude was worried that she'd already stepped over an invisible line. She also knew one of her skills was in knowing where that line was. She watched Ruth as she picked at the crab meat. "He was murdered," she said at last. "There's much more to it than that, but that is all I'll tell you."

"Ruth, I'm sorry. I don't want to be the one opening old wounds."

Again, Ruth waited a while before she answered, as she broke open another two crab claws. "You know," she said at last, "the worst thing is that George's death was not really painful for me. I know, that makes me sound so hard, so …. so unfeeling. It was shocking, and traumatic, but not all that painful in the end. The worst thing is that I failed to tell him some things about myself. My history, who I really was …..."

"God, now you'll be telling me you're a spy!" Jude had chosen her words carefully. She'd wanted to see how Ruth would react.

"That's not all that far from the truth," Ruth said quietly. "George died in violent circumstances, and a friend of mine ensured that Nico was saved from a similar fate. The reasons for this are …... are private, and I won't say any more about why and how he died."

"You must miss him."

"I do, but it's Nico I miss most."

"But aren't you living back in Cyprus to be near him?" Jude had to concentrate hard on not tapping a drum beat on the table with her fingers, something she tended to do whenever she was especially nervous.

"I haven't been allowed near him. His father's family have forbidden it."

"So …... Ruth ….. why are you still here? You live alone. You have no friends apart from me, and I must return soon to London, and you are unable to see your stepson. How is that a good way to live? Surely you have friends …... a life back in London."

"I ….." Ruth hesitated, taking a sip of her wine. "I feel that I …... need to be here. This is …. my …."

"Your penance?"

Ruth's eyes moved suddenly from gazing over the blue of the sea to looking accusingly into Jude's grey eyes. "What made you use that word? You said `penance'. Why would you say that?"

"I don't know, really. No … that's not true. I know this is a beautiful place, the perfect holiday destination, but you're hardly enjoying yourself, Ruth. You're hiding yourself away from the world, and …..."

"Do you think that this place is not the world? Do you think that London is somehow better than here?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. Perhaps I should go." Jude pushed herself away from the table and sighed.

"Please don't go," Ruth said quietly, almost too quietly to be heard. "I'm enjoying your company. It's so …... comforting to be with someone from home, to hear a familiar accent. I like hearing about what's going on there."

"You miss it."

Ruth sighed heavily, and put her wine glass down before she spoke. "I miss it, yes, and I miss …... people there …... but I can't go back."

"Ruth, I'm sure that's not true. I know people. I'm sure we can ….."

"Have people silenced?" Again, Ruth's eyes flashed as she looked at Jude.

"No, but my former husband and I have a security company. Most of our clients are businesses and corporations, but we can also look into …..."

"God, no. I just need to stay here and …."

"I have an idea," said Jude, deciding it was time she changed tactics. "Let's take the bus to Paphos and see what the library is like."

"You do realise that the books are mostly in Greek or Turkish."

"Sure," said Jude with more confidence than she felt, "but you'll be able to read them, won't you?"

"How do you know?" Once again, Ruth looked wary, and she wondered – and not for the first time – if she was wary because this woman had so easily managed to gain her confidence, or because she was a dead ringer for Juliet Shaw!

"I saw the books on the bookshelf beside your table inside. I can't read any of them, but obviously you can."

"Okay," said Ruth, smiling at last, "that's a date."

"Tomorrow, then," said Jude.

"Okay. Tomorrow."

Polis, Cyprus. Wednesday 8.03 pm:

Jude poured herself another glass of local wine – something of a rough red, but eminently quaffable - wondering whether her approach with Ruth was ever going to work. She steepled the fingers of each hand, and bounced them against one another, like a spider on a mirror. Her aim had been to gradually bring Ruth back into the land of the living, to show her how enjoyable, how useful her life could be were she to again join the human race. She had been attempting to reconnect Ruth with her purpose, her passion for life, but it was proving to be rather hit and miss. What she saw on Ruth's face each day was the same level of resignation. She was almost to the point of going back to London, having to announce to Malcolm that she had failed. It had been a nice holiday, a pleasant interlude, but the feeling of failure was not something she was used to, and she was reluctant to give up. Just a little while longer, she thought.

Which is when Ruth came bursting through her door without knocking. The younger woman stood just inside her living room door, her hair in disarray, and her eyes wild, her pupils dilated. Jude just stood, wine bottle poised to pour, not sure of what to do next.

"Drink, Ruth?" she said at last.

"Yes please," Ruth replied, taking a big breath, and then collapsing in a chair across the table from where Jude had been sitting.

"No-one's after you, I hope."

"Not yet, anyway," Ruth said, taking a large gulp of her wine. "I've only just left the police station."

Jude sat down, and rubbed her chin before speaking. "Tell me what's going on, Ruth. There's more to this than you're telling me."

"I tried to see Nico today."

"But haven't you been told …...?"

"Yes, but I was his mother for a year and a half. I looked after him, I loved him like he was my own. I'd been told to stay away from Nico's school. His aunt takes him to school each day, and picks him up. I thought if I got there early, and I waited for him outside his classroom, that I could ….. Jude, he saw me and he began to scream and call out, and he called for his teacher, who then called the police..." By this time, tears were flowing down Ruth's cheeks, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. "When Nico's aunt turned up, she made such a fuss, called me a murderer and a liar. Jude …... you should have seen the look on Nico's face. He hates me. He hates me …... And then the police took me in for questioning."

Ruth folded her arms on the table, and let her head drop on to them while she sobbed out her sadness, her tears rolling down her face and on to the surface of the table. To provide a small measure of comfort, Jude put one of her hands lightly on Ruth's back while the younger woman's considerable control fell apart.

It took another twenty minutes for Ruth to cry herself out, during which time Jude rubbed her back, and tried to think of a way through this impasse. Jude knew intuitively that it would be a bad idea to leave Ruth with the image of her former step-son's fear of her.

"It's best you not try to contact him again, Ruth. It's clear he's been told a story about you which is not true. In time, he'll remember the time before his father died, and how kind you were to him. There's nothing to be gained by staying here any longer. There are people in London who miss you, and who long to see you again."

Ruth lifted her head, and wiped her face on her sleeve. Her eyes were red and puffy, but they were still the same deep, clear blue, and she directed them at Jude with laser intensity. "You know Harry, don't you? Was he the one who sent you?"