Chapter Two: Truth or Dare

He had always reminded Harry of a great lizard. An impression that was intensified at the moment. Watchful; slow moving; unpredictable. Something about the way his features seemed a little too small for his face, his neck a little too long; the way his tongue would dart out, moistening thin lips.

Oliver Mace leant back in his chair. 'Well, Harry, I wondered how long it would be before you turned up here.'

'And now you can stop wondering, can't you, Oliver.'

They regarded each other.

'I take it that this visit is to do with your lamented paramour.'

Harry breathed heavily. He would not be baited like that.

'I don't know exactly what it is you think I can do,' Mace continued. 'As you can see, Harry, I am in somewhat reduced circumstances.'

He glanced around the overly decorated room. 'That isn't how I would have put it.' There was a glass of whisky standing on a low table nearby. He reached for it and his fingers closed on empty air; he frowned; further away than he had thought. Mace's expression hadn't changed. Closed. Glassy. The room was huge, Harry realised, and yet closing in on him at the same time. Stultifying. He couldn't breathe.

'I want to talk to you about Cotterdam, Oliver.' Cotterdam. How he had come to hate that name. And the man sitting opposite him. Harry tried to remind himself that he was a supposedly civilised man; but the desire to inflict a merciless and extremely bloody death on Oliver Mace was almost unconquerable.

Mace shook his head. 'No, you want to talk about Ruth Evershed. Or maybe not want to, but it's why you're here.' He reclined further in his chair, head tilted back, glittering eyes watching. 'Poor Harry - you still don't understand, do you?'

'Understand what?'

'She was never yours, Harry.'

Stillness. There was a clock ticking.

'What are you talking about?'

'Oh, it's very simple, Harry. Ruth Evershed was never yours. She was mine. She is mine. Always.'

'Your enforced retirement seems to have affected your mind, Oliver.'

A laugh, like nails on a board. 'For your sake, you'll wish that were true. It all worked out so much better than I could have hoped. Did you really think that she was in your department by chance? That she wasn't there to watch ... watch you?'

His hands gripped the arms of the chair so tightly his knuckles were white. It should have hurt. It was numb.

'Discreet, loyal, that touch of - what should we call it? Melancholia? Ruth turned herself into exactly the sort of person that you would trust. I had no idea how much further it would go, of course. And you used to be so good at keeping things to yourself, Harry. What happened? It was written all over your face every time you looked at her.' That laugh again. 'My biggest asset was your greatest weakness.'

'No.' He found his voice. 'No. You're lying.'

'Am I? Why don't you ask her yourself?'

'What?'

How long had she been in the shadows? All the time, perhaps, and he just hadn't seen her. Hadn't looked close enough. But she was there now. One hand resting lightly on the back of Mace's chair.

'Ruth...'

Her lips curled and it was a smile he didn't recognise; and her grey eyes were clear and luminous and cold.

He woke up, heart pounding and the sheets were wrapped around him so tightly he resembled a mummy. Harry released himself, welcoming the bite of cold air against his burning skin. His heart rate had returned to normal but his mouth was dry and he felt strangely hollow.

And he silently begged her forgiveness for dreaming of her as so duplicitous.

Harry padded into the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face. Beyond the window the sky had lightened to the colour of tarnished silver. Storm tossed trees were a vivid green against the grey. He felt unutterably exhausted and wondered vaguely how many more years of fight he had left in him.

Wouldn't it be easier just to walk away and forget?

'...promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep...'

He smiled grimly at his reflection and went downstairs to make coffee.

ooOoo

It was a clear day and cold. Zaf buried his hands deeper in his coat pockets and threaded his way through the crowds along the Embankment. After being on the Grid all morning the light reflected off the water hurt his eyes. He screwed them up against the brilliance, eventually coming to a stop by an already occupied bench. He sat.

Silence for a moment.

'Thank you for meeting me, Zafar.'

The summons had piqued his interest – that Harry Pearce was actually thanking him for it made him uneasy.

'Harry?'

The older man stared across the river and then roused himself, turned. 'What I'm asking you, Zaf, is... This is nothing official. It's a favour. A personal favour, to me.'

On the road behind them an open-top bus stopped and a stream of tourists disembarked. Zaf only noticed them from habit. Harry was watching him intently.

'You are not under any obligation to accept, obviously,' he continued a little stiffly. This was not easy for him. 'If you want to walk away... Well, I quite understand.'

Things got very messy when the personal was involved. That was the sort of thing you were supposed to bury, distance yourself from. That was how you survived.

'Of course I won't walk away,' Zaf said. 'You know I won't. Is that why you asked me?'

'Do you mean is that why I asked you; or is that why I asked you?'

He smiled, eyes creasing. 'Both.'

'A little, perhaps. Of each.'

Zaf wondered vaguely what people passing made of this odd pairing sitting on a bench on a sunny day, and realised that no-one noticed them. And if they did, no-one cared. That was what they did, what he did: watch and not be seen. In the world, but not of it.

And he laughed at himself.

'So, what's the favour, Harry?'

'A little light surveillance. You have friends, I believe, who specialise in that sort of thing.'

It shouldn't really come as a surprise that Harry should know about that. It was his job to know – how had he put it? The sordid details. Okay, Mike and Selim weren't exactly sordid, but they were fairly innocuous details. How much more about him did Harry know? The things that Zaf knew about Harry Pearce personally could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.

'Do you want to hire them?'

'Yes.' He was staring across the river again. 'I would prefer it if they didn't know exactly from whom this request comes.'

'Right. So... Who do you want watching?'

'Oliver Mace.'

Every sound became very clear. This was why it was him and not Adam. Adam may be closer to Harry; but he had been closer to her.

'Mace.'

'Yes.' Harry's eyes didn't leave his face. 'You can still walk away, Zafar.'

He shook his head. 'No. No, I can't.

'Don't let him do anything stupid, Zaf. I mean he-he's not a stupid man, but he can be ... stubborn.'

'Yeah, I know.'

Cold concrete against his back, her voice barely above a whisper, face a pale oval in the dark.

'You-you'll keep an eye on him for me, won't you? Promise me.'

'I promise. I promise you, Ruth.'

It would work this time. They would get it right. 'What am I looking for?'

'Any unusual activity. Contacts – new or old.'

'Simple enough.'

'Tell your friends to keep their distance, Zaf.' A warning note. 'But if any of this is traced back, you will be protected.'

'I don't need you to baby-sit me, Harry.'

There were endless questions he wanted to ask. Were they ones he should ask? he wondered. Wasn't it bad tradecraft to walk into a situation without as much intel as possible? Or maybe you just had to trust the people around you.

If this was one of Debra Langham's tests with the impossible names, he would probably have just failed.

In the tests that actually mattered in this job, he was certain he was doing the right thing. Loyalty. Instinct. Trust.

'I better make some phone-calls, then.'

He started to stand.

'Zaf... Thank you.'

ooOoo

'What have you been up to?'

'Oh,' Zaf grinned. 'This and that.'

'Is this or that blonde, brunette or redhead?'

'You have a filthy mind, Jo Portman.'

'I learnt from the best.' She smiled, eyes moving from him to her monitor and back; she leant forward, elbows on her desk. 'Come on, where have you been?'

It was hard not telling Jo things. He had grown too used to telling her everything. Almost everything. They had got very drunk one night and sworn a pact that they would never lie to each other. A pact was a pact, even when made under the influence of the best part of three bottles of wine. Funny, the things that became important.

'Top secret,' he told her. It wasn't strictly a lie.

'Hmmm.' Her eyes narrowed. 'Ooh, they're making you DG.'

Zaf laughed. 'Yeah, that's the one.'

Jo went back to her data trail. 'In that case, you're buying tonight. Oh, I forgot to tell you – your mum rang this morning. She's coming down for a visit next weekend.'

He grimaced. 'You really do believe in saving the best 'til last, don't you?'

ooOoo

The trail went cold in Vienna. It hadn't taken long to make that discovery. One hell of a place to reinvent yourself in, she thought. Personally, she would have preferred somewhere warmer. The Amalfi coast, perhaps - Portofino. But this wasn't about her.

She had studied everything Harry had given her, everything he had told her, until she had this other person coming out of her pores. Getting to know someone better than you knew yourself. That was the easy part. Letting go of them when it was over – that was when it was hard.

But that time was still a long way off. What she had now was a bizarre sort of intimacy with a woman she had never met.

The air-conditioning was an ever-present low roar. She shivered under the icy jets but didn't change its settings. The snap of cold air against her skin was preferable to heat. Her reflection in the mirror looked pale and serious-eyed and she didn't really see it. Mind on other things. She rubbed cream into her skin, arms bending awkwardly trying to reach between her shoulder blades. All these years and her wrists still burnt when she twisted them at that angle; should have kept up the yoga, she thought sardonically. It was a strange sensation – half aware and half numb and it still made her feel slightly sick.

Mia looked in the mirror again and the hum from the air-conditioning was suddenly deafening. She shivered. Maybe it was time to find somewhere permanent. A place where she actually lived for most of the year instead of part of it. She could get a pet. A cat, perhaps.

She put her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes tight against the pressure building behind them.

Getting inside someone's head is easy; but getting back out...

There was a picture propped against the mirror, a grainy print-out on cheap paper. She studied it through her fingers and then raised her head, meeting that pale face with the green eyes once more.

'Hello, Ruth Evershed. If I were you, where would I hide?'

TBC