"Hello. Valentine speaking," Harry's voice answers.
"Hi …... it's me. My neighbour told me …..."
"How did you know it was me?" Harry's voice is much softer and gentler than the voice he'd used when he'd answered the phone.
"It was the way she described you. She said you acted like you were used to ordering people around."
"She did? Am I …... like that?"
"Of course you are, Harry. You know you are."
What follows is a rather long silence. Ruth thinks of things to say to fill the aural gap, but it is Harry who has come looking for her, not the other way around.
"You sound angry with me," he says at last.
"No …... not now. I was. I was …... I had to get away from you, or …..."
"I …... I made the wrong move at the wrong time, didn't I?"
More like the right move at the wrong time, and in the wrong way, she thinks.
"Harry …... can we not talk about this now? I ….."
"Very well, Ruth, but we have to talk about it some time soon. We never seem to get any time to ourselves while we're in London."
"So you thought you'd corner me while I'm out of my comfort zone."
"No …... I thought we could both do with a day or two away from our normal environment."
"Can we meet? I mean, we have to meet …... face to face. Something has happened."
Around forty minutes later, Harry knocks on Ruth's front door. It is three weeks since she last saw him, and despite her best intentions to protect herself from whatever it is which continually draws her to him, she is more than a little pleased to see him again. He has brought a take-away Indian meal for two, and two bottles of light red wine.
"I already had dinner," Ruth comments, as he places the boxes of the Indian meal on the table.
"When? It's only eight o'clock."
"I had an omelette at four-thirty."
Harry looks up at her and smiles. She cannot say no to him when he looks at her like that. They have not touched, and if this goes as Ruth plans, they will not have cause to touch one another at all while he is in her flat. She knows that inviting Harry into her temporary home is risky, but she is far too drained by her meeting with Ros to have gone out anywhere to meet him.
Ruth watches him closely as he plates up for them both, and then opens one of the bottles of wine, pouring a little into each of two glasses. Ruth enjoys watching his profile, his lips pouting in concentration as he pours wine into the glasses. When he lifts a glass of wine to hand to her, she is momentarily embarrassed that she is still gazing at his face, and he smiles at her interest in him.
"You know that I watch you every chance I get," he says quietly, scooping his naan bread into his curry.
We're on dangerous ground already, and he's only been here ten minutes.
'Well, you shouldn't," Ruth replies.
"You can't keep me at arm's length forever, Ruth."
"I know, but there's something I have to tell you, and that is more important than …... us."
"So, there's an us?"
"I …... suppose there is …. in a way. It's just that what I have to tell you surpasses anything else we may have to talk about."
"Will I be upset by this news?"
"It's not about us, Harry. It's work."
"Fire away."
"It's rather …... dramatic, and life-changing."
Harry puts down his fork, and takes a quick swig from his glass of wine. "I'm ready. What is it?"
Ruth sits back in her chair while she tells Harry the story of her day. When she gets to the part where she'd met Ros – wise-cracking, still-very-much-alive Ros – Harry's face pales, and he sits up straight, his eyes wide and staring at her.
"But we were told her body had been found, Ruth."
"Who told you?"
"The captain of the rescue team …... and the police, although to be fair, the police relied upon the rescue squad for their information. He said that Ros' body was found, but was in too distressing a state for anyone to identify her. She had to be identified using her DNA. Same with Andrew."
"Andrew is alive, and in a nursing home in Warwickshire."
"Is that why you came here to spend your leave?"
"No, Harry. I knew none of this until late this morning. Why did you come to Warwickshire?"
"To see you."
Ruth sighs heavily, and looks down at her plate of food. She looks up suddenly to see Harry watching her, a few tears running down his cheeks unchecked. Seeing her watching him, he quickly lifts his hand to wipe the tears away.
"It's alright, Harry. It's normal for you to feel something."
Ruth can see that Harry is experiencing difficulty maintaining his composure. He had loved – loves – Ros like a daughter, and her (apparent) death had devastated him, which she is sure had fueled his strange proposal of marriage. In this moment, as she watches him staring at some point behind and above her head, while he breathes deeply to maintain control, she wishes she had – in that mad moment when he'd whispered his proposal close to her ear – taken a giant leap of faith and said yes.
Ruth watches Harry as he calms himself, something he has had to do many times, she is sure.
"What do you suggest we do next, Ruth? We can hardly get CO19 to raid the place."
"I don't think a raid would work, even if we did. This operation requires stealth."
Harry's eyes settle on her, and he smiles …... the personal smile he keeps just for her. "What do you suggest?"
"I've already rung Tariq. I hope you don't mind. I thought of running it by you first, but we may not have a lot of time in which to act. I asked him to check all patient admissions and discharges for Maplethorpe House during the past two weeks. I don't expect Andrew's presence there will be officially recorded, so I also asked him to see if he could hack into the CCTV, both inside and outside the buildings. He has yet to get back to me."
"And if he is there, and we know where he is?"
"I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Ros wants to be involved, but I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"She feels responsible," Harry muses, before he again tucks into his curry.
Next day, Ruth's shift does not begin until midday, but she arrives at Violet Rose Hutton House at eleven, chiefly so she can organise the sweets and drinks and magazines for her clients. Having quickly done that, she heads to the tea room, her mind mulling over the conversation she'd shared with Harry the night before. Noticing her stifling a yawn, he'd made his excuses and left early, asking her to keep in touch. She'd seen in his eyes a need for something more from their interactions. She needed something more – a touch, a hug, perhaps a kiss - but right now is not the time. Perhaps after Andrew Lawrence is found. Perhaps once they are back in London. Perhaps sometime soon.
Ruth suddenly pays attention to something the other person in the tea room is telling her.
"Then I turned the corner into D corridor, and there was this bloke sitting outside one of the rooms. He was wearing a black suit and tie. Secret service for sure."
"Which room?" Ruth asks, as she heads to the urn to make herself a cup of tea.
"Room 26. It was D26."
Bingo! Darren Glassman works in maintenance at both Maplethorpe and Violet Rose. Ruth had not even considered him as a likely source of information. Thank you, Darren.
"Have you been in the room?" She asks, trying to sound disinterested, while all the while her heart is thumping.
"Not yet. I have to look at the cable connection on the TV in that room, and there's a plumbing issue in the loo. I told them I'd be back for that tomorrow."
Ruth sits at the table opposite Darren, and sips her tea, hoping the usually quiet Darren will change his habits of a lifetime and freely babble on about Room D26 at Maplethorpe House. Alas, he begins to talk about his girlfriend's cats, and so Ruth tunes out, her mind racing ahead of her.
Twenty minutes later, Ruth is on duty as Therese James, and she goes about her job diligently, while her mind digests the phone calls she'd made between her time in the tea room, and beginning her shift.
"You need to concentrate your focus on that room, and the avenues to and from that room."
"I know, Ruth. I was going to ring you this afternoon, once I have an idea of how the shifts work."
"Is there any vision inside the room itself?"
"None at all. Sorry."
"That's not your fault, Tariq."
And she'd also made a quick call to Harry, informing him of her findings. He'd waited on the other end of the phone, and Ruth could almost hear the machinations of his mind, turning and whirring. What he then suggested had Ruth protesting, with him ignoring her protests. He really could be the most infuriating man!
When Ruth reaches Amanda's room, she sees she has a visitor.
"Sorry, I didn't know you had company. I'll come back later."
Ruth turns to leave the room, when Ros speaks.
"Bloody hell, will you just come here?"
Ruth turns back, and re-enters the room, closing the door behind her. Sitting in a chair across from Ros' wheelchair is Harry, his face turned towards Ruth, a smile on his face.
"Is there something you need, Amanda?" Ruth asks, stopping short of both she and Harry.
"I need you to join us. And don't stand there. Sit on the sofa next to James. I'm sure he won't bite …... at least not during daylight hours."
Ruth hesitates, and then, noticing how Harry moves over slightly, allowing her a space next to him, she moves to the sofa and sits, leaving a rather wide space between them. Looking up at Ros, she catches her rolling her eyes.
"Hello again, James," Ruth says quietly. Harry smiles at her and nods. "So …... what's the hurry?"
"What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?" Harry asks her, his face serious.