Rain streamed down the windows and the windscreen of Michael's 1934 MG coupe. Grace felt herself leaning closer to him, and she shivered. "It always rains in Norfolk," she said, needing to say something.

"I need you to watch the horizon," he said, "for boats."

"I can barely see the front of the car. How ever will I see a boat?"

"You'll see it before me. Your eyes are younger." Michael looked down at the petite figure beside him, his body aching for her. She was too young for him, too available, her life too uncluttered. He shouldn't.

"In this weather?" Grace looked up to see Michael leaning towards her, closer, and then closer still. She reached up to draw his face to hers and they kissed. It was a soft kiss, neither quick nor lingering. A kiss which tasted of crown mints - to mask the cigarette he'd smoked while waiting for her in Hemsby - with just a hint of whiskey on his tongue. Grace felt no guilt at all. It was their first kiss, and she prayed it would not be their last.

Ruth's first awareness as she woke was of the soft glow of the early morning sun from behind the curtains. The second thing was that she was naked. She then turned to see that Harry's side of the bed was empty. She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, allowing her mind to drift back a few hours to just before dawn when she was woken by Harry's hand caressing the skin of her abdomen underneath her pyjama top. His touch had been surprisingly tender, and while his fingers busily explored her naked skin, she felt his lips kiss the skin of her shoulder all the way to her neck.

By the time she rolled over to face him she had no reservations at all about what was about to happen. "Very tricky," she'd said to him between kisses.

"What do you mean?"

"You've pounced on me when I least expected it, and now I can hardly say no."

"Do you want to say no?" he'd asked her, his voice lazy with arousal.

"Of course not," and he'd chuckled before moving in again for another series of kisses.

In the end she had to tell him that as much as she was enjoying the foreplay they needed to move along. The bedroom had been dark, with the barest glow of moonlight sliding through the gap where the curtains didn't quite meet, and so Ruth had felt confident enough to remove her own pyjama top before she rolled over to slide her fingers inside Harry's clothing. She had been surprised by how soft was his skin, and yet she was soon to discover that the softest of his skin sheathed the hardest part of him, the hardening occurring in a remarkably short time. "It's been a long time for me," he said when she'd commented.

"Me, too," she'd replied.

In the end the joining of their bodies in their first act of love together had occurred quite naturally. The act itself had not taken long, but nor did they expect it to. Afterwards they'd lain side by side, their breathing hard, their skin slick with sweat.

"Why now?" Ruth had asked once her breathing had calmed.

"What do you mean?"

"Why at four in the morning? Why not wait at least until I was awake?"

"I awoke suddenly, and feeling your warmth beside me I couldn't resist you."

"So you leaped in before I could change my mind."

"It worked, didn't it?"

Ruth had nothing to say to that, so she reached out beneath the duvet to grasp his hand. "I still haven't seen you naked," she said quietly.

Harry had chuckled, turning to kiss her cheek. "Shall I turn on the light and parade around the room au naturel?"

"It's far too cold for that. I'll .. wait."

"My suggestion is that tonight after dinner we have a bath."

"Together?"

"Preferably, yes."

And they did, but first they spent a lazy day around the house, talking, cooking, and eating. When, in mid afternoon, Harry's mobile phone rang, Ruth took herself off to the small office at the back of the house, and began working on the outline of the second chapter of her novel. She found it difficult to get herself in the right mood, with sensations and memories from the early morning encounter with Harry invading the space she normally reserved for writing. She found herself staring out the window at the light drizzle which had begun falling soon after lunch. Four seasons in one day, she thought. Welcome to Suffolk.

Ruth had no sooner found her story flowing once more when she heard a knock on the door of the office, and Harry poked his head through the gap between door and door frame. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but can we talk?"

The rhythm of her writing was already broken, so she turned to indicate the chair he'd occupied the day before. He'd also come bearing gifts – a mug of coffee for them each, along with a plate of chocolate-covered digestives. "Mmm," she said, reaching out to take a biscuit from the plate, "what a dilemma. My least favourite biscuits covered with my most favourite condiment."

Harry stared at her, as only Harry could. "I'm not sure chocolate could be called a condiment, Ruth."

"I beg to differ. I think you'll find that a condiment is something which is used to enhance flavour, and since digestives have no discernible flavour, anything at all will serve as a condiment." Ruth had noticed Harry watching her closely as she spoke. "What is it?" she asked.

"I love it when you shoot me down with logic."

"And I love it when you set me up so that my default response will be that I shoot you down with logic."

"I set you up?"

"Of course. You do it often. I think you get something out of my logical comebacks and explanations."

"Your logic arouses me."

Ruth smiled, watching him, hoping he had more to offer as explanation, but his arousal at the hands of her logic seemed to be about all he had. "Is something wrong?"

Harry carefully placed his mug of coffee on the desk beside Ruth's laptop, and then he sat back in his chair and sighed. "That was Malcolm who called. He's been busy with his .. er, girlfriend this weekend, but he got up early this morning and did an investigation into Derek Mitchell. What he told me has me rather worried." He waited, watching for a reaction from Ruth.

"Is Malcolm worried?"

"It's difficult to tell with him. You know how he holds his cards close to his chest." She did. "I'll spare you the details of how he obtained this information. Most of his sources are private, so I never ask."

"His sources are almost always very reliable," Ruth said.

"I know. He has discovered that Derek Mitchell was born in Leeds to working class English parents – nothing remarkable there. In the early 1990's he joined the United Nations peacekeeping force and was sent to the Balkans, where he remained on and off for four years. Once he returned to the UK he was discharged, medically unfit, but there are records to show that he was implicated in war crimes, but the evidence against him was thin, and may well have been fabricated. He was not popular with his fellow soldiers. He was seen as a loner - not a team player. After a few months at home he returned to Croatia, where he has lived ever since. He married a Croatian girl – Kamila - and they have two children. That's his background. And yes, he's always been called Mitch. This is where the picture begins to blur, but Malcolm was able to determine that he has done some work on behalf of MI6, and a number of other government funded bodies who were in the Balkans after the end of the Balkan war. He has done random jobs, both short and long term, sometimes operating undercover for months at a time. He booked into the hotel in Great Yarmouth ten days after you arrived back in the UK."

"This is to do with me?" Ruth suddenly sat up, shocked and surprised. Seeing the sadness in Harry's eyes, and the worry tightening his mouth, she reached out a hand to him, which he captured in both his hands.

"There's nothing yet to connect the two of you, but it appears he may be here to keep an eye on you."

Suddenly Ruth took her hands from Harry's grasp and stood clumsily. "I have to go back to London," she said with determination. "I have to hide away somewhere. What was I thinking, imagining I could have a normal life?"

Harry had also stood, and was blocking her way, his hands by his side, but ready to grab her should she attempt to get past him. "You're safest here, Ruth. With me."

"But I'm putting you in danger. I can't -"

"You can, and I'm here .. to take care of you and protect you. This Mitchell fellow works for our side, Ruth."

"Since when have MI6 been on our side?"

"It's more likely his presence here has nothing to do with us."

All the fight went out of Ruth, and she took a step forwards and leaned heavily against Harry, who wrapped his arms around her and drew her against him. He bent down so that his cheek was against hers. "Malcolm hasn't all the information he needs yet. He only has the background on Derek Mitchell. He was planning to follow the money which is funding Mitchell's hotel stay. Graham's .. girlfriend -"

Ruth lifted her head quickly. "Graham has a girlfriend?"

"We-ell, perhaps not a girlfriend as such. I gather he's sleeping with her, which is not quite the same thing." Ruth nodded, and then lifted her arms to slide them around his neck so that her fingers were free to play with the ends of his hair. "Malcolm still has to follow the money trail – a job which he'll hire out to one of the bright young things he has working for him. He also wants to look at all the places you stayed while you were away, Ruth. I told him I'd get you to make a list, and then I'll email that through to him."

As he'd been speaking, Ruth's forehead had wrinkled with worry. "Why would he want those details?" she asked.

"I asked that same question, and all he said was that he was attempting to cover all bases. He doesn't expect to find anything, but he has to check all possibilities."

Ruth nodded, and then she reached up to place a soft kiss on Harry's lips. "Thank you," she said, "and I'm sorry I over-reacted. All I could see was a nighttime attack on this house, with a bunch of militia raiding the place and taking you away."

"Your imagination is working overtime, Ruth."

She sighed, pulling out of his embrace. "Speaking of my imagination, I really need to put in another couple of hours on my novel. When do you expect to hear back from Malcolm about .. the rest of it?"

"He said it may take him at least forty-eight hours from the time he gets the list of places you stayed."

"Right," she said, once against sitting at her laptop, "I'll do that first."

"You remember them all?"

"All except maybe a half dozen cheap hotels where I stayed for one night only, but that was very early in my time away. Mostly I stayed for at least a week or more in one place."

"Let me know when you have the list," Harry said, and then quickly left the room.

It took Ruth almost two hours to compile her list. She'd had to consult Google maps as she followed her course across Europe six and a half years earlier. It was when she checked the address of the house she'd lived in in Scoscesa, the mountain village in Italy, that she felt uneasy. She remembered how it had felt to her like they were waiting for her to arrive, although it had only been a few days before her arrival that she'd called ahead to inquire about work and a place to stay. It had been all too convenient, too easy, where her experiences in other parts of Italy showed her that the Italians were anything but organised, and often lived life day to day. When her list was complete she sent it through to Harry's computer, and sent him a text. That's ridiculously lazy, she thought, but she had writing to do, and was determined to not be distracted by Harry.

It was almost nine o'clock by the time they climbed into the bath together. "You're going to have to get a bigger bath," Ruth said, bending her knees to make room as Harry stretched out at the other end of the bath.

"You could sit against me," he suggested, almost certain she'd reject the idea as being a ploy he had to get his hands on her. He was relieved when she shuffled herself around until she sat facing the same way as Harry, leaning her back against him. He had nowhere to put his arms other than around her. "This is nice," he said, kissing the side of her head.

"I don't think we should start anything while we're in the bath, Harry."

"I wasn't about to. You know I'll be turning sixty this year."

"I notice you didn't play the age card this morning."

"That's because this morning I felt no older than forty."

Ruth leaned her head back until it rested on his shoulder. She wondered to herself why she had not allowed something like this to happen between them before she'd had to leave London .. but then, she already knew the answer to that question. They had not been equals at work, and it was at work that their relationship had formed and then grown. At that time they would always have been a boss and his subordinate; that is, Harry was in charge, and would no doubt have been in charge of the relationship.

Ruth had been lightly brushing her fingertips back and forth along Harry's thighs, which were either side of her, while she turned her thoughts to their activities of early that morning. After no more than a minute or two of her fingers caressing his thighs, Harry grasped her hands in his and removed them from his skin. "What's wrong?" she asked, surprised.

"That's a little too … enjoyable."

"I'm sorry."

"Please don't be sorry, Ruth. Your touch is .. electric."

She moved her hands to cover his, and waited another minute before speaking her thoughts. "I've been thinking ..." she began.

"Dangerous words," he whispered against her temple.

"This Mitchell person who hides in the dunes … if he turned up here just after I arrived in the UK, why was he staying in Yarmouth? Were he here to keep an eye on me, why not follow me to London?"

"You've been reading my mind," he said, his voice low as it rumbled against the side of her head.

"The only logical explanation, if this person's task is based on any kind of logical plan, is that whatever – or whoever – they are after .. or watching – if it involves me, it only involves me in relation to you."

"Or conversely," Harry countered, "if it involves me – which, given the timing and his vantage point in the dunes is highly likely – then it involves me in relation to you. I think we can safely say that Graham's prior drug connections have nothing to do with this."

"I agree. We also have to consider that if a mercenary, as this man is, has been sent here from Croatia, then he's not here for the scenery, and it's likely he's here to do more than simply observe us."

With her words, Ruth felt Harry's arms tighten around her. He was afraid. She was afraid. It was naïve to believe that together they could beat this threat to them, whatever it was. They were going to need more than just each other.