This chapter is longish, and heavily plot-driven. I wanted to create a reason for Ruth's `rebirth' which didn't involve the supernatural, and that took some explaining. Again, `Spooks' is hyper-reality, so my explanation may make sense only to me! The `reason' is hardly original, but it is topical.
Some fluff & banter at the end...
Harry's Thai chicken with mushrooms, accompanied by jasmine rice and a green salad was surprisingly good, delicious even. Ruth could see he was a man of many talents, many of them hidden and so known only to her. She smiled to herself whilst gazing into her glass of wine.
"I'm glad to see you two so happy." Bending towards her, Malcolm spoke quietly and conspiratorially, his eyes sparkling with pleasure. "I know we all placed bets on whether you and Harry would – you know – and we shouldn't have embarrassed you, but - "
"Malcolm, it's fine now. It's all water under the bridge. No need to apologise."
"I felt so bad about -"
"Honestly, Malcolm, we've moved on, Harry and I."
"I can see that. You fit well together."
Ruth twirled the stem of her wine glass, concentrating on the effect this had on the chenin blanc within. She could not help smiling, as much as she was trying to be serious. If only Malcolm knew just how well she and Harry `fit' together! Her own memories from only two days ago of them `fitting well' together like a couple of nineteen-year-olds on the couch in the Devon cottage left her cheeks warm and her body tingling.
"I hadn't realised Harry was so...domesticated," Malcolm continued.
"Oh, he's just showing off for you, Malcolm."
"I think that perhaps the one he's showing off for is you, Ruth."
"Ta-daa!" Harry brought dessert from the kitchen and carefully placed the tray holding three small bowls at the centre of the table. "Beat that, Jamie Oliver!"
"You made that yourself?" asked Malcolm. "Tell me you bought it ready made."
"Créme Brulee – made by these very hands." Harry lifted his hands and turned them first one way then the other. Ruth wondered what Malcolm really thought about this dramatic change in his once taciturn and often demanding boss. Sometimes Ruth had had to pinch herself to ensure she was not living in a dream state.
Harry played waiter as well as chef, and placed each individual serving of crème brulee in front of them. Firstly he placed Ruth's, reaching around to kiss her as he did so. Then he waited on Malcolm.
"I'll have mine without the kiss, thank you, Harry."
The dessert was almost perfect, and Ruth was at last at a place of peace in her life. For now.
"How is your mother, Malcolm?" she asked.
"Not too bad, and thanks for asking, Ruth. She doesn't venture out much these days. The doctor said it's her rheumatoid arthritis. She depends on a number of us to look after her. My cousin's wife is with her tonight, and will be staying over, so I have the night off." Ruth felt sad that Malcolm had not managed to find the kind of personal happiness she and Harry were now living. He deserved to be loved well. He was a good man.
Ruth and Malcolm moved to the lounge room while Harry cleared the dining room of dishes. As Malcolm opened his laptop on the coffee table, he noticed the photo of she and Harry on the table under the window.
"That was a good party," he commented. "You and Harry danced together, and we were all betting you'd go home together. Alas, that was not to be."
"I can't remember it, Malcolm. I wish I could."
"That'd be the TTX."
"You knew?" Ruth was startled.
"Only since Harry and I talked on the phone. But there's quite a conspiracy behind what happened to you. Are you sure you're up to hearing it?"
"Malcolm, if I don't hear it from you, I'll be forever wondering. I need to know, even if I don't like what I hear."
Harry brought in a tray laden with coffee pot, cups, a bottle of Cointreau, three liqueur
glasses, and a bowl of chocolate treats.
"Tell me you didn't make these too," said Malcolm, tucking into a chocolate.
"I cannot lie. I got those in the market. Help yourselves."
"You make me feel bad, Harry. I could never have done all this."
"Ah," Harry replied, "and nor can I do all that hocus pocus you do so well, Malcolm. We each have our talents."
"You seem to have been hiding many of yours, Harry," Malcolm quipped.
Harry sat on the settee next to Ruth, while Malcolm occupied a chair opposite, his laptop open on the low table in front of him.
"It's hard to know where to start. There is such a web of intrigue which sustains this situation. My cousin's son, Robert, loaned me the anti-encryption software I used." Malcolm looked at Harry. "Just in case you thought I may have stolen it from MI-5."
"That would be nigh on impossible, Malcolm, given MI-5's security measures."
"Robert was the one who provided me with the algorithm -"
"Malcolm, " interrupted Harry, "unlike you and Ruth, my IQ is not over 200, and I glaze over whenever I hear words like `encryption' and `algorithm'. Just assume that I trust your sources, your judgement, your software and the conclusions you have drawn. So, what are your findings?"
"Very well," continued Malcolm. "What Robert helped me discover and decipher..." Malcolm paused to look at Harry.
"That's fine, Malcolm. `Decipher' I can manage."
"Thank you. So my software showed me a spike in email traffic between the Home Secretary's office and Downing Street in the weeks prior to Ruth's – er – accident. In these emails they spoke of Operation Haedes – spelled H-a-e-d-e-s -"
"Those bastards," breathed Ruth. "They used Homer's Iliad. They knew I'd studied the classics." Her eyes were fiery, rather than sad. "Haedes was where the souls went after death, and until they were buried, they'd visit their loved ones in their dreams."
Harry put his arm around Ruth, intending to draw her closer to him, but she shrugged it off.
"Harry, I'm fine. Really. I need to know this, but I warn you I may get very angry. I don't need your protection right now. Maybe later," she added, smiling at him weakly.
"Cut to the chase, Malcolm," Harry said. "Just the facts will do."
"Alright then. None of this is fact. It's all supposition."
"That's to be expected, Malcolm. The three of us lived in those shadows for so long that fact and fiction frequently begin to look the same. What is the chain of responsibility?"
"I was most interested in who or what was driving this. Where it all began, if you like. Firstly, it appears that Towers offered Ruth the job at the Home Office to get her away from you, Harry."
"What? Why?"
"Because with her by your side during operations you were calm and confident. And logical. You acted directly from her analysis, which as we all know, was impeccable, and always wise and well thought out."
"Thank you, Malcolm," Ruth murmured.
"Don't mention it, Ruth. That part, at least, is the truth. You, Harry, were no longer the loose cannon they needed you to be."
"Loose cannon?" exclaimed Harry. "That's not very flattering."
"But it was true all the same," Ruth said quietly.
Malcolm continued. "They needed you to be...somewhat gung ho, like you were in the past, before Ruth came on the scene. They needed you to take the kind of risks you would never have taken had Ruth been working with you. With Ruth still working beside you, despite her working for Towers, they had to remove her. Not to kill her, because that would remove the possibility that she could be of use later if you didn't play the game according to their rules."
"You mentioned Downing Street, Malcolm," said Ruth. "Surely this didn't originate there. Who was it could possibly benefit from this?"
"Every government can be bought. The idea of a true democracy is just that – an idea, a fantasy if you like – and all democracies, no matter how effective or how stable, are open to manipulation. That is, governments can be bought. Have you ever heard of Pax Una?"
"Peace Together," Ruth replied. "Pax Una is Latin for peace together."
"It's the name of the corporate entity which owns Kyton Aerospace in Northumberland."
"The aircraft company?" Ruth's face was showing that the giant penny had almost dropped for her.
"Yes, that's the one. They design and manufacture military aircraft, but the profits from this company feed the parent company – that's Pax Una - which manufactures and sells?..." Malcolm waited for either of his listeners to finish his sentence.
"Arms to the Arabs," said Ruth. "This is about the Arab Spring, isn't it?"
"That's right, Ruth. And to summarise, the government of this country sacrificed Ruth's job and her life, as well as yours too, Harry, as it turns out, in order to support and encourage the unrest in the Arab countries - Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Syria, and so on – for the express purpose of Pax Una being able to maximise their profits through selling weapons to these countries whose strife they had in part created."
"Like Russia did in Afghanistan," said Ruth.
"Precisely," replied Malcolm. "It's a ploy as old as human warfare."
"We were not trading in oil, then," Harry observed.
"Only very marginally," replied Malcolm, "Enough to deflect suspicion. That fact was very well hidden in a series of encrypted – sorry Harry, it's the best word for the job – messages between Pax Una and Downing Street. I doubt even William Towers knew the full story." Malcolm uttered an uncharacteristic sigh. "So while on the one hand you were busy flushing out and catching terrorists, our government has been equally as vigilant in creating them."
"Bastards!" breathed Harry.
"On the up side," Malcolm continued, "because I believe there is one – Ruth is back, and you have left the service, Harry, and you are together. Which is no doubt where you are meant to be. In my experience, dark clouds always have a silver lining."
"Tell that to the kids shot dead on the streets in those Arab countries," Harry said bitterly. "Tell that to their parents."
"Informing the media about this would be useless. The cover-up is very thorough, and goes right to the top."
"Malcolm, thank you for all the work you did on this," Ruth said. "I feel much better about it already."
"Well, I don't," interrupted Harry. "I have a burning desire to go in to see Towers tomorrow and punch his chubby, supercilious, unctuous face. Upper class prat!"
"Harry," interjected Ruth, "maybe Towers allowed me to continue to work with you because he actually had an inkling of what was going on, and he wanted to prevent it."
"Had he wanted to prevent what ultimately happened to you, Ruth, then he never would have allowed you anywhere near me."
"Harry, the very nature of this conspiracy means that it was not personal. You and Ruth just happened to be `useful' to the cause. I doubt it would be possible to identify the person or persons responsible for this conspiracy," continued Malcolm. "In a way, everyone in the chain of secrets is responsible. The lower a person is on the chain of command, the less responsible you are, but the more likely you are to suffer the consequences of the actions of others above you in the chain. Harry, you and Ruth have both suffered enormously from what happened, but you were not responsible, and nor was Towers. I doubt he had any idea of what they had planned for Ruth."
Harry sighed heavily. "Small wonder I felt that resigning was my only option. I'm so relieved to be out of it."
The three of them became silent, contemplative as they sipped their liqueur, each lost in private thoughts.
As Malcolm left, they agreed to get together again soon. Ruth had enjoyed seeing him, despite the message he had brought them.
"I'll help you tidy up and load the dishwasher," she said to Harry as he began to gather together the glasses and cups.
"You will not. This has been my treat, and all you have to do now is go to bed and wait for me. I have another surprise for you, so don't go to sleep until I get there." He leaned across the coffee table to kiss her.
"Harry, you do understand that you've set an impossible precedent. If in the future you want to get in my good books, or pamper me in any way, tonight will be the absolute minimum I will expect."
"And you'll be worth it," he said, smiling at her before he took the tray through into the kitchen.
Ruth had just entered that amorphous twilight state which precedes sleep when she heard him in the bathroom, washing and cleaning his teeth and then changing for bed. Despite trying hard to be quiet, Harry ran into the door frame to the bedroom, stubbing his toe.
"Jee-zus!" he exclaimed, "Who moved the doorway?"
Ruth reached up and turned on the bedside light on her side, revealing a bent-over Harry examining his toe. Ruth caught his eye and patted his side of the bed. Despite it being only eleven days since Harry had turned up at her front door in Devon, she already felt proprietorial in relation to him. There was a togetherness in their relationship which many couples took years to cultivate, but which had been there right from the start with she and Harry. A thought jumped into her head: We're already married.
"So what's your surprise?" Ruth asked. "Perhaps you've forgotten that I've already seen all you have to offer."
Harry chuckled, leaning across to open the top drawer of his bedside cupboard.
"This," he said, handing her a small package in a white paper packet. It was about the same size as a tennis ball. For a very brief moment she thought he was springing an engagement ring on her. She hadn't wanted that to be the surprise, since they'd not even discussed marriage, and being one half of the partnership, Ruth wanted to have some say in the whether and when. If there was ever to be a ring, she also wanted to be able to choose it for herself.
She took the package from him, hoping that it was something she'd like. Slowly, Ruth unwrapped the paper from the gift. When all the paper had fallen away she saw that it was a snow dome. She shook it without paying a lot of attention to the scene inside it. Harry put his hand out to stop her shaking it again.
"Look at it," he said. So she did.
"Oh Harry, that's so sweet of you."
Inside the snow dome was a miniature Eiffel Tower.
"I wanted this to be a reminder to you about keeping Paris for someone special. I was hoping you meant me."
"Harry Pearce, you are the sweetest man!"
"Enough of the `sweet', Ruth. You forget I used to run MI-5. Sweet I'm not. Nasty I can be."
"Harry, I think I know you about as well as anyone has ever known you. Like it or not, you are sweet!"
"So," said Harry, leaning across to her, moving in to kiss her, "do I get a reward or what?"
"Harry," said Ruth, totally ignoring him, "did you ever hear about the woman who married the Eiffel Tower? True story. She had some condition – can't remember what it was called – where she was only able to fall in love with inanimate objects. She decided to consummate her relationship with the tower, so she -"
"Ruth!"
"What?"
"I don't give a toss about that woman. She sounds barking mad. I only care about us. I only want you to consummate with me."
"I'm not sure that's the correct use of the word, Harry. Consummate actually means `to bring to perfection'. Are we perfect in that department do you think? Can we be any more perfect?"
"Well, I'm not sure. How long has it been? Two days? I've forgotten. Do you think we ought to – er – do it again maybe?"
Holding the snow dome tightly in one hand, Ruth leaned across to Harry's side of the bed and kissed him slowly and deeply. "OK, let's get consummating," she murmured into his mouth.
More coming (and no pun intended!)
(And as improbable as it sounds, the story about the woman who married the Eiffel Tower happens to be true.)