Sunday 24th June - 2007 - 7.24 am:
Harry wakes to a feather-light touch on his cheek, which he bats away with his fingers. It's the light feminine chuckle which gives her away. He'd been dreaming about butterflies. There'd been hundreds of them, alighting on his hands and arms, and then one had settled on his cheek.
"You're not a butterfly," he mumbles, rolling towards her.
"Not today, no," she says before she finds his mouth, giving him a soft good morning kiss.
Harry rolls onto his back, and she lies across his body. What follows is a long and satisfying snog, during which he runs his hands up and down her back, discovering that beneath her dressing gown she is naked. He pulls away slowly, his eyes on her. This is what he'd been waiting for. This is why, again and again, his life has been spared. He has been given a gift - a rare and perfect gift. Ruth is his redemption.
He sighs heavily. "What time is it?"
"Seven-thirty."
He lifts himself onto one elbow, angling his head so that he can read the small digital clock beside the bed. "Jesus," he breathes, "so it is. I was planning being on the Grid by eight."
Ruth is smiling at him, one finger tracing an invisible line from his cheek, down his neck to his shoulder, and then to his bare chest. Ruth is in one of her playful moods, something he finds he enjoys about her.
He lifts one side of the duvet. "I need to take a shower," he says, beginning to slide out of bed.
"Ros rang me," Ruth says quietly, the fingers on his shoulder holding him back. "She has things under control, and she suggests that you have no need to be there, but if you insist, she suggests you wait until after midday."
Harry sits on the side of the bed, half turning to face Ruth. "I'll need to ring her."
"She said you'd say that, and she told me to tell you that the Grid will run quite nicely without you."
He glares at her, but she still smiles. He is tempted to roll her back against the pillows and make love to her. "How long ago did she ring?" he asks, hoping just this once that Ruth can't read what has been going through his mind.
"Around half an hour."
"Anything could have happened in that time."
Ruth slides closer to him, and in so doing, her dressing gown gapes at the front, giving him a clear view of one ripe breast, its nipple dark and tempting. Harry considers taking that nipple in his mouth, but he badly needs to pee, and he could do with a quick shower.
"Bathroom?" he asks. "Which way?"
"First door on the right," Ruth replies.
On returning from the bathroom, Harry finds his lover lying in bed, the top half of her naked body on display, one arm flung above her head. Her pose is hardly subtle, so he slides into bed to join her.
They make love slowly. They have hours, although Harry could never last hours. There's his bad knee and his dodgy back. Next time he'll suggest Ruth be on top. Knowing that there will be a next time, Harry smiles as he gazes at the ceiling, his body sated, his muscles spent.
"What is it?" Ruth asks. She is lying against him, one arm draped over his belly, one leg entwined with his.
"I'm just happy," he says quietly. "I'm happy we're here together, and that we no longer have to fear losing one another."
Harry feels Ruth nodding, and then the silence is broken by the ringtone of his phone. Harry sighs heavily, as Ruth reaches over to grab it.
"I'll answer it," she says. "I'll say you're still asleep."
"That won't work, I'm afraid, not if it's important."
"Harry Pearce's phone," Ruth answers, and then she listens. He watches as her expression gradually changes from gentle playfulness to seriousness, and she grabs her bottom lip between her teeth. He suspects his and Ruth's private moments together may be coming to an end for now. "He's here, Ros," she says at last, "I'll hand you over."
It is Harry's turn to listen, and what Ros tells him has him quickly ending the call, and leaving the bed to gather his clothes.
"I'd like you to come with me," Harry says, having pulled on his trunks. He turns to face her, the remainder of his clothes from the night before bunched in his hand. "I suspect we'll need your unique take on things."
"Good," Ruth says, moving off the bed to find her clothes. "I'm not about to argue with that." There is no time for showering, no time for applying makeup. Ros had intimated they should come straight in.
Sunday 24th June - 2007 - 11.04 am.
Inside the meeting room, Harry is surprised to find Adam sitting opposite Ros, along with Malcolm and Jo. Only Ben is absent.
"Should you be here?" Harry says quietly to Adam.
"My sister and her husband offered to take Wes to some fair or other at their kids' school. I arrived at work just as the story broke."
"So .." Harry says, sitting in his usual chair, "tell me how things stand at -" and his concentration is broken by the eyes of his team moving to the door. Ruth had needed to visit the loo before joining the others in the meeting room.
"Hi all," she says, a little embarrassed by the attention.
Harry's back is to her, but while Adam and Jo get to their feet to greet her, followed at a less frantic pace by Ros and Malcolm, Harry remains seated. He listens, head down, while Adam and Jo hug Ruth, each uttering welcoming words.
"I'm relieved you're here," he hears Ros saying. "We could do with someone with a clear head."
"It's good to see you back where you belong," Malcolm says quietly. "We've left you a seat next to Harry."
So, almost as though she'd never left, Ruth slides into the chair on Harry's right, offers him an apologetic glance, and then waits for him to announce that the fun is over.
"Are we ready now?" he says, and everyone nods.
"Are you absolutely certain about that?" Harry asks Malcolm, who, at Ros's suggestion, has delivered his findings.
"At my behest, soon after Ava ... made a pass at you, Adam arranged for surveillance on her flat. Nothing untoward happened until late last night, and just before midnight, she left in her car, heading south. She was followed to Folkestone, where she appears to have put her car on the Euro Shuttle. Her flat is all but empty, so it's been made to appear she won't be returning any time soon."
Malcolm's words have Harry frowning, but when Ruth speaks quietly, five sets of eyes turn to her. "What about her work station?"
"All as it should be," replies Ros, "unless you find something no-one else has managed to uncover."
Ruth sits back in her chair, mildly stunned by Ros's inference that without Ava's presence, she will be the one to step straight back into the role of senior intelligence analyst.
"But the really juicy information has been put together by Malcolm's team," Adam says, wanting the meeting to be over quickly. "Just over thirteen months ago, Ava Starke - as Anna Wilson - was seconded to the office of Oliver Mace, where she remained until Oliver skipped the country. She would have worked quite closely with him. It appears that Oliver requested her specifically. It's even possible she was the one communicating with whoever was using Calvin Shadleigh's work station as a conduit, but after all this time, it's impossible to say."
"How is it we haven't known about this earlier?" Harry asks, his tone betraying his irritation. "Didn't you do a deep search on her, Jo?"
Jo drops her eyes. "I did, Harry. The records at GCHQ showed her working there full time throughout her secondment to Mace's office. Without knowing her legend, there was no way of knowing she was somewhere else."
"So ..." Harry says at last, palms on the desk, eyes moving from one agent to the next, "why was she here ... in Section D?"
What follows is a long and awkward silence. "Perhaps ..." Ruth begins carefully, "she was hoping to get closer to you, Harry, to see if you were implicated in Oliver's death. Calling it suicide is just temporarily convenient until the real cause is uncovered. If the path to Mace's death begins in your office, then ..."
"They can get Harry out, and shut down the section," Adam says quietly.
"Or absorb it totally into another section ... or Six," Malcolm adds.
"So ..." Jo muses, "we've been watched by our own, hoping we trip up."
"That's about the extent of it," Malcolm replies. "In the meantime, I'll be maintaining electronic surveillance on customs, just in case she returns. Her leaving may be a ruse, deliberately created to have us letting down our guard. We must remain vigilant."
The room is quiet while they all consider how close the section may have come to being closed down. Harry waits for one of his team to mention how it all began - with his oversight in taking Ruth's report on certain members of the JIC supporting torture for terror suspects - but no-one does. Eventually Harry turns to Ruth. "Do you feel like starting work today?" he asks.
"I thought I already had," is her quick reply.
"If you begin now, Ruth," Adam adds, "Harry might give you an early minute."
Ruth spends the best part of the day trawling through the files on the work computer of Ava Starke, now her own work station once more. At four o'clock, she lifts her eyes to where Harry sits alone in his office, his head resting on one hand, the fingers of this hand rubbing the skin of his forehead.
Quickly and quietly Ruth approaches, and when he doesn't answer her knock, she opens the door and enters.
"I thought it time I headed home," she says, once he looks up in surprise to see her standing there. He glances towards the door, perhaps believing she'd simply materialised in his office.
"You're going home?"
"I thought I might. I've worked for five hours without a break, and I'm hungry."
Harry's face softens. "If you can wait another ten minutes or so, I'll take you home. There's no need for you to be going home alone."
"I still have to find some suitable clothes for work," she says quickly. "I haven't yet had time for shopping. I was planning to do that today, but .."
"I distracted you," he murmurs.
"You did, but you're a very welcome distraction."
Ruth watches Harry watching her. She can almost see the wheels in his mind ticking over, considering options, lining up the possibilities in a row. "Are you having second thoughts, Ruth .. about us?"
"What? No ... of course not. You ... us .. it's the best thing that's ever happened to me -"
"And me."
"I've done all I can for today. I can find nothing on Ava's computer that's shouldn't be there. There are no hidden files, and no files encrypted in code unknown to us. It's all above board, and in perfect order."
Harry nods. "She'd have been very unwise to have kept anything from her other life on our system. That would have been .."
"- foolish," Ruth finishes for him. "Can I sit?" she asks, moving towards the chair. Harry nods, sitting up straight in his chair. His expression softens as he watches her. There is still a colt-like awkwardness about her, as though she believes she doesn't quite belong in that chair, in his office. "I thought you were busy," Ruth adds.
"Not busy as such, but I'm expecting a call in -" and he consults his wristwatch, "any minute now."
"Anyone important?" she asks warily.
Harry twists his mouth to one side. "Only in his own mind. You know what section heads are like, Ruth."
Ruth slowly smiles. "I certainly do. Rulers of the Universe, every one of them." Then her expression turns from mild amusement to seriousness. "I don't want ... this, what we are, what we have, to interfere with our work, Harry."
"It won't. It may even have us being more effective at work." He watches her, waiting for an objection, but there is none. His desk phone rings, and before he turns to answer it, he adds, "don't go anywhere. I won't be long."
Once his call is finishes, Harry drives Ruth home, picking up fish and chips from a chippy not far from Ruth's house.
"I won't stay over," he says, as they sit at Ruth's kitchen table, the fish and chips laid out on the table between them, along with a small bottle of vinegar, and extra salt. He watches Ruth as her eyes dart up to meet his. "I need a change of clothes, a long soak in the bath, and a shave."
Ruth nods and smiles. "Definitely a shave."
They eat in silence for several minutes, and Ruth watches him covertly, knowing there is something else on his mind, something he's been keeping from her since soon after the morning meeting. She'd noticed how distracted he was, and even worried. When at last he shares his news with her, it is unexpected.
"After the meeting this morning Adam took me aside." Ruth nods. She'd noticed, but had been keen to open her computer and begin working. "He's seen the writing on the wall."
"Meaning?"
"He told me that he's planning to leave the service ... for Wes's sake."
"Leave? As in leave forever?"
"That's what he said, yes. His words were something like, `I don't want to leave Wes to be brought up by others.'"
Ruth is stunned by the news, but not surprised. Adam adores Wes, and he wouldn't want to leave the child an orphan. "How soon is he thinking of leaving?"
"Quite soon," Harry replies. "Within weeks."
