A/N: This is the penultimate chapter. Final chapter will probably be up quite soon after this.
"Your last relationship …... when was it, and for how long?"
It is three days later, and they are lying in bed, under just a sheet. The conversation had begun when Ruth had pointed out that as well as she knew Harry at work, she knew little about him personally, and that that needs to change. Harry had responded by suggesting that Ruth ask him any question she likes, and he will answer truthfully.
"Not just a casual shag," she had qualified. "I mean a relationship."
"That's easy. It was Gillian Richards, a section chief from 6 – she's now working in the private sector – and it was my longest relationship outside my marriage." He glances across at Ruth, and she is watching him carefully. "It lasted …... around eight months, and it was in 1995. Now it's your turn."
"Did you ….. love her?"
"Ruth …... I don't think I really loved anyone outside my immediate family until I began loving you. Most of my …... women …... were convenient for me. They were good in bed, and they didn't ask awkward questions. Your turn."
"That's a bit …... cold."
"You know me, Ruth. That's how I am."
"You're not cold towards me. How were you with Gillian?"
He turns on his side to face her. "I can't remember, and that's the truth. It no longer matters. Your turn."
"Very well. I guess that would be …... Tom Bellis …... 2002, just before I joined Section D. He was one of the reasons I wanted to leave GCHQ."
"How long?"
"Maybe three months. I can't remember."
"And did you love him?"
"Harry! I barely knew him. Of course I didn't love him. I might have thought I did, but that was because I wanted to justify going to bed with him. He was gorgeous, but he was also self-centred and egotistical."
"So you see?"
"No. I don't see."
"Past relationships are just that," he says quietly, his mouth close to her ear. "They are part of our past, and they can't affect the present unless we allow them."
"Why do I feel that you're making a point?"
"Because I am. Dredging up the past serves no useful purpose."
Ruth is quiet, so again, Harry follows her line of sight. She is staring at the ceiling, chewing her lip. "I just ….. I'm curious."
"Why?"
"Because ….. I'm afraid ….."
"Of what, Ruth?"
She turns to face him, the worry line between her eyebrows deep and furrowed. "That I won't measure up."
"Jesus, Ruth!" Harry rolls on to his back, and places his palm over his eyes in frustration. He then removes his hand, and turns towards her, taking his weight on his elbow. The sheet falls away to expose the line of light brown hair which runs from his navel to his pubic hair, as he places his face close to hers. "You outshine every woman I have ever loved – and that includes my mother. As wonderful as she was, you are the sun to her moon. You are my everything, Ruth. It is impossible to compare you with the women I have been with before, because you are in a different universe altogether. You are the most loving, warm, compassionate, selfless – not to forget sexy – woman I have ever known -"
He is interrupted by the ringing of a mobile phone from on top of the beside cabinet.
"That's my work phone," he says, suddenly pulling away from Ruth and sitting up. He picks up the phone, and checks the caller ID. "I have to take this."
She nods. "It's just after 8 o'clock in London. It must be important." She lies back, amazed by how different her life has become, and hoping she doesn't somehow muck it up.
"Harry Pearce," he barks into the phone. Ruth is admiring by how easily he slips back into his Grid persona.
Although Ros had told Harry to wait until his leave is over before heading home, he considered it poor form were he to be lying around on a beach in Cyprus with his lover, while his team are having to deal with the aftermath of another death on the team.
"It's alright, Harry," Ruth had said. "I can fly back on my own in a day or two."
"Absolutely not. I made a promise to you, and I'm keeping it."
Ruth managed to find them seats on a flight to London the day before they'd planned to fly home. She flew as Emma Chambers, since her papers in her real name are still locked in Harry's desk drawer on the Grid. Harry is quiet on the flight home, and Ruth reads, allowing him space for thinking.
Malcolm meets them at Heathrow, and drives them straight to the Grid. He is happy to see Ruth, and blushes when she gives him a hug.
"How is everyone?" Harry asks, as Malcolm skillfully guides his car through the late afternoon traffic.
"Still in shock. She wasn't terribly popular with the younger ones, but no-one wished this on her. I was the only one she'd …... confided in, although I still don't know why. I couldn't stand the woman."
"She hadn't said a word to me," Harry says quietly, wondering when it was he'd allowed his personal life to interfere with his duty to his team members.
When Malcolm, Harry and Ruth enter the Grid it is just after four o'clock, and they are joined by Ros, who explains that Lucas has taken Ben to meet one of his assets, and Jo has gone home early.
"She had a bump on her head, poor pet."
"Serious?" Harry asks, immediately concerned.
"She'll be right as rain. A crack on the head never hurt anyone."
In Harry's office, Harry and Ruth sit side-by-side on the sofa, while Ros and Malcolm bring chairs and sit opposite.
"It's good to have you back, Ruth," Ros says quietly, and with apparent sincerity. "Nothing's been quite the same since you left."
Ruth nods and smiles her thanks, while Harry sits back, his hands on his thighs.
"So fill me in," he says, looking from Malcolm to Ros.
"Shall I start?" Malcolm says, looking at Ros, who nods. Malcolm coughs into his hand before he begins. "Eight weeks ago, Connie confided in me."
"Wait a minute," Harry interrupts. "You've known about this for eight weeks?"
"Only the background details, and Connie asked me to keep that to myself. I couldn't ….. betray her trust. She'd been having severe headaches, and blurred vision, and had begun to experience moments when she'd be grasping for a word, and it would be just beyond her reach. I suggested she see a doctor, and as reluctant as she was to do that, I kept checking on her, so she eventually made an appointment with her own GP, who sent her for scans. They found she had a brain tumour – the very aggressive kind. She was given only months to live."
"But …..." Harry says, "...what has this to do with her death? She died in her home …... of a drug overdose."
"It was self inflicted," Ros chips in. "She committed suicide."
"You're sure about that?"
"Positive. Lucas and I then went through her flat, and we found …... evidence that she'd been ….. interacting with the Russians."
"Why would she leave that lying around?" This from Ruth, who is sitting up with a straight back, and forming a picture of the dead analyst.
"My theory, for what it's worth," Malcolm chimes in, "is that it was her version of a suicide note. Like … this is what I've been doing, and combined with my illness, I can't go on."
Harry has been sitting, listening, his head turning to face each person who speaks. Now he sits back and frowns, his eyebrows drawn together. "Could it have been a setup?" he asks. "Staged …... to make it look like a suicide, including the evidence of her Russian connections."
"Harry, you must know about her love of all things Russian," Ros says quickly. "You were always ribbing her about it."
"Ribbing is not quite the same as an open accusation."
"I think we should wait until the autopsy report." Ruth's voice is clear and strong, and she cuts through the interchange between Harry and Ros. "Then ….. if the results support what Malcolm is saying, then …. the report you write, Ros, can support that. Malcolm …... do you realise that she may have been playing you? It's possible that the brain tumour may have been a ruse, a cover for something else."
"Like what?" Ros sounds annoyed.
"I'm not sure, but perhaps she saw the end coming, or perhaps she saw her activities being exposed, and she wanted to have another reason for taking her own life."
"So why leave evidence lying around?" Malcolm asks.
"The evidence may have been planted after her death. She may have put it there herself to look like it had been carelessly placed by someone else. Something tells me that Connie wanted a dramatic end to her life, and to leave behind a mystery. When is the autopsy report due?" Ruth looks at Ros.
Before the end of business today," Ros answers, "which is within the hour."
Forty minutes later, a sealed manilla envelope is delivered to Ros Myers at her desk. She picks it up and heads to Harry's office, where Ruth and Harry are sitting – he in his office chair, and she in a chair across the desk from him – and talking.
"I thought I should open this in front of you," Ros says, as she pulls another chair to the desk, and sits next to Ruth.
Inside the envelope is an autopsy report, which she hands to Harry. In a small padded bag within the manila envelope is a micro chip, the kind which people have embedded under their skin. The note with it explains that it was retrieved from under the skin behind Connie's right ear.
"Bloody hell," Ros exclaims. "She'd have to have been in with the Russians to have done something as covert as this. I think this is Malcolm's territory," and she leaves the office, micro chip in hand.
Meanwhile, Harry is reading the autopsy report, his face grim. When Ros returns he tells she and Ruth that Connie had been truthful about her brain tumour. "The very worst kind, apparently. Aggressive and fast growing. She could have had no more than three months to live." He rubs his chin. "I can't believe I didn't see the signs."
"I noticed her squirrelling herself away more than usual," Ros comments, "but that's what analysts do …. no offense meant, Ruth."
"None taken." Ruth looks across towards Harry, and he has lifted his eyebrows to her.
Harry receives an email prompt, so he opens it. "Malcolm has sent the contents of the micro chip." He scans the email, his brow furrowed. "Interesting," is all he says.
"Would you like me to leave so that you and Ros can discuss it in private?"
"Don't be so bloody silly," Ros retorts. "I'm assuming you're once again our esteemed senior analyst. You'll need to hear this."
Ruth stands, looking across the desk at Harry. "I'll go now. I have to settle in, and you can come by later and tell me anything I need to know about this."
Harry accompanies Ruth out of his office, and to the doors of the Grid. He looks around him before leaning in to kiss her. "It's her suicide note."
"On the micro chip?"
Harry nods, kisses her again quickly, and then turns and walks back to his office. Ruth leaves, hoping he will visit her later at her new flat, but knowing it is also possible he will be working into the small hours.
