"I'm a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune." - Nick Charles
"I read where you were shot 5 times in the tabloids." - Nora Charles
"It's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids." -Nick Charles
William Powell & Myrna Loy, The Thin Man (1934)
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Part 11 – The Thin Man
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2003.
Thames House.
London.
Ruth was many things, but ignorant was not one of them. Normally.
Today she was ignorant of the bombshell she was delivering.
"Oh… Harry, I've been onto the FBI like you asked me. And this American Criminal?" She looked at the telex before her, smiling at the stupidity. "Michael 'The Shark' Karharias - amazing what they call themselves - well, he's dead."
Harry stared at her, his face turning to stone.
Ruth continued unabated. "The FBI had a tip off. His body was found in a storm drain in Miami, three days ago."
He was still staring at her.
He breathed deeply, speaking in his usual enigmatic terms. "So, Tom saw a dead man arrive at Heathrow." He looked at her as she stared at him in confusion. "I must talk to you. Privately."
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1993.
University Parks.
Oxford.
He didn't face her. He couldn't, even though he knew she was looking straight at him, her eyes a strange combination of ice and fire.
"No conspiracy," he said simply.
"What?" Ruth replied.
"You're not involved in some 6 conspiracy," he told her, trying to keep the explanation as truthful and simple as possible, yet knowing he couldn't keep everything from her. Not anymore.
She shook her head in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Harry turned to face her slowly, turning his body and leaning into the back of the bench. "I thought… I thought 6 had some kind of ulterior motive for you. But… they didn't."
"Me?" Ruth shook her head in disbelief.
"It was all a coincidence," Harry smiled at her softly, his finger reaching across to touch hers tenderly. "You don't need to know the in's and outs but… you were noticed."
"How?"
"Your brother."
"Peter?" she asked rhetorically, shifting slightly at the mention of him. It was unnoticeable to most people but to Harry it was as obvious as a police siren. An uncomfortable air emanated from her that he desperately wanted to calm. But he didn't.
"He made a throwaway comment to the wrong person," Harry explained further. It wasn't a lie, it just wasn't the whole truth.
Ruth kept her eyes on his. "Why did they…"
Harry swallowed slightly, knowing he couldn't tell her that whole truth. "Protection," he told her, instead. It was a truth, of sorts.
He could almost see the wheels turning inside her head, but she didn't ask the obvious question. He'd known she wouldn't.
She knew instinctively that he couldn't tell her anymore. He loved that about her; that she'd never ask things that he couldn't tell her. "But you thought it was more?" she asked quietly, looking towards their fingers and lightly touching his with hers.
"Yes," he told her simply, his gaze on her.
"Is that the only reason you…" she trailed off as he turned his hand, opening his palm to her. She swallowed before looking up at his eyes.
"No." It was quick and fierce. Truthful.
Ruth nodded, dropping her hand into his, still staring into his eyes. "Okay."
Harry breathed deeply but kept looking at her, afraid that if he looked away for even a moment he'd lose his nerve. "But you're my agent Ruth."
As always, she seemed to understand him immediately. She smiled at him sadly. "Only a sleeper, right?"
Harry mirrored her expression. "That's actually worse… it basically defeats the purpose of you even being one."
Ruth shook her head. "So what now?"
"I go back to my world and you to yours."
"Oh…" she trailed off, her eyes drifting once again to their entwined hands.
"It's not my choice Ruth."
Her eyes moved quickly towards his. "No… no of course not."
"I have to go now," he told her but it was Ruth who moved her hand from his grasp and he felt a sense on loss within him. "You don't even know my name."
Her hands were clenched into fists and she replied. "No, I don't."
"I'll miss you, don't ever doubt that."
Ruth nodded at him but she could see her withdrawing into herself. "Just not enough right?"
Harry shook his head as she stood. "Ruth don't…"
She raised her hand to stop him grabbing it. "No… you don't." She moved away from him. "I have a lecture. I know that you know that."
"I'll look out for you."
Ruth nodded. "Big Brother is watching?" she joked, poorly.
"Why not?" Harry shrugged, attempting levity before continuing solemnly. "Goodbye Ruth."
She nodded but didn't reply. Instead, she simply turned and walked away from him.
It wouldn't be the last time he'd watch her walk away from him.
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2003.
Albert Embankment.
London.
They were sitting on a bench.
Again.
Ruth was about to comment on their affinity for benches when Harry finally spoke, breaking the unusually comfortable - if tense - silence.
"I think Tom Quinn is on the blink," he stated simply.
Ruth stared at him for a moment. "Not Tom."
But Harry could justify himself. "He's been running an op on his own. For his own purposes. And I'm having nightmares about what they are." The worst was that it made sense. Made crazy Spook sense.
"What are you saying? He's acting against the interests of the service?"
Harry pursed his lips. "Yes."
"Harry, Tom Quinn is your brightest and best." She didn't want to believe it.
"It's the brightest and best who can go bad so spectacularly." He looked at her. "You know that."
Ruth nodded in reply. She'd seen it before, they both had and it was nothing if not spectacular.
"But this is Tom, Harry…" She stopped herself from saying something stupid; like 'we had him over for dinner', 'he bought Jamie a football' or 'he stayed with me all night when you were missing in Israel'.
"I know." It made it infinitely worse. "That's why I know how bad it could be."
She didn't doubt that for a moment. Tom was far too… capable. "What are you going to do?"
"Issue a warrant for Tom Quinn's arrest. The police will pick him up on an anti-terrorism charge."
"This is going to be so ugly."
"I know. You stand by me in this, Ruth?"
There was no thought. No need for any. The answer would always be the same.
Ruth trusted Harry more than she trusted herself.
"Yes."
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1993.
Merton Street.
Oxford.
She was sobbing into her pillow like a schoolgirl when her supposed best friend finally turned up, somehow getting inside the flat and sitting on her bed before Ruth even realised someone had arrived.
"Oh Ruth… I told you he wouldn't leave his wife…" were the first words out of her mouth and Ruth would have laughed on any other occasion because only Lucy would start off comforting someone by commenting on the fact that she'd been right all along.
Except, Jerry - or whatever his real name was - didn't have a wife as such. Just an older woman with an extreme level of power and the nickname 'MI5'. "Yep his wife…" The other woman from hell.
"You're too good for him," Lucy told her, putting a comforting arm around her as Ruth sat up on the bed.
"Thanks…" It did make her feel better. Not much, but slightly.
There was a silence that followed, broken only by Lucy's occasional remarks about how useless every man on the planet was.
"I'm marrying Gary," she added, as if an afterthought. Like it wasn't a life changing decision. Ruth was more surprised that she'd actually made a decision.
"Really?" She tried to sound at least slightly less sceptical than she actually was, but she didn't succeed.
Lucy nodded. "Yep… want to be a bridesmaid?"
"Okay," Ruth nodded.
"Want to be maid of honour?"
"Okay," Ruth kept nodding.
"Want to plan the hen party?"
She really didn't, but when had she ever been able to say no to Lucy? "Yes."
Lucy smiled at her, for once showing an understanding of someone else's feelings. "Men are stupid you know, all of them, even the one I'm getting hitched to?"
Ruth nodded, a slight smiled on her face. "I do… it's just… I think I love him…" If she was honest there wasn't really a 'think' about it.
"And him?"
"Maybe the same." She thought that he might but at the same time, how could you ever be sure? There was only one person who'd ever said they loved her before and that had been an unmitigated disaster as soon as he'd uttered the words: because as soon as you said them they were out there and you could never take them back.
"What are you gonna do?"
"There's nothing I can do… I'll never see him again anyway." She hoped to God she was wrong.
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2003.
Cottage.
Norfolk Fenland.
Danny lifted the phone slowly to his ear, watching Harry's prone body being pushed into the waiting ambulance.
His face remained in shock as he listened over the phone line.
She didn't speak but he knew who it was.
"He's breathing," he said simply. The words sounded foreign to his ears as he continued. "Left side. Shotgun."
The closing doors jarred him and he looked to Zoë. She just stared at the leaving ambulance.
"There are clothes on the shoreline," Ruth told him, her voice small and quiet.
"Ruth…"
"Just get to the shore," she interrupted quickly.
"Ruth… it's bad," he tried again.
There was silence before she replied. "Don't."
"On the beach?" he asked her finally.
"Yes," was her only reply before the line went dead.
He knew that Ruth was sobbing at a desk in London. That Harry was lucky to still be alive. That he and Zoë were very close to loosing there whole careers.
And it was all because of a man called Tom Quinn.
At that moment he wanted nothing more than Tom Quinn to be dead.
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