"Sweetheart," he purrs, "whatever is wrong?"
"Nothing and yet everything," she says at last. "Where are you?"
"I'm in a gîte just outside Reims ….. on the way to Laon. It's lovely here. So peaceful. Except for one thing."
"Which is?"
"I'll be sleeping alone. I wish you were with me. I don't suppose you feel like making a quick trip to France, Ruth."
"I can't possibly do anything out of the ordinary for weeks. They'll be watching me, and if not, then they should be."
Harry waits for a moment before he speaks.
"How did it go? The identifying, and then telling the team."
"It was awful. I hadn't meant to, but I cried throughout both events. The team are angry, I think. Your ….. demise …... seems so senseless, such an anticlimax."
"Yes, I agree, and if there's a weak point in our plan, then this is it. I don't want them going off to exact revenge."
"The only one likely to do that is Lucas, and as I've mentioned to you before, his mind is definitely elsewhere." Ruth hesitates before she continues. "I could be wrong, but I had the impression he had something up his sleeve for you, and …... your death has …... foiled his plans. Just a hunch."
"I …. the team need to focus on the jobs they were doing when this happened. It will be your task, Ruth, to keep them on track. Have you rung Catherine?"
"Not yet. I'll do that immediately this call ends."
They only speak for another couple of minutes, and then reluctantly end the call. Ruth then rings Catherine.
Catherine is staying with a friend in Shepherd's Bush, and hearing the tone of Ruth's voice, offers to come around right away.
Ruth decides to tell Catherine the truth. She and Harry had disagreed on this one point, with he wanting his children to believe him dead – to add authenticity at his funeral – but Ruth couldn't do that, not when she knows their father is alive and well somewhere in France.
"This is about Dad, isn't it? I saw something on the news this morning."
"That was about Harry, yes, but ….."
"But what?"
"Your father is alive, Catherine. He's faked his death."
Catherine is visibly shocked.
"Why would he do that?"
"I can't tell you that. It's ….."
"Classified, right?"
"That's right. I was the one who planned this. It's to keep him alive, Catherine. I don't want him dead, and I don't think you and your brother do, either."
Catherine is stuck for words, and Ruth senses Harry's daughter is not happy.
"Spit it out, Catherine."
"I …... I know I don't have a right to be angry, Ruth, especially now you and he are together. You are his family, and he's protecting that, but …..." Catherine stops, and quickly wipes tears from her eyes.
"He wasn't around to protect you when you were growing up," Ruth says gently, and Catherine nods, unable to speak. "He wants that to change. I know, because he's told me. He's a different man now to the one who was an absent father, putting his family last."
Ruth gives the younger woman time in which to shed a tear, and feel angry, and then even a little guilty about being angry.
"I shouldn't be feeling this way, I know, but I can't help it. Will there be a funeral?"
Ruth nods. "We can insist on it being invitation only …... a private funeral, if you like. After all, the man isn't even dead. If the big wigs want to have a memorial service at a later date, then they're free to do that."
"That sounds like a sensible approach. I'll talk to Graham. Is it alright if he knows?"
"Yes, but he musn't tell anyone …... not even your mother, and nor must he tell his girlfriend. At a later date, he can tell her that his father has moved out of London. It's best she doesn't know the details."
"He's not going to like that. He and Jade are close – like you and Dad."
"He must co-operate. Your father's life depends on it." Ruth allows her tone to soften. "I expect you will want to be at the funeral, but if Graham doesn't want to be there, that is fine. I don't think Harry is terribly interested in a funeral which isn't even real."
"When will it be?"
"In around a week, I imagine."
"And the body?"
"A homeless guy, dressed in a suit of your father's. He's even wearing Harry's underwear. Sorry ….. you don't need to know that."
Ruth spends the next five days arranging Harry's funeral. Beth helps out by making sure there is plenty of edible food, and and a supply of wine in the flat. Beth also treads gently around Ruth, but does not get in her way. Ruth has to keep reminding herself that Harry is not dead. She has only heard from him once since he'd disappeared, and she misses him. She and Catherine have agreed that the homeless man needs to be cremated, so the cremation is held in the morning, with only Catherine and Ruth in attendance, while the service is held in the afternoon, in the funeral home's chapel. Only senior members of Section D have been invited, as well as Malcolm Wynn-Jones. Ruth asks Malcolm to give the reading, and to Malcolm's surprise, she leaves it to him to choose the reading.
"Nothing soppy, Malcolm. He wouldn't want that."
Malcolm chooses Departed Comrade, by the Roman poet, Lucretius. Ruth agrees that it is an appropriate poem for Malcolm to be reading.
Throughout the service for Harry, Ruth can feel the love and concern for her from those around her, few as they are. She sits with Catherine one side of her, and Malcolm the other, while the senior members of the Grid sit behind them.
Once the service is over, and they are outside the chapel, Ruth can remember nothing of what occurred during the service. The day has been an upsetting blur, and her chief feeling is one of guilt. She feels guilty for having to lie to people she cares about, and at the top of that list is Malcolm. When and if Malcolm ever discovers that Harry is alive, he will be very hurt, perhaps even inconsolable.
Ruth has been on the verge of tears all afternoon, and so is relieved when Catherine makes excuses for them both, and drives Ruth back to Harry's house. The group of officers from the Grid head straight to the pub, to `give Harry a decent send-off'. Malcolm hovers around, waiting for the others to drive off, before speaking privately to Ruth.
"I know how much you'll miss him, Ruth. When I heard you'd been seeing one another, I was so happy for you. I can't imagine …..." And Malcolm can no longer speak, his voice beginning to break. Ruth squeezes his hands, and then waves him off to join the others.
"I'm glad my brother decided against attending the funeral service," Catherine says, as they sit on the sofa, a bottle of white wine on the coffee table in front of them. "He would have hated it. And my biggest fear had he been there, was him making a grand announcement after the reading that Dad isn't really dead. Graham loathes the secret service. He hates what it did to Dad, and by extension, what it did to our family."
"Your father still holds a lot of guilt about how his choices affected Graham."
"It's not all Dad's fault, and Graham knows that. Our mother didn't help at all. In retrospect, when anything went wrong in our family, in our lives, she'd find a way to blame Dad for it."
"It can't be easy being married to a spy, especially when you're not one yourself."
Catherine nods, and tops up their wine glasses. "It must help, being in the same business."
Ruth nods. "It does. It helps a lot. I understand the …. pressures he's been under, and the …... secrets he needs to keep."
While Ruth is sitting with Harry's daughter in the sitting room of Harry's house, two men are huddled in conversation in front of a fire in a men's club in central London. They are surrounded by wood panelled walls, highly polished wooden tables, and a parquet floor, over which are scattered brown leather chairs and chesterfield sofas. The identities of the two men are hidden behind the wide wings of their leather chairs.
"They buried Harry Pearce today."
"I heard he was fired," says the other, and they both laugh at the tasteless play on words.
"It will save us the trouble."
"I take it you're not planning to go after his killer …... that Lyon fellow. They're saying he also killed your chap from Germany …... Allen, wasn't it?"
"Whoever did it, if we ever run across him – and that is unlikely – we're more likely to give him a citation, than we are to lock him up. He did us a favour. He did the service a favour. The Queen should knight him."
Both men chuckle, and sip their drinks – one a whiskey, the other a gin and tonic.
"Bloody Pearce! Couldn't stand the sight of him. I was in here the day he glassed Oliver."
"Mace?"
"Yes. Oliver Mace. Arrogant sod."
"Who – Mace?"
"No. Harry Pearce. Oliver needed stitches. Three, I think. Maybe four."
"Should have killed him."
"Should have killed who?"
"Oliver Mace. He brought disgrace upon us all. Harry Pearce, on the other hand …... he was a dangerous swine. Too damned clever."
"Yes. Too damned clever for his own good. Well, we got him this time."
"Actually, Roger, we were not the ones to get him, but it hardly matters. At least someone got him, and the bastard's dead."
"What about the woman?"
"What woman? You mean, the Evershed woman?"
"Yes. She and Harry were at it, I believe. She's an analyst. A fine one, too. She has a fine pair on her, too. I can see what Harry saw in her …... although I never could fathom what it was she saw in him."
"We offered her a job …... with us. Gareth spoke to her. He's back there now – in Harry's office - filling in for him until a permanent appointment is made."
"Did she take the job?"
"No. Turned him down flat. They're saying she's now a bit of a mess …... about Harry. Well, she would be, wouldn't she, especially if she was his mistress. She'd be no good to us now, not if she's pining over a dead man. Good thing she turned us down."
"Sounds like a good week all round, then."
"Yes. A very good week."
"Cheers."
"Mmm, cheers. Bloody good week."