"Excuse me, mate?"
Harry looks with dark, foreboding eyes at the approaching Zaf.
"You couldn't tell me if I'm close to The George, could you?"
He proffers his phone towards Harry, as though the proof of where he is going.
Harry looks at it, head bowed.
"What are you doing?" demands Zaf.
"Go down the street," Harry points, "And keep on going."
"Tell him to get the hell out of there," Adam hisses into Zaf's earpiece.
"Harry, you need to –"
"Don't stop. You can't miss it."
The look in his boss's eye brokers no further discussion.
"Cheers," says Zaf and walks away reaching for his comms.
"Sorry, Adam. He's not playing ball."
"For god's sake, he's still there," mutters Johnny, looking out of the window at Harry who stands across the street, leaning against the wall nursing his ribs.
"Enough's enough," he threatens, making towards the door.
"No, please," Ruth stands in his way, "If anyone can get him to go, it's me."
He hesitates.
"Sometimes words cut the deepest."
He smiles, "you would say that. You're such a classicist."
"Old habits…" she smiles and turns for the door.
She walks towards Harry: drawn like a moth to the light, a magnet to its pole.
He eases forward, subtly stepping, manoeuvring them, so that it is he who has his back towards the house.
"Are you alright?" he asks.
"Are you?" she glances to his stomach.
"Nothing a hot bath won't cure."
She is about to smile at him.
"Look annoyed and go."
She does and makes to walk away but he pulls her back and again she finds her back to the wall. He is standing in front of her, not too close to alert Johnny, but blocking her, so that neither of their faces can be directly seen from the house.
"I know what you're trying to do, Harry."
"Is it working?'
"I think it might."
"What do you need me to do?'
'Just what you're doing… look persistent and desperate."
Harry smiles, "I can do that, Ruth."
And he knows he can, because he is.
"Now make to go back in again," he instructs.
She turns away and he lets them spin around until both are parallel, profile to the house. Visible.
He catches her hand and holds on to it.
"Please, Ruth…" he says, acutely aware of the presence at the window opposite.
She looks away.
And still holding her hand, he reaches with his other into his jacket pocket.
"This is for you…"
He produces a small, aged, calf skin book, wrapped in a simple white ribbon.
"Open it," he says, smiling tenderly.
She pulls the ribbon open and he takes it from her, the better that she can see the book.
"This is Dacier's translation of Horace," she says, in surprise, leafing through the pages with delicate reverence.
"Give me the chance, Ruth. Give me the chance to show you who I can be."
And for a moment she wonders who is speaking to her.
"I know you're with him, now," he nods to the house and Ruth is back in the legend.
"…But I'm still here and I still want you."
He closes the book between her hands.
"Think about it, Ruth. Please."
He slowly slides his hands away, gently stroking hers as he does so.
Johnny has seen it all.
Ros says nothing, she merely swings around to Adam with arms outstretched, "You best give me a clue, because I'm lost."
"Book club?" says Adam, unhelpfully.
Ros glares at him.
"He's trying to win her back."
They both turn to look at Jo.
"An Ex husband who still loves his wife. If he can prove to Featherstone that Ruth loves him too, she'll leave. No suspicion. No doubt."
"He's not going to believe that," Ros scoffs.
"I'm not so sure," murmurs Adam as he watches Ruth's face as she looks off after the departing Harry.
That night, when Johnny's hands start wondering over Ruth, she suggests how very tired she is.
That night when he stirs, he catches her sitting by the window, the book in her hand, a distracted expression on her face.
And when he gets up to the toilet at three in the morning he sees a figure standing in the shadows alert and watchful.