'Time is a luxury we simply don't have,' something which Harry remembers saying to one of his colleagues, has come back to bite him and then some. Bringing with it frustration, combined with an overwhelming desire to prove that he hasn't made a mistake, neither of which are doing him any favours or allowing him to relax. Made worse is that he's never watched a quiz show in his life, unless of course University Challenge counts as a quiz? A show which he watches on the odd occasion when he's home early enough, but only because he does quite well in the music rounds and anything that involves world politics. Whereas today, he's had enough of Ollie's struggle to answer what he considers are simple questions in the film round. Not without conceding that Ollie probably wasn't born when the film was made, but even so.
'Come on,' he tells Scarlet, having already suggested she knew the answer to the last question. His decision that they go for a walk, received with the usual enthusiasm from his small terrier, despite it being second in the space of a few hours. Except that unlike the first one, which had been from one side of the park to the other and back again, to get some fresh air into his lungs and at the same time unscramble his thoughts, this will be a short walk, to what in the days when the dinosaurs walked the earth had been called the corner shop, now a mini mart, where he intends sending a message to Adam.
Via Mal, the owner who he's known and used for years. Which means that if his watchers conclude that he's going out for anything other than to buy a paper, he'll be amazed. It's not as though he can leave Scarlet at home with a tin opener and a bowl of water while he flees the country, is it? Not unless he has Ruth Evershed with him, which is an all-together different question and one that he can't but help imagine would be wonderful. Whatever she's doing this morning, he hopes includes her wondering how he is? Something which conjures up a picture so vivid, that it causes him to pause mid thought. To cast his mind back to an evening quite recently, when Adam had persuaded her to come to the pub with them after work. Adam who had been hell bent on drinking himself into oblivion and how it had been Ruth, who with just a few words and a gentle touch of her hand, had been able to talk him down. How there had been an obvious preconceived arrangement, which having shuffled a couple of chairs, had seen him sitting next to her with their thighs unavoidably close. That and when he and Malcolm had gone to the bar to order something to eat, how Malcolm had commented that Ruth was worth her weight in gold. Something that he'd of course agreed with, but now wonders if it was Malcolm's way of saying get on with it. If you don't ask her out, then someone else will and then what will you do? Add her to your list of regrets? Which now that he's walking back to the house with his paper under his arm, makes him wonder if Malcolm might not be quite the loner that he professes to be in the relationship department?
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Jo freely admits that she's the still new girl in the eyes of her colleagues and that Fiona's death, for which she'd blamed herself at the time, has been the wakeup call to what she's signed up too. That violent death is never far away and is something that despite herself, she has to learn to cope with and move on from.
Which is why she's feeling a lot better, now that she's away from the confines of the grid and doing something meaningful, by knocking on doors with Zaf in an attempt to find out who alerted the CIA that Khurvin was about to commit an atrocity. Which having received nothing but blank faces, let alone an admission to having made the call, has her coming round to thinking that maybe Harry was right to let him go. Something which Ruth and Zaf, who she's beginning to enjoy working with thought from the start. Primarily because Alex Roscoe had acted with unnecessary haste, forcing him into an orange jumpsuit, with the threat of being exported to a life where every day would be unimaginably awful. It could also explain why Khurvin's done a runner, which when pieced together makes it all the more important that they find him, because as Zaf quite rightly points out, a once innocent man could have been turned into anything but. Thoughts which when she rings what she discovers to be a very depleted grid, because it's Malcolm who answers her call, is that Juliet is about to go out. More than an incentive for her and Zaf to head back. Not without calling in for a coffee somewhere if they want too, sounds very unlike something that Malcolm would say, but she thanks him anyway and tells him that they'll be back soon.
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'It's all office blocks, what if we don't find anything?' Ruth asks Adam, as they stand in the centre of Paternoster Square, where the reflection from the sun on the hundreds of windows is making it difficult for them to see even the names on the buildings. Ruth, who has spent a fretful night worrying how Harry is and like Jo, is more than happy to be away from her desk.
'Then we widen the search until we do find something,' he tells her. Any further response interrupted by his phone ringing. A number that he doesn't recognise, as he turns towards Ruth who is looking at him quizzically?
Him mouthing Harry, changing her expression to one where he's got her full attention and an undisguised smile, he doesn't comment on. Ruth of all people he needs to keep onside. Because not only is she Harry's leveller, she's his. It's just one of the reasons that he'd done his bit the previous day to assure her that whatever is going on between her and Harry is their business.
'Harry wants me to go and meet him, so I need you go back to the grid and keep your head down. Avoiding Juliet might be an ask too far, but I'm sure you'll come up with something,' he tells her. 'Start with a deeper check on our friend Khurvin and see if the CCTV has picked up where he goes or who he meets when he comes here. Sorry I need to hurry, but as soon as I get back, I'll tell you what Harry said and how he is.'
'I'll tell you how Harry is,' takes up residence in Ruth's head and is still there when she walks in through the pods. To be met by Malcolm offering to make her a cup of coffee. Which as she doesn't drink coffee, presumably means he wants her to follow him into the kitchen where they can talk without being heard. Which is not something that up until now she's ever done with Malcolm. All her clandestine meetings have been at the far end of the corridor with Harry, which Adam has been so ready to point out. Whereas Malcolm is an altogether different kettle of fish, so it surprises her when he suggests she mustn't worry. That Harry knows how to look after himself. That if there's anything said that makes her think that people are gossiping about her and Harry, that she needs to ignore it because it won't last, is so unlike anything that she's heard Malcolm say that she barely knows how to respond. That Juliet has gone to see Roscoe, based on what Zaf and Jo have phoned in, Ruth hopes is because there is now an element of doubt in Juliet's mind. Which now armed with what is only her second cup of tea of the day and based on what Malcolm has said, gives her a few quiet moments in what has been a hectic twenty-four hours, to think about Harry in the context that she wants too. Before heading in the direction of the technical suite, where Colin is already calling up the CCTV coverage of Paternoster Square.
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'I thought you'd appreciate the location.' Harry tells Adam. After he's suggested that the dog track is the ultimate doghouse but the last place that he'd imagined Harry would be. Fully aware that Harry's minders are sitting in one of the rows behind them, with no interest whatsoever on watching the canines who are tearing around the track in pursuit of what is supposed to be a hare. Harry, who to Adam looks far more relaxed than he'd imagined him to be, given that he's been suspended and is eating pot noodles as though he does it all the time. Something which Adam very much doubts.
Before Harry suggests that, 'when he, Adam that is, gets back to the grid, he'll get his bollocks chopped off.' By Juliet goes unsaid, although Adam can't help but remember that the lady in question has not only seen, but probably felt the same part of Harry's anatomy, albeit more than two decades ago.
'Never mind me, how are you doing and Wes?' Asks Harry, changing the subject and relieving Adam from an image of his boss and Juliet all those years ago. Something which had, if only for a moment, been replaced by a far more pleasant image of Harry and Ruth. Who despite being more than fond of each other and having got their act together, are at some time in the near future taking things more slowly. Going out for a meal, followed by a walk home. Hand in hand might be a stretch too far, but who knows?
'Wes is struggling, it's hard for him without his mum,' he tells Harry, who has no idea what he's been thinking about and just as well, although he's not quite ready to let his assumptions about what's going on behind his back go unspoken. 'Ruth's worried about you, she thinks your living on tuna and packets of crisps,' doesn't produce anything other than a smile from Harry, although he does discard what left of the pot noodles, before suggesting that, 'he brings Wes here for a father and son bonding evening,' before indicating that they need to go.
That Harry has planned ahead, becomes clear as they exit through a door to where the dogs are being prepared for the next trial. Already straining at their leashes, Harry produces a dog whistle, silent to the human ear but to the dogs who are already barking, sends them into a frenzy. Sufficient that he can ask him, 'to get Ruth to put the Lewis Khurvin file on a memory stick and to keep it with her. That he knows where he can find her,' is all that Adam gets as they shake hands. Before Adam heads back to the grid, leaving Harry with the thought that he needs to get a bus timetable and hope that it's not raining on the night of his choice.
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'Come on Alex, he's American for Christ's sake, you must be able to dig up some dirt on him,' is Juliet's response to Alex suggesting that Harry is still more than a water cooler buddy to her. Malcolm having rung her to say that they have evidence that Khurvin has been visiting what is listed as a debt collection agency, headed up by an American called Nick Pollard. In the centre of London, within a stone's throw of St. Pauls and the Millennium Bridge. Unlike this meeting, which she's purposely arranged to be as far away from Thames House as possible, but to her surprise and long before she'd arrived at the bandstand, had seen Harry walking alongside the Thames. With plenty to think about, but without her glasses on and there hadn't been time to find them, she couldn't be sure. Where he'd been or was going, she'll only find out when she gets back, assuming that is that he hasn't been able to shake off his minders. Knowing that if she has made a mistake, that his team as he insists on calling them, will revel in her downfall. A team, most of whom by the time that she'd left to meet Alex, had disappeared like snow off a dyke. Adam with Ruth in tow and Zaf with Jo, neither of them divulging where they were going. Which had left her with Malcolm and Colin. Neither of whom had been particularly helpful or had told her where their colleagues had gone when she'd asked them. Other than to say that Adam had left a message to say that they had a significant lead as to Khurvin's whereabouts and how the photograph of Khurvin sent over by the CIA, Ruth had proved was a fake.