His hand had been hovering over the phone, almost from the moment that he'd woken up, so that when it actually rang, the caller who had spent the best part of her morning gathering her thoughts into some sort of order before she telephoned him, was so surprised by the speed at which he answered, that she failed to say anything. Adam who was back in Harry's Office for their prearranged 'how are we going to deal with Juliet' discussion, took one look at his boss's expression and made a hasty exit.

'Ruth is that you?' asked Harry in an expectant whisper, as the silence at the other end of the phone continued. If the caller was in fact Juliet and not Ruth, then in his haste to speak to her, he'd inadvertently handed her more ammunition by mentioning Ruth's name.

'Yes, I'm sorry, I'm just finding it difficult to concentrate today after the funeral,' she used as an excuse, whilst at the other end of the phone Harry audibly breathed a sigh of relief.

Whilst it had heightened her awareness that she needed to appoint another partner in order to deal with the six or so less urgent cases that had been put on hold, it was her last-minute promise to Sylvie that she'd look after Jacob for a complete weekend and the thought of seeing Harry again that had been uppermost in her mind.

'You're obviously busy I can call you later,' she heard Harry saying, as she looked at the clock and remembered that it was her who'd rung him.

'Don't be silly, come over about five if you have the time?' she suggested.

'Five's fine I'll see you then,' and he was gone. He to determine whether or not he should go home and change before he went to see Ruth for a second time, rather than look like the stuffed shirt that Catherine had suggested he'd become, and Ruth to consider how the hell she was going to juggle all the balls that were currently falling out of the sky, one of which was a man that was due to arrive in just over two hours time.

For Harry the time ticked by interminably slowly, even though he'd taken Adam's advice and had held off visiting the Home Secretary, to explain the reason for and the fact that he intended to resign. His excuse to leave Thames House at three because he had a blinding headache went without question and was made easier because Juliet had left in advance of that. To go and make some other poor bugger's life a misery he suspected. Arriving home, he did what he always did, he fed and walked his beloved Scarlet before he headed upstairs to divest himself of his suit and all that went with it and to shower and get changed. Seriously wanting, was how he realised his casual clothes were, as he flicked his way through his vast collection of almost entirely white shirts, until he found a pale grey one that he decided would have to do.

'A tie, no definitely not a tie? he said to Scarlet, so he pulled open a draw and decided on what according to its label was a mid-blue crew neck sweater, which combined with his dark grey trousers, when he looked in the mirror, made him feel marginally better. Scarlet approved, but then she generally did, she was biased.

The subject of his thoughts had spent the intervening time, tidying up the adjoining rooms that made up the office. What had once been Alex's room she'd already tidied, as Susie their clerk had fled the scene as soon as the news of Alex's death had come through and wasn't due back until Monday. The small kitchen which slotted nicely into the swing a cat category was always tidy, but the bathroom at the back she'd had a quick wipe around in case Harry needed to use it. All she needed to do now, was to have one last look through his file and compose not only her questions, but herself.

For someone who usually blustered his way into any office, with a sure and certain plan as to how the conversation with whichever poor sod he was visiting would go, Harry was walking across the Millennium Bridge with no such confidence. It was liberating to be free from a suit and tie at any time, but today it was more than that. He didn't want to be the hard and overbearing bastard that he knew he sometimes was, he was a man in need of help and he needed to be polite and prove to Ruth that he meant it. Few people in his life, either personally and professionally had ever seen him for what he really was, but if this Ruth was as good at her job and kind as Malcolm had suggested, then he just hoped that she'd see him in the light that he intended. Swimming against the tide, sounded more appropriate than pissing into the wind where Ruth was concerned, and he was determined to try and behave as a gentleman.

Ruth had looked at her watch and decided that maybe a cup of tea would ease the way into her interrogation of Harry, because the notes she'd made were personal to the point of being intrusive. It was tea or nothing, Alex had been the coffee drinker and she was just coming back out of the kitchen when there was a knock on the door. Spot on five, she liked that, it was essential in her business life, even if what she did at home was more random and on a whim. She'd pictured him arriving straight from work and wearing the same suit that she'd seen him in a couple of days ago, so was more than surprised as to how much more relaxed and younger he looked in casual clothes, although she determined not to show it. Whatever her personal thoughts were they had to be put to one side, this was work, nothing more, she told herself again.

Harry rarely sat on the visitor's side of the desk and even when he did, he invariably had the upper hand. This was entirely different and he hadn't realised until now, how disadvantaged he'd feel.

'We'll take this at a speed that you feel comfortable with, but I need you to be totally open and honest with me Harry,' and he was already in trouble. 'I know that it will mean you going over old ground which may prove difficult, but if this gets to court, which I'll do everything in my power to ensure that it doesn't, then I don't want to be confronted with any nasty surprises.'

As in I'm the head of counter terrorism at MI5.

'Absolutely ask away,' he told her.

'Your marriage break-up with Jane. Despite what I've read Harry, I'm finding it hard to believe that you consider yourself entirely to blame?'

How many times had he said that to someone in far more strife than he was at this particular minute, apart from finding a straightforward answer to her question?

'I've always struggled to separate the professional from the personal, even before I met Jane, to my own detriment now it seems, as I'm stuck in a giant- sized rut and she's found herself someone that can give her everything that I didn't,' he imagined explained his current dilemma succinctly, but obviously not, she wanted more.

'Can you elaborate Harry?' She asked him, her pen now flicking irritatingly between her fingers.

'The perfect family that she presumed we'd be, when I always believed I suppose that there was no such thing. A good father to our children and stability, above all stability is what she really needed, but because I spent endless hours at work or abroad I wasn't able to offer her any of those things,' was far removed from the entire story, but he hoped it would do.

'And how does that make you feel now?' Wasn't what he was expecting. He'd told Adam to mind his own business, so could he really tell someone he barely knew what the services psychologist had tried to drag out of him for years, was he prepared to do that, maybe it was time? He took another deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose before he continued.

'I've begun to feel like a failure which was highlighted by something that my daughter said, she's very forthright is Catherine, she's not a bit like me.'

So that was one of his children accounted for, the other she'd no doubt hear about later, but she didn't want to push him too far at this stage, when he was obviously struggling and attempting to move the goalposts by way of deflection.

'Go on,' she encouraged him.

Choosing his words very carefully but without lying to Ruth, which had seen them taking a break when he'd said that he needed to use the bathroom while she'd made them another cup of tea and fished into her bag and produced a packet of chocolate digestives, his favourites, he'd reached the stage where he assumed that despite him giving far more away than he'd intended, he was winging it rather successfully. But Ruth had been around the block, she wasn't the young and naïve solicitor that she'd once been, and she was beginning to detect that there was more behind the veneer that Harry was exuding. His statement that Jane hadn't realised what long hours he'd be expected to work, his trips abroad to visit his equivalent in other countries, made sense given the job that he had, but there was something else, there always was in a complicated divorce case and she needed him to tell her. Not necessarily today, she'd let him think that she'd accepted his explanation, so she moved on.

'Let's change the subject and talk about Juliet Shaw, tell me about her and why she's blackmailing you?' she asked him.

Bollocks he thought he'd got away with it, he'd intended saying he was getting tired, which he was he suddenly realised, so could they do the rest of this another day? He'd been blindsided again and what was it about this woman that had made him open - up, almost to the point of it being a confession? She was on his side, or at least for the moment she was, so maybe it was for the best that he unburdened himself. The question was how?

'It's complicated Ruth and it's not that I don't trust you, but there's something that I've buried for so long that I'm finding it hard to talk about. She used to work where I do, we had a brief affair, it was a huge mistake on my part, and now years later she's back and threatening to tell my daughter,' he knew wasn't sufficient to satisfy Ruth, as she pressed him further.

'Which brings me to the obvious questions Harry, why now and what does she want?'

Could he lie to Ruth, claim the he was just a lowly mortal of no significance whatsoever and that what Juliet was asking of him, should he agree to her demands, wouldn't see him resigning rather than spending the rest of his working days battling, as she grew ever more powerful and him powerless to prevent it? No was the simple answer, he couldn't. His moment of reckoning had arrived and he needed a way out.

'Would you be prepared to continue this over a drink?' he suggested.

It was madness she kept telling herself, he was a client, not that she hadn't met with clients outside of the office before, as she walked alongside Harry who was helping her carry her shopping, not in the direction of her train station but across the bridge towards his car to give he a lift home so that she could change. Out of the corner of her eye she glanced at him, he looked so much more relaxed now that he was out of her office and there was a vestige of a smile on his face. Her dressed in her business suit whereas he was dressed as though it were a weekend made her feel uncomfortable, as it screamed of the last two godforsaken weeks that she'd endured, were she to accept his invitation which she had. She needed this drink and the bite to eat that he'd suggested, before she faced the weekend with Jacob and then the inevitable list of hopefuls, that were clamouring to replace Alex.