He'd done what he'd never done before and had rung Adam to get his advice as to a restaurant that was elegant but not over stated, where they could celebrate the fact that his divorce papers were now signed, sealed and soon to be delivered. Adam had made no comment other than to congratulate him, when he suggested that The White Heart Hotel in Windsor, was somewhere that would fit nicely into what he suspected was his boss's intention of a romantic evening with Ruth. He and Fiona had been there years ago, when he'd been on a course which had coincided with her coming back from Syria and they'd ended up staying overnight, although he doubted that Harry would be brave enough to suggest that to Ruth.

'There's just one other thing that's bothering me,' Harry told him, after Adam refused to update him, on what if anything they'd discovered about Clive's murder. 'I think that I'm being followed and I'd like you to put Malcolm onto it. I'll leave my phone on in the car and I'd be grateful if he'd keep in touch with me.'

As he turned into Farringdon Road his phone rang, at the same time as his car navigation system indicated that he should be taking an alternative route.

'There's a large build-up of traffic due to an accident. If you turn left at the next traffic lights rather than going straight ahead, then you'll avoid it. After that it should be plain sailing,' Malcolm told him.

'Thanks Malcolm I will, stay onto it if you would please.'

If he was still being followed, then he was absolutely certain that it had nothing to do with Jane or their divorce, which left any number of people including Juliet. But why? It wasn't as though she had a quarrel to pick with him anymore, she'd got what she wanted, or at least she assumed that she had? Anything more sinister didn't bear thinking about, not when he was going to have precious cargo on board.

'It's somewhere different but equally quiet which I think you'll like,' he told Ruth, opening the car door for her and waiting until she'd adjusted her seat belt before closing it, now confident that the black sedan that had been on his tail since he'd left home, was conveniently stuck in traffic. 'It's one of the many boring things that Malcolm and his staff have to do, just in case they're contrived. It's not supposed to be used in personal situations, but I asked him to let me know if we'd be likely to get held up,' answered her question, when after another ten minutes, his phone rang again and Malcolm told him that the blocked road had seen a lot of the traffic diverted. At which point Harry promised himself that he'd tell Ruth the truth, if not this evening.

'Enjoy your evening and say hello to Ruth for me,' and Harry said he would. Hopefully on both counts wasn't voiced.

Following Malcolm's instructions, he negotiated the bottle necks where the evening traffic was queuing for access onto the converging motorways, which gave him the first real chance to look in his mirror and see what was behind him. It was a pointless exercise, because by then the light was beginning to fade and he could see no further than a couple of cars back. He needn't have worried, because a very frustrated Jason who had followed him from home, had lost sight of him long before he'd reached Ruth's house and had driven out of central London.

The last time that Ruth had been into a hotel, was when she'd stayed overnight after Alex and Sophie's wedding in Oxford, far grander than the one where Harry, now with his hand on her arm was guiding her towards the lounge. She'd been alone on that occasion and imagined that she had a huge sign on her forehead that had said 'so I'm on my own, stop staring' whereas now she felt completely different. This wasn't a duty that she had to perform, this was pure pleasure and she was determined to enjoy herself, reckless or not. The stress that Harry had displayed during the afternoon, as he glanced up and said thank you to the waiter who had delivered their menus and before dinner drinks was gone. The years had tumbled from him.

'Just the one,' he told her, as he lent forward and clinked his glass against hers. 'I've got to drive you home, remember.'

'Not necessarily,' was the second unspoken sentence of the evening, and it was only seven thirty.

Steeling herself to ask him one last question before she finally put aside the fact that she was still his solicitor, she counted to ten to regain her composure.

'When you told me that Jane had always known that you'd been with Juliet that evening, was it in the full sense of the word Harry?' She asked him, doing exactly the same as he'd done with Adam, by avoiding mentioning the word bed, sex or sleeping together, which didn't bode well for later, assuming that the evening would eventually see them needing to climb into or on top of the aforementioned piece of furniture.

'Hand on heart, it was. She went crazy of course, but there was never any doubt that she believed me,' and Ruth had the honest answer that she needed.

By the time they were eating their main course and Harry was pouring Ruth another glass of wine, he'd long since abandoned the idea of driving her home. Convinced that if he enjoyed a glass or two himself then it would help him relax and maybe be more forthright, and that a taxi, no matter what the cost, would be worth every penny, he'd joined his so called real world. Having been told by Ruth that she wasn't there as his solicitor that evening, to which he'd replied that's good, they'd avoided discussing anything that strayed even slightly into either of their jobs. As a consequence, their conversation which had been perilously teetering on the edge of the really personal for far too long and if one or the other of them didn't say something soon, that the staff would be laying the tables for breakfast, Harry took the plunge. Reminding Ruth that she'd been the one to kiss him first, to which she replied that there wasn't a woman alive that could resist a man who liked Thomas the Tank Engine, he was up and running, his engine well and truly stoked.

'Have you any idea how happy I feel when I'm with you?' he responded, running his thumb gently across the knuckles of her hand that had worked it's way across the table towards his, daring her to look away from him.

Ruth just nodded, the faintest hint of a doubt clouding her face. 'Is this ridiculous what we're doing, we hardly know each other Harry, what if it goes wrong?' Wasn't at all what he was expecting. She was here wasn't she, she was responding to his overtures and now what? It's what I witness every day when I go into work Harry, it's the reason that I've resisted getting involved with anyone, and then there's Alex and Sophie, look what happened to them.'

Refusing to let go of her hand, Harry breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't that she didn't want to, she'd didn't know how to and Adam's you're rubbish at it Harry, really had to change, if only he could find the right words to reassure her.

'Cruel as that was, Alex's death was just fate taking a hand Ruth, you know that,' and she nodded. 'Setting that aside, just for a moment, I'll tell you what I did the other evening after I told you that this was a mistake,' he told her, his thumb continuing to draw sensuous patterns across the top of her hand and causing the desired havoc in Ruth's breathing. 'I couldn't face going home, so I went to see Adam and he told me a few home truths. 'He said that I was roaming the streets, which I had been by the way, when what I wanted was right under my nose.'

'Which was when you tried to call me.'

'Which is when I tried to call you.'

'What would you have said if I'd answered?' And 'come on Harry you're nearly there,'Adam's voice urged him. 'You can do this.'

'What I'm trying to say now Ruth, but we wouldn't have been sitting either side of a table in a room full of people that we don't know.' If he'd had the courage, he'd have said walking hand in hand, barefoot across a beach or gazing out across a cornfield, teeming with wild flowers, but those were dreams for the future.

Ruth knew that she was surrendering herself under the strength of Harry's gaze, her own emotions running alongside side his, teetering on the brink of what she'd dreamed of, but had never dared take.

'If you don't jump then you'll have to stay up there until the morning sweetheart,' her father had once said to her, when she'd been climbing a tree in their garden and had lost her nerve on the way down. He'd never have let her fall she'd known that, so had closed her eyes and taken that leap. As they'd always done, his strong arms had surrounded her, long before she'd reached the ground. What Harry wanted and what she knew that she wanted amounted to the same thing. She just needed to take that step.

'A minor problem which I'm sure we can rectify later,' she heard herself telling him, throwing herself out of the tree.

Was he going to suggest that they stay here for the night, was there even a room available, or was he just going to suggest that they drive home, which would be unwise given that he'd been drinking? Come on Harry say something Ruth was screaming, as she watched Harry's Adam's apple bobble up and down and his expression change to one of pure wonder, only to be interrupted by the waiter who had arrived with their desserts.

While Ruth had been contemplating the 'where' Harry's mind had travelled on a different path. He'd hoped of course that this evening would pave the way to what was now obviously going to happen, but given Ruth's concerns, he hadn't expected her to be so complicit without a struggle. The fact that they didn't have luggage with them wasn't a problem in this day and age, but he had no idea as to whether or not he was now firing blanks, which meant that he'd have to go in search of condoms, all of which would just add to the possible embarrassment that he'd heap on Ruth if he suggested that they book a room. No, it was a taxi home and the privacy of hers or his bedroom, providing that by the time they got there that she hadn't changed her mind.

'If you don't eat that soon it will have gone cold,' she said, interrupting his thoughts by pointing to his apple crumble and custard, forcing him to make a decision, namely that he needed to call Malcolm and tell him that his car wouldn't be at home, but in the secure garage of the hotel and please would he arrange for someone to pick it up the next day.

'I've had a couple of drinks nothing more,' he told him, when heard the smile in Malcolm's voice.

The fact that Harry found himself walking through Windsor Great Park with Ruth's hand linked in his because there was a twenty minute delay before they could get a taxi, was her idea, as they joined the late night sightseers who were making their way home. It was a beautiful September evening in every sense of the word and the lights that lit up the castle, made it in Ruth's words ethereal. Away from the constraints of the hotel and under a starlight sky, and suddenly all bets were off. They were liberated.

'As long as you're not expecting me to scale a wall like Hugh Grant in Notting Hill,' he told her jokingly, when she said she had a thing about parks and one of her ambitions was to walk in each and every one, in and around London. Harry made a mental note to ask Malcolm how many there were and to cross match them with his weekends off.

'Ambitions?' He queried and Ruth went on to explain that she'd always wanted to travel, especially around Europe, although after what she'd read in his file, that maybe Russia and Ireland needed to be avoided. It was so obvious that she was playing with him, but by now Harry was riding on a white charger that was threatening to run away with him, with his ability to stop it's progress completely shattered. Almost certainly by design although Ruth didn't notice, he guided them away from the main pathway until they were out of sight. She was so engrossed in the magnitude of him and the fact that she couldn't remember when she had felt this happy, if ever, that when Harry stopped and turned to face her, she stepped right into him. His unspoken I can't do this anymore, didn't refer to him leaving her standing as he'd done two evening ago, his eyes said may I?

Somewhere in the distance the traffic was circumnavigating the castle, people were walking their dogs for the last time that evening and in his small bed not far from where Ruth lived, Jacob was sleeping peacefully. Had he known that his babysitter was currently being kissed as she'd never been kissed before, then Thomas and James that stood proudly side by side on the table in his bedroom would have been smiling broadly and whistling their tiny funnels off. Bearing in mind where they were, with Harry pouring everything he had into kissing Ruth, onlookers had there been any, would have been eagerly anticipating a twenty-one-gun salute. That Ruth was responding because of an overwhelming need to be loved by this man, no matter what the cost, was a bonus, as Harry's hands that up to now been had been in her hair, moved effortlessly across her shoulders down her sides and to her bum, pulling her hard against him. Had she not stepped on a twig as she readjusted herself against him that caused them to stop in their pursuit of what they both wanted, then Harry's previous assumption of blue lights and an awkward conversation with the Chief Constable, might well have been realised.

'Don't be,' she told him breathlessly, when he apologised and said that they needed to go and find that taxi.

Leaning back in his chair to stretch his aching shoulders, Malcolm was ensconced in the technical suite, munching on an apple whilst keeping an eye on all things Harry and Ruth. Fiercely protective of both of them, but having been told by Adam that he wasn't to worry, he was secretly pleased that he pushed Harry in Ruth's direction He'd seen them leave the hotel and walk hand in hand the few hundred yards into the park, before they'd disappeared out of sight. He wasn't quite the innocent that everyone assumed him to be when it came to romance and if Harry wanted to kiss Ruth in a London Park, then it was their business not his and he certainly wasn't going to watch. His second screen that was trained on Harry's house beeped, causing him to avert his eyes. The same car that had been there earlier had pulled up. One thing was certain, Harry couldn't take Ruth back there tonight.