If there was one thing that set Fiona apart from her colleagues, besides her being a woman, it was her ability to read between the lines, which meant that not only was she a good spy, but she rarely made a mistake. When she did, she was also quick to acknowledge it and put it right. Their efforts to make Ruth feel instantly welcome had been misguided, because as soon as Harry disappeared with Jacob, Ruth had deflated, abandoned by the one person that made her feel safe, to a space where she obviously felt out of her depth. So as soon as Adam returned with Harry, she orchestrated a moment with her husband on his own, and as they finished tea and before Wes could demand Harry's attention, which she knew full well Harry wouldn't be able to refuse, she stepped in.
'Harry, why don't you take Ruth for walk around the gardens and enjoy what's left of the afternoon sunshine?' she suggested, as they gathered up the tea things. 'Daddy thought you might like to show Jacob your playroom,' she told her now sticky - fingered son, whose face had briefly dropped.
The playroom in question was a huge shed in the garden that her parents had managed to fill with toys over the years and a temptation that she knew Wes wouldn't be able to refuse, as the smile on Ruth's face and the undisguised look of gratitude which was well worth the deception, broadened.
I wish this was just a weekend away and that you weren't relying on me to work miracles, Ruth was thinking, as Harry skirted one of the huge herbaceous borders, in search of somewhere out of view from the house.
I wish this was just a weekend away and that we didn't have to go back to reality, thought Harry, once he'd found what he'd been searching for and was leaning back against a vast weeping willow tree beside the river. Ruth had nestled back against him so that he could wrap his arms around her and her head was resting against his broad shoulder. In the absence of either of them saying anything, they were watching a couple of moorhens dipping their heads in the water, just as they'd done on that first evening, when he'd plucked up the courage to ask her out and had driven her over to Richmond.
Ruth had been overly quiet during tea and a quiet Ruth was a thinking Ruth and he was grateful for Fiona's foresight and thoughtful intervention. But something had to give and he knew it wasn't going to be her.
'Penny for them,' he asked her, opting for Malcolm's tried and tested method, then taking her hand and forcing her to turn and meet his gaze.
'Can you remember the story that I told you? The one when I was little and got stuck up a tree?' She asked him.
Harry could, and just for a moment he considered saying something flippant about her wanting to climb the tree they were standing under and that she wasn't to worry he'd catch her, but with the way she was looking at him there was more to come.
'I know that it's not the same thing and I know you're going to tell me that I'm being silly, but now that I'm actually here, I don't know if I can cope Harry. What if I fail and I can't solve the puzzle, what will happen then?' Was a real possibility, and she hadn't been alone in that thought.
The easy option was for him to say you won't, he was tempted to say I have every faith in you, but there was something about that moment and her frailty that energised him to take another course. Rather than prolonging, what might have well turned out to be a protracted dip into already murky waters, he followed his heart and put to one side the obvious answer to her question, that he had no idea. Not usually known for making the right decision when it came to matters of the heart, he kissed her. It wasn't a kiss of passion, it was the gentlest of kisses that barely grazed her lips as he intended it to. It was a kiss of reassurance and togetherness, that told her he understood her fears and that whatever happened that they'd deal with them together. Then without any further thought other than knowing that this was a pivotal moment in his life, he told her that he loved her.
That Adam just happened to be passing on his way to the shed with the boys in tow, but far enough away that they couldn't see him, was a happy coincidence, as he made a quick turn about. To Jacob it would probably mean nothing and he'd probably seen them before, but to Wes who would digest it and hold onto it for a moment of maximum impact, it was potential dynamite. It was just as well that he had, because Ruth's reaction to Harry telling her that he loved her, was that the pressure cooker of her emotions that had been building had been released and the tears were flowing as well as the kisses.
'I had planned on telling you first but you beat me to it and I will try not to be a prat in the future, am I forgiven?' Was an unnecessary question, given how Ruth was looking at him and Harry was milking it for all it was worth.
'Never in any doubt,' a triumphant Fiona told Adam, when he and the boys arrived back at the house and he told her what he'd seen.
'I didn't doubt it, I just found it hard to imagine until now. They looked – well they looked like a couple, and that surprises me given Harry's age.'
Adam's reward was to be reminded what he did for a living, with a suggestion that he needed to go on a people awareness course, as the subject of their discussions arrived back with a much more relaxed Ruth, who'd been persuaded that any more talk about work was banned until the morning and it wasn't the be all and end all, if she couldn't decode the message.
Wes got his reward, when his plea that Harry read him a bedtime story, was met with an 'of course' and Ruth, whose offer to help Fiona prepare dinner had been graciously refused, was upstairs giving Jacob his bath, before settling down beside him until he went to sleep.
'Does Jacob remember his Dad?' Adam asked Harry pouring them both a glass of whisky as they relaxed in front of the fire for a few moments, waiting for Harry to be called. It was one of the rare times that he and Harry had spent an evening together, other than on the grid, and in all that time Harry had never had a woman in his life.
'I have no idea and it's not something that Ruth ever talks about, but I doubt it. What child that age would remember a father that he'd lost after less than three years?'
Adam's question had been top heavy with innuendo, that until then, he'd never voiced with anyone other than to Fiona, that Wes might at some stage lose both of his parents ahead of their time. Harry was listed as Wes's guardian, something that had been set in stone in Adam's mind as soon as Wes had been born, which at first Harry had resisted. But as time moved on and Adam had got more and more entrenched in the service and as Wes had become a person rather than just a child, Harry had agreed. It was the single act that had brought them as close as they now were and should the tables be turned, Harry knew that Adam would do anything that he asked of him. Why do we do it? Was a question that had never been voiced and only they knew the answer to.
'Duty calls,' said Fiona, sticking her head around the door and asking Adam to give her a hand. She'd settled Wes down and told him that Harry was on his way and for Ruth to sit tight. It wasn't often that she got a moment on her own with Adam, and she was fairly sure that even after Wes had gone to sleep, that neither Ruth or Harry would be in any hurry to come downstairs. Still dinner wasn't going to spoil and she'd set things up nicely. She just wished she could take a peep.
'Mummy said to tell you that Jacob will like this story,' Wes told Harry, handing him The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter and pointing to the first chapter, sending him on journey back to the days when it had been Catherine's and Graham's favourite book. Wes's bright eyes were holding his and it wasn't a time for reflection, besides which by the look of it, Jacob was on the cusp of sleep.
'Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton – tail and Peter,' read Harry, in a voice that would have melted even the hardest of hearts.
'They lived with their mother in a sandbank, underneath a very big fir tree.'
'Now my dears,' said Mrs. Rabbit one morning, 'you may go down the lane, but don't go into Mr. Mc Gregor's garden.'
'Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton – tail who were good little Bunnies went down the road to gather blackberries; But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight into Mr. Mc Gregor's garden, and squeezed under the gate,' continued the head of counter terrorism, to his now captive and adoring audience, the eldest of which was hanging on to his every word and had stopped worrying about her success or otherwise the following morning, as she lay gazing at his earnest face, imagining an infinite number of evenings such as this, with the promise of dinner and then bed to follow.
Once downstairs, everything about the evening continued, just as Adam and Fiona had rejigged it. If Adam still held any lingering doubts about Ruth and Harry they were dispelled, when during dinner and as the wine flowed, Harry became calmer than he'd seen him for days, and Ruth who they barely knew began to relax and tell them about her work. She had a magnetism about her, an enthusiasm that was almost childlike, which Harry clearly couldn't resist. When she was talking about something that she was passionate about she changed, and as her confidence grew he went with her. She took the angst out of him and it was impossible for them not to see how he felt. His recent outbursts and him losing the plot had reason. This wasn't casual, he was in love with her, this was real.
'I'm ready for bed, I don't know about anyone else?' Fiona tactfully threw into the conversation as they finished their coffee, pointing out that as Wes's bedroom was next to theirs, that they'd probably get a rude awakening rather early, which of course they did.
Linked via Adam's computer to the grid and to Malcolm, who was there to supply Ruth with any information, no matter how sensitive, Harry and Adam headed out into the garden. Ruth needed space and she'd assured them that she'd be fine.
'You heard her, she'll shout if she needs anything,' Adam told Harry, who hadn't been concentrating and had been looking over his shoulder, getting himself bowled out middle stump, by what had looked like a wayward ball from Wes that had spun at the last moment. At the other end, Jacob who was swinging his tiny bat above his head as though he was swotting flies was the other half of Harry's two - man team, who were now out for a dubious three runs. Wes was ecstatic whereas Adam wasn't. It wasn't as if he liked cricket, he was a rugby man. If it carried on like this, then their supposed stay out of the way or as long as it takes morning, would be made up of multiple innings with no outcome and what was the point of that?
'Dad,' from Wes was too late, as is son bowled again and Harry hit a four that he should have caught, that earned him one of Harry's recently acquired smiles and a licked index finger that went from north to south.
Relief for Adam, finally arrived in the form of refreshments and Fiona, who' d also been plying Ruth with cups of tea and moral support.
The card appeared to be just that and they had absolutely no proof that Clive had sent it, other than it had been redirected to Jo from her colleague. Doing something that she was in her element with and with no pressure other than from herself to decode it, Ruth was engrossed to the point of being shut in her own little world. It had been years since she'd first taken an interest in analysis and decoding, but you never lost the touch, and with the books that she'd brought with her, that were spread out in front of her across the table, Malcolm was right, she was their best bet. Harry's name and date of birth were the only recognisable facts, the rest was made up of a jumble of numbers and letters. Cross matching them with various alphabets, the periodic table, forwards and back to front had already been done, but Ruth had an insight that they didn't have and put her and Malcolm together in a room, or in this case at the end of the phone, and sooner rather than later they'd have found their answer.
That they were unceremoniously halted in their tracks, was because Zaf raced onto the grid, with the news that Jason had been found, in a way that none of them could have predicted. Strung upside down, like a chicken that was waiting to be put in the oven, with the same clear plastic wrapped around his head, he'd been found hanging under Lambeth Bridge. News that saw Harry and Adam racing from the garden as a terrified Ruth watched on.
The weekend as far as Harry and Adam were concerned was over. They were needed back on the grid, was all that Ruth heard, as chaos erupted around her. Somewhere in the background, Fiona was bundling the boys into the kitchen with the promise of a hot chocolate and Harry and Adam were searching for their things. Their coats, their phones and god forbid what looked like a gun, that Adam was stowing in his bag, saw her flopping back into her chair.
Malcolm was arranging a helicopter to pick them up from a nearby airfield and she had to stay where she was and keep searching, Adam was telling her, as she frantically grappled for something to hold onto, that didn't appear to be moving.
'You've got two minutes,' she heard Adam tell Harry, 'I'll see you at the car,' and suddenly they were on their own.
'Harry,' was all she could manage.
'You'll be safe here, just do exactly as Fiona tells you,' was meant to sound reassuring, but this was Ruth that he was talking to and she could read the deeper meaning. 'I'll be fine and I promise and I'll be back before you know it,' was as much a prayer for forgiveness as it was statement. 'I love you Ruth,' was said as she clung to him, for what to her felt like the last time. Words which echoed on the wind, as Harry kissed her goodbye, and then followed Adam through the front door and climbed into his car, by which time Ruth had lost the use of her legs, made worse as a photograph of Jason Belling flashed up onto her screen.