Way before the helicopter turned in the direction of the landing pad where a car had been waiting for them, Adam had made his mind up that he was going to try and persuade Harry that they should 'up the ante' in their favour. He'd had enough of them dancing to Juliet's tune. It was time to turn the page. The long - planned and what had been a really enjoyable weekend that had been designed to bring them all closer together was in tatters, so even before Harry had made the decision to go back to Oxford, which had given him the free hand that he needed, he'd been planning on tackling Juliet head on under his terms. In the space of a few hours, Harry had gone from a man that had looked ten years younger when he'd been playing cricket in their garden, to the resigned and grey faced section head that had been long in the making. Not telling Harry what he planned could go either way, but it was a risk he was prepared to take.
'We'll be fine and give everyone my love,' he told Harry, who'd asked him to walk him down to the car park and 'no he wouldn't do anything stupid, he just intended asking a few questions of his contacts,' he told him, as he shook his friend's hand and watched him climb into his car.
That done, he waited until Harry's rear lights had merged into the stream of traffic that was heading out of central London at that time of evening, before heading back up to the grid and telling an exhausted Malcolm to go home. Zaf was more than capable of holding the fort and acting as his wing man if he needed one. He was mentally armed and he was ready.
It was a crisp evening and as he exited Thames House he pulled up the collar of his jacket, before setting off to cross the river in the direction of building that he'd once thought of as home. He'd calculated that he had a minimum of three hours or so before Harry was likely to reach Oxford and would contact him, which gave him plenty of time to execute his plan. The slightest tell from Juliet would be sufficient for him to press home his advantage and he was pretty sure that he had something in his armoury that would see her flinch. Given it was the weekend there was a good chance that she wouldn't be there, in which case he intended having a good look around her office and then tackling her at home, although with one of their staff dead, he'd hoped that he'd be saved the trouble and she'd sitting behind her desk, in which case it was game on, on what was up until now an even playing field.
Even at the weekends, the offices at six were pretty much the same as at five and had a token staff, added too if there was something 'going down', which in this case was Jason's still to be identified body to the basement mortuary, a distraction which saw the doorman and the huddle of staff who were congregating in the foyer gossiping and who knew Adam as well as they knew anybody that worked there, not even bothering to give him a second glance. Dressed casually he could have passed for a junior, but Adam Carter in the mood he was in was anything but, as he walked unchallenged in the direction of the stairs and took them two at a time up to the third floor and along the corridor to Juliet's door.
In what took more than a cursory glance to take it all in, Adam realised that he'd underestimated the magnitude of Juliet's newly acquired domain, as he walked purposefully towards her desk until he was standing in front of her. Despite his utter contempt for the woman and the way she'd achieved her passage to what amounted to the top post, she certainly looked the part, and for one flickering moment he hoped that he hadn't got this wrong and they'd been barking up the wrong tree. She was a player, there was no doubt about that, and if they had, then that made her even more dangerous.
'I've been expecting a visit from your esteemed boss, have you lost him Mr. Carter?' Juliet asked him, nodding for him to sit down, her usual attempt at being funny falling on deaf ears, as Adam determined that whatever the cost to him personally, he wasn't going to be side tracked from what he planned on saying. It should have been Harry that had been sitting behind this desk not her, but Harry would have hated every minute of it. A thought that boosted his resolve. If Juliet was the mastermind or indeed just one of several, in what had taken on a whole new twist as far as Jason was concerned, he wanted to feed her just enough information to peak her curiosity, or alternatively tell her what she already knew. Either way he was banking on gaining something.
'Harry's been busy elsewhere as I'm sure you're aware Juliet,' brought the merest of an acknowledgement in her eyes. Casting his line again he held on, slowly tempting her towards him. 'We're getting sick and tired of your games Juliet, so I'll come straight to the point of my being here,' and just for the barest of moments he wondered if he'd gone too far, as he watched her breasts start to rise and fall and her breathing increase. Mentally shaking his head whilst at the same time dragging his eyes away from what had once been Harry's domain, he cleared his throat and waited, his own breathing rising to match this imposing woman.
'Do tell Mr. Carter and then stop wasting my time and let me get on with my job, because as I'm sure you're aware I'm just as busy as you are,' was caustic in its deliverance and intended to floor him, but his main aim in being there was to take the pressure off a far too emotionally involved Harry and onto him, which if he succeeded would be a job well done. It was time for the final thrust, but for that he needed to be standing up.
'You've pretended to threaten Harry's children Juliet, you've pretended to threaten his wife and for what? Something that you are never going to find, because you don't know where to start looking do you?' And through the anger and composure that Juliet had been keeping well – guarded, there was the slightest flicker of doubt in her eyes. 'Whoever killed Jason has made a huge mistake Juliet, which I'm sure you'll come to recognise, which is more than can be said for him the poor bastard. Leave Harry and his family alone Juliet. If you're looking for someone to come after, then come after me.'
As he spun away, he wondered how he'd managed to get away with it, or if indeed he had? The distance to Juliet's door felt a lot longer than it had when he'd walked in. He'd gambled and got the reaction that he wanted. He just hoped that he'd be savvy enough to watch his own back, at least for as long as it took Ruth to unravel the mystery, or god and Fiona forgive him, he was a dead man walking.
At the same time as Adam had been flying solo with no backup whatsoever other than Zaf knowing where he was going, Fiona and a much calmer Ruth were preparing the evening meal, with sufficient for Harry when he got there. Fiona, having finally persuaded Ruth to relinquish Jacob in exchange for a glass of wine, had sat the boys in front of the TV with their dinner, with the promise that it didn't matter if Jacob spilled his as he was prone to do. 'How much mess could one shepherd's pie and peas make wasn't important,' she'd told an anxious Ruth, as the first mouthful had been shovelled in.
'How do you do this job?' was a question that Fiona regularly asked herself and was predictably one of the first things that Ruth wanted to ask her, as they took a break from what they were doing and sat down either side of the table, in the huge kitchen where Fiona had eaten when she'd been a child.
'It's in my blood I suppose, it's sort of what I grew up with,' she told her, going on to explain to Ruth that her father who'd worked at the Foreign Office, had never discussed with her or her mother what he actually did, but at the same time had never been under any illusion as to what she planned to do as a living. Her mother had no idea, it was a pact that she'd made with her father very early on, but after she'd married Adam and when Wes had been born, he'd been galvanised into action and added security at the vicarage that made it virtually impenetrable and Fiona's mind made it a safe as Thames House.
'It's controlled in a box in the hall, one flick of a switch and this whole place goes into lock down,' was intended to reassure Ruth,' but Ruth wasn't sure and she hell as like didn't want to find out, well certainly not until Harry was there with them. Fiona had already reorganised the bedrooms so that Wes would be moving in with her and had moved a tiny bed into their room for Jacob, which to Ruth was a far as her mind had travelled. Talk of security and lock downs, in a house that had multiple staircases and corridors and were in grounds that amounted to acres, was in Ruth's mind fine in the daylight, but now that it was dark and after what Fiona had said, terrifying. Anything that scared or worried her had always multiplied to proportions that she knew were irrational once it got dark and Harry was still some distance away.
As such the current occupants were safe, but Harry hadn't needed to be told that. Far too personally involved and that always led to mistakes, was what Fiona and Adam had discussed, during the few moments that they'd had before he and Harry had left, and why Adam had determined to go it alone. As much as Fiona was worried, she knew that she had to trust Adam and that her job was to drag Ruth out of her shell and make her open up and talk about her relationship with Harry, as well as make her feel safe until he got back. That wasn't to say that she wasn't looking forward to having Harry there was well, because she was.
'Adam's inclined to be reckless, I dread to think what he's up to in London on his own,' she told Ruth, choosing a word that she hoped would bring a response and push the conversation on.
'What about Harry?' And she'd succeeded.
'Harry's seemingly made the decision to become steady. He wouldn't be coming back here now if he hadn't,' and Ruth wanted to ask her what she meant and how she could be so sure? But there was something about the way that Fiona was looking at her, that told Ruth that there was more to come if she wanted to hear it. If it was an insight into the Harry that she didn't know and Fiona was prepared to tell her, then she didn't want to interrupt.
'Adam's worked with Harry for years and believe you me, Harry's put his life on the line endless times for this country, but the change in him over the past couple of months since he's been with you has been extraordinary. He virtually lived in his office, or so we were led to believe and he rarely took a weekend off. But despite his dedication and exclusion of anything other than work, there's always been a marshmallow - core to Harry that he's tried to hide and it's only because of Wes that we got to see it, look at this,' she told Ruth, pressing another button to divert Ruth's fears. As if that wasn't enough to convince Ruth, not that she needed convincing, Fiona produced a photograph of a smiling Harry, holding Wes at his christening.
A crash from the sitting room and a shamefaced Wes standing at the kitchen door with Jacob's empty plate dripping with gravy, brought to an end what Fiona had planned to be a lot longer conversation, as Ruth said sorry and grabbed a cloth, at the same time as her phone rang.
'We're fine, well apart from Jacob spilling his dinner,' Ruth told Harry, tucking her phone under her ear and listening to Harry, who'd somehow lasted two hours before he'd rung her, but was now stuck in traffic and as well as wanting to see them all again was getting hungry.
'Yes, she was doing as Fiona was telling her, everything had been sorted out and if it was going to be another hour before he got there, then she'd put Jacob to bed and maybe have another crack at decoding Clive's message,' was followed up with, 'you too,' after Harry quite openly said that 'he loved her,' without the usual hesitance, as Jacob continued to eat the peas that were littering the floor, until Fiona arrived and broke up the little scene by saying that Wes was tucking into a trifle in the kitchen and there was one for Jacob if her wanted it, before scooping Jacob up and leaving Harry and Ruth to talk without interruption.
To Ruth there seemed little point in mentioning her concerns over the phone, she'd have Harry to herself later and there would be plenty of time to talk then. One hour, that's all she had to wait and there was no need to keep him talking, other than her own. He was listening to the radio as he always did. It was Classic FM and that prompted her to go through to where her computer was set up and turn the radio on and start working. Sharing the same music as he got ever nearer to her, she felt better. Telling him that Fiona thought he had a marshmallow inside could wait until later, or maybe she wouldn't mention it at all.
While Harry was getting ever nearer to Ruth and Jacob and Adam and Zaf were settling down with a takeaway and some beers in Harry's no longer watched house, recalling his encounter with the witch, Juliet was still sitting where Adam had left her and had locked her door. Why was it that people like Clive Mc Taggert hadn't been able to let sleeping dogs lie, but instead had felt compelled to write, what had proved to be a deathbed declaration that had sent them all spiralling? For nearly twenty years, she and her colleagues had conspired to keep their secret from Harry, which if Adam hadn't been winding her up, they were about to uncover. Adam was right, it had been a huge error of judgement on their part to murder Jason, just because he'd stumbled across the reason that they'd been using him and was going to jump ship.
Leave Harry and his family alone, Adam had said to her, presumably referring to Ruth Evershed that she knew he'd been seeing, having sat outside her house and seen them leaving together with a small child on more than one occasion. They simply hadn't had the resources to follow them and in view of what had happened to Jason, she was grateful. She knew exactly what Harry was capable of when it came to defending someone that he loved, which in Ruth's case he presumably did, otherwise why had he been paying her so much attention? Tearing people limb from limb was one of Harry's stock phrases and she was keen to keep hers.
She opened the eyes - only file that she'd guarded for far too long and stared at the name that had brought her to this. If she couldn't find a get out clause that would convince Harry she hadn't been party to killing one of his assets and then covering it up, she was done for. It all rested on what Clive had said and unless she beat them to it and found those bloody papers, she had no way of knowing what that was - unless.