'One will be sufficient, just pop it into the last coffee that she has,' Malcolm's calming voice reminded Harry, who was pacing less than patiently in the sitting room of his own house for the first time in weeks, while Juliet was having a shower and making herself presentable somewhere upstairs. He felt like a stranger as he summed up the surroundings and compared them to the comfort and homeliness of Ruth's mishmash that he'd come to think of as home. How could he have lived here and believe himself to be content? The grandfather clock in the hall, a striking to reminder of another age. Pressing his fingers against his temples in an attempt to release the tension that was beginning to build, he gazed at the furniture, wondering why on earth he'd chosen to buy it and if Catherine if she ever appeared, would help him to have a clear out. Everything about it screamed of the other Harry, the one he intended leaving behind.

This was the last place he would have chosen to bring Juliet, but the only place that they could think of that wouldn't raise suspicion if she kicked off. There was still an hour to go before she was due to check in, an hour too many as far as he was concerned, after one over - zealous attempt to persuade him to come with her, that involved her sliding her hand up his leg, had been followed by an acid remark about Ruth when he'd refused. Had it not been for Zaf's intervention when they'd made eye contact in the driving mirror, he'd have offered to throw her to their own wolves and be done with it, rather than balling up his fists and controlling himself. Treat this like any other job, do what's necessary and then you can go home to Ruth, was proving far more difficult than he'd anticipated.

The terminal was predictably busy and they were being jostled and thrown together with him having very little control on what was happening. Without Malcolm chattering away in his ear, there was every chance that he'd have played it differently, but as usual he was doing a sterling job by keeping him in check.

'Do it Harry for Christ's sake, she thinks your letting her go, hold her bloody hand,' was the latest of his instructions as he guided Juliet towards a coffee shop. Zaf had disappeared with her luggage which would have gone through without any problem and onto the plane and Jim was waiting the other side of the barrier for when she appeared through passport control. Twenty minutes that's all he had to survive, but it wasn't easy when the wretched woman knew just which of his buttons to push.

'Ask her why Harry, Adam needs to know before he talks to Woodring,' forced him to look up at Juliet again and play nice, despite her predictable answer.

'Once upon a time you and I could have moved mountains together had you wanted too Harry,' was right, they could have done. 'But no, even then you were firmly stuck in your single - minded grove. Russia's your nemesis Harry, it was and it always will be. What you've never understood is that it's the necessary evil that keeps us on our toes. If it isn't them pulling the strings then there will always be someone else who's waiting to step into their shoes and disrupt world peace. Man's inhumanity to man is the way of things and not even you with your self - righteous bullshit will ever stop that.'

All my life I've worked tireless for my country and maybe I like my groove, went unsaid, 'and Belling. I know he was a useless slime, but was it really necessary to kill him?' didn't.

'That's two questions,' predictable again.

'Humour me,' equally so.

'We needed you followed plain and simple and Belling fitted the bill. He did it very successfully for a while, but then after that interview he got overconfident and we lost control of him. We knew you were onto him. He had to go. Roy's lads had got a taste for it, they'd already dispensed with Clive and we were banking on you being side tracked, which you were until you're weekend in Oxford when that bitch turned the tables on us.'

Dispensed with, was the woman entirely without heart? Calling Ruth a bitch and his hands moved unbidden from his sides.

'Don't,' said Malcolm rather forcefully.

'Drink your coffee Juliet,' he told her, looking at his watch, wondering how he could have ever believed he was in love with this woman. Juliet had been the consummate double agent for as long as he'd known her and his friend Clive had paid the ultimate price. Had it not been for Ruth's brilliance, didn't bear thinking about. Juliet deserved what was coming to her. Whereas his gentle, beautiful and innocent Ruth was at home waiting for him. Malcolm was right, they were as different as chalk was from cheese. One more roll of the dice and it would all be over.

'Time to go,' he said as reluctantly as he could manage, given the rage that had been building, squeezing Juliet's hand in an attempt to keep the equilibrium, as she stepped towards the barrier and walked out of his life forever. He was buggered if he was going to kiss her goodbye, despite her pleas.

'Tell Adam and Zaf it's done, I'll meet them at the car,' he told Malcolm, 'and then ring Ruth and tell her I'm on my way home.'

Still uncertain, he'd wanted to be sure that Juliet was in all senses of the word done and dusted, so he'd waited to elaborate on the permanent, that had resulted in Ruth throwing herself at him like a bullet out of a gun with a resounding yes. The lack of sleep hadn't entirely been due to the fact that he'd arrived home to an ecstatic Ruth, who with Juliet out of the way and Woodring who was being dealt with by Adam and wishing he'd never been born, had seen them walking outside the house together for the first time in months and heading into one of the parks that she so loved. Wrapped up not only in warm clothes but each other and with time on their side, she'd steered him to one of her favourite cafes, where with a huge smile on her face she'd handed him his divorce papers, as well as a message from Jane, wishing him a happy birthday and suggesting that maybe they should get in touch from time to time.

The evening had continued in the same relaxed vein, until lying side by side in bed, completely sated with their hands linked together and not a care in the world, he'd made up his mind to start that conversation.

'I've been ordered to take an extended holiday,' and even in the darkness he'd known that Ruth was smiling. He wanted to be able to make her smile for the rest of her life and he had the perfect destination in mind as to where to make a start. Chamonix in the French Alps was somewhere he'd always wanted to return to. Remote and seemingly cut off from the rest of Europe it was approachable from just two directions. The last road out of France was supported on a huge viaduct, weaving it way upwards towards the snow- covered mountains, whilst the other towards Italy was the Mont Blanc tunnel. The thought of which still gave him a buzz, even after all this time and to be able to visit again and to have Ruth with him was amazing. Not camping as he'd done one June when he'd been in his twenties, but to a chalet with a roaring log fire and a huge double bed in surroundings to die for, within view of Mont Blanc in all its glory. Restaurants and cafes that he still remembered after all these years, away together for the first time in place that screamed of romance, how could she not love it, had resulted in a very late night after they'd been tempted out of bed and booked.

The result of which, was that waking up on his fiftieth birthday alone but to then share breakfast in bed was fine by Harry. He knew he had to play along and if that meant he had to make himself scarce for a couple of hours so be it. After today - well he hadn't told Ruth everything.

'This is so kind of you,' said Sophie, who'd never met the man who was standing at her front door, waiting to take Jacob to a party, but had been told endless times by her son that Ruth had a boyfriend who liked Thomas the tank engine and Peter Rabbit. She trusted Ruth with Jacob almost more than she trusted herself so she hadn't been worried, but she'd been curious as to how she'd met Harry and more especially had wondered what he'd look like. Up until recently, Ruth had only talked about Malcolm who was in her choir and it had been Zaf another new friend of Ruth's, or Ruth herself that had collected Jacob and brought him home. Ruth had always been so insular and every relationship since she'd known her had been disastrous, always ending with Ruth getting hurt. Until now apparently, as Ruth had described herself as head over heels and did that sound crazy? Harry on first sight was certainly different. He was older, maybe that was what Ruth had been searching for without knowing it? He might have very little hair but it suited him, as did his gentle and calm voice, and god his lips and his eyes were to die for. Did he realise she'd been gawping, she hoped not, as they were interrupted by the arrival of her son who raced towards Harry and knee capped him with a force that he seemed used to, before picking him up with an ease that saw her relaxing. She was still dragging herself out of the tunnel that she walked into after Alex's death, but she was getting there. How on earth she'd manage without Ruth and now Harry's support if she didn't have it, was something that she didn't want to contemplate. Putting food on the table and paying a ridiculous mortgage on a house that was far too big for her, now that she was on her own with a small child and her head was barely above water.

'Be a good boy for Ruth and Harry,' she told her son, who was wriggling like mad in Harry's arms impatient to go. She needed something to eat and to go to bed for the few hours that were left to her, before she headed back to the hospital for another long shift.

'I want it to be a normal weekend, no fuss and I'm certainly not going to make a speech if that's what you're expecting,' had pretty much been adhered too, as Ruth and Fiona buzzed about the kitchen on a day that they'd planned down to the finest detail. 'I want to spend the evening, just Ruth and I,' went without saying.

'Why didn't Uncle Harry have a birthday in the summer so that we could play in the garden?' Wes asked Malcolm, who'd been put in charge of keeping Wes occupied, while Adam and Zaf battled with Ruth's unruly table.

'I don't think we can choose when we have our birthday, maybe your Dad knows?' Was the latest answer to what was had been a list of impossible questions, that had started with 'what's chemistry?' To which Malcolm had mistakenly answered, 'In what context?'

'What does that mean?' Was a valid response, given that Wes had been taught he should question everything, that's how you gained knowledge and Malcolm thanked his lucky stars that he'd never had children.

He'd already pretended not to know what he was talking about, when Wes announced that Jacob was going to come and stay at his house for bonfire weekend because Harry and Ruth were going on holiday, something that Malcolm had believed wasn't common knowledge, but had somehow been presumed by Adam. They all knew that Harry had taken his advice and was taking a break from work, but how Wes knew that Harry was planning to take Ruth away, he had no idea?

'Harry's back,' from Ruth and the thundering of a tiny pair of feet, saved Malcolm any further torture as Jacob bundled through the door squealing Wes.

A quiet celebration with friends could only be applied if you didn't have a seven and a three - year - old in the house, who having heard the word party had assumed sandwiches, ice cream and fizzy drinks followed by a round of games, overlooking the possibility of hiccups or the projectile vomiting that might follow. Which was the reason that Ruth and Fiona had prepared a simple buffet, that could be eaten as and when the adults felt hungry and with as little fuss as possible from the boys. Most important or in fact a racing certainty, was that Jacob would be put to bed on time and leave Ruth and Harry on their own to enjoy their evening.

Despite his reticence at them arranging a party and the fact that it had taken a huge effort on Ruth's part to make that happen, including side tracking him as only she could, it wasn't until now when he gazed around the room that he finally relaxed. Surrounded by his friends he felt safe, that was the word he was looking for, that and loved. In Ruth there was an inner strength that had seen her coping without rancour with everything that had been thrown at her since the day that she'd met him. Sitting across the room and talking to Adam, he saw her in a light, that up until then had passed him by. She might not have the outward confidence that Fiona had, but then he wasn't Adam, who despite his ability as his section chief which was second to none, at home became pliant. What he needed was the inherent gentleness that Malcolm had always recognised in Ruth. Someone that he could look after in a way that he'd so far failed to do, but who would also look after him. Take him out of the darkness where he'd been buried for so long. A real person, not a spy that lived two lives. Gazing at Ruth across the other side of the room, he knew that he'd turned the corner that he'd never dared dreamed to be possible.

'What's chemistry Uncle Harry?' said a small voice from a face covered in pizza, at the same moment that Ruth looked across the room at him and smiled.

' This is,' he thought, his eyes never leaving hers.

'We don't expect to hear from you until you get back,' said Malcolm, who was pulling on his coat and searching for his car keys. They'd persuaded him to stay for the evening so that they could tell him about their plans and thank him properly for all that he'd done. The others had been long gone and an exhausted Jacob had been put to bed and had been asleep for hours. No speeches Harry had said, so apart from a toast which had included Ruth from Adam, it was what had happened. It had been a full- on couple of days and they were both exhausted.

Bed beckoned, before a quiet day tomorrow when they planned to pack and relax, before the taxi arrived early the following morning. Not Heathrow it's far too busy, Harry had insisted, in what he'd determined would be the last question that should Ruth ask him, he'd lie about. It was Gatwick to Geneva where they'd pick up their hire car before heading north.

'Have you any idea how much I love you?' He whispered to sleepy Ruth, after they'd dragged themselves upstairs and crawled into bed, both close to sleep.

I do, but I'd like toy to remind me again in the morning, not too early though,' she told him, snuggling in closer and closing her eyes.

The best laid plans as they say usually have a flaw and this was to be no different.

'I'm standing outside your house Dad and I'm freezing. Where the hell are you?' asked his daughter as he answered his phone.