Same evening, five minutes earlier…
Rebecca stared around the room, Harry's mobile clutched in her hand, her heart thundering in her chest. He had promised her that he would only be a few minutes, and so she had gone down to the restaurant and ordered a glass of wine for herself. Over the last few months Rebecca had learned a few things about the great Harry Pearce and she knew that if he had business to attend to it would take him more than the ten minutes he had requested. So when ten minutes turned into fifteen she did not fret, and at the twenty minute mark she flagged down a waiter and ordered her meal. If Harry wanted to skip dinner that was his prerogative; she would not chase him down like some nagging harpy of a wife. It would hardly be the first time she'd eaten dinner alone, and so she had entertained herself with fine food and good wine and scrolling through news reports on her mobile. She might have been spending a dirty weekend in Paris but she could not allow herself to be completely out of touch with the goings on back home; Harry wasn't the only one who had an important job in London.
When one glass of wine became three and one hour slowly slipped into two, that was when she began to worry. Harry hadn't answered any of her texts and had not shown his face in the restaurant, and as the seconds ticked by it became more and more apparent that something was afoot. This trip had been of Harry's making, and though he had assured Rebecca several times over that it was just a little holiday she knew that he was a spook, knew that lying came as naturally to him as breathing. What if, she asked herself, he had undertaken some sort of assignation in the city, and was even now in danger? She had run her fingertip around the rim of her empty wine glass and warred privately with herself; was it worth ringing the HS, to find out what Harry's true purpose in Paris was, to find out if he was in trouble, to swoop in and save him?
Patience, she'd told herself. It could be that Harry had fallen asleep in the room; he'd seemed out of sorts since their arrival, though Rebecca had blamed that on his enforced sabbatical rather than any complex emotional distress. He loved his work, did Harry. Thus determined she had slipped upstairs to check on him, unlocked the door to their room and stepped inside to find him gone, his mobile lying discarded in the middle of the bed.
That was when the panic had begun to set in. Harry Pearce never, ever went anywhere without his mobile. In the dead of night, in the middle of the opera, wherever he was the mobile was with him, and whenever it rang he answered it. She scooped it up, feeling herself begin to tremble. Whatever plans he might have made for this trip he had not confided in her, and she did not know what to do, what course to take. Did he have backup, a contingency plan in place should things go badly for him? And why the bloody hell hadn't he trusted her?
In the beginning she had been content with the enigma of him, drawn to his mystery and to the knowledge that he would never make demands of her. A casual sort of arrangement seemed to suit him, and when they first began to spend time together it had suited her, as well. Rebecca wasn't interested in another man who wanted to tell her what to do, where to go, who to see, who expected her to drop everything and tend to his every need without question. Harry certainly didn't seem to need that sort of devotion from her, but as the weeks turned into months she found herself fascinated by him. How could one man so isolate himself from everyone else around him, and what on earth was he hiding? Oh, of course he couldn't discuss his work, and she didn't expect him to, but he kept so many more secrets. She knew nothing of his life before they'd met, nothing of his family, his history, his former lovers. There had been whispers, of course, that he had been suspended for something that involved a woman and perhaps a spot of light treason, but Rebecca had been working in the embassy in Paris at the time and so remained utterly in the dark as regarded the details. If there was a woman, Harry did not speak of her.
His sudden disappearance, this suspicion it engendered, this potential for disaster, this sort of thing was not Rebecca's forte; politics and niceties, that was her niche, and though she had participated in her fair share of obfuscation this sort of high-stakes spying was so far outside her realm of experience that she hardly knew what to do with herself.
What would Harry do? She asked herself as she paced back and forth with the mobile clutched in her hand. It was a surprisingly difficult question to answer. She knew how Harry took his tea and that when the Ashes were on he could not spare a moment's consideration for anyone or anything else. She knew that his skin was littered with scars he would never explain, that sometimes the mobile rang in the middle of the night and he left her bed and never looked back. She knew that there was a sadness in him that could not be defined. She knew that he was a powerful man, that he was kind, that he enjoyed going out to the opera with a beautiful woman on his arm. She knew there was a part of him she would never reach. As for what motivated him, the inner workings of his mind, his heart, she remained utterly in the dark.
Don't panic, she told herself. He had taken his shoes and his wallet and his room key, wherever he had gone, even if he had left his mobile behind. The room did not appear to have been ransacked, and there was no sign that he had left against his will. The desk clerk, she told herself. Yes, she could go down and see the desk clerk and ask him if he had seen Harry leaving, if he could recall when. It wasn't much, but she felt such an urgent need to do something, anything rather than simply sit and wait and pine for him in that room alone.
Thus resolved she stepped from the room and into the corridor, and at almost exactly the same moment a man stepped out of the room next door. They made eye contact, very briefly; he was a handsome sort of man, with his salt and pepper hair, his square jaw, his kind eyes. There was a slightly awkward moment, as they both reached to press the button for the lift at the same time, but the man was distracted by his mobile and stepped back at once without sparing a thought for Rebecca.
"Rachel," he said suddenly, urgently into the phone. "Where the hell are you? I came back and you're not here and I'm terribly worried, darling. Please, ring me. As soon as you can."
And wasn't that strange, Rebecca thought, that this man should also have returned to his room to find his companion missing. That an Englishman, staying in the room right next to theirs, should find himself in the same circumstances as Rebecca. There were a hundred reasons a woman might step alone from her hotel room out into the crisp air of a beautiful Parisian night, but given that the room was right next to Rebecca's, right next to the bed where an English spy had been sleeping, was sufficient to raise her suspicions. She wanted to speak to him, to ask him about this missing Rachel, but she did not have the words. The moment was uncomfortable enough as it was, and she could think of no way to raise the subject without sounding as if she had gone quite mad.
Finally, the lift arrived. The little light blinked on, and the doors slid slowly open, and Rebecca started to take a step forward, but then she realized that the lift was occupied, and anger replaced the fear that had bound her in a moment.
For inside the lift there stood Harry, still dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing when she left him though he was considerably more mussed and wrinkled now. There stood Harry with his arms around a small, dark-haired woman, kissing her for all he was worth.
The lying about work Rebecca could understand. The unwillingness to share his heart, to be vulnerable, that too she could allow. But this? This humiliation, this betrayal, this shock? This was, quite simply, inexcusable. Her hands were shaking, still, but for an entirely different reason. She felt the rush of heat in her cheeks, felt the shrieking of her heart, felt a sudden, wild urge to step right up to him and strike his face.
"Rachel?" the man next to her asked incredulously, and Rebecca felt the smallest surge of vindication. Her suspicions had been correct, then; Harry and this woman had gone missing together, for what purpose she could not say. Business or pleasure, she would find out soon enough, would have her answers of Harry no matter how he tried to fight against her.
They parted with a gasp, Harry and this mysterious Rachel, though she kept one hand fisted in his shirt, clinging to him.
"Oh, shit," she swore, this woman who dare presume to put her hands on Rebecca's lover. For a moment Rebecca simply stared at her, studying her face. Rachel was a small woman, almost a head shorter than Harry and delicately built, with high, sharp cheekbones and heavy lines at the corners of her mouth. She had the most brilliantly, shockingly blue eyes, and her hair was shiny and soft. And, to Rebecca's utter mortification, she appeared to be wearing Harry's favorite cream jumper. Though Rachel seemed lovely she was hardly so beautiful as to compel a complete stranger to throw over his lover for her, and Harry was hardly the sort to compromise himself for a pretty face.
They know each other, Rebecca realized. It was all there, the way they held onto one another, the mark of Harry's lips against this stranger's neck, the fact that she was wearing his jumper, the fact that neither of them made a move to leave the lift but simply stood, unwilling to be parted.
Harry caught Rebecca's eye and the tips of his ears went pink, the way they did when he was embarrassed.
"Bugger," he said softly.
"What the bloody hell is this?" the man standing beside Rebecca - Rachel's man, apparently - demanded. There was a red tinge to his cheeks and a fury in his eyes, a fury Rebecca felt echoed in her own heart. How dare they? She thought, staring a hole straight through Harry all the while. How dare they embarrass her like this? How dare they lie to both their partners like this? Had they planned this from the beginning, a secret rendezvous in Paris? If they had Rebecca's estimation of Harry's skills as a spy would be greatly reduced, for everything about this was clumsy and poorly orchestrated.
"Paul, please," Rachel said in a soft voice. She made to step out of the lift, pulling away from Harry though his hand fell to the small of her back, unwilling to be completely parted. The man - Paul - reached out as if to grab hold of her, but Rachel recoiled from him, and Harry shot him a dark, territorial sort of look.
"I believe he asked you a question," Rebecca said coolly, still staring at Harry, this man she had just begun to feel a genuine affection for, this man who had so stirred her curiosity, her desire, this man she had welcomed into her life, who had now so completely shattered her pride and her plans for the future. "And I for one would like to hear the answer."
"Let's not do this in the corridor," Harry said gruffly, and Rebecca felt her anger only growing as he kept his hand pressed to Rachel's back, as if he could not bear to pull himself away from her.
"A fine idea," Paul spat. "Come on, Rachel." He held out his hand, all but vibrating with impatience and anger.
Clearly he thought that they would disappear into their separate rooms, but Rachel shifted back, pressing herself against Harry, her eyes wide with fear, and shook her head. It would seem she was not about to go anywhere alone with her lover, and given his obviously volatile emotional state, Rebecca could hardly blame her.
"Why don't we all step into my room," Harry said, and without waiting for an answer he and Rachel turned together and stepped away. Paul followed them - though he was fuming - and Rebecca took up the rear, her thoughts whirling. Curiosity, rage, shame, sorrow; she felt it all, in that moment. She watched the way this Rachel walked, the way Harry was with her, protective and deferential somehow, and she wondered what sort of woman could have so ensnared him, could have inspired such obvious affection, such regard in him. They were comfortable with one another, it would seem, but what Rebecca could not understand was why.
I will have my answers, she told herself grimly as she closed the door behind her. And then I never want to see him again.