Weary and worn he certainly was, but he was also elated. Running on pure adrenalin, he'd successfully completed what for him had amounted to a mission and Ruth was safely home. Despite the fact that it was almost two in the morning when they were standing in Jo's kitchen, he chose to go home.
'You might want to take this with you Malcom,' she'd told him, handing him the message that Ros had left.
Now five hours later, trying to ignore the fact that Ruth and Jo were sitting on the other side of the room, he retrieved the message from his pocket and took a deep breath.
'I trust that you're questioning my authority young man?' he said in a now well - practiced authoritative voice to whoever had answered the phone at Kettlemere, saying that he was ringing from the Home Office to confirm that Harry Pearce's detention had been rescinded, and that in less than an hour, his wife and her brother would be arriving to take him home.
'I can assure you that they'll have all the appropriate documentation and have my full authority,' he continued. 'However,' he said for effect and with a pause, 'if you have any doubts, then I'm more than happy to transfer you to the Home Secretary, although that will require me to pull him out of a meeting.'
The voice at the other end declined the offer. He'd been on duty since seven in the morning when he'd taken over from the night shift and had already spent an interminably long week, looking after what had been this unusually passive prisoner. Most of his previous charges had screamed blue murder that they'd been innocent, whereas this man whoever he was, had been docile to a fault.
'Don't underestimate yourself Malcolm,' Jo told him, when he commented that everything was so much easier over the phone and he really wasn't cut out for this.
'You say that we'll need to arrive there around eleven and that Harry will be in the garden,' Ruth asked her again, mostly for her own benefit, having refused point blank to go there on her own, and quite rightly so Ros had confirmed.
'It'll be fine, stop worrying both of you,' Jo told them, ignoring the fact that neither of them had been trained as field officers. As Ros had pointed out, there was no one else they could trust, it had to be them.
With Jo now heading back to the grid they had an hour to fill, with what Malcolm assumed might be a lot of confidence building, until Ruth confessed that she'd done pretty much the self-same thing on another occaision. This time though Harry wouldn't be lying in bed with his eyes closed having had a bullet removed from his shoulder, he'd be sitting next to her with what Malcolm presumed would be a look of pure joy on his face. That done or mission accomplished whichever way you liked to look at it, his instructions were to drive them to their supposed marital home, where Ruth's priorities were to find out what had happened to Harry and why?
The fact that Harry had virtually no memory as to how he'd come to be there or why wasn't apparent, until with slightly faltering footsteps, Ruth walked the full length of the garden towards his slumped figure and sat down beside him.
'Ruth,' was as far as he got before he disintegrated, partly due to his total inability to piece anything together, combined with the shock of seeing her. His nightmare filled night had resulted in him cutting himself shaving and the fact that there was no sign of his usual companion convinced him that he was having some sort of hallucination.
Whatever had happened to him whether physical or mental she had no idea, but he was clinging to her hands like a vice and asking her where they were?
Due to the state he was in, it didn't take a genius to realise that their original plan to get him out of there with a smile on his face wasn't going to be an option, and as he was holding her hands that there was every chance that he'd feel her wedding ring, which knowing Harry would only add to her problems.
Motioning to the already advancing Malcolm, she mustered all the strength that she had and dragged him to his feet.
'Come on Harry we're going for a drive,' she told him, her prime objective to keep him calm no matter what happened. With his arms now draped around their shoulders and theirs around his not inconsiderable bulk, they somehow managed to manoeuver him back into the house.
'This is not at all what I was lead to expect, my husband's clearly been mistreated, you'll be hearing from the Home Secretary,' she told his guard, in a voice that she barely recognised as her own, as they walked without stopping towards the car.
Once they reached the flat and after two cups of strong coffee and a jab in his bum by the services doctor, to counteract whatever he'd concluded had been pumped into Harry, he slowly became more lucid, although quite where Ruth had materialised from or why she was sitting beside him and holding his hand, he had no idea.
'With the nightmares and headaches you've been experiencing, I would suggest that they've been drugging you for days,' said the cheery doctor, who after years of trying, had, in a purely medical sense, finally had his hands on Harry's body.
The only explanation that he could come up with as to Harry's loss of work related memory, was that it was as a result of what he described to them as accumulated trauma that had been building for years. Even drip feeding him information in an effort to get him to remember could prove damaging, so they needed to be patient. The fact that he knew who Ruth and Malcolm were was apparently positive and indicated that hopefully sooner rather than later, that things would get back to normal.
'Complete rest and absolutely no stress whatsoever, that's what you need old son, and with any luck it'll be days rather than weeks,' he told him.
Ros who had been sitting in her office and waiting for news, prayed that whatever influence Ruth had over Harry was as good as Jo suggested, because they didn't have weeks, and without their combined input she didn't want to contemplate the outcome. Accumulated trauma she found totally credible, she'd only been doing Harry's job for a couple of weeks, and she was already struggling to sleep.
'Right then folks I'll love you and leave you, I'll pop in tomorrow,' Malcolm told Harry who had finally fallen asleep on the sofa and a less than confident Ruth who was beginning to weigh up the ramifications of actually living as well as working under the same roof as Harry. The phrase never mix business with pleasure wasn't helping, as she looked across at the man who she'd believed she'd never see again and wondered how she was going to explain to him, that for the purposes of this op, that they were married.
First things first she told herself, she needed a cup of tea and then have a look around.
The flat was marginally larger than the one she'd left behind in Boston. God was it only less than thirty six hours ago since they'd left, it already felt like a lifetime? Jo she presumed had provided the well stocked the fridge. She knew that she had to get past this Ros thing, but somehow she couldn't picture her in a kitchen. As she padded from room to room she found the fully equipped office which had a direct and secure line to Tariq, whoever he was. A technical genius apparently who Ros wanted to keep, despite the fact that Malcolm was now going back to work. So many new faces in such a short space of time and amongst them and the real reason that she'd been brought back was a traitor.
Come on Ruth she told herself as she headed towards what she now knew must be the two bedrooms and a bathroom. This was purely business, except that it wasn't, was it? She'd left the UK to save Harry and now she was back for exactly the same reason. Everything that she'd imagined her life could be was resting within these four walls. She just needed to find a way to deal with it.
If there was a positive to be found in this new situation in which they found themselves, then it was that in the short term their conversations couldn't be about work. Amongst all the questions that he asked her, there was one that she knew she couldn't deny him an honest answer. It came when they were on their way to bed, at the end of what had been a traumatic and difficult day for both of them. Having confronted the subject of their sleeping arrangements with a great deal of hesitation on both their parts, Ruth finally conceded that Harry was being a gentleman, by offering her the larger of the two rooms.
'Ruth,' he pleaded in the same hushed voice, that she'd last heard on the day that she'd kissed him.
'Of course I do,' she told him, when he asked her if she knew what he'd wanted to say, until just as she had then, she turned and left him standing.
Weary and ready for a decent night's sleep that wouldn't involve nightmares, Harry undressed and climbed into bed. Still none the wiser as to why they were here was enough for now. As for how she felt, well he already knew the answer to that question, he'd seen it in her eyes when she'd said Of course I do. There was no rush, he just needed to patient as had always been the case with Ruth.
Ruth at the other end of the corridor was also lying in bed, but her mind unlike his was at sixes and sevens. She was the boss in the short term and needed to take control, until such a time as Harry regained his memory. But how was she supposed to cope with what was bound to happen again and not respond? It had taken every ounce of her will power to turn away rather than to kiss him. Living under the same roof day and night was a battle that she'd never had to face, but for as long as it took for them to unveil the traitor, she had to try.
Having made an attempt to avoid bumping into Harry on her way to the bathroom the following morning, she'd pulled on her dressing gown and slippers and padded into the kitchen just before seven. He needed to sleep the doctor had told them, whereas she needed a strong cup of tea and to check whether she'd had any overnight messages from Tariq.
'Sorry,' he said, when she nearly jumped out of her skin having found him sitting at the kitchen table with what was apparently his second mug of coffee and a pot of tea already made for her, because he'd heard her get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. Her dressed in pyjamas and a dressing gown and him similarly clad but without the slippers, wouldn't have been a problem had it been Malcolm. But this wasn't Malcolm it was Harry, and in a situation that for years she'd imagined them to be.
'I have to work,' she said, thanking him for the tea, her hand vaguely waving in the direction of the door and her voice such as it was, much higher than normal.
'That's fine Ruth, go ahead, I'll bring toast,' was said to her fleeing back and with a huge smile on his face. He hadn't made a mistake last night, this was progress with a capital P.
According to Tariq there was absolutely no way that anyone could hack into any of his messages, so Ruth wasn't surprised to see that rather than call her there was one waiting.
Most importantly it said, they'd had confirmation from the doctor that the drug that had been administered to Harry would have no long term side effects and he was still confident that within a few days that he'd regain his memory. This being the case, Ros had given her the OK to tell Harry that they had footage of him being carried from his house and driven in an ambulance to Kettlemere by two as yet unidentified persons. After that there was no evidence as to what had happened whilst he'd been there.
What she wasn't to tell Harry at this stage was that he'd been accused of treason, which having finally been given the evidence that she'd asked for, Malcolm had proved to be a very elaborately put together fake. Someone within the service had gone to an awful lot of trouble to keep Harry away from the grid, but as yet they had no idea who.
Ros says dig as deep as you can and Jo will be in touch, ended the message and with it the door opening.
'I'm not an idiot Ruth, I'll do what the doctor said,' he told her, arriving with a plate of toast and a second cup of tea. 'I do however have some more questions and after that you can do whatever it is you're here to do and as difficult as it is, I'll stay out of your way for the moment. I'm assuming that we're both housebound for whatever reason, otherwise I'd quite like to go for a walk?'
Put like that she realised how confused he must be, most of all as to why she was there, so turning off her computer she turned around to face him.
'You do you trust me Harry don't you?'
'You know I do.'
'Well then please listen and don't interrupt, because this isn't going to be easy.'
'I'm listening.'
'This, whatever it is between us, has to be put to one side until after this is op is over.'
He waited, unusually for him.
Now brace yourself she thought, for what she knew was likely to put a look of barely disguised hope on his face.
'Having said that, about us I mean, you're right we can't leave the flat, and for the purposes of this op we have to pretend to be married Harry.'
Married brought back the grin and a not unreasonable response.
'That's a bit of a contradiction isn't it?'
She didn't want to tell him, or more importantly admit too herself that their being married had been the lever to get him released and justification for them living together. Was there an age limit to falling in love with someone she thought not, so instead she asked him what he was thinking, which in Harry's case, amounted to lighting the blue touch paper.
'What do I think?' he asked her, knowing full well that she knew the answer and that they were back to their well practised game.
'This is serious Harry, you could still be in danger and I'm supposed to be dead,' was an attempt to bring him back down to earth, if only for a minute.
Listen to yourself, do you honestly believe that I don't understand that, he wanted to shout at her but didn't. They weren't on the grid, constrained by what they said and with dozens of people watching them, he'd waited years for a chance like this.
He meant what he'd said, he told her, he wasn't a fool and if he had this accumulated trauma and his long turm health was a stake, then he'd do whatever it took to get better. He trusted Ros implicitly and if she'd deemed it important enough to persuade her to come back, then he'd accept whatever was asked of him, even if it meant him taking a back seat. Having said that, he was tired and done with battling and arguing. They'd been thrown the lifeline of a future together, so when this op was over they'd have this conversation again, and when they did, he didn't expect her to walk away.
Back on the grid, Ros had called Jo into her office. With no progress as to who out of the dozens of staff that worked for them was a mole or traitor, call it what you like, she was considering using Ben in a more progressive way.
'Connie concerns me,' she told Jo, 'she's asked me virtually every day whether we've got any news about Harry and even though they've known each other for years and are friends, I sense there's more than just a friendly interest in her questions.'
'Ben, yes I'm sure he's more than capable,' Jo told her, when Ros suggested that she wanted to have Connie tailed, although she was finding it hard to envisage that Connie was involved in what was going on.
Malcolm was even more surprised having known Connie for years, but like the others had started to accept that perhaps there was more to Ros than he'd first thought and that he needed to trust her instinct. Harry had been right in making her section chief and in his absence and under very difficult circumstances, she had certainly got the team pulling together.
Put a tracker on her had been his suggestion, but as Ros had rightly pointed out, this was Connie that they were talking about and if she found it, which she would, then any chance of them discovering what was going on would be lost.
'It will mean much longer hours, Connie barely leaves the office during the day,' Ros told Ben, 'I need to be absolutely sure that you're ready for this?'
He'd been with the service for the best part of a year, his indoctrination being in the safe house that Harry owned and where Connie had ordered him to strip. He hadn't liked her then and not because of the way she'd spoken to him, it was more than that, something about her that he hadn't yet been able to explain. Maybe his instincts were better than he'd so far been given credit for. He was certainly up for the challenge.
'Here's the final piece of your kit,' Malcolm told him, having armed him with a camera the size of a pin head that he was wearing in a newly acquired ring, whilst pinning a small communications device under his lapel that would be linked to the grid. 'If Tariq's not here it will automatically transfer to wherever he is day or night, but be careful, Connie's not one to be easily fooled.'
And we still don't have proof that it's her, was said to himself.
