Whoever said that time heals doesn't know what they're talking about Ruth sighed, running her fingers across Harry's photograph and planting a gentle kiss on his dear face, as she dragged herself out of bed, to confront what she knew would be another unfulfilling day. Maybe it was just a fantasy and she hadn't spent all those years and one beautiful night in Harry's arms? Maybe he hadn't told her that he loved her? But he had, and she'd lived and breathed those memories, every waking moment of every single day.
She'd lived on the island for more than five weeks and despite her initial resolve that she'd make a new life for herself, she still found herself stuck in her dream that one day there would be a knock on her door and he'd be standing there smiling at her, wanting her as much as she wanted him. The pain of losing him and what they'd shared just never left her and despite her best efforts it had increased rather than diminished.
She longed for someone to talk to, someone that would raise her spirits. Beth would have known what to say she thought wistfully, but Beth wasn't there either she was entirely alone with her grief. Was Harry home, in which case he'd have read her letter? Had he spoken to Malcolm and had he understood the significance of what she'd said? There were only questions never answers and it was this that made up her mind that if she was going to survive, then today had to be the day to make changes. She needed to make an effort and in some way become part of the village, no matter how much she hated the idea.
Choir practice was on Tuesday evenings, wasn't that what Christopher had told her? Did she have the courage to walk into the church unannounced and tell a room full of strangers that she'd like to join them, what would Harry have told her to do? Oh God, she thought to herself, everything always came back to Harry.
In the warmth of her tiny bathroom and in an effort to feel more positive, she took a deep breath and gave herself credit that she'd survived thus far, which really wasn't a Ruth sort of thing to do. She'd managed well, especially when it had come to down to the more practical things. She'd conquered the handbook relating to the boiler and adjusted the heating to her needs, mastered the elaborate wood burner which was now staying in all night and had done a good deal of walking in her comfortable and now worn in boots. She'd rarely used the car apart from a day trip to Stornoway to buy a new set of saucepans and warmer coat and to find a decent bookshop. Apart from a day when it had been 'raining cats and dogs' she'd always walked to the village even for shopping trips. Walking was good for her she told herself and besides which it used up time.
Having finished her breakfast and washed up, she made up her mind that she'd take a walk up to The High Point, have a look at the church and see what the huge notice board told her about choir practice and the other activities that occupied the residents during the long and dark evenings of winter. The heavy sweaters and trousers that she was now wearing she'd grown to like, despite her believing that she looked twice the size that she used to. Tying up her hair into a pony tail and pulling on her woollen hat and gloves, she grabbed her coat and headed out into the cold air of the early morning.
When she'd first climbed the hill she'd had to stop several times to regain her breath, using the view as an excuse. Now though when she climbed she did it like a local and stopped only to look because she loved it and at one particular spot just outside the church. There was a seat that had been donated in memory of a couple that had sat there together in their twilight years with a quote from Shakespeare that tore into Ruth's heart.
'My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have for both are infinite.'
'Susan isn't it?' said a friendly voice from behind her, interrupting her thoughts as she rubbed her eyes and turned to see a smiling face. 'I've been meaning to visit you, I'm the vicar here, I'm Michael,' he told her, holding out his hand. 'How about coming for a coffee and meeting my wife Rose?' left Ruth with little choice other than to follow his retreating figure.
The vicarage was tucked between the church and the school, the playground of which was now teeming with children between the ages of five and ten, three of which according to a proud Michael were their own.
Ruth took to Rose on sight, was it just because she was the vicar's wife and as such was able relax with anyone? Ruth thought not. She was in the kitchen baking something that to Ruth was indiscernible, flour in her hair, the chaos of a kitchen that saw children and a busy husband making demands on it at all times, but totally welcoming to anyone who dropped in. Wiping her hands on her pinafore she put the kettle on the stove, produced a plate of what was obviously homemade gingerbread and told Ruth to sit wherever she could find a seat that wasn't covered with papers magazines or toys. By the time that Michael her overworked husband bustled in five minutes later, Ruth had joined the choir without even realising it.
'Ruth's a singer Michael and she writes, isn't that wonderful,' Rose told the now very enthusiastic vicar as Ruth found herself telling them that in addition to that she also had a passion for reading. There were no questions posed that she couldn't or didn't want to answer, they weren't prying they were leaving it to her to tell them as much or as little as she wanted and that was certainly a first for as long as Ruth could remember. By the time that she left an hour later, she had a list of the regular activities and the extra ones that were being organised in the run up to Christmas, which included a children's party and a concert at the end of term, not to mention the village dance which apparently everyone attended and to which she was invited.
'What do you think dear?' Michael asked his wife, as Ruth walked back down the path in the direction of the church.
'She's perfect I'd say, a gift from heaven,' was Rose's answer.
The church wasn't as Ruth had imagined it to be, it was smaller than any church that she had ever been in. If the choir stalls were anything to go by, then the choir couldn't amount to more than maybe a dozen people, so maybe it wouldn't be as difficult meeting them as she'd presumed. She'd always been able to sing and she loved to do it. It was liberating and had always lifted her spirits, even during the darkest times of which there had been many over the past few years. Maybe it would do the same now in what was the darkest and pave the way to her feeling better? Anyway, tonight was the night she told herself, the first step to becoming part of the community. It felt like a lifetime since she'd last sung anything, so walking back down the hill with her shopping, she decided to test her voice. There was no one there to hear her apart from the sea birds that were circling overhead, and they hardly counted as critics.
Arriving back at the house another surprise awaited her. She was confronted by a huge pile of logs with a note attached to her front door telling her that Rob had gone home for his lunch but would be back later to stack them and that he drank tea. Cheeky young devil she thought talk about a hint, but it did make her laugh in what was the first time in weeks. She was mistaken in her assumptions, when two hours later Rob turned out to be an elderly man declaring that, 'he'd better be getting on with it and did she by any chance have the kettle on?'
Wondering if perhaps in view of his age she should offer to help him, in addition to supplying him with what she imagined would be endless cups of tea, she was told in no uncertain terms that this wasn't a job to be tackled by a wee lassie like herself thank you very much, he'd been delivering logs to the residents for years and he'd be done in a jiffy. Ruth by now didn't doubt it and she'd never been called a wee lassie before either.
Why on earth she had worked herself up into a state she couldn't imagine, as ten minutes after the start of the first anthem that they were practicing, she realised how much she had missed singing and how at home she felt being part of a choir again. It didn't matter that she was singing in church and that she wasn't particularly religious, in fact apart from the services that she'd attended with Harry when they'd said goodbye to colleagues, she'd only once been in a church since her childhood. That had been in Cyprus to attend a wedding, after which George had made the ill- advised decision to ask her to marry him and she'd had to confess why she wouldn't.
They sang unaccompanied other than for the lead in on an ancient piano that had seen better days, but somehow managed to stay in tune. Ruth was staggered. The organist was excellent according to one of the other three sopranos who was about Ruth's age and introduced herself as Mary. But he only turned up for services because for the rest of the time he and his wife ran the pub.
'In small village like this, nearly everyone who is fit enough has two jobs,' Mary whispered, in a break between the following Sunday's psalm and hymns. 'We all multi task even me,' she told her, but then Ruth could imagine that they had to. After an hour of practising by which time Ruth was feeling better than she had done in weeks and before they before they headed home, she found herself following the others for what was a routine cup of tea and a biscuit at the vicarage and a conversation that in her wildest dreams she could never have envisaged.
'You'll be perfect Susan, the children will love you,' Ruth heard Rose's voice in the background as she tried to reassemble her scrambled thoughts and find a way to refuse what was turning into a plea.
Mrs. Macdonald who apparently came in once a week to teach music and organised the school's Christmas concert had been rushed into hospital, and neither of the other teachers were musical.
'Please Susan,' Ruth heard for a second time, 'please say you'll do it.'
Had she not been standing within a few yards of the church with the vicar, his wife and what she now knew to be half the congregation all of whom had children at the school, she'd have used an expletive used only when stubbing your toe against something hard. 'Oh Christ,' wasn't appropriate either as she gazed at the eager faces and someone who was telling her that if she didn't do it, how disappointed the children would be.
'Alright,' she heard herself saying, as someone stuffed some sheet music into her hand and told her that the first lesson was tomorrow and that she needed to keep an eye on Robert because he sometimes got a little over excited.
She'd dealt with terrorists, surely it couldn't t be worse than that, could it?
The walk back down the hill gave her time to clear her head and by the time that she walked back in through her front door she felt better. Dressed in her warmest pyjamas and dressing gown with the kettle whistling merrily, Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bell Rock who were staring at her from her kitchen table, didn't feel quite so daunting. They were only children after all, about the same age as Nico would have been and she'd loved him. It wasn't until now that she'd given any real thought to Christmas and realised that without this new challenge quite how bleak the weeks in the run up would have been. Perhaps this hadn't been a spur of the moment decision by the vicar and his wife, she had after all told Christopher that she loved to sing and when he'd bumped into her on the ferry, he couldn't have failed to notice that she'd been upset? Was there a Mrs Macdonald who usually taught music, did it really matter? They were offering her a chance to integrate and she'd be a fool not to make the most of it. As for the dance on the 23rd, they'd have to work a whole lot harder to get her to go to that.
Seven hundred miles away Malcolm and Catherine were in charge of keeping an eye on Harry until Callum returned from work each day. Still drugged to keep him stabilised, Harry had calmed but as yet hadn't woken for long enough to realise that he was at home. He was out of the woods as far as any physical damage was concerned but he was woefully malnourished and as a consequence had lost weight. His state of mind, especially when he first woke up expecting to see Ruth was an entirely different proposition and the one that they were dreading. Malcolm might have felt as though he'd drawn the short straw, but deep down he knew that he was the best person to help Catherine with Harry. She'd been horrified when they'd first brought him home, but with a fire in her eyes very reminiscent of her father, had been adamant that she should be the one to look after him.
One of Harry's spare bedrooms which doubled as his office, was where Malcolm was now working and continuing to liaise with Tariq, which given no choice, Erin had finally approved. Bob who had flown back with them, insisting that he wanted to see this through to the end was currently in the meeting room with Callum and Beth who had been designated to work with their counterparts from the CIA, while the rest of the section returned to normal duties dealing with the backlog of what was now a barrage of intel that was coming in.
It was late in the afternoon and just before Tariq was due to make his daily call to Malcolm that everything fell into place and had him racing into the meeting room unannounced, saying that he needed to speak to Callum, it was urgent.
'I've got a theory,' said the boy genius, hopping from one foot to the other and closely resembling an excited Ruth. 'I don't think that this is about Ruth, well only indirectly, it's all about Harry,' he told Callum, waving the sheet of paper that he was holding.
'Slow down,' Callum told him, as Tariq raced along the corridor to reach the sanctity of the Technical suite where they could be on their own.
'I don't know why and I don't know who yet, but I believe that this goes as far back as when Harry received his Knighthood which was just before Connie left,' he told him. 'I've been piecing together Harry's record from then onwards and it's been a continual downward spiral. He was falsely accused of treason and according to the records was tortured, can you believe it? Then after Ruth came back there was Albany fiasco and his suspension, which could so easily have resulted in his death at the hands of Lucas or his dismissal. Now this latest accusation that he personally ordered the death of Jim Coaver which we know isn't true,' had Callum asking Tariq to slow down again so that he could take it all in. 'I believe it's been a long term and so far failed plot to oust Harry and that he may still be in danger,' Tariq concluded.
'So why get rid of Ruth?' was the one question to which Tariq was absolutely sure that he had the answer.
'We're all new here, we don't have the long term history with Harry that she does and who's the one person that can unpick a problem as easily as the rest of us breathe? If Ruth had been sitting at her desk at the Home Office rather than being who knows where, she'd have worked all this out, and a long time before I have I'm absolutely certain,' Tariq told him.
'But why, what's the motive?'
'I've no idea, I need to dig deeper, but something must have driven whoever this it is to go to these lengths. Hate, love, jealousy, envy, revenge, take your pick, it's just a theory and I might be wrong,' had Callum shaking Tariq's hand and heading back into the meeting room.