The sun, the sand and sea of Cyprus it certainly wasn't, as on the day before the performance, Ruth woke to minus zero temperatures and the first dusting of snow. Adding to her misery, she'd overslept. With no time for breakfast, she threw on her warmest clothes and drove as fast as the icy hill would allow her to the church. Michael had worked his magic and in addition to the children who were being occupied by Rose, a small group of parents were already hard at work. The scenery was being assembled and refreshments sufficient to feed an army and what looked like an urn to make hot drinks, was being carried in through the side door of the toasty and warm church.
'It's here, it's here miss,' an excited Rory squealed, grabbing her hand and dragging her down the aisle to where Christopher and a girl that Ruth didn't recognise, had been added to the workforce and were setting up the tree.
'I'm so sorry I'm late, how on earth did you manage to organise this?' an embarrassed Ruth asked Rose, only to be rewarded with one of Rose's smiles and to be reminded that she was married to a vicar and that if he couldn't work miracles then who could.
Now relieved of the mountain of tasks that in her imagination would have seen her working late into the evening, she gratefully accepted the cup of tea that someone had given her and ushered the children into two rows of pews.
'The church choir will be standing over there,' she told them, pointing to a space on the opposite side to the tree. Exactly whose parents were transforming the area in front of the altar into a make believe Bethlehem she had no idea, but the hills in the background looked remarkably realistic, as did the inn and the stable that were awaiting Mary and Joseph.
It felt strange being in a church and surrounded by happy faces when her own life was in such a mess, but if her time with Nico had taught her anything it was that children needed to take priority and feel involved in what was happening around them. If that meant giving them centre stage from time to time then so be it and what better time to do it than at Christmas. This was their concert not hers.
'Now I need to get you all to Bethlehem, how are we going to do that?' She asked them, dragging herself back to the here and now and regaining their attention. Her question was met by a sea of blank faces, despite the fact that they'd already discussed it the previous day, so she tried another tack and asked them if they knew the story about Noah and his animals?
'Two by two,' was the chorus, as Ruth went on to remind them that she wanted the shepherds and their sheep to walk down the aisle first, followed by the angels, the wise men and Mary and Joseph with their donkey.
'Remember, James and I will be standing at the front to meet you and then once you're all in your places the story can begin.'
Rose had told her that most of the children especially the little ones had never been to church, so with the exception of Rory and Maisie who Ruth wanted to walk together to add to the atmosphere, she'd paired them up so that each small child had an older one to walk with.
'I'm not holding her hand she's a girl,' from Ollie, had Lucy bursting into tears, as Ruth who refrained from saying what was on the tip of her tongue, explained to the remainder of the class who in effect were extras but she'd cast as villagers, that in this case he was playing a father and that Lucy was one of his children.
'Look at Mary and Joseph,' she told them pointing to Robert, who obligingly put his arm around Sally's shoulder. 'It's only pretend.' The fact that Rose had told her that Robert thought that Sally was the most beautiful girl in the world and that he was going to marry her, was irrelevant. Besides which as far as Ruth knew, he hadn't asked her yet.
At mid – morning Ruth called a halt, at which point everyone stopped for a break. Sitting in the church drinking hot chocolate with a biscuit on a school day was going down like a house on fire with the children, so with a cup of tea in her hand, Ruth did the rounds and thanked her helpers. Equilibrium had been restored and they were ready for the first proper rehearsal.
With James standing in front of the yet to be decorated tree, Ruth beckoned encouraging to Rory and Maisie who were walking towards her. Was it so wrong for her to have set these two apart from the others in her heart, maybe it was, but they were adorable. Had she and Harry ever had the chance to have children she would have loved them to look like these two little souls, with their lives still ahead of them and untouched by the reality of the real world. A huge wave of sadness enveloped her and she could feel the tears pricking the back of her eyes.
To one side, the ever vigilant Rose stood watching, seeing for the first time what Michael had meant. Susan was battling with something truly profound and still managing to control it. Nobody should have to cope with a loss on their own and this was exactly what this was, Rose was certain of it. In a short space of time Susan had become her friend and a huge asset to the village and she felt it her heart, to help her in any way that she could.
Christopher and Abby proved to be very capable allies. So at the end of the day when the still willing parents were either collecting up what was left of the food or sorting out the costumes in readiness for the following day's dress rehearsal, Rose suggested to Ruth that enough was enough and that someone else should take charge of dressing the tree.
Armed with two cups of tea and the inevitable mince pies, Ruth found herself being dragged to a quiet corner of the church and being told to do as she was told. The day had gone so well, far better than she had hoped, but she was dog tired through a lack of sleep, the concert preparation that she'd thrown her heart into, but most of all by keeping the secret that she wasn't who she was claiming to be. She was Ruth Evershed and she was in love with a man that could be on the moon, such was her desolation.
'Tell me,' Rose told her, fully aware that the dam was about to break.
'He's called Harry,' was all that Ruth managed, before her sobs were drowned out by the sound of the children's laughter.
An hour later when they were preparing dinner in Rose's kitchen that had rapidly become Ruth's second home, the two younger children had been despatched to watch television, Robert was in his bedroom practising his lines and Michael had discreetly headed to his study to write his sermon, Rose asked again.
Ruth knew that she needed to talk to someone, but what to say? She'd done it in Cyprus and where had that got her, she needed to be honest this time, even if it had to be sparing.
'What I told you before is true, I've never had a husband or child,' she told Rose, 'but there is someone.'
'Called Harry,' said Rose in such a gentle voice that Ruth opened up and told her as much as she knew was permissible and that there was only the merest chance that she and Harry would be re united.
'Spend Christmas with us, the children would love it and so would we,' was a generous offer that Ruth said she'd think about, but knew she'd never accept.
As Ruth had been waking up, Tariq and Malcolm had arrived to find themselves with an unexpected Harry free day, with Catherine announcing to her dad that she needed him to go shopping with her. In truth, she'd watched her him getting more and more wound up as the previous evening had gone on and had decided that a short walk to get some much needed fresh air into his lungs and then maybe a meal somewhere might do him good. He was still physically fragile but mollycoddling in front of his colleagues was out of the question, so she'd have to use subtlety to get him to wrap up warm, by getting Malcolm to mention how cold it was.
Telling Malcolm and Tariq that they could help themselves to anything that they fancied for lunch and that Callum had told her that he didn't expect to be back until late as the full scale search for Dolby and possibly an accomplice would keep him fully occupied, she linked her arm through Harry's and ushered him out to their waiting taxi.
Harry found himself in a small restaurant, well away from the Thames and any of the familiar haunts that he and Ruth frequented. He suspected that Catherine had done her research and that Malcolm had played his part. He knew full well that Catherine was on a get dad out of the way mission and it certainly did feel better to be away from the house. What he hadn't bargained for but started as soon as they'd ordered, was a moderate roasting from his determined daughter.
'I'd never had put you down as a quitter,' was the opening salvo, as Catherine went on to suggest that if Malcolm and Tariq were half as good as Callum had told her, then there was every chance that he'd be spending Christmas or at worst New Year with Ruth. 'Once we've finished our lunch I intend taking you shopping, your clothes are hanging off you,' had Harry conceding that having lost so much weight he was looking far from his best and that if he was going to be seeing Ruth again, then Catherine was right, he did need to go shopping, no matter how much he hated the idea.
In what was a less pressured atmosphere than the one at home, Harry started to relax and by the time that they were eating their main course, Catherine had moved the conversation on to Ruth and where he thought she might be? Of two things Harry was certain, Ruth wouldn't have returned to Cyprus or gone anywhere in Eastern Europe. That would have been far too dangerous with her background. What none of them had so far considered was that her destination had been pre destined, and that had they been able to find Dolby, Harry would have been on the next flight to Prestwick.
His previous thought that she could be anywhere in the world was blown apart as Catherine continued to prod and Harry remembered that Ruth had recently discovered that she was claustrophobic. Wherever she was in the world, she couldn't have flown long haul.
'Leave it to the experts they will find her,' had Harry telling her that it was just one more thing on the long list that he and Ruth had in common. They were both hopeless when it came to technology, but it wasn't the reason that they'd spent hours over the years talking to each other on the phone, that was by choice.
'Come on Dad, Catherine told her now tired father, as they exited the shop loaded with parcels that kitted him out for what would be a journey to somewhere in Europe.
Having received Harry's phone call telling them that they could eliminate far flung climes and that they should concentrate on Western Europe, Tariq had called up all the footage and correspondence that he had documented. It had been a time consuming exercise that had proved fruitless the first time that they'd looked, after they'd finally been given access to passenger manifests on the day that Ruth had disappeared. Now though they were able to narrow it down to European flights, calling up the long list of females approximately the same age as Ruth, who had flown out of both Heathrow and Gatwick.
By the time that Harry and Ruth got home, they were no further forward and extremely frustrated, not only that they hadn't eaten. They'd been on the go since just after nine and now at four in the afternoon, they knew that they needed to take a break. Harry had been persuaded to take himself upstairs for a lie down, with the promise that if they found anything that they'd wake him. An also tired and emotional Catherine who had arrived home full of hope, only to have it dashed, had served up pizzas with a salad and had joined them in the kitchen. The calendar that was hanging on Harry's kitchen wall which he'd been crossing off daily, hung like a spectre. Tomorrow would be December 23rd.
'You do know that there will be a reduced number of flights over Christmas?' wasn't a very helpful remark from Tariq, but they knew he was right and dreaded the effect that not finding Ruth would have on the now expectant Harry.
In the world that all except Catherine moved in, Tariq was the closest to Ruth when it came to inspiration. Harry had once jokingly called him a boy wonder, when in the meeting room he'd once described something that only Ruth could understand. He analysed, he thought deeply and suddenly in what had now become a solemn atmosphere, he punched his fist in the air. Ruth had left in the middle of the night when it was only long haul flights that would have taken off and they now knew that she wouldn't have been on one of those. She hadn't flown anywhere, she'd driven. The fact that her car was still here was brilliant in its cunning and had fooled them. Dolby would have known that their first thought would have been that she'd gone on a one person mission to save Harry and when they found out that she hadn't, they'd have wasted days checking unnecessary flights in an effort to discover where she was. He'd provided her with another car. Ruth was still in this country, he'd stake his reputation on it.
'No don't get your dad yet,' Malcolm told Catherine, 'we need time to think.'
With any though of finishing dinner and the washing up abandoned, the three of them were back in the dining room with a large scale map of the British Isles pulled up on Tariq's computer. As large as it was it wasn't detailed enough, so Malcolm headed out to his car and brought in a map that he had bought months ago when he'd first planned his holiday.
They quickly eliminated anywhere in the South of England. Ruth would have needed to get as far away from London as possible. Was it conceivable that she'd bought the cottage in Suffolk that Malcolm knew that she had considered? A quick look on the estate agent's website confirmed that it was still on the market, but it also alerted them to the fact that there were dozens of small cottages that could be both bought or rented. Had Ruth rented a cottage somewhere and if so where the hell was it? There were thousands of them available, it was a hopeless task.
'We need to think latterly,' Malcolm told Tariq, 'and re visit the facts that we already have.'
Ruth had been forced to leave by Dolby or someone close to him. She'd done it, convinced that by doing so that she'd save Harry and had assumed that her disappearance would need to be a permanent one. She'd said so in the three letters that she'd written to Harry to Catherine and to Beth. Bearing in mind that she'd left in the middle of the night and they'd checked with taxi companies, she had to have left under her own steam and by car. Why had she felt compelled to leave in the middle of the night and not first thing in the morning after Beth had gone to work, was the question to which they didn't have an answer?
'Perhaps she had a deadline to meet that made her leave that early, because Beth told me that it was unlike Ruth to leave her room in such a state,' chipped in Catherine, who had been trying to put herself in Ruth's position.
Deadlines meant airports or ferries, but they'd already checked those when they'd assumed she'd left for the continent.
'Oh my God, you clever girl,' said Malcolm, meaning Ruth and not Catherine, asking her to wake Harry, because he needed to re - read Ruth's letter.
'Switch your computer back on and google The Shipping Forecast, he told a bemused Tariq who'd never heard of it, as Harry came flying back down the stairs.
There were thirteen regional names, but only some of them related to Islands and more specifically where ferries would have left on the day in question. It was a case of elimination and as they called in favours that enabled them to have access to surveillance around the coast, it was a further two hours before they had confirmation from the port authority on the Isle of Skye, that Susan Barnes had boarded a ferry to Harris and Lewis.
As Catherine helped a now frantic Harry pack, Tariq was booking him a flight to Prestwick with a connecting flight to Stornoway the following afternoon. He hadn't told Harry that the connecting flight was the last one before Christmas and that bad weather was setting in. It was clear from the way he was behaving that he'd swim the divide if necessary. He had a hire car booked in Stornoway. A four by four had been advised.
Sitting having a coffee with her dad at Heathrow airport, with an hour to go before boarding, Catherine was consumed by varying emotions. He looked so bloody exhausted and she knew he was pushing himself way beyond what he should be doing, bearing in mind what had so recently happened. Callum who had raced home when she'd phoned him had gone to buy a newspaper to give them some time alone and for that she was grateful. Tariq had told them about the possibility that his connecting flight might be cancelled, but they'd made a unanimous decision not to compound his stress about something that please God wouldn't happen.
'Would passengers for the 9pm flight to Prestwick, please go to gate number twenty seven where we're now ready to board,' said a voice, as father and daughter embraced before he disappeared into the crowd to join his fellow passengers.
'I love you Dad, stay safe,' was lost on the wind.
The flight was a short one, so much more so than the last time that he'd been on a plane. His room had been booked at the last minute, in a motel adjacent to the airport. It offered clean and tidy rooms and a bar but little else. It had been well over a month since he'd touched alcohol and for a man that at one time hadn't been able to survive without a whisky, he didn't fancy one now. He stripped naked letting the mercifully hot water of the shower relax him before he made himself a coffee and climbed into bed.
As was always was the case, he picked up the book that he'd never been parted from, other than when he'd been incarcerated. It was a copy of Jane Eyre, the one that Ruth had been reading on the bus the night that he had sought her out during his suspension and she'd given it to him as a gift when he'd returned to work. She'd come into his office unannounced as she always did and just stood there watching him as he'd opened it. He'd made some stupid joke about him being her Mr Rochester which had seen her blushing, but she'd stood her ground as their eyes had locked. It was the moment that he'd acknowledged that he was in love with her, but was still uncertain as how she really felt about him. The book and her photo were his two most prize possessions and he'd take them with him to the grave, he was certain of that.
As he slid down beneath the covers, he could almost feel her, she was so close. His whole body was aching with the need of her and this time tomorrow he'd be with her. What had she been doing in the time that they been parted, how would she react to seeing him again, were questions to which he didn't have an answer. He knew he wouldn't sleep.