On the drive back to London, Harry is distracted by the events of the previous thirteen hours. In the space of only half a revolution of the earth, everything has completely changed, and nothing in his life will be the same again. Instead of mourning Ruth's loss, he can now enjoy her company as his partner. In the hour or so before he left her, they'd talked about `them', and what they can expect from their changed circumstances.
"Where do we go from here, Harry?" Ruth had whispered against his shoulder.
"Forwards, Ruth. Forwards …... and together."
She'd smiled into his eyes, and he'd thought her face to be the most beautiful vision he'd ever seen, and would ever be likely to see.
"First we have to deal with those who would want to harm us, and then to reclaim your identity."
"Easy, then"
"Not easy, no, but it's necessary. I want us to be able to walk together down any street in the world, without having to be forever hiding in the shadows, expecting the worst."
They'd clung together in the hallway of Ruth's flat, each making promises to call each day, before Harry stepped through the doorway, on to the pavement, and into his car, and began the drive back to London.
He drives straight to the Grid, recognising that he is still wearing last night's clothes, and that he can't do much about that now.
"Good night?" Ros asks him as he steps into his office. Judging by her lifted eyebrow, and slight smirk, Harry concludes that Ros knows something about where he's been, and with whom.
"I can take over now, Ros," he says, removing his jacket, revealling a creased pale blue shirt beneath. He notices Ros' eyes taking in the shirt, and his tieless state. This is a place of work, he thinks, not a bloody fashion show.
Malcolm, who has been doing the bulk of the intelligence analysis since Ruth had had to leave the country, slips silently through Harry's office door just after Ros leaves. He smiles at Harry, recognising that he has perhaps travelled from Kent only that morning.
"Yes, I'm wearing the clothes I wore to dinner last night, and before I forget my manners, thank you very much for setting it up, Malcolm."
"A good time was had by all, I take it."
"Yes, it was. A very good time."
"And you didn't guess it was she you were meeting?"
"Not until I saw her." Harry sighs heavily, remembering the moment their eyes had met, and how his emotions had almost got the better of him. "Now, what's been happening since I've been away?"
"It's only been fifteen hours since you were last on the Grid, Harry."
"That's a lifetime in this place."
"And how is she?"
"You've not seen her since she's been back, Malcolm?"
"No, but we've spoken on the phone a couple of times a week since she's been back on British soil."
"She's …..." How can he explain to Malcolm how she is? Amazing, surprising, beguiling, breathtaking? "She's in very good spirits, Malcolm. We had a lovely time."
"You'll be seeing her again, I take it."
Malcolm realises he has just stepped over the invisible line which has always existed between he and Harry, and he turns his head slightly, and gazes at the wall behind Harry's head.
"We plan to, yes. Which brings me to my next request. I know you and the junior analysts are busy, Malcolm, but I need for you to find out which of Mace's followers are still at large, and where they are. Can you do that?"
"To protect Ruth, I'll do whatever it takes. However, Harry," Malcolm says, suddenly animated, as he sits in the chair Harry indicates, across the desk from him, "I have pre-empted your request, and I have four names, and I've been following them for the month Ruth has been back on British soil."
"I should have known you'd be a step ahead of me."
"You understand, Harry, that Mace being in gaol hasn't diminished his influence. He's angry that you escaped his trap, and I suspect he also knows that Ruth didn't drown in the Thames two years ago. My fear is that these four henchmen of Mace's will find out Ruth is back home, and will kidnap her, or worse. Oliver Mace has an exceptionally long memory."
Harry privately contemplates the irony of he and Ruth having dined at Oliver's the previous evening. "Do you have any idea where these four men are, Malcolm, and how it is we can prevent them finding Ruth?"
"I have surveillance on two of them – they are both in North Wales."
"North Wales?"
"They are living in comfort at a property which Mace bought some years ago with his ill-gotten gains from his eastern European connections. I've alerted the North Wales Police to keep an eye on these two. They're ….. geeks …." Malcolm smiles ar his own use of a word which could well describe himself. "They have surveillance equipment which is illegal for them to be using, and so there's a technical team in the police force who checks them daily …... from a distance, of course. The first time they put a foot wrong, they'll be arrested."
"Good. That's good. The other two?"
"The other two have been more elusive, and they worry me."
Harry sits back in his chair, an indication that Malcolm should continue.
"Hartley Poole and Gordon Cawthorne. Poole is ex-army, and Cawthorne was kicked out of the Metropolitan Police for all manner of misdemeanors, too numerous for me to list. I have the police checking the airports and water ports, plus we have a permanent trace set up within immigration at Calais. They each have at least one alias that I know of. The difficulty is that they move often, mostly separately, and sometimes they only move a few streets, to a nearby town, and sometimes they cross borders."
"So the only predictable factors is their unpredictability."
"I have to tell you, Harry, that the best way to flush them out is to use bait."
"Go on."
"I'm thinking that we have to somehow let them know of Ruth's whereabouts, although I'm sure they'll discover that before long." Malcolm notices Harry's expression change from one of interest to one of extreme concern. "Lucas and I have been talking, and we have a plan."
"It had better be a water-tight plan, Malcolm."
"No plan is absolutely water-tight, but this one is better than having Ruth wallowing in Rochester, waiting for the enemy to find her."
"Go ahead, then."
Once Malcolm leaves his office, Harry phones Ruth, just to hear her voice. She is in good spirits, and is happy he has rung her so soon after they'd parted. He wants to share with her what Malcolm has told him, but he doesn't wish to frighten her for no reason, so he tells her that he loves her, misses her already, and can't wait until they can see one another again.
Natasha Slaughter certainly lives up to her reputation. Lucas and Ros are debriefing her on the expectations they have of her during her secondment to Section D.
"The piercings, and all that other shit will have to go," Lucas says, his eyes moving over her coldly.
"The piercings stay. They're part of me."
"You look like the love child of Johnny Rotten," Ros says scathingly.
"Johnny who?"
"This date of birth we have for you …... 10th August, 1973 …... that is correct, isn't it?"
"Sure. Why wouldn't it be?"
"That makes you …..."
"It makes me having just turned thirty-five. So?"
"You look and dress like a twenty-year-old. We need you to get rid of all the rubbish - the metal, the studs, and such - and dress your age."
"What if I refuse?"
"We find someone who is prepared to do what they're told. This is a serious operation, and we were told you were a serious operative who will adequately meet our needs."
"More than. What do I have to do?"
"Dress like this woman."
Ros passes a photograph of Ruth Evershed to the woman across from her.
"Fuck me. You want me to look like that?"
Ros and Lucas exchange a look, and then it's Ros' turn to get through to the woman.
"Listen. I don't want you to be doing this. I think you're a moron, but your section chief in Six tells me you're a chameleon, and brilliant in the field. Your record tells me you're a former athlete – a sprinter, and ten years ago you almost qualified for the Olympics in long jump – and you have attained a black belt in judo. You teach self-defence to women and children two evenings per week, and you regularly attain top marks in your section in weapons training, and your health – both physical and mental – is excellent. You're the right age, the right height, and your hair is almost exactly the same colour and length as the woman you will be standing in for -"
"Is this operation dangerous?" asks Natasha.
"Extremely," answers Ros.
"So …. I could die, right?"
"Yes, you could."
"Then I'm your girl …... woman, sorry. I'll even dress in that dowdy, sexless shit. On one condition."
"What's that?" Ros replies tiredly.
"That you call me Tash."
And Tash's face breaks into a wide grin.
"Okay, Tash," Ros says, placing emphasis on the other woman's name, "there's one more thing. How are your clerical skills?"
Tash Slaughter hates clerical work. She hates offices. She hates office workers. She hates being inside when the sun just might be shining outside. However, she likes computers, and is very skilled at using them, so she's been given some data entry on her first day working in the admin office of the University for the Creative Arts at Rochester. It's not really a university. It's just a school for tossers who think that their painting, or their poems or their music is about to be the Next Big Thing. They'll all end up waiting tables, she's sure of that, but that really isn't her problem.
She doesn't even mind the clothes she has to wear. She didn't get to meet Marianne Michaels, but judging by her clothes, she's a wowser, probably goes to Mass every day, and hasn't had sex since the 20th century. More than anything, she feels sorry for the woman, with her long skirts, her scarves – hundreds of them – her knee-length boots – almost impossible to run in – and her mind-numbing job at the `university'.
Oh, and then there's the make-up. No heavy eye-liner or black lipstick. `Just something muted', Ros Myers had said. Her own mother wouldn't recognise her, but she'd be proud of her. Tash can hear her inside her head. `Natasha, darling. You look so healthy, and so vital. Doesn't she, Martin?' `Yes, vital', her dad would reply. Martin always agrees with everything Barbara says, which is why her parents are still together. Tash thinks of her parents as being beige – very beige.
For reasons unknown to Tash, Marianne Michaels is on someone's hit list, and so she – the real Marianne – is living on a boat moored at Gillingham Marina, using some made-up name, while she, Tash, is posing as her, waiting for the guillotine to fall in her direction. It's been four days, and so far, nothing has happened. She hopes the bad guys hurry the fuck up. She's in danger of becoming terminally bored.