A/N: I discovered, after I began writing this, that it has a plot ...ish. Enjoy.
"I'm sorry about the phone blackout, Harry. I know you're finding it hard, but until we catch these people, we have to protect Ruth in every way we can."
"I understand that, Malcolm. I'm worried about her. You're sure she's safe where she is?"
"There's 24-hour surveillance on her – both inside the boat and outside. All avenues in and out of the marina are covered by CCTV, and we have three of our officers planted in their chairs, keeping their eyes peeled. And we have a number of field officers set up in the building opposite Ruth's flat. There are two at a time on duty. Since there is only one way in and out of Ruth's flat, someone will be watching that door at all times, and Tash will be informed every time someone enters who does not normally come and go from those flats."
"And the men who are after her …... they haven't taken the bait?"
"Only because they appear to be in France. I have my doubts they're still there. If they've changed their identities, we have to go back to the beginning. We've fed some information into their system – the one they're using in North Wales. It's encrypted, but it's an easy enough encryption to crack."
"When did you do that?"
"Yesterday. We had to be sure that Tash would play nice."
"And she has?"
"Yes. She's surprised us all. I saw CCTV footage of her walking along the lane, and then into her building, and I thought it was Ruth. Tash has watched some footage of Ruth at work, and she's studied photographs. She's very skilled at mimicry."
"Ruth won't want her to be hurt, Malcolm."
"I know, which is why we chose Tash. She's not indestructible, but she's very strong and athletic …... I'm told she's fast on her feet."
"I think that they'll try to kidnap her."
"So do I, which is why we needed to use an agent who is quick on their feet."
Late night TV is crap, and Tash has been banned from using the internet in Ruth's flat ….. just in case her internet traffic can be traced. Tash can manage on five hours sleep a night, which means that she normally goes to bed between 1 and 2am. For the first few nights she was on the operation, she had taken to talking aloud, knowing that her surveillance team could hear everything she said. Without the internet, she'd become bored, but she soon created her own version of social networking by talking aloud, chiefly about her day. Once she got into the swing of it, she prattled aloud about anything which came into her mind – her line manager at work, the students, the teaching staff, the weather in Rochester, how desperately she wants to get out of the flat, and get back to London.
When she hears light tapping on her door at 12:47am, she thinks it's her imagination. When the tapping becomes louder, curiosity wins. She opens the door a crack, and sees Jeffrey, one of the other three neighbours from the second floor. Jeffrey lives alone in 2D, and could be aged anywhere between 30 and 45.
"I heard you talking, and I thought you might want company," Jeffrey says, smiling.
"Sorry, no. I'm practising for a play that the students are writing, and they want someone older to play one of the parts." Tash closes the door, and locks both locks. She's not in a play at the university, but she's sure Jeffrey won't know, one way or the other. To Tash's mind, Jeffrey is strange, but that could be said of most men she knows.
Tash is awoken by a noise …... like something scraping along the floor. Surely this building doesn't house mice. She lies on her back, keeping very still, her senses on high alert.
Shit! That's not mice. Since moving into Ruth's/Marianne's flat, she always sleeps fully clothed – tracksuit, woollen socks, and trainers. You never know when you'll need to move in a hurry, as her grandfather, Ken Slaughter, used to say.
It's when Tash hears the creaking of floorboards that she slides quickly out of bed, and creeps to the front door of the flat. She stands with her back to the wall, just beside the doorway, when the door is hit from the other side with something very heavy, so heavy that a hole appears where the wood is thinnest, and further slamming of the wood results in the door swinging open, the locks broken. She knows now that her concerns about the efficacy of the locks was justified. Two men race through the doorway, and both run past her. Tash is sure that one of the men is Jeffrey from 2D.
Once the men have run past her and down the hallway in search of the bedroom, she quickly darts through the doorway, and runs to the stairs, saying, "They're here. They're here, and inside the flat. You'd better come now. I'm on my way down the stairs. I'll be the first one on to the street."
Tash runs down the stairs, her feet only hitting every third stair. By the time she reaches the door to the street, she can hear two sets of footfalls behind her, and shouting from the street. She darts out the door – fortuitously not closed – and again backs herself against the wall outside, her eyes on the doorway through which she'd just passed.
Out the corner of her eye, Tash sees two agents – both with pistols – kneeling in the laneway in firing position. Arseholes! We need at least one of these men alive and talking. When the first man out the door to the building is shot in the knee, he falls clumsily on the pavement. The next man jumps over the prone form of the first man, and so Tash pushes out her leg to trip this man, who gets up quickly, and runs in the direction away from her. She takes off after him, and quickly catches up, diving to grasp him around his lower legs. He tumbles to the ground, and Tash, still holding his legs, tumbles beside him. She weighs a fraction over 9 stone, and this lump must tip the scales at around 14 stone, and she floors him with ease. It's all about technique. Victories such as these are sweet indeed. Vince Grant, who had been running after her running after him, leans on the man on the ground, and cuffs him. Tash steps aside, happy for Vince to share the glory.
From inside the rather swish motor yacht (belonging to some friends of Malcolm's) Ruth is sure she sees a darkly dressed figure jump from the walkway down on to the pontoon, and he appears to be heading her way. His head is down, and he wears a dark-coloured knitted hat, so she is unable to see his face or his hair. Ruth has locked all entrances to the boat, but she is afraid, all the same. What about her surveillance? What about the many CCTV cameras which surround the marina? Ruth looks again through the gap in the curtain, and this time she sees nothing at all. It's her imagination playing tricks …... the trickster of folk lore. She steps back into the darkened living area of the boat, and takes a deep breath. If only Harry were with her. Nothing bad could happen to her were he here.
Then she feels it …... the minute dipping to one side, created by someone – someone of substantial body bulk – stepping on to the deck of the boat. Ruth grabs her phone, and rings the number she'd been given – the number of Garry Hall, the member of the surveillance team who would be doing the night shift.
There is no answer, so she tries again, and again the call rings out. It is 1.27am, she is alone on this luxury boat, and a man dressed in black has stepped on to the deck. That is not good, not good at all. Ruth knows what this means, and she is very frightened. She rings Harry's mobile phone. To hell with electronic silence. If these are to be her last moments on earth, she wants to spend them talking to him. She hears four rings before he answers sleepily.
"Harry, it's me. I'm scared," and she tells him about the man on the deck of the boat.
"Stay inside, Ruth. I'll hang up now, and ring someone who can be there in minutes. Alright?"
Ruth can only wait.
She hears a man's voice calling out to her, and she knows that voice.
"Marianne. Let me in."
Why anyone would expect her to allow them inside this yacht in the middle of the night is beyond Ruth. Unless it were Harry. She'd let him inside in an instant. Or Malcolm. He'd also be welcome. She is hovering in the shadows in the large living area, when the man again calls out.
"It's Fred. Fred Jenner. I need you to let me in."
Fred Jenner from the university. He began working there two weeks after she started. Manfred Jenner. `Call me Fred,' he'd said to the office staff. He's the computer technician Maureen had hired to upgrade the system in the office.
The question she needs to ask herself is why Fred Jenner is creeping around in the middle of the night, and why it is he needs her to let him in. And why hadn't the CCTV cameras picked up his progress through the marina? Something doesn't feel quite right.
There is something else about Fred Jenner. Only ten days ago, he had asked her out, and she'd turned him down – quite kindly, she'd thought – and now he was asking to be allowed inside the boat on which she lived. Why hadn't the CCTV cameras picked him up? Because he himself lived on a boat moored at the marina.
"Let me in, Marianne. There's something wrong with your boat. You have to let me in."
Ruth again tries the phone number of Garry Hall, but it goes straight to voicemail. Fred Jenner is a computer technician. It would be a simple task for him to render CCTV cameras inoperable at will. Perhaps he's also done something to the mobile phone network, although she was able to talk to Harry.
It's when she hears a crash from above her that Ruth begins to feel genuine terror. And it is when she feels a sharp pain on the back of her head that her legs crumple beneath her.
Harry has already rung Terrence Dunne, one of the Five officers who'd been assigned to watching Ruth's flat in Rochester. He is working days, so he'd probably be sleeping. Too bad. Welcome to the world of espionage. Terrence's phone rings five times before he answers.
"It's Harry Pearce," and Harry quickly rattles off orders, orders which Dunne has no option other than to follow to the letter.
By the time Terrence Dunne reaches the marina, he has worked out that there is some kind of computer glitch in this end of Gillingham. The traffic lights are all on red, which makes no real difference at this time of night. When he reaches the marina, he jumps out of his car, and tries Garry Hall's number, with no success. He is running along the pontoon when he hears the loud bang from the boat at the end of the pontoon. He leaps on to the boat, and, finding the mode of entry – a window having been popped out of it's frame - jumps down into the cabin of the boat. His eyes are already accustomed to the dark. He momentarily waits, and then he sees her – the woman the boss had told him to rescue and protect, the woman all this kerfuffle is about. The legendary Ruth Evershed.
Other than the fact that her hands are tied, and she has a gag around her mouth, above which her eyes are wide and frightened, she looks like a very ordinary woman. She's nothing at all like Tash Slaughter, whose presence demands that you take notice of her. You could pass Ruth Evershed in the street, and not notice her. Standing over her is a man dressed in black. His sandy hair is ruffled and untidy, as though he'd been wearing a hat, and had taken it off. He has only just noticed Terrence standing there, watching. Stupidly, Fred Jenner has removed his black jeans, and is just about to take off his underpants. Terrence surmises that this man – whoever he is – has a gun (not the one sticking out from his underwear), but that gun is secreted in his jeans.
Recognising that in that moment he has the advantage, Terrence dives down head-first from the cabin to the man looking up at him in surprise. He knocks him backwards, and they fall together on to the floor. The man-in-black (as Terrence calls him inside his head) is a big guy, but Terrence is a good decade younger and fitter, and half a head taller. He rolls him over, and knees him in the kidneys. The older man utters a `whoof' sound. There is spare rope beside the woman, which Terrence grabs, and then quickly ties around the man's wrists, and then his ankles, tying both wrists and ankles together behind his back. He gets off the man, and gives his ribs a light kick, just to see how he'll react. The man again groans.
Terrence quickly moves to the woman's side, and unties the gag from her mouth, the ties around her wrists, and the ropes which tie each of her ankles to the handrails each side of her, ensuring her legs would remain apart. Terrence only then realises that he's saved the woman from being raped. The woman is crying softly, saying `thank you' over and over.
Terrence can't help himself. He has a mother and two sisters, and a girlfriend called Mikaela. He gets up, takes the few steps to the prone man, now trussed like a chicken, and kicks seven shades of shit out of him. After he's sure that he's broken his ribs, he turns him over and sinks his boot into the man's balls. God, that feels good!