And as promised, the final installment.
Southbank – 1830 Thursday 19th January
It was early evening. The cold mid-January air swept along the path of the Thames; the commuters all turning up the collars of their heavy coats and heading out of the city, towards the rail stations and back to the relative warmth and safety of their own homes.
A bare Christmas tree floated on the surface of the Thames and was carried along by the current; past the Houses of Parliament and down along the once busy waterways of the Southbank towards Greenwich.
A few scant weeks ago the tree had been the centrepiece of someone's living room; adorned with lights and tinsel. Now it was cast adrift, stripped of all its colour and gaiety and left to the mercy of the tides.
Across the river, traffic could be heard, but there was a stillness on the wide walkway that continued down from Hungerford Bridge and along the Embankment.
A stillness that was punctuated only by the gentle lapping of the water upon the mudflats and the heavy breathing of an occasional passing jogger; reflecting back the light cast upon them from the streetlights above… it was as though this little stretch of walkway, with its trees adorned with piercing blue and white lights was somehow immune to the noise and hubbub of the city.
Ruth took a deep breath and sighed heavily; leaning her arms upon the wooden topped railings and looking across the water towards the city; the reflected light from the Thames casting her face in half-shadows and disguising the slowly fading bruises.
"I thought you might not come," she confessed, as she heard footsteps slowing as they approached. "After I broke my promise...I just couldn't stay there...cooped up."
"Well I don't think it's the smartest decision you've ever made….although I couldn't begin to imagine how many of those you have made in the past three years," Harry told her as he came to stand at her side.
Her phone call had been brief and vague...amounting to little more than a simple request for him to meet her down on the Southbank. With Mace on the prowl, Harry had been happy to agree to meet away from the grid, but he had the feeling that Ruth had her own reasons for not wanting to enter Thames House just yet. She had been avoiding phone calls for the past few days and, aside from the mandatory checks that nothing was wrong, had refused to be drawn on anything that had happened during her disappearance.
"I do love the view from here," she told him, interrupting his thoughts,
Harry regarded her with a curious expression. "What brings you to the wrong side of the Thames?"
She shot him a withering glance. "There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of north of the river."
"Meaning?"
She turned her back upon the view and regarded the building in front of her.
"There's the National Theatre," she told him, nodding in its direction. "Have you ever been?"
He snorted. "Into that concrete monstrosity? It's an eyesore."
"It's a Grade 2 listed building," she retorted smoothly. "And since when have you started to judge things solely by their appearance? I can't say that it's a trait I'll warm to."
Harry's mouth twitched, trying to prevent a smile from forming. It felt good to once again find himself in the midst of an argument that he knew he wouldn't be allowed to win. He knew that it was a tactic to avoid confronting the real reason for why she had asked for a meeting, but he was happy to play along with the charade for a while.
"It's a written fact," he told her. "You find me one article that praises the architecture of this….this thing."
"When it opened it was described as 'an aesthetic of broken forms'."
Harry rolled his eyes; it was pointless to try this tactic with Ruth; heaven alone knew just how many pointless nuggets of information were stored inside her head.
"Why go here when there are so many other theatres to go to?" he argued, warming to his chosen cause. "Classic theatres with long traditions and dark auditoriums."
Ruth shook her head. "I suppose your idea of a good night at the theatre is a well-dressed set and a play that has a long enough interval for you to get to the bar and back without rushing! Don't you ever want to see something that makes you think?"
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing wrong with actually being able to understand what's going on in a play; in fact I feel that it aides the enjoyment of an evening immeasurably."
"You're a snob," she told him warmly, pushing her hands deep into the pockets of her coat; regretting the action almost immediately, as her bandaged left wrist began to throb.
"You're telling me that you actually understand all these supposed 'social commentary' plays?" There was more than a note of disbelief in Harry's voice.
Ruth's mouth twisted into a wry smile. "Not all of them," she admitted.
Silence fell between them and the only thing to be heard was the gentle lapping water of the Thames.
Harry stood patiently and waited for Ruth to break the silence. There was no sense of awkwardness in the silence; just an unspoken sense of companionship. He wondered just when they'd become so comfortable in each other's presence, and so able to read one another, that silence no longer became a void that had to be filled? He guessed it was all down to the amount of time they spent at work in each other's company, but a small voice in his head told him it was something more than just that.
He turned and faced the river again, resting one arm upon the railing and looking out at the boats that were making their way along the river. The few remaining tourist boats were empty at this hour and their bright lights shone out upon the inky darkness of the water. He tried to think of the last time that he'd actually taken a pleasure trip on the Thames, and to his shame, found that he couldn't recall.
"I look out there at all the lights and I wonder just when I stopped feeling like I belonged. I wonder when I stepped out of time with them and started feeling like this." Ruth's quiet voice broke the silence. "I look at it and it doesn't seem real somehow."
"It's going to be ok," Harry told her gently. "Just take your time."
Ruth let out a short laugh as she leant again upon the wooden railing, one finger tracing the letters that had been roughly scored into its weather-beaten surface. "That's all everyone keeps saying…take your time…What does that actually mean?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I can't pretend as though nothing happened….and everyone walking around me on eggshells is not going to help…I just want to stop feeling like this...like I'm walking around wrapped in cotton wool, like I need to be protected from everything."
"People are concerned," Harry informed her. "You can't blame them. You were the victim of..."
"There's that word again," Ruth cut across Harry's explanation. "I feel as though I hear it everywhere I go…. I am not a victim Harry," there was a twinge of anger in her tone. "I feel as though somehow I have forfeited my right to be treated as an individual. It's as though I've suddenly ceased to be me and become some sort of public property. Everyone knows how I should be feeling...should be reacting...and they're all making these concessions for me. Bizarrely I feel as though I am the only person not permitted to have an opinion?"
"People are concerned."
"I didn't ask them to be!"
"Ruth."
"Sorry…sorry."
Harry watched as Ruth leant forward and pushed her weight onto her elbows. He knew that she was still keeping something from him. He'd seen the look far too many times before, but he found that he was unwilling to push her further for answers.
"I know it's been a tough week Ruth, but things will get better."
Ruth let out an exclamation of disbelief. "Oh for heaven's sake stop humouring me," her voice cracked with emotion as she pulled her arm away and attempted to establish some space between them.
The movement caused pain to shoot through her leg and she had to grab hold of the railings with both hands to try and prevent herself from falling.
Not caring about reaction he would get, Harry closed the distance between them again.
Ruth turned to face him; aware of the close proximity between them but not making an effort to move away. She raised her eyes and met his.
"I sat there and told him that it was going to be ok," she told him finally. She scanned his face looking for some sort of reaction. "I sat there... and smiled... and held his hand and all the time I was angry with him for dying...I was angry with him for condemning me to death as well... I wasn't thinking of his pain, his loss...I was more concerned for myself. That's not exactly what you'd call noble sentiment, is it? I was a coward Harry."
Harry took her hands within his. "No you weren't Ruth, you wanted to survive. It's a natural instinct, a vital one in this game."
"But that's just it, it's not a game. It was a life, a precious human life...and all I could think about was how his death would affect me,"
Silence fell between them. Ruth's eyes were fixed on Harry's; needing him to say something, needing him to find the impossible words that would make everything better again.
She watched her breath as it formed in the air in front of her, mixing with Harry's before finally dissipating into the night sky. They were standing so close that she could feel the warmth radiating from him and smell the faint aroma of his aftershave in the air.
The shrill ring of a mobile phone broke the silence. Ruth's eyes dropped to look at her feet and the moment was lost. Harry cursed beneath his breath.
"You'd better take it," Ruth told him hollowly.
"It can wait."
"It might be important." Ruth turned away from him and retook her previous position at the railings, looking out over the silent beauty of the city.
Harry pulled the phone from his pocket, glaring at the name on the display before answering and bringing the phone to his ear.
"This had better be important," he growled into the handset.
"We've still had no luck in finding Nash." Adam's tone was urgent. "We're getting more and more pressure to tell them if al-Hassan said anything. I've just palmed off another call from 6. I know she's been through a lot...but we need to talk to Ruth...Harry?" he paused as there was no reply. "Harry?"
Harry switched the phone to his other ear and took a pace away.
"6 will get their answers Adam. You can remind them if you like of how this is all their fault. That might make them a little less keen to jump all over us."
Harry abruptly broke the connection and turned back to regard Ruth. There was no indication that she had heard any of what he had said on the phone, but he knew that it wouldn't take much of an educated guess to work out what the conversation had been about. He slipped the phone back inside his coat and retook his place next to her, trying to work out the best way to broach the subject.
Away to his left, a train rumbled out of Charing Cross, crossing Hungerford Bridge as it started on its journey towards the leafy suburbs; brilliant sparks of blue flying up from the wheels as the train screeched and strained its way up through the gears. Within moments it was gone and the unnatural silence returned, now feeling heavy in the air.
"He gave it up," Ruth's words shattered the quiet. She didn't turn her head to acknowledge his reaction but maintained her vigil across the water. "He gave up everything."
Harry's eyes widened slightly but he forced his expression to remain neutral. It was imperative that he find out exactly what al-Hassan had been in the country to sell; his mind began racing through all the steps that would now have to be taken to prevent a major emergency from occurring. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he nearly missed Ruth's next sentence.
"Towards the end of the last session he just couldn't take it anymore." Ruth's right hand gripped the railing as her mind played back the images. "He cried and he screamed and he gave everything up." She took a deep breath. "And I lied Harry....I lied, I deliberately lied and they hurt him again because of that....He knew what I'd done....the look that he gave me...He'd had enough of it and wanted the release of death...but I wasn't ready...without him they wouldn't need me and I wasn't ready to die."
"You kept the secret Ruth; it was the right thing to do."
"But don't you see...I didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, I didn't do it for the service or the good of the country, I did it because I was scared and I didn't want to die."
"You did the right thing?" Harry heard Ruth's voice breaking as she struggled to control her feelings and he tried to find some way to reassure her.
"Then why do I feel like this?"
Harry wanted to tell her it was because she wasn't as jaded as the rest of them; not as hardened to the fact that at times it came down to a straight choice between you and someone else, but he didn't think she was ready to hear that.
"You're going to be fine," he told her. "You're going to be fine."
Ruth took a deep breath and stared down at the water below. "Where does it go from here?"
Harry paused, uncertain of how to reply.
"Where?" he finally questioned, not entirely sure what she was getting at.
"I don't know how I'm supposed to feel," she admitted hollowly. "...am I just supposed to pack up my feelings into some nice little tidy bundle and just bury them somewhere...because I'm not sure I can do that."
She shook her head and her whole body began to shake as her emotions got the better of her.
Harry wished that there was some way to take the pain away. He placed one arm gently around her shoulders, expecting Ruth to pull away, but instead she turned into his embrace and clung onto him as though he were the only thing in the world. Harry wrapped his other arm around her and held her close, returning the embrace, whispering to her softly that everything was going to be ok. He didn't care about the cold any longer; he didn't care about the other people on the Southbank, looking at them. He was going to stay there...with Ruth... for as long as it took...even if that meant all night. She needed him and this time he wasn't going to let her down.
Till the next time. Thanks for reading.