CHAPTER FIVE

It was anger really, that made me take up Ros's invitation. I knew she hadn't made it merely for the pleasure of spending time in my company; when I'd asked her to go for a drink she'd given every sign of being desperate to avoid it. No, despite Harry's imprimatur on my reinstatement, and the fact that almost everyone else on the Grid seemed happy to have me on the team, the jury was still out as far as Ros Myers was concerned. Whether she just hated seeing me filling Adam Carter's shoes or whether she still couldn't believe that I wasn't freelancing for the Russians in my lunch break, I wasn't sure. I suspected the latter. Either way, before she shared any misgivings she might have with Harry, I had to get the situation sorted out. Knowing her better would help, although when I said so to Malcolm he had looked at me doubtfully and muttered something about biting off more than I could chew. I'd refrained from comment. Actions speak louder than words.

She was clearly well-known at the bar; the owner greeted her with an affectionate hug, and then looked speculatively at me.

"El Senor Nick is not with you, Rachelita?"

Ros shrugged with every appearance of indifference. "I'm afraid he dumped me for a younger model, Paco."

The Spaniard's eyes glittered with indignation on her behalf. "Then he is un gran estupido. You take the usual, si?"

"Yes, thank you." Ros guided me to a table at the rear of the room. Its position was secluded from most of the other tables, but it overlooked a rear garden. Ros glanced at me.

"There's a door there too." She pointed. "If you need it."

I wondered if she was rubbing my nose in it, but then realised that her concern was quite genuine.

"It's fine, thanks." I shed my coat. "Nick?"

"Nick Harding. It's the name he knew Adam by." She unbuttoned her coat and I helped to ease it from her shoulders. It was unexpectedly heavy, and Ros winced as it almost slipped from my hands.

"Sorry. I feel the cold easily." She straightened her jacket and skirt and sat down. "At least I won't remind you of Elizaveta now." I must have looked puzzled, because she added: "Oh. Not Elizaveta?"

I wondered that she needed to ask. Elizaveta was brunette, dark-eyed and feminine in a very Russian way that I suspected Ros would find demeaning.

"No … no. Tukhachevskaya." I swallowed. "She had one very similar. When she interrogated me in the courtyard." I hung the coat on a hook and sat down too. "Now that was cold."

"I'm sorry." Ros murmured her thanks as the waiter brought a carafe of red wine and a tray of mixed tapas. "You should have said."

I shrugged. "No need for you to freeze to death just because she wanted me to."

Ros smiled with an awkwardness that suggested it was something she rarely did. Then she poured both of us a glass of wine.

"Well, here's to a successful operation." We touched glasses. "You did a bloody good job, you and Ben. If you hadn't managed to warn us this was a live attack …" She shuddered.

I was taken aback. Ros wasn't lavish with her praise; a terse 'good work' was usually as effusive as she got. I sipped. The wine was superb.

"Argentinian," Ros offered. "Malbec. Have you ever tried it before?"

Where? In Leshanko? "Hardly," I snapped, irritated by her lack of sensitivity. "Darshavin's generosity occasionally stretched to a walk in the swamps around the prison. Not to red wine."

I was surprised when Ros lowered her eyes. "Sorry. I'm not doing very well, am I?" She took a long draught of the wine. "This is why I don't do dinner parties … or friends. Not very good at it, I'm afraid." She looked genuinely contrite, and for a moment I felt sorry for her. I swallowed down my annoyance and shrugged.

"You obviously suited Adam." Even if I still can't understand why.

Ros tensed. "Off-Duty Conduct Protocol, paragraph five. Relationships with your fellow-officers are encouraged by the Service. Few will better understand the need for secrecy and the restrictions on your private life. I was convenient."

The hollow bitterness of those last three words jolted me, but before I could speak, she said: "Come on Lucas. It may not be pretty, but at least it's honest. You know the hoops you had to go through over your marriage to Elizaveta."

"I loved Elizaveta!" I retorted angrily. "I wouldn't have sacrificed what I had with her for the sake of bloody convenience!"

Ros speared a marinated olive and nibbled thoughtfully. "It must have hurt terribly when you found out that she'd done exactly that to you," she said quietly.

I glared at her. "She was coerced - and alone, and frightened. It's completely different."

"But it did hurt?"

"Of course it did! I loved her. I still do." I looked out of the window, then back at her. "Not everyone can organise their relationships on the basis of convenience, Ros!" Without really wanting it, I concentrated furiously on spreading pate onto a cracker. Ros helped herself to a piece of squid in batter.

"And not everyone can avoid jumping to the obvious conclusion. Just because I didn't go to pieces and have hysterics when Adam died, it doesn't mean I didn't care."

I snorted. "You didn't look as if you did. Jo – now she gets really upset about him."

"Yes, she would." There was weariness in her voice. She turned the stem of her wine glass slowly between her fingers. Then she met my eyes. "For your information, I've only loved two men in my life. He was one of them."

I had been about to take a bite, but the dignified sincerity with which she spoke stopped me.

"And the other?"

"Was my father." Ros picked delicately at a sardine.

Was. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know. When did he die?"

Her face was completely impassive. "I thought you'd read up on eight years of news reports?"

I frowned. What the hell is she talking about? "I don't understand."

Ros sighed. "It doesn't matter. I know what it's like, that's all. I miss Adam. You miss Elizaveta. Both of us lost someone we loved to Arkady Kachimov. I'm just trying to say I understand." She waved her hand in a gesture of self-deprecating exasperation. "Badly, as usual."

I didn't know quite what to say. I wasn't used to seeing Ros unsure of herself. On the Grid she always seemed so totally confident and in command. At last I said: "Well, he won't have much of a life now as a Service asset. So at least we got some revenge on him. You for Adam, me for Elizaveta."

For a second there was a strange expression in Ros's eyes, but it disappeared almost at once.

"Yeah. And Harry for you."

"Harry for me?" I echoed, stupidly.

"Of course." Ros sliced a piece of dried fish in two and pushed half towards me. "What, did you think he was completely indifferent to what that pig-ignorant bloody thug did to you?"

The sudden viciousness in her language startled me.

"Kachimov was a lot of things, but he wasn't pig-ignorant," I pointed out. "Anything but, actually. He was a graduate of history, MGU. Knew Russian history inside out. And ours. We used to talk about it."

Ros's lip curled. "So he was an educated thug, then."

The contempt in her voice galled me. She knew nothing about Kachimov, and less about me.

"He wasn't a thug, Ros, educated or otherwise. He had subtlety. Intelligence. Sophistication. I'm not a fool. I know he manipulated me for years - he used every psychological tool available to him to do it. Yes, he stole those years from me. I wanted his head for it and as far as I'm concerned, everything he gets now he deserves. But he was cultured and knowledgeable. I met enough thugs in prison. Real ones. Lived cheek to jowl with them. Got beaten to a pulp by them more than once. I know the difference, believe me. Arkady Kachimov was out of a completely different mould. The kind of man you could hold a conversation with. Might even have been friends with in a different world."

Ros pulled a face that eloquently said 'if you say so'. She refilled my glass and then her own.

"So do you think that Harry didn't care, then?"

I shrugged. "I was in a Russian jail for eight years, Ros. Kachimov used to taunt me for the first four because MI-5 hadn't made any attempt to trade for me. Or even find out where I was. In Leshanko I was just another common criminal, number 56711. Hungry, flea-ridden, dirty and cold like all the others. I wasn't even a British spy worth holding onto any longer. No-one from our side was interested in me so I was of no value to them either. What am I supposed to think?"

Those clear green eyes held mine, as devoid of expression as her voice when she spoke.

"When Harry ordered me to debrief you I had to go through your file, you know. Not just your personal details and your career with the Service. It covered the time of your detention as well. Detailed Harry's contacts with the Foreign Office, Six, the British Embassy in Moscow … he even wanted to involve the UN and the International Red Cross. The PM vetoed that – yes," with a nod, "he took it that high, Lucas. And when they said no, he used intermediaries to get Amnesty International to dig too."

"I - " I stared at her. "I – I never heard about any approaches … anything like that."

"I'm sure you didn't," Ros said wryly. "But that doesn't mean it isn't true, Lucas."

I picked up my glass and then put it down again, doubt and confusion making me feel light-headed. I wished Ros's face wasn't so impassive; it made it almost impossible for me to read it.

"If it is, why hasn't he told me?"

She shrugged, watching me with that inscrutable expression. "Because he knew you wouldn't believe him?"

I wondered what she would say if I explained how I'd told Harry that morning of my flashback to Captain Tukhachevskaya demanding over and over again that I tell her about an operation codenamed 'Sugarhorse'. He'd been sympathetic, but he'd denied all knowledge of it. 'Trick question,' he'd said. I didn't believe that either.

I blew out a deep breath, rolled my sleeves up to my elbows and pulled down the zip on the collar of my sweater. Suddenly I was sweating and stifled. Ros raised her eyebrows in enquiry.

"It's hot in here." As I dabbed my face with a paper napkin, Ros gestured to a waiter, who came and eased the window open.

"Now you'll get cold," I objected as she hunched her shoulders and shivered slightly.

"Don't fuss," Ros snapped. "I'm fine. And you need the air." Her voice lost some of its hardness. "Look out there and take some deep breaths. It'll pass."

I leaned towards the window and did as she said. "Were you this bossy with Adam?"

"Sometimes." She gazed into the depths of her wine. When she pulled her jacket tight and tucked her hands into her sleeves I closed the window again.

"Does that mean anything in particular?" She pointed to the linked chains tattooed just above my wrists.

"It's the symbol of someone who's sentenced to life," I answered.

"Were you?" Ros asked.

"I was never charged, let alone tried and sentenced. But I didn't expect to get out. Same thing." I popped an olive into my mouth. "I told Harry, it all means something. It's like a coded language in there. And it means you belong."

She toyed with her fork. "The Service can help you with it, you know, Lucas, the claustrophobia. Some therapy would - "

"No." I blurted the word out before she'd finished speaking. "No. I can cope." When Ros looked at me sceptically, I lost my temper. "How can they know anything about it? Nobody can know what it's like unless you've been through it." Her steady gaze fuelled my anger. "People here – you think freedom's being able to say what you want, think what you want – have what you want. That isn't freedom, those are luxuries. Ros. Indulgences! That's when you learn what freedom is – when you don't have it any longer. When your world – your whole bloody life – is circumscribed by a room eight feet by six, and you'd claw at the door with your bare hands if only that would make it open. When every cramped, constricted move you make is subject to the say-so of someone whose job it is to make your life as unbearable as they possibly can. When the claustrophobia was at its worst I used to lie on the floor, watching the chink of light under the bottom of the door. Sometimes I'd see shadows or hear feet pass, and I'd know there was something, maybe someone beyond those walls. There were times when Darshavin came and I used to weep with the sheer relief of seeing another human being … hearing a voice. I didn't care what he said, or even what he did to me, as long as he came." I paused for breath, but she said nothing, just sat there like a carved Sphinx, watching me. "Here, if you're hungry you go and eat – there, you don't even dare to let them see how hungry you are, because if you do, you've shown a weakness they can exploit. Do you – you or your bloody counsellors – have any idea – any inkling of the humiliation, the degradation of soiling yourself because you haven't the freedom you all take for granted to go and relieve yourself when you need to? Of being watched when they do allow you to? I remember one night when they distributed extra blankets. I refused, told them I didn't need one – solely because I could, because it gave me the power to take a decision for myself, just for once not to passively do as I was told. The cell was so cold that I spent the whole night awake, shivering. Bone-headed stupidity, but that's how desperate you get, Ros, for freedom … space … mental and physical; to be a human being, not a number. Do you think meditation and – and drawing bloody pictures is going to help with that? It's another world, prison. Any prison. Why do you think suicide rates are so high? It humiliates and degrades a man, and when it's done that it breaks him. That's the whole point of it. You wouldn't understand that. No more would they."

I hadn't intended to say any of it, but the words had gushed out of me in a flood that I couldn't control. It was only when I stopped, drained from the intensity of the emotions that had suddenly overwhelmed me, that I realised that Ros had a hand to her mouth. She was ashen-white. I stared at her, shocked.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, I'm fine." She got swiftly to her feet. "Excuse me for a moment - " I thought I heard her retch as she turned and fled in the direction of the toilet.

I nibbled uneasily at the tapas until she came back. She had re-applied her make-up and was outwardly composed again but I could feel the tension under the self-control.

"Sorry," I said. "Don't know where that came from. Must have been the wine."

She smiled, though there was still a bleakness in her eyes. "Maybe we ought to move on to coffee, then." She called Paco and ordered a pot. I wanted to know why she'd been so obviously distressed by my outburst; it was completely out of character for a woman so unemotional. But I knew for a certainty that even if I asked she wouldn't tell me.

"Sorry?" I realised I hadn't heard her.

"I said, do you want a brandy or whisky with it?"

I laughed and shook my head. "You're getting me mixed up with Harry. That's one thing that hasn't changed. Still keeping the Highland distilleries in profit."

"He keeps it within reason." Ros said. "It does no harm."

I reflected that that was the second time this evening that she'd sprung to his defence. "You really think a lot of him, don't you? Harry."

"He's a fine officer, a superb leader and a good man. Why shouldn't I?"

She was still a little pale, but there was a warning spark in her eyes. "No reason." I waited while the coffee tray was laid out. "He never re-married, then, after the divorce?" She shook her head. God, but she's a frustrating bloody woman. She'd already inveigled me into revealing more of myself to her this evening than I ever had to the Russians, and she'd done it with ease. But trying to get information from her was like trying to prise a pearl from a recalcitrant oyster. I adjusted my approach. "Do you know if he sees his kids? I wanted to ask, but I don't want to put my foot in it if it's a sore point."

"Catherine, yes. Graham – I don't think so. He sees Wes regularly – that's Adam's son. Takes him out, visits him at school."

"That's nice." I took a risk. "Do you go with him?"

Her eyes turned cold. "I hardly think I'm Harry's type," she said, stiffly.

And she was touchy – incredibly so – the minute I trespassed on the personal. I edged back a step and raised the coffee pot. "Shall I be mother?"

She still looked tense, but her lips twisted in a sardonic smile. "Yeah, go on. Black for me, please, no sugar."

That figures. I added three spoonfuls to my own and Ros shook her head. "You're lucky Connie isn't here to see that. Hundred lines – I shall not be greedy."

I laughed. "You're not wrong. I bet she's the maiden aunt from hell. Now she and Harry go back a long way – maybe she's his type."

Ros stopped with her cup halfway to her lips and impaled me with a look. "Spare me, Lucas." I let the silence stretch invitingly, but she said nothing more. I wondered if she knew how to spell 'gossip' and 'small talk', never mind indulge in them. Jo was a lot easier. I wondered if it was still mistrust or just Ros's personality that made things so laboured. She seemed to have no difficulty talking about or listening to me, but the shutters came down immediately and with a resounding slam whenever the conversation turned to her. Ironically, her reticence made her more intriguing to me, not less, but the more I tried to close the distance she kept between us, the more determined she seemed to be to maintain it. I tried again.

"Anyway, I didn't mean that. You both knew Adam, and Harry does rely on you."

"That's what I'm there for." Her mouth snapped shut on the words like a steel trap, but after a pause she added more quietly: "No, I don't. I'm useless with kids, and anyway, they don't like me. I'd be no good."

It occurred to me that she didn't seem to like herself very much either. Then she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and asked: "Did you and Elizaveta want kids?"

I felt as if she'd punched me in the solar plexus. "Yeah. Yeah, we did." I coughed to clear the sudden hoarseness from my throat. "Vyeta's an only child, too. She used to say she wanted at least four; two of each. Well, she's on her way now."

I hadn't actually meant to say the last six words aloud, and when I looked up I just caught what looked very much like sympathy in Ros's eyes. Hurriedly, I blurted out a diversionary question. "Are you an only child?"

She shook her head. "No. Middle of three. And my sister has two boys." A pale glimmer of a smile. "So I'm the maiden aunt from hell, too."

I couldn't help laughing. "You do get on with them, then?"

"I don't see them. Family issues." The rattle of the barriers going up again almost drowned her words.

Families mess with your head. I remembered that comment about her father and the news reports. Instinct, plus what she'd just said, told me that there was more to it than a dead parent. I silently resolved to go back to those news reports and find out whatever it was Ros Myers had assumed that I already knew. I wasn't going to learn about it here; the horse's mouth was firmly shut.

"Refill?" I offered.

"No, thanks." Ros rubbed her eyes wearily. "I think I ought to get moving, Lucas. Do you mind? Sorry, but it's been one hell of a long day."

"Of course not," I said. She managed a tired smile, and scribbled an invisible signature in the air in the direction of the manager. When Paco brought the bill I reached for it, but Ros shook her head and the Spaniard deftly swooped around my hand and deposited it in front of her.

"No," she said firmly when I protested. "This was my idea, I invited you."

"Freedom?" I tried my most appealing expression, the one Vyeta used to call 'poproshainik' – the word the Russians use to describe a dog begging for a treat. "Being able to take your own decisions … remember?"

"This is a Spanish bar, not a Russian prison." She paid, and glared at me when I defiantly put down several pound coins as a tip. Suddenly I felt uncertain.

"That is enough?" I'd made enough of a fool of myself in the supermarket, and I still had to look twice at the price tags in many shops.

Again, I saw that unexpected flicker of compassion soften the hardness of her eyes as she rose from the table. "Yes. Yes, it's fine."

"Good." I helped her on with her coat, and we headed for the exit. "My turn next time."

I don't know why I said it, because I was pretty sure that for Ros the evening had been little more than a continuation of the debriefing process in a more convivial setting. Although I wasn't much better; I'd been doing just as much probing and manoeuvring – though with a lot less success, I reflected grimly. What I hadn't expected was to have enjoyed it. Yes, to say that Ros was hard going socially would be the understatement of the year, but she could be witty and amusing, too. She was a good listener; blowing off steam about prison had been a relief. And just occasionally there were glimpses of compassion and vulnerability that increased my desire to know her as more than just my superior officer.

She made a moue of distaste at the wind that greeted us outside, and pulled up her fur collar.

"You shouldn't be so reckless, Lucas. I might think you mean it."

At the beginning of the evening I would have taken that for scornful dismissal; now it sounded more like someone looking for reassurance. I provided it.

"I do." I grinned. "I like living dangerously."

"I'll remember that." Her expression turned serious. "Think about what I told you - about Harry. Goodnight, Lucas."

"Goodnight." I stood watching as she walked swiftly away down the street. My mobile rang and I looked at the screen as Ros's slender silhouette was engulfed by the shadows.

Elizaveta calling.

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Slight pause now, I'm afraid, I'm going on holiday. Thank you for a little review! :)