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Chapter Five

"Ready to go home?" Lucas enquired. Ros wasn't actually doing anything – merely sitting at Harry's desk, resting her chin on her clasped hands and staring into the middle distance - though a deep frown between her eyes suggested that her brain was working overtime. She jumped.

"Sorry, what?"

Lucas repeated himself. "I don't think there's much more we can do before tomorrow morning." He produced his most winning smile; sometimes, it worked. "Except eat and sleep."

Ros massaged her forehead. "Has Lizzie been working on those people?" So far Callum had produced CCTV footage of two individuals – one male, one female – who had been spotted during at least two incidents involving Crisis Crusade. Ros had immediately ordered the analyst to identify them and then collate every single piece of information available on them – personal, financial, criminal, medical, the lot.

"Yeah, she's made a start. Khalida said she'd take the man, to lessen the load. And Chen'll give Callum a hand to trawl the remaining CCTV tomorrow."

"Good." Ros winced.

"Headache?" Lucas asked. When she nodded, he said cautiously: "Rest would help."

Ros gave him a look that clearly said 'stop nagging', but she got up. "I suppose you want a chauffeur to Clapham?"

Lucas was about to deny it when he noticed the lines of strain around her eyes and mouth. Ros would no more ask for company than she would apply for a transfer to the FSB, but he was getting a little better at reading her unspoken feelings.

"I'll settle for a burger in Barnes," he said, cheerfully as they left. Ros's lip curled.

"Burger." She uttered the word with a contempt she usually reserved for Richard Dalby, the Russians and occasionally Ruth, then confirmed his suspicions. "You can settle for soup and scrambled eggs. Or walk."

Lucas pulled the face he knew she expected, but he was relieved. Sarcasm was Ros's 'normal', and infinitely preferable to the distress she had earlier been unable to conceal behind her mask of rigid self-control. Callum's message that her father was starting to regain consciousness should have been a relief in both personal and professional terms, but Jeremy Phelps' warning that he could no longer delay informing Lady Annabel of her husband's condition had shattered that. Ros had spent most of the afternoon in the office on the telephone, emerging only twice with a face like thunder that deterred anyone not planning a career change in the next 24 hours from approaching her. Meanwhile Lucas had fielded queries from junior officers, supervised the work on Crisis Crusade as best he could, and wrestled with his own conviction that he should be persuading her to contact Harry. Finally, she had brusquely confirmed to the re-assembled team that she and Lucas would be going to Wormwood Scrubs to interview her father the following morning. To Callum's uneasy 'what about the family?' she had snapped: "Dealt with," and swept out. Lucas, left with with several junior officers gazing worriedly at him, had added dryly: "Well? You heard her," and dismissed them. He wished now that he could as easily dismiss his own increasing concern about Ros's ability to maintain enough emotional distance from this situation to handle it properly.

He watched her warily out of the corner of his eye as they sped south. She had already made it clear that she was aware of his doubts; she wouldn't take kindly to his raising them again. Besides, both she and Harry were constantly reprimanding him for getting 'too involved', so maybe his judgement, not Ros's own, was at fault. He groaned inwardly. Sod you, Harry Pearce. Advice was what he needed, and the one person he trusted to supply it was wooing his new wife on the banks of the Seine.

The car swerved sharply, almost carving a slice off a wobbling cyclist. Bloody hell, Ros. Lucas sometimes thought he'd rather go another round with the Russians than endure this kind of torture. For all her other talents, Ros Myers was a rotten driver. Stress made her worse, and the way she was driving now was testimony to just how unsettled she was; with every corner Lucas was tempted to explain to her exactly why the vehicle had four wheels.

Not today. If a set-to was on the cards, let it be for a better reason. He tightened his seatbelt, bit his tongue and prayed silently until she finally brought the car to a juddering halt in Barnes. Ros's look dared him to comment as she switched off the engine, but Lucas was determined to keep his powder dry until he was ready to fire his opening salvo. He followed her in a meek silence to the flat, where Ros took him by surprise with possibly the most under-used word in her vocabulary.

"Sorry." She raked her hair off her face. "My head's splitting. Can you amuse yourself for a few minutes while I shower and take something?"

Lucas had been concentrating so hard on surviving the drive that he hadn't really considered her - other than as a threat to his immediate welfare. Only now did he realise how pale and drawn she looked.

"Yeah, sure." As she went out, he called after her: "I'll get started!"

He had put the soup on to heat and was just cracking the last of the eggs when she returned, wearing leggings under a black sweater that looked as if it had been purchased when she was three times her current size – whenever that might have been.

"Feeling better?" he asked. He raised the whisk. "Ready to scramble?"

Ros gave a twisted smile, and dropped a pat of butter into the frying pan.

"That's what my father used to say. When he had the Moscow embassy. The KGB bugs used to outnumber the creepy-crawly variety in there about five to one; if there was anything really confidential to deal with he'd always go to the one room properly equipped to scramble transmissions."

Lucas added a small helping of mayonnaise to the eggs. She'd given him an opening. Keeping his eyes on the bubbling mixture, he said casually, "Family tradition then in a way, keeping secrets?"

There was a fractional pause behind him, then a clatter of crockery as two plates were laid noisily on the table.

"In a way." Ros poured two bowls of steaming soup. There was a brittle edge to her voice that in normal circumstances would have caused Lucas to back off. Still without looking up, he enquired: "Do I need to keep stirring?"

She peered over his shoulder and said dryly, "No, you've done enough." Lucas dished up as she poured two glasses of wine. Her face, he thought, was even more set than the eggs. He tried for his best hangdog expression.

"Hope I haven't overdone it."

Ros chewed in silence for a moment. At last, she met his eyes. The naked unhappiness in hers was so unexpected that he let a forkful of egg slither back onto his plate with an unappetising plop.

"When the scrambling wasn't enough, he used to talk in coded language, too. At this rate, we'll need a bloody interpreter tomorrow."

Lucas hesitated. The sentimental streak in him, on which Ros had poured scorn more than once, wanted to drop the whole issue to avoid causing her further pain. If she hadn't been acting Chief of Counter-Terrorism, he would have done.

"Does Phelps know what happened yet?"

Ros pushed down another mouthful of egg. "They're still investigating. Looks like a heart attack."

Looks like. Lucas frowned. "Has he got a history of heart trouble?"

Ros unconsciously bit her lip. "No. At least, he hadn't seven years ago. Occasional high blood pressure, slightly raised cholesterol; the kind of thing any man his age in a high-pressure job might have. Phelps will give us details tomorrow; discuss it over an open line and we might as well put everything straight on Twitter. Hashtag - myerstraitor."

Lucas winced, then took the plunge. "What about your – I mean his - "

"Our. In law, anyway." Ros gave a painful smile and took a deep swallow at her wine. "The Governor's told my mother he's had a heart attack. Nothing more. She's his next of kin. He held off as long as he could, but he had to tell her that much; the last thing we need is allegations of neglect or threats of legal action. He invited her to the prison tomorrow." She stared into her glass. "It might be useful; she always made it her business to know most of Daddy's."

Shit. The childhood endearment had slipped out unnoticed, increasing Lucas's unease exponentially. Questions were swarming to the front of his mind. And will she share that 'business' with MI-5? After we brought 'Daddy' down? By the way, have we got the official green light for any of this? Why the hell didn't you tell the team? seemed like a good one, but he knew what Ros would reply to that. Need to know. In theory, she'd be right; the time to give the others more detail would be after the interview, when – if - Sir Jocelyn's information proved to be of value. With an effort, Lucas could accept that, but … he shook his head, and Ros's expression darkened. "What?"

"We? You told the Home Secretary I'd be interviewing your father."

"Yes - if he won't talk to me. He wants the head of Counter-Terrorism, Lucas. For the moment I'm it. Besides, I know him better than anyone. I know how he thinks; I can read him. We don't know if this is just one big provokatsiya yet; you said so yourself. I have to try."

That wasn't what she'd told William Towers, and she certainly hadn't mentioned interviewing her mother. Now she added impatiently, "We'll be wearing a wire; if he won't co-operate, you take over and I'll withdraw and listen in."

Lucas shifted uneasily. "Ros, prison regulations - "

Ros snorted. "Are a poor relation to the provisions of the Official Secrets Act. You should know that. The Governor knows; I told him. And yes, we have clearance, Lucas - with all the appropriate bells and whistles. I haven't been discussing the latest Test score with the powers-that-be all afternoon! " Her eyes flashed like two emeralds set in ivory. "Any more hairs you want to split? Any further objections? "

Yes. You should be bringing Harry in. Saying that would bring her simmering irritation to the boil. Lucas pushed aside the remains of his now congealing scrambled egg and went for his fallback position.

"Yeah. Isn't this all a bit too close to home, Ros? Maybe you should just give the Scrubs a miss? If I'm wired you can listen in just as well from the Grid. Prompt me, even. If you don't want me to go without back-up, let Khalida come. This – you – it's against every rule in the book. It's not fair on you either; not even you can possibly be expected to make an impartial judgement call in these circumstances. Look, Ros … I understand how hard this is for you personally - "

The little hillock of rubbery egg on his plate quivered as Ros shoved her chair back and moved with quick, tense strides to stare from the window, in which the reflection of her disembodied white face glared at him.

"You 'understand'." She shook her head. "You understand nothing, Lucas."

It took Lucas a second to recognise the disappointment lurking beneath the surface of her dismissive tone. He gulped.

"I thought - " he began, but Ros cut him off.

"So did I, Lucas. I thought I could rely on you when I needed support this week - especially this week; that I had your trust. I thought you were on my side. More fool me." She shook her head. "This discussion is over. I'm going to bed. You'll accompany me to Wormwood Scrubs at nine-thirty tomorrow. That's an order."

Now Lucas got up too, his face burning at her peremptory, autocratic tone.

"Ros, Harry -"

Ros, already halfway out of the door, whirled back to face him. "Harry is on leave. I'm issuing the orders. So exactly what part of yours don't you understand, Lucas?" She added something else, but he didn't catch it as she stormed out. Seconds later her bedroom door slammed.

Now Lucas's blood was up too, and he was sorely tempted to make an angry exit of his own through the front door. He checked the impulse and turned to the washing-up instead. Ros's anger always manifested itself as controlled, icy, cutting sarcasm. An outburst like this was more a fig leaf for barely-concealed hurt, doubt … and loneliness. He'd heard Harry say often enough that his was a solitary position if you didn't have the right support, and his absence was depriving Ros of about her only unconditional source of it. William Towers had offered her little but doubt and suspicion, and now his own qualms were undermining her as well.

He heaved a sigh that blew soap bubbles into the air. He'd said his piece. While Harry was away, operational authority lay with Ros. She'd given him his orders, and either he obeyed them wholeheartedly or he refused them and took the consequences. Put up or shut up, North.

He moved quietly into the hall. Not a sound issued from the bedroom. By the following morning Ros would be in control again, her mind working with the speed and precision of a surgical scalpel, the emotions churned up by the sudden resurrection of her family skeletons repressed. Best leave her.

Still he dithered. At the wedding, Harry had made it crystal-clear that it was his duty to give Ros whatever support she needed, and if he didn't, he'd have some explaining to do. But that wasn't what finally swayed his decision; it was the sense of betrayal and disappointment behind those few bitter words - I thought you were on my side. He turned the bedroom door handle.

Ros was lying on her back, hands clasped behind her head, and Lucas thought she might have been crying. She threw a filthy look, but nothing else, in his direction and he risked closing the door.

"Look," he said, "I'm a bloody fool."

Ros snorted derisively. "Well, that's the kind of hot information that can turn the course of an entire operation." She sat up, watching him as he changed. Lucas propped himself next to her. This particular operation would go south faster than the Parisians in August if they embarked on it in an atmosphere of resentment and mistrust.

"So are you, though." Her head jerked round. "Thinking I don't understand. Don't trust you." Before she could spit back a scathing reply, he went on, "Come on, Ros. If there's one person in this section who knows exactly what it feels like to try doing this job dragging a ball and chain of mistrust around, it's yours truly. For half the top brass and most of Whitehall it's still a toss-up whether I'm an MI-5 officer or a double agent for the FSB. And I'm bloody sure Ruth puts a flea in Harry's ear every time she catches me reading Pushkin in the cafeteria." That brought a reluctant smile. "I do trust you, Ros. I always have done. Long before you had any real reason to trust me." He thumped his pillow into position with his fist. After a moment's hesitation, Ros accepted his unspoken invitation and slithered down under the duvet alongside him. Lucas propped himself on his elbow and looped a strand of hair back behind her ear, kissing it as he did so.

There was a long silence. Finally, she said softly: "The only reason I'm seeing him at all, is because he's exactly what Towers said – a possible source of intelligence. And if I think, or if we find evidence, that he's lying to us, or involved in any way at all, with Crisis Crusade …" She swallowed. "I've done what had to be done once, Lucas, and whatever you, or anyone else, might think, I'll do it again." Her eyes, still slightly red-rimmed, locked on his. "With or without you."

"With," Lucas said promptly. He knew the time for questioning her decisions was over. "You're a novice at prisons." He stretched, deliberately causing the tattoos on his shoulders and chest to ripple visibly, and grinned. "Me, I'm an expert!"

Ros managed a brief smile that stretched into an exhausted yawn. "Thank you – I think. Idiot." As Lucas lay flat, she wriggled against him. Within minutes her breathing slowed and deepened as she slid into sleep. Lucas stared into the darkness and tried to clear his mind of the skin-crawling thought that tomorrow was going to find him behind prison walls again. It was a long time before the anxiety-control techniques the shrinks had taught him allowed him to follow her example.

oOoOoOo

Despite his best efforts, Lucas spent much of the night fighting off dreams that took his subconscious back to some of the darkest moments of his Russian incarceration. When he woke in a panic for the third time and almost hit a sleeping Ros on the back of the head with his flailing arms, he gave in and slipped cautiously out of the bed so as not to disturb her. He was drinking his second cup of tea when she joined him, dressed in a simple grey wool suit, the severity of which was relieved by an intricately pattern Indian shawl draped around her shoulders and secured by a gold clip. She gave an ironically approving nod when she saw his suit and tie, then started to brew coffee for herself.

"Anything from the Grid?" she asked. The words were clipped and terse. The mask that had slipped so badly the previous night was firmly back in place; Ros was in work mode.

Lucas shook his head. "Nor the prison." That, at least, was good news, and he could tell from the flicker of relief, so fleeting that someone who knew her less well wouldn't even have observed it, that Ros felt so too. At least Sir Jocelyn must be both alive and in a fit state to be interviewed.

She nodded acknowledgement and tilted her head in the direction of the sitting room where he had switched on the TV to catch the early broadcast. "News?"

He shrugged. "Bomb in Iraq, deadlock at the UN, accusations of kickbacks over Crossrail, celebrity shenanigans … oh, and there's rain sweeping in from the Atlantic."

Ros rolled her eyes. "I said news, Lucas." She gulped her coffee and poured herself a refill. When he shook his head, she downed that too and said: "Right." She gave him a shrewd look. "I won't ask if you're ready for this. Sounded as if you've spent most of the night in prison, one way and another."

Damn her. Lucas had assumed she hadn't noticed. He met her gaze defiantly. "I'm fine." He saw the sardonic curve of her lips at his deliberate use of a phrase on which she more or less held the patent, and added pointedly: "You?"

Immediately, Ros's face took on the shuttered expression that he knew only too well. "Of course."

Well, at least both of us are lying through our teeth. Without further comment, Lucas followed her down into the street, wondering whether the finance department in Thames House would go into complete meltdown if they were to charge a taxi to expenses. He was unhappily certain that the knots of apprehension busily tying themselves in his guts were unlikely to be unravelled by another cross-town trip with Ros.

"Lucas? I need to think … get ready." He started as Ros opened the doors and then held up the keys. "We can't make any mistakes with this. I don't want anyone catching us unprepared. Do you mind?"

Mind? Lucas caught the keys she tossed to him with a relief that increased with every mile of the journey. The roads got busy quickly once they passed Hammersmith, and if it had been Ros trying to negotiate a way through the stop-start traffic, he was convinced he'd have needed to occupy the bed next to Sir Jocelyn's in the infirmary wing by the end of the trip. For the moment, she seemed too absorbed in checking the messages on her mobile phone to be irritated by the jams. Just as well, he thought, since if they didn't ease soon, they were going to be late. Sloppy punctuality was one of Ros's pet hates, as several junior officers whose ears she had pinned back for it could attest, and Lucas could guess who would be taking the flak if they weren't in Governor Phelps's office by nine-thirty sharp. He had no illusions about the emotions that were quietly seething behind Ros's controlled façade this morning – or how little it might take to cause them to erupt again.

He was thankful when the traffic at last began to thin out. Ros glanced up from her phone and exchanged a sardonic smile with him as they crossed Uxbridge Road and passed a signpost pointing to the nearby Shepherds Bush Market. The local police station was located about a quarter of a mile further on, and the Shepherd's Bush mosque, with which Section D had had more to do than they would have liked on several occasions over the last decade or so, two blocks further down. In one moment of particular exasperation, Harry had groused that only in London could you find so many prayers, police and prostitutes jostling for supremacy in so little space.

"We'll make it," Lucas said, as Ros muttered an almost silent curse at her watch. The traffic was flowing freely up Wood Lane now. "No problem." His words were interrupted by her phone. She groaned.

"Yup, Myers! Yes." She listened for a moment. "She what?" Her face turned white with fury. "I don't care whether she's negotiating for a bridging loan with the bloody IMF, Chen, if she's not at her desk within thirty minutes I'll have her seconded to public relations for a month!"

"Lizzie," she snarled when she hung up. "Sorry, she'll be late, she had to see her debt counsellor."

"Debt counsellor?" Lucas said in surprise. MI-5 kept a very close watch on the personal finances of its officers for the obvious reason; people in financial difficulty were considered a potential security risk. Until fairly recently, failing to inform the personnel department that you were running an overdraft could result in dismissal from the Service.

"They've had to get a bit more lenient since 2008, or we'd be shedding officers like dandruff." Ros grimaced. "But that's no bloody excuse, damn her. Wait till we get back." She glanced out of the window as Lucas slowed to pass the former BBC studios at White City. Knots of people were watching a large lorry making a dog's breakfast of reversing into the compound and blocking half the road. Ros clicked her tongue impatiently. "I thought they'd all moved over to their shiny new HQ in Portland Place by now?"

"They have." Lucas negotiated the obstacle and put his foot down again. "Sold that off, didn't they, to some consortium? Supposed to be building a hotel and flats in there, I read somewhere." He glanced back in the mirror. "Looks like the demolition squad's moving in – weird how people will stand around and watch that kind of thing." As they reached the corner of Du Cane Road, he flicked his left-hand indicator and said: "Eureka." He waved a gaggle of students across the road and raised his eyebrows. "Imperial College and the Scrubs cheek to jowl?"

"Yeah. Bloody students bring the tone of the neighbourhood right down." Ros's usual sardonic flippancy didn't quite come off, and Lucas felt a sudden surge of sympathy for her. Whatever she would like him to believe, she must be dreading this as much as he was. "Main entrance."

He turned in through the wrought iron gates and eased up to the security barrier beyond which loomed the massive square brick gatehouse to the prison. Ros slid down her window and showed her ID. When Lucas was fixed with a hostile look, he produced his as well, trying not to dwell on the fact that this was the first time he'd ever had trouble getting into a prison. The officer took both cards to the duty Portakabin and got on the phone. Lucas looked across the courtyard and gave an involuntary shudder. Ros looked sharply at him.

"This isn't Lefortovo, Lucas."

"Yeah, I know." He summoned up a smile that he knew held no conviction. "They all look the bloody same, that's the trouble."

Ros tutted in mock horror. "Philistine. This is a Grade II listed building. Portland stone and slate roof in the chapel, I'll have you know. They even have a biodiversity action plan for the prison garden."

Knowing that she was trying to minimise the steadily rising tension in both of them, Lucas forced himself to respond in the same jocular tone. "Bijou residence, no less. Must be why there's such a waiting list for accommodation."

"Yeah. You know what it's like with sitting tenants." Ros accepted their ID and two visitors' badges back from the duty officer.

"Park over there on the left. Governor's aide will meet you by the staff entrance." His tone was sour; 'spook', as both of them knew, was a dirty word in the prison service.

"Thanks." When Lucas had parked and switched off the engine, they both clipped on their badges and got out of the car.

"Don't forget to lock it," Ros said, deadpan. "High crime rate around here."

Lucas rolled his eyes, did so, and threw her the keys, which Ros, uncharacteristically, dropped. He retrieved them and placed them in her hand with a mock-gallant flourish. Instantly, Ros closed it into a tight fist – just a fraction of a second too late to prevent him from seeing that her fingers were trembling.

"There." She folded her arms into invisibility under her shawl and nodded her head towards a young man in a suit emerging from the staff entrance, dwarfed by the massive, brooding solidity of the gatehouse. Lucas moistened his lips and kept pace with her as they went to meet him.

"Mark Stewart, Governor Phelps's aide." He smiled and shook hands with both of them. "May I just check your ID?" Again, both of them produced it. The aide scrutinised it carefully, and then re-opened the door through which he had emerged. "Thank you. I'm afraid we have to ask you to submit to a search; standard procedure for all visitors." He looked at them both. "OK?"

Lucas's mouth had turned dry with the memories that brought back. He swallowed.

"That's fine," Ros's voice said quietly. He felt her hand gently patting the small of his back. "Lead the way, Mr Stewart. Let's get this show on the road."

oOoOoOo

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