A/N: Thanks to all who have read this story, and especially to those who have reviewed. This is the final chapter.

Seventeen months later – Suffolk coast:

Ruth stood at the dining room window, attempting to draw the attention of the man lying on his back on the grass. Their daughter sat on his stomach, bumping her body up and down like she was riding a horse, blowing bubbles with her mouth, while he held her feet, ensuring she'd not tumble off. Temporarily forgetting where she'd left the camera, she grabbed her mobile phone from beside the house phone in the kitchen, and sneaked out the door and around to the back of the house. She waited for the focus, and then took the shot, just as Molly looked up and saw her.

At the sound of the phone's camera whirring, Harry lifted his head, and turned towards her. His smile was so wide, so relaxed, and so golden, that she took another two shots while he was looking at her. They had hundreds of photographs of Molly, but not nearly enough of Molly and Harry together, on their own.

"That's another one we'll have to email to everyone," Ruth said, walking towards her husband and daughter. "No-one believes me when I tell them that you haven't stopped smiling since Molly was born."

Harry reached out a hand towards her, and she joined them on the grass, sitting down beside Harry, so that both he and Molly were close enough to touch her. Still lying on his back, Harry reached out his hand and rested it on Ruth's leg, while Molly lifted both arms in the air, and blew a massive bubble, which resulted in a stream of dribble rolling down to her chin.

"Clever girl," Ruth cried, clapping her hands, and Molly clapped her hands along with her mother.

It was such a simple tableau …... father, mother and child, relaxing on the grass in the back yard on a summer afternoon …...their child with a little bit of him, and a little bit of her – dark hair like her mother, and her father's hazel eyes and full lips. Harry looked up at his wife as she watched their daughter blowing more bubbles with her mouth. If he was being honest, he'd missed work after he'd retired, which he did when Ruth was six months pregnant with Molly. Once they had Molly, he hadn't looked back. This was his new life, spent with the two people he loved most in the world. If someone had come to him 2 years ago, and told him that in 2 years time he'd have been retired, and living in the country, married to Ruth, and with a baby daughter, he'd have suggested they get psychiatric help. Even when she had first come back to London, this kind of outcome had looked unlikely. Work had always intervened. There had always been something.

Suddenly, Ruth's phone rang. She and Harry still had the same phones Malcolm had set up for them when Ruth had first arrived back in London.

"Malcolm," she said, after she'd checked the caller display. "Yes, he's here with me. We're outside catching some rays. …... No, I think he's put it in a drawer somewhere, and refuses to answer it. …... Yes... He's afraid it will be the DG wanting to know why he's not at Thames House. Here, I'll hand you over to him."

Harry sat up, and handed Molly to Ruth, and he took the phone from her. He stood up, and walked around the garden while he talked to Malcolm. Ruth carried Molly over to a swing which Harry had made – a rubber car tyre suspended from a branch of the almond tree by two lengths of strong rope. She sat on the rubber tyre, which had been reinforced with layers of felt, and swung slowly, one hand around Molly's waist, as the supporting branch creaked with their combined weight. The little girl lay back against Ruth's breast, and smiled at Harry as he walked past them, talking to Malcolm on the phone.

After he ended the call, he handed the phone back to Ruth, who slipped it into her pocket.

"He's sending me an email he thinks might interest me."

"Are you missing work, Harry?"

"No. I have you and Molly. I can't ask for more. My life is rich, and I consider myself a lucky man."

"But you miss the intrigue."

"Occasionally, yes." Harry stood in front of Ruth, giving her a little push whenever the swing swung close to him. Molly watched Harry, fascinated by his face coming closer to her, and then moving further away. Whenever the swing came close to him, he reached down and kissed Molly on the nose. She'd still be giggling when the swing came back, and she received another kiss on the nose, which made her giggle all over again. The next time the swing reached him, he reached down to kiss Ruth on the mouth. Molly giggled even more.

"I'll give her a bath if you like, Ruth …... while you cook dinner."

"Thanks. I'd like that."

Harry had taken to bathing Molly at night, just before her dinner, which she ate before Ruth put her to her breast to put her to sleep. He'd run warm water in the bath, and then sit in it wearing only his trunks, and hold her on his knees while he bathed her. The trunks had been necessary after Ruth had taken to creeping into the bathroom and stealthily videoing bath time with Harry and Molly.

"You can't ever show Molly these movies, Ruth," he'd complained. "She'd be so embarrassed to think I'd been naked while I'd bathed her."

So he'd decided to wear something to ensure his modesty. Even so, she'd still be mortified were they to show the bathtime videos at her 18th birthday party.

Christ, 18, Harry had thought. I'll have turned 76 just before her birthday, and Ruth will be 59. We'll be old parents.

After Molly had been put to bed, Ruth and Harry ate their dinner while sitting on the small patio just outside the dining room door. Their back yard was private, surrounded by mature trees, protecting them from the eyes of curious neighbours.

"What did Malcolm want?" Ruth asked over a glass of wine, hers being non-alcoholic, since she was still breast-feeding Molly. They had already taken their dishes inside and stacked the dishwasher, which they could hear whooshing and humming in the background.

"He sent an email with some photos attached. In some ways, my past is still catching up with me. Do you want to see them?"

When she nodded, he stepped back into the house, and brought out his ipad. He opened the safe email account, and scrolled through the emails until he reached the one Malcolm had sent. He opened the attachment of three photographs, and handed the pad over to Ruth.

"Gunther Hoff has been caught, and is now in custody in the US. They claim the right to lock him up and throw away the key. My guess is they'll hold on to him and try to get his intellectual property from him, and then they'll have no need of him. I also guess that he'd rather die than let the US have any of his plans for weapons." Harry took a deep breath and sighed, his former life tiring him. "He was living in Belgium under an assumed name. That's him in that first photo, and that's him with his wife entering the London flat where I used to meet her." Harry stopped speaking, and passed a hand over his forehead. "That all feels like it happened so long ago."

He looked over at Ruth, and she was examining the photos, and seemed not to have heard him.

"This is he, then?" Ruth asked, pointing to the CCTV photo of Stephanie walking into her flat with an unidentified man.

"That's Gunther Hoff. He was also the man she was with the night I met her. She intimated he was bothering her with his boring stories about his fertiliser business. Gunther Hoff – her husband – was that man. The two of them set up a honey trap, and I stepped right in. The other photo is of her with the head of security at North Yorkshire Aeronautics. She had the three of us on the go at the same time. I suspect she also recruited Babak Raad in the same way. Her husband required someone to do the leg work, and who better than an ex-SAVAK officer?"

"Are you surprised?"

"Yes, I am. I found Stephanie Hoff to be clever, but limited in imagination. Obviously I was wrong."

"It's in the past now, Harry. You can let it go."

"I know, but …..."

"You didn't like being taken for a ride."

"No, I didn't. I thought my instincts were better than that." He sighed as he thought. "Maybe my instincts were sullied by missing you. I did miss you for those years you were away. I missed you terribly."

"Well, you won't have to miss me ever again."

They sat back with their wine, and watched the sky as twilight fell. It was a beautiful time of the year, and they enjoyed every moment of every day.

"I love this house, the sky, nightfall, being here with you, knowing that you won't be called out on some national emergency or other," Ruth added quietly.

Harry looked at her, and reached out to place his hand over hers. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. They touched one another a lot, but the touch of his hand on hers always held the promise of something more. Harry's fingers were articulate, giving Ruth a sense that he was wooing her, and that there will be more later. She turned her hand so that their fingers laced. They both watched as their hands danced with one another.

Ruth looked up at him to see his eyes on her. There was that look again, the look he had when he desired her.

"Do you think we'll ever tire of one another, Harry?"

"I certainly hope not. I can't see it happening, can you?"

He lifted their hands, and turned them so that his lips touched the inside of her wrist. Ruth sighed with the touch of his lips on her skin. He knew her so well. He knew every part of her, and she every part of him …... not just their bodies, but their minds, their emotions, their souls. They believed they were born to be together. They had talked about it, and they agreed that they could have this – the house, the child, the peace and serenity, the love, the life, the right to a future together.

"How about an early night?" Harry suggested.

Ruth knew what he meant. An `early night' meant sex. She smiled and nodded, and with their fingers still entwined, they stepped inside through the French windows, which Harry turned to lock, before they climbed the stairs to bed.