Let's go round again

Chapter Eight

The tension was killing him.

Ruth had spent three nights under his roof and to all intents and purposes they had settled into an easy routine. Ruth tended to his legs in the morning applying arnica gel to his many bruises which were now changing hue so that his flesh looked like some terrible modern work of art; a fact that Ruth had mentioned more than once. On the plus side the abrasions were healing and as each day passed the stiffness in his limbs was easier to cope with with and movement was becoming easier.A bonus of that was that he was able to cope with his personal needs on his own; he had no wish to repeat the humiliation of that first morning.

They would then share breakfast together and after that Ruth would attend to the house and he would occupy himself in his study, listen to music, read a book and if he was really desperate watch day time television. Anything to ignore the thing that was both drawing them together and pulling them apart.

One of them had to break and in the end it was him.

They'd just finished their evening meal and Ruth had commented as she cleared the table that she would soon have to be thinking about getting back to her normal routine and Harry could see her walking out of his life again; maybe not completely this time but as far as he could see there was a bloody good chance that they would become acquaintances who exchanged cards at Christmas and made promises to meet up for a drink but never quite made it happen.

And he knew that he couldn't let that happen. Even if she rejected him again he had to know that he had tried to make it work, had tried to make her part of his life. And so as Ruth sat back at the table and poured him another glass of wine he took a deep breath, put his life in her hands and spoke quickly before he could change his mind.

"Where did you go Ruth?"

It wasn't so much a question; more a plea as if his very soul needed the balm of her answer to ease his pain.

She looked up quickly, obviously surprised by his words because they had come out of nowhere and for a long moment he thought she was going to ignore him. But as she looked at him he could see her face soften and she seemed to him to be searching for the right words before she finally answered him.

"Well I was a little upset when I got back to work" (There would be time enough to discuss the cause of her upset later.) "Towers wasn't a stupid man Harry even though you were convinced he was" She waited as though she thought that remark might have elicited some sort of sharp response but he just nodded, his face a blank, his mask firmly in place.

"Well as I was saying Towers picked up straight away that I was upset and readily agreed that I take some leave."

"And you never returned" he said it slowly. A whole decade of hurt and longing encapsulated in those four words.

"Well you didn't bother to look for me."

"It was, it was difficult."

"Yes well it was always difficult wasn't it Harry? Difficult and bloody complicated!"

"Where did you go Ruth?" His gaze was piercing and steady and she found she had to look away for a moment.

"I went to the Cotswolds initially, just for a week or so." (She didn't share with him the fact that during all that time she'd been waiting for him to knock on the door of her rented cottage.) "And while I was there it gave me time to think, think about everything. And something Tom Quinn said to me an age ago kept coming back to me; he told me that eventually I would realise that the service was a monster, a monster that would take everything from me including my soul and that he hoped I had the good sense to get out before it consumed me. And the more I thought about that the more I knew that it was my time to go."

"And you'd done it before."

"Yes, it was easy, easier I'd got all the elements ready to go, just in case. I'd non-traceable bank accounts, false passports, new believable alternative lives just waiting for me to step into them. Yes it was much easier this time."

"Really Ruth? It was easy? She could hear the undercurrent of pain and anger in his voice. "Where did you bloody go?"

"Switzerland." she said.

Switzerland? Switzerland, bloody Switzerland! Why?"

"I had to go there to gain access to a safety deposit box and then I was reading a local paper and there was a vacancy for a systems analyst. I stayed for eighteen months, anonymous and waiting Harry waiting."

And she was waiting now, waiting for him to put everything right once more, waiting, hoping, praying that he would be able to make everything right between them. After all hadn't he always been the strong one, the solid one, the one they had all relied on?

Taking a deep breath Harry asked "Can we have a cup of tea please?" He was very aware that his next words could either make or break any chance he might have of a relationship with Ruth. But what kind of relationship? He knew what he wanted, had always wanted but if all that she was willing to offer was some kind of platonic friendship he would grab even that with both hands.

Ruth placed a mug of tea in front of him and took her place across the kitchen table, sipping her own tea and waited.

"When you bolted" he began ignoring her raised eyebrows when he uttered the word bolted "My first thought was to chase after you but I was a coward, I couldn't believe what I'd done. I couldn't believe that I'd been so crass. There was so much I wanted, needed to to tell you but instead I let the tension, the danger of the situation get to me and the old Harry Pearce came thundering to the surface. Once again I made the wrong decision Ruth and I've never regretted anything more in my life. Please believe that."

The silence was almost overwhelming and his need to fill that silence between them was just as overwhelming "I decided, wrongly as it turned out to give you some time to..."his voice trailed away; he suddenly suspected that anything he said at that moment would be wrong.

"Go on Harry" she urged, they needed to do this was her only thought, they needed to clear the air, needed to be honest with each other.

"As I said Ruth I made the wrong choice and then just when I was starting to feel brave enough to ask the Home Secretary where you were the shit really hit the fan. The DG had a stroke, a catastrophic stroke and they booted me upstairs in double quick time. And I was a bastard, I was petulant, aggressive, uncompromising and angry. God I was angry. I realise now that I was in the middle of some kind of breakdown. I should have retired, walked away but instead I stayed and as time went on I found myself more and more isolated and by the time I understood I needed to be part of a cohesive team it was to late. I had alienated everybody; even Section D. I was entirely alone with no way back.

And then they came after me, I won't bother you with the sordid details all I'll say is I quickly learnt the truth of the old saying "

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

"What did they do to you Harry?" she asked softly her hand by it's own volition moving to gently take his.

He looked down at their joined hands and sighed. A long audible expression of thanks for her patience. "Oh they were very clever. They managed to get the Americans to re-open the file on Jim Coaver and then they offered me up to help with their enquiries. They couldn't wait to get rid of me. Jesus Christ! They very nearly delivered me with a ruddy bow round my neck!"

"Was it very bad?"

As soon as the words had escaped her lips she regretted them, they echoed in her ears, the banality of them mocking her.

"Oh no Ruth it was a sodding picnic!"

His reply, the tone of it and the sarcasm told her that her comment and the triteness of it had annoyed him. She opened her mouth to speak again but he cut her off.

"They were bloody amateurs, I think they were some sort of rogue group or maybe it was decided by someone higher up the food chain that I be given to inexperienced officers so they could practise their skills on me. Their approach was entirely disjointed, nobody wanted to play the bad cop, their whole strategy seemed to begin and end with physical pain. Idiots! Physical pain is nothing it passes. It's emotional pain that I find difficult".

"Harry" she feared where he was going. She was not yet ready for the conversation that his last words would surely lead to.

"In the end I think they got rather fed up with me; rather like a cat gets bored when a mouse it's caught refuses to die. They left me alone in the dark for God's knows how long and when the door finally opened again I thought my time had come but as it turned out they had come to release me."

She squeezed his hand again trying to comfort him feeling so guilty that she had not been there at the time, regrets crowding her mind.

"How?" she asked him

"Malcolm and Section D. It had taken them nearly three weeks to track me down. It doesn't sound like a long time does it? Unless of course you're being kept naked, cold, in darkness and in fear of what is going to happen to you next."

Once again neither of them could think of a thing to say and the silence seemed to suck all of the air out of the room.

"What happened then Harry".

"I never went back to work, it had all been a step to far. Of course my return sent ripples round the services that went right to the top, no one wanted to take responsibility for what had happened to me and even if I'd known for sure I could never have worked with any of them again. To cut a long story short I was retired with a golden handshake and a massive pension."

"After all those years? Just like that. How could they?"

"It was easy Ruth. I made it easy. I just couldn't be bothered any more. I was very ill for a very long time. I had lost everything, everybody. It took me a very long time to claw my way back to anything resembling normality."

"And now Harry? How are you now?"

"I thought about you Ruth; when I was alone in the dark" he said softly, his fingers stroking her hand in a gentle hypnotic rhythm. "While they were doing their worst I thought about you, what we had, what we could have had. It kept me sane and safe. In here" he said tapping his forehead.

Ruth looked at the man who was sitting opposite her, the man who had been her whole world and she tried to make her breathing even, she knew what he was trying to tell her, she knew what he was willing her to say, was desperate for her to say. And for one glorious fleeting moment she considered giving into to him, giving into herself.