The interior of the church was weighted with the scent of polished wood and forgotten sins. Pockets of sightseers moved about quietly, walking along the aisles with hushed reverence, possessing an obeisance that Harry could never muster. The fluted columns and vaulted arches should have stirred his soul, elevated him to a higher plane of human existence, but he remained strangely unmoved. If there was a greater being, it had yet to make itself known to him, for he had only born witness to the baser instincts of man. Churches were best for dead drops and clandestine meets, for keeping secrets, not giving them up. He did not want to contemplate the secrets that darkened his soul - it was a lost cause. The penance involved in saving it would last far longer than the amount of life he had remaining. If there was a place of eternal rest it belonged to the innocent.
He stood between the Rector of St Margaret's and Miles Stanhope, Lucas rounding out the foursome, their party sequestered behind a pillar. Staccato notes from the organ peppered the background, masking their conversation but they kept their voices lowered. They had dealt with the more classified aspects of their business in the Rector's office and were now working their way through the logistics of the service. Harry rocked back and forth on his heels, feeling uncomfortably out of place. Lucas listened intently to the Rector, his solicitous demeanour no doubt a product of his upbringing. Ideally, a Section Chief and a senior officer should do the inspection but he felt the need to be on the ground for this operation. He was slowly bending to the idea of Lucas as Section Chief but one never really knew the mettle of an officer until they were tested. He could only stall for so long in rebuilding the Section.
Harry was lulled into a half-trance by the carefully modulated tone of the Rector. His eyes wandered above the altar to a stained glass window, the voices of the other men fading as the sound of the organ filled his ears. Bach? Handel? He couldn't place the melody. The sun filtered through the coloured panes, highlighting motes of dust as they swirled in the light. The organ hit a high note and his eyes blurred, the window fragmenting into pieces of riotous colour. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he caught his breath, his chest opening up as if he were on the edge giant chasm. The sensation passed and he wiped his forehead, blaming the heat. He half turned his head at the suspicion that he someone was watching him. Either that or he was having a heart attack and he would rather come down on the side of surveillance.
"As long as it's unobtrusive."
Harry started, the conversation having moved on without him. The Rector looked at him expectantly.
"Our presence," Lucas clarified for Harry's benefit.
"We're talking about national security." With no idea of the subject, Harry fell back on his reliable Section Head rhetoric.
"We are all secure here." The Rector leaned toward Harry, a benevolent smile on his face.
It took all of Harry's self-control not to throttle the man. Fighting with the devil was easy, fighting with saints was hard. "We will be as invisible as we always are."
"Sir Harry will be here tomorrow, keeping everything well in hand." Stanhope's smile beamed around the group.
Harry mustered a tepid smile in response, a bead of sweat trailing down his temple. He needed to get out of the building. Either he was having a reaction to it or it was on the verge of expunging him. With their business concluded, the Rector and the Home Secretary made their farewells. Harry loosened his tie the moment they were out of sight. He kept his voice low, lest the panels had ears.
"I'm always distrustful of the pious. They're like politicians, the more self-righteous they are, the more they have to hide."
"Religion and politics are the same thing," said Lucas. Harry lifted an eyebrow at the statement. Lucas shrugged his shoulders. "Blake." He saw Harry's confusion. "The poet. Not the former Home Secretary."
"Do you have everything you need here?"
"Yes. I've got a team inside and out on the street. Tariq has eyes in both places. I'm going to do another sweep."
Harry nodded. "Good. I'll see you back at the Grid."
Lucas walked away, following the path of the Rector and Home Secretary, leaving Harry to stand with his thoughts. The organ carried on, the notes floating about the church. He took one last look at the window, its stained panels remaining stubbornly unchanged, the colours reassuringly solid, looking down on him without judgement. He squinted at it in an attempt to recapture his earlier experience but there was no soaring elation, no epiphany, only a curious feeling of emptiness. It must have been the heat.
From habit long ingrained, his eyes gave a cursory sweep over the church, surveying the various inhabitants of the pews. Seeing nothing untoward, he headed down the aisle at a quick pace, not wanting to stay in the sanctuary any longer than necessary. Half way up the aisle, he stopped in mid-stride overcome by the urge to look up. At the far side of the church almost hidden in the shadows sat Ruth. He would have missed her if not for the strange pull to glance in that direction. He walked over to the end of the row, waiting for her to notice him but she did not look up. He silently moved along the bench and took the seat beside her. She made no motion to acknowledge his presence but kept her head bowed, her hands clasped in her lap as if in prayer. Did she believe in heaven and hell and the promise of redemption? He had given up on religion and its attendant salvation; he had assumed everyone he knew also had the same predilection.
With her head still bent, she spoke to him in a low voice. "It's always much cooler inside a church, isn't it? I think it has something to do with the rarefied air of the ages, never knowing the world outside."
"Are you sightseeing?" he asked, at a loss as to why she should be there.
She raised her head, looking out over the church, her eyes following the ascent of the pillars, her neck exposed as she strained to look at the ceiling. She took a deep breath and leant back in her seat.
"I haven't been in a church since Danny."
They had sat like this before, and he had torn her away from her mourning on that day, just as he had recently ripped her away from her other life. The wood of the pew creaked softly as he moved towards her, his voice matching her whispered hush. "I've been in a church, but not necessarily for religious reasons.
"I suppose shadowy naves are made for secrets."
"How did you know I would be here?" He placed his hands in his lap, rubbing his thumb as if he were rubbing out a memory.
"I just knew."
His fingers stilled. "I could have used the other exit. Missed you entirely."
"But you didn't."
A few days earlier, he had congratulated himself on his ability to summon her with a single nod but apparently, it worked both ways, this subtle pull between them. Bound by a joint history, knowing where the other one was, an intricate tapestry of shared events weaving them together.
"There is so much history here." She spoke as if picking up on the thread of his thoughts. She ran her finger along the gleaming wood of the pew in front of her. "People come and go but this building remains, ravaged and repaired, but still standing."
How many supports had he lost over the years and yet he remained resolutely standing? His foundation was cracked, full of fissures and chinks. She was his last buttress; if he lost her, his walls would crumble.
"Were you married in a church, Harry?"
The question caught him off guard and he contemplated his answer, unsure why she was asking. When my love swears she is made of truth. The arrogance of youth, how he had tempted fate in choosing that particular sonnet for the reading at his wedding. He squirmed in his seat; his marriage was a subject he did not like to dwell on. That part of him belonged to a different life, another man.
"Yes, I was."
"I suppose every young girl dreams of a church wedding."
She had been young once, but he could not imagine her as a girl. Had that been her dream? Curiosity roused, he wanted to know the real reason she had not married George and if she had forsaken the institution altogether. Before he could ask, she spoke again.
"I suppose a church wedding doesn't necessarily mean anything these days."
He pursed his lips, wondering if she was referring to the demise of his own marriage, feeling the unintentional smart of her words.
She pointed to the front of the church. "That window was commissioned for Henry VIII and Anne Boylen and look how they turned out." She gave him an ironic half-smile as her eyes held his. She turned away, remembering the reason she had come. "I had lunch with Gwen, lovely woman. She tells me that Stanhope has a meeting scheduled with Romaldi and Clarence Bancroft.
"Bancroft?" The name brought Harry's mind immediately back to business. "He's a member of the Home Committee."
She nodded. "And a possible candidate for Home Secretary."
"Is that their gambit? Another Home Secretary in their pocket."
"We still don't know if Lawrence was in their pocket."
"We need a list of all the candidates being floated about for the office." He leaned wearily back in his seat. "A nation can survive its fools but not the enemy within," he mused, paraphrasing Cicero. "He infects the body politic."
The organ stopped and silence rushed in to fill the space, accentuating the smallest noise including the soft rhythm of their breaths.
"I'm scared, Harry," she confessed, her voice barely audible. "About tomorrow."
He leaned in to hear her, his voice lowered to match hers. "That's a good thing. Little adrenaline, keeps you on your toes."
"Adrenaline," she echoed.
"You'll be fine. I know you can do it."
"A bit of a shift from my earlier cockiness, isn't it?"
She tilted her head as she looked up at him, exposing the marble column of her throat. He looked down into her eyes, framed by the fine arch of her brow. He lost himself in their depths, their colour changing from blue, to green to grey, her pupils expanding and contracting, his chest swelling in response. The evolving colours of her iris seemed to fragment and then reassemble back to the intense blue he knew so well. The window to her soul. Her hand rested on her lap, and he instinctively reached over to cover it with the bulk of his own. It was small, barely knuckle and bone, lost under the weight of his giant paw. He did not immediately take his hand away but let it rest on hers, drawing his own comfort from her touch.
"Do they ever leave us?" She gravitated towards him like a moon, her shoulder pressing into his. "Danny? Jo?"
He wanted to say yes, to assure her that their faces would fade into distant memory but that would be a lie. They lurked in the corners of one's life, coming out at the most inopportune times. He would not burden her with those thoughts. He sighed and squeezed her hand. To his surprise, she returned the pressure and his breathing changed to a deep and steady flow, a weight lifting from his chest. Her touch held an elment of forgiveness, a reprieve for his transgressions of the other day. Perhaps in time she could forgive him his greater sins.
He wanted to stay cloistered with her, locked away in this sanctuary but they could not remain there forever. "Someone will miss us soon."
She extracted her hand from his and he ached at its loss. He rose, edging out of the pew, standing to one side to let her walk before him. She stopped in front of him and he rested his hand on the curved end post of the bench in an effort to stop himself from leaning into her.
"Do you really have two season tickets to the opera?" she asked.
Once again, her question caught him unawares. She was looking at his lips.
"Are you testing me to see if I would commit blasphemy in a church?"
She shrugged. "I don't think a church would stop you."
He smiled at her faith in his irreverence. "I didn't think you would still want to go with me."
"I haven't been out in such a long time. I would think after everything a diversion would do us both good."
They walked along the aisle together, hands lightly brushing as their arms swung by their sides. The emptiness inside him dissipating, replaced by a sense of wonder and anticipation. Perhaps the old husk that he inhabited could split open and a soul that he did not know he had could rise from it. He closed his eyes. His salvation did not lay in brick and mortar but in a sanctuary far more corporeal.
...
The swirl of cream stayed stubbornly on top of Harry's coffee refusing to blend in even as his spoon clinked the around the mug. A wiser man would have checked the expiry date. The hour was late and the idea of braving the night to find a shop was remarkably unappealing, forcing him to make do with the coffee from the Grid's tiny kitchenette. Perhaps Ruth with all her fiduciary acumen could find money in the budget for a decent coffee maker.
"You could try some scotch in it." Ruth appeared at his elbow, looking into his cup.
He looked down at her, marvelling at how his mere thoughts had the ability to summon her, silently bemoaning the fact that the talent never manifested itself in certain comfortable areas of his own home. The tip of one ear peaked through the curtain of her hair, a wayward strand refusing to follow the direction of the rest, as stubbornly resistant as the woman herself. He gripped the handle of his mug tighter.
"Don't think I'm not tempted."
She carried on seemly unaware of any effect she might have on him and held up her cup, motioning it towards the sink so he would let her through to wash it. She ran the faucet, and soaped up the mug.
"You shouldn't drink so much coffee, stops you from sleeping."
"How do you know I have trouble sleeping?" He leaned back against the counter.
"Don't we all?" Her eyes met his, their corners crinkled teasingly. As she held his gaze, her eyes changed, widening, revealing the subtle shifts of colour he had noticed earlier. The cup languished forgotten under the water; the faucet left to run idly on in the background until she remembered what she was doing and turned it off. "I sent a list of possible candidates for Home Secretary to you."
He nodded handing her a dishtowel, feeling oddly domestic. "Technically, we don't to vet candidates..."
"But if a flag should appear..." Ruth continued his thought.
"We'd have to alert the proper authorities."
"Without ruining his career."
"Let's see how naughty he's been. When one plays with matches..."
She placed her cup in the cupboard. "I'm done for the day. I'll be back tomorrow, sometime in the evening, I should think. " Smoothing down her skirt, she brushed the last few drops of water from her hands, pausing for a moment before she took a step towards the door.
"I won't see you in the morning?" He pushed himself away from the counter, moving to block her exit.
"No, I'm going straight to Romaldi's offices."
"Keep your head down and you'll be fine."
"What could possibly happen?" She gave him a tremulous smile, each of them knowing exactly what could happen.
"Do you need to go over anything?"
"No, no, I'm good."
He looked at her intently, trying to think of something else to say to keep her there, an important piece of information, a word of advice. He could always insist that they review her legend. In lieu of anything concrete to say, he took a step towards her.
"You've got the ring?"
"Yes." She pulled it out from the pocket of her skirt. "I didn't want to forget it."
He took it from her hand, opening the clasp to confirm the USB drive was inside and then snapped it shut. "Tariq's letting you take it?"
"I had to sign away my first born." She looked at him with a small smile, giving no indication that the phrase had any other meaning to her.
He held the ring up intending to give it back to her but when she moved to retrieve it he quickly raised his free hand and captured her smaller one in his grip. He held her hand suspended between their chests, giving no thought as to who might walk in and find them. He examined the skin of her fingers, taut across the knuckles, remembering the feel of the tiny mountains beneath his palm. If they were in any other time, any other place, he would lean in and kiss them, turn her hand over and kiss the pulse at her wrist. His hand tightened on hers, the thought of her pulse beating against his sending a current of desire through his veins. She stood very still, lips parted, chest barely moving with shallow breaths, waiting. He brought the ring to her hand, hovering suggestively above her fingers. In the cramped kitchenette, under the glare of the fluorescent light, thoughts came to him unbidden, of her beside him in the darkness of the church, the strange sensation of weightlessness she had stirred within him. With gentle pressure, he pressed his thumb on the top of her hand, causing her fingers slowly uncurl, stretching out toward him. It was the wrong hand and the wrong finger and most definitely the wrong notion but he continued on, not caring about the implications of his gesture. With a quiet solemnity, he gently slid the ring on her index finger. He dropped his head closer to hers.
"Wouldn't want you to lose it," he whispered.
She closed her eyes and shivered, subtly swaying into him, forearms touching, bodies separated only by the width of their joined hands. It would be so easy to let his lips brush against her temple, mark a path along her cheek, and find the sweetness of her mouth. He swallowed hard and gritted his teeth. He had to stop this nonsense; those thoughts were the purview of poets and lovers. They were spies. The ring meant nothing. How many times had his wedding ring come off? How many times had he worn one as a legend? It was merely a piece of gadgetry designed to infiltrate a system. If pressed, he would have to admit that what had happened between them earlier in the church was nothing more than one colleague comforting another.
"Take care of yourself."
His breath brushed across her cheek, touching her skin where his lips could not. She opened her eyes to him, revealing the darkest gaze, seductive and inviting. He released her hand as if it was on fire, and it crossed his mind that it very well may be, for he was playing with tinder that he was dangerously close to igniting. Clearing his throat, he quickly turned away, not trusting himself to stay any longer. He felt her eyes on his back as he crossed the Grid. He absently adjusted the knot in his tie, finding it hard to breathe, knowing that one day he would not have the strength to leave.