23
The annual Security Services Ball is held on Midsummer's Eve – that's no secret – but the location most certainly is. Harry disparagingly refers to whatever venue is selected (usually a large country house, or a hotel which can be easily secured) as Toad Hall – full of rats, moles, and weasels. In all the years I have known him, he has attended the Ball only three times, including the occasion just after I joined the Service, when I took my mother, and he charmed her utterly by telling her the most outrageous lies about my workplace activities. Harry detests these sorts of occasions, where he is expected to don white tie and then… schmooze, I think the American colloquialism is, the great and the not-so-good of the British intelligence community. On the one hand, he says that more back-room deals, dangerous liaisons, and "gentlemen's agreements" are made on that night than during an entire year's worth of JIC, Contingent Events Committee, or any of the half-dozen or so other dreary meetings he is compelled to attend on a regular basis. On the other, he compares it unfavourably to wading blind through a cess-pit filled with poisonous vipers.
I know all this, and yet whenever Ruth mentions it, I feel unaccountably ill-at-ease about the whole thing. She is certainly very set on going; she has bought, she tells me, a new dress ("it was far too expensive, but I think you'll like it…"), has made an appointment to get herself "done", whatever that might entail – I'm still sufficiently shy of some of the more practical details of femininity to happily remain in blissful ignorance – and I know not how, but she has ensured that we are both rostered off for the weekend. She has also been hard at work trying to discover the location of Toad Hall for this year, and after tapping all her sources at GCHQ, Scotland Yard, Six, and the Home Office, she has narrowed it down to three possibilities; a very plush hotel in Belgravia, well known to me as the location of many successful bugging operations; a renovated manor house in Berkshire called Havensworth, which has recently been accredited with a Level 8 security clearance as being suitable for foreign and domestic dignitaries, and (the outside contender) Windsor Castle, as the Queen has already removed to Balmoral for her annual holiday. I rather hope it is not the Belgravia hotel – it would be lovely to get out of central London for a change.
By tradition and necessity, the location is kept secret until the day before the Ball, when it is sent by encrypted message to ticket holders, followed by the passcodes needed to gain entry to the venue; and a security dossier has to be completed and returned for each guest, including details of their occupation, rank, and personal appearance for the night of the Ball. As the ticket holder, I receive the message; but I need to consult with Ruth when it comes to the details of her intended personal appearance. I have heard horror stories about officers who have been refused admission because their partner's hair colour had changed; there's nothing more paranoid than a gathering of the intelligence community.
Surreptitiously, I message Ruth in classical Greek, requesting to know the exact colour of her dress, and she replies in succinct Latin, Aqua. Ubi est? I smile at her impatient enquiry, and reply, Berks. She answers, Perfectus, and then Harry shouts for her from the briefing room, and Colin comes back from a routine surveillance operation, overflowing with the need to talk to me after having been cooped up by himself in the van for six hours straight, and the rest of the day is taken up with the sort of administrative minutiae that even a senior technical officer must sometimes contend with, no matter how many languages he speaks or how big his brain may be.
At five p.m. on Saturday, I call for Ruth, thinking back to the night, almost six months ago, that I had first taken her out to the scratch Requiem, and marvelling at what changes have been wrought in our lives since then. I still cannot quite believe that Ruth is really with me; each morning that I wake up beside her is like a miracle, and she can take my breath away simply by walking into the briefing room or crossing the Grid. I don't think I will ever get used to having her in my life. There is a delicate synergy between us that I have never experienced with anyone else, and I cherish it. Hastening to her front door, I ring the bell twice – two long rings, for M in Morse code, and wait for her to appear. There is a rustling noise as she descends the staircase, and then she is smiling at me as she opens the door. Her hair has been swept up into an elegant, unfamiliar style which exposes the back of her neck, but she is wearing some sort of long, dark wrapper over her dress, and I can't see it. I surmise that she must be planning to make a grand impression –well, I have observed enough women arriving at these sorts of events to know how important that sort of thing is – and she reaches up on tiptoe to kiss me hello, before allowing me to escort her to the car. I have decided against taking my rather distinctive Rover tonight; instead I have hired a comfortable, but generic, late model European sedan - black, of course – what other colour would a spook choose?
Havensworth House is not far from the M25, off Junction 22, and Ruth proves that she is an able navigator as we motor through the countryside, now at its Summer best, verdant and lush, chatting about the passing scenery, the lovely warm evening, the anticipation of the evening ahead, just like any other couple. I begin to relax as we leave London behind, glad to be out of that concentration of humanity for a time. I love London, but at heart, I'm still that boy who grew up in a small community in Wales, and there are times when I miss the gentle pace of that simpler, long-vanished life. Sometimes, I think I would have been quite happy as a Cambridge don, or a headmaster, or even a clergyman like my father; but then, I remind myself, I would never have joined the Service, never have known Tom, or Colin, or poor Lucas North…I would never have met Harry, nor fallen in love with Ruth. On balance, I feel that the positives of working for Five outweigh the negatives, at least in my case… there are also, tragically, the Helens (poor girl, what a hideous way to die), the Tessas, treacherous and bitter, the Zoes, betrayed by a system which should have protected her…with difficulty I bid the black dog leave me alone, as I force my mind back to the business at hand; the business of being seen, in a semi-public place, with Ruth, on what could only be construed as a date. I don't know about Ruth, but my days of acting as her brother Giles are long over; there is too much intimacy between us now. I steal a look out of the corner of my eye, and as I see her curled on the seat, her feet tucked under her in the way she loves to sit, counting the junctions as we move around the ring road that Londoners only semi-jokingly refer to as the world's largest circular car park, I feel an overwhelming sense of wonder, followed by deep gratitude that she is here at all.
As we approach the hotel, I note that is set in walled and gated grounds, and after passing through a number of checkpoints, the main building comes into sight at the end of a gravel carriage sweep. Late Georgian, I think, with some rather ostentatious Victorian embellishments – but I can immediately see the appeal of the place, from a security standpoint. It would be easy to throw a second security cordon around the building itself, and from the array of antennae and satellite dishes behind the hotel, it appears to boast state of the art communications. Tonight, there are dark-suited security officers stationed strategically around the gracious old house, and as we approach the main entrance I can see another team directing guests through portable full-body scanners, looking for hidden weapons or any sort of anomaly. Short of carrying out DNA matching for each attendee, everything possible is being done to ensure our security. There is even a RAF Bell Griffin helicopter at altitude, lazily circling the property with slow sweeps like an eagle on an updraft. Nothing has been overlooked or left to chance. No-one is going to get within striking distance of the hotel unless they are on the list.
The final step in gaining admittance, conducted just within the elegantly colonnaded portico, is to match everyone to the exact details of their personal security dossier, and this requires Ruth to remove her coat. She turns away from me so that I can help her out of the garment, and as I hold it for her, she frees herself with a deft little movement; and I am left speechless as she slowly pirouettes before me, eyes shining, smiling in a way that I can only describe as triumphant, at my reaction. Aqua, indeed; I realise she meant, water, because this is exactly what the dress looks like; water, woven. It is made of some sort of heavy fabric - silk, perhaps - and it shimmers with the colours of Ruth's eyes; blue, from palest aquamarine to the deepest navy, shot through with green and flecked with silver. There are tiny, iridescent beads stitched on at random, giving the appearance of a sunlit ocean as Ruth turns around for my admiring gaze.
Looking closer, I realise that this is no ordinary evening gown; the whole style of it is from another era. Edwardian, I decide, looking at the fishtail train and the low, square neckline – I have seen enough of our own family portraits and photographs to be able to tell one century's style from another. Even while the analytical part of my brain is busily fact-gathering, another, more primitive part is responding in a much more direct way; she looks stunning, her sweetly curving figure set off to perfection, just a hint of cleavage apparent, the upswept hairstyle she has chosen showing off her back and neck, the artfully draped folds of fabric in the train accentuating her hips…breathtaking! She wears no jewellery; the dress needs none. I have never seen her wear anything like this before - I want to look at her in it forever, yet remove it immediately, too. Finally my higher faculties begin to reassert themselves, and the power of speech returns. "Ruth, do you know you're the most beautiful woman here, and that tonight, I count myself the most fortunate man in the world? You look…perfect. Glorious. Spectacular. Sublime…would you like me to go on?" She smiles, then, and says, "I knew I just had to have it. Nothing else would do once I had tried it on. I'm glad you like it…" The desk officer who is checking our dossiers waves us on, and we continue up the wide front steps and into Havensworth House.
We are now standing just beyond the cloakroom in the entrance hall, other couples and guests moving past us, and I can hear the strains of music drifting from the ballroom, a Strauss waltz…suddenly, I remember that I have something for Ruth, in the pocket of my dinner jacket. I extract the flat, black velvet box, and, suddenly shy, hold it out to her. "This is for you…a little something to remember tonight by..." Eyes wide, she takes the box and slowly opens it, then gasps as she sees the blue diamond solitaire pendant nestling inside. She looks up at me, and now it is her turn to be rendered speechless…I carefully lift the necklace out and with fingers that tremble only slightly, I fasten the fine gold chain around her neck. Ruth shakes her head, but even as she does, her hand is stealing towards the necklace, to touch it in disbelief. "Malcolm, I can't…you shouldn't have…this is too much!" she protests, but the way her eyes light up tells another tale. "It looks beautiful, you can, yes, I absolutely should have, and no, it's not," I gently counter, "besides, it's rather a special stone…I chose it in Hatton Garden, when I returned the other diamonds, after…you know. When I saw the colour of it, it didn't seem right that anyone else should have it…" Ruth looks up at me, and I am dismayed to see her eyes are glistening with unshed tears. "It's just that no-one has ever given me anything so precious before…I don't know what to say…" I take both her hands and draw her towards me, saying as I do so, "Thank you is the usual thing, I believe…and thank you, too." She looks questioningly at me, and I lean forward to whisper in her ear, "You've changed my life...and I love you for it." Ruth seems not to know whether to laugh or cry, so in an attempt to amuse her, I straighten up and make her a formal bow, just as Grandmamma taught me all those years ago. 'Miss Evershed, would you do me the honour of permitting me to claim the first dance?" And with that Ruth makes a half curtsey of her own and says, "Mr Wynn-Jones, you may have every dance!" before laughing at our sudden formality, as she takes my arm and we enter Toad Hall.