Many thanks for the lovely reviews which are much appreciated. Harry discovers that he might have yet another problem as Jane and the team get to know each other.

Still the Grid 10.30am approx

Looking at Jane's frightened face Harry longed to reassure her to the contrary but he knew better than to waste his time denying the truth of her words. One of Jane's greatest professional attributes was a finely tuned crapometer, used to fine effect in the tracking down of recalcitrant pupils, the challenging of anyone foolish enough to utter a woolly academic statement and, unfortunately for him, in the dissection of his own philandering falsehoods. He had absolutely no reason to assume that her lie detecting skills had suddenly deserted her. Instead, aware that his temper was on the rise, he turned to Dimitri to ask menacingly, "What do you mean you've no details?"

Dimtri was eyeing his boss cautiously. He recognised the expression on Harry's face,he'd first seen it on Erin's face a few months previously when Rosie had been kidnapped. The last time anyone in the team had seen Harry look so vulnerable was the day he'd reappeared on the Grid a week after Ruth's funeral. The quiet despairing agony etched upon his features when he had returned from seeing her name on the weeping wall had eventually burnt itself out, to be replaced by a face as impassive as granite. Privately the team had begun to wonder whether Harry remained capable of any personal feeling beyond that of numb. Now, Dimitri thought, they had the answer. For the second time within months Harry's private and professional lives were combining, and that merger had apparently provided the key releasing him from the emotional Arctic he'd been inhabiting. Recalling the errors Harry had previously made due to his differing but ambivalent involvements with Lucas/Bateman and Elena Dimitri wasn't sure that this was an entirely desirable development. Harry's judgement might be less impaired if his emotions remained in a state of cryogenic suspension. Realising that a fuming Harry was still awaiting an answer Dimtri chose his words with care.

"From what I've been told the forensic team had finished and had just left, leaving two policemen on guard until we arrived. One at the front, one at the back. The intruder broke in from the back. The policemen there was knocked to the ground and injured. It would seem that the officer at the front heard the noise, went into the flat, tried to stop him and was killed. They don't know if the culprit was armed, the officer was thrown against the wall and killed by impact, they think he hit his head on the corner of the coffee table."

Harry was incandescent, the roar of his voice reverberating across the Grid made the staff outside his office relieved that they weren't the unfortunate in the line of Pearce fire, "so now a life has been lost unnecessarily, plus a major clue, not to mention time. This was planned. Someone knew exactly when security had been reduced."

Dimiti, having mentally filtered out the white noise to consider the content of Harry's words, hesitantly suggested, "A stakeout?"

"Possibly. Or a leak. It seems likely now that someone definitely knew when the CCTV was turned off. We need to get there quickly, but perhaps I should change first."

"I'm not sure that the police will be ready to give us access after the latest incident, they'll need to investigate further."

Harry had really lost it as he yelled, "No choice. PC Plod can return to the beat, ever assuming that finding his way back there doesn't exceed his level of competence."

Jane coughed. She'd been watching this exchange with interest. If you weren't the designated victim Harry in a volcanic temper was an awesome sight, although not exactly easy on either eye or ear. As his face flushed with a colour that beautifully completed the walls of his office she idly wondered as to its potential label on a decorator's shade card, 'Pungent Puce' perhaps or possibly 'Tantrum Tomato'. When she'd first been ushered into his office she'd been puzzled as to why it was painted in such a delightfully unrestful shade of scarlet. That mystery was now solved: some thrifty soul in maintenance must have concluded that this was the most cost effective way of disguising the bloodstains created whenever the enraged Section Head splattered some erring spook against the walls. She could only presume that the glass panels overlooking the Grid were shatterproof. Which, she debated to herself, was the more perilous mission, the confronting of terrorists in the field or the conveying of unwelcome tidings to Sir Harry Pearce?

Responding to her discreet cough Harry realised what she was about to say. Hoping to head off the unreasonable request poised on her lips Harry pleaded, "Jane don't ask. You're not a field officer. I'm not taking you with us."

Jane wasn't about to be relegated to the sidelines yet again. She'd had enough of that when they were married and much good it had done her. "No Harry this isn't your choice, she's my daughter as well. Besides which I can help. Have you been in her flat?"

"Not recently, no?" It hurt Harry to make the admission. Catherine was the only member of his family he had spoken to for years, prior to the events of the previous evening, and even that contact was usually confined to the occasional lunch. Since Ruth's death he hadn't seen her. Catherine was observant and had inherited his talent for interrogation. She'd have realised that something was wrong and would have dug away until she uncovered his personal secrets. It was the skill that had made her such a rising star in her chosen profession. Harry didn't want to lie to his daughter, he'd done that too often and too damagingly to his family in the past, but neither did he want to reveal his recent sorrows to anyone. Once he began to unburden himself he knew that he would cry without ceasing, even worse he might break down entirely. The image of him broken and destroyed by guilt was not a face he wanted to present to anyone, least of all his daughter. He had wept in those few minutes during which he'd held and despairingly kissed Ruth's still warm body knowing that the eyes which had gazed at him so lovingly a few short moments before were now closed to the world forever. Then the ensuing events had conspired to prevent the any further tears from falling. He was adamant in his determination that they would now remain unshed for all time.

Jane refrained from comment, Dimiti was present and privately she was just as anxious as Harry to keep the degrading details of their failed marriage between themselves. Instead she confined herself to asking, "So how will you know what's missing?"

Forced to concede her point Harry fell back onto his default position of firm negotiation. "If you come it is only subject to certain conditions. Namely you go with Erin, after Dimitri and I have had a chance to see the lie of the land. Also if I say you have to leave, you leave and no arguing, I'm not having your safety or that of my team compromised through your being stubborn." 'I can't and I won't go through that again, even though we hate each other.'

Jane knew that tone, no argument would be allowed but that didn't mean that she wasn't curious. Given his keenness not to risk her revealing their shared past his instructions had rather surprised her. "Agreed, but why do I need to follow on afterwards rather than go with you?"

"You heard what we said. Someone may be watching and I want to check out the area first with Dimitri. Please Jane, you've already had one close call. I wouldn't forgive myself if anything further befell you."

Nodding at Dimitri Harry gave his orders, "Can you tell Erin that she'll be needed. Also contact the police and find out about the officer who was killed. You can assure them that we'll do everything they would do and more to find the guilty party. And as I'm going as a senior field officer I'll need the appropriate equipment."

Dimtri torpedoed out at speed, sending up silent prayers of thanks to Jane for distracting Harry. He was also amazed at her temerity in questioning Harry's decisions. Not even Ruth had ever managed to do that without provoking a row, even more astoundingly Harry had GIVEN IN with hardly any argument!

As Dimtri exited Harry leant towards an unobtrusive cupboard in the corner of his office, opening its door to reveal a selection of spare clothes. Turning to Jane he made a gesture towards the Grid.

"If you'd excuse me Jane, I need to change."

"Do you have anything I haven't seen before?"

"Apart from some extra scars and a spare tyre no."

"Time was when stripping off in front of me wouldn't have been a problem."

"And time was when you'd have been ripping my clothes off for me. Can I remind you, Lady Godiva, that you weren't too keen on me seeing you 'au naturel' last night."

"So why should you let me play Peeping Tom? Fair point. We probably both look better with our clothes on these days. But why change anyway?"

Harry sighed, Jane had slotted so easily into the Grid meeting he'd temporally forgotten that her knowledge of trade craft was limited to the point of non-existence. While he had every intention of curtailing her involvement in the operation to as bare a minimum as he could contrive she still needed to be educated quickly for everyone's sake. Due to the Service's tendency to frown upon the prospect of publishers producing self-help tomes entitled Counter Terrorism for Dummies' ,'Teach Yourself Spying' or even 'The Joy of Espionage' the gruesome task of trying to teach a teacher fell to him. Here beginnith the first lesson then.

"Jane, as it is possible that someone is watching the flat we want to drive past unobtrusively. The sight of me in suit and tie lounging in the back of a government car might be a bit of a giveaway."

Now he'd explained Jane could have kicked herself for her failure to comprehend something so obvious, but his words served to remind her of another issue that was becoming pressing, at least as far as she was concerned, "Speaking of clothes. Harry I hate to sound frivolous but..."

"Jane you are never frivolous." Before she could look too gratified Harry added, "pedantic, waspish, sarcastic, witty, analytical, sexy or you used to be, but frivolous and fluffy no – I couldn't have even contemplated marrying you if you were."

"So that's where I went wrong. Anyway requesting very, very nicely Sir Harry in my best non fluffy, non frivolous style can you please ask the terribly nice inefficient policemen if anything remains of my handbag. I need to do something about getting hold of my own clothes."

"Don't worry Jane. I can always send an officer to your home to select a few garments."

"If you don't you'll soon be running out shirts. I'd rather go myself but if you do send an officer could it be a female?"

"I suppose so, but why?"

Jane's face eloquently displayed an 'Honestly men" look as she blurted out in exasperation, "For goodness sake Harry, I don't fancy a strange man rummaging through my underwear."

Harry, repressing the unchivalrous reflection that this might not be totally unique experience for her, responded with, "Let's see later. I could send an officer with you. Tell Erin or Dimitri that Laura Dixon is to be ready to journey into darkest Oxfordshire, possibly with you."

"But I've no house keys."

Harry raised his eyebrows slightly by way of reply. "Of course. Silly me. MI5, defenders of the realm, scourge of terrorists and house breakers on the side.

"You said it. Incidentally Jane judging by the glimpse I had of your legs last night you don't need to worry too much about switching the light off, but I do, so would you please? "

"Pity I could do with a good laugh."

"I think we're a little old to be playing I'll show you mine if you show me yours...so go."

"I'll see you in a few minutes then – clothed." Having made this final rejoinder Jane meandered out of his scarlet and glass sanctuary and out onto the main Grid.

Harry waited for a few seconds to be certain that she wasn't going to reappear. As he pulled his office blinds shut prior to stripping off he noticed her standing on the Grid chatting to his team. By sheer accident she'd positioned herself in the area that he still thought of as Ruth's place. It gave him a strange sense of dislocation, his two different pasts with two very different women colliding and overlapping in the present. As he pulled his tie from his neck and began to unbutton his shirt it occurred to him that he'd forgotten just how much fun Jane could be, for a few precious moments at least, they'd sparred like old friends united by affection, not estranged spouses parted through mutual hatred. Harry knew that he'd made a complete mess of his personal life. Years ago an infuriated Ros Myers had, in a statement stinging with truth, described his entire existence as a 'walking disaster zone'. He'd accepted the internal scars he carried from his past as a necessary evil, the inevitable accompaniment to choices that he'd never really regretted making, despite the personal pain they'd lead to. Now, as he heard the sound of Jane laughing with his staff, the lines from a half forgotten poem floated unbidden into his mind, the one about 'The Road Not Taken'. If he could go back which road would he take? He'd chosen the 'one less travelled by' the one that seemed at him at the time as 'having perhaps the better claim' and in doing so had turned his back on Jane and ordinary domesticity. Hard on that thought came the ever present guilt that while he was travelling his road of choice he had made decisions that had stuffed up not just his own life but also those of Jane and their children, and then there had been Ruth... always Ruth just lurking in the shadows of his mind. Which now stood as his worst personal reproach? The damage he'd done to the woman he'd loved and married, the woman now chatting outside, whose affection had turned to loathing because of his actions, or the damage to the woman he'd loved, who had loved him in her turn and died in his arms, again as a result of his actions, believing that 'we weren't meant to have those things'. But if he'd taken that alternative domestic path he'd never had known Ruth. Would that have been even worse, never to have known her despite the unspoken hurt and guilt that stalked him every waking day and haunted his dreams at night? 'Better to have loved and lost' etc. Now, heaven help him, he was beginning to mix up his poets. Pulling on a pair of casual trousers he decided that such agonised ramblings weren't helping anyone, especially since he was now irretrievably immured in the 'somewhere ages and ages hence'. Collapsing, or in another fine phrase coined from Ros 'emotional incontinence' was not an option, it never really had been for him. His return to the Grid had proved that. He couldn't go back and the very least he now owed to Ruth's memory was to make the best possible choices he could in the future, ever assuming he knew what they were. And why on earth was he quoting poetry to himself anyway? It must be the baleful influence of the English literature obsessive currently awaiting his reappearance and, he had little doubt, the next round in their verbal boxing match.

When a few minute earlier he'd seen Dimitri practically running out of Harry's office Calum had enquired by way of greeting, "Survived Macca and Mills then, or should that be Punch and Judy?"

"Just about. Anyway Erin has the pleasure of taking Jane to Catherine's flat."

Erin put her head in her hands as she groaned at Dimtri, "Oh God, does this mean we're caught in the middle of a marital?"

"Hardly. They're not married, at least not any longer, remember."

"Even worse. I don't recall anything in training about how to deal with this situation. At this rate we'll all be raiding Harry's whisky stash."

"You two ought to consider it as practise for maritals." Calum ducked quickly as Erin flung a file at him, while Dimitri muttered in a spirit of honest enquiry, "Why on earth did they ever marry in the first place?"

Calum interjected, "Wrong question."

Dimtri stared at him before replying, "And the correct one is?"

"Why the hell did they split?"

"Eh!"

"Listen I know we all liked Ruth and we all wish that they'd sorted themselves out before...well ...before... but just look at Jane, she's feisty, intelligent, and well read. You don't get on that Bardfest committee through being an airhead with an intimate knowledge of Okay magazine. For starters I bet she knows all about that Coriolanus bod Harry keeps mentioning." While the other two gazed at him, stunned at such a long speech from the normally succinct Calum he added, "and don't tell me she wasn't a looker with those big grey eyes and that light auburn hair."

Erin, whose own eyes had looked sceptical at the start of this utterance, suddenly acquired a slight glint of jealousy as she hastened to enlighten Calum as to the nature and function of hair dye. Meanwhile Dimitri was pondering Calum's words as he reconsidered the events of a few moments previously.

"Erin unlikely as it may sound, our relationship expert here could be right – I've just seen her argue Harry down, he even had to plead with her, how often does that happen? And she does look pretty good for a woman who's nearly Harry's age. Underneath that shirt I'd guess she's still got a figure that would have him groping for his opera glasses." Noticing that Erin's expression had veered from Calum towards himself and was shaded to include a wide eyed look of warning Dimtri hastily added, 'It's just an observation."

A little too late he realised that Erin's glare was not solely the product of the green eyed monster as a quiet voice behind him said softly, "It's well to be seen, or rather heard, that you've been trained by Harry."

Whirling round to see Jane directly behind him Dimitri felt highly embarrassed, as did Calum and Erin. The alarmed expression on their faces reminded Jane forcibly of a group of sixth formers caught smoking behind the bicycle sheds. The sight of three such highly trained operatives terrified by the boss's ex made her laugh out loud, "Don't worry I won't tell Harry. When you hit your fifties being described as 'fit' is quite a compliment." 'Not mention the pleasure of annoying a woman half my age. The Glamour Girl of the Grid looks fit alright, fit to spit.'

All three visibly relaxed as Dimitri said, nodding towards the now blinded office windows, "And Jane – can I thank you for drawing Harry's fire?"

Jane, in the mood to be slightly mischievous, smiled warmly at Dimitri, 'That should get Ms MI5's goat' "That's alright. I know what Harry's like when he's off on one. Wanting to choke him is an ex-spouse's prerogative."

As she looked at him a pang hit her, so young, so handsome and about the same age as her own son. Oh God, Graham was yet another issue she didn't want to update Harry about. Pushing these thoughts away she continued, "Erin, Harry said can you tell Laura Dixon to be ready to either go to my home, either with me or on her own. I need to get some clothes that fit, at the moment I look like a walking advertisement for the Vagrancy Act."

To Jane's confusion the three spooks broke into a simultaneous smirk forcing her to enquire, "Em ... what's up?"

"I'm not sure we should say but – ." Erin decided to spill the beans. She hoped that in doing so she'd made an accurate assessment in respect of Jane's sense of humour and spirit of discretion. If she was wrong and Jane blabbed to Harry they could all be in trouble. "Okay Jane. A few weeks ago Harry overheard Laura referring to him as the 'last of the dinosaurs' she doesn't know this and is now wondering why she gets the ..err..."

Jane finished for her, 'The worst assignments he can produce – how very flattering. What's he got planned for her next week. Staking out the sewers of London?"

"Quite possibly yes. Actually Calum's lucky Harry didn't hear his reply."

"Well?"

"I told her that when the dinosaurs were around they did a lot of indiscriminate damage trampling on smaller fry."

To Erin's relief Jane chuckled with obvious amusement. "True, although personally I've always thought he's more like a V1 bomb. You know makes a horrible row, goes deadly silent and then kaboom you don't know what's hit you."

Harry emerging from his office was confronted by the sight of all four of them choked by paroxysms of laughter, which was as unexpected as it was suspicious.

"Well, I see you got your laugh Jane – a joke I can share?"

Some explanation was required, while his staff were still trying to come up with one that might just pass muster, Jane, thinking on her feet, hastened to reply, "I was just telling them a tale about one of my colleagues, a detention and some superglue."

Looking at all three heads nodding in surprised agreement Harry decided not to enquire further. It might have been true but somehow he doubted it. Jane looked the picture of innocence, not a good sign. If she could tell when he was lying he could do likewise. For the first time it occurred to him that he could inadvertently have introduced onto the Grid an even more ominous stumbling block to his personal respect agenda than Jane's potentially lurid revelations about their married life. His team seemed to be unbending towards her, even treating her as one of themselves. The more likeable they found her the more they'd probably begin to wonder what sort of shitty deal he'd given her to make them so estranged – the difficulty being that they'd be right. With a perspective produced through age and an increasing sense of emotional isolation he could now see clearly how appallingly he'd treated her. By her sheer temporary presence Jane was forcing him into some very uncomfortable reappraisals of his life and behaviour. 'Enough of this Pearce, you're the boss so do your job.'

"Mr Reed, can you continue with the tasks I set earlier? I appreciate it's a heavy workload, use junior officers if absolutely necessary. Mr Levendis did you get the equipment I need? No I thought not, then I'll collect it on our way out. Jane, Erin you will follow on behind us, about ten minutes later, no nearer, everyone clear about that?"

Looking at the ensemble of spooks, was there a collective noun, 'a spy of spook perhaps.' Jane began to appreciate why, despite never setting foot on the Grid before today, it felt so familiar. It carried within it the distinct atmosphere of a school in which the intelligent but unruly pupils were regularly chastised by a stern Headmaster. In a different milieu she could just picture a begowned Harry, eyebrows bristling beneath a mortar board as he barked, "Detention Levendis for ignoring orders, Ms Watts remind me about the ruling relating to short skirts? And as for you Reed, five hundred lines for impertinence.'

Before she could fantasise further Harry's voice brought her back to reality, "Jane, I don't know what you're grinning at, but if you're coming kindly follow us to the pods, unless you've something better to do, such as deconstructing 'The Taming of the Shrew.'

"Actually Harry given your temper I think 'The Tempest' is the more appropriate title at the moment."

Once the quartet had safely whooshed their way through the pods without threat of immediate return Calum called over to one of the junior officers.

"Laura, can I advise you to brush up on your Shakespeare?"

The poem part quoted by Harry was written by Robert Frost (1874-1963) and is called 'The Road Not Taken.' The other line comes from Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'.

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