PART IV

Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.

John le Carré, The Looking Glass War

Western compound, Moscow
26 November 1986, morning

Ruth sat in her tiny kitchenette, the bowl of tasteless cornflakes in front of her untouched. All her attention was on the sheet at her elbow. It consisted of numerous paper strips pasted together, and from it Harry the journalist's face stared back at her. Except he was not a journalist at all. It was a communique sent by Dieter Hoffman to his headquarters in Bern, informing them that an MI-5 operative, Harry Pearce, was currently in Moscow for unknown reasons. No wonder he knew so much about the intelligence world – he was a part of it.

She did not know what to make of that. Many people viewed the shady world of spies with distaste, but Ruth had never really been one of them. She recognised the need for such people; she knew there was truth in Harry's assertion the other night that every country had interests to protect, and that spies formed an integral part of this. And if she was honest, she secretly thought that unknown world terrifically exciting, even though she knew that it was probably not quite as glamorous as it was made out to be in the movies. Still, to be in that world, to be in the know, must be thrilling. And now, of course, she had met two spies already without even knowing it. Because the sheet in her hand proved beyond all doubt that Dieter Hoffman worked for the Swiss Intelligence Service, just like Harry had said. She wondered what other information could be gleaned from the pile of shredding in that bag – she had focused on putting together this sheet first simply because the photo on it made it easier to identify the various pieces. With time and patience she could put together a lot more, but the question was whether she should? Was it wise, or would she put herself in danger by doing so? She would surely be fired if she was caught, and that could jeopardise the job she had lined up with the translation company. Was indulging her curiosity worth that price? And more importantly, what would she do if she found something pertinent to Britain? Was she obligated to inform someone? Like Harry?

That question brought her back to the blond spook, and even more dilemmas. Now that she knew what he was, should she cancel going to the ballet with him? Surely it was not desirable to go out with a spy. And yet, spies were people too, so why shouldn't she spend time with him? He had been kind enough to save her from Dieter Hoffman, and to warn her that the man was not quite what he appeared to be. She sighed in frustration, well aware of the irony of that argument. She might as well admit it – the thought that Harry Pearce was a spy only increased her interest in him. Her eye caught the clock and she jumped up. "Bugger!" She was late for the bus. Hurriedly she hid the document and rushed out the door, and to her relief the bus was still idling at the bus stop. The conductor gave her a mock stern look as she ran up, followed by a kindly smile as she puffed, "Sorry!"

She nodded at a few of her colleagues and took her usual seat by the window, and as the bus trundled out of the compound her thoughts went back to the conundrum she was grappling with. Was it a mistake to go to the ballet with Harry the spy? Would she be tarred with the same tainted brush of espionage by association? If the Swiss knew who he was, did the Russians know as well? So many questions, and no easy answers… She gazed out of the window, the weak sun lighting up the snow-covered pavement. Suddenly the city looked a lot less drab as the ice crystals glistened and reflected the light. This morning there were a few more pedestrians about, and one caught her eye. He strode along, clad in a calf-length black coat, and his hands swung by his sides, covered in black leather gloves. His head was bare and his pale hair shimmered in the early morning rays. Harry. Her heart-rate sped up and she stared at him, fascinated. Harry Pearce, MI-5 spy. What was he doing here in Moscow? What was he like? He glanced up as the bus approached and for a few seconds their eyes met, and then they were past him. But his expression of surprised delight was burnt onto her retinas, and she closed her eyes to keep the image there. He had been pleased to see her, and that knowledge decided her. She would go to the ballet with him, and bugger the consequences.

0o0

Harry's apartment
Late afternoon

Harry sat crouched over the tape recorder, listening to Connie and Popov's conversation for the umpteenth time. He analysed every word, every inflection, trying to put his finger on the cause of his unease. What was he missing? Popov hadn't seemed nervous, but that could be explained by the fact that the Russian believed he was the handler and Connie his asset. Wasn't that the whole point of Operation Renaissance? He rewound again and rested his forehead on his folded hands, closing his eyes. Connie sounded confident, flirty, which was what he would expect, but there was also something else. He grasped for the right word, and finally settled on 'subservient'. But surely that was also understandable; she was simply playing her role as asset to perfection. 'We have history, and he trusts me. That is his one weakness,' Connie was saying, 'he wants to trust his close colleagues implicitly, and that makes him blind to any treachery within his own team.' He rewound once more. 'He trusts me. That is his one weakness-'

He stopped the tape and sat immobile as he let the words wash over him. Could it be…? No. Surely not. This was Connie James, for God's sake, one of the best intelligence officers he'd ever worked with. He felt guilty for even entertaining the idea that she might be a traitor, and that thought brought him back to Elena Gavrik yet again. She had him jumping at his own shadow now, and it had to stop. "Enough," he said aloud and removed the headphones with an irritated gesture. He was going in circles, getting nowhere. It was time to let it rest, to clear his head and think about something else. In an hour he would escort Ruth to the ballet, and the prospect brought a smile to his face. Connie, Popov and his doubts could take a backseat for the rest of the night.

0o0

19:00

He knocked on her door at precisely seven o'clock, immaculate in his tuxedo. He had taken care over his appearance, hoping to make a better impression than he managed at their first meeting. He was unaccountably nervous – he who had seduced quite a few women with commensurate ease in the line of duty. But perhaps that was precisely the reason for his nerves; this had nothing to do with work. It was personal, and he was the first to admit that his record in personal relationships was not exactly stellar. In fact, his failed marriage was proof of how ill equipped he was for this sort of thing, and yet here he was, hoping to impress a woman ten years younger than him. He took a deep breath in an effort to settle his nerves, just as she opened the door and smiled shyly at him.

He stared. God, she looked beautiful. Dressed in a demure, figure-hugging velvet dress of a deep midnight blue, she looked elegant and out of his league, and he had to clear his throat before he could get out a greeting. When he told her she looked beautiful, she blushed becomingly and it eased his nerves – perhaps she also felt a little out of her depth in the fancy clothes. Well, they could be out of their depth together, he thought, and the idea gave him heart. He remembered seeing her in the discotheque and the sense he had got that she was a kindred spirit. Maybe tonight he would find out whether he'd been right. His eyes dropped to her feet, and he was happy to see her wearing sensible shoes. His plans for the night required a bit of walking, which would have been awkward on stilettos. "Shall we?" he asked and held her coat for her, and she dipped her head and smiled.
"Yes."

He guided her towards the gate and she frowned. "Aren't we taking the bus?" she enquired. There was a bus running between the compound and the Bolshoi for each performance and she had assumed they would take it.
"No," Harry said and glanced at her. "I thought we'd take the Metro. Do it like the Muscovites do."
Ruth's steps slowed and she looked concerned. "The Metro?"
"Yes." He was looking at her curiously now. "Is something wrong?"
"Er, no… It's just that the embassy advised staff not to use it. For safety reasons," she clarified.
Harry stopped walking and looked at her in astonishment. "Really? So you've never been on the Metro?"
She shook her head, feeling a bit silly. He processed this wordlessly, his warm brown gaze fixed on her face, and she felt herself falling into his eyes. When he finally spoke, he leant into her and dropped his voice to a more intimate register. "Well then, Ruth. Would you like to risk it? I promise I'll take good care of you," he said, and the words flowed into her ears and warmed her from the inside. He is a spy, a small, increasingly distant voice warned, but she ignored it. To hell with good sense for this one night – she was going to the Bolshoi ballet with a dashing spy, and she was going to make the most of it.
"All right," she agreed with a small smile, and he noticed her dimples for the first time. He had to resist the urge to touch them, instead offering his arm as he assured her, "It's quite safe, really. Most embassies are over-cautious when it comes to the safety of their employees in places like these. It's understandable. But what is the use of working in Moscow if you never see one of its most impressive wonders?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, lost, and he smiled mysteriously.
"You'll see," he promised, and after a short walk he guided her into the Novokuznetskaya station.

And she did see.
She stopped walking and gazed around her in awe. "Oh my God," she breathed, spellbound by the grandeur.
He watched her as she took in the ceiling mosaics, the bas-reliefs and the cast-bronze portraits of Russian war heroes with child-like marvel, his heart beating warmly in his chest.
"It's incredible," she exclaimed, looking at him with bright eyes. "Are all the Metro stations like this?"
"Most of them," he confirmed. "It's perhaps the only good thing to come from the Stalin era. He had it built to showcase the splendour of the Soviet Union to the world." He fell silent, looking around him, before adding as an afterthought, "In that, at least, he succeeded."
They walked around slowly, admiring each artwork as the locals flowed around them and moved towards the trains. Harry pointed to one of the ornate marble benches that lined the platform. "These benches were removed from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour before the Soviets demolished it in 1931. Quite a few of the stations have remnants from that church in them."
Ruth ran a hand over the smooth surface, admiring the workmanship. It was as though a whole new world had been opened up before her – a Moscow that she had never even dreamt could exist. It was exhilarating, and liberating, and she wanted more. She wanted to see all of them. She looked up into his face. "Will you show me the rest as well?" she asked eagerly, that small warning voice completely forgotten, and his face lit up.
"I'd be happy to," he agreed immediately, overjoyed that there would be an excuse to see her again. Now all he had to do was not fuck up this night.

0o0

On the train they were joined by many people similarly dressed in their glad-rags, chatting excitedly about the upcoming performance. Ruth sat next to Harry quietly, enchanted by the whole experience, and listened to the conversations flowing around them. Warmth radiated from the man next to her and seeped into her bloodstream. He was reassuringly solid and at ease, and she felt completely safe, confident that he could protect her from any possible danger. Not that there was any that she could see, and she realised the ridiculousness of the embassy directive. What other wonders had she missed out on by only going where the embassy had told her it was safe to go? Harry had opened her eyes to a whole new world, and she knew that she would never again simply take someone else's word for something. She would seek the facts for herself.

When they disembarked at Teatralnaya station, they once again lingered, walking around to admire the majolica bas-reliefs on the central hall's vaulted ceiling. There were 56 of them, each depicting the theatre arts of the Soviet Union.
"It's spectacular," Ruth enthused, and Harry nodded his agreement.
"The white marble on these pillars is also from the Church of Christ the Saviour," he informed her, following the fluted pylon upwards with his eyes until he reached the ceiling once more. In the bas-relief above his head, a Georgian couple in their national costume danced with each other for eternity. His gaze dropped to the woman at his side and followed the marbled column of her neck, revealed to him by the clasp that gathered her hair at the nape. He swallowed. "We'd better get a wriggle-on," he ventured, and she nodded and to his delight put her hand back into the crook of his arm.

When they emerged from the Metro station the snow-covered Theatre Square lay before them, bathed in light. At the far end the Bolshoi theatre stood in all its glory, guarded by a lit-up fountain and the quadriga sculpture above its entrance. It was a scene out of a fairy-tale and Harry heard Ruth take a sharp breath. He escorted her across the square, feeling happier than he had in years, and her hand curled more securely around his arm. The magnificence did not end once they entered. The interior was decorated in opulent red and gold, a reminder of the days when Russia had been ruled by the fantastically wealthy tsars. Harry had been here before, so he focussed on his companion rather than the surroundings. She took everything in with wide eyes and a delighted smile, and it reminded him of his daughter's expression when she'd visited an amusement park for the first time. He was momentarily overwhelmed by a revelation – that this was the first night in a long time that nothing was tainted by guilt. He breathed deeply, revelling in the sensation, and smiled at Ruth in gratitude. She beamed back at him as he led her to their private box.

The usher was a dour middle-aged Russian woman and she scrutinised their tickets carefully before stepping aside and letting them in. The door closed behind them and they were alone, screened off from the rest of the theatre by the red curtain drawn across the front of the box. Sounds drifted up towards them; the low rumble of a hundred conversations from the audience below, strains from a violin as the orchestra tuned their instruments, footsteps and laughter passing in the corridor behind them. But they were alone, cocooned together by the red velvet surrounding them, and their eyes found each other and held, pregnant with possibility. The air became charged and Harry held his breath, desire coursing through his veins. He wanted nothing more than to bend his head and kiss her, but he held back. It was too soon, she was too young, his divorce was barely two months old. He was a spook, tainted by his questionable deeds, and she was pure and innocent. But then she swayed almost imperceptibly towards him and he realised – she wanted him to kiss her. He was about to grant her wish when the lights flickered, signalling the start of the performance, and he closed his eyes. Christ, what was happening to him? Never before had he had such a strong reaction to a woman he'd just met. He shook his head in an effort to clear the fog of want, and stepped towards the curtain and opened it. By the time he turned back the lights had gone out, and he could not see her face clearly enough to know whether she felt similar disappointment at the interruption. He settled in the chair next to her, acutely aware of her presence, of any slight movement, of every breath. It was as though his every sense had been awakened by this woman, who he still knew so little about.

The performance began and he made a conscious effort to focus on it. There was nothing quite like the Bolshoi – the dancers were magnificent, the orchestra faultless, and for a while he was swept along as Irek Mukhamedov leapt and pirouetted across the stage with a dazzling combination of power and grace. But then he made the mistake of glancing at his companion, and he was lost once more. She was transfixed, fully immersed in the spectacle, and even in the faint light he could see her expression of pure joy. Her hand rested on the armrest between them, close to his, and if he moved his little finger only a couple of millimetres he could touch her. The hairs on the back of his hand rose in anticipation, his mouth went dry and he could feel sweat gather on his upper lip as he fought the impulse. It was too soon. Some instinct warned him that he needed to take care with her, that she was somehow different, that she had the potential to become the most important woman in his life if he could handle things the right way. He blinked, astounded by the revelation, and almost immediately the doubts set in. He did not believe in love at first sight, and yet… He had never before felt such a strong attraction to a woman he had just met. His infatuations normally grew over time, once he got to know them, their values, their intelligence. He had a weakness for intelligent women; he could not abide the thought of spending his time with an empty head, no matter how beautiful she might be. Perhaps he was on the rebound – there was ample evidence that men were wont to errors of judgement after a painful divorce. Or perhaps it was not. Perhaps it was due to the fierce intelligence that glimmered in those stormy grey eyes, the compassion he had witnessed on that first night, the endearing clumsiness. A quiver went through him, and he was about to give in and move his little finger when a sudden burst of applause jerked him out of his trance. She turned her head to him, beaming, and murmured, "Fantastic!" He could only nod in agreement, unable to form any words as he removed his hand and gripped it tightly with the other. It was too soon.

0o0

Late night

They walked back to the compound slowly, Ruth chattering enthusiastically about the performance, the Metro, the grandeur of the theatre. Harry mostly listened in enchanted indulgence, contributing the odd comment to keep the conversation flowing. He could no longer argue against it; he was hopelessly smitten. The question now was – what was he supposed to do about it? Should he pursue it and try to ascertain whether she had any interest in him? Was that fair? She didn't even know who he really was, and he could not tell her. He was here on an operation, pretending to be a journalist, and he could not jeopardise that. And that was when he realised – he did not want to start anything with Ruth under a deception. He wanted her to know who he was, what he was, what he was sometimes forced to do in the name of his country, and for her to accept him despite all of that.

By the time they reached her door an air of melancholy had settled upon him. She turned to him, too caught up in the magic of the evening to notice the change in his mood. "Thank you, Harry. For a wonderful evening." He could only nod and she continued, oblivious. "I love ballet – The Red Shoes is my favourite film – so I had always dreamt of seeing the Bolshoi live." Her gaze found his, bright with anticipation, and her next words rushed out, as though she was afraid she would not get them out at normal speed. "…Would you like to come in?" He hesitated, and that was when she realised that something was wrong. At last she noticed his air of reservation, and as soon as she did her gaze dropped to the ground. "Right. Of course not. Silly me," she rambled, humiliation oozing from every pore, and he realised to his horror that she had got the wrong end of the stick.
"No!" he exclaimed and reached out to still her hand, which was digging furiously in her bag for her keys. "It's not that I don't want to," he began, and faltered. How was he to explain matters to her without breaching the Official Secrets Act? Her gaze remained rooted to his shoes and his heart lurched; he could not leave her with the impression that he was not interested. "There are things you don't know," he began uncertainly, "about me. Things I can't tell you, no matter how badly I may wish to." The words fell dully upon the air between them and she showed no immediate reaction. His hand dropped from hers, acutely aware of the inadequacy of his explanation but at a loss as to how to make things clear to her. She took a shuddering breath and for an awful second he thought she was crying, but when she lifted her head her eyes were sparkling with relief, not tears.
"There's something I have to show you," she said, and before he had properly processed the words she had the door open and stepped inside. She did not look back to see whether he was following.

He hovered on the doorstep, caught unawares by the sudden shift in her demeanour, uncertain as to what he was supposed to do now. He had the notion that this was the point of no return – if he stepped into that apartment, there would be no going back. She had an irresistible pull on him and sooner or later he would break his vow not to start anything with her, and then she would be drawn into his shadowy life without even knowing it. No, he could not do that to her. She deserved better than that.

He was about to turn and walk away when she reappeared in the door and held out a sheet of paper to him wordlessly. It seemed to consist of many thin strips that had been pasted together, and he immediately recognised what it was – a shredded document put back together. He took it from her with growing trepidation, and when he looked at it his own face stared back at him. Below it in bold black letters the stark truth was spelt out: Harry Pearce, MI-5 officer.

tbc