Harry is away and is not to be contacted under any circumstances, had been the message which Ros had sent out to those she had decided needed to know, effectively leaving herself open to awkward questions or making a mistake having worked non-stop from the moment that the picture of him lying in a pool of blood had been posted on the internet. The decision as to whether or not she should just go ahead and appoint Tariq Masood, given that his photo has him posing in a tee shirt with a logo saying everyone needs a geek in their lives, when his CV suggests he will be a more than adequate replacement for Malcolm and the not so small matter that they also need a new senior analyst, since the traitorous Connie had tried to save her own skin by killing Ben in a way that will live long in the memory of those who had seen his body and more so because she had done it on the grid, are appointments which are tipping beyond necessary. Which means that if anything were to happen that amounted to a National Emergency, would see the re appearance of a very irate DG who she had recently called a fool and or the new Chairman of the JIC that Harry has already crossed swords with.
What she really needs she decides rather than worry about what might or might not happen during Harry's absence is a strong cup of coffee and to remember that the resulting shortfall has brought her and Jo closer together, whereas the chance of the best candidate when it comes to filling the vacant analyst post returning she believes is unlikely, or will she suggest it until Harry and Ruth have been given time to heal their differences and at their pace, which means it's just as well she's renewed her subscription to the Harry Pearce life choice club, to ensure that the city she lives in and the realm that it represents are defended at whatever cost to her personally, because how long is a piece of string when it comes to Harry and Ruth is the question that only they can answer.
.
With more optimism than Ros is currently imagining in Ruth's case having stopped panicking despite Jo having called to say that she and Harry didn't need her hanging around so she was going to spend the night at her mum's which Ruth had accepted as another kindness rather than seeing it as set up, which had coincided with her pulling on one of Jo's jumpers because she simply didn't have anything that didn't remind her of Cyprus, or was warm enough plus having concluded that if she Harry stood any chance whatsoever of forming a relationship in the way that had been implied before she had gone away, not only did they need the support of the people who knew their history but that this evening they needed to be honest with each other.
Which being them, when the doorbell rang despite Harry having already called to apologise that he was going to be late because he was stuck in traffic meant the list of favours that Ruth knew she could only ask of Harry had become way beyond her capability of voicing or at least that's what she'd thought, only to become less so when he surprised her by leaning down and kissing her on the cheek before standing up and with a look which implied he was expecting to feel the full force of her hand across his face was so unlike Harry that it made her smile and him in return relax.
Not sufficiently to prevent the conversation from plummeting to anything short of being insignificant when they were sitting at what they were both painfully aware was Jo's table, in that they both agreed that the weather wasn't very pleasant and the forecast even worse, until the moment when he was pouring her a second glass of wine and out of the blue as far as Ruth was concerned, 'what is it you're not telling me and don't say it's nothing because your nothing is my something,' he said, putting his hand on top of hers, effectively forcing her to look at him and when she didn't look away and after a deep breathe gave him the courage to add, 'then you're in luck because I happen to have a couple of days off so if you'd like to of course we could go and see Malcolm.'
The shock at the thought of spending a day with him or the relief that Malcolm he was sure would be willing to help her he didn't know, but what was clear was that she was struggling with what she saw as an unsolvable problem given that she was supposedly dead, to transfer whatever amount of money that was presumably in an account in Cyprus to an account here, given that all the documents were in the name of her alias, causing him realise that if he didn't tell her that Malcolm had bought himself a small cottage on the south coast so going to see him would amount to a day out not just a trip across London, then there was every chance she would either hit the roof or worse still burst into tears.
That she did neither before saying, 'that would be lovely thank you,' before wandering into the kitchen to make coffee for him and tea for her, he wasn't expecting or when they rang Malcolm who said he couldn't possibly get it all done in a day but there were some lovely shops and as it was less crowded than in London why didn't they both stay over? Rather than bolt she stayed put.
.
Arriving at Jo's the following morning with a bag packed for what had morphed into three days since Ros had rostered him off over the weekend, no prizes for guessing why when he had rung her to say that they were going to see Malcolm, he was holding back on the amount of optimism he was allowing himself. Not knowing that the only comment Jo had made was that she hoped they had a lovely time when Ruth had been packing what had included another of Jo's jumpers in the hope that Malcolm's idea of some lovely shops matched both the style she liked and what she could afford, whilst being pretty sure that Harry himself who in all truth she had decided had been lovely the previous evening would help her out in the short term, plus the idea of a break away from London after what had happened, had for the first time since she had been back allowed her to sleep through the night.
Helped even further because when Harry pulled up in front of the flats he was driving the same car as he had done before she had left, which meant that once he'd loaded their luggage and opened the door, because whatever else Harry might be when it came to her he had always been a gentleman, allowed her to settle back in a familiar seat prepared to enjoy their time away and not worry as she had in the past about what people might think, because as far as Harry was concerned it seemed that nothing had changed and then as if to prove a point, 'I can't remember the last time I had a day off, never mind go away,' he said, before adding in a typical Harry fashion, 'tell me if you're not warm enough.'
.
What neither of them had considered was why Malcolm had decided to rent a cottage in Fairlight which was a small village within spitting distance of Hastings on one side and Rye on the other, plus being surrounded by several more well-known villages that covered an area where properties cost almost as much as they did in London?
Until at the end of a two hour drive, during which time the conversation had been restricted to the amount of traffic, what the winter might be like and if it was going to rain during the time they were away and that they still had a mutual love of classical music, without verbalising at least to each other how much better they were both feeling, until they turned off the main road and after a couple of hundred yards came face to face with a village green that had a duckpond in the middle and a row of small cottages surrounding it.
Which was so at odds with what they had both been imagining that when Ruth asked, 'is it just me that feels as though I've been transported to somewhere that we can actually have a conversation where we don't talk in riddles?'
That Harry not only agreed, but having picked up on the we, was in addition to trying to prevent his jaw from disengaging upping his optimism to heights that went way beyond talking, but because this was Ruth and heaven forbid that he had to tell Ros that he had balls it up, just smiled and said, 'absolutely.'