Autumn Leaves Burning Part IV

[Silktie]

DAY FIVE

The M1 North

As he drives steadily north through the early morning mist, Kenny Morris glances at his passenger every now and then. She is dozing against the window, using her scarf as a pillow. He wonders what her story is. Dimitri sometimes uses him for deniable jobs like these, and when his boyhood friend tells him not to ask any questions, he obeys, knowing it is better for his own safety to know as little as possible. All he was told was that he had to pick up a package from a specific bus stop on the outskirts of London, and take it wherever it wants to go. He arrived to find a dark-haired, intense looking woman with a medium sized suitcase. She asked to go to Whitby, via Leeds, and sat beside him tensely until they left London behind. Only then did she relax and settle herself more comfortably. She hasn’t spoken to him since making her request, and as he observes her features out of the corner of his eye, she looks exhausted and on edge, even in her sleep. But then her mouth unexpectedly curves in a gentle smile, and he wonders what she’s dreaming about. He turns his eyes back to the road, making sure he’s well within the speed limit. Best not to attract undue attention by being caught speeding. A road sign flashes by, indicating two hundred and twenty kilometres to Leeds. He glances at the clock on the dashboard, and grunts in satisfaction. They’re making good time. His passenger was adamant that she should reach Whitby by seven tonight. Barring an unforeseen calamity, they should make it in plenty of time.

* * *

London

William Towers dresses meticulously for his day. As he does so, his thoughts go back to the events of the previous day and the JIC Chairman’s panicky call. He smiles with pleasure at the recollection. Richard Dolby is a pompous, bureaucratic coward in Towers’ opinion, and he took great delight in heaping further misery on the man. This morning he is invited to take breakfast with the PM, and he intends to use the more relaxed atmosphere to ask for the pardoning of Harry Pearce. Over the last year he has quietly worked towards this goal, by building up favours owed or gathering information that senior intelligence officials would prefer to rather not come out. He has wheedled and indirectly threatened until he received the support of all senior intelligence officials, bar Dolby. Harry and Ruth’s disappearing act has now allowed Towers to put the final piece of the puzzle in place – the JIC Chairman’s support for the petition. It offers a way out of an expensive and no doubt doomed operation to try and find the two fugitives. It will also spare the Service’s blushes should it fail to locate them. When faced with the fact that he was the only one that didn’t want the pardon to be granted, Dolby capitulated reluctantly, knowing that refusing would expose his personal reasons behind persecuting Harry Pearce with such vengeance. However, the Home Secretary is well aware of Dolby’s professional jealousy towards Harry, and suspects the man will continue to look for him surreptitiously, if only to prove that he is the better spook.

Towers regards his appearance critically before meeting his own eyes in the mirror. He likes to win, and the glint of victory is evident in the gaze staring back at him. And this time it is further sweetened by the fact that he feels he is doing something that is really worthwhile. He has grown to admire and respect Harry over the year they worked together, and honestly feels a terrible injustice was done in convicting him of treason. Now, at last, that record may be expunged and the man allowed his freedom. Should the PM agree to the pardoning, Harry can be a free man in a month’s time. All he needs to do is to stay out of Dolby’s clutches for that period.
“Godspeed, Harry,” he mumbles to his mirror image before turning away and gathering up his papers.

* * *

Whitby

Harry is walking again. He awoke before dawn, and decided to get up and watch the sun rise. He has been walking along the beach for the last hour, contemplating the fact that this may be the last time he sees the sun rise over England. A sudden swell of emotion makes him blink rapidly, and he sinks down on the sand and rests his head in his hands. Jumbled images of his many years of service run through his mind. He has never shied away from acknowledging the unsavoury things he has done in the defence of the realm, and he doesn’t do so now. He faces it all and once again comes to the same conclusion; if he had to do it over again, he would. There is nothing he wants to change – not even the abject failure he made of his marriage. All of it has shaped the man who sits here now. And that man is at peace with the choices he made over Albany. Despite the guilt he feels over giving away a state secret, he knows that he would not have been able to live with himself if he’d made any other, and his thoughts naturally meander to her.
Ruth.

He continues to vacillate between intense hope that she’ll come, and thinking that she’ll be better off if she doesn’t. What is he offering her, after all? A life to be spent on the run, with a false name, and forever the fear lurking in the back of their minds that they’ll be found and thrown in prison? It is not fair of him to ask that of her. Perhaps the honourable thing to do is to leave now, before she finds him, and take the choice out of her hands. Or is that the dishonourable thing to do? His heart reminds him, yet again, that he never asked her to come, but that she offered to out of her own accord. It is a comforting thought, and it is the main reason preventing him from leaving without her. That, and his desire to know for sure, one way or the other, whether she wants a future with him in it. Thinking about her makes him restless and he looks at his watch. It is seven in the morning. There are thirteen hours to fill, and he stands up, brushes the sand from his jeans and begins to walk back along the beach. The day stretches before him endlessly, and he knows it will feel like the longest day of his life. He resolves to take it one minute at a time. First he will find a place where he can have breakfast and read the paper in relative quiet. Then he will make his final preparations, and try not to fret over whether she’ll come or not. That, he realises, is a hopeless resolution, but he makes it anyway, because today is a dangerous day to be distracted.

* * *

Leeds

Kenny drums his fingers on the steering wheel and glances at the clock again. Once they entered Leeds, his mysterious passenger had woken up and directed him to a smallholding a few miles outside the city. She ordered him to wait in the car and had rung the bell, spoke briefly to whoever opened the door and disappeared inside. That was almost forty minutes ago, and he is getting worried. Has something happened to her? Should he go and check? Then again, he doesn’t even know her name, so what will he say to whoever opens the door? He shifts in his seat and glances at the clock again, then makes up his mind. He will call Dimitri. Just as he begins to scroll through his Contacts, the door of the house opens and the woman emerges. She is carrying something, and he stares in surprise. When she gets in beside him, he appraises her anew. The more he learns about her, the more she intrigues him. She turns her grey-blue gaze on him and smiles apologetically. “Sorry I took so long. Shall we get on?”
Kenny smiles back, finding it impossible not to reciprocate her lovely smile, starts the car and moves off.
“Will we make it in time?” she asks anxiously, obviously worried that the amount of time she spent in that house was ill-advised.
He nods firmly, eager to reassure her. “Yes, er... Ma’am. We’ll make it.”
She looks at him, her eyes sparkling with amusement over the ’Ma’am’, but she doesn’t provide him with a name. He is strangely disappointed with that.

* * *

London

They have done their business over breakfast, and now they are lingering over coffee. The Home Secretary has delivered the support of their coalition partners for one of the PM’s pet projects – the reform of the NHS – and now the PM is in a convivial mood. Towers judges the atmosphere ripe for the final issue he wants to discuss.
“Prime Minister, do you remember Sir Harry Pearce?”
“Yes, of course. The senior Intelligence officer convicted of treason – I’m not likely to forget that.”
The PM looks at Towers shrewdly. “If I remember correctly, you spoke on behalf of the man, and with passion too.”
The Home Secretary proceeds circumspectly. “Yes. The situation is rather unique. It’s not a straightforward case of treason by any means.”
“How so?” The PM can’t hide his interest. Few men in a position of power can resist the lure and the mystery of the Secret Services, and he is no different.
Towers notices this, and exploits it shamelessly. He explains what happened in extensive detail, and is gratified that the PM seems genuinely interested. When he finishes, the PM picks up his teaspoon and toys with it thoughtfully.
“Hmm. It seems a pity to have lost such an experienced man to these unfortunate circumstances. I suppose there’s something noble in what he did – saving the life of his officer. What do you think he would have done if Albany actually worked?”
The question surprises Towers, but he does not hesitate. “Harry Pearce has one of the surest moral codes I’ve seen in any man. I don’t think his conscience would have allowed him to give Albany away under those circumstances.” He is silent for a moment. “He would have sacrificed his officer,” he concludes. And it would have destroyed him, he thinks, but he keeps that thought to himself.
“What happened to him?” the PM wants to know.
“He is under house arrest.” Towers prudently does not mention Harry’s disappearance.
“And why are you bringing this up now?”

This is the moment of truth. Towers reaches for the folder on the chair next to him, and extracts the petition. “Because I have a petition, supported by all members of management of the Intelligence community, to pardon him.”
He watches the PM carefully, and is happy to note that his friendly demeanour does not change. The PM glances at the petition cursorily before putting it aside.
“Let’s put all the cards on the table, William. It’s you more than anyone else who wants this, isn’t it? Tell me why.”
Towers smiles ruefully; a man doesn’t become the PM by being an idiot, apparently. He doesn’t find it an easy question to answer, but he tries his best. “Because there are few men that I respect more than Harry Pearce. He could be a difficult, moody bastard, but I quickly learnt to listen to his advice. I have never met anyone more committed to the best interests of the country, even to his own personal detriment. He was willing to make the hard decisions, and made them without thought of personal ambition or self-interest.” He looks at the PM. “He is an honourable man, and God knows we don’t meet many of those in our line of work.”
The PM regards his companion thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak so highly of anyone.”
Towers says nothing, and the PM nods.
“All right, I’ll consider it.”

* * *

Whitby

It is half past seven in the evening, and Harry moves towards the end of the pier slowly. He is too early; he knows that. And it is terrible tradecraft to hang around in a conspicuous place for a half hour or longer; he knows that too. But he can’t help himself. Now that the time is almost here, he can’t pretend any longer. He wants her to come. He needs her to come, if only to say goodbye. Is this how she felt all those years ago, waiting for the boat on that cold Thames dock? Increasingly his thoughts are going back to that day, to everything he felt and thought, because this time the roles are reversed, and perhaps her feelings now are mirroring his back then. Or perhaps not. He hasn’t had any contact with her for a year; can he even attempt to understand what she is feeling?

If she does come, she will be right on time. This knowledge makes his early arrival even more foolish, but he doesn’t leave. He stays rooted to the spot, leaning his back against the railing and watching the other people walking around the pier in the growing dusk. In an effort to distract himself, he plays a guessing game about the professions of the people around him. The neatly dressed man with the well-manicured hands and bored looking wife – an accountant; the young girl in the flashy outfit and too much make-up – an aspiring actress or singer; the old man in the thick woollen jumper with the weathered face and rough hands – a fisherman, and so on. When he glances at his watch again, it is five minutes to eight. He scans the surroundings, but there is no sign of her.

A sense of dread begins to settle in his stomach and he turns his back on the pier, staring out to the ocean unseeingly. He forces himself to think about how long he will wait here before he gives up. Forever, his heart answers immediately, but the practical side of him begins to calculate how long the boat can be delayed. It needs to be far from here by daybreak, so perhaps another hour would be acceptable, but no more than that. All the while he is subconsciously listening for footsteps behind him, waiting for a small hand to touch his shoulder. He is also half expecting a heavy hand to grasp his arm, belonging to someone who wants to take him back to that house in Sussex. But he only hears two children running, and the heavy tread of the old man moving away from him. He is too afraid to look at his watch again. There is a light pattering sound behind him – a small dog, he decides, and becomes aware of a small furry shape sitting near him. He looks down to find a Jack Russell puppy staring at him inquisitively, and its mischievous face and alert eyes makes him smile. Slowly he squats down and holds out his hand for it to sniff. It does so, the wet nose touching his fingers briefly. Apparently satisfied that he was a friend rather than a foe, it begins wagging its tail enthusiastically and bounds forward, trying to clamber up his leg to lick his face. Harry laughs and picks it up. “Hello. You’re a friendly little...” He holds it away from him briefly and peers underneath, “...fellow, aren’t you?”

He is distracted by the puppy and only realises someone has approached him when a pair of flat-heeled ladies’ boots appears in his field of vision.
“Oh,” he says as he begins to straighten up. “Is he yours...?” His words falter when he looks into her face.
“Ruth,” he breathes, clutching the dog to him and staring at her, lost for words.
She smiles at him, but it is a tight, tense smile. “Do you like him?” she asks, her eyes dipping to the wriggling dog in his arms. It is a superfluous question, because it is obvious to her that it is love at first sight on both sides, but she is too nervous to come up with anything more intelligent to say.
“I..., er, yes, he’s gorgeous,” Harry replies, totally flustered.
“He’s for you,” Ruth says. “I mean I bought him, but as a gift. For you. I was going to get a bitch, but when I got there this little guy was so adorable that I couldn’t resist.” She knows she is rambling, and stops talking, and they stare at each other, lost in the moment.
“You came,” he blurts, and his voice cracks with the emotion of it all. A horrible thought occurs to him and he searches her face. “Or are you only here to give me the dog, and say goodbye?”
She stiffens. “Is that what you’d prefer?”
Hope and terror vie for dominance in his expression as he takes a step towards her. “No. I want you to come with me. But it’s selfish, and I can’t ask you to-“
“Yes.”
Harry is startled into silence. When he goes completely still, she realises he has misinterpreted her meaning. “No! I don’t mean yes it’s selfish, I mean yes I want to come with you. Oh, God...”
She makes a helpless gesture and looks down, defeated by their inability to communicate clearly. He laughs softly and steps even closer, and she feels his hand against her cheek, gently lifting her face so he can look into her eyes. Despite his smile there are tears in his own when he says hoarsely, “Please come with me, Ruth. I’m lost without you.”
“Harry,” she says, filling his name with love, before framing his face in both her hands and kissing him.

He is still holding the dog in one arm, but his other folds around her and draws her against him as they continue to kiss. She doesn’t want to stop, but a part of her registers that they are drawing attention to themselves and she pulls back. “We better go. We’re too exposed here.”
Harry nods, a little dazed by events. He slips an arm around her and guides her back along the pier. Her hand rubs his back as they walk, and he’s happier than ever. The puppy yawns loudly, making them both laugh.
“What’s his name?” Harry asks.
“I thought I’d leave that up to you. He’s your dog.”
He pulls her closer against his side. “No. He’s our dog.”
Ruth looks at him, touched by the sentiment, and lays her head on his shoulder. She likes the sound of that.
A contented silence settles between them, until Harry says suddenly, “How about Charlie?”
She stops walking and turns to him, grasping the meaning behind the name immediately. Her own thoughts go back to her discussion with his daughter and a slow smile spreads across her face.
“Yes. It’s perfect, Harry.” She reaches out a hand to stroke the dog’s head. “Charlie,” she says softly.
Harry watches her, his gaze gentle and adoring. He presses a kiss to her temple, and they walk on, gradually melting away into the night.

* * *

One month later
London

The Home Secretary steps onto the Grid, with the JIC Chairman trailing behind. Dimitri is first to spot them and comes over. “Home Secretary, can I help you?”
“Ah, yes. Can you gather everyone round? We want to make an announcement.”
Once all Section D personnel are accounted for, Towers speaks up. “It concerns your former boss, Sir Harry. I know that there is a lot of ill-feeling about the way he was treated, but today we have some good news on that front.”
He turns to the man next to him. “Richard, would you do the honours?” he requests sweetly, as though he is doing him a big favour.
Dolby’s face scrunches up distastefully, but he says dutifully, “Thank you, Home Secretary.” He looks at the ring of faces briefly before announcing, “Yesterday the Prime Minister granted Sir Harry Pearce a full pardon for his role in the events that led to Albany ending up in the hands of the Chinese. His professional record will be cleared of all mention of treason. He will not return to work, but will receive his full pension and other benefits due to him. The Prime Minister also wishes to laud Sir Harry for his years of service, and wants him to know that the country owes him a great debt. Thank you.”

When this episode is related to new recruits in the years that follow, it is said that the resulting cheer could be heard many floors down. It is also said that Richard Dolby retired a month later and disappeared into mediocre obscurity, never to be heard from again.

* * *

Three months later

Tariq corners Dimitri in the Men’s Room. “I want to show you something.”
He draws a printout from his pocket and hands it over. It is an article from the North Devon Gazette, dated two weeks ago. It gives the results of the local Pub Quiz competition, with the names of the winning team’s members listed. Among the names are Malcolm Wynn-Jones, Harry Pearce and Ruth Pearce. Dimitri beams at Tariq. “The opposition never stood a chance, poor bastards.”

They go back to their desks, happy in the knowledge that sometimes things do work out for those who really deserve it. As he settles behind his desk, Dimitri looks at the article again, and smiles. He lifts his coffee mug in a toast.
“Stinygiasou, Harry and Ruth.”

Fin


Thank you all for reading, and for the kind reviews.

[Tea Lady]

Oh my goodness! Are you trying to kill me Silktie?!! I thought Ruth had got the dog as a leaving present for Harry and she was staying. It was just going to be Harry and Charlie in Rome. Harry and Charlie supping champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower out of a dog bowl!!

Great end to a wonderful story.

[richliga]

Wiiiiii.... My jack russell dog is ALSO called Charlie.... Ahhhhwww... I knew she would get him a dog.... This was lovely!!!!

[pookster]

Wonderful finish to a terrific story. Loved how the HS was able to clear Harry's name. Loved Harry's internal debate about Ruth's departure and sighed when he thought he'd wait forever. And a typical Ruth and Harry reunion. Beautifully done. A giggle at the end too with the pub quiz team. Thanks for sharing.

[pennyfeather]

Ruth and Harry together at last! Loved the touch with the dog named charlie. Any link with that first date proposal and the Chaplin film should be used in s10. Such a lovely payoff.

[Sparky]

A great end to a fantastic fic, as ever, really enjoyed reading it!

[LINDA]

Thankyou for the happy ending.I really enjoyed this.

[thegrandtour]

I had forgotten to review this chapter! *shame on me!* A beautiful ending to a beautiful story with everything I love: the descriptions (the HS getting ready for his meeting or Ruth sleeping in the car), Harry pondering, watching the people and playing with Charlie. And last but not least, I love Harry and Ruth walking along the pier with Ruth rubbing his back, in a familiar gesture
So I would say thank you again and defnitely "full marks" again for those burning leaves