Page 23 of Husband Material
Bridge de-bristled very slightly. “Oh.”
“Now maybe,” suggested Tom, “we can finish this conversation somewhere that isn’t incredibly public.”
Trying not to catch the eye of the Transport for London guard on the way out, we all trooped back to the truck and squeezed in.
“Found him, then?” observed Priya.
“Yes,” Bridge was sitting on Tom’s lap in the front seat and still not looking totally mollified. “And he’s going to explain everything, aren’t you?”
Tom surveyed the assembled band of demi-strangers. “You realise this is the opposite of operational security?”
“Just tell me.” Bridge could be very firm when she wanted to be.
“The woman in the photograph is married to a major drug smuggler we’re investigating. I was moving her into a safe house. We now have to move her to a different safe house, and I’m going to take myself off the case because somehow you got a picture of us together.”
“Sorry,” said Liz, “that was me. The Lord works in mysterious ways and all that.”
Behind his eyes, I could see Tom doing some very painful calculations. “And you sent it to Bridge?”
“And I sent it to Luc,” Bridge added.
“And,” I finished, “I sent it to…sort of the entire WhatsApp group?”
Tom thunked his head against Bridge’s shoulder. “Everybody. Delete. The picture. It’s important. Sorry, Bridge. I should have taken this week off.”
She kissed him on the forehead. “It’s okay. I knew you were in Intelligence. I just didn’t know you were James Bond.”
“You didn’t?” Tom risked a smile. “I thought that was why you wanted to marry me.”
James Royce-Royce leaned between the seats. “Oh, that would be a very bad call. James Bond only got married once, and she was dead by the end of the film.”
“James,” said Tom, “stop helping.”
“And…” Bridge seemed to be having a lot of feelings. “And she really was an informant? Not, like, an international sex assassin?”
“She’s an informant, Bridge. There are no international sex assassins. International assassins are just ordinary-looking blokes who stab you with an umbrella or slip you an exploding cigar.”
“And you haven’t bought her a necklace?”
It took me a moment to remember what she meant by that, but Tom got there immediately. “I haven’t even bought her a Joni Mitchell CD.”
“And we’re still getting married?”
Tom gazed up at her, with a loving exasperated expression that Oliver sometimes got when he was looking at me. “I fucking hope so. Otherwise you just compromised a major drug bust over nothing.”
They kissed, and they kept kissing for long enough that we all had to suddenly get very interested in our phones. Which was convenient because mine chose that exact moment to ring.
And, thank God, it was Oliver.
“Lucien,” he said. “I got your text and I just wanted to call to make sure you were okay. I would have texted back but I was in court.”
“I definitely knew that,” I told him. “And wasn’t in any way worried you were going to dump me.”
He gave an embarrassed little cough. “I’ve been behaving badly because I miss you and want to spend time with you. Dumping you in retribution would be extremely counterproductive.”
Lovingly logical Oliver was one of my top five favourite Olivers. “I miss you too. But we found Tom. It turned out he wasn’t cheating on Bridge, and we actually caused a minor national security incident.”
“That does sound on-brand for you.”
