Husband Material (London Calling #2)(21)

“Oh, am I? ” asked Bridget.

Which, if he’d needed one, was Tom’s big clue that maybe not everything was in a perfect state of totally fineness. “And as you can see,” he continued, “we’ve got a lot to talk about, so would it be okay if we just left and pretended none of this ever happened?”

The guard looked uncertain. Then again, he’d been looking uncertain since we showed up. “I’m not sure I can do that. I think I’m supposed to issue an on-the-spot fine.”

“I am really sorry,” offered Bridge, “and I really wouldn’t have jumped the barrier except it was a romantic emergency.”

“Wait, what romantic emergency?” Tom’s unflappable demeanour flapped very slightly.

“Yeah, what romantic emergency?” asked the Transport for London guard, suddenly getting interested.

Bridge adopted a posture of supreme indignance. “We’re getting married in a week, and he’s running around with other women.”

“I am bloody not,” protested Tom.

“I have proof,” Bridge told the Transport for London guard.

The Transport for London guard gave Tom a disappointed look.

“Mate, if you’re running around on your bird, be a man and admit it.”

“I’m not,” protested Tom again.

“Look at this.” Bridge brandished her phone in Transport for London guy’s face. “What’s that if it’s not running around on his bird?”

The guard assessed the evidence dispassionately. “I agree it don’t look great. But there could be an explanation.”

“I’ve been trying to get him to explain himself for days,” Bridge wailed. “He ghosted me.”

Tom’s face had gone very, very impassive. “It was work, Bridge.

You know, work.”

“What?” The Transport for London visibly scoffed. “You some kind of spy or something?”

Bridge gave the fakest laugh I have ever heard. “No. Of course not.” Her voice had lifted by at least an octave. “He’s a”—she paused, way longer than any woman should have had to before saying what her fiancé did for a living—“fireman.”

There was a long silence.

“Oh, crap.” The Transport for London guard’s eyes had gone very wide. “Is this a… Is this an MI5 thing? Is that woman some kind of secret agent?”

“Yes,” said Tom without missing a beat. “She’s a defector from a foreign power, and it’s vitally important that my fiancée”—he gave the word a verbal air quote—“and I be able to discuss the rest of this in private.”

Transport for London Guy nodded and backed right the fuck off.

“’Course. Won’t say a thing. You can count on me, agent.”

The moment he was gone, Bridge rounded on Tom, brandishing her phone in his face. “Look. I know she’s not really a spy, so who is she? What were you doing? And why are you leaving me for somebody from Harrow?”

Tom looked more flustered than I’d ever seen him, which, to his credit, was a lot less flustered than I was in most situations. “I told you, it’s work. And she’s not from Harrow. That’s why we’re here.”

“That,” Bridge said sharply, “makes no sense.”

His flusterance intensifying, Tom glanced around the increasingly crowded platform. “Can we go somewhere else?”

“No.” Bridge, still brandishing, was now also bristling. “I have been trying to call you since yesterday, Tom. Since yesterday. Where have you been?”

Tom took a deep breath and leaned in very closely. The rest of Bridge’s Bitches (Used in the Reclaimed Sense) gathered in. “I have been,” he whispered, “in a safe house with an informant.”

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.