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.