'You can't ever be serious, can you?' He laughed as he gave me a hug. I had smuggled Shgakespeafe into the house without Landen seeing. I know you're meant to be honest and truthful to your spouse but I thought there might be a limit, and if there was I didn't want to reach it too soon.

Friday came down to breakfast ten minutes later. He looked tousled, sleepy and a bit grumpy.

'Quis nostrud laboris,' he moaned. 'Nisi ut aliquip ex consequat.'

I gave him some toast and rummaged in the cupboard under the stairs for my bullet-proof vest. All my stuff was now back at Landen's house as if I had never moved out. Sideslips are confusing, but you can get used to almost anything.

'Why are you wearing a bullet-proof vest?'

It was Landen. Drat. I should have put it on at the station.

'What bullet-proof vest?'

'The one you're trying to put on.'

'Oh, that one. No reason. Listen, if Friday gets hungry you can always give him a snack. He likes bananas — you may have to buy some more, and if a gorilla calls, it's only that Mrs Bradshaw I was telling you about.'

'Don't change the subject. How can you go to work wearing a vest for "no reason"?'

'It's a precaution.'

'Insurance is a precaution. A vest means you're taking unnecessary risks.'

'I'd be taking a bigger one without it.'

'What's going on, Thursday?'

I waved a hand vaguely in the air and tried to make light of it.

'Just an assassin. A small one. Barely worth thinking about.'

'Which one?'

'I can't remember. Window . . . something.'

'The Windowmaker? A contract with her and you stick to reading short stories? Sixty-seven known victims?'

'Sixty-eight if she did Samuel Pring.'

'That's not important. Why didn't you tell me?'

'I ... I ... didn't want you to worry.'

He rubbed his face with his hands and stared at me for a moment, then sighed deeply.

'This is the Thursday Next I married, isn't it?'

I nodded my head.

He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly.

'Will you be careful?' he whispered in my ear.

'I'm always careful.'

'No, really careful. The sort of careful that you should be when you have a husband and son who'd be surpremely pissed off if they were to lose you?'

'Ah,' I whispered back, 'that sort of careful. Yes, I will.'

We kissed and I Velcroed up the vest, put my shirt over the top of it and my shoulder holster on top of this. I kissed Friday and told him to be good, then kissed Landen again.

'I'll see you this evening,' I told him, 'and that's a promise.'