Oh, he ought to have expected that. He'd walked right into it, talking about errands as though what he had to do was as simple as going to one of the stores on High Street.

"Oh, no," he said, his cheeks flushing slightly as he tried to come up with a good reason why not. "It's, ah — sort of related to a work thing," he explained, which was vague and sounded like a lie, but wasn't exactly. Cash had written him yesterday because he worked in Spirit Division, and he had correctly assumed whatever was following him was a Spirit Division problem.

"But it won't take long," he reassured her. "I'll be home for dinner tonight. I promise."

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