‘Excellent.’
Ben rolled his head. ‘Like you said, Molly’s invited the whole school to her party.’
‘We could always move house and pretend we don’t know her.’
‘No one’s taking it seriously until invitations are received, but they all think it’s adorable.’
Aleksey had his suspicions what these women probably found moreadorable, but as he currently had this great object of desire naked and sticky inhisbed he wasn’t too worried.
‘A few months ago one of the fathers hired a plane and flew his son’s entire class to the South of France where they went windsurfing and paragliding for the day before flying home.’
He mirrored Ben’s position, thinking about this as he admired Ben’s otherworldly after-sex eyes. ‘Huh,’ seemed the best comment he could make about this bizarre claim. Then he added, ‘I could fly them first class on a round-the-world trip, but there might be a simpler solution: the last time she had her sleepover with us, she made a den of blankets on the sofa and spent two hours entirely happy and quiet beneath them. I don’t recall hearing a murmur from her.’
‘You claimed she’d probably suffocated and we should leave her be until the body started smelling.’
‘You kept getting up to check though.’
‘That’s because I’m normal.’
‘You’re just a good father.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m going to plan her party myself. That’s what I’m saying.’
Aleksey immediately pictured Ben taking him up on the round-the-world-flight joke, but in a rather unique way. He frowned and offered hesitantly, ‘I joke about you not needing a licence to fly, but if you take—’
‘Moron. Leave it all to me.’
As no one could accuse him of ever being desperate to be a children’s party-planner, Aleksey was more than happy to do just this.
Until Ben added, ‘Squeezy’s going to help me.’
* * *
Chapter Eighteen
‘I’m the only one who’s exactly who he says he is, so I don’t know why you are all laughing at me.’ Tim had leaned through the seats and was remonstrating with something Ben had muttered to Squeezy.
They were on their way to Penzance, the six of them, repeating the trip they’d taken only a few months before, but now heading fortheirisland.
‘It’ssounfair.’ Tim threw himself back a little sulkily, looked as if he was about to nudge Radulf over to get a bit more room, but apparently thought twice about this audacity. ‘You’re all just like him!’
Aleksey frowned. ‘Rescue dogs? That’s a bit harsh.’
Neither Ben nor Aleksey knew exactly what had gone on in the conversations between Tim and his boyfriend since discovering the moron’s background, but it had clearly been something of a shock for the professor. Ben had been sanguine about it, more than Aleksey had expected, but as Ben had declared, he’d always suspected something didn’t fit with the exaggerated idiocy, which is why he’d not hesitated to introduce him to Timothy Watson—clever, studious and relatively normal.
Squeezy ruffled Radulf’s topknot and craned around the vast dog to say cheerily, ‘But you, my little knower of all useless things, are the only one who’s headed up two international terrorist cells, aren’t you? We’re just good citizens and upstanding gentlemen—when we get the chance for a bit of the old upstanding. You’re an international man of mystery and mayhem.’
‘Will you shut up! I have no idea what you’re talking about! All I know is my friends are missing, and you all seem to think it’s funny.’
They were only just past Saltash. Aleksey foresaw a long and tedious journey ahead. He stretched out his long legs, and laid one arm along the back of Ben’s seat and played with his hair, something he once wouldn’t have dreamt of doing with anyone observing him, but now did with equanimity. Ben glanced over at him with a smile, which was a bit unnerving as they were just then overtaking a caravan at a hundred miles an hour.
Aleksey closed his eyes, a tactic which, he’d discovered over the years with Ben’s driving preferences, got him to his destination without his heart giving out.
‘So, boss, what’s the plan for this holiday? Bin an exhausting few weeks doing nothing, so I’m up for a bit of relaxation like. Bit more death and destruction?’
‘I was thinking more along the lines of interior decoration, but I give you my full permission to kill a sofa if that is what you wish.’
Ben turned his head again, so he actually put a finger under Ben’s chin and turned it back to face front, which got a snort from the rear seat. Ben clenched his jaw. ‘I know how to drive.’
