"Turn around. Look up and to your right. What do you see?"
"Th-there's a camera. And it's moving." The young man answered his mobile without looking thinking the caller was his girlfriend. She was supposed to meet him at this very corner and they were going to the pub together. He was mistaken.
"Good." The frozen voice on the other end of the call was unnerving at best, Mark was frightened but determined to not let it show.
"Is this when you kidnap me and I'm never seen again?" Mark Perry didn't know where that had come from or why he said it. He had a passing thought that it was a good thing he had used the toilet before leaving his job at the bakery.
"No, not this time," the voice continued smoothly. "Just tell me what your intentions are toward Abigail Eudoxia Mary Holmes."
"Who-o are y-you?"
"No one of importance, I assure you. Your intentions?"
As the disembodied voice finished his question, Mark felt the mobile taken from his hand and an infuriated Doxie Holmes speaking into it.
"Uncle Mykie! Leave Mark alone! It's quite clear that he is, or was, going to propose at dinner. Don't ruin this for me, Uncle Myke, please?"
"Your wish is my command." And with that statement, Mycroft Holmes, the British government, disconnected the line.
Doxie took a deep breath then linked her arm with Mark's and they went to the pub to eat and plan their lives together.