‘You okay?’
‘Life,’ said Kim.
Stevie, apparently unbothered, said: ‘I asked your security guy what’s going on and he doesn’t know. No one does.’
‘I forgot how nice the view was from here,’ Kim said wistfully.
Had he imagined her unease? ‘The studios are the floor below,’ said Edward. ‘So they have their priorities right. Food then programmes.’
‘Then donkeys,’ said Stevie.
‘There aren’t any donkeys in the building at this point.’
‘She’s joking, Edward, although I know it’s a sore point,’ said Kim. ‘So tell us what you found.’
‘In the forest? I need you guys to make sense of this.’
Stevie tapped her knife and fork on the table.Right-left-right-right, left-right-left-left.A drummer’s paradiddle. ‘You might have to stop, Stevie,’ said Edward. ‘Hotel snooty about drumming.’
‘Isn’t this your place?’
‘Long story but we share it with the hotel. For example, those six guys over there’ – he pointed at a family in the plusher dining area, two elderly, two middle-aged, two children – ‘are nothing to do with the radio station. About to walk the coastal path, I guess.’
‘So go on,’ said Kim impatiently.
‘I just have this,’ said Edward. Carefully, he reached into the backpack on the bench beside him. As he did, Stevie said: ‘By the way, can you two come to my wedding?’
This was not on the menu. Edward looked up from the bag. Kim looked across at Edward. Classic Stevie, derailing them.He could hardly blame her for it. His head was so full of thoughts about the forest and what he had found – what he thought he had found – that he was forgetting everything else.
Kim said, ‘Your wedding to Roddy?’
‘There aren’t any others I’m planning! I know you don’t like him, Kim—’
‘I saw him pull your hair.’
The three of them went silent. The contents of Edward’s bag would have to wait.
‘Just now?’ asked Stevie, her voice quieter.
Kim addressed Edward. ‘I waited for Stevie outside. Maybe I got it wrong. He came around the car, grabbed your hair and pulled you out, and you were snatching at his hands, or so I thought.’
‘So you thought.’
Edward said, ‘He didn’t, did he?’
They were at a crossroads. Kim wasn’t sure. Only Stevie could confirm it. She seemed to think for a moment, and make a decision.
‘Show us what’s in the bloody bag, Edward. My hair isn’t important.’
‘He pulled it!’ Kim raised her voice.
‘He was just helping me out of the car! He put his hand under my arm is all!’
Kim put her head in her hands. ‘I’m messing everything up.’
‘We’ll be at the wedding, Stevie, and we can’t wait,’ said Edward, for some reason feeling cross with Kim.
The two women were silent. Edward pulled from his bag a delicate piece of white silk with something wrapped inside it. The object suddenly caught the attention of Kim and Stevie, as if they had transferred all their upset into a moment of acute focus. ‘A classy hankie,’ said Stevie. ‘It looks nice.’
