CALL WENDY WRIGLEY ON THIS NUMBER.
Edward pressed ‘escape’ to remove the alert. Could she not wait a few more days? This was the busiest period of his professional life. Surely she would understand? The attack on Toppings was overwhelming. His brain snagged on that single word again – could they call it ‘an attack’ now that the science said it was not? And if what happened at the pizza parlour was not an attack, then what the hell was it?
What possible reason would any man have, sane or insane, to travel with those capsules? If the pizza parlour was not the target, and the crash a genuine accident, what was he doing moving around a quiet Devon seaside town with enough radioactive material to kill –No, wait, he thought. If the remaining ampoule had the capacity to kill a million people, and his bike had shed twenty of them, that could have taken out half the country. What the hell could be the reason?
Edward shook his head: how would they ever find the answers to these questions?
The phone rang again. Around him was a throng of locals wanting to ask the scientist questions. Dr Gregson was retreating. Edward wanted to reach out and grab the man’s brown jacket to get his attention – wasn’t he at the front of the queue for follow-up questions? – but the phone vibrated insistently.
He answered.
‘Edward, it’s Wendy. I got this number from your friend Kim. I’m so sorry, but you didn’t reply to my text.’
‘Which one?’
‘A minute ago, the one saying call me.’ Her voice had a strange quality, almost an absence of any telephonic hiss or purr, as if it was coming through on an internet-quality connection.
‘I didn’t see it.’
She was, as always, polite. But for once her voice was insistent. ‘You looked down at your phone and shook your head and deleted it.’
‘You saw?’
‘I was five rows behind you. I could hardly miss you, arriving late like that.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘Can you feel a person touching your elbow? That’s me.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Kim had turned the radio on to hear the Metropolitan Police press conference in Sidmouth parish church. She had to admit, although Edward had very little good to say about the Aspinall fellow, the station controller had organized the coverage excellently. The young reporter, Alfie Burton, was outside the church with two or three locals who helped him fill the time by talking about the dread they had felt in the past few days, and the fear that there was some motivation for the incident they were not being told about. Alfie and his guests spoke up to the moment at which the press conference started, at which point he said in his booming voice: ‘We will now TAKE THE NEWS CONFERENCE LIVE, and afterwards Edward Temmis, who is INSIDE, will emerge from THE CHURCH to give us his assessment.’
At the estate agency, Kim said to the half-dozen employees in the office, ‘Guys, gather around, we’ll want to hear this.’
‘This feels like the olden days,’ said one of her Gen Z estate agents, ‘listening to the wireless.’ Kim did not want to explain. They were listening because she wanted to hear Edward.
After the scientist finished, there was only hustle and bustle from inside the church. The line clicked back to Alfie Burton, waiting for Edward Temmis. Alfie filled the space to the best ofhis ability, bringing in some of the Sidmouth residents who were now pouring out of the building – ‘Great news, I think, but a very complicated presentation’ … ‘It still sounds nuclear and therefore it’s still dangerous, isn’t it?’ … ‘I feel we need to know more’ – but when Alfie was left alone it became clear he had not taken a note of the more detailed science and just kept coming back to the conclusion: ‘No threat to anyone unless you eat it, and that means no one has to isolate.’ He added, ‘I wrote down “Crippled Actinium twenty-four”.’
‘What good news!’ said another of Kim’s younger staff as they drifted back to their places in the open-plan office. ‘Kim, I need to talk to you about the penthouse couple when you’ve a moment. They keep pushing.’
‘The penthouse pair?’
‘Yes. They know I’m fobbing them off.’
Kim managed, just, to avoid rolling her eyes at the mention. She would be dragged back into work within seconds, when she really wanted to hear Edward’s take on the press conference. What a puzzle this was! She knew, because she knew Edward back to front, that he would immediately be trying to work out what had happened. She wanted to help. Just as she had wanted to help with Wendy Wrigley.
She was feeling a little guilty about Mrs Wrigley. She liked the doctor’s wife a lot, and had plans for the two of them when things calmed down. If Wendy was being shunned, Kim would take her out for a drink and introduce her to some of her own friends. Maybe she and Wendy would buddy up and do stuff together. Kim always felt she was too private and yes, she could see them becoming friends. Wendy had been gently messaging her about Edward for the past few days, asking why he was not responding. Today Kim had been able to reply that his phone had fallen off a cliff – a step beyond ‘dog ate my homework’. Then Kim had made the mistake of telling her, ‘I think Edward has made some progress. We all went out to test his theory.’The sentences seemed to electrify Wendy, who replied, ‘I must talk to him then. I know there’s a lot going on but he must have a minute for me.’
‘I’m so sorry. Ever since the Toppings—’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Mrs Wrigley. ‘How awful it is, and such a mystery as to why Russia would do that to this little town.’
Feeling terrible, Kim had passed on Melody’s number, which Edward had shared with her earlier.
Perhaps that was why Edward had not, as planned, emerged immediately from the church to give his on-the-spot analysis to Alfie Burton: Wendy Wrigley had gone there for answers and found him.
Resigning herself to speaking to Edward later, she knew she should turn to the business of the Penthouse Pair, as she called them. She had asked her mother, ‘Can I refuse to sell a house because the two of them were weird and nasty?’
