The other two were silent, waiting for more. Stevie broke the last poppadom with a sound like a gunshot.
‘Go on,’ said Kim. ‘We’re tense here.’
Edward spoke to Stevie, because she didn’t know the story. ‘Late at night, in my garden, the night I did that hours-long broadcast and broke the news that Nina had been killed by a radioactive substance, I got attacked by two massive people. Enormous. Police uniforms, I think, but it was all weird and I couldn’t see properly in the dark.’
‘Cops?’
‘They wore rubber masks. I thought two men, but now I think maybe a huge man and a huge woman. Both over six feet four and twenty stone.’
‘Forty stone of anger. That’s actually scary. A burglary?’
‘Oh no. Something else. That’s when my phone fell down the cliff.’
‘Better the phone than you.’
‘I thought they were trying to shove me over the edge.’ He shivered, but then remembered something at odds from the description he had just given. When he tried to examine the thought, it vanished.
‘Fuck. Me.’ Stevie’s mouth had frozen on the poppadom. Her jaw hung open.
‘That’s what I said,’ Kim put in. ‘And he didn’t go to the police.’
‘What if theywerepolice? It was something to do with the Toppings case, because they kept shouting “Stop asking questions”, even when they were kicking me on the ground.’
‘So what does the text say?’ asked Kim.
Edward handed her the phone without taking his eyes off Stevie.
‘I thought I saw them in church on the day of the pressconference. Massive man and woman, enormous, enormous woman in a wheelchair. We asked in the church and they said they’d let me know. I expected nothing. But—’
Kim said, ‘This text is actually from four days ago. I think you missed it.’ She read from the screen.
Hi, its Beatrice from Giles & Nics. I trust you as someone said youre off the radio. Please return fountain-pen to Les and Lily Boyd, 28 Hope Hill, Barton Ottery. They don’t have phone so won’t be expecting. Thank you. Praise God. Beatrice
‘What’s the pen?’
‘She was clever,’ said Edward, nodding at Kim. ‘The old “I think you might have dropped something” routine.’
Kim stared at Edward. ‘You can’t go, obviously.’
‘I am going. I am definitely going,’ Edward said stoutly.
‘You can’t go alone. They’re violent.’
‘If it’s them!When I saw them at the church, one of them was in a wheelchair!’
Stevie said, ‘People use wheelchairs at airports. It doesn’t mean they’re in them all the time. Maybe she has good days and bad days.’
‘What, bad days when she needs pushing around, and good days when she tries to throw me off a cliff?’ Edward exclaimed. He changed tack. ‘Okay, squad. To business. We are sleuthing for JC. We are going to make progress on the Toppings case because the police can’t be bothered and a child died.’ The mood at the table immediately shifted. ‘Kim, can you look up the referees on this rental agreement? Especially Hearts. And Stevie, you go and speak to the landlord. I think I should go see Lev’s flat.’
‘Hey, why can’t you go and see the Cammell-Curzon guy yourself?’
‘Because I’m too famous,’ Edward said, at which Kim and Stevie laughed so hard that Stevie nearly fell off her chair and Kim had to spit a mouthful of salted yoghurt into her napkin.
‘I guess I’d need to be undercover,’ said Stevie, clearly warming to the idea.
Kim replied with a sigh, ‘I may not have time at the moment, (a) because I have a job, and (b) because I’ve got to stop my favourite property in Sidmouth being filled with crystal meth.’
‘Sorry?’ asked Edward: the words made no sense.
