He wanted to find the right question for Gloria. His head hurt and his stomach rumbled with anxiety. He asked, ‘Did you see the Ukrainian man, Lev Malnyk, leave the house?’
‘No. And—’
‘Yes?’
‘Not Prince Andrew.’
‘Not him?’
‘Prince Andrew and Mr Lev. Left separately.’
‘It’s not good today,’ whispered Terry.
‘What’s not good?’ asked Gloria.
‘Please don’t worry, my love,’ said Terry, ‘and just see if you can answer Edward’s questions.’
‘I couldn’t give the police much, except the mirror.’
‘The mirror?’ Edward put in.
‘A man in a mirror.’
‘Went in?’
‘This came up with the police, Gloria, didn’t it?’ That was Terry again, and Gloria asked: ‘Did it?’
Edward had taken his phone out of his pocket to make notes, but was stopped by a light touch on his arm. Terry, between Gloria and Edward, whispered, ‘She doesn’t like screens. Finds them upsetting.’
‘Well, she’s right there,’ said Edward.
‘A man in a mirror, that made the police roll their eyes.’
‘Did you see anyone on the day of the disaster, Gloria?’
‘What disaster?’
‘The crash at the pizza restaurant in Sidmouth,’ said Edward, beginning to understand why the police had left the trail after this visit.
‘You know what he is talking about, lovely,’ said Terry, with real tenderness. ‘The police came?’
‘Why didn’t they ask me? I would have told them—’
‘They did ask you,’ said Terry, but now it was Edward who put a hand on his arm.
‘—told them about the box.’
‘This again,’ said Terry.
‘A big thing like a microwave removed by the man in the mirror with four arms.’
‘Where did he take it?’ Edward asked.
‘Down there, silly!’ Gloria said, pointing left, which was the obvious direction, the end of the estate they had entered from. ‘He couldn’t exactly go into the field, could he?’ The field was behind the house. A barbed-wire fence marked the rear boundary of the properties. Edward guessed it had been put there by an angry farmer.
The conversation chugged this way and that, like a steam train grinding across countryside and trying to find rails. They kept coming back to the men who left the house opposite with the box, and every description was different.
Terry was asking, ‘How many men were there, Gloria, with the box?’
