A CONDOLENCE card with a picture of a small grey cat on the front is pushed under the door, a telephone rings and two more journalists leave the house.
Rita and John Restorick are not putting on brave faces for the press. They want to give interviews. They want to talk about how their son Stephen's life was "cut so terribly short" by a sniper's bullet in Co Armagh on Wednesday night.
It would have been Stephen's 24th birthday in 10 days, and when Mrs Restorick spoke to him for the last time on Sunday at his barracks on Bessbrook, Co Armagh, he was "full of life, just like he always is".
She sits in the front room of the family home in Orton, Malbourne, Peterborough, wiping the tears from her face, while her husband, John, goes into the hall to answer the telephone, which has been ringing since seven o'clock that morning.
Mrs Restorick had heard on the news that a soldier had been killed in Northern Ireland. "But I didn't think it was him. Then at about a quarter to 11 that night a policeman and a local army officer called to the door."
When John Restorick returns to the room, he sits down beside his wife. He holds her hand and he explains why, "more than anything else", his son's death must not lead to retaliatory attacks by loyalist paramilitaries.
"We hope they can keep control. We want to emphasise this, that they don't use Stephen's death as an excuse for the troubles to start again.
Mr and Mrs Restorick say they would urge the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, "and all the politicians in Northern Ireland to sit down and talk. The ordinary people of Northern Ireland want it, but politicians don't seem to want to talk.
"We think that Britain should not be in Northern Ireland, we don't seem to be helping them."
John Restorick said he thought his son's death would be "forgotten about by the end of the week. But we would hope it shakes people into doing something".
On the coffee table in the middle of the room, there are three or four photographs of Stephen Restorick. One of them, showing him in the dress uniform of the Third Regiment Royal Horse Artillery - the regiment he joined when he was 19 - has been reprinted as a memorial in the local Peterborough Evening Telegraph. Rita Restorick picks up the photograph and begins to cry.