The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club #3)(55)

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‘You happy?’ asks Mike Waghorn. ‘You look great.’

‘Happy as I’ll ever be,’ says Donna, eyeing herself in the studio monitor. She doesn’t look bad. Pauline had insisted on coming in on her day off to do Donna’s make-up.

‘Two minutes on this VT,’ says the floor manager. South East Tonight is showing a report on a gluten-free bakery currently taking Folkestone by storm.

‘I’ll say, knife crime is on the up,’ Mike says to her. ‘You’ll say it isn’t as simple as that, Mike; I’ll say come off it, don’t give us that flannel; you’ll say something reassuring, and then we’ll play a VT of some people complaining in Fairhaven. Then I’ll ask if you have a message for those people, and you’ll say don’t have nightmares, or whatever comes to mind. You really look great, don’t be nervous.’

‘Thank you,’ says Donna. Is she nervous? She doesn’t feel nervous. Should she be? She looks around the small studio. The floor manager with her clipboard, the camera operator on Tinder, Carwyn, the producer, skulking, and, like a loyal hound, Chris, sitting and watching. This time he is giving her the thumbs-up. She returns it. If he is unhappy at being usurped, he is not showing it.

The floor manager has started a ten-second countdown. The camera operator reluctantly puts down her phone, mid-flirt.

‘You got anywhere with the Heather Garbutt thing?’ asks Mike, in a whisper this time.

‘Trying,’ says Donna. ‘Not really our case, but we’ve got a lead we’re working on.’ Donna has spent all morning looking through the vehicle registrations from Juniper Court.

‘It’s just –’ says Mike.

‘I know,’ says Donna. ‘I know what Bethany Waites meant to you.’

‘She was the real deal,’ says Mike. ‘Have you looked into –’

The floor manager cues the studio.

‘Plenty of knives in a bakery, that’s for sure,’ says Mike to camera. ‘And plenty of knives on the streets of Kent too. But this is less a case of “our daily bread” and more a case of “our daily dead”. To talk us through our area’s latest worrying knife-crime statistics, I’m joined by PC Donna De Freitas from Fairhaven Police. PC De Freitas, knife crime is on the up?’

‘Well, it isn’t quite as simple as that,’ says Donna. ‘It’s –’

‘Oh, come off it,’ says Mike. ‘Either knife crime is going up or it isn’t. That seems pretty simple to me, and it’ll seem pretty simple to South East Tonight viewers.’

‘I wonder if you should give South East Tonight viewers a little more credit,’ says Donna, and Mike gives her a little thumbs-up out of shot. ‘We have targeted knife crime in the last six months, thrown an awful lot of resources at it. That means more investigating, and more reporting, and more convictions. So obviously the numbers are up. But knife crime is vanishingly rare on the streets of Fairhaven, or Maidstone or … Folkestone. And, by the way, next time I’m in Folkestone I’ll be visiting that bakery, didn’t it look delicious?’

‘I’ll join you, PC De Freitas, I’ll join you,’ says Mike. ‘Makes you wish we had smell-o-vision.’

‘And call me Donna, by the way,’ says Donna, then looks straight into camera. ‘And that goes for everyone at home too. I work for you.’

‘First time on South East Tonight, Donna,’ says Mike, ‘but, I suspect, not the last. Let’s see what the people of Fairhaven itself have to say about knife crime.’

The VT begins. Mike wags his index finger in admiration. ‘You’re good. You’re good.’

‘Thanks, Mike,’ says Donna. ‘It’s quite fun, isn’t it?’

Chris approaches, crouching over, as if he might otherwise be caught on camera.

‘Wow,’ says Chris.

‘You think?’

‘I do think. The bakery thing, the look into camera. When did you plan all that?’

‘I didn’t plan it,’ says Donna. ‘I just felt it.’

‘Thirty seconds on this VT,’ says the floor manager. ‘Clear the floor please.’

‘You’re a natural,’ says Chris. ‘Your mum just took a screenshot and sent it to me.’

‘People are much more impressed when you’re on TV than when you’re catching criminals,’ says Donna.

‘You’re good at both,’ says Chris.

‘And we’re back on in ten …’ says the floor manager. Carwyn Price, the producer, approaches Donna.

‘Brilliant, just brilliant,’ says Carwyn. ‘You and me, little drink afterwards?’

‘Plans, I’m afraid,’ says Donna. And then berates herself for how apologetic she tried to sound.

Donna gets a message on her phone. It is from Bogdan, watching her at home. She sneaks a peek as the studio count reaches five. His text is three emojis.

A star, a heart, a thumbs-up.

A heart, eh? The camera is just in time to catch Donna’s beam.





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The photo looks good – very real. Viktor Illyich dead and buried. Well, Viktor Illyich buried, that much was for sure. The Viking is now using it as the lock screen on his phone.