The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club #3)(63)

‘You’ve been so kind,’ says Elizabeth, and tries to raise her hand to thank her. ‘I should have had something to eat; it’s my own fault.’

Elizabeth watches the paramedic leave and, as soon as she hears the door shut, removes the cold towel from her forehead and sits up.

‘What a nice woman,’ says Elizabeth. ‘A credit.’

‘You really couldn’t have waited?’ says Joyce. ‘Twenty minutes? I barely saw the first round.’

‘You could have stayed,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Fine friend I would have looked then,’ says Joyce. ‘They don’t know you’re a terrible fake, do they? I couldn’t say, oh, she’s a spy, she does this sort of thing all the time. Honestly, slumping to the floor and groaning. You might have warned me.’

‘Oh, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth, helping herself to a banana from the dressing-room fruit bowl. ‘How were we ever going to be able to ask questions from the audience?’

‘We can’t ask questions from here either,’ says Joyce. ‘I’ve missed the whole thing.’

‘You’ll thank me when Fiona Clemence walks through that door to check on me,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Joyce, a frail old woman just collapsed on the set of her show,’ says Elizabeth. ‘A frail old woman who collapsed because she wasn’t allowed anything to eat. A frail old woman who would be mollified by Fiona Clemence simply popping her head around the door between shows and asking after her health.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then we play it by ear, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘As we always do.’

‘I will bet half my Bitcoin account that Fiona Clemence won’t –’

There is a knock at the door. Elizabeth springs back onto the sofa and lies down, just in time for a man in a headset to poke his head around the door.

‘Now, you ladies must be Elizabeth and Joan?’

‘Joyce,’ says Joyce.

‘We are the laughing stock, I know,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Not a bit of it. A little someone wanted to say hello,’ says the man. ‘If you’re up to it?’

‘She is,’ says Joyce.

‘Right you are,’ says the man, and disappears again. Now the door opens, and Fiona Clemence pops her head around it. That auburn hair, so famous from the shampoo adverts, the full smile, so famous from the toothpaste adverts, and the cheekbones honed by genetics and Harley Street.

‘Knock, knock, guess who,’ says Fiona Clemence. ‘You must be Elizabeth and Joan?’

‘Yes,’ says Joyce. Elizabeth sees she is mesmerized.

‘Just wanted to check there was no lasting damage?’ Fiona gives a warm laugh. She is leaning around the door, not troubling the threshold. Clearly not planning to stay. ‘Before I head back out.’

‘If we could detain you for just one moment?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Have to get back,’ says Fiona, smiling. ‘Bosses cracking the whip. Just wanted to check in.’

‘Perhaps we could get a photo?’ Joyce suggests. Good Joyce, good. Elizabeth sees indecision in Fiona’s eyes, and then resignation.

‘Of course,’ says Fiona. ‘Quick one. Forgive the rush.’

Fiona commits to the room, albeit reluctantly, and perches by Elizabeth on the sofa, as Joyce rummages in her cardigan pocket for her phone. Fiona’s photograph smile is already fixed in place.

‘Now,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Time is short, and I need to convey a lot of information to you.’

‘I’m sorry?’ says Fiona, smile still in place. For now.

‘I didn’t faint, I’m not ill, and I don’t want a photograph,’ says Elizabeth quickly. ‘I also pose you no risk, wish you no harm and, indeed, before today, I had no idea who you were.’

‘I …’ says Fiona, smile now drifting off. ‘Really need to be getting off.’

‘I won’t keep you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Myself and my friend Joyce, by the way, not Joan …’

‘You can call me Joan,’ says Joyce.

‘… are here to investigate the murder of Bethany Waites, who, I know, you knew –’

‘OK, I don’t know what this is …’ says Fiona.

‘Fiona, Fiona,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I won’t be a second. We’re very happy to wait around and speak to you later.’

‘I’m going to talk to security,’ says Fiona. ‘Come on, you know this isn’t right.’

‘Oh, gosh, right, wrong,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Who cares? Two harmless old women, a couple of questions about a murder I’m sure you had nothing to do with.’

‘No one’s saying I had anything to do with it,’ says Fiona. ‘And this is … weird.’

‘A colleague is murdered, and you step into her job,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Threatening notes had been written. You would be a clear suspect, Joyce has left me in no doubt about that.’

‘Well, no, I didn’t exactly say –’ says Joyce.

‘And another woman, Heather Garbutt, has also just been murdered,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Now we’ve spoken to Mike Waghorn, your erstwhile colleague, and we would love to speak to you. I had to fake a fainting fit to get the opportunity, so what do you say?’