The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club #3)(66)

Before I come into the flat now, I have to do a special knock so Viktor knows it’s me. It’s just four quick knocks, and it sort of matches the rhythm of the moonpig.com advert. Viktor says that if he hears the door open without the knock, I will find him behind the sofa with a handgun. ‘I don’t want to shoot you by accident,’ he said, ‘but I will.’

Elizabeth and I have been to watch Stop the Clock being filmed. They filmed three episodes, and I saw the second and third one. The first one was interrupted by Elizabeth pretending to faint. All in a good cause, as it turns out. The couple in the second show won two thousand seven hundred pounds, and they are getting married, so it is going towards their wedding. He must have been fifteen years older than her. I know you shouldn’t judge but really. I wanted to shout to her, ‘Get out while you can!’

Through a combination of pretending to faint and showing her a gun, Elizabeth persuaded Fiona to speak to us afterwards. We sat in her dressing-room, and somebody who can’t have been long out of school brought us all a herbal tea. I had chamomile and raspberry, because it was the first one I was offered and my brain switches off when someone reads me a long list.

Now, I didn’t dislike Fiona Clemence, let me say that. She is not as warm as you might think when you watch her on TV. I think some of that is just for the cameras, but she wasn’t rude, even though she had every right to be after the fainting and the gun.

She had only half an hour, because she was heading off to interview Bono, so Elizabeth and I took it in turns to ask questions. I left all the Bethany Waites questions to Elizabeth, because I probably won’t get another chance to meet Fiona Clemence, and I wanted to make the most of it.

So the whole thing went something like this.

ELIZABETH: Tell me about your relationship with Bethany Waites.

FIONA: We disliked each other.

ME: What’s the most money anyone has ever won on Stop the Clock?

FIONA: I don’t know. About twenty grand, I think.

ELIZABETH: Why did you dislike each other?

FIONA: She disliked me because she thought I was an airhead. And I disliked her because she thought I was an airhead.

ME: A few weeks ago on the show you were wearing red shoes, I don’t know if you remember them? But I wondered where they were from?

FIONA: I don’t know, sorry.

ELIZABETH: Were you aware you might be next in line to present the show were Bethany ever to leave?

FIONA: I’d done a screen-test. I knew they liked me. But, and forgive me here, Joyce, co-hosting South East Tonight was not a particular ambition of mine.

ELIZABETH: Didn’t do you any harm though?

FIONA: OK, I murdered her so I could read the local news.

ME: Are people talking to you through an earpiece on the show?

FIONA: Yes.

ME: What are they saying?

FIONA: All sorts. Reminding me of the scores, telling me to cheer up, letting me know someone in the audience has fainted.

ELIZABETH: Where were you on the night of Bethany’s death?

FIONA: I was doing coke in a hotel with a cameraman.

ME: We bought ten thousand pounds’ worth of cocaine recently. Who’s the nicest person you’ve ever interviewed?

FIONA: Tom Hanks.

ELIZABETH: What do you know about notes that Bethany received before her death? At work?

FIONA: What sort of notes?

ELIZABETH: ‘Get out’, ‘Everybody hates you’. That sort of thing.

FIONA [laughing]: She got those too? I thought it was just me.

ELIZABETH: You got the same notes? Any idea from whom?

FIONA: No idea, but no one pushed me off a cliff, did they?

ME: What was it about Tom Hanks?

ELIZABETH [tiring of me, I think]: Is there anyone else you can think of who might have had reason to kill Bethany?

FIONA: The fashion police?

ME: You know on Instagram, where you do your live videos, and everyone can watch and comment? How do you do that? I can’t find the button for it.

FIONA: It’s called ‘Stories’, you can look it up.

ELIZABETH: Is there anyone else we should talk to who was there at the time?

FIONA: Carwyn, the producer. Even if he didn’t kill her, they should lock him up. And Mike’s make-up artist. Pamela, something like that. Always a weird atmosphere there.

ELIZABETH: Pauline?

FIONA: If you say so.

ME: Would you ever do Strictly?

FIONA: Only if I was hosting it.



So, you see, she wasn’t rude exactly, given the circumstances, but she wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute. I just looked up how to do those live videos on Instagram, but I couldn’t really make head nor tail of it. I will stick to photographs, I think. Ron made me post a picture of Alan today with two balls in his mouth. Joanna liked it, which is a first.

We made our way back to the station via the Wimpy, and I had a snooze on the train. I told Elizabeth she could snooze, and I would keep an eye out for our stop, but she wanted to stay awake.

I wonder when Viktor will be back? I hope he is having luck with Jack Mason. Elizabeth seems to have great faith in him. I asked her if they had ever slept together, and she said that she honestly couldn’t remember, but they probably did. I told her I carry around a picture of everyone I’ve ever slept with in my purse. Then I opened it, and showed her that the only picture in my purse was one of Gerry, and she said, ‘Yes, I got it the first time, Joyce.’