Donna leads Stephen from the shop. Bogdan and Kuldesh wait until the final reverberations of the shop bell have silenced.
‘Prisha is dead, I think?’ asks Bogdan.
‘Fifteen years ago,’ says Kuldesh. ‘But I will tell her I saw Stephen, and she will smile.’
Bogdan nods.
‘And I was a lucky sod, he’s right there. How ill is he? Getting worse? I cannot tell you how kind Stephen has been to me over the years. Lucrative too, but the kindness is the real treasure.’
‘He remembers what he remembers,’ says Bogdan. ‘And for now he doesn’t really know what he forgets.’
‘That’s a mercy,’ says Kuldesh. ‘For now.’
‘You can help with Stephen’s list?’ asks Bogdan.
‘If one person owns all of these books,’ says Kuldesh, ‘then I might be able to find out who. Difficult. I’m guessing it’s not Bill Chivers, though?’
‘No, is not Bill Chivers,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is someone who wants to kill Stephen’s wife.’
‘Elizabeth?’
Bogdan nods. ‘Elizabeth.’
‘Then I will find out,’ says Kuldesh. ‘That is my promise. She’s still firing on all cylinders I hope?’
‘Most of them,’ says Bogdan. ‘I’m sorry I brought a police officer into your shop. But is only Donna.’
‘A friend of Stephen is my friend,’ says Kuldesh. ‘Even if they’re in a uniform. Give me a couple of days to see what I can find.’
Kuldesh shakes Bogdan’s hand and starts to usher him to the door. But Bogdan seems reluctant to leave.
‘Is there something else?’ asks Kuldesh.
Bogdan is shifting his weight from foot to foot. Then he nods his head towards the back of the shop.
‘The statue that Donna liked?’ asks Bogdan. ‘How much for cash?’
53: Joyce
I met Fiona Clemence today, that’s my big news. Also, I had a gun in my handbag which, on any other day, would probably be the big news. Thirdly, Blackfriars Station has the tiniest branch of WHSmith you’ve ever seen in your life.
What a day we’ve had of it, though. We left at about ten, and we weren’t back till gone seven. Viktor is still not back from seeing Jack Mason. All his bits of paper are scattered all over the floor. The financial records. This morning I asked him if he’d had any luck, and he said there was no luck involved, and I said, well, I was just making conversation, and he said, yes, I was quite right, and then he put the kettle on. We rub along just fine.
Normally Alan would have a field day with all those bits of paper. Chewing them, tearing them. But he was stepping around them politely. Viktor has explained their importance to Alan, and asked him to be very careful with them. Viktor does have a persuasive tone. For example, he had me watching the Formula 1 the other day, even though there was a Poirot on ITV3. He makes everything feel like it was your idea in the first place. Alan and I just sit there nodding half the time.
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.