The Bullet That Missed полностью

They had changed trains at London Bridge, and then again at Blackfriars. Blackfriars Station is on a bridge, and Joyce was thrilled about it. Although there was only a Costa Coffee. Apparently there was also a WHSmith, but it was down the escalator, and Joyce didn’t want to risk missing the next train. She would catch it on the way back. They spoke about Ibrahim’s discovery. That the note found in Heather Garbutt’s drawer was written by someone else. The killer presumably, but why would the killer mention Connie Johnson? Unless the killer was Connie Johnson, and even then it would make no sense.

They are now on a commuter service up to Elstree & Borehamwood, which is where Fiona Clemence films Stop the Clock. Joyce explains the rules to Elizabeth for the umpteenth time.

‘Really, for an educated woman, you can be very slow, Elizabeth,’ she says. ‘Four players each have a hundred seconds on their clock at the start of the game. The longer they take to answer questions, the more time they lose, and once they get down to zero seconds they’re out of the game.’

‘No, that much I understand,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It’s all the other nonsense.’

‘Nonsense? Hardly,’ says Joyce. ‘They each have four lifelines. They can steal ten seconds from an opponent, they can freeze their own clock, they can speed up an opponent’s clock, or they can swap a question. Steal, Freeze, Speed or Swap, simple as that. Though if your opponent steals from you or speeds you up, you receive an additional lifeline, Revenge, which you can play even when you’re out of the game. All the winner’s remaining seconds are converted to money, and to win the money they have to answer twelve questions, working their way around the clock from one to twelve before their time runs out. It couldn’t be simpler.’

‘And they put this on television?’ Elizabeth watches closely as a man walks past them.

‘Every day,’ says Joyce. ‘You can watch it instead of the news, that’s why it’s so popular.’

The train stops at Hendon, home of the famous police training college. Joyce texts Chris to say, Guess where we are? Hendon!’, but Chris texts back and says, I didn’t train at Hendon. Joyce texts the same thing to Donna but no reply yet.

‘Tell me about Fiona Clemence,’ says Elizabeth.

‘She was a junior producer when Bethany was the presenter of South East Tonight,’ says Joyce. ‘When Bethany died, she became the presenter. Ever so ambitious, but they only use “ambitious” as a criticism about women, don’t they?’

‘I have been called ambitious many times,’ says Elizabeth.

‘She hosted the show for about two years – you could really see she was starting to bed in – and then she went to work for Sky News. I always liked to keep up with her, you know, just in case she mentioned the South East. Then she started doing Breakfast News on the BBC, and now she presents everything. I even saw her doing Crufts the other day.’

‘I’m sure she’s famous, Joyce, but I’m really only interested in what she can tell us about Bethany Waites.’

‘You have honestly never heard of her? I find that very hard to believe.’

‘Have you heard of Beryl Deepdene?’

‘No,’ says Joyce.

‘Then you see that different people have different interests,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Who is Beryl Deepdene?’

‘It was the cover name for a particularly brave British operative in Moscow in the nineteen seventies,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Well known in my circles.’

‘I doubt that Beryl Deepdene has won a TV Choice Award,’ says Joyce.

‘And I doubt that Fiona Clemence has won a George Cross,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It’s horses for courses, isn’t it? Ah, look, we’re here.’

It is a ten-minute walk from Elstree & Borehamwood Station to Elstree Studios. Joyce likes nothing more than a high street she has never walked down before, and points out a number of things to Elizabeth. ‘Starbucks, Costa and Caffè Nero, as you’d hope’, ‘Does that Holland & Barrett look bigger than usual?’, ‘My goodness, they still have a Wimpy, Elizabeth.’

A queue snakes from the security gates of the studio, but Joyce and Elizabeth are able to walk straight to the front. Joanna has a friend whose sister is a production manager, whatever that might be, on the show, and they have special guest tickets. They are ushered straight into a bar and offered tea or coffee. Joyce is wide-eyed.

‘Isn’t this something? Have you ever been on television, Elizabeth?’

‘I was once called to give evidence to the Defence Select Committee,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But, legally, they had to blur my face. And I was once in a hostage video.’

They are called through to the studio and given seats in the front row. It is freezing cold, but they are asked to remove their gloves (‘Otherwise we won’t be able to hear you when you clap’). There is no food allowed in the studio, but Joyce opens her bag wide enough to show Elizabeth that she has sneaked in some Fruit Pastilles. While they wait, Joyce gets her phone out of her bag. She spots a security guard.