‘Oh, you know, he’d get stressed and angry and take it out on the researchers. He reduced a couple of them to tears. Nothing was good enough. He’d find fault with the guest bookings, the scripts, the props. In a way, it came from the right place – his ambition for the show – but it got to the stage where he was never going to be satisfied unless we booked Barack Obama and preferably got him to sing a duet on the show. He’d lost perspective somehow. He couldn’t understand why he was having to work with reality show contestants instead of the leader of the free world.’
‘Did he reduce you to tears?’ The DI looked at the pad on her desk and Elizabeth realised she’d made quite a few jottings.
‘Not in his presence,’ Elizabeth said truthfully. ‘But I must admit, I’ve had quite a few nights where I’ve been awake at 3 a.m., eating Marks & Spencer custard.’ She looked at the policewoman’s lean, netball-toned figure and doubted that Karen Watson had any nights when she succumbed to a tub of crème anglaise. But the detective looked up and half a smile played across her lips. Her eyes were lively and bright.
‘And who’s your boss?’
‘Matthew Grayling, the Controller. The man you met last night.’
The DI’s smile vanished. ‘Ah yes, the man with the limp. So he runs the whole network? He’s in charge of all the programmes?’
‘Yes. He’s been there fifteen years. He knows Ricky of old. He got him to do Saturday Bonkers in the first place. He recently gave him the chat show to try and ease him into a new slot – you know, it’s not on Saturday nights, it’s not live, so we can always go into the edit and cut out the worst bits.’
‘And was Matthew in the studio all evening?’
‘No, I rang him, once Ricky… once he’d collapsed.’ Elizabeth felt suddenly tearful. She bent her head and DI Watson sat silently for a moment before saying more gently, ‘And now you’ve had time to think about that night, time to think over everything that happened, you can’t think of anything that was unusual? Nothing about Ricky Clough that struck you as strange or different? He didn’t seem ill?’
‘No.’ Elizabeth reached for a tissue from the box on DI Watson’s desk. ‘If anything, the thing that was unusual was that he was actually in a good mood. He seemed upbeat. I thought we were in for a good show. He didn’t seem in any discomfort, wasn’t complaining.’
‘And you’d actually started recording the show, I think, when he fell ill?’
‘Yes, that’s right. We’d done the introduction and we were about to do Paolo Culone.’
The DI look across at the sergeant. ‘We’re seeing all the guests from the show later, is that right?’ Ali Rafik nodded and listed the names of a few minor celebrities. Elizabeth winced at the poor quality of the bookings, but the DI appeared to register nothing. Eventually, she said, ‘I don’t watch much television. There never seems to be anything on that I want to watch.’ Elizabeth nodded. It was true. There was a criminal lack of coverage of women’s netball in primetime.
‘So tell me about the chef – Paolo Culone?’
‘Well, he’s young, very brash. He’s just opened his third London restaurant and it’s all about smell. He puts a different scent around the restaurant entrance because he says it influences your mood and he wants his guests to be happy when they come in. So the week it opened, he made sure it smelled like an old-fashioned sweet shop – sugary and lemony – so that people coming in would feel nostalgic for their childhoods.’ Elizabeth took a deep breath. She’d been to Culone’s new restaurant a few weeks back. She’d gone there with Hutch and it had smelled of Curly Wurlys. Later that night in bed, Hutch had said she smelled deliciously of caramel and he’d licked her agonisingly slowly, all over.
The sergeant made a sound that was half cough, half giggle. Elizabeth recovered herself and nodded at him. ‘Ricky thought it was all bollocks, too. He wanted to take the piss out of Paolo. We were going to bring on some of his restaurant dishes hidden in boxes and get Culone to guess what they were by their smell.’
The DI wrinkled her nose and frowned, as if trying to understand how such an idea might constitute primetime entertainment. ‘And so it’s likely Ricky Clough might have eaten something before or during the show?’
‘Yes. We had some of Culone’s food in the Green Room, where we entertain guests before the show. Ricky went in to say hello. I think he was trying to put Paolo at ease. To praise his food and sort of lull him into a false sense of comfort.’ Elizabeth shrugged apologetically as if to distance herself from the sheer cynicism of the move, although it had actually been her idea.
‘And so others might’ve eaten the food, in the Green Room?’
‘I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the team had some. We don’t pay our junior researchers much. They mostly live off scraps.’ Elizabeth pulled a face at Sergeant Rafik and was delighted to see him try to hide a smile. DI Watson’s expression was stony.
‘We’re running tests on all the food that’s been left over. We’ll have to interview everyone on your team as well.’
‘Really?’ Elizabeth sat up straight. ‘Is that honestly necessary?’
The DI put down her pen. ‘Yes, it is. But they don’t need to come in here. We’ll come to your offices this afternoon and talk to them individually.’
‘Well, I guess you’ll have to talk to Matthew about that…’ Elizabeth realised her boss’s attempts to keep the network out of this were hopelessly optimistic. ‘I guess he may want someone from Legal there.’ She looked at the DI anxiously. ‘Can I ask, do you know the results of Ricky’s hospital tests?’
The sergeant cleared his throat. The DI looked down at her pad, as if considering something, and then looked up at Elizabeth. ‘Not all of the results, no. But we’ve got reasonable cause for concern at this stage.’
Elizabeth felt sick. The colour drained from her face. ‘Concern about what?’
‘It would seem from all the tests so far that Ricky Clough did not die of natural causes. In fact, it appears that his seizure was the result of a highly toxic substance in his bloodstream.’
Elizabeth gripped the arms of her chair, her knuckles whitening.
DI Watson leaned back in her chair. ‘I’m afraid, Elizabeth, we have very good reason to believe that Ricky Clough was poisoned.’
When Elizabeth staggered out of the police station an hour later, the smoky purple sky was threatening rain. DI Watson had let her go after some very detailed questioning about the studio schedule and routine. She’d asked Elizabeth to produce an exhaustive list of all the people present, from the camera crews, the sound guys, the lighting team, to all the production staff – anyone who might have had direct access to Ricky Clough. Elizabeth supplied it all, her mind whirring with obscene possibilities: could it have been the cameraman who’d been shouted at by Ricky once too often? Was it the make-up girl who used to service Ricky on her knees in his dressing room? Was it a prank gone wrong from the sound guys, who every week had to clear the wax out of his earpiece? Who on earth would do such a thing, to Ricky Clough, the king of entertainment?
She walked slowly towards Café Cecile, her usual meeting place for lunch with Hutch. They’d been seeing each other for nine months now, but still in secrecy. Hutch was beginning to get increasing recognition on the street; his football show was becoming very popular. He was now getting invited to every celebrity party, gallery opening and first night. He was witty, he was tall, he wore mostly black, he suited a baseball cap, he stayed late and drank a lot – he’d won his place on the A-list. He also went to most of these events alone, which