Snog, Marry, Murder

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales or persons, alive or dead, are entirely coincidental.

Snog, Marry, Murder

Walking on set at 8:07am, Charlotte knew she was late. She sidled up to her producer, Fletch, in the deluded hope he wouldn’t notice. Fletch was sitting in his director’s chair. His Scottish bulk stretched the canvas, testing the wood, making it bow. The director’s chair wasn’t even provided by the production company, Fletch had gone out and bought it himself. Everyone else made do with the standard fold-out plastic ones that had been on set forever. But not Fletch.

“What’s the rumpus?” said Charlotte, nodding towards the scene that held Fletch’s attention.

He was watching some drama unfold between the actual director - Stephen with a P-H, not a V - and this week’s hapless contributor, Stacy. Stacy was flicking her blonde wig out of her fake-tanned face, Botox lips pursed as she listened to Stephen’s lecture.

“Why’re ye late?” said Fletch, his Scottish Rs rolling as he eyed Charlotte suspiciously.

Charlotte thought, ‘Because I stayed up till 3am watching a Poirot marathon’ before saying, “I had to find Grant’s Monster Munch,” and simultaneously held up three packets to corroborate her story.

Fletch scowled at her. He was sat beside a forty watt fluorescent light so the hard features of his face, his prominent brow, craggy nose and paper-weight chin were highlighted in brilliant white with stark black shadows cast across the rest of his profile. It looked like a still from an old film noir.

“Sorry, Grant insisted on beef flavour, and I had to go to three different shops before I found them.” Charlotte pulled out a notebook, flicking through the pages officiously. “Stacy’s mates are due in later this morning to shoot their talking heads. The bar set’s all built and ready. And I was chatting to Vicki in makeup earlier,” Charlotte lied, hoping her neverending to-do list would satiate her boss. “She’s dreading today, yet again having to work with You’ve Been Tangoed over there.”

Fletch let out a little snort laugh, which was about as good as it got with him. Banging, drilling and cursing started to fill the studio as the crew set up lighting and equipment for the day’s filming. They were on the set of Snog, Marry, Swerve, shooting a re-visit episode with a past contributor returning, Stacy Steinbeck, who’d fallen back into old habits. The TV show’s format revolved around turning ‘fakery obsessed’ makeup addicts into natural beauties by giving them an extreme make-under. And Stacy had reverted to wearing skimpy clothes, fake tan and enough makeup to drown a drag queen in. As the cameramen positioned tripods and light reflectors, Charlotte let out a heavy sigh, thinking these revisit episodes were a sign the show was waning. She couldn’t say this to Fletch of course, the series’ executive producer.

Fletch was still watching Stephen try not to raise his voice as Stacy shook her head, her long wig billowing in slow obstinate waves. Stephen stopped himself pointing a bony finger at her while Stacy just stood there, folding her arms across her chest, aloof and unapologetic.

“What are those two arguing about?” asked Charlotte.

“Ye what there?” said Fletch, his deep voice distant and distracted. “Them? They’re shagging. No wee doot aboot it.” His delivery was flat and plain as sliced white bread, but there was an edge in his voice as he watched Stephen and Stacy with an intense eye. Charlotte thought this was because their argument was delaying Fletch’s schedule, which would affect his budget. A few years ago when she was a mere researcher on the show, Charlotte had learnt two things; never mess with Fletch’s schedule, and never mess with his budget.

“How’d you know they’re on the shaggin’ wagon?”

“Because if anyone else acted difficult like that, Stephen would’ve screamed his thoroughbred face off by now. But not with her.” Fletch’s tone was rueful, pensive. He nodded in Stephen and Stacy’s direction. “Check him biting his lower lip, he’s stopping himself from talking so he can actually listen to that heartless tart.” Fletch’s stony brow grew as he frowned, and his beady eyes disappeared into shadow, back into that old film noir. “No doot aboot it, they’re shagging.” Fletch nodded to himself. “Tell ‘em to hurry up will ye? We’ve got TV to make.” And he leant back in his director’s chair, the wood creaking under his two-hundred pounds.

At 8:26am Emma Fist, ex-pop star and the show’s current presenter, strutted on set. Her tasteful heels clip-clopped with purpose, the sound reverberating around the studio.

“We ready to shoot this?” Emma called out, her question was directed at Stephen who was now stood in a triangle with Stacy and Charlotte. When he failed to respond, Emma whipped her head round to stare at Fletch, her eyes widening to silently repeat the question.

Fletch sighed as he stood up, shouting over to Stephen, “We need cameras rolling five minutes ago if ye wanna stay on schedule.”

The director’s eyes flicked over to his producer and he gave a little nod of recognition before returning his attention to Stacy. Charlotte crossed the studio floor back towards Fletch, his demand doing more than she could. Both Stacy and Stephen were struggling to keep their voices hushed now, the odd words finding their way through the wind-less space; Don’t even. Screwed. And Fucking fit. When she reached Fletch and Emma, Charlotte turned to see Stacy gesticulating with her blinged-out phone in her hand, which wasn’t unusual as she was never without it.

“Where are the sandwiches?”

Charlotte jumped at the voice, nasal and snapping out of nowhere.

“There were sandwiches yesterday innit. I want breakfast. You defo promised breakfast, get me. And where are my Monster Munch? Best not have flopped on my Monster Munch.”

It was Grant, Stacy’s boyfriend. His trainers and tracksuit meant he could sneak up on you without making a sound. An Adidas-sponsored ninja. And his lanky, fluid structure, like one big, silent drip, gave the impression that he hovered, gliding rather than walking. He was tugging on the thick gold chain around his neck. It was only the third day of shooting but Charlotte had already identified this as a habit Grant performed when he was annoyed. Charlotte noticed how Grant would not only tug on his chain, but also run his long, dirty nails over it too, flicking them across the edges of smooth metal as he dwelled in a quagmire of irritation. Thing was, Charlotte hadn’t yet worked out if he was upset over the lack of sandwiches and crisps or because he could sense the sexual tension between his girlfriend and the director.

“Today we’re shooting her make-under, right?” said Emma, brushing a strand of stylish blonde hair away from her face.

“Right ye are,” Fletch nodded. “Lunchtime, after we shoot the wee friends’ pieces straight te camera in the bar over there. And as long as Stacy doesn’t bail oot.” His Scottish accent had been softened by years of city-boy lifestyle. First London, then Manchester. Still, the roof-top parties and craft ales hadn’t eroded it completely.

“She won’t go easy,” Emma shook her head. “Look at that get-up.”

Stacy stood in glittering stilettos and long legs that went all the way up to a pair of gold hot pants. She shifted her weight from one hip to the other and her black lace kimono swayed drunkenly.

“Bet she hasn’t seen her own natural face since we last shot her.” Emma Fist was squinting, watching Stacy and Stephen pretend to discuss something in the script, a stack of pages in Stephen’s hands now. “When was that?”

“Three years ago,” said Charlotte. “Season five.”

“How long do you think she’ll be in Pod today?” said Emma.

Fletch turned to look at the presenter, his thick eyebrows knitting together as he thought a moment.

“She’s gonna be a tough one, no doot. Top of the leader board I’d wager.”

“An hour?” Emma whistled. “I’ll put a fiver on it.”

“I’ll see ye fiver,” nodded Fletch.

“You slags betting on my bird?” said Grant, crossing his arms over his chest.

Emma, Fletch and Charlotte shared a sheepish look.

“Sorry, Grant,” said Charlotte.

Grant scowled, his ferret-like face pinching at the centre. Then it quickly released and his arms dropped down by his side. “Safe, I’ll take that action.”

“Got an unfair advantage there,” said Fletch. “Ye got the inside track.”

“Yeah,” agreed Charlotte. “She’s your dame.”

“Fiver says she’s longer than an hour,” said Grant.

Fletch looked at Emma who smiled with a shrug, knowing Fletch wouldn’t let it get that long.

“Show us the colour of your money first,” said Emma.

A shriek caught their attention and they watched as Stacy laughed harshly at something Stephen must’ve said. She fell into him, her hand patting his chest.

Grant gripped the heavy metal links of his chain, glaring at his girlfriend and the director. The glare wasn’t hateful, more a weary disdain as if he’d seen this charade plenty of times before and never cared for it. Charlotte put her hand on Grant’s wrist.

“Come on, let’s get you some food. I got you those Monster Munch.”

“Safe,” he grunted and turned away just in time to miss Stephen guiding Stacy off set by putting his hand on the small of her back, subtle but sure. His palm slid down ever so slightly so his fingers could glide under the waistline of her gold hot-pants.

Charlotte smiled at Grant as they approached the buffet table, trying to be light and reassuring but coming off as uncomfortable and constipated. It was part of her job to get him in a good mood. His current jittery anger wouldn’t play well on screen and in an hour they were shooting his talking head. These short interviews were supposed to make the main contributor more human, provide some backstory through friends and family to help the audience connect with them. But really they were just filler for the flimsy format. Grant gave his best attempt at a smile when she gave him the Monster Munch, but it would take some more work to get him camera-ready.

“So you’re a waitress?” he said.

“I’m a production coordinator,” corrected Charlotte, the last word wavering into doubt.

“But you’re getting food for everyone, like a waitress. And you took people’s orders innit, wrote ‘em down in your little notebook, like a waitress.”

“Yes, but… no.” Charlotte took a breath and shook her head composing herself, getting her words straight. “Organising the catering is just a small part of my very varied job. I do tons of other stuff, like... logistical... travel... stuff.”

“Travel stuff. Like booking trains n’ shit?”

“Not just trains.” Charlotte’s voice got smaller. “Accommodation too.”

“Hotels. For the talent,” Grant nodded, smugly amused, his gaunt face morphing into a simpering grin so he looked like a skeletal ghost who enjoyed the smell of its own farts. “You’re always booking hotels for other people innit, reserving plush rooms that you’ll never get to stay in yaself.”

“I will one day,” said Charlotte defensively, her voice rising.

Grant shrugged it off, his interest already lost. “Whatever mate. I just want some food, get me, then I’ve gotta go and argue with Stace.” And he paused a few feet from the buffet table, as if it was infested with poisonous insects rather than food.

“Why’re you arguing with Stacy?”

He took a tentative step towards the table, lured by the gastronomic array; bagels, muffins, triangle sandwiches, sausage rolls, bowls of crisps, pretzels and fruit.

“Coz she’s blatantly sucking the director’s dick innit!” Grant picked up a sausage roll and then squished it to death as his angry hand balled into a fist.

“Is she though?” replied Charlotte mirroring Grant’s tone and intonation so her words bounced off his. “I dunno, maybe there’s some chemistry there but -

“You think they’ve got chemistry?” Grant’s tone was flat now, low and serious like a paving slab.

His eyes bore into her. They were rodent eyes, small and sly and swift.

“What, no... I mean. Stacy’s stressed, isn’t she?” Charlotte forced her voice to be bright and reaffirming. “Today we’re filming the deep cleanse and make-under, ya know, she’s gotta take all her...” Charlotte motioned to her own face, swirling her fingers in front of it. “…Warpaint off. It’s nerve-racking, girls freak out.”

Grant nodded to himself, as if realising it for the first time. “She’s scared of Pod innit. Thinks he’s gonna take the piss and say she looks like a shit-head.” Grant shook his head. “And then there’s the public analysis. She finds that out today as well.”

Charlotte wondered how to react. She knew the results of the public analysis; when it came to Stacy, eighty per cent of the British public would avoid her, feeling that the lights were on but nobody was home. She had been in the edit with Fletch and Stephen, reviewing the footage, Fletch saying ‘When this airs, a hundred percent of the public will want te murder her,’ and Stephen reminding him of how popular Stacy’s original episode had been, with the viewing public won over by her frankness and utter self-confidence, which made Fletch grumble and curse about the audience’s severe lack of taste.

Grant smashed a handful of crisps into his mouth, saying, “Eighty per cent would avoid innit,” as if he’d been in the edit with them. “And twenty per cent would snog, blatantly.”

Charlotte turned towards him. Far too intuitive for a tracksuit-wearing food-hoover who was licking his palm to scoop up every last crumb. She gave him a little smile.

“Come on. If you’re done eating we’ll get you to makeup.”

“Done?” said Grant. “I ain’t started.”

By 9:04am Vicki the stylist was in the makeup room and sweating panic. Fletch and Stephen had decided Stacy’s make-under would involve a daring chocolate brown bob with Mischa Barton’s fashion sense. But they’d only told Vicki this morning, not half an hour ago. So now Vicki was scrabbling through the costume cupboard, rooting amongst witches, Wonder Woman and Vera Wangs, looking for the right hair dye. She searched through bag after bag, flinging them aside when they had nothing to offer. And if not the dye then at least a wig. Vicki chided herself for pocketing that chestnut hair dye last week.

She dragged a stool across the floor as she wasn’t tall enough to even reach the top cupboard let alone see inside it. She stood on tip-toes, the stool wobbling as she strained searching the cupboard’s innards. Outside, she heard the makeup room’s door breathe open and then clap abruptly closed, and knew Emma had entered.

“Clothes-wise I reckon we should go with the autumn hues, don’t you agree?” The presumptuous presenter called into the costume cupboard.

Vicki unsteadily stepped down from the stool. She got both feet on solid ground and would’ve felt a whole heap better were it not for Emma’s eyes drilling into her. Emma was standing in the doorway. With her fists on her hips she squinted at Vicki, assessing her.

“Come,” said Emma after a moment, and spun on her heels to cross the makeup room and hop into the chair.

Vicki sighed before following. In front of them along the wall was the long vanity table. The mirror was framed by bright lightbulbs, the glare from which didn’t help Vicki’s reflection. Her dry skin betrayed her exhaustion, and the bags under her eyes were heavy.

“We all set for lunch today?” said Emma in a hushed tone.

Vicki nodded obedience. “As long as everything runs like clockwork, nobody will know.”

Emma smiled thin lips. She sat up in the makeup chair, a Queen in her throne, pulling her hair back ready for Vicki to go to work on her ageing face.

Vicki picked up her makeup bag from the vanity table. She’d basically become Emma’s personal assistant since Emma caught her a few weeks back. Now Miss Presenter Bitch not only got Vicki to run errands and organise her diary, but also passive-aggressively bribed her, Emma pushing her own style agenda to sabotage the show’s contributors so they wouldn’t overshadow her. It almost never worked of course, Fletch and Stephen always had the final say on the make-under. But Emma was so threatened by the contributors she didn’t stop trying.

“Not that one,” snapped Emma. “Use the Fountain of Youth foundation. It’s finish is seamless over crows feet.”

Vicki didn’t say anything. She just fished out the foundation, doing as she was told.

The rest of the morning played out pretty standard. They shot the talking heads with Stacy’s friends in the studio bar. Stacy went into Pod - the Personal Overhaul Device, the show’s name for what was essentially just a portacabin on stilts - to receive the result of the public survey. She came out complaining about how rude Pod was, saying how she didn’t even know what Pod was ‘chattin’ aboutah, from brassy to classy, what’s that mean yeah?’

They then broke for lunch and people dispersed. The crew went offsite to hit up their favourite food market at The Quays. Emma and Vicki slunk off together without disclosing their plans. Fletch asked Charlotte to babysit Stacy while she had her make-under back in Pod. He asked her in that tone of his, on the cusp of forceful, a fuse about to be lit so Charlotte knew it was an order, not a request.

“I’ll need to um, pop out for five minutes to get some food though,” she’d said, her own voice wavering under nerves. “For lunch.”

“Of course ye will. But don’t take ye time aboot it,” he replied. “And make sure the orange slapper’s no more than a wee half hour.” Fletch rolling that R off his Scottish tongue. “She goes in, takes her paint oaf, then she’s straight into hair and makeup with Vicki.” And he walked away, leaving Charlotte sat on the steps leading up to Pod’s door.

At about 1:55pm Charlotte got a phone call on her mobile. She only said a few words before leaving the steps outside Pod to head towards the rear exit of the warehouse. When she returned just after 2pm Stacy had been in Pod for over half an hour. The girls often struggled with the make-under - the sheer amount of makeup to remove was a big factor - but more so was their attachment to the layers of foundation, blusher, eyeliner, eyeshadow, lipstick, lipgloss, shimmer and glitter, that they felt uncomfortable without it. So insecure in their natural state they, on average, spent half an hour in the Personal Overhaul Device umming and ahhing, shrieking and screeching as they psyched themselves up to shed their warpaint, Pod filming the ordeal for the editors to cut into the episode. And none shrieked and screeched more than Stacy. So Charlotte figured leaving Pod unattended for a few minutes would make no difference.

Scurrying out of the studio, Charlotte remembered one of Stacy’s pieces straight to camera in episode 37, when Stacy first appeared on the show. She had likened the process to bungee jumping, ‘Similar ain’t it yeah, coz like you got to pluck up the courage to step off the ledge, and even though you know you’re safe like tied to the elastic band or whatever, but still, you don’t wanna take that step innit’. It was gems like this that won over the hearts of the viewers, and why Stephen was considering her as the show’s new presenter for next season.

Fletch and some of the crew had a betting pool on how long contributors would spend delaying the inevitable in Pod. Back in episode 37, Fletch had wagered Stacy would take forty minutes and wasn’t far off when Stacy didn’t step out of Pod for three quarters of an hour. So at 2:03pm when Charlotte returned, she was a little concerned but none too surprised that Stacy was still in there.

“Stacy!” Charlotte hollered in the direction of the door. “How we doing?”

After a minute there was no answer. No sound at all.

“Stacy. Seriously, man, what’s the hold up?”

“Alright!… Gawdah!” Charlotte heard her yell from inside the portacabin.

“Okay, just hurry up. Lunch is over and we need to get you to makeup quick sharp.”

But then Charlotte heard nothing. After another ten minutes Stacy still hadn’t appeared and Charlotte was beginning to lose her patience.

“If you don’t come out, Stacy,” Charlotte shouted. “I’ll come in.” She counted to five in her head before stomping up the stairs to rap on Pod’s door. “Hurry. The. F. Up!”

Charlotte waited again, listening, holding her breath and pressing her ear up against the door to listen harder. Nothing.

“Alright, I’m coming in.”

At 2:14pm she opened the door to discover Stacy lying on Pod’s floor. A crown of blood seeped from a crack in the back of her head. Stacy was dead.

“Fooking hell, we’ve got TV to make.” Were Fletch’s first words. Then, “She’s definitely dead?”

“Yes.”

“Ye phoned the police?”

Charlotte hesitated for less than a second before nodding, “Should be here within the erm, hour.”

They were in edit suite C, away from prying eyes and ears. Fletch was sat in his director’s chair, which he’d brought in especially. Sharman, the head of post-production and chief editor on the show, was sat in a more orthodox computer chair. He’d barely batted an eye, other than a dubious frown, when Charlotte broke the news.

“Within the hour?! That’s late isn’t it? This isn’t a fooking dinner party, we’ve got a dead body and a murder scene.”

“A murder scene where the murder’s been and gone.” Charlotte bobbed her head to the door, the still body lying beyond. “No point them rushing, is there.”

Fletch shook his head, defeated, melodramatic. “Other than a murderer in our midst.” He looked at Charlotte. “It definitely wasn’t an accident?”

“Please.” Charlotte bit her lip a moment. “No way no how that was an accident. Her head’s split open. It was murder,” she said, hearing herself speak in Angela Lansbury’s soft, British-American accent. “Cold, callous and almost definitely calculated.”

Fletch rubbed his chin. “Fook sake, we’ve got TV to make.” After a pensive moment of silence he clicked his thick fingers. “Pod would’ve been filming Stacy removing all her slap, whole incident will’ve been recorded.”

“I checked,” said Charlotte. “Whoever killed her deleted the file, which would point to someone in the team.”

“Not necessarily,” Fletch shrugged. “One of the researchers gives all the contributors a wee tour when they join us, don’t they? Takes them through the shooting schedule, where everything is, and how Pod works.” Fletch sighed. “And no one’s left the set?”

“The crew are still at the Quays - gaffer man Mick and the two camera operators, Teddy and Eddy.”

“Stupid bloody names.”

“They’re brothers.”

“With pretty fooking imaginative parents too,” Fletch said irritably, shaking his head. Charlotte guessed he was more perturbed by the delay to shooting than the fact that someone had been killed. He scratched his stubbly chin and it sounded like a match being struck. “Call them, tell them to stay off site.”

“Already done.”

“And the rest havnae moved?”

You could always measure Fletch’s stress levels by the thickness of his accent. In the last days of a production, right before you wrapped, he’d turn full on Scottish again.

“No, they’re all here. Been chatting to people,” Charlotte bounced her pen on her notepad flirting with the prospect of telling Fletch what she was up to. “Putting together a list of suspects.”

“Ye’re what there?… Suspects? Should ye be doing that?”

“It falls under my jurisdiction, I mean, job spec,” nodded Charlotte officially, as if she’d checked in some town charter. “One of my many responsibilities is the safety of our contributors. So yeah, seeing as one of them’s dead, I feel it’s on me to clean this mess up.”

Fletch wasn’t listening, he folded his arms staring at Sharman’s massive computer screen. On it was a shot of the public analysis from the previous episode; a couple of guys stroking their copycat beards as they passed judgement on that week’s contributor.

“An ambulance coming?”

Charlotte didn’t even blink this time. “With the police.”

“Wish they’d hurry up and get here. Got TV to make.” Fletch scratched his ginger stubble again. His hair was a light brown, but his beard was very much strawberry blonde. “Who’s first aid trained?” he said after some tense reflection.

“Errr, me, you, why? She’s dead, Fletch. Very.”

“Go back to the scene there, look at it...” Fletch waved his hand around. “Ye know, take it all in, double, triple fooking check she’s definitely, definitely dead. Go through the motions. The right procedure is to get first aid trained staff on the scene right away, that’s what the company will ask,” biting his lip now, looking at Charlotte with worried eyes she’d never seen before. “If we had anyone first aid trained, that’s what the company will ask, no doot aboot it. The company, fook sake, and the insurance firm. That’s what they’ll want to know, did we follow protocol.”

“Right you are.” Charlotte glanced over her shoulder back to the suite’s door. A semi-circle of people had gathered outside, sharing theories and grief. “I guess I could cover her with a blanket.”

“At least.” Fletch shook his head. “At least cover her with a blanket.”

“Where do we keep blankets, do we even have blankets?” said Charlotte, her voice failing as a lump rose in her throat, the reality of the situation trying to settle in her mind; someone, a human being who had been walking around, living, breathing, being obnoxious less than sixty minutes ago, was now dead. Killed on their show. What. The. Hell? She hadn’t even known Stacy well, but she was a character. Her unique combination of blunt and naive birthed some funny moments on and off screen. She turned up late to her first day of shooting and Fletch tried to chew her out for it. Stacy just held up her hand, palm facing him, and said, ‘yeah mate, but I’m the star so allow me to diva yeah’ before flicking her hair and walking the wrong way to makeup, having to pass them all again to find the right room. As Charlotte felt the tears rise in her eyes she shook her head and took a deep breath, it was the breath of someone preparing themselves for an unfortunate but unavoidable undertaking. She checked her watch and scribbled down the time of death in her notebook.

“Fook, no,” said Fletch, leaning back in his director’s chair. “No we can’t cover her with a blanket.”

“Why not?”

“One; because I don’t know where any fooking blankets are. And two; because we shouldn’t disturb the body, in any way.”

“Good point,” Charlotte nodded, swallowing down the lump in her throat.

“Lock Pod. And no one leaves the set and no one touches any fooking thing,” said Fletch.

“Obviously.” Charlotte shrugged, then realised herself and smiled meekly at her producer’s disapproving eyes. “I mean, yes, totally, I’ll tell them. No one leaves the set. But we’ll have to keep Grant and Stephen separate. The former’s already tried to punch the latter. It took me, Sharman and Jaime to restrain him, guy’s stronger than he looks.”

Fletch nodded once, his face set in a hard frown. “Text the crew and tell them to stay offsite. Rest of the day off, something like that. Next question, and it’s a fooking biggie,” said Fletch. “Who killed her?”

Sharman said nothing. With his eyes glued to his panoramic computer screen he kept editing, clicking his mouse and tapping at his keyboard, the sounds filling the suddenly silent edit suite.

Charlotte bit her pen a minute. She shrugged, “Not sure yet. But I’ve seen enough Murder She Wrote to know that an amateur female detective is better than a professional policeman every time.” And with that she scuttled off before Fletch could protest.

People had congregated on the studio floor in the south east corner of the warehouse. It was currently made to look like a high-street bar; a fitting location for the talking heads with Stacy’s friends earlier this morning.

Split into two halves the studio consisted of a west wing - a largely open space that housed the studio floor for different sets, a buffet/reading table, and of course Pod up against the end wall of the warehouse. Above all this was a canopy of industrial lights hanging on pull down pantographs, a cage - or as the crew called it ‘the bird’s nest’ - so they could access the lights, and a green screen curtain on runners for easy adjustment. Charlotte hurried down the long corridor that cut the east wing in two. On the south side you had the three edit suites; A, B, and C. On the north side was the makeup room, toilets and a couple of small offices where Fletch and Stephen set up shop.

Stephen, Emma, Vicki and the assistant editor Jamie, were gathered on set. Fletch and Sharman joined them without saying a word. Grant was sat on a chair in the far corner, breathing heavily and staring at Pod as if he could see through its walls. He was running his fingernails over his gold chain, rounded shoulders heaving up and down with his breath. The ceiling lights meant his pitch black shadow was cast long, reaching across the studio floor towards Pod.

Charlotte bit the end of her pen, looking everyone up and down, evaluating the rogue’s gallery of murder suspects.

Stephen and Fletch sat comfortably in the bar’s armchairs. Fletch; the angry producer who thought little of the victim - tapped away on his phone. Stephen; the director having a torrid affair with the deceased - chewed pensively on the end of his glasses.

Emma and Vicki were huddled at the small oak bar. Emma; the superficial presenter whose job was on the line thanks to Stacy, was perched on one of the stools. She patted Vicki’s back in what could barely be called consoling. The twenty-something makeup artist was crying loud, wet sobs, head in her hands, snivelling about Stacy being so young.

Then there was Grant; the spurned boyfriend who had a criminal record for grievous bodily harm. Smoking a cigarette now, long slow drags, still staring at Pod with angry eyes. When she’d first told him, Charlotte thought Grant was going to hit her. His eyes bulged, his face turning vampiric with pain before he flew towards Stephen, windmilling his arms in a tornado of fists and cursing.

With her head down and nose in her notebook, Charlotte stole quick glances at her suspects before scribbling a few notes. She thought they were all capable of murder, with the exception of Jaime and Vicki. Her key suspects had motive too. But who would actually go through with it? And who had both the means and the opportunity?

“Everyone waits here, in the bar on set,” announced Charlotte. “I’ll interview people, one by one, in edit suite C. We need some decent space and walls between us so nosey parkers don’t listen in.” At this Charlotte couldn’t help but glance at Emma.

“Why the hell are we being interviewed by you?” said Emma through a snarl. Then, out the corner of her mouth. “You’re not the police.”

“The lady has a point,” agreed Stephen.

“If you’ve got nothing to hide, Stephen, you won’t mind answering a few questions,” replied Charlotte without hesitation. Her eyes shifted from the director to Emma. “And neither will you, ay Emma? But you’re right, I’m not the police, so I doubt anything you say can be used as evidence against you in a court of law.”

Emma shrugged, frowning in consternation before admiring her nails to simulate nonchalance. Stephen said nothing, tussling his fop of rich hair before chewing anxiously on the arm of his glasses.

“One of these posh fuck-tards kills my Stace and I’m supposed to just fucking wait? Fuck that.” Grant was standing outside their semi-circle now. He flicked his cigarette on the floor and stubbed it out with a few stamps of his foot then looked up with a challenging stare. His eyes vibrated with hate as he glared at Stephen, who’s own eyes were now glued to the floor.

Charlotte stepped in front of Grant, breaking his line of sight with the director, and affected the softest version of her voice possible.

“Grant, I’ve spoken to the police. They’ve instructed us to all stay on set. If you go now you’ll only incriminate yourself further. And when you’ve already got a classic motive, that’s a bad move, isn’t it?”

Grant held Charlotte’s stare. His tiny eyes squinted down at her, the peak of his cap hiding them in shadow. After a brief stand-off he assented with a nano shrug.

“Sharman, you bring in the buffet food,” said Charlotte.

“Bagels and pastries aren’t going make us forget there’s a killer among us,” said Emma, her tone even more haughty and indignant than usual.

Charlotte took a deep breath as the rogues gallery eyed one another suspiciously. Grant’s eyes darted from Stephen to Fletch to Emma, who stared down her nose right back at him before her eyes slid over to Stephen. The director pulled his glasses from between his teeth and frowned from Emma to Grant and back again.

“Emma, darling,” said Stephen, plucking up courage by adjusting his tweed blazer. “If anyone had motive, it was you.” And he raised his chin to feign confidence. “Getting rid of the competition, dare I say.”

“You’d better not dare, you floozy posho,” retorted Emma, standing up to put a hand on her hip and cock her head. “Tell me, did you sleep with every contributor, or was it only the ones with fake tits?”

“If you fucked my Stace I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Grant bellowed, pacing towards Stephen with intimidating purpose.

“Alright, calm yeself down a wee bit there, lad.” Fletch stood in front of Grant, his hand flat against Grant’s chest to stop him.

Grant’s elbow pulled back as if he was about to hit Fletch, but Vicki burst into tears again and the studio erupted into a cacophony of cursing, threats and accusations. It took another three minutes of Charlotte waving her hands in the air and pleading with everyone to remain calm and quiet down until they did.

“We’re agreed then,” said Charlotte, taking a deep breath, her rosy cheeks flustered. “You lot stay here. Fletch is gonna keep an eye. And I’ll call you in one by one while we wait for the police to arrive…”

Fletch had cordoned off Pod with four traffic cones and some prop ‘Do Not Cross’ police tape that looked and worked like the real thing.

Lifting the tape to duck under it, Charlotte walked up the steps and unlocked the portacabin. Stepping inside it struck her how far removed Pod in reality was from the version depicted on screen. In the aired show, Pod was a heavenly, infinite white space that looked like The Construct from The Matrix. This was achieved by four green walls as well as a green floor and green ceiling, CGI’d by Sharman in post production. Now the reality of this literal green room was made all the more stark by Stacy’s limp body and the pool of blood emanating from her head.

Stacy lay there on her front. She had been stripped of her glamorous wig and lace kimono so all she had on were the high-cut gold hot pants and a ripped tank top that Charlotte knew said ‘bad bitch’ across the chest in diamonte studs. Despite the caption and provocative outfit Charlotte thought Stacy looked vulnerable. Maybe it was all the exposed but lifeless flesh. Maybe it was the blood congealing on the green floor, the red slowly turning crimson. Or maybe it was the lack of fake tan and fake hair and fake eyelashes - Stacy’s armour - gone, leaving her vulnerable. Whoever killed her, Charlotte noted, did it after the make-under and before she’d got the new, more demure outfit on.

Charlotte squatted down. Because Stacy had fallen forward onto her front, Charlotte reasoned she must’ve been struck from behind, which tallied with the crack on the back of Stacy’s head. Her left arm was twisted down at an awkward angle, her legs outstretched, still adorned in those glittering stilettos. Up by her right hand was a crisp packet. Beef Monster Munch. Grant.

Still on her haunches Charlotte pulled out a pen. Jessica Fletcher had taught her well, this way she wouldn’t get her fingerprints all over the crime scene. Using the biro she moved the crumpled crisp packet to look inside. It was half full. Odd. She’d witnessed Grant eating crisps. He threw his head back and tipped every last crumb into his mouth, a dump-truck unloading earth into a hole in the ground. He’d never leave this much, and although he wasn’t the brightest star in the sky, was he really so dim as to leave incriminating evidence at the murder scene?

Charlotte pocketed her biro. Stacy’s head was twisted to the side, eyes still open, staring at the wall, looking at nothing. She wanted to close them but the idea of touching a dead body made her stomach turn. It also felt too familiar, the sort of gesture that should be performed by a family member or close friend. Charlotte got up and left Pod wishing she did have a blanket to drape over Stacy’s body and face. Cover those empty eyes.

Grant’s head was hung as he stared at the carpet. One hand held a fist, massaging it, clicking his finger knuckles, the brittle snapping sound amplified in the small edit suite. Charlotte bit the inside of her lip, the guy obviously hurting, her here to quiz him on whether or not he murdered his girlfriend. She swallowed her emotions down, putting them aside to get to the truth. That’s what Hercule Poirot would do, she told herself. Jessica Fletcher and Miss Marple wouldn’t shy away from asking the tough questions.

“You did it, didn’t you.”

Grant looked up with a face full of thunder and lightning in his eyes. “Fuck off,” he said like a snake spitting venom.

Edit suite C was dark, lit only by the glow of a computer monitor that cast Grant’s contorted face in a cold blue.

“Come on, Grant, admit it.” Charlotte put her hand on his shoulder as if she was confiding with her best friend. “You did it. You found out Stacy was shagging Stephen and you flipped. It was a crime of passion, man, murder in cold blood, sleepless... in... Seattle?” Charlotte scrunched up her face, confused at herself.

“Sleeping with the fishes?” he offered.

“Sleeping with the fishes,” Charlotte clicked her fingers at him, back on track. “Nice, sleeping with the fishes. Yeah, you did it, didn’t you?” she nodded at him, earnest as a fortune teller.

“Can you allow saying that? ‘I did it’. I didn’t kill Stace.” He shook his head, still not believing the words. “Not in the middle of the day on the set of some shite TV show. Not my style, mate.”

Charlotte nodded again, this time a single bob of her head as if having to accept his logic. She crossed her legs, leaning her notebook on her raised knee.

“You believe me?” said Grant.

Charlotte looked at him. His eyes twinkled now like his gold chain.

“Not yet.” And she wrote something in her notebook.

“What are you writing? Stop writing about me.” Grant leant forward in the black computer chair and went to grab Charlotte’s pad, but she whipped it away to lie flat against her chest.

“Official production business, sorry,” Charlotte smiled, a quick flash, before her mouth dropped into seriousness again.

“Who made you Detective Cluedo?”

Charlotte hesitated. “There was a packet of Monster Munch left by the body.”

Grant looked at her as if Charlotte was an utter moron. “Yeah, coz I’m just that fucking stupid innit.”

“Your favourite flavour, Grant. Beef. I bought you some this morning.”

“So? Doesn’t mean I killed her.” He shook his head, a baffled, tired motion. “You know who did it, don’t ya?” Grant said, talking out the corner of his mouth now. “Director Stephen. Stephen with a ‘P-H’ for fuck off.”

“You’re spelling’s swell.”

“Whatever. That snooty prick with a clapper board up his arse and his fucking Blackberry. Serious? Who has a Blackberry nowadays? iPhone innit, or at least a Samsung. Maybe an HTC. But a fucking Blackberry? Jeez,” Grant shook his head. “He killed my Stace. He killed her coz he didn’t want no one finding out about his chavvy lil bit on the side. Couldn’t have anyone know he slummed it with some council estate pussy, like that’s a bad thing. The fucking, up-himself Blackberry twat.”

“Twat-berry,” said Charlotte without thinking.

“Twat-berry,” nodded Grant.

“So she’s ‘your’ Stacy now?” Charlotte raised her eyebrows at him like; come on, be honest.

“To be fair,” Grant nodded, a confessional little shrug flowed from his sloping shoulders. “She was a fucking nightmare. But she was my nightmare. And I was hers.” He hesitated, biting his lower lip to stop it wobbling. He kissed his teeth taking a deep breath. “I loved her innit. Yeah we had our ups and downs, fucking argued, cheated on each other and shit. But when it was good between us, it was proper amazing ya know?”

Charlotte’s heart dropped. If Grant was acting then he should be in Hollywood not Salford.

“So, you knew she was cheating on you with Stephen?”

“It ain’t like I knew for a fact.” Grant’s shrug was different this time, as if his whole upper body was deflating. “It wouldn’t be the first time. But she always came back to me. Won’t now though.” And he started cracking his fingers again.

Charlotte noted it down in her book. “Where were you during lunch?”

“Smoking bare joints round the back of the studio innit. Weed’s chill, and without it I would’ve battered that dickhead director. Was well obvious this morning that something’s going on between ‘em. Whether they were shagging or not, fuck knows.” Grant looked at Charlotte now, his weasel eyes beady under his frowning brow. “Still will batter him innit, if he killed my Stace.”

Charlotte wrote it down in her notebook, not doubting him for a second.

After Charlotte checked the unofficial smoking area behind the studio - the half dozen roaches littering the floor confirming Grant’s story - she collected Stephen from the set and they settled down in edit suite C.

“So, Stephen with a P-H.”

The director sat there. In the dark edit room his glasses were two circular black mirrors, hiding his eyes.

Charlotte frowned. “Can you take your glasses off, please?”

“I really can’t see without them,” he protested, changing his position, hooking one lanky leg over the other and letting his size eleven feet flop in front like a couple of paddles.

“You don’t need to see, you just need to speak.” Charlotte felt herself sliding into the bad cop role, an edge creeping into her voice.

Stephen pulled off his glasses and folded them into the breast pocket of his silk shirt. Charlotte’s eyes were determined, piercing through the tension in the room as they met Stephen’s. His eyes were a murky chestnut brown.

“Better. Thank you,” she said, getting up and turning on the lights.

The bulbs were sunken into the ceiling but still emitted a glare harsh enough for an interrogation room. Stephen rubbed his eyes as they acclimatised to the light.

“I thought you said we don’t need to see.”

“You don’t,” said Charlotte. “I do.” She hesitated, glancing down at her notebook. “You and Stacy were having an affair, weren’t you?”

Why waste time beating around the bush? Charlotte thought the direct approach might catch him off guard.

“I’m married with children, Charlotte,” Stephen said evenly.

“That’s why I used the word ‘affair’.”

For a moment Stephen said nothing. His mouth fell open just a little and Charlotte thought he was about to start chewing his bottom lip before he stopped himself and simply said again, “Charlotte, I’m married.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “Married men are always dedicated and faithful.”

Stephen’s eyebrows bobbed up, perhaps surprised by her acerbic sarcasm. Then he gave her a wry twitch of a smile.

“I am.”

“Bullshit!” yelled Charlotte, throwing her notebook across the room to land on the edit console at the end of the suite.

Her loud curse and the flying notebook shattered the air that had been thick with tension. Stephen adjusted his position, rattled now, switching his legs over, and then back again, as if he couldn’t get comfortable. She’d shaken him. Charlotte had to fight the smug smile off her face and continue deadpan.

“You and Stacy were screwing harder than a hardware store. She wanted to end it but you didn’t like some common tart calling the shots.” Her voice was raised with a righteous indignation, like a cop summing up the denouement of a complex case. “So when you had the chance you killed her, bitter and spurned.”

Stephen took a breath. That small grin of his twitched the corners of his mouth again and his thin lips pulled tight, amused by the young assistant’s tenacity.

“I’m afraid, none of that is true.”

“Damn,” said Charlotte, then he shrugged. “So what were you arguing about this morning?”

He coughed into his palm. Clearing his throat or buying time?

“Stacy didn’t like some of Pod’s jokes in the script. She requested I take them out and I was trying to explain to her why they’re integral to the tone of the show.”

Charlotte stared at him a moment. Her eyes probed his long, flushed face, before she got up and crossed the suite to get her notebook off the console.

After jotting down a few lines Charlotte said, “Where were you between one and two pm?”

Stephen didn’t miss a beat. “One to one thirty I was having lunch at the Drunk Duck.”

“Anyone vouch for you?”

“Only the barmaid, chef, owner, and a half dozen patrons.”

“What did you eat?”

“A spicy bean burger with a side of hand cut wedges.”

“To drink?”

“Pint of Doombar,” he said without pause.

Charlotte made a note then nodded as if satisfied. “And the other half an hour?”

A bead of sweat ran down Stephen’s temple. “In the edit with Jamie and Fletch.”

“And when you were walking from the pub back to the set, you didn’t happen to stop off at Pod and quickly bludgeon Stacy to death?”

“No,” said Stephen as if the answer was obvious. He changed position, fidgeting. “Is that what happened, how she died I mean, by… bludgeoning?” and said the word as if trying on a hat he didn’t want to wear.

“I dunno, what’s the definition of bludgeoning?”

Stephen coughed again before saying, “To beat someone repeatedly with a heavy object.”

He seemed pretty familiar with the hat though.

“Well, her split skull would certainly suggest so.”

“Have you even established the murder weapon yet?”

Charlotte paused, blinking. For a moment her tough cop impression was broken and she scribbled in her notebook; murder weapon?

“And were Jamie and Fletch both in the edit for the entirety of lunch?”

“I’ve no idea, Charlotte,” said Stephen, pausing to clear his throat one last time before sneezing violently into his palm. He recovered and looked up at her to say, “You’ll have to ask them.”

She bit the end of her pen. “You don’t seem very upset.”

“Says the girl who’s taken it upon herself to investigate the murder, rather than grieve or console her colleagues.”

Charlotte frowned. “This is how I deal. I’m keeping myself occupied.”

“And I’m not one to show emotion. But it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. Stacy was a,” he paused thinking of the right word. “A character. And I was very fond of her. Not only have we lost a life, we lost a life on my watch.”

At this Charlotte changed tact. “Filming will be delayed,” she tutted, withering her head like she was old beyond her years.

“Delayed? This will end the show, not to mention my career. No production company worth their salt hires a director with an on-set kill count.” Stephen stared at Charlotte with vacant eyes. Their chestnut colour was greyed and blurry. Sweat dappled his upper lip like dew on a blade of grass.

“Maybe leave that one off the ol’ CV,” she joked, trying to make it conversational now, soften him up. The bad cop routine hadn’t worked. Maybe if she was the good cop it would lull Stephen into a false sense of security and he’d slip up.

“Indeed.” Stephen nodded. He was staring at the carpeted floor, in a world of his own, a world of torrid affairs and power plays.

“What’s your favourite flavour of crisps?”

Stephen looked up at Charlotte, his experienced eyes calm and composed.

“Why do you ask?”

Charlotte bit her lip and clacked from the corner of her mouth.

“The empty packet of Monster Munch found by the body.”

“Which flavour of Monster Munch?”

Charlotte met Stephen’s steady stare with equally cool eyes. “Beef.”

“Apologies,” he said smugly. “I’m more of a pickled onion man myself.”

“Man, your onion is so pickled. You murdered Stacy to cover up your affair and you left a packet of Monster Munch at the scene to throw me, I mean, the police, off the scent.” Charlotte grinned, as if she’d got him.

“That’s ludicrous.” Stephen paused, his index finger wiping the sweat off his lip as he thought for a moment. “You bought the Monster Munch this morning. That puts you at the scene of the crime more than me.”

“No - ” Charlotte tried to continue but got nowhere as Stephen kept talking.

“You could’ve easily bought an extra packet with the express intention of using it to frame someone,” said Stephen, not holding back, his flowing hair falling over his face as he leant forward.

“Why would I do that?”

“You’re sick,” nodded Stephen, his blank face was devoid of any irony, as if Charlotte had already admitted this and he was wholeheartedly accepting her confession. “You’re a sick, twisted, production assistant.”

“Coordinator. I’m a production coordinator.”

“A stressed, over-worked, under appreciated production coordinator...” Stephen kept nodding, reciting a headline now. “Snaps! Killing a slap-addict contributor on the hit TV show Snog, Marry, Swerve.” His hands outlined a strip in front of him as if printing the headline right there in the air.

“That headline is terrible, liable, and totally inaccurate,” said Charlotte. “It’s hardly a ‘hit’ TV show. And anyway, I’m investigating the murder, I can’t be a suspect.”

“Everyone on set’s a suspect.” Stephen held firm.

Charlotte bit her lip. He wasn’t wrong. She wrote her own name down in her notebook and felt sweat start to bead on her forehead.

At 2:35pm Charlotte found Sharman by the buffet table. His mouth full and his plate piled high with bagels, croissants and crisps.

“You got a minute, Sharms?”

“For you,” he spluttered around his food. “I’ve got two.”

“Good to see the violent murder of our contributor hasn’t affected your appetite.”

“Nothing ever has,” he said swallowing. “Remember the London Riots? That week I ate three roast dinners, four BBQs and made my own trifle.”

Charlotte frowned for a second, wondering if he was joking, then shook it off. She’d worked with Sharman for three years now, he didn’t have a sense of irony. She nodded at his brimming plate.

“Fan of crisps, are you?”

“Who isn’t?” His answer was matter of fact, a genuine question as he pushed a handful of Walkers into his mouth.

“What’s your favourite flavour?”

Sharman’s brow creased under pensive consideration. He crunched his crisps, their brittle splintering muted inside his mouth.

“Either Spicy Nik Naks or Salt and Vinegar Hula Hoops,” he replied after a long, thoughtful minute.

“Not beef Monster Munch?”

Sharman shrugged. “They’re okay, I guess. Hard to find.”

Charlotte made a note in her pad.

“A half eaten packet was found next to Stacy’s body. Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you Sharms?”

“Who eats half a packet of crisps?”

She paused to make another note in her book. It was a good point.

“Where were you between one and two pm today?”

“In the edit, cutting episode two.”

“You didn’t take lunch?”

“I prefer to take it later, less time when you go back.”

Charlotte bobbed her head to the side pursing her lips, you couldn’t refute that either; the later lunch was, the closer to home time you were. She stared at Sharman a moment, his face blank, his jaw eating mechanically. Charlotte didn’t think he was the killer, he had no clear motive. But his detached attitude did lend itself to being a psychopath.

“Anyone with you in the edit during that time?”

Sharman took a slow bite of his bagel. The cream cheese oozed out and he smacked his lips together, chewing loudly.

“Jamie, for the duration. And Stephen, for the latter half an hour.”

At this Charlotte ticked off her notes concerning Stephen’s alibi after the pub. Before she found Sharman, a quick phone call to the Drunk Duck had confirmed Stephen had indeed been there from one to one thirty.

“And Fletch for a bit,” added Sharman. “He left for a toilet trip but was with me for the majority of lunch.”

Fletch ay, thought Charlotte. He’d never liked Stacy. Thought she was one of their most uncooperative contributors, had called her a talentless trollop on multiple occasions and passionately resented the fact that they’d asked her back for the revisit episode, let alone that Stephen was pushing for her to present next season. None of which constituted motive but she could certainly see the flying-off-the-handle Scotsman murder someone. When Charlotte first started on the show he reduced her to tears with a few choice words and his bulging, angry eyes because she forgot his lunch order.

Back in the dark edit suite Fletch sat down opposite Charlotte. She’d drawn the venetian blinds so the light from the corridor outside cast strips of shadow across his face.

“First thing I need to ask about, Fletch, is your toilet trip.” She consulted her notebook. “At approximately one forty-five today you left the edit and weren’t seen again until nearly ten past two.”

He laughed it off, guttural and hearty. “No doot. I needed my lunchtime pooh, always do. Why there, you wanna see proof?”

Charlotte answered dead serious, “That won’t be necessary.” She was searching his face for a crack in the facade and thought his mouth twitched but Fletch shifted position and his mouth disappeared into a strip of black shadow.

“Does your lunchtime pooh always take twenty minutes?”

“Sometimes a wee bit more.” He shrugged, unembarrassed. Years of industry stress had lined his face so much it now resembled driftwood. He was only in his forties but he looked ten years older. “Why’d you think I take a magazine with me?”

“Which magazine was it this time?”

“I dunno, Wired I think. Or maybe New Scientist.”

Charlotte’s forehead creased, unconvinced.

“I cannae remember exactly,” he said. “I read some article about how drones are clogging up our airspace so the UK’s introducing strict new licensing laws.”

Charlotte made a note. She’d check both magazines for the article.

“Can you explain your irrational hatred of the victim?”

“Oh come on, ‘hatred’ is strong. I disliked her, no doot aboot it. But hate, I wouldn’t waste ma energy.”

Charlotte hit him with her most penetrating stare.

“Admittedly,” continued Fletch. “I thought she was a shallow lass with less than half a brain cell. But I didn’t hate her. Certainly not enough to kill the moronic piece a mutton. Tell you who did despise her though.”

Charlotte’s eyes flicked up from her notebook.

“Emma,” said Fletch.

“Emma hates most of our contributors. Anyone who’s the centre of attention vexes her, let alone someone who might take her job.”

“Indeed,” nodded Fletch. “That’s why she loathed Stacy more than most. Ye see, Emma thought Stacy was actually quite pretty, under all the makeup. Stacy was young, at only twenty-one, so she had time on her side. Which is more than Emma has. And Stephen was pushing the company to consider Stacy to take over as presenter, ye know that there don’t ye? That was the straw that broke the camel’s head open.”

“How’d you know that was how she died?” asked Charlotte, squinting at her boss.

“Ye told me.”

Charlotte’s eyes scanned Fletch’s face for the truth, a hint of something. He leant back in the computer chair so this time it was his eyes that vanished into a strip of shadow.

“Stacy died from a hard blow to the back of the head,” said Charlotte. “Potentially bludgeoned.”

“What, hit over and over and over again?”

“Bludgeoning can just be one strike.”

“Don’t know aboot that, Charlotte.” Fletch shook his head, his shaggy ginger hair waving with the motion. “Pretty sure a good bludgeoning means more than one strike, by it’s very definition there.”

“Either way,” Charlotte shrugged, trying to get back on track. “Does Emma even have that kind of strength?” Charlotte’s eyes moved down to Fletch’s thickset arms. “To bludgeon, beat,” she corrected herself, “someone to death.”

Fletch watched Charlotte’s gaze on his bulky arms. He leant forward so his eyes came into the light and parried with, “How did the killer even get into Pod without ye seeing? Were you not waiting out front like I asked?”

Charlotte stammered now, saying she had ducked out for just two minutes to get some food. Then added, “But I heard Stacy’s voice in there after I got back.”

“And then discovered her dead ten minutes later?”

“Pretty much.”

“So how did the killer get in and out of Pod without ye seeing?”

Charlotte paused, frowning. She started biting the end of her pen, thinking hard but offering no answers.

Fletch continued. “Ye need to establish a timeline of events, confirm where everyone was at the time of death, which subsequently means you’ll have to figure oot when exactly she was killed.”

Charlotte jotted these instructions into her notebook.

“So when did ye get back from getting food?”

“No later than two,” Charlotte answered definitively.

“And ye heard her voice when?”

“I got back and called in there, asked how she was getting on.”

“And she yelled back?”

“Not at first. After my initial holler was met with silence I asked her again and that’s when she proper snapped in that awful twang of hers; gawdah.”

“Okay there, so she was alive and well at two?”

“Two, five past two. But then I was back, and I didn’t leave the steps outside Pod. So how’d they get in to do the deed, let alone out again without me seeing?”

At this point Fletch leaned forward. The way the strips of light and shadow moved across his face as he frowned, it was like an old zoetrope, his expression a rudimentary animation. He flicked a long orange lock of hair out of his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I’d focus on getting everyone’s alibi first, figure out where they all were. Once ye’ve got a timeline of people’s movements we can go from there.”

“Yeah, a timeline of people’s movements.” Charlotte nodded, biting the end of her pen again. “That’s what we need.”

Charlotte found Emma in the makeup room with Vicki.

“Why aren’t you two on set with the others?”

“Because we’re human beings, not animals,” said Emma. “And you have no authority over us.”

“Yeah, Char. We’re not, we’re not cattle you can just like, herd into place.” Vicki stuttered like an actor who didn’t know their lines.

Charlotte regarded her with a bemused wonder. Vicki was a wallflower, rarely vocal and much less contentious. Charlotte was about to agree with her when Vicki, without any prompting, launched into a poorly rehearsed monologue, explaining how her and Emma had gone for lunch at the Drunk Duck. Apparently it was quite the debacle because the pub messed up their orders; Vicki had asked for the roast chicken with garden salad and Emma ordered the Portobello mushroom burger without chips, however Emma ended up getting the burger with the garden salad and they gave Vicki the roast chicken with sweet potato fries. But Vicki was no storyteller, and her tale felt rushed. She then forced out a laugh as if she’d told the best joke ever.

“Guess you had to be there,” said Charlotte with a dubious tone and wry head raise.

Vicki and Emma shared a tense look before a pregnant pause filled the room. Emma only let it last a few seconds, saying, “I was cool with it, of course. A salad and mushroom burger has way less calories.”

“So you were there for the duration of lunch?”

“From one to two,” Emma cut in, too quickly. “Yep, we were there. Eating too much.”

And then it was her turn to force out some laughter. The sound was strained and painful to hear, more like the wail of a young child than the laugh of a grown woman.

Charlotte looked from Emma to Vicki. From Emma’s hard beauty, her strong jaw and wing-mirror cheek bones that looked like they’d been chiselled from marble, to Vicki’s face; pretty in a soft cheese sort of way. Vicki’s expression was pained though, her eyes guilty, unable to meet Charlotte’s, as if the truth would flood out if she held eye contact for too long. Charlotte needed to talk to Vicki alone.

“Emma, can you give us a minute?”

“Why?” said Emma, again too quick to be comfortable.

“Because I’d like to talk to Vicki alone.”

“Who made you Queen of the interrogation? You’re not the police.”

“True, I’m not. I have no legal right to question you, no-one is obligated to give me answers. But as Production Coordinator - ”

“ - Assistant,” Emma said, undermining and spiteful.

“Coordinator,” Charlotte reiterated, her voice with an edge now, not backing down. “As production coordinator the crew’s wellbeing is my responsibility and both our production company and the insurance firm are going to have some serious questions. Questions I need to be able to answer if I’m ever going to get another job in this racket. So if you’ve got nothing to hide why not stop being a difficult bitch and play along. Tell me where you really were during lunch.”

Emma’s upper lip pulled up to her nose in a snarl, an animal backed into a corner. She leant forward and hissed at Charlotte.

“I’m not telling your frizzy, ginger face nothing, honey-bun. Now fuck off and play Poirot with someone else.”

Charlotte smiled knowing she was onto something. Before she left the makeup room she glanced at Vicki. The poor girl was still staring at the floor as if her eyes were planting roots. But it didn’t hide the fact that the colour had drained from her face.

Standing in the corridor another quick call to the Drunk Duck (the landlord’s tone was short but intrigued by Charlotte’s quest) confirmed Vicki and Emma did not have lunch there. Evidence the two were hiding something, as if Charlotte needed it with Vicki’s guilty doe eyes and Emma’s snapping.

Did Emma kill Stacy and Vicki knows? Charlotte could see Emma as a murderer, but not Vicki. What was Emma’s motive, jealousy? She hated Stacy getting all the attention. Or as Fletch put it, ‘coveted Stacy’s youth’. And maybe she knew Stephen and the production company were considering Stacy as the show’s new host. Would that be enough to turn Emma into a killer? It was a stretch, but feasible, thought Charlotte as she walked down the corridor toward the studio floor, scribbling in her notebook.

Sitting in the edit suite, Sharman’s clicks and taps surrounded them as he worked. Charlotte’s pen joined the symphony, scratching across the paper in her notebook as she tried to establish a clear timeline of events.

Her interview with Jamie hadn’t helped. The edit assistant was nervous, picking at his face, the remnants of adolescent acne still evident, as he floundered through his answers. But Charlotte put his anxious demeanour down to his age; at 18 he was fresh out of college and had only been working on the show for three months. With little connection to the victim, Charlotte didn’t peg him as the killer. He had a pretty water-tight alibi, having been in the edit with Sharman for the duration of lunch. And when she quizzed in him on his nervous disposition the kid had made a good point saying, ‘someone we work with is a murderer’.

The one morsel of interesting information Jamie had shed was when he told Charlotte he saw Stacy by the east wing exit just after two pm. But Charlotte discovered her body at two fourteen - so where was Stacy going? And how’d she get back inside Pod to be killed, without Charlotte seeing her? And more to the point, how did the murderer get inside Pod, while Charlotte was waiting outside? The killer could’ve snuck into Pod when Charlotte went to buy food, but when did they sneak back out?

“You know about the secret trapdoor in Pod, right?” said Sharman, without turning to look at her.

Unbeknownst to Charlotte, as her mind unwrapped the case she’d been uttering her thoughts out loud.

“The what?” she said, flat as a floorboard.

“The secret trapdoor,” Sharman said slowly, raising his voice and enunciating his words as if the issue was that Charlotte hadn’t heard him.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled.

“Your sigh and the furious look in your eyes tell me you’re annoyed.”

Charlotte stared at him blankly, saying nothing.

“Why you’re so annoyed I don’t know. The secret trapdoor, which is really just Pod’s fire exit hatch, explains how the killer got in and out without you seeing.”

“Show me,” said Charlotte with a backwards head nod.

Now it was Sharman’s turn to be annoyed. He huffed and with a couple of aggressive taps on the keyboard to save his work, heaved himself out of the leather computer chair.

As they climbed the few metal stairs up to Pod, Charlotte’s heart beat hard in her chest. It wasn’t the fact they were entering the scene of the crime, but that they were going to witness the results of it.

There, in the green box, was Stacy’s lifeless body. She didn’t know why, but Charlotte half expected Stacy to be sat cross-legged on the floor, rubbing her head as if she’d just woken up from being concussed after a bad fall. But no. The poor girl was still lying on her front, the puddle of crimson haloing her fragile head. The red against the green looked hyperreal, as if the scene was in Photoshop and someone had played with the colour balance.

“The turntable here.” Sharman was unperturbed, acting as if there wasn’t a dead body right next to them. He knelt down beside the circular platform in the floor. It was what the contributors stood on as Pod rotated them round to judge and snipe from every angle. Putting the ‘tan’ in ‘Tangoed’, Pod had said of Stacy in her first episode.

Sharman lifted the disc. It slid smoothly on a hydraulic hinge to yawn open like an eager mouth. And inside was the oesophageal secret exit.

“You come out at a panel on that side of the portacabin.” Sharman hooked his thumb back to the far end of Pod.

“So that’s how they got in and out without me seeing.” Charlotte pulled at a curl of ginger hair absently. “Damn. They could’ve done it at any time.”

“I thought they got in when you left your post to get food,” said Sharman, closing the round hatch.

Charlotte coughed and stuttered, “Yes, well, maybe.”

“You need to pin it down, the time of death.”

“I know!” Charlotte snapped.

She was staring at the body again, silently apologising to Stacy. If only she hadn’t left her post, Stacy might still be here. Charlotte lost herself in those vapid eyes as she deliberated. Jamie had seen her heading to the east wing exit just after two pm, ‘nearly tenpast’ he’d said, when she pushed him to narrow it down. This corresponded with the fact that Charlotte had heard Stacy’s voice inside Pod a few minutes after two, when she was trying to hurry her up - a fool’s errand - only to discover the body at 2:14pm. This gave Stacy and the killer ten minutes to get back inside Pod. Charlotte shook her head, the puzzle was like a rubik’s cube, each turn just complicated the situation more. She looked around, something else bothering her now. Bending down, she peered around Stacy’s lifeless form, lifting up her arms with a biro, searching for something.

“Where’s Stacy’s phone?” she asked after a minute.

“Dunno,” shrugged Sharman. “In her pocket, or maybe that clutch bag?”

“No, I checked her clutch. And come on, you think that outfit has pockets? She was surgically attached to that blinged-out iPhone. She kept it linked to her arm by a diamonte chain.”

“To match the diamonte phone case?”

Charlotte nodded. “But look, the chain’s been ripped off her bracelet here.” Charlotte bent down again, and with her biro pointed at the sparkling bracelet on Stacy’s wrist. “And here’s a broken link, studded with diamonte.” Charlotte, using the biro like a lever, lifted Stacy’s limp hand up off the floor to reveal a glittering chain link encrusted with fake diamonds.

“You think she was murdered for her gaudy iPhone?” said Sharman, his voice dubious, almost condescending.

“I think she was murdered for something on her gaudy iPhone.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno, use your imagination; photos, texts, someone’s dirty laundry they really didn’t want aired. I reckon, we find that phone, we find the killer.”

“That feels like quite a leap.”

“If I’ve learned anything from watching detective dramas, it’s that you need to make massive assumptions on minimal evidence and hope to hell they pan out.”

“How are you going to find the phone?” Sharman scrunched up his nose, doubtful. “If it’s even about her phone.”

“It needs to be flushed out.”

“If I was a murderer who brutally killed someone for their phone, then I’d destroy said phone as soon as possible.”

“It’s not the phone, it’s what’s on the phone.”

“Then you’d still destroy it,” argued Sharman, flat though, not irate just adamant.

“Not if it was storing something you wanted.”

Sharman gave her a look; such as?

“Like,” stammered Charlotte, “like a map to some buried treasure.”

“Sarcasm will get us nowhere,” he said. “Stacy wasn’t a peroxide pirate.”

“Maybe she had pictures of Emma without makeup.” Charlotte raised her eyebrows; got you there haven’t I. Then continued, “Emma and Vicki weren’t having lunch at the Drunk Duck like they claimed.”

“That doesn’t mean they were busy killing Stacy.”

“Maybe not. But they lied. It means they’re hiding something, so right now they’re my number one suspects. Emma killed Stacy because… on Stacy’s phone she had… I dunno, proof of Emma’s real age.”

The expression on Sharman’s face was unconvinced.

“There’s loads of reasons why that presenter bitch would turn psycho killer.”

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” said Sharman with a knowing smile that showed off his brilliant white teeth.

“I bet it didn’t even take much to push her over the edge,” Charlotte replied, a level to her voice that said her mind was made up. “I’ll be able to get the truth out of Vicki if I can get her alone.” Her eyes were wide as she looked at Sharman, imploring.

“What do you want me to do?” he said through a sigh.

“Call Emma into the edit and keep her there for at least half an hour.”

“What if she drags Vicki along with her?”

Charlotte pondered a moment, her right eyebrow frowning as she thought.

“Tell her it’s sensitive, about the show’s future or something. Or, no. Get Emma in the edit by telling her you want her opinion on a cut. She’ll love that. Then if she’s got Vicki in tow say you wanted to run something past Emma that’s for her eyes only. Play to her ego, it won’t fail.”

Sharman’s stare was blank but Charlotte knew what was coming.

“Alright,” he agreed, in that skeptical tone of his as he exited Pod.

Left alone with the body, Charlotte fell back against the wall. She let out a long, deep breath. Staring at Stacy, losing herself in those vapid eyes again, tears welled up in her own as grim reality gnawed at her. Charlotte’s stomach knotted, twisting and turning to make her feel nauseous. She forced herself to look away, wiping her eyes and swallowing down the lump in her throat as she hurried out.

By 3:15pm Fletch was biting his nails. He was on set sat in his director’s chair. Beside him, in one of the fake bar’s armchairs, was Stephen. Grant was smoking a joint by the bar, staring at his hands. His eyes were bloodshot thanks to the weed, the only thing placating him, stopping him from putting his fists through Stephen’s face. Every now and then he’d swear under his breath, take his hat off and run his hand through his crew cut hair. At one point he went round the bar to pour himself a drink. But when the Jack Daniels bottle only poured apple juice he swore loud and long. Jamie was his usual meek self; quiet and unassuming as he sat on a bar stool, either staring into space or eyeing his work mates with terrified suspicion. One of them was a killer, it made him feel nauseous with worry and he’d go back to staring into the middle distance.

Through his chestnut curls Stephen watched his executive producer chew on his fingers. He’d never seen Fletch like this. But then again, he’d never been on a show where one of the cast had been murdered. Stephen put Fletch’s out of character anxiety down to the extenuating circumstances. The potential end to both their careers. There was even a manslaughter charge on the cards, depending on the outcome of the police investigation and if they were deemed negligent. Where were the police? It had been an hour now.

Fletch huffed, a meaty harrumph as he stood up abruptly, knocking his director’s chair over.

“I’m gonnae find out how Char’s getting on there,” said Fletch.

“You can’t leave, dickhead,” hollered Grant. He was leant back, his elbows on the bar. “Ginger minger said stay on set.”

Fletch glowered at him. Stephen reached over to put his hand on Fletch’s arm.

“The heathen’s right, it’ll only give her more ammunition. She’ll claim you were off destroying evidence or something equally ridiculous.” And Stephen waved his hand in the air to signify a flight of fancy.

Fletch gritted his teeth. The L-shaped bone of his jaw protruded through the skin as it tensed, working away. He frowned, taking a deep breath. As he exhaled the frown fell, as if the tension escaped his body along with the breath. The sigh of a man resigned to whatever fate had in store for him. He picked up his director’s chair and plonked himself back in it.

At the same time, Sharman was poking his head round the makeup room door. He had been right to be skeptical. Emma stood like she was on guard, a pit bull at the gate. A pit bull with her claws deep into Vicki, who cowered in the makeup chair, chewing on a strand of her own hair. But Sharman followed Charlotte’s direction and claimed he wanted Emma’s opinion on a crucial episode beat that involved her, and within a minute the pit bull was strutting into edit suite C, full of self-importance.

Hiding in the corridor, round the corner from the makeup room, Charlotte heard Emma threatening Vicki not to say a word to that ‘snooping ginger plant’ about what they were doing during lunch. When Emma slunk out to follow Sharman, Charlotte ducked into Fletch’s empty office and in the door-window’s reflection, could see the presenter checking left and right down the corridor, hoping no one saw her leave. Charlotte slipped out of the office and into the makeup room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Vicki turned around thinking it was Emma returning. When she saw it was Charlotte, Vicki’s face dropped like an anchor, the blood draining from it.

“W-what are you doing here?” Vicki scrambled out of the chair.

Her face was pale and her ghostly lips wobbled as she spoke.

“Vicki, why’s Emma got you so shook? It’s me, Charlotte.” Charlotte waved as if seeing her across the street. “Remember? We used to smoke a sly doobie on lunch together and come back to work high as hell in the afternoon. But no one clocked coz of our system - I brought the mouthwash and you had an endless supply of eyedrops. The Stoned Sisters, man. What happened to us?”

At the memory Vicki’s mouth crinkled in what was almost a smile, and for a second the dark clouds hanging over her parted to let a ray of sunshine beam through and brighten her face. But the clouds quickly converged again and Vicki’s eyes, heavy with guilt, met Charlotte’s. Her eyes grew wide and glassy with tears. Fighting them back Vicki’s shoulders convulsed, the emotion determined to escape one way or another.

“She’s dead,” said Vicki, the tears running freely down her face now, shoulders jerking up and down. “She was so young, and like, nice, kinda,” Vicki sobbed. “And now she’s gone, Char. Gone.”

“I know, I know,” said Charlotte stepping forward to put her arm around Vicki. “That’s why you’ve gotta tell me where you were at lunch. Talk to me.”

The gentle smile on her friend’s face made Vicki nod in agreement. She found a box of tissues on the vanity table and blew her wet nose. Charlotte lifted herself up into the makeup chair.

“Talk to me and do something about this orange fuzzball I call hair.”

Charlotte hoped getting Vicki to focus on something else, a manual task she was more than familiar with, would allow her to relax a little. Not fully, Vicki’s hands were still shaking as she picked up a bottle of hair serum from the vanity table, but the dynamic of Charlotte being in the chair, and Vicki tending to her, helped enough.

“One of them’s a killer,” she said, her voice hushed, enunciating the last word to highlight it’s importance.

“That’s why I need your help,” implored Charlotte.

Vicki looked at her friend in the mirror, Vicki biting her lower lip, wrestling whatever demons held her tongue. She wiped the tears from under her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Okay, but promise you won’t tell the production company?”

“If you and Emma killed Stacy then of course I’m telling the production company.”

Charlotte’s tone was wry, her slight smile filtering into the words so Vicki knew she was joking.

“Obvs we didn’t kill her!”

“Well, obviously you didn’t. But Emma could have. And now you’re helping her cover it up.”

“I am not. But yeah, granted,” Vicki nodded at the plausibility of it. “Emma could kill, easy.”

Charlotte kept up the momentum asking, “So, where were you really during lunch today?”

Vicki was squeezing the serum into her palm when she paused to gather herself, her chest rising and falling as she took another deep breath. When she launched into her explanation she talked a mile-a-minute, her nerves fumbling words and fear glowing in her eyes.

“Okay, so Emma’s been having like nip-tucks and botox over the last few months. Hoping, praying it’ll make her look younger.”

Charlotte didn’t say anything, just gave Vicki a nod to keep going. Vicki started working the serum into Charlotte’s dry, hay bale hair.

“She knows the production company are looking at alternative presenters for the show.”

“That’s just a rumour,” offered Charlotte.

And now it was Vicki’s turn to give her a look like; come on. Charlotte shrug-nodded, accepting the validity. The format was pretty stale now and the show needed something to freshen it up.

Vicki continued, “Everyone knows ratings are down, viewing figures are down, and less people are talking about it on Twitter and stuff. Emma’s contract’s up after the next series okay. So she’s convinced she’s getting the chop and she’s like, trying to get all this work done to make her look younger coz she’s…” Vicki lowered her voice. “She’s nearing the big three-oh, and knows that if the company do get a new presenter, guaranteed she’ll be way younger.” Vicki stopped massaging serum into Charlotte’s hair, raising her eyebrows at her friend’s reflection in the mirror.

“Alright, say I buy it,” Charlotte half accepted. “She’s getting work done and wants to keep it a secret. But why do you have to cover for her?”

At this the colour that had returned to Vicki’s face drained right out again, as if someone had turned on a tap and the blood just fell out. She busied herself searching for something on the vanity table. The lights around the mirror further bleached out her pale face, like she was barely there. Hollow Girl. She pulled out a brush and started combing the serum through Charlotte’s hair.

“It’s alright,” said Charlotte. “Whatever it is can’t be worse than killing one of our contributors, right?” Then deadly serious. “Oh my God, Vic, tell me it’s not worse than killing one of our contributors?”

Vicki tittered through tears because it was true. The ridiculousness of her anxiety compared to the current situation. She shook her head at herself as much as at Charlotte, knowing she’d been a fool but as if she’d only just realised it. Vicki coughed into her palm and spilled in one long, gushing torrent.

“Okay so I might’ve been running a freelance beauty business in my spare time for like the last six months and it’s been going really well like I’ve got a ton of regular clients now and making some good money but one of the reasons the money’s good is coz I can save on overheads by…” She gave her friend a meek smile. “…Kinda stealing supplies from

here a little bit.” Vicki’s face scrunched up at admitting this but she kept pouring the words out, the floodgates open now.

“And a few weeks ago Emma caught me like red handed - I mean literally I had half a dozen bottles of apple red nail varnish in my hands - and then that bitch looked right in my bag and saw all the lipsticks, fake eyelashes, mascara sticks and hair weaves I’d literally just put in there and now she’s been like blackmailing me, trying to make the contributors look weak with their make-unders, and also making me lie about where she is at lunch so no one knows she’s getting work done on her raggedy old hag face and I can’t take it any more okay I can’t I just can’t!”

And with the huge admission of guilt, Vicki dropped the brush, covered her face with her hands and burst into tears again. She didn’t fight these ones though, they were loud and heavy. “And now Stacy’s dead,” she croaked through the crying. “And someone killed her but it wasn’t me or Emma I swear, Char. Honest it wasn’t.”

Charlotte leapt out of the makeup chair to fling her arm over Vicki’s heaving shoulders.

After five minutes of sobbing, the weight of it all falling off her, Vicki snivelled, “There was one more thing.”

Charlotte drew her head away from Vicki’s neck where she’d been comforting her, whispering soft and soothing reassurance into her ear, to say, “Oh yeah?” Immediately intrigued, her tone serious again.

Vicki gave a snotty little sniff. “I, I’m sure I saw Stacy… going out the fire exit.”

“When?” said Charlotte, short and sharp.

“Umm, I d-dunno, like two, quarter past maybe?”

“Vic, which was it? I need to know. I found her body at approximately two fourteen pm.”

“I dunno exactly. It was after two, but maybe not quite quarter past. Yeah, it must’ve been because Emma and I got back at like five past two and then I went to the loo and when I came out, that’s when I saw her.”

“That tracks with what Jamie said. You sure it was Stacy?”

“Well y-yeah.” Vicki hesitated. “No. Okay, no I’m not sure.” Vicki shook her head. “I mean, I only saw the back of her and only for a second. She, they, whoever it was, had Stacy’s long blonde wig on and that black kimono was billowing behind them as they ran.”

Charlotte had never seen Stacy run. It certainly didn’t sound like something the Barbie doll would do. Her mind cast back to Stacy’s dead body lying in Pod - stripped of her wig and kimono, looking so bare and vulnerable. That was at fourteen minutes past two. So if it was Stacy who Vicki saw just after two pm, that would mean she’d have had to get back from the fire exit, past Charlotte and into Pod. As would’ve the murderer, in order to kill her. All highly unlikely, Charlotte determined, twiddling a ringlet of now glossy ginger hair around her index finger. She bit her lip. Even with the escape hatch Charlotte would have noticed. And why would Stacy use the escape hatch? Sure, she was embarrassed to be seen without makeup but she wouldn’t go to that much trouble, crawling under Pod on her hands and knees.

No. More likely, whoever Vicki saw disappearing out the fire exit was the murderer escaping, disguised in Stacy’s peroxide wig and floaty kimono. Hence why Stacy wasn’t wearing them as she lay dead on Pod’s floor.

When Charlotte ran this theory past Vicki, she nodded slowly.

“I only saw them for a second okay, but they were tall. I mean like, so was Stacy, especially in her heels, so with that wig and kimono I obvs assumed it was Stacy,” Vicki snivelled again. “It was so quick though, then they disappeared out the fire exit.”

Charlotte squeezed her friend’s arms in a gesture of reassurance. Then she pulled out her notebook and started scribbling.

At 3:34pm Charlotte headed to edit suite C. Vicki trotted behind her, mumbling about how much trouble she was in, how she was going to lose her job and would never work in TV again. Charlotte wasn’t listening. She slid through the corridor leading to the edit rooms while thumbing her notebook, just hoping that Sharman still had Emma occupied.

She needn’t have worried. On entering Sharman’s edit room - the last and biggest suite - Charlotte found him standing behind his computer chair. It had been commandeered by Emma, sitting in it like a queen in a leather throne as she explained to her subject in painful, oblivious detail, why Sharman’s cut of the scene was wrong in every way. As Charlotte walked in, Sharman turned to her with a ‘kill me now’ look on his face.

“Charlotte, you’re interrupting,” said Emma without taking her eyes off the thirty inch Mac screen.

“I know,” said Charlotte, the stern air of authority in her voice commanding attention and making Emma swivel round in the computer chair to face the young, jumped-up production assistant.

“And you’re going to listen.” Charlotte sat down on the black cotton sofa that was positioned up against the back wall. “You and Vicki weren’t getting lunch at the Drunk Duck. No, you were getting botox injected into your forehead and booking another nip-tuck at the Cosmos Cosmetic Surgery in Salford.”

Emma’s eyes flicked over to Vicki, shooting fire and hatred at her.

“And don’t go blaming Vicki, you bitter old crow,” said Charlotte, taking a big gamble by using the word ‘old’, it would either push Emma over the edge or put her in her place. Fortunately it seemed to be the latter. Emma’s eyes widened before she shrunk down in the big computer chair.

“Yes, Vicki’s been stealing supplies and yes she’s done very well out of it.”

Emma rolled her eyes at this, a hammy melodramatic gesture. Sharman didn’t even bat an eyelid, he still looked more concerned at being ousted from his favourite chair.

“Vicki will take her licks and we’ll all move on. But that means, if you two were out chasing the fountain of youth, who was here killing Stacy?”

A dull silence fell over the edit suite, as all four lost themselves in thought.

“Grant!” said Vicki after a couple of minutes.

“Possibly. There is evidence pointing his way. I mean it’s a crisp packet, but it’s incriminating.”

Vicki nodded, happy her suggestion was taken seriously. “And he had clear like, what you call it? Motive. What with Stacy humping Stephen behind his back n’ all.”

“Yeah,” said Charlotte absently. “You’re not wrong. That odd couple were arguing on set this very morning.”

“Pah! Some detective you are,” spat Emma, pouting enough to make a fish jealous with her arms folded across her chest.

“What do you mean?” asked Charlotte, coy all of a sudden.

Emma smiled like the Grinch. The young little upstart put in her place now, the natural order restored.

“Stephen was not sleeping with Stacy. Not this time round anyway.” Emma said witheringly, as if they should know this gossip already. She paused for dramatic effect, meeting Charlotte’s, then Vicki’s, then Sharman’s eyes. “Stephen’s gay as a parade.”

Charlotte and Vicki frowned. Even Sharman’s expression changed. His eyebrows raised, as if thinking; who knew.

“Stephen’s… gay?” said Charlotte, her voice soft and disbelieving. “But he’s married.”

“Alright, he’s bi then,” relented Emma, adding, “Greedy bugger.”

Charlotte rubbed her forehead confused. “I saw him and Stacy arguing this morning.”

“Yeah.” Emma jutted her chin out to pout collagen lips. “But it wasn’t a lovers’ spat.” She looked around, as if the private edit suite was a public space where anyone could overhear her. “Rumour had it Stacy was blackmailing Stephen, threatening to tell his wife he was a big bender if he didn’t revitalise her ‘career’.” Emma rolled her eyes again along with the air quotes.

“That phrase really isn’t chill ya know, Emma,” said Charlotte.

“I know,” said Emma. “She didn’t have a career.”

“No. I mean, you can’t say ‘big bender’, it’s derogatory.” Charlotte’s tone was apologetic, almost awkward.

Emma just shrugged it off.

“Who started this rumour about Stacy blackmailing Stephen?” Charlotte asked, taking out a biro and opening her little notebook.

“Oh, I did.” replied Emma, upbeat like the answer was obvious. “But it makes sense, right? Stacy knew he swung that way, I’m sure of it. The gobby little slag dropped enough hints when it was just them two together and she didn’t think anyone else could hear.” Emma smiled, supremely pleased with herself. “But that’s where her loud mouth and my earwigging pays off. I reckon they did have a thing, back in series three when she was first on the show and that’s when she found out he was a big…” Emma hesitated, her mascara’d eyes glancing at Charlotte.

Charlotte gave her a light frown back. Not angry just stern, a teacher chiding a pupil.

“A big, normal homosexual,” finished Emma, before flashing a bitchy fake smile at her disciplinarian. “Anyway, Stacy, the orange slut-bucket, was pretty bitter she was still working the checkout at Savers. Especially after being on TV. Clueless cow thought this show was her big break, the fast track to fame and fortune.”

“She said we’d made a proper fool of her,” Vicki chimed in. “When she saw her episode aired, she thought we were like taking the piss out of her and stuff. Remember Fletch received a badly written but well sweary email? That was Stacy.”

“That EasyJet scene was painful,” agreed Sharman. “Even though Stacy knew it was pre-scripted, when I watched it back in the edit you could see the rejection made her heart sink.”

“What do you mean?” said Charlotte. She’d worked on the episode but couldn’t remember it. They all blurred into one after a while.

“When she approached the airline counter at Gatwick and handed the woman behind it her CV. We’d told Stacy it was staged but her eyes were so wide and bright and full of hope. So when the woman thanked Stacy for her interest but advised her that she’d have to tone down her look to work as a stewardess…” Sharman shook his head sadly, a rare show of emotion. “Well, the light in Stacy’s eyes faded, that naive but self-assured spark extinguished.”

“Before they reignited with anger and she stomped off on those awful stilettos,” added Emma. She was admiring her nails now, turning them to different angles in the low light.

“I remember.” Charlotte clicked her fingers, the memory snapping back into her mind. “Stacy basically snarled when the EasyJet woman told her she’d have to lose her hair extensions and baby pink lipstick if she wanted to join cabin crew.”

Emma, Vicki and Sharman nodded in unison at the memory.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Sharman. “You could see the exact moment her dreams were dashed.”

“Even though we told her she’d be rejected,” reiterated Emma, the disdain clear in her harsh tone. “It was part of the show.”

“Remember her first piece to camera?” said Sharman. “When she revealed her ambitions to be a stewardess. She called it the old phrase, what was it?”

“Trolly dolly,” said Emma, not looking up from her painted nails. They were a rich oxblood colour, shining with the professional lacquer Emma had made Vicki apply. “She name-dropped EasyJet too, that was the cream of the crop for her. Not BA, or Virgin. EasyJet.”

Vicki smiled ruefully at the memory. “Stacy said she’d be good at it coz she looks sexy in a uniform, ‘any uniform’ and then she like winked at the camera.”

“Gotta give it to her,” agreed Charlotte. “She had self-confidence by the bucket load.”

“Yeah, had,” sniped Emma, filing one of her nails, sanding off a corner of the oxblood varnish. Then, off everyone’s judgemental expressions at her lack of empathy. “What? It wasn’t like she was my friend, I didn’t even like the girl.”

“She was still a human being,” said Charlotte.

Emma twitched her head round to glare. “Rich coming from the girl who’s only interested in Stacy’s death so she can fulfil some weird detective fantasy.”

At this Charlotte stared at the floor and seemed to shrink to half her size. After a minute of guilt-ridden silence Vicki said, “So what now?” turning to Charlotte. “You gonna talk to Stephen?”

“You can’t go accusing him of murder based on a rumour he’s gay,” said Sharman.

“Bi. And you’re not wrong,” nodded Charlotte. “Need something solid. But then, who says I go in accusing, it could just be a friendly questioning. I mean, we now know he had motive; he must have murdered Stacy to silence her. If she was threatening to tell his wife. But did he have opportunity and means?”

“Do you know his whereabouts during lunch?”

Charlotte flicked through her notebook. “He said he was having lunch at the Drunk Duck, which they confirmed.” Her eyes flicked over to Emma and Vicki. Emma just huffed

and continued filing her nails. “And then he said he came to the edit for half an hour, between one-thirty and two.”

Sharman scratched his chin before giving a pensive little nod. “Yeah, he was in with Jamie and I, for a bit. But…”

“…But?” repeated Charlotte, her voice high with anticipation.

“I’m sure he ducked out for ten minutes at some point.”

“When, what time?”

Sharman thought, rubbing his chin again. He adjusted his glasses before saying, “Must’ve been about ten to two, because he spent maybe twenty minutes reviewing the rushes and feeding back the key beats he wanted to hit.”

“Time-wise that could fit. Whoever killed Stacy did it just after two, I heard her in there at about three minutes past…” She bit the end of her pen, twisting and turning the rubik’s cube in her head. “Maybe Stephen was already in Pod when I heard Stacy shout about nearly being ready. Then Stephen does the deed and creeps out that secret exit in the floor.” Charlotte nodded to herself, lining up the cube’s colours, the puzzle pieces fitting together. “When he left the edit at ten to two, did he say where he was going?”

Sharman paused but only for a second. “No. But he did pull his phone out as if he was about to make a call. Don’t know if that’s significant?”

“Could be.” Charlotte was tapping her notebook with the end of her pen now. “Could be. I didn’t hear Stacy’s phone ring while she was in Pod - and I would have - she had that obnoxious polyphonic, Pussycat Dolls ringtone like it was 2010.”

“She didn’t even have her phone on her, I mean, when we looked at the body.”

“You’re not wrong,” Charlotte nodded again. “That still leaves the means though. We don’t even know what the murder weapon was.” Charlotte bit her thumb nail frowning, thinking. “What if…” Charlotte started, taking her time to get the words right, the idea forming as she spoke. “What if the motive was the means. What if Stephen killed Stacy to shut her up but also needed the proof she was using to blackmail him. Photos or texts on her phone? Which is also what he used to kill her. Stacy’s phone was the murder weapon.”

Emma and Vicki nodded with downturned mouths. It was a feasible theory. Sharman stared blankly, either less convinced or he simply didn’t care.

“He enters Pod,” Charlotte stepped forward opening an invisible door, acting out the scene as she described it. “Stacy’s cool with it, she doesn’t know what he’s got in mind. He rips her phone off that diamonte wrist bracelet, and then bashed her brains in.”

Emma sniggered at this, as if Stacy had any brains to bash in. After giving her a displeased scowl, Charlotte picked up.

“He cracks her over the head with her own iPhone. Sharman, do you think the dent in Stacy’s head is consistent with a rounded corner?”

Sharman nodded at this, as if he was a seasoned expert. “The aluminium iPhone isn’t particularly strong on it’s own, but Stacy’s had all those fake diamonds with their sharp edges. They could crack a skull with enough force.”

“What makes Sharman a qualified coroner all of a sudden?” beggared Emma, a look of scoffing disbelief plastered over her face.

“I’ve watched a lot of CSI,” replied Sharman, his face flat and tone deadly serious.

There was a long moment full of brutal pictures playing through their heads.

“So, what do you think of my theory?” asked Charlotte, her voice hopeful but assertive, confident she had a strong case.

Everyone answered at once.

“Patchy and libel,” said Sharman.

“Weaker than Stephen’s jawline,” said Emma.

“Proper poor,” said Vicki. “Like literally clutching at crisp packets.”

Charlotte frowned. “Well, it’s the best we’ve got right now,” she huffed. “And the crisp packet was a red herring. Stephen wanted to throw the scent off him and onto Grant.”

“You need more, a lot more,” said Sharman. “It’s all circumstantial.”

Emma nodded. “Based on hearsay and gossip.”

“Your hearsay and gossip.”

Emma gave a blithe shrug. “Can’t believe everything you hear. Unless you find Stacy’s phone on Stephen, you haven’t got a leg to stand on.”

Charlotte paused. “That’s the first smart thing you’ve said,” she muttered without thinking.

Emma’s face creased in annoyance. But she took it, going back to re-painting her blood red nails.

“I need to search his coat pockets, his bag and his locker in the office,” announced Charlotte with an odd air of triumph.

“How you gonna do that?” asked Vicki.

“There’s no way to get into the lockers without the keys,” said Sharman. “And anyway, if you’re right, and there’s material on Stacy’s phone, material so precious it caused a sensible, family man to murder a young girl. Why wouldn’t he just destroy the phone?”

“Maybe he didn’t have a chance.” Charlotte was pacing round the edit suite now, head down, brow knitted. “I discovered the body pretty quick. And whatever’s on the phone must

be super important to him, highly incriminating. So he’d wanna destroy it properly, not just throw it in a bin somewhere. More like fully annihilate it. No trace.”

Sharman nodded, it was a fair point.

“Maybe we don’t need to actually have the phone.” Charlotte was still pacing, biting a thumb nail as she thought out loud. “Stephen just needs to think we have it. Vicki,” her head shot up to look at the makeup artist. “Do we have any glitter, or fake diamonds in the costume cupboard? Anything you could use to bling out an iPhone so it looks like Stacy’s?”

“Yeah, probs. Think we’ve got some stuff left over from that episode with the glitter-obsessed disco bunny girl.”

“If you haven’t used it all in your freelance side hustle,” sniped Emma.

“Vicki, you bling this out to look like Stacy’s.” Charlotte handed Vicki her iPhone.

Before Charlotte could continue Jamie burst into the edit suite, panting.

“Charlotte, come quick. Grant’s attacked Stephen.”

At once, everyone got up and rushed down the corridor. It opened out onto the studio floor where they could see Fletch wrestling Grant off the director. Grant was flailing wildly, his arms windmilling and legs kicking out like pistons gone awry. With everyone distracted Charlotte took the opportunity to slip away. She ran back down the corridor to Fletch’s office located by the east side main entrance where everyone stored their bags and coats.

On the coat stand Charlotte rifled through Stephen’s knee length stockman jacket. She didn’t find Stacy’s blinged-out iPhone but her fingers did pull out a bunch of train tickets. They were all from Clapham North to Finsbury Park, over a dozen spanning the last few months. She pocketed them instinctively, not knowing why, but something in the back of her mind told her Finsbury Park was significant.

“That animal attacked me!” said Stephen, his voice rattled, his finger pointed and jittering at Grant. “If that’s not an admission of guilt I don’t know what is.”

“It’s hardly an admission of guilt,” said Charlotte. As she entered the studio she switched off the softer wall lights, leaving on the powerful spot lights to beam down from above and cast the group in stark black and white. “And who can blame him. You killed his girlfriend.”

“I fucking knew it!” bellowed Grant.

Stephen frowned at Charlotte. “I’ve had it with this, where are the police? It’s high time we stopped indulging this girl’s delusions of grandeur.” Stephen was talking in Fletch’s direction now. “We need professionals, not some millennial Miss Marple who throws around wild accusations.”

“The police will be here, man. If you’ll just indulge me a few more minutes, I think I’ve got the key to this locked room mystery.”

Stephen rolled his eyes then looked upwards, a ‘God give me strength’ prayer to the heavens, and the powerful studio lights washed his face in a brilliant white. Fletch exhaled, the last of his patience escaping with the sigh. Grant was dusting himself down, flattening his shell-suit jacket that was creased from the scuffle. Charlotte paced around the studio, through the smell of sweat, Lynx and male bravado. She chewed the end of her biro, her eyes down, scanning the pages of her notebook as she thought.

Fletch looked at his watch. “Ye got three wee minutes, Charlotte.”

“I only need one,” said Charlotte definitively, then back-pedalled, “No wait, ignore that. Three’s good, three’s good. So, Stephen here wasn’t sleeping with our victim,” Charlotte addressed everyone now.

Fletch, Stephen, Grant, Sharman, Jamie and Emma had formed an uneven semicircle in the centre of the studio. The bar set was on their left, Pod perched on its stilts behind them. An anxious hush of anticipation fell over the group. Charlotte made eye contact with each of them as she spoke.

“Not this time round anyway. I believe Stacy was blackmailing our director. She knew something he didn’t want getting out and she had the proof on her phone. During lunch today, when I left my post, Stephen snuck into Pod and killed Stacy both with and for, her iPhone.”

She half expected a collective gasp from her audience. But they stood there, hands folded expectantly across their chests, or hanging nonplussed in their pockets as in the case of Emma and Sharman.

“You left your post, as you say,” Stephen cut in, his tone fuelled with anger. “So how do we know you didn’t murder Stacy?”

Now there was that collective gasp, a sharp intake of breath. This new angle got everyone’s attention; Emma’s eyes lit up, a Cheshire cat grin spreading over her face as she revelled in the red spotlight being turned on Charlotte. Grant sucked his teeth and started running a nail over the links of his gold chain. Fletch sat down in his director’s chair, as if settling in for a long night. His ginger eyebrows tried touching each other as he frowned. Sharman and Jamie both remained quiet. With a dozen eyes falling on Charlotte, Stephen didn’t waste a breath capitalising on the change in dynamic.

“I propose that when you supposedly went to get food, you in fact slipped into Pod and brutally hit Stacy from behind.”

“Why? What possible motive could I have for murdering Stacy?”

“Forget motive for a moment,” said Stephen swiftly, as if it was a preposterous and unnecessary notion. “You had means. You were the last person to see her alone. She was left in your care, yet conveniently when you left your post she just happened to die.”

“I went to get food.” The pitch of Charlotte’s voice went up. It conjured the image of a cat digging in its claws as it was pulled from its perch. “It was two in the afternoon and I was starving.”

“What did you eat?”

“A, a sandwich,” stuttered Charlotte.

“What type of sandwich?” Stephen kept the questions coming like they were shooting from a tennis ball machine.

“A, um, BLT,” and Charlotte was on the back foot.

No one said anything, but the fog of suspicion swept through the studio and descended over the semicircle.

“Where’s the packaging? We can check the bins to corroborate your story. And when did you consume said sandwich?” Stephen was angry and patronising. His awning of hair meant his eyes were shrouded in shadow. “Admit it, you didn’t buy any food. You were inside Pod bludgeoning poor Stacy to death!”

“You said she wasn’t bludgeoned!” cried Charlotte.

“You said she was!” countered Stephen.

Charlotte looked around at all the eyes. Every pair was untrusting, offering no solace, only judgment. All but Fletch’s. He couldn’t even look at her, his eyes were instead cast downward.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said softly, tears falling down her freckled cheeks now.

“So where were you then?” Stephen was on an unforgiving roll.

The eyes bore into her, expectant, accusing, betrayed. The dynamic had slipped into Stephen’s favour. Charlotte bit her lip, twiddling a ringlet of ginger hair round and round her finger. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

“I was… I was…”

“What’s wrong, Charlotte? The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Hurts like a blunt instrument to the back of the head. You killed our contributor.”

“I was buying coke alright?!”

Another shocked gasp from half the audience, as if buying cocaine was worse than murder.

“Dickhead,” said Grant, the glare on his face blaming Charlotte. He’d broken from the semicircle and was leaning up against the fake bar. “So my Stace is dead coz you’re a fucking coke-head.”

“I-I’m sorry,” she said looking at Grant, his sharp features scowling back at her.

Stephen frowned annoyance. It wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte mumbled, turning to Fletch. Tears magnified her eyes. His came up to meet hers.

“A knew ye was up te something there. Too efficient ye was, busy-bodying around making everything ye business.”

“Alright,” said Stephen down his nose, his chin raised, unconvinced, but the gusto missing from his voice now. “If you were buying… cocaine,” the word was over-pronounced with disbelief. “Show us, where is it?”

Charlotte shrugged and sheepishly pulled out a plastic baggy full of white powder. She held it up with her head hung low. The spotlight bounced off the bag’s white contents, drawing attention to it and hammering home her alibi. With the tables turned, Charlotte raised her head now, wiping the tears from her cheeks as she tried to find her voice.

“So, where were we? Oh yeah, Stacy was blackmailing you. She had proof of your secret on her phone, which is why it’s now missing.”

“Proof of what?” Stephen was squinting at Charlotte, ready to call her bluff.

“It’s not my place to say,” said Charlotte evenly, squinting right back at him.

“You’ve got diddly-squat,” he scoffed. “I’m tired of this. Call me when the police arrive.” He was talking to Fletch again, but over his shoulder as he crossed the studio floor to leave.

Over by the bar Grant was breathing heavily, in and out through his nose, his nostrils flaring, his chest rising and falling as if the rage inside him was pulsating. As Stephen headed for the corridor and exit, Grant moved quick as a rat to stand in his way.

Fletch drew his hand over his face. He was looking at the floor, lost in his thoughts a moment, then stood as if suddenly decided. “I need te stretch ma legs.”

Grant swivelled round, pointing an unlit cigarette at him.

“No one’s goin’ no-fucking-where, get me? If ginger minger here knows who killed my Stace, I wanna hear it.”

“May as well let the nosy little cow finish her theory,” said Emma with a shrug.

Sharman nodded. “We’ve invested too much time to give up now.”

Fletch’s shoulders rose and fell as he sighed. He rubbed his chin, the stubble rasping like sandpaper. His body gravitated towards the exit as if tugged by an invisible rope, but his feet kept him rooted to the spot.

“Fine there, we’ll hear Charlotte oot.” His voice was normally as sure as a clapper board, but now it creaked in doubt.

Stephen flapped his lips like he was above it all. He ruffled his flop of chestnut hair impatiently. “Alright, agreed. Let’s conclude this little denouement, shall we?”

Charlotte turned to face him. “You sure? This ugly business is about to get pretty personal.”

Stephen said nothing, frowning at her like a police chief waiting for a rogue officer to explain himself. The oppressive studio lights set his face in high contrast; brilliant white and black shadows shifting across his features as he gave her a slow head nod.

Charlotte returned the nod. “On Stacy’s iPhone she had proof of Stephen’s secret. Something from his private life he didn’t want shared.”

“Fuck sake, draw it out why don’t ya?” said Grant, standing beside Stephen now. He sparked his cigarette and blew smoke in the director’s face before turning to Charlotte. “Spill it, Columbimbo, skip to the fucking end innit.”

The outburst didn’t deter Charlotte.

“Stephen. A married man with two kids,”

“Three,” he corrected.

“…Stephen’s bisexual,” said Charlotte in a tired tone.

There was little sound from her audience. Emma seemed bored, concentrating more on her nails than anything else. Sharman and Jamie stared blankly. Grant pulled a face like he’d eaten something he didn’t like the taste of. Fletch scowled at her, his bushy eyebrows knitting together to resemble tufts of dried grass in an arid desert. Charlotte didn’t know if it was due to surprise at the reveal, or annoyance at the fact that she’d dropped such an intimate bomb. Then his scowl shifted. As he ran his hand over his jaw he let out another long sigh, looking more perturbed than angry. And with it, a stillness descended over them.

The pensive silence was thick, an invisible fog surrounding everyone. Then Vicki entered the studio, sliding up behind Emma and Sharman. Charlotte walked around them, making sure not to go through the two to get to Vicki, so they’d remain where they were to block Stephen’s view. Charlotte whispered something into Vicki’s ear. But it wasn’t what she said that was important, it was the diamonte-studded iPhone Vicki slid into Charlotte’s hand unbeknownst to anyone else.

“Coulda told ya he was a poofta,” said Grant with smoke leaking out of his mouth. “But why’s director dildo being a gaylord mean he killed my Stace?”

“Grant, don’t say gaylord. Or poofta,” replied Charlotte, glowering at him. “And Stacy was blackmailing Stephen. I imagine threatening to tell his wife and kids, who almost definitely don’t know. That’s why he’s been pushing Stacy for the new presenter role.”

“I knew it!” shouted Emma, looking up from her nails. “You back-stabbing bastard,” she spat at Stephen. “I’ve carried this show for five years!” And she threw her bottle of oxblood nail varnish at him.

Stephen ducked, the bottle narrowly missing his head. Still, when he straightened up, the director had red liquid running down the side of his face.

“Emma, darling, I’m sorry, but you’re more stale than the show’s format. Viewers adored Stacy. Her first episode is the most watched in SMA’s history. And as for you, young lady.” Stephen’s eyes met Charlotte’s. Glossy red varnish ran down from his temple, following the line of his jaw to drip off his chin. “That’s a lovely story, but you don’t have one iota of evidence.” And he turned towards the corridor and studio exit.

“I have this.” And Charlotte held up Stacy’s blinged-out iPhone.

The fake diamonds glinted and winked mockingly under the studio lighting. Stephen stopped in his tracks; his right foot literally hovered in the air as he was stepping forward. His jaw clenched and Charlotte thought she heard the grinding of teeth, the harsh tone of bone grating against bone.

Stephen’s head jerked towards Fletch. A confused look crinkled Fletch’s face.

“I-is that, Stacy’s phone?” said Stephen, his eyes back on Charlotte now.

She’d never heard the director’s voice like that. It was cold, automated, still with his cutglass accent but devoid of the pretentious ten-pound words. She saw his eyes flick over to Fletch again, looking for support. Did Stephen expect his friend and producer to step in and put this precocious production coordinator in her place?

Charlotte looked at Fletch. He was biting his lip now, fidgeting in his director’s chair. Nervous. Fletch was never nervous. He was decisive, abrupt and angry. But never nervous. And then it hit her; the train tickets to Finsbury Park.

“Fletch, where do you live?”

“What damn relevance is that?” snapped Stephen, his voice raised, his cheeks rosy and flustered.

Sitting in his director’s chair, Fletch crossed his legs. From his low angle, he looked up at Charlotte, the roles reversed, the dynamic all wrong. “Why, Charlotte?” His voice was calm but a lilt of trepidation crept through.

“North London, am I right?” she forged on. “Near Finsbury Park.”

Now it was Fletch’s turn to squint at her. It was as if he was trying to peer through her eyes and into her mind, find out where she was going. But Charlotte barely knew. Every time the puzzle pieces started slotting together, she’d find a new one, and the picture got bigger, the rubik’s cube grew the more she learnt. Fletch crossed his arms over his chest, a stubborn witness refusing to say another word.

“Anyway, I’ll hand this in to the police when they arrive.” She looked at the watch that wasn’t on her wrist. “I’m sure Grant will give them the pin code.”

“Fuck that,” replied Grant, stubbing out his cigarette on the studio floor like it was the street outside. “I’m gonna kill this cock-gobbler!” and he pointed at Stephen.

“Grant!” yelled Charlotte.

“But it’s not, I didn’t…” Stephen fell back into one of the oak chairs. He rubbed his face, smearing silent tears through the red nail varnish. “Stacy was bribing me, yes. But, but I didn’t… I really didn’t kill her.”

“I did.” The voice was gruff, determined. The no-shit tone all too familiar.

“Fletch?” said Charlotte, and everyone’s eyes followed as she turned to her executive producer.

Fletch leaned back in his director’s chair, as if admitting the truth allowed him to relax. But the movement made the chair groan.

“I didnae mean to kill her,” he said after a while. “That orange toe-rag was taking the piss. She was going to ruin his life there.” And Fletch’s eyes settled on Stephen. There was something in his eyes Charlotte was seeing for the first time, regret maybe. “She had no right to oot him, not like that. Plus, there’s his wee ones to think aboot. Wasnae fair on them.” He was fidgeting as he spoke, clasping one hand with the other, then swapping and doing the same, as if wringing them out. “It was really aboot protecting the wee ones it was.” But his tone was unconvinced, trying to persuade himself as much as the others.

Charlotte jerked herself up onto one of the bar stools, having to sit down. The studio had started spinning, the bar blurring around her, her mind struggling to process what she was hearing.

“So it was you who I saw dressed in Stacy’s wig and kimono, ducking out the back exit?” asked Jamie.

“Aye.” Fletch nodded, sombre and grim. He shrugged. “It’s not the first time I’ve donned a wig and a wee lacy number.”

Stephen let out a little laugh as if he couldn’t help himself.

“Fucking batty men laughing,” said Grant. “My girl’s dead, dead coz of you!” He was pacing left and right, glaring at Fletch but staying away as if there was an invisible barrier holding him back.

“I had to get from Pod,” continued Fletch. “Across the studio floor and down the corridor - I needed some disguise there, no matter how ridiculous.”

“And you planted the packet of beef Monster Munch to frame Grant?”

“Dickhead mate,” said Grant, glowering at Fletch.

Charlotte was holding on to the bar with one hand, grounding herself, breathing long and deep to stop the studio hurtling around her. With an eye on Grant she thought he might go for Fletch, but either Grant knew it would be stupid to take on Fletch’s bulk, or he was still tired from his skirmish with Stephen.

“Aye, sorry kiddo. Did me no good anyways.”

Fletch rarely apologised. Although her executive producer was looking at the floor, the waver in his voice sounded genuine.

“Fletch; question,” said Sharman, holding his hand up with one polite finger pointed to the warehouse ceiling.

Fletch gave the slightest head nod to acknowledge him.

“If you didn’t mean to kill Stacy. How did you know to bring a packet of Monster Munch with you in order to frame Grant?”

“Prick!” shouted Grant again. His gaunt face was fierce and he was fiddling with his gold chain, a fist balled around it.

Fletch gave a minor shrug, the answer by the by. “Had the packet in ma pocket there. Fancied them ever since Char dangled them in front of ma face in the wee morning.” Then he shivered, like cold hands were wringing out his spine. “Had to open them in there.” His eyes flicked to Pod. Under the stark lighting it looked like a piece of Bauhaus architecture, flat surfaces, hard lines, harsh but functional. “And force myself to eat them with the bod… with Stacy right there.” He shivered again at the memory, then forced himself to chuckle. “First time in ma life I’ve had zero fooking appetite.”

Charlotte clicked her fingers realising something.

“That’s why they were only half eaten. I knew Grant always polished off the whole packet.” She was still gripping the bar, but her breathing had steadied. The revelations looked liked they’d aged her prematurely, her face pale and furrowed. “And you got into Pod when I left to get food?” she asked after a while.

“Ye left ta pick up gear there, we’ve established that already,” snapped Fletch, a new found vigour in his tone.

“Oh yeah, sorry.” Charlotte bit her lip embarrassed.

“But aye,” admitted Fletch. “I slipped into Pod soon as I saw ye leave.”

“When I came back I called into Stacy though. Told her to hurry up… And she replied.” Charlotte was waiting for Fletch to raise his head and meet her stare. He didn’t.

“No, she didnae. Ye heard a recording of her public analysis reaction from earlier.”

“But, how’d you play it out?” said Jamie quietly, afraid of his own voice but curiosity overriding it.

“Pod’s got speakers inside,” said Sharman. “It’s how he back-chats the contributors when they’re in there getting judged. Is that when you deleted Pod’s recording?”

Fletch didn’t even speak, just gave one long exhausted nod.

“So you were in there,” Charlotte’s words were slow as the realisation dawned on her. “With Stacy’s body, for what, half an hour?”

Fletch was wringing his hands out again, bloodier than MacBeth’s.

“Twenty-seven minutes,” he said low, almost to himself.

Stephen crossed the studio to stand by his friend. He put an arm over Fletch’s shoulder, massaging him a moment before gripping the back of Fletch’s neck, the same way a loving partner would. That’s when the final puzzle piece dropped into place and Charlotte saw the big picture. The rubik’s cube complete.

“You two were having an affair.”

“Ha,” scoffed Stephen, “‘affair’ makes it sound so sordid. We were, are, lovers, friends -

“Morons,” added Fletch as he wrapped his arm around Stephen’s waist.

Now even Emma stopped admiring her nails and took notice.

“A classic crime of passion then,” said Sharman.

“Passion aye. Anger aye. Maybe a wee bit of the green eyed Mr Hyde too.” Fletch glanced up at Stephen, and Stephen back down at Fletch, shaking their heads at each other sadly. “Stacy was being a wee bitch no doot aboot it,” then he caught himself like he’d just realised he was speaking ill of the dead. “Sorry there, Grant.”

Grant stopped pacing, but his chest was heaving up and down, eyes ablaze. He was Bruce Banner on the verge of transforming into the Hulk and Charlotte saw the moment he decided to launch himself at Fletch. His face contorted and he sprung forward like a gazelle. But Charlotte had already hopped off the bar stool to step in Grant’s path, her hands up, reasoning with him. She spoke quick and fluid, as if the flow of words alone could keep him at bay.

“Chill, man, chill. There’s no point in getting yourself locked up too. I know you loved her but she wouldn’t want you rotting the rest of your life away in some dingy cell. Walk it off, go smoke a joint by the buffet table. Just gimme two ticks to tie this up. Can you give me that, man, two ticks?”

He was leaning into her, giving Charlotte an extreme close up of his face. It was just a hair’s breadth from her own so she could see every furious line. Grant was staring beyond her, over Charlotte’s shoulder at Fletch and Stephen. Between the angry lines creasing his face, she could read his thoughts; it wasn’t fair they had each other yet had taken away his other half. After a long moment of deep breathing and nostril flaring, Grant rubbed his nose.

“Dunno how long a tick is,” he said giving a half shrug with only his right shoulder. “But you’ve got till I smoke a fag innit.”

“I didnae mean to kill her,” said Fletch from his chair. “It all happened in a wee flash. But also in slow motion. I tore the phone out of her hand and before I knew it I’d smashed her over the head with it. Only hit her once. It’s nae excuse, but she went down.” Fletch clenched his fists, then splayed his fingers out before clenching them into fists again. “Shouldnae be that easy to take a life.”

Charlotte rubbed her eyes. They were bloodshot with tiredness. Grant stood by the buffet table. His legs were rigid but his upper body moved in erratic jolts as he fiddled with his gold chain, scowling. It was off his neck and in his hand now as he pushed the links through his fingers like a nun with a rosary.

“Why didn’t you destroy her phone straight away?” asked Sharman.

After a moment Fletch gave an amused little sigh.

“Ye discovered the body before I had a chance.” Fletch bobbed his head at Charlotte now. “Who’s phone is that? Stacy’s real one is still in the safe in ma office, isn’t it?”

“It’s mine,” replied Charlotte. “Vicki blinged it out to act as a ringer.”

“Clever girl,” nodded Fletch, looking at his production coordinator with a new found reverence. “For a moment I actually believed you’d found her mobile.”

Charlotte gave him a sad smile.

“Why didn’t you just leg it?” asked Emma. Her face told everyone she thought Fletch was a fool for hanging around.

“Didn’t think clever cloggs’ investigation would amount to much. Figured the worst te happen, police would get here, arrest Grant, and then I could destroy the phone properly.” He shook his head, staring down at his hands, thickset fingers and palms that were dry and worn. Hands that had seen things. “When I was in Pod, I was going to keep playing Stacy’s recording while I escaped there, so ye thought she was still faffing aboot with her makeup. Then I’d have time to get rid of her phone.”

Charlotte’s let out a short little burst of mirthless laughter. “It’s funny,” she said. “I only hurried Stacy up because of how mad you get when we slip behind schedule. You’ve had such a go at me in the past, I didn’t want my eyebrows yelled off. When she was in there, dead, but I thought she was taking ages to remove her war paint.” Charlotte turned so her body was face on with Fletch now. “When I was hurrying her up, it was because I heard your angry voice in my head. I saw the saliva cobwebbing your teeth as you spat and swore about how much delays cost. The irony,” Charlotte laughed through a sigh. “It’s a poetic kinda justice.”

“Aye, it’s fooking Shakespearean,” said Fletch, leaning back in his chair, the wooden frame creaking again. “I thought I’d have time to get rid of the phone there, and maybe figure oot an alibi before the police arrived. Where the hell are they by the way?”

Now it was Charlotte’s turn to look at the floor. “I haven’t called them yet,” she mumbled.

“What?!” said almost everyone in unison.

“I, I wanted to… try and solve the case myself. Which I have.” Her voice got brighter at the end, hoping they’d see the positive.

“Oh for God’s sake,” said Stephen flapping his lips in exasperation.

“Little miss nosy parker’s got a real obsession, hasn’t she?” Emma’s tone was gleeful, delighted to see Charlotte fall from grace.

Sharman stared at her disapprovingly.

Vicki looked at her, betrayal watering her wide eyes. “That’s pretty selfish, Char. Put us all in danger just so you could have some like, Midsomer Murders fantasy.”

Charlotte stared at the studio floor. She didn’t even like Midsomer Murders.

After leaving his lit cigarette in a bunch of napkins, Grant walked up the steps to Pod. He thought one of them would try to stop him, but they were too busy having a go at Charlotte to register him slink away. He turned the handle with little hope, figuring the door would be locked, but it swung open and he stepped inside, unnoticed.

And there she was, lying on the green floor. Grant sat down, cross-legged beside Stacy to hold his girlfriend’s hand. It was cold, the skin felt loose, almost rubbery, the vitality of life already dwindling. That’s when he started crying. The pent-up aggression he’d so wanted to take out on one of those posh pricks, seeping out of his eyes making him feel like a dumb kid. In his other hand he still held his chain, providing some sort of comfort as he coughed and gagged suppressing the tears.

Grant pinched the top of his nose, his chest jerking up and down as he tried to suck in air through the sobbing. Sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, he stared at Stacy’s face. It was so naked and young without her makeup, just how she looked first thing in the morning when she’d roll over and snuggle into him. Grant felt her kisses on his neck, heard her hoarse morning voice in his ear asking for a cup of tea. He saw the cheeky glint in her eyes, knowing she took liberties; he always made their morning cuppas. But it faded like an old memory and now he was staring into her empty gaze, the cheeky glint gone.

He took a deep breath and shook his head before reaching over to gently close her eyelids. He didn’t know why other than he’d seen people do it on TV and in films and it felt the right thing to do for the dead. And that’s what she was now. Dead. He’d been told before of course, but seeing her, holding her cold hand, confirmed it. Standing up, gripping his gold chain, the confirmation cemented what he had to do next.

She was about to defend herself again, but something distracted Charlotte; the smell of smoke tickling her nose. She whipped round, expecting to see Grant puffing away by the bar.

But Grant was nowhere to be seen, and the smell wasn’t cigarette the smoke, the buffet table was smouldering. A bunch of napkins caught alight as Charlotte watched, flames dancing on the table. Then she snapped into production coordinator mode and took control.

“Sharman and Jamie, get as much water as you can carry. Emma and Vicki, find Grant, check the smoking area outside. Stephen and Fletch help me pat this out.”

Stephen’s version of help was flapping behind Charlotte. She didn’t fare much better, grabbing the first thing to hand - a whicker place matt, which immediately caught alight when she tried to smother the fire with it. At this Stephen yelped about needing more water before galloping off. Fletch was still sitting in his director’s chair. He was bent over, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles as if the fire was in his sockets rather than five metres away.

“Wanna give us a hand, Fletch? Or shall we just let studio B burn to the ground?”

Fletch raised his head to look at Charlotte, but he made no move to help. Leaning back in his chair he regarded the chaotic scene with the solemn eyes of a man resigned to his fate. What did a fire matter? He’d killed a girl. Accidentally, kinda, but as the flames shimmered in his eyes he saw his own future going up in smoke and him wasting away in a grotty UK prison serving ten to life.

Grant stepped out of Pod. Charlotte’s back was turned as she swatted at the fire with a hoodie. His trainers made no sound on the studio floor as he slid up behind Fletch and wrapped his gold chain around the producer’s throat. Grant got such a tight grip so quickly - pulling the chain right around Fletch’s neck and crossing his hands over to close the metal noose - it cut off Fletch’s airways and any ability to yell for help. The chain links disappeared into the skin of Fletch’s throat as he clawed behind him. His big bear hands got a grip on Grant’s hair at one point and yanked forward. But Grant was unfazed. He threw his head back so his hair was ripped out of his scalp while he held firm, pulling even harder on his chain.

After thirty seconds Fletch’s movements became slow and slurred, his body becoming oxygen-deprived as the life was strangled out of him. Grant pulled on his chain so much his muscles, lean though they were, bulged through his tracksuit with the ruthless effort. As he wrenched backwards, all the sinews and fibres and tendons in his neck strained and bristled like an Olympic weightlifter going for a world record.

That was when Charlotte turned away from the buffet table. She’d subdued the flames but now, through the smoke that had filled the studio, she saw Fletch’s desperate flailing and Grant straining behind him.

Hours later, when giving her statement to the police, she described it like hysterical strength in reverse. ‘You know that old wives tale of the mother who lifted a two ton car to save her baby?’ she would say to the young female officer with the understanding eyes. ‘Well, that works for taking a life too’. Charlotte going on to tell her it seemed like Grant had drunk deep from that well of hysterical strength, determined to avenge his girlfriend. All of Grant’s love for Stacy, all the rage that was inside him, and the pure adrenaline of the violent act seemed to be pumping through every vein, artery and capillary so for a moment you could see them all, as if Grant was a biological diagram of the human circulatory system. His eyes bugged out, possessed, lost, and for an elongated moment - a couple of seconds that felt like a few minutes - Charlotte watched Fletch’s flailing slow down, his hands fall and his body sag, going limp. And that’s when she started yelling.

“Grant! Grant, Jesus, get off him!”

And then she was behind him, trying to drag him off, both hands around his right arm pulling with all her might and more. But she wasn’t strong enough. And then she realised it was too late. Grant was still pulling the crossed chain taut. Blood started to seep down Fletch’s neck, as if his throat had been slit, the metal links cutting into his skin. Charlotte gave a last feeble tug on Grant’s arm, crying and begging him through the tears.

Then she let go, backing away slowly. Nothing felt real. The fake bar in front of them. Pod behind them, the literal green room that was digitally manipulated into a divine white space. Everything veiled in grey fumes like mini storm clouds rolling across the studio floor. Grant finally released Fletch after another long minute and the Scotsman slumped forward. First his chin hit his chest and then his head lolled into his own lap before he toppled over.

Stephen came running back just in time to see Fletch fall forward out of his director’s chair, his meaty figure splodging onto the floor. Half of him dead in the fake bar and the other half dead in the studio. Grant stepped back panting, coughing. Stephen stood like a statue, trying grasp what he was seeing. Despite the scene being obscured by smoke, the expression of horror on Stephen’s face was clear. Fletch’s body lying there motionless was definitive as a full stop at the end of a sentence.

Charlotte bent down on her haunches. Stephen fell to his knees, sobbing, mumbling. Somehow Fletch’s director’s chair was still standing. But the producer had left his mark; the canvas sagged, the wooden frame was bowed and warped out of shape. Never to be the same.