Instantiate GameObject just doesn't appear

Hey, so I have a script on my player object which is supposed to instantiate a "bullet" prefab GameObject at the player in the direction of the targetPoint.

The issue I'm having is that there just is no GameObject instantiated that I can tell. Nothing appears in the Hierarchy or the scene. I am certain that the code is running as the debug statements are logged in the console.
The instantiation did work at one point before I started using physics/before the bullet had a Rigidbody2D component. (I was just setting positions and moving towards them, so the bullet didn't need a Rigidbody2D component).
I have linked the public GameObject "projectile" to the bullet prefab GameObject and the targetPoint the relevant transform.

Here is the code:

 using System.Collections;
 using System.Collections.Generic;
 using UnityEngine;
 
 public class FireBullet : MonoBehaviour
 {
 
     public GameObject projectile;           // The GameObject to instantiate the bullet object
     private Transform targetPoint;          // The object to shoot at
     public float bulletSpeed = 100f;        // Public variable for the bullet speed
   
     // Update is called once per frame
     void Update()
     {
         if (Input.GetButtonDown("Shoot"))        // When the space bar is pressed down
         {
             // Clone the Bullet @ the player
             GameObject clone = Instantiate(projectile) as GameObject;   // THIS DOESN'T SEEM TO WORK
             clone.transform.position = new Vector2(transform.position.x, transform.position.y);
             
             // Pointing bullet towards mouse
             clone.transform.LookAt(targetPoint, new Vector3(0, 0, -1));
 
             // Calculating the direction the bullet should travel, i.e. towards the mouse position
             Vector2 targetDirection;
             targetDirection.x = targetPoint.position.x - clone.transform.position.x;
             targetDirection.y = targetPoint.position.y - clone.transform.position.y;
               
             // Setting the bullet in motion in the calculated direction 
             // at the bulletSpeed as defined by the public variable "bulletSpeed"
             clone.GetComponent<Rigidbody2D>().velocity = targetDirection.normalized * bulletSpeed;
             Debug.Log("Fire Bullet! @ " + targetPoint.position);
         }
     }
 
 }

Any idea on how I can make the bullet just appear at the very least???

Edit: So I change the method to FixedUpdate(). On the bullet prefab I have a script which is just checking for collisions. Now when I shoot I'm getting a response that it has collided with my player (which is expected, as I'm spawning the bullet on the player). This obviously means that something is appearing and colliding but I still get nothing in the hierarchy or scene?