Page 50 of Murder Most Actual
“No, it’s fine. And—I don’t know, I guess it’s good to be part of it.”
“Sure?” Liza looked sceptical. “I know you find some bits of this gross.”
“Well …” An apologetic expression flickered across Hanna’s face. “Some bits of it are. You’ve had some really graphic stuff on the kitchen table some evenings. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to share it with you.”
“Thanks, umm … that’s … sweet.” But Liza wasn’t quite sure how to handle sweet at the moment, so she shuffled through the notepaper and sorted everybody into their appropriate groups. “For Mrs Ackroyd, there was a fairly long window between the gunshot and the knock at the door, but I don’t think it was long enough for anybody in that group to have shot Vivien, framed the scene to look like a suicide, then gone back to their rooms. But the professor and the colonel were already out in the hotel, so either of them could have gone up and back in the time, and we didn’t find Ruby at all.”
Hanna scanned the assembled stacks of paper. “Right, so who do we have in the definitely innocent column?”
“Nobody.” That wasn’t very encouraging. “Well, nobody is definitely innocent of all three killings and stealing the gun. Sir Richard, Lady Tabitha, and Reverend Lincoln are in the clear for the second two murders. Professor Worth and Ruby are in the clear for Belloc, and Burgh couldn’t have taken the gun from the bush or shot Vivien. So that means we should probably be watching the colonel and, um, the whole of the domestic staff.”
“It seems really unlikely that the footman has randomly decided to become a serial killer,” Hanna pointed out.
“True, just trying to avoid boxing us into a corner. And there’s also the possibility that it’s more than one person.”
“You think two people randomly decided to become serial killers?”
This was getting into speculative territory, so Liza sat upright and tried to strike an authoritative pose. “Well, technically only one of them would be a serial killer, because the other would have only killed one person. But I more mean—” What did she mean? “I more mean that three people have said that this Mr B character is real, and that either he’s here or his agent is here. And if he is—or she is; after all, Mr B is a pseudonym—”
Hanna raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Lean in, girl boss.”
“Hey, women can be mass-murdering crime lords too. It’s the twenty-first century.”
That made Hanna laugh. “You’re right. Carry on.”
“Anyway, if we assume that Mx B is here, then things get—well, they’re still a bit weird, but once you factor in an actual professional criminal, some things make more sense. Like I can’t imagine cracking the safe of a middle-aged hotel manager is that tough for a legend of the underworld.”
“So, how does this get us to two killers?”
In theory, it was nice to get a follow-up question, because it showed Hanna was genuinely involved, not just nodding and smiling politely. In practice, it made Liza second-guess herself. A week ago, assuming they hadn’t just got out of a massive row, she’d have been overjoyed if Hanna had made an interesting observation about the murder of Laetitia Toureaux or the crimes of Elizabeth Báthory. Now it felt much more urgent and much more on-the-spot-putting. It was great to be seen, but being seen was just two steps away from being seen through. “Well, it’s not the only way it could have worked,” Liza tried. “Maybe Sir Richard is right and we’ve got a ‘Ten Green Bottles’ scenario. But I can’t shake the feeling that if anybody was going to push Malcom Ackroyd off a balcony, it was probably his wife.”
Hanna nodded, either in agreement or encouragement.
“But I don’t think Vivien Ackroyd could have stolen the gun and killed Belloc. Then again, if somebody in the hotel was secretly a criminal mastermind who Belloc was pursuing, having him suddenly swerve off after another killer and get shot by them would be a really convenient way to get rid of him.”
“And after that you’d need to tie up the loose end?”
“Exactly.” Liza shrugged. “Or, y’know, not. Maybe I’m just making things up so that it all fits into a nice little box.”
Having exhausted the analytical potential of scraps of paper on carpet, they tidied up, neither really wanting to leave a rug full of paranoia for the cleaners to find when they came in to turn the bed down.
It was still a little before noon, and for a long moment they just sat there looking at each other. There was an unspoken something in the air between them. A something-has-changed-but-nothing-has-changed feeling that made Liza feel … not nervous exactly, but ever so slightly on edge.
“So …” Hanna began. “Now we’ve—now that all that’s … do you want to …?”
Liza’s mouth was suddenly quite dry. “Do I want to …?”
“Shall we take a walk around the hotel?” Hanna finished. “See where everybody else is? Maybe make sure people’s alibis check out?”
It was small, but small was sometimes what you needed. And it was a start. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, that’d be good.”
Chapter Eighteen
Lady Tabitha, in the Library, with the Dagger
Sunday evening
Most of the guests had opted, it seemed, for seclusion, but they found the colonel and Sir Richard in the billiard room, putting the tables to their intended use.