Page 87 of Murder Most Actual
It took a while for the assembled survivors to explain to DCI McManus exactly what had happened, partly because they tended to disagree with each other, and partly because so much of it seemed so patently impossible.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right.” The DCI looked down at his notes with an air of frank despair. “Since the extremely inaptly named Good Friday, all of you have been trapped in this hotel with no way of contacting the outside world, and fully six of you have been variously shot, stabbed, poisoned, or dropped off high buildings?”
Mr Burgh nodded. “It has been quite a difficult time.”
“The deaths began when a Mr Malcom Ackroyd was pushed off his balcony by an unknown assailant, at which point”—the DCI flipped to the next page and continued in a tone of rank Glaswegian contempt—”one of the guests declared that he was a famous consulting detective named Perseus Belloc, and that he believed the killer to be an elusive mastermind known only as Mr B?”
“To be fair,” said Sir Richard, “Perseus was definitely a real detective—”
“I’m a real detective.” DCI McManus didn’t seem happy with the term being thrown about casually. “What you mean is that Mr Belloc was a licensed private investigator.”
“Well, if you’re being pernickety.”
Ignoring the interjection, the DCI turned to Liza and Hanna. “And you,” he continued, “claim that this man”—he indicated the professor— “is the mysterious”—he made air quotes—”Mr B, but nobody else seems to agree with you.”
“I’m aware it sounds far-fetched,” Liza began.
“You’re too bloody right it sounds far-fetched.” The DCI turned to the next page. “The following day, Mr Belloc was found shot dead by the lake, and then that evening Mrs Ackroyd shot herself in her room. Except on the expert testimony of”—he looked down at Liza—”a woman who hosts a podcast, you decided it wasn’t a suicide, but was actually a murder.”
Liza looked at the DCI with an appropriate level of defiance, given which of them was capable of arresting the other for obstruction of justice. “Will everybody stop insulting my career? Also, I was right.”
“You may well have been,” admitted DCI McManus, “but you can understand why I’m not just taking your word for it. Anyway, once you’d reached that conclusion, Sir Richard proposed the further theory that you were in a”—he turned the page with a barely-disguised sneer—”‘Ten Green Bottles’ situation. Evocative language, Sir Richard.”
“Thank you.” Sir Richard gave the kind of nod you needed centuries of breeding to give. “I’ve a gift.”
“Aye, I might have gone with Ten Little Soldier Boys myself. But whatever you called it, this theory led you to conclude that you were being hunted down by some mysterious villain for crimes that nobody has been particularly able to specify.”
This was, from Liza’s perspective, getting embarrassing. Sir Richard, by contrast, seemed determined to brazen it out. “We think the Ackroyds ran somebody over, the colonel did something in the war, my poor aunt had an illegitimate daughter she cruelly abandoned—”
Mary wasn’t letting that one lie. “Nobody said cruelly. My mum had a perfectly good life, thank you very much.”
“Either way,” the DCI continued, “the next three victims were Lady Tabitha Quirke, stabbed in the library. Then Colonel John Coleman, poisoned with—again, according to the expert testimony of an internet broadcaster—arsenic boiled off from antique flypaper, and finally, the Reverend Thomas Lincoln, who was just shot. Which must have made a nice change for you all.”
“Touch dark, old fellow,” protested Sir Richard.
“Oh yes, and during this time you also decided that it would be a good idea to give everybody a handgun, which is how you”—his eyes flicked briefly and scathingly to Sir Richard—”wound up taking a completely unnecessary bullet to the shoulder. Now, is there anything I’ve missed out?”
The assembly made a series of begrudging no noises.
Looking the opposite of amused, the DCI closed his notebook. “I think you should all know I’ve been on the force for more than twenty years and I have never seen a shitfire like this in all my days. And as for the theories you bag of Sassenach bastards have come up with, do you really think that some Jigsaw Killer-type criminal mastermind has lured the lot of you up here to die in a blizzard?”
Sir Richard made the best apologetic gesture he could with one arm. “All I know,” he said, “is that somebody has killed six people, and they’ve done it without being caught or leaving a trace. Now, if the official force is baffled, well, that will be quite the ordinary state of affairs as far as I’m concerned.”
“Oh, ram a sock in it, you posh wazzock,” snapped the DCI. “The only thing that baffles me is why anybody would believe that I would believe such an obvious line of bullshit.”
Cautiously, Liza stood up. “Actually … I don’t think it’s entirely bullshit.”
“I know.” DCI McManus looked at her with the kind of expression that Liza wished she had the courage to give the cranks who called into her podcast claiming to be the Zodiac Killer. “You think the whole thing was masterminded by a sixty-year-old schoolteacher.”
“Professor of Mathematics,” protested Professor Worth.
Liza ignored the interruption. “Actually—and I might be completely wrong about all this because I’m really not a real detective—I do think I’ve got an explanation for how we got into this situation, and it mostly doesn’t involve anybody being a secret criminal genius.”
The DCI’s face had gone from nakedly hostile to condescendingly tolerant. “Why do I get the feeling that this is going to be long?”
“It’s six murders.” Liza gave him an apologetic look. “It does get a bit fiddly.”
Settling down into the seat that Liza had just vacated, DCI McManus gave her a grudging nod. “Go on then, you have the floor, Madam Podcaster. Share your wisdom with us.”