Page 89 of Murder Most Actual
“They seldom are,” observed DCI McManus.
“He was stuck. But he got his first opportunity when Malcom Ackroyd was killed. I really do think it was an accident—I think his wife shoved him during a fight, and he lost his footing in the snow. He’d been on the balcony earlier trying to get mobile phone reception and she was really angry about it, and there was a blizzard, and, well, that’s the exact kind of circumstance that gets people shoved to their deaths.”
The DCI raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you bothered with little details like evidence?”
Liza took another breath. This was okay—she could take questions. She had answers. “Nobody else has a motive. They’d been fighting all evening. And when the body was found she’d clearly left her hotel room in a hurry. I think she’d been trying to give herself an alibi. I’ve got—I’ve got film of her.”
“You’ll be handing that over, of course.”
“I will. But some of it’s on my laptop, which was stolen, and I think the professor has it, or might have destroyed it. But you can have whatever’s still on my phone.”
“Very generous of you, Miss Podcaster.”
Liza took a moment to steady herself, then carried on with her grand theory. “Once Belloc had announced himself, I think Mr B saw an opportunity. He stole a pistol from the hotel’s gun room and persuaded Mrs Ackroyd that she’d inevitably be caught and tried for murder if she didn’t do something drastic. He can probably be quite persuasive because—well, because I’m afraid this theory does still involve a teeny tiny touch of criminal mastermind. Anyway, she lured Belloc down to the lake and shot him. Then she panicked. She threw the gun out of her bedroom window—I saw the spot where it fell; I can show you a picture of that too—and Mr B picked it up and used it to kill her.”
“In the staged suicide?”
“Yes. Again, I have pictures. But the important thing is that after that, I don’t think he did anything at all. At least until he broke into my room and threatened to shoot my wife in the spine.”
The DCI winced. “Ooh, good detail.”
“I deny it entirely,” insisted the professor.
“Aye, and you can carry on denying it at the station.” The DCI turned back to Liza, and she almost thought he looked encouraging. “So, what do you think happened to everybody else?”
This was the home stretch. It was a sketchy home stretch, and Liza wasn’t sure how far she’d have to follow it before she actually got home, but there was only really one way it made sense. “Well as you’ve pointed out many times, I don’t have much evidence. On the other hand, no offence, often you guys don’t either.”
“Excuse me.” The DCI scowled. “I’d watch what you’re saying when you’re one of the prime suspects in six murders.”
“Not like that.” Liza backtracked hurriedly. “I just mean that—and you know this—evidence in real crimes isn’t like in a detective story. Or I suppose it is like the evidence in a detective story, and that’s the problem: there’s loads of different ways to interpret it, and there’s no one guy with a funny hat or a silly moustache who can say that it has to be this way and can’t be any other. Most people are convicted on circumstantial evidence because most evidence is circumstantial.” She was worried she was losing the detective’s sympathy, so she tried again. “For Lady Tabitha, the only person with any reason to kill her was her nephew—Sir Richard gambled constantly, and he’s bound to inherit something now she’s gone.”
“Excuse me,” put in Sir Richard, “what about her secret granddaughter?”
The DCI gave a begrudging nod. “He’s got a point.”
“I mean … it’s possible. It just seems incredibly unlikely. Plus, I heard the pipes making a weird noise the night she died, which I’m pretty sure was him showering off the blood. He’s the only one whose shower made quite that sound.”
Sir Richard was looking outraged. “How dare you suggest—”
“And it is just a suggestion.” Liza tried to sound mollifying. “Maybe I’ve got it all mixed up and it was actually, I don’t know, that kid who just took a holiday job here.”
“Quinn,” the kid reminded her.
Liza gave Sir Richard a look. “I just think—you had the opportunity. If I’m right about how the money shakes out, then you had motive. And after she died you got really keen on the, ‘It’s one killer who isn’t me,’ theory. And it’s always the family.”
“So what about the colonel?” asked Ruby guardedly.
That one, Liza had to admit, had got away from her. “I don’t know. Had to be staff, because only staff would know about the arsenic flypaper or have access to the kitchens. That one really could have been Mary—”
Mary looked indignant. “Well, it bloody wasn’t.”
“And you don’t think it was me?” spat Sir Richard. “Trying to cover up my aunt’s murder by making it look like the work of a serial killer?”
He wasn’t getting away with that. “No, I think the first three deaths did that job for you. But as it happens, I don’t think either of you killed the colonel. If he was poisoned, then the poison was probably in his food, and so it was probably put there by the person who prepared it. Which means you.” She turned apologetically to Emmeline White. “But I don’t know why.”
“Because I didn’t do it,” she protested, although Liza couldn’t help seeing less outrage in her than she had in the other two. Of course, that was a mistake as well—people reacted to accusations differently, and hundreds of people had been wrongly hanged down the years because juries made faulty assumptions about how innocent people behaved. And that was what made this so much less fun in real life, wasn’t it? There were actual people’s futures on the line if you fucked it up.
Either way, this was getting out of control. Liza hadn’t quite expected everybody to just break down and confess instantly, but she’d hoped there’d at least be less bickering. It was all feeling less triumphant and more … dirty. There was just no getting around the fact that six people were dead, nothing was bringing them back, and she didn’t have half as many answers as she thought she should.