Page 12 of Murder Most Actual

“I was thinking, perhaps,” Belloc mused, “more like Charles de Gaulle. He is the Charles de Gaulle of crime.”

The vicar raised a hand. “Isn’t Charles de Gaulle generally considered something of a heroic figure?”

“So was Napoleon, in some circles,” observed the professor.

The various interruptions were too much for Belloc. “Enough. This … Charles de Gaulle of Crime is a phantom, a spirit. None have seen his face and lived, and he is known to the demi-monde only by the alias Monsieur—I am sorry, Mr B.”

Having returned to Liza’s side, Hanna leaned over to whisper in her ear. “How does he forget the word mister but remember the word etiolated?”

“Perhaps he’s trying to lull criminals into a false sense of security by pretending his English is worse than it is,” Liza suggested.

“Perhaps he’s actually from Clacton and all this French bollocks is for show.”

“And it is to this hotel that he has come!” Belloc was saying. “That he has come seeking something precious that was taken from him. It is this mastermind that Belloc has come to capture, and by God, that is what Belloc will do.”

Sir Richard scratched his head. “That’s all very well, old boy, but what about the cadaver?”

“Perhaps,” Mr Burgh suggested, “those of us who aren’t detectives could, um, go back to our rooms and leave it to the professionals?”

Since the show was mostly over, and the manager was making a strong effort to chivvy them along, the guests began to disperse. Which left the two sleuths to bicker over what exactly was to be done about the unfortunate Mr Ackroyd. The vicar, true to his calling, took Emmeline aside and did his best to calm her down while the rest of the onlookers, save a few ditherers, went back to bed. Liza was about to stop filming for reasons of taste when, glancing over her shoulder, she saw a figure approaching through the snow and hesitated. Not being quite so callous as Hanna had implied, Liza turned the camera off the moment she realised that it was Mrs Ackroyd making her way slowly through the storm from elsewhere in the grounds.

“What’s happened?” she called, shielding her eyes with one hand and peering blearily through the night. “What’s the commotion?”

A part of Liza’s brain that she couldn’t quite switch off noticed that Vivien Ackroyd was dressed rather strangely, in a long coat, stout boots, and pyjamas. “Where have you been?” Liza asked, as much from a desire to stall as from actual curiosity.

“Well, it was coming down so hard,”—Mrs Ackroyd blinked snowflakes from her eyes, which seemed stung by the weather—”and Malcom said one of us should probably check the car was all right, and I said he should go, and he said I should go, and we flipped for it and I lost, so here I am.” She trudged forwards. Even with the detectives and the manager in the way, she’d be in plain sight of the body in seconds. “And I get back to find everybody outside and—my God.”

Mrs Ackroyd’s pace quickened to a speed that was frankly unsafe in the weather, and she slipped more than once, so that by the time she reached her husband’s body she was practically crawling.

The polite thing to do—perhaps even the right thing to do—would have been to pick a direction. To either walk up to the poor woman, like the bespectacled professor did, kneeling down beside her and saying things that seemed to comfort her; or else walk away. But Liza couldn’t help just watching. A tiny, tragic drama was unfolding in front of her, and the piece of Liza that was trained to turn things into stories wanted to capture it and script it and pin it down.

Hanna tugged at her arm. “Come on, I’m freezing.”

Only a little reluctantly, Liza let herself be tugged. But when she shot a last look back at the crime scene, she saw something new. A woman in a red dress, standing in the shadows beneath the tower, one finger pressed to her lips.

Chapter Six

Ruby, in the Dark, with a Red Dress On

Saturday, the small hours

“Reassure me,” said Hanna when they got back to their room, “that this isn’t happening.”

“That what isn’t happening?”

Hanna pulled off her shoes and wriggled very firmly into bed. “That we aren’t trapped by a blizzard in a remote Scottish castle with a dead man, the person who killed the dead man, an obnoxious detective of ambiguous nationality, and a possibly mythical underworld kingpin.”

“Ah.” Liza sat down opposite and saw to her own footwear. “Then no. I think all of that is happening.”

A suspicious look crept across Hanna’s face. “Tell me you’re not enjoying this.”

“No.” Even to Liza the denial sounded too deny-ey to be plausible. “But, well, it is … it is interesting though, isn’t it?”

The suspicious look stopped creeping and settled in for a long stay. “Not the word I’d use, Liza. Worrying? Yes. Frustrating? Certainly. Terrifying? Maybe, but I’m trying very hard not to think about it. The best thing we can do is keep to ourselves, wait for the snow to clear, and then get as far away from this place as we possibly can.”

Hanna was right, of course. Talking about murders for a living—or a partial living at least—was one thing, but getting up close and personal with a real killer was probably taking research too far. With a sigh, Liza crawled under the covers and tried to sleep.

“Did you—did you see a woman in the snow?” It felt like an absurd question.

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