Page 70 of Murder Most Actual

“Yes.”

“Figures.”

Liza pored over the notes Belloc had made on each of his possible candidates. “Sir Richard Quirke,” she began. “He is clever, arrogant, and knows crime well. Never trust a man who involves himself unasked in police investigations. Well, that seems a little hypocritical. Then there’s Professor James Worth. An educated man, and Mr B is certainly educated. Was quick to speak with Mrs Ackroyd after the death.” Liza tried to remember if that was true. She’d watched her video from the first night a dozen times already, but she couldn’t quite remember, and with her notes stolen she couldn’t check.

“And now he’s playing the must-be-an-educated-man card.” Liza could practically hear Hanna’s eyes rolling. “What next, is he going to insist that the killer must have gone to Cambridge?”

“I suppose you do have to be kind of smart to be a criminal mastermind,” suggested Liza.

“Remind me which university the Krays went to again?”

“Colonel Coleman,” Liza continued. “A military man would have the discipline to manage a large criminal network, and honour would demand that he resolve a betrayal personally. And he was very keen to get everybody guns.”

“You think it was just a ploy to get himself armed again?”

“It could have been. Maybe breaking back into the gun cabinets was too risky. And Belloc was right that an army background would make sense for a gangster.”

Tiring of leaning on a wall, Hanna came back to the bed. “So, who’s the last suspect? The vicar?”

“Yes—wait, no.” Turning over two pages, Liza saw the notes continuing. “He does say Reverend Lincoln is a suspect—not who he says he is, probable criminal background, that kind of thing—”

“Eyes too close together?”

“He’s weird and a bit chauvinistic. He’s not a Victorian phrenologist.”

Hanna made a sorry-not-sorry face. “So, who’s number five?”

“Burgh,” she read. “I had initially excluded the staff since they have been in place for some time and are known to one another, but my research revealed that the manager, Mr Burgh, was appointed only recently following the previous manager’s departure under mysterious circumstances. Belloc cannot, therefore, be certain that he is not in fact Monsieur B travelling in disguise. Also, it has not escaped Belloc’s attention that his name begins with B.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Does that even make sense?” asked Liza. “I know the guy is supposed to be a criminal mastermind, but having the manager of an obscure Scottish hotel nobbled just on the off chance that you need to replace him in order to wipe out a minion or two seems like some next-level-genius shit.”

With a resigned shake of her head, Hanna said, “Honestly, I don’t know what the rules even are anymore. He is the person who’d have found it easiest to get the gun the first time around. And he’d be able to get into everybody’s rooms because he has the master key.”

This was beginning to add up. Not necessarily to add up correctly, but to add up to something, like when you split the bill in a restaurant and somehow everybody came out feeling like they were down about a fiver. “And he has no alibi for any of the killings. And he could have searched our room while we were out of the building. Shit, shit, shit, that makes it harder. If Belloc had ruled him out, I might have said we could trust him.”

“Really?” Hanna sounded beyond sceptical. “You’d bet our lives on the judgement of a dodgy PI with a fake accent?”

“We’ve got to bet them on something. Not trusting the right person could be as bad as trusting the wrong person.”

Returning to the bed, Hanna sat down glumly. “I don’t think I like this game anymore.”

“Did you ever?”

“Some bits of it were growing on me.” She shuffled closer again. “Seeing you—you know, dealing with it. I know I’ve been freaked out a lot of the time, but you’ve kept it together and, yeah, it’s not a side of you I see much.”

Liza looked up from the book and frowned. “Are you saying I’m not normally together?”

“No, I’m saying I don’t normally get to see you taking charge of a murder investigation. Hell, you normally don’t even take charge of putting the bins out.”

“I put the bins out.”

“But you don’t take charge of putting the bins out. Over the last few days, though, you’ve organised investigations, set up search parties. It’s been … impressive.”

Putting the notebook aside, Liza swivelled to face her wife. “I’ve organised quite a lot of things, you know. I directed plays at uni, I sort out basically everything for the podcast because Rachael is even more of an artsy flake than I am. And you do know this.”

“Yeah.” Hanna nodded. “I know it. I guess I’ve just never really seen it. And that’s completely on me. I just—I’ve watched your shows and listened to the podcast, but I’ve never really been around to see you doing your thing, and it’s … I like it. I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner.”

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