Page 11 of Murder Most Actual

“I’m proud that you’re making something good that people love. You’re not suddenly Bob Woodward. This isn’t girls and wine; this is a corpse.”

The crowd, such as it was, was beginning to mill around aimlessly. When Murder Most Actual had done its obligatory episode on Kitty Genovese, who was supposed to have been stabbed to death in front of thirty-eight witnesses, none of whom had intervened, Liza and Rachael had talked a fair bit about the bystander effect. Actually, what they’d mostly talked about were flaws in the original New York Times reporting (there weren’t thirty-eight witnesses; there were somewhere between zero and four, and two of them called the police, and a seventy-year-old woman came out afterwards and held Kitty until she died, so the whole picture of a heartless city full of people who’d watch you getting stabbed and do nothing was kind of nonsense). But right now, the bystander thing did seem to have some weight to it because there was an increasingly large group building up and nobody seemed to have a clue what to do or who was in charge. And yes, in a way, Hanna was right, and pushing her way to the front saying, “Let me through, I’m a podcaster!” would have been ludicrous, but it might just have been better than—

“Mesdames et messieurs …” Mr Belloc had walked calmly over to the body, looked down at it, and then addressed the assembled staff and guests. “There has been a death. Perhaps no mere death, but a murder. A murder—I might say—most vile and wicked.”

Hanna eased the pressure on Liza’s hand. “Okay, maybe you should be filming. This can’t be the right way to treat a crime scene.”

Standing by the remains of the unfortunate Mr Ackroyd, Belloc had turned his attention to the chef. “I take it,” he said, “that you are the one who found the body?”

“Yes.” Emmeline still seemed to be having trouble getting words out. “I—I saw him fall. That’s when I screamed.”

“So this death, it happened recently, no?”

“No. I mean, yes.”

Belloc began to pace a little, his steps short and his gait shuffling. “Did you see anything else? Did you see perhaps what caused the man to fall?”

The snow was still falling. Between the weather and being asked questions by a busybody with no authority about what was almost certainly the most traumatic incident of her life, Emmeline was having a tough time of it. “I—I think I saw a shadow. I think somebody pushed him. But—with the storm …”

“Ah yes, the storm. The storm that would of course make the perfect cover for any crime.”

“Would it?” Hanna asked.

Liza gave this some thought. “I suppose it would depend on the crime.”

“Look here.” The colonel stepped forward. Now that he was standing, Liza could see quite how powerfully built he was. He was also, it seemed, powerfully fed up with whatever was unfolding. “I don’t know who you think you are, but—”

“Ah, but of course.” The diminutive man turned to the newcomer. “Belloc has not fully introduced himself. You see, although you may think that he is merely the quiet man who drinks his coffee in the drawing room and—”

“He’s a detective,” shouted Sir Richard. “Quite a famous private detective and, if I may add, a rather overrated one.”

“And he”—Belloc rounded on his accuser—”is a renowned meddler who at all costs must be kept away from this case.”

Sir Richard seemed genuinely taken aback. “Now steady on.”

“You deserved that one, Dicky dear.” This was the aunt. “You did insist on provoking the little man.”

“Belloc is not a little man,” Belloc protested.

“In my experience,”—Sir Richard’s aunt turned an impassive gaze on the detective—”large men seldom feel the need to refer to themselves in the third person.”

Liza was suddenly aware of an absence at her side as Hanna stepped forward to join the free-for-all. “Just a wacky, out-there suggestion somebody might want to jump on. Could we, maybe, call the police?”

“Can’t,” said a voice from across the courtyard. There was a murmuring amongst the guests as a man came forward, and Liza recognised Mr Burgh, the hotel manager. “Mobiles won’t work, landline was taken out in the storm, we don’t have the internet, and the roads are a death trap until the snow clears.”

“Sorry.” Hanna did not sound happy. Not that she’d sounded especially happy in a long while, but now she sounded specifically not happy rather than sort of generally dissatisfied on account of her marriage collapsing. “Are you saying we’re trapped in a hotel with a dead body and a killer on the loose?”

“Mon dieu! It is as Belloc feared.” Before anybody could ask him what, specifically he had feared or tell him that they didn’t give a damn either way, Belloc went on to elaborate. “Mes amis, you should know that it is not by accident that Belloc has come to this place at this time.”

Sir Richard had by now pulled fully free of the crowd and his aunt, coming to stand face to face with the detective. “Nobody thought it was, you diminutive continental glory-hound.”

“And nobody asked your opinion, you etiolated Saxon windbag.”

Hanna turned a pleading look down the lens of Liza’s phone. “Can I just remind everybody that we’re standing in front of a dead man while two complete randoms fight over which of them gets to play at being C. Auguste Dupin?”

Belloc shuffled over to her. “I do not care for your tone, madame. And you,”—he indicated Liza—”keep recording. Belloc may wish to review this footage later. Now, as I was saying, it is not by accident that Belloc came here. No, mes amis! He came on the trail of a most devilish and dastardly criminal. A man who is, to the crime, like … like some great general of history.”

“Like Napoleon?” asked the colonel.

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