Page 23 of Murder Most Actual

Unexpectedly, Hanna smiled. “There would have been if Dill had taken any longer with that puzzle with the two portraits.”

“He just had to get them to line up to spell out a password—it wasn’t—okay, maybe I do get a bit carried away with this kind of thing, but … well …” Liza broke off. This whole situation was two thoughts away from some very scary places. “Look, the alternative is being trapped in a room, and I really don’t want to feel like I’m trapped in a room.”

At that, Hanna gave a resigned sigh. “No, no, I get it. You’ve always been … This is going to eat you alive if we don’t look into it, isn’t it?”

Liza held her thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart.

“And you won’t go around harassing anybody?”

“Cross my heart.” Liza actually did. “I got a bit over-enthusiastic earlier, but I do do this for a living, and I’m actually pretty responsible.”

“You talk about murders for a living. You don’t investigate them.”

“And I talk about them responsibly. I promise I’ll be careful.”

With a resigned “harrumph,” Hanna swung herself off the bed. “Okay,” she said, “let’s go.”

“Go?”

“This has got in your head, and I know you can’t be stopped when something is in your head. And I’m not going to let you run around this hotel alone.”

Liza gave a smile that she hoped looked self-deprecating. “Why? Are you worried I’ve changed my mind about Ruby?”

“No. I’m worried you’ll die.”

There was that. “I thought you said this whole thing was a tragic accident.”

“And it might be. But if somebody stole a gun then that means—”

“That it’s going to be fired by the end of the play?”

“This isn’t a play, Liza, but essentially yes.” There was a look of real concern on Hanna’s face, and Liza felt incredibly bad for putting it there. “Nobody goes to all the trouble of breaking into two safes to get a gun just for the hell of it. Somebody really is planning to shoot somebody, and I really don’t want it to be you.”

Put that way, it did seem a little reckless. But there was a strange comfort in recklessness. It meant you were only in danger if you chose to be. That wasn’t, however, Hanna-friendly reasoning. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Hanna’s shoulders hunched ambiguously. “It’s not that simple though, is it? You have to do this—or at least, you want to do it really badly—and while I definitely don’t, I do want to support you.”

“Just so you know, you don’t get anywhere near as many points for being supportive if you say you’re being supportive.”

It had been meant as a joke, but Hanna wasn’t in the mood. “You know what you also don’t get points for: going off to poke around a murder you’ve got no business poking around, then being sarcastic at your wife when she tells you she’s got your back.”

Liza winced. Fuck, she was the worst. Everything was getting mashed together in her head. All the unanswered questions and unsolved mysteries, like why things were still so difficult with Hanna. And why Mrs Ackroyd had come out in the snow in her pyjamas. And who had stolen the gun. “I’m sorry.”

“Well.” Hanna pulled back her shoulders in a way that made her look briefly like a clockwork solider. “No time like the present. Let’s go talk to the chef”

On the way down to the kitchens, Hanna outlined her ground rules. If they’re too busy, leave. If they don’t want to talk, leave. If anybody looks like they might be about to pick up any kind of weapon, leave. It was a very leaving-focused set of principles.

The kitchens of the hotel were incongruously modern. Accessing them involved walking through a pair of oak-panelled doors that you could imagine Henry VIII banging on to demand his supper, and then finding yourself in a gleaming capsule of brushed chrome full of fresh fish and Aberdeen Angus.

The kitchen staff was fairly small. The hotel had capacity for less than two dozen guests, and aside from Emmeline White herself, there were only two other people in the room: one chopping things, and the other washing things. Liza thought she recognised one of them from dinner the night before—the young woman who’d shared that strange something with Lady Tabitha. The Blaines did their best to slip in quietly but severely underestimated the weight of the doors, leaving them to slam their last six inches and sending a wooden boom echoing off the polished metal of the kitchen surfaces.

“If you’re here to order something,”—Ms White was wearing the politely exasperated look of somebody who didn’t technically have a customer-facing role but was still having to face customers—”you do that at reception. We’re a bit behind at the moment because, well, because of what happened.”

“Actually,”—Liza quietly slipped her phone out of her pocket—”that’s why we’re here.”

This didn’t seem to impress Ms White, who stood with her arms folded and her head cocked to one side. “Sorry, who are you?”

One day, Liza hoped that she’d be able to answer that question without feeling like she was apologising for something. “I’m a … umm … I’m a true crime podcaster? And since we’re all stuck here and might die, I thought I’d have a go at … umm …”

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