Page 26 of Murder Most Actual

That wasn’t fair. But it also wasn’t the kind of unfair that stung. “No, an average number of my friends are. It’s just that for some reason you can’t get it through your head that I’m not interested in anybody else.”

Hanna shrank a little. And Liza hadn’t meant to make her shrink. A shrinking Hanna wasn’t a happy Hanna, and despite everything Liza still badly wanted her wife to be happy.

“I guess …” Hanna said at last. “I guess I just don’t see why you wouldn’t be.”

“Because I’ve got you. And while you’re annoying and controlling and we’ve kind of barely spoken for the last year and a half—”

That, at least, shook Hanna out of her gloom spiral. “Hey, you’re the one who got a new job.”

“I know.” Liza gave Hanna’s hand a final, half-hopeful squeeze before letting her go. “I’m not saying we don’t both have shit to work on. But the point is that I want to work on it. I’m not looking to bail, and I’m certainly not looking to hop into bed with the first femme fatale who walks out of a black-and-white movie and into my room.”

Hanna seemed to relax a little, but Liza was pretty sure they’d be having this conversation again. Some insecurities were perennial.

“So,” Liza tried, “should we go? It seems like … like we don’t have much to lose?”

That much Hanna could agree with. And there was little to be gained by hanging out in their room re-hashing the past. So they set out, Liza hoping Hanna wouldn’t ask how she knew which room was Ruby’s—not that Sir Richard told me was a particularly damning explanation.

They knocked on Ruby’s door and were greeted by an, “It’s open,” delivered with frankly unnecessary sultriness. Inside they found Ruby lounging artfully on the bed in a way that somehow suggested nudity despite her being fully clothed.

And she was, Liza noticed, pretty much the only notable thing in the entire room. The rest of it was spare enough to look almost abandoned. Even the bed she was lying on—framed in hangings but not a four-poster—didn’t look like it had been slept in. The bedside tables were plain white, and the only decorations on the walls were frustratingly contextless sketches of what appeared to be classical urns. Indeed, the whole place was frustratingly contextless, which, Liza supposed, made sense. Ruby was, after all, a frustratingly contextless woman.

“I see you’ve brought your wife.” Ruby gave a sharp smile. “How very adventurous of you.”

“Does this act really work?” asked Hanna with matching sharpness.

“All the time. Case in point, I have an update for you.”

Liza tried very hard to avoid putting two and two together but got to four anyway. “What do you mean, case in point? Are you saying you managed to seduce vital information out of somebody at some point in the last …”—she checked the time on her phone—”fourteen hours?”

“Why?” That smirk again. “What have you been doing with your time?”

“Who?” asked Liza in a mildly appalled tone that she hoped wouldn’t read to Ruby as judgemental, or to Hanna as jealous. “Half the people here are over sixty.”

She raised an eyebrow. “There’s a very sweet footman.”

“The one who looks like he’s barely out of sixth form?” Hanna seemed a lot less concerned about sounding judgemental.

Not, it seemed, that Ruby had any fear of being judged, because she laughed like she was humouring an indifferent joke. “Firstly,” she said, “he’s at university. This is a holiday job for him and, murders aside, I suspect he thinks it’s going rather well. Secondly. Did you miss the part where I’m a professional criminal? I’ve just stolen over a million pounds from a man who will kill me if he catches me; I’m not about to baulk at breaking the half-your-age-plus-seven rule.”

“Does everybody in your line of work brag as much as you do?” The hostility in Hanna’s voice was spilling over just slightly into sexual tension. Or maybe that was Liza projecting. Or Ruby’s studied air of weaponised sexuality.

“All of us. It’s how people know we’re good at our jobs.”

Liza thought about that for a second. “People don’t just think you’re lying?”

“It’s sort of circular.” The smile on Ruby’s lips was just this edge of mocking. “If I’m good enough at my job to get away with lying to powerful, dangerous people about how good I am, then I’m not actually lying at all.”

With an aggrieved sigh, Hanna slumped against the wall. “Are you ever going to get to the point, or are you hoping that one of us will agree to fuck you because it’ll be quicker than talking to you?”

“You know, you’d be amazed how often that works.”

Hanna’s gaze swept over Ruby, who had maintained her lounge flawlessly. “After this conversation, I really wouldn’t.”

“Perhaps,” Liza offered, “you could just tell us the new thing you’ve found out. Or, better still, the new thing you’ve found out and all the things you’re refusing to tell us because you insist on this whole international-woman-of-mystery routine.”

Ruby looked genuinely disappointed. “You know, sometimes you’re no fun at all. I blame her.” She indicated Hanna with a nod. “She’s clearly a bad influence.”

Hanna just glared back. “Stop wasting our time.”

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