Page 43 of Murder Most Actual

“Or accuse anybody of anything,” added Professor Worth with a frankly pointed glance in Liza’s direction.

When there was still no answer, Mr Burgh opened the door with his master key, reached inside, and flicked on the light.

It was, Liza reflected later, a scene that really wanted to be framed by lamplight, rather than the friendly glow of an overhead bulb. The room itself had almost been cheery, with a checked carpet in muted white and beige, and large windows opening onto the balcony, which in daylight would have given a magnificent view of the grounds and the highlands. The armchairs were a tasteful not-quite-pink, a painting of a vase of roses hung from one wall, and Vivien Ackroyd sat slumped over a small writing desk, the Enfield No. 2 Mark 1 revolver on the floor by her side. The air was filled with the scent of blood.

While everybody else was recovering their composure, Sir Richard pushed past Mr Burgh and strode confidently over to the body. “Single gunshot,” he said, “right temple. And there’s what looks like a suicide note.”

Liza’s gut churned. “What does it say?”

Leaning over so as to inspect the message without picking it up and contaminating the crime scene more than seven ungloved, bare-headed civilians already would have, Sir Richard read. “I loved my husband,” he began, “but we argued and I pushed him and he fell. Then when Mr Belloc confronted me, I shot him. I am truly sorry for what I have done, but I cannot stand to be trapped here with your accusing eyes always on me.” He looked back up. “Then it’s initialled V.A.”

Was it comforting that the woman Liza had made break down in tears by accusing her of murder had actually been guilty? She didn’t know. Any more than she knew if Vivien Ackroyd would still be alive if she hadn’t botched her earlier accusations. On autopilot, she slipped her phone out of her pocket. “I’m …” Her heart had suddenly gone out of this, but having begun it she felt she had to see it through. “I’m going to take some pictures. For the police.”

Mr Burgh nodded, but Lady Tabitha gave her a rather sharp look. “Do what you think best, my dear, but I must say I’m not certain your interventions to date have been beneficial.”

“They’ve been more beneficial than Belloc’s,” said Hanna sharply. “Or your nephew’s, for that matter.”

“I say, steady on,” protested Sir Richard.

Ignoring him, Lady Tabitha fixed Hanna with a cool stare. “My dear lady, I’d far rather Dicky stayed out of matters that don’t concern him as well. I’ve always found his little hobby rather unseemly.”

“Oh, perish the thought that something unseemly happen in front of the corpse.” Hanna was growing visibly frustrated now. “Go take your pictures, Liza. The cops will need to know what the crime scene looked like, and we can’t just leave the poor woman lying here until the snow melts.”

A little surprised, Liza gave Hanna a grateful look and then made her way across the bedroom, trying not to think about how much worse blood smelled when it was in a heated room instead of outdoors in fresh, snowy air. She photographed the desk, the body, the suicide note, and, holding her breath and kneeling down, Mrs Ackroyd’s shoes. Not that she could get much of a sense of what the soles were like since the body was still sitting up, but she hoped it would be better than nothing.

When she was done, she stood back and looked at Vivien Ackroyd without the barrier of a lens between them. She thought she owed her that.

She was a pitiable sight, in the end. And she couldn’t have been more than forty or so. Which once would have seemed ancient to Liza but now felt all too there-but-for-the-grace. And of course she knew, rationally, that murders were rare, and that the events of this weekend had been, to say the least, improbable. But the thought of it ending like this, lashing out at her spouse and tripping down a long slope of tragedy, only to finish slumped over a desk, still clutching the pen she’d used to scribble down her last miserable thoughts, made her positively queasy.

There was nothing more to be done. Liza nodded to Mr Burgh that she was finished and then let Hanna take her by the hand and lead her down the stairs, out of the tower, and back to their room.

There they lay once more on the bed, staring at the canopy.

“Did I …?” Liza wasn’t sure how to say this, if she even deserved to say it. If she wasn’t just fishing for reassurance. “Did I just kill a woman?”

“I was the one who made her run out the room. You just made her angry. But no. She did what she did. All of what she did. That’s on her, not you.”

They lay quiet for a while, listening to the night sounds of the hotel.

“I do feel sorry for her, though,” said Liza. “Even if she did kill her husband, it sounds like it was an accident.”

Hanna rolled over. “Are we back to I can see myself killing you one day?”

“No. But, like, if I did do something and it hurt you or—well, think about how you felt when you thought I might get myself shot on a holiday that you booked.”

“True.” Hanna reached out and took her wife’s hand. “I’m really glad you weren’t shot, by the way.”

“Me too.” She squeezed Hanna’s fingers tightly. “And it seems I’m pretty safe now since the hotel has the gun back.” The moment she said it, something began needling at the back of Liza’s brain. She tried to ignore it, to just enjoy lying there with her wife and not being in imminent danger of either death or divorce, but eventually she snapped and went back to her phone.

Sitting up, she began swiping.

“Just so you know,” Hanna said, “I am choosing to find your continued obsessive behaviour endearing.”

Half-listening, Liza turned the screen so Hanna could see it. “What do you see there?”

Hanna winced. “Fuck, Liza, I see a dead woman. What do you want?”

“Sorry. Got carried away.”

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