Page 10 of Murder Most Actual

Friday night / Saturday morning

Before Liza really knew what she was doing, she’d crossed the room, turned on the light, and begun dragging on the jeans she’d been wearing the night before. She was just grabbing her shoes and her room key when Hanna stirred and asked her what in the green hell she was up to.

“Did you not hear the scream?”

“Yes, I heard the scream.” Hanna was giving her a what-the-fuck look. “That’s why I’m staying in bed.”

“You’re not worried about what it might be?”

Now Hanna was progressing to an I-love-you-but-I-don’t-understand-you look. Which was a mild improvement at least. “I’m very worried about what it might be. That’s why I’m staying in bed.”

“What if somebody’s hurt?”

“Then unless they’re hurt in a way that can be only fixed by a twenty-minute discussion of Jack the Ripper or a short option on steel, I don’t quite see how either of us can be any use.”

Liza had her shoes on, her key in one hand, and—out of pure habit—her currently useless phone in the other. “I’m going.”

Grumbling, Hanna hauled herself out of bed.

“You don’t have to come. You clearly think this is a bad idea.”

“We’re married. Your bad ideas are my bad ideas.” Hanna struggled into her shirt and began looking for her trousers. “Besides, I forced you into a holiday you didn’t want, remember?”

“You realise I can never tell if you’re trying to apologise or just being passive-aggressive?”

Hanna stared at her own phone and groaned at the time. “At one in the morning, I’m not sure I can tell either.”

They made their way downstairs and found a thin trickle of guests wending their way out into the courtyard. Liza recognised Sir Richard and Lady Tabitha—still in her peacock shawl—from the previous evening, along with the colonel, the vicar, and the professor.

Outside a crowd was gathering and a storm had already gathered. Snow piled deep across the hotel grounds, half-burying the cars, obliterating the road, and painting everything white for what felt like miles.

Painting everything white, that is, except for one tiny spot near the tower, which was painted very, very red indeed.

And for a moment, Liza was overjoyed.

“Okay.” She turned to Hanna with a grin. “I normally don’t like surprises, but this is legitimately fucking cool.”

The expression on Hanna’s face was unreadable. A sort of you’re-joking-or-we-have-serious-problems mix of horror and incomprehension. “What’s cool? Getting dragged out of bed in the small hours by somebody screaming?”

Liza folded her arms and looked down at Hanna sceptically. “Oh, come on. The country house setting. The quirky guests.” She waved a hand at the spatter of crimson that still lay stark against the snow. “Sudden and unexpected death. You booked us in for one of those murder mystery weekends, didn’t you?” In gratitude, she leaned down to kiss Hanna on the cheek, but Hanna pulled away.

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“Sorry. I know it’s meant to be a surprise, but you’ve been rumbled.”

Hanna was not looking rumbled. She was looking faintly nauseous. “Liza, this isn’t a murder mystery weekend.”

In ten years, Hanna had never once gone in for half measures, but she’d also never committed quite this hard to a bluff. Cautiously, Liza walked over to the figure that was the centre of everyone’s attention. There, sprawled and broken like … well, like the corpse of a man who had just fallen from a very high balcony, lay a body Liza was certain she recognised as Malcom Ackroyd. A woman in chef’s whites—so probably Emmeline White, the only full-time chef in the hotel—was standing over him looking shocked in the emotional—and possibly also the medical—sense. From her closeness to the corpse and her visible distress, Liza concluded that she’d probably been the one who screamed.

Without really thinking about it, she pulled out her phone and started filming.

“What the fuck,” Hanna whispered to her, “do you think you’re doing?”

“I am a true crime journalist. This is as true as it gets.”

Reaching up, Hanna guided Liza’s phone hand down. “It might not be a crime; it might be an accident. A man is dead, and this is insensitive. And you’re not a journalist; you’re a podcaster.”

The first two points were, Liza had to admit, valid. The third one stung. “What happened to ‘I’m proud of you’?”

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