Katherine announced her arrival with the multiple thunks of a suitcase being dragged down stairs. She noticed me and stopped, suitcase and my mother tailing her, either to ask for a hand or to tell me to stop lollygagging, but I never found out because I cut her off.

‘Will you gather everyone?’ I asked. ‘I need to tell them something. I need everyone, because I still have questions for some of them. And so no one runs.’

Katherine nodded, picking up on my tone. ‘Where?’

I looked around at the bookshelves, the crackling fire and the plush red leather chairs. ‘If we get out of here alive enough to sell our story, I’d say Hollywood would be pretty pissed if we didn’t use the library, don’t you think?’

CHAPTER 37

Marcelo and Audrey took the leather chairs, like royalty in thrones. Crawford and Juliette stood at the back, either side of the fireplace, having learned, from spending a weekend amid Cunningham family affairs, the meaning of the phrase ‘safe distance’. Katherine stood, leaning her arm against the back of Audrey’s chair. Andy sat on a side table, though he seemed to lack structural confidence in it, keeping his knees high and holding most of his weight on the balls of his feet. Sofia sat on the floor. It was like another wedding tableau, similar to yesterday morning on the steps outside, except later in the night when the party has thinned out, everyone’s nose is booze-red, their clothes a little tattered, their hands smashed and stuffed into oven mitts. Gavin had been excused, innocent by virtue of Rule 1, and was loading our bags into the Oversnow. I made sure to block the doorway, because the killer always tries to make a break for it once they’ve been revealed.

The rush of discovery had faded somewhat, and now I had to figure out how best to present my accusations so that they made logical sense. It was hard to find a place to start: there were plenty of killers in the room, but only one murderer.

‘Well?’ Marcelo spoke first, his impatience betraying his curiosity. That gave him the short straw. I’d start with him.

‘It’s time we all came clean about why we’re here,’ I said. I took the GPS out of my pocket and tossed it to Marcelo.

It took him a moment to realise what it was. I could tell he was about to ask me where I got it, but then he remembered meeting me out in the snow, handing me the device in front of his broken window.