The question then became how exactly to conceal the USB drive. Keeping it on either of their persons seemed dangerous, but keeping it in their room—which they often left unattended, which it was abundantly clear an only moderately determined intruder could gain access to with ease, and which the staff came into daily to clean—seemed foolish. In the end they agreed to pass it between them so that at least that way, one of them wasn’t shouldering all the responsibility, and to keep it in the little safe in their room while they were asleep. They’d briefly flirted with the idea of hiding it somewhere completely random around the hotel, or burying it somewhere in the gardens, but letting it out of their sight also seemed like a bad plan when they were dealing with an unknown criminal mastermind.

Once they’d finished deciding how to dispose of the documents, they found it was nearly time to go down to dinner—a reduced menu again, but at least no new absences this time. After that, the rest of the day passed in a kind of quiet tension. Sir Richard and the colonel had gone back to the billiard room where, it seemed, Sir Richard had still yet to win a game. The professor and the vicar had gone for a walk together in the grounds, while Ruby had vanished on errands of her own, leaving Liza and Hanna to slope back to their room. There they stuck with the plan, locking the USB drive that might get them both killed in the little safe that they were pretty sure was meant to be for jewellery and credit cards rather than a lethal weapon against organised crime. Then they sat for a while just staring at it like it was a wasp at a picnic and they were both worried that if they lost track of it, they’d get stung.

Eventually, they managed to tear their eyes off the box of doom, and having nowhere much else to look with night closing in and the highlands becoming, once more, just a suggestion of mountains in the dark, they looked at each other.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” said Hanna.

“I’m sorry you needed to.”

That made Hanna shrink a little into herself. “I didn’t, though, did I? I mean, I should have kept my—I was scared. And when I came back and didn’t see you and—”

“I know. I should have thought. It’s just she knew I was there, and so standing outside felt—I should still have been more thoughtful.”

“It’s okay.”

“Is it? I’m thoughtless a lot.”

Hanna sighed. “I think we both are. But I’ll try to do better.”

“Me too.” Reaching across the suddenly-too-vast space between them, Liza took her wife’s hand, turned it over, and ran her thumb across the palm.