There were, at least, definitely four bodies. The most recent, Lady Tabitha’s, was still lying in an awkward position, which suggested that a reasonable amount of rigor mortis had set in while she was sat in that chair. And after over a hundred episodes of true crime podcasting, Liza really felt she should have been able to remember what that said about the time of death other than, “Probably not that recently, but not, like, ages ago.” Early last night, she thought?

Vivien Ackroyd and Mr Belloc looked much as she remembered them. Paler, perhaps, and she suspected if she turned them over, she’d be able to see blood pooling at their backs— what blood was left in them—but she wasn’t about to start trying. There was playing amateur detective, and then there was interfering with the dead.

At last she came to Malcom Ackroyd. It was the first time she’d had an up-close look at his body, which she’d previously only seen from the back of a crowd. And she was kind of wishing she hadn’t seen it now. The other three victims had suffered horrible injuries, obviously, fatal in fact, and Vivien’s body had reminded her—if a reminder was ever needed—that a gunshot to the head did a lot more than make a picturesque pool of blood trickle out from under your cheek. But a headfirst drop from a balcony, even onto a layer of snow, was something else.

Liza had only seen Malcom Ackroyd once, albeit for the length of a whole dinner, but she’d been mostly trying to avoid eye contact. Still, given the state of his head, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to recognise him even if she’d known him better. The rest of his body was nondescript, a man in his early forties perhaps, no obvious scars or convenient missing digits to say, “Yes, this is definitely the guy it is supposed to be.” He was wearing his wedding ring, and it seemed to fit, but the thing about wedding rings was that they all looked the same, so barring a convenient inscription, there was no clue to be had there. Of course, if this wasn’t Malcom Ackroyd, the only person who could have proved it wasn’t would have been Vivien Ackroyd, and she was lying dead on the next table.

Turning her back on the remains of Malcom Ackroyd, Liza rested her chin on two fingertips and tried to piece together any scenario where this all fit together neatly.

“What if,” she tried, “the reverend was right and the Ackroyds weren’t really a married couple at all? All the arguing was just staged—”

“Felt pretty realistic to me,” said Hanna.