Sometimes, Hanna could take a joke really well, but for some unfathomable reason, in a dark wood with a gun-toting stranger who kept trying to fuck her wife wasn’t one of those times. “I’m serious, you … you … self-consciously enigmatic tube of amorality. You’ve set a fucking serial killer after us.”

“He’s not a serial killer,” Ruby replied only slightly chidingly. “Serial killers are pathological. Mr B is just very, very ruthless.”

Liza’s true crime podcaster instincts kicked in before she could stop herself. “Actually, there’s some debate about that. While a lot of people do think that killing to satisfy a psychological need rather than for some other motive is a necessary part of the definition, most law enforcement organisations define a serial killer as anybody who kills three or more people in separate events.”

“Oh, good.” Hanna did not sound amused. Apparently, in a dark wood with a gun-toting stranger who kept trying to fuck her wife was also a context that lowered her tolerance for pedantry. “I’m so glad that we’ve got the man who is going to murder us both in our beds properly classified. And”—she glared angrily at both Liza and Ruby—”if either of you two even thinks about saying, ‘Well, actually, none of the victims so far have been in their beds at point of death,’ I will fucking scream.”

“And risk alerting whoever’s out here?” One of Ruby’s less attractive qualities was her refusal to rise to anything resembling bait.

“Oh, nobody’s out here.” When irritated or frightened, Liza knew from long experience, Hanna had a habit of retreating into certainty. “The professor probably just shot at a menacing branch.”

“Perhaps,” wondered Liza aloud. The whole situation was growing increasingly suspicious, and the more pieces of the puzzle she picked up the more convinced she was that there was more than one picture. She had too many corners, for a start. “Or perhaps it was the chef, or Mr Burgh, or one of the staff.” Or, she added silently, Malcom Ackroyd wandering around headless, or having faked his death. “Anybody could be skulking around out here.”

“But,” Hanna added, “they probably aren’t.”

Despite the probably-aren’tness, they peeled themselves away from their respective trees and continued their circuit of the eastern grounds. The snow had thinned enough that if it hadn’t been after dark, and on a mountainside, and with temperatures still hovering in the vicinity of freezing, Liza might almost have suggested that the three of them say fuck it and try to make a break for the nearest town. Well, not the three of them, except she figured Ruby would be hard to shake.