“The other interesting thing about penguins,” said Liza slightly too loudly—the evening had basically gone to hell already, but she was hoping she could at least keep it in the upper circles—”is that they often form same-sex pair bonds.”

“You are an expert on the wildfowl now, as well as the crimes?” asked Belloc, looking up from his place setting with an almost malicious glint in his eye.

“I never said I was an expert on crime,” Liza replied.

“Yet you presume to educate people about it.”

The professor slid his glasses up his nose. “You seem to be taking Ms Blaine’s career rather personally, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“It is not personal.” Belloc folded his hands neatly on the table. “But it is serious.”

The waiters were beginning to come back through with food. A young woman with shoulder-length curly hair set a plate of duck with cherries in front of Lady Tabitha and, just for a moment, Liza could have sworn she saw something. A look that passed between them, perhaps.

“So,” said the reverend as a rack of lamb was laid in front of him, “about those penguins?”

The fish, it turned out, was delicious. Emmeline White lived up to her reputation, and her combination of local ingredients with classical techniques was exquisite. So exquisite that nothing, not listening to the Ackroyds sniping passive-aggressively at each other, or Belloc shitting on her career, or the colonel being a blustering arse, or even her constant low-key tension with Hanna, could quite spoil it.

Chapter Four

Liza, in the Bedroom, with Questions

Friday night

After dinner, Liza flopped plank-like onto the bed and groaned. “Fuck.”

“What flavour of fuck?” asked Hanna, sitting on a plush armchair and removing her shoes.

“The Ackroyds.” It wasn’t really an explanation, but it didn’t really need one. “I couldn’t have been the only person at that table thinking—”

Hanna flopped down beside her. “That you don’t understand how they’re not divorced already?”

Liza nodded. “Is that how people look at us?”

“I hope not.” It wasn’t Hanna’s hopeful voice. “But probably. Of course, maybe we only think their marriage looks like a car crash inside a dumpster fire because we’re projecting our own issues.”

“Great. So their marriage might be fine, but ours is fucked either way.”

“I mean … fucked is a strong word.” Again, it wasn’t Hanna’s hopeful voice. “We’ve just got some things to work through. And it’ll be hard for a while, but we can get through it.”

Hopeful or not, it was straying close to her patronising voice. “Can you please stop with the everything’s-fine-and-fixable routine? I’m worried. I want you to let me be worried. Is that okay?”

“Sorry.” And suddenly, Hanna had snapped. “Am I the monster who won’t let you have feelings now?”