Outside the snow was slowly melting, and somewhere—Liza knew—a killer, perhaps more than one killer, was waiting to make their last move for blood or for freedom. But in that room, it wasn’t important. They weren’t safe—they hadn’t been safe since they got there—but if Liza was going to die, then there were far worse ways to go than with her wife in her arms, with the scent of her on the pillows, with the taste of her on her lips.

So, in the still eternity of a night that might never end, they moved together, held to each other. Touched and kissed and bit each other as their bodies fought to express what for years they’d thought they’d forgotten how to express.

Love, as it turned out, was like arsenic. Over time, it built up in the system and, contrary to what Mithridates believed, you could never truly immunise yourself. Instead, the effects grew stronger over time until, in the end, they overtook you entirely.

At last they collapsed, twined around each other, Hanna resting against Liza’s chest and tracing lazy fractal patterns across her stomach with her free hand. As the wind outside dropped to a gentle breeze and the whole hotel fell quiet, they gazed into each other’s eyes and sighed.

“That was—” Hanna began, but Liza placed a finger over her lips.

“Hold on, I think I heard something.”

Dropping a kiss on her wife’s cheek, Hanna laughed. “And she’s back. I suppose I should be flattered I managed to distract you as long as I did.”

“I’m serious, I think—”

Except, as it turned out, she didn’t need to think. Because soon the sound of scraping, and the click of the window catch, and the slide of the sash, were all too obvious. As the two women watched, frozen, the curtains parted, and a shadowy figure slipped into their room.

Chapter Thirty

Mr B, in the Bedroom, with a Gun

Wednesday night / Thursday morning

Even if they hadn’t both been naked, Liza and Hanna would have been feeling incredibly exposed as the intruder prowled towards the bed. If she’d been certain he only intended to rob them, Liza would have told herself that the best strategy was to lie very still, pretend to be asleep, and hope that he—or she, although it seemed unlikely from the silhouette—was just passing through. But so far nobody had been robbed in this hotel; they’d just been murdered. Pushed off balconies. Poisoned. Gunned down.

And for all Liza had thought that if she was going to die, she wanted to die with her wife in her arms, she had to admit that she was also very, very keen to die with answers.