“Fuck,” Sir Richard spluttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, hide the guns.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “But not the corpses?”

The panic was mounting in Sir Richard’s voice. “I don’t know! I’ve never been in this situation before.”

Mr Burgh made, “I should, well, um, probably,” noises and went out to greet the police. A few minutes later he returned with two uniformed officers and a grey-haired, grim-faced man in a brown overcoat.

“I’m DCI McManus,” said the man in plain clothes. “And at the risk of sounding incredibly cliché: what’s all this then?”

Mary-who-worked-there shuffled forwards. “There’s been a murder,” she explained.

“Well,” clarified Mr Burgh, “six murders.”

“And I assure you,” added Sir Richard, “we have a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Liza, in the End, with the Denouement

Thursday, early afternoon

It took a while for the assembled survivors to explain to DCI McManus exactly what had happened, partly because they tended to disagree with each other, and partly because so much of it seemed so patently impossible.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right.” The DCI looked down at his notes with an air of frank despair. “Since the extremely inaptly named Good Friday, all of you have been trapped in this hotel with no way of contacting the outside world, and fully six of you have been variously shot, stabbed, poisoned, or dropped off high buildings?”

Mr Burgh nodded. “It has been quite a difficult time.”

“The deaths began when a Mr Malcom Ackroyd was pushed off his balcony by an unknown assailant, at which point”—the DCI flipped to the next page and continued in a tone of rank Glaswegian contempt—”one of the guests declared that he was a famous consulting detective named Perseus Belloc, and that he believed the killer to be an elusive mastermind known only as Mr B?”

“To be fair,” said Sir Richard, “Perseus was definitely a real detective—”

“I’m a real detective.” DCI McManus didn’t seem happy with the term being thrown about casually. “What you mean is that Mr Belloc was a licensed private investigator.”

“Well, if you’re being pernickety.”

Ignoring the interjection, the DCI turned to Liza and Hanna. “And you,” he continued, “claim that this man”—he indicated the professor— “is the mysterious”—he made air quotes—”Mr B, but nobody else seems to agree with you.”

“I’m aware it sounds far-fetched,” Liza began.

“You’re too bloody right it sounds far-fetched.” The DCI turned to the next page. “The following day, Mr Belloc was found shot dead by the lake, and then that evening Mrs Ackroyd shot herself in her room. Except on the expert testimony of”—he looked down at Liza—”a woman who hosts a podcast, you decided it wasn’t a suicide, but was actually a murder.”