“Oh, ram a sock in it, you posh wazzock,” snapped the DCI. “The only thing that baffles me is why anybody would believe that I would believe such an obvious line of bullshit.”

Cautiously, Liza stood up. “Actually … I don’t think it’s entirely bullshit.”

“I know.” DCI McManus looked at her with the kind of expression that Liza wished she had the courage to give the cranks who called into her podcast claiming to be the Zodiac Killer. “You think the whole thing was masterminded by a sixty-year-old schoolteacher.”

“Professor of Mathematics,” protested Professor Worth.

Liza ignored the interruption. “Actually—and I might be completely wrong about all this because I’m really not a real detective—I do think I’ve got an explanation for how we got into this situation, and it mostly doesn’t involve anybody being a secret criminal genius.”

The DCI’s face had gone from nakedly hostile to condescendingly tolerant. “Why do I get the feeling that this is going to be long?”

“It’s six murders.” Liza gave him an apologetic look. “It does get a bit fiddly.”

Settling down into the seat that Liza had just vacated, DCI McManus gave her a grudging nod. “Go on then, you have the floor, Madam Podcaster. Share your wisdom with us.”

And there she was. Everybody in the room was staring at her and either expecting her to have answers for them, or worse, expecting her to not have answers for them and waiting to see her fail. But this was … this was it. It was the end, the summing-up. It was … almost exciting. And terrifying. And she could do this. No, she could nail this. And nobody was going to stop her.

Shit, why was nobody stopping her?

“Right,” Liza began. “So, first off, as much as I hate it when people have a go at my job, the DCI is right. I’m just a podcaster. I’ve never solved a crime in my life; I’ve only ever read about other people solving them, and I’m not claiming to have all the answers here. But six people are dead, and I … I don’t know, I guess I just feel I owe it to them to at least put together what I can for when the real detectives take over.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” commented DCI McManus from the sofa.

“What I will say, though,” she continued—this was getting into trickier territory—”is that I have learned some things about crime over the last couple of years. And the most important thing I’ve learned is the thing I do my best not to let on when I’m actually podcasting. Which is that crime is … well … crime is … it’s kind of boring?”