“I know this whole mysterious Mr B thing seems weird,” she continued, “but think of it as … as a bad person with a slightly silly nickname. And if you also think of everything that has happened as being the result of one tragic accident being exploited by that one bad person, creating a situation where otherwise normal people did some pretty fucked up things, then it’s suddenly—I mean, yeah, it’s unlikely, but it’s a whole lot less unlikely than the alternatives.”

“You’re still giving me the intro, Miss Podcaster,” said the DCI coldly. “Get to the middle eight, or I’ll just arrest everybody in this hotel.”

Liza took a deep breath. She’d been working this through in her head on and off since the whole affair started, but now it came to it, she wasn’t at all sure she could get it out clearly. But she also knew she had to, because if she fucked this up, the professor could get loose, and then he might be free to come after her and Hanna. Besides, she’d seen this movie a hundred times; she knew how it played out.

“Okay,” she said. “This story all starts when a …”—she shot a look at Ruby, then at Hanna—”… striking, audacious woman stole a ton of money and a set of banking information from the gangland figure we’re stuck calling Mr B. She fled with her ill-gotten gains to a nice, isolated hotel in the Scottish Highlands in the hope that somewhere with no internet or mobile phone reception would be a good place to hide. But Mr B followed her, and the detec—the private investigator called Perseus Belloc followed him. There are a couple more coincidences here, like one of the guests also being one of Mr B’s former enforcers, but that’s where we’re starting off.”

“This already sounds a touch implausible, dontcha think?” said Sir Richard, still apparently championing his “Ten Green Bottles” model of the crime.

Ruby, however, was watching the whole situation unfold with a look of cautious optimism. “Not necessarily. Why don’t you carry on, Liza?”

“I’ll tell people when to carry on, thank you,” said the DCI. Then, less abashed than most other people would be, continued, “Carry on.”