Liza folded her arms and looked down at Hanna sceptically. “Oh, come on. The country house setting. The quirky guests.” She waved a hand at the spatter of crimson that still lay stark against the snow. “Sudden and unexpected death. You booked us in for one of those murder mystery weekends, didn’t you?” In gratitude, she leaned down to kiss Hanna on the cheek, but Hanna pulled away.

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“Sorry. I know it’s meant to be a surprise, but you’ve been rumbled.”

Hanna was not looking rumbled. She was looking faintly nauseous. “Liza, this isn’t a murder mystery weekend.”

In ten years, Hanna had never once gone in for half measures, but she’d also never committed quite this hard to a bluff. Cautiously, Liza walked over to the figure that was the centre of everyone’s attention. There, sprawled and broken like … well, like the corpse of a man who had just fallen from a very high balcony, lay a body Liza was certain she recognised as Malcom Ackroyd. A woman in chef’s whites—so probably Emmeline White, the only full-time chef in the hotel—was standing over him looking shocked in the emotional—and possibly also the medical—sense. From her closeness to the corpse and her visible distress, Liza concluded that she’d probably been the one who screamed.

Without really thinking about it, she pulled out her phone and started filming.

“What the fuck,” Hanna whispered to her, “do you think you’re doing?”

“I am a true crime journalist. This is as true as it gets.”

Reaching up, Hanna guided Liza’s phone hand down. “It might not be a crime; it might be an accident. A man is dead, and this is insensitive. And you’re not a journalist; you’re a podcaster.”

The first two points were, Liza had to admit, valid. The third one stung. “What happened to ‘I’m proud of you’?”

“I’m proud that you’re making something good that people love. You’re not suddenly Bob Woodward. This isn’t girls and wine; this is a corpse.”