The crowd, such as it was, was beginning to mill around aimlessly. When Murder Most Actual had done its obligatory episode on Kitty Genovese, who was supposed to have been stabbed to death in front of thirty-eight witnesses, none of whom had intervened, Liza and Rachael had talked a fair bit about the bystander effect. Actually, what they’d mostly talked about were flaws in the original New York Times reporting (there weren’t thirty-eight witnesses; there were somewhere between zero and four, and two of them called the police, and a seventy-year-old woman came out afterwards and held Kitty until she died, so the whole picture of a heartless city full of people who’d watch you getting stabbed and do nothing was kind of nonsense). But right now, the bystander thing did seem to have some weight to it because there was an increasingly large group building up and nobody seemed to have a clue what to do or who was in charge. And yes, in a way, Hanna was right, and pushing her way to the front saying, “Let me through, I’m a podcaster!” would have been ludicrous, but it might just have been better than—

“Mesdames et messieurs …” Mr Belloc had walked calmly over to the body, looked down at it, and then addressed the assembled staff and guests. “There has been a death. Perhaps no mere death, but a murder. A murder—I might say—most vile and wicked.”

Hanna eased the pressure on Liza’s hand. “Okay, maybe you should be filming. This can’t be the right way to treat a crime scene.”

Standing by the remains of the unfortunate Mr Ackroyd, Belloc had turned his attention to the chef. “I take it,” he said, “that you are the one who found the body?”

“Yes.” Emmeline still seemed to be having trouble getting words out. “I—I saw him fall. That’s when I screamed.”

“So this death, it happened recently, no?”

“No. I mean, yes.”

Belloc began to pace a little, his steps short and his gait shuffling. “Did you see anything else? Did you see perhaps what caused the man to fall?”

The snow was still falling. Between the weather and being asked questions by a busybody with no authority about what was almost certainly the most traumatic incident of her life, Emmeline was having a tough time of it. “I—I think I saw a shadow. I think somebody pushed him. But—with the storm …”

“Ah yes, the storm. The storm that would of course make the perfect cover for any crime.”

“Would it?” Hanna asked.

Liza gave this some thought. “I suppose it would depend on the crime.”

“Look here.” The colonel stepped forward. Now that he was standing, Liza could see quite how powerfully built he was. He was also, it seemed, powerfully fed up with whatever was unfolding. “I don’t know who you think you are, but—”