The suspicious look stopped creeping and settled in for a long stay. “Not the word I’d use, Liza. Worrying? Yes. Frustrating? Certainly. Terrifying? Maybe, but I’m trying very hard not to think about it. The best thing we can do is keep to ourselves, wait for the snow to clear, and then get as far away from this place as we possibly can.”

Hanna was right, of course. Talking about murders for a living—or a partial living at least—was one thing, but getting up close and personal with a real killer was probably taking research too far. With a sigh, Liza crawled under the covers and tried to sleep.

“Did you—did you see a woman in the snow?” It felt like an absurd question.

“Yes, several.”

“No, I mean … sort of a mysterious woman.”

There was a shifting of springs as Hanna rolled onto her side. “My darling, for all we have disagreed today, you are still the only mysterious woman for me.”

“I’m serious. She was … lurking.”

“Lurking?”

“In a red dress. She looked like a blonde Hedy Lamarr.”

More movement from Hanna’s side of the bed. “It was just the excitement. Go to sleep.”

Liza went to sleep.

Failed to go to sleep.

She’d be just about to drift off when her mind would slide onto some stray observation or scrap of evidence, and she’d find herself scratching at it like a scab. Why was Mrs Ackroyd out in the snow only half-dressed? When had things started to go wrong with Hanna? What had Mr Ackroyd been doing on the balcony?

It was no good. Slithering out of bed again, Liza retrieved her phone, dragged on a pointlessly luxurious hotel-issue dressing gown, and crept outside into the corridor where she wouldn’t wake Hanna. Then she switched her phone to record voice-only and started talking.

“Hi, listeners. Or maybe hi, Rachael. Or note to self: I’ll work that out later. Anyway, this is Liza from Murder Most Actual, and I think I’ve just stumbled into, well, an actual murder, and it’s … it’s weird. I’m in a hotel with my wife—that’s right, guys, Rachael and I really aren’t dating—and there’s a snowstorm that means we can’t leave or speak to anybody outside, and a man has just fallen off a balcony, or been pushed off a balcony, and …” Shit. Serial this was not. “There’s some kind of private detective here who’s taken over investigations, and he claims there’s a mysterious crime lord in the hotel and, Christ, saying this out loud makes me sound like I’m losing it, but I swear something is going on, and I’m going to get to the bott—”

And there, at the end of the corridor, was the woman in red.

Beckoning.