Hanna’s shoulders hunched ambiguously. “It’s not that simple though, is it? You have to do this—or at least, you want to do it really badly—and while I definitely don’t, I do want to support you.”

“Just so you know, you don’t get anywhere near as many points for being supportive if you say you’re being supportive.”

It had been meant as a joke, but Hanna wasn’t in the mood. “You know what you also don’t get points for: going off to poke around a murder you’ve got no business poking around, then being sarcastic at your wife when she tells you she’s got your back.”

Liza winced. Fuck, she was the worst. Everything was getting mashed together in her head. All the unanswered questions and unsolved mysteries, like why things were still so difficult with Hanna. And why Mrs Ackroyd had come out in the snow in her pyjamas. And who had stolen the gun. “I’m sorry.”

“Well.” Hanna pulled back her shoulders in a way that made her look briefly like a clockwork solider. “No time like the present. Let’s go talk to the chef”

On the way down to the kitchens, Hanna outlined her ground rules. If they’re too busy, leave. If they don’t want to talk, leave. If anybody looks like they might be about to pick up any kind of weapon, leave. It was a very leaving-focused set of principles.

The kitchens of the hotel were incongruously modern. Accessing them involved walking through a pair of oak-panelled doors that you could imagine Henry VIII banging on to demand his supper, and then finding yourself in a gleaming capsule of brushed chrome full of fresh fish and Aberdeen Angus.

The kitchen staff was fairly small. The hotel had capacity for less than two dozen guests, and aside from Emmeline White herself, there were only two other people in the room: one chopping things, and the other washing things. Liza thought she recognised one of them from dinner the night before—the young woman who’d shared that strange something with Lady Tabitha. The Blaines did their best to slip in quietly but severely underestimated the weight of the doors, leaving them to slam their last six inches and sending a wooden boom echoing off the polished metal of the kitchen surfaces.

“If you’re here to order something,”—Ms White was wearing the politely exasperated look of somebody who didn’t technically have a customer-facing role but was still having to face customers—”you do that at reception. We’re a bit behind at the moment because, well, because of what happened.”

“Actually,”—Liza quietly slipped her phone out of her pocket—”that’s why we’re here.”

This didn’t seem to impress Ms White, who stood with her arms folded and her head cocked to one side. “Sorry, who are you?”