“Hang on,” she told Hanna and Mr Burgh as they were about to give the search up as a bad job. “I’ve had a thought.”

She took them outside to the foot of the tower where poor Mr Ackroyd’s body had been found the night before. Trying not to think too much about the previous evening’s grisly business, she looked up, then around, to see if she could work out where a desperate woman might throw an Enfield No. 2 Mark 1 revolver.

It was a pretty slim hope, she realised, but to her surprise she saw something. A bush running the length of the hotel wall, still thick with the snow that, even now, was falling all about them.

Mostly thick with the snow. Because just at one side there was a patch where the snow had been knocked off, as if something heavy had struck it from above. Not quite willing to believe she could have got quite this lucky—or possibly unlucky—Liza approached the hedge. The branches, dense and neatly trimmed, had definitely been snapped by some kind of impact, but whatever had caused the damage was long gone. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it was looking a lot like the gun wasn’t in the lake, and a lot like at some point, by whatever means, it had wound up following Mr Ackroyd over the edge of the balcony.

And now it was out there, somewhere in the hotel.

For just a moment, Liza understood what Hanna was so afraid of.

Chapter Thirteen

Mrs Ackroyd, in the Lounge, with Witnesses

Saturday night

“It’s what?” Mr Burgh was asking.

“It’s where the gun fell,” Liza explained for the third time. “It has to be.”

“Are you sure? It could be a bird or … or a badger.”

Hanna gave him a look. “A flying badger?”

“It could have burrowed underneath and … and shaken the branches?” He didn’t sound like he was convincing himself, much less anybody else.

Liza joined in with the look given. “Put it this way. Maybe I’m wrong, but if I’m right, Vivien Ackroyd killed her husband and Belloc, and then she threw the gun out of the window when we said we were going to go and search the rooms.”

“Which means we should …?” Hanna prompted.

Liza hadn’t thought quite that far ahead. “I don’t know. Go and confront her about it?”

“And after that?” They were back in the scratchy space. They were definitely back in the scratchy space.

“We lock her up?” suggested Liza, not quite able to keep the apologetic tone out of her voice.

Mr Burgh looked uncertain. “I’m not sure locking up a guest is really the best thing for the hotel’s reputation.”

“Your hotel has had two murders in two days,” Hanna pointed out. “Its reputation might be in need of the tiniest bit of rehabilitation anyway.”