“Yeah.” Hanna didn’t seem mega-thrilled at the idea of saying she was sorry to a probable murderer who’d slandered her marriage, but being the mature, sensible one, she was way more inclined to do things she wasn’t thrilled by than Liza was. Most of the time, at least.

So, begrudgingly, they got up from the table and went to tell Vivien Ackroyd that they were sorry. It was, Liza reflected, a good thing she’d thrown the gun out of her window, or they’d be about to get shot.

Chapter Fourteen

Vivien, in the Bedroom, with the Door Closed

Saturday night

“I guess we both fucked that up,” Liza admitted as they made their way from the dining hall to the tower. “I just thought it would go more … more smoothly, you know?”

“You thought Vivien would hear your brilliant deductions,” suggested Hanna, a note of irony in her voice, “crack under the strain, and immediately put on a 1920s villain voice and say, ‘Yes yes, I killed them, I killed them both, and I’d do it again’?”

Despite herself, Liza laughed. “Well, not exactly, but I did think we’d maybe get people to agree that something needed to be done.”

“I suppose not having the gun was a bit of a dealbreaker.”

“Yeah. It’s just … I looked under her window, and there it was. Not the gun, but a place where a gun could have been. It’s like … it’s like that bit in A Study in Scarlet where Holmes is all, ‘I expected to find these pills at the last crime scene, and here they are at this crime scene, and I am a genius.’ And it felt—it felt good?”

Hanna gave her a cautious look. “I get it. Just … don’t get carried away. You aren’t Sherlock Holmes. Also, Sherlock Holmes was fictional.”

“I’m not getting carried away. I—I suppose I’d rather feel like I’m doing something.”

And now Hanna was laughing. “Now that I understand. Hell, what do you think this holiday was?”

“A misguided effort to fix everything at once with a big romantic gesture?” suggested Liza.

“It’s my equivalent of trying to solve a murder.”

They heard footsteps behind them and, with the deaths and the gun still floating around, that spooked them enough that they pressed themselves flat against opposite walls. Except it turned out only to be the vicar. Or perhaps not only, if Ruby was right.

“Ms Blaine,” he said, “and Ms Blaine, before you go to see Mrs Ackroyd, I thought I should tell you something.”

Liza immediately tensed. “Why didn’t you mention it at dinner?”

“I’m sure it’s unclerical,”—the vicar looked genuinely apologetic—”but do you trust everybody in that room?”

“Yet you trust us?” asked Liza, still not totally certain that she trusted him.