“It is.” Mr Burgh didn’t look hugely confident. “And I have put the key in a new safe place I shall not reveal.”

“Is it around your neck?” Ruby’s eyes darted to a suspicious outline just visible through Mr Burgh’s shirt.

His hand went reflexively to his chest. “No?”

The dining room doors opened, causing several of the guests to jump, but it was only Emmeline White. “Just came through to say we’re officially out of sausages.” She stopped and looked around the guests’ faces. Nobody was looking especially like sausages were on their mind. “Oh no,” she said, “what’s happened now?”

“Ms Blaine believes that Mrs Ackroyd was murdered,” explained Mr Burgh.

“And Sir Richard believes we’re being hunted down one by one,” added Ruby. “Like dogs.”

Ms White looked sceptical. “Why would anybody do that?”

“Be sure your sin will find you out,” said Sir Richard gnomically.

At that Colonel Coleman grew pale. “You mean, we’ve all been lured here by some … some avenging angel?”

“I’m sure we’ve all sinned.” The vicar’s tone was grave, as if he was taking this far more seriously than Liza thought was really necessary. “But angels don’t kill; people do.”

“I meant it metaphorically.”

Hanna ran a hand through her hair. “Can we lay off the sin talk? This isn’t some cosmic punishment. It’s just a shitty situation we’re stuck in.”

“And,” added Liza, “Belloc said he was on somebody’s trail. This ‘Mr B’ figure.”

Waving a dismissive hand, Sir Richard made a sound that could roughly be approximated as “pish.” “Belloc was a fine man, no doubt, but his ‘Charles de Gaulle of Crime’ is probably a phantom.”

“Whereas your avenging angel is flesh and blood?” Reverend Lincoln looked unconvinced.

To say that the conversation descended into squabbling from there would be unfair, but only slightly. The guests finished up their mildly rationed breakfast and, in ones and twos, filtered out of the dining hall to go and do whatever it was they did when they weren’t telling one another about newly discovered corpses.

Eventually, Liza and Hanna were the only two that remained.

“Well, this is …” Hanna began.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think Sir Richard is right? Is this some kind of … some kind of weird PG-rated Saw thing?”

Liza had long since gone past the point where she had a clue. “Maybe? It seems a bit far-fetched, but then so does the idea that we’re stuck in a hotel with a criminal mastermind who decided to murder two tourists for no reason.”

Quietly, Hanna picked at the edge of a crust of bread. “So what now?”

“We could go for another walk? I know it feels a bit … off to be trying to enjoy the holiday with everything that’s going on, but, well, if we are in PG Saw then we should probably be trying to make the most of our lives.”