She swished the pleated, silvery skirt that hit her mid-calf, her own black top tucked neatly into it, and grinned. ‘It looks good. And the shoes I have will be fine with it, I think.’

‘Unless you want to squash your feet into something of mine, I think they’ll have to,’ Caro said. ‘Now, have you mastered the eyebrow raise, yet?’

‘The eyebrow raise?’ Posy asked.

Caro demonstrated in the mirror, amused that Rosalind did the same. ‘Right eyebrow only, raised sceptically like this.’

‘It’s the signature Dahlia move,’ Rosalind added.

Posy raised both her eyebrows. Then she frowned a lot, and one eyebrow jumped a fraction before falling again.

‘We’ll practise,’ Caro promised.

‘Later.’ Rosalind checked the delicate silver watch on her wrist. ‘Come on, we need to get to dinner.’

‘And question Felicity.’ Posy grabbed her bag. ‘Let’s go.’

‘I’ll meet you down there,’ Caro said. ‘I need to get a jacket.’

She dashed back across the landing to her own room, flipping on the lights and reaching into her wardrobe for the first appropriate thing she could find to wear over her dress. Then she hurried towards the door and her friends – and almost missed the tiny doll sitting on her bedside table.

Caro paused, her breath suddenly loud in her ears. She picked the figure up between two fingers, studying it carefully. A woman, of course, in trousers and shirt. It could be her, but it could also be almost any woman at Aldermere this weekend. Apart from the stream of red blood that ran down her miniature face.

What would Dahlia do?

Dahlia would say that if someone was scared enough of their investigations to try and threaten her with a doll in her room, that meant they had to be doing something right.

Her heart rate almost back to normal, Caro slipped the doll into the pocket of her jacket and headed down to dinner.

This time, Posy distracted Ashok while Caro and Rosalind descended on Felicity.

‘What do you think?’ she asked Rosalind, as they waited for Posy to sweet-talk Ashok into showing her something or other across the room. ‘Charm or blunt force?’

‘Let’s show her the respect of assuming she’s not an idiot,’ Rosalind said, after a moment. ‘She’s been asking questions all day as much as we have.’

‘Blunt force it is then.’ Caro nodded in agreement, then they stalked across the room to where Felicity stood alone.

‘We were hoping you might join us in the Snug for a moment,’ Rosalind murmured softly, as she took Felicity’s left arm.

‘We have something of importance to discuss with you.’ Caro smiled her best Dahlia smile, relieved Felicity of her wine glass, and took her other arm.

‘It seems you’ve made my mind up for me.’ Felicity sounded more amused than she’d expected, but Caro didn’t let her smile slip as they headed for the door.