‘Dahlia Lively never cared what other people thought,’ Libby said, her tone thoughtful. ‘She cared about the truth.’

Which effectively put an end to that conversation.

Posy leapt to her feet, then reached out to grab the rail as the train took a corner, the world suddenly unstable beneath her feet. ‘I’d better go and get changed into this.’

Wriggling out of jeans and into a dress in the filthy, tiny train toilet wasn’t an experience she’d recommend to others. And somehow, the dress itself looked worse on her body than off. The mirror was grimy, so she fished her phone out of her jeans pocket and took a top-down selfie, studying it in the poor light.

Damon would love me in this dress.

The thought flickered through her head before she could stop it. She tried not to think of Damon these days. Still, when he turned up and started occupying her headspace, she did what her therapist had told her to do, and examined whether the things he was saying or doing in there were true.

Damon wouldn’t love her because, as far as she’d been able to ascertain, Damon was incapable of love. He would approve of the dress, though, because it was exactly what he’d always hoped she’d wear. Feminine, soft, malleable.

All the things that Posy wasn’t.

And neither was Dahlia Lively, by all accounts.

At least that was something they had in common.

With a sigh, Posy unlocked the door and headed out into the carriage.

‘What do you think?’ She struck a pose. ‘Will I do?’

Kit winced. Libby looked like she thought Dahlia’s creator was probably rolling in her grave somewhere.

‘Perfectly Dahlia!’ Anton grinned. ‘The fans are going to love you.’

Chapter Three

‘Hazelwood Manor has been my sanctuary all these years.’ Dahlia stared up at the house, her eyes very wide. ‘My haven. And now …’ Now, nothing felt safe any longer.

Dahlia Lively in Death Comes to Hazelwood

By Lettice Davenport, 1944

Aldermere House rose up against the blue of a perfect English summer morning, its Georgian brick frontage solid and imposing, its many windows watching. Sitting high in the back seat of the vintage car that had collected them from the station, Posy watched the puffy white clouds pass across the August sky as they rattled along the gravelled driveway.

She could almost believe they’d travelled back in time, to a world that had long disappeared. Did people still live in stately homes like this, even in the twenty-first century?

Well, if they had Lettice Davenport’s royalties to pay for it, it seemed they did.

‘There it is, ladies and gentlemen,’ Anton said, holding onto his seat in front of her as the thin wheels and inadequate suspension attempted another bump in the road. ‘Aldermere House itself. Home of the Queen of Crime.’