‘Most helpful corpse ever!’ one of them said, gleefully, to the next detectives heading in. Marcus’s idea that it would be over in an hour or so seemed optimistic, if there were still people starting their investigations now.

Posy glanced up at the stable-yard clock. Nearly three. No time to talk to Clementine.

Past the stables, the manicured lawns and tidy gravel paths gave way to longer stems of grass, and tracks that were more dirt than stone, the further she got from the house. She’d only been walking for ten minutes or so, but already she seemed a world away from the chaos of the convention. The sound of water lapping sluggishly against the banks, and the reeds in the stream rustling in the breeze, were overtaking the laughter and chatter of the stalls and the convention goers. As she reached the river path, the stone tower of the folly rose against the trees and blue skies.

Nausea rose in her throat at the thought of who could be waiting for her. But what else was there to do but find out?

She covered the remaining steps in a few long strides, and pulled open the wooden door before she could have second thoughts. Then she blinked.

‘You?’ she said, in astonishment, just as Rosalind King said, ‘You?!’ in a considerably more scathing manner.

‘You didn’t send me this note.’ Posy pulled the script page from her bag and held it up with the writing facing Rosalind.

Confusion cleared from Rosalind’s expression, and she reached into the deep pocket of her jacket to retrieve her own note. ‘And you didn’t send me this one.’

‘No.’

‘With it being on the back of a page of the script, I’d assumed my correspondent was somebody connected to the film,’ Rosalind said, drily. ‘But I never did imagine you.’

There was a thinly veiled insult hidden in there somewhere, but Posy didn’t bother teasing it out or being annoyed by it. Because if Rosalind hadn’t sent the note, that meant they were still waiting for someone else.

She spun around as she heard movement outside, her muscles tensing. Behind her, she felt Rosalind moving closer. Who would want to get both her and Rosalind King in the same place at the same time, and why?

The door rattled open again and a figure appeared, shadowed by the sun behind it until it was almost unrecognisable.

Almost.

‘Well!’ Caro Hooper said, one hand on her hip and the other leg stretched out to the side – her classic Dahlia pose. ‘What the absolute heck are you two doing here?’

Chapter Eight

‘I don’t believe in coincidences, Johnnie.’ Dahlia dropped the corpse’s hand back on to its chest, and stood up again, one hand on her hip and one foot pointing out. ‘When it comes to murder, it seems to me that everything happens for a reason.’

Dahlia Lively in A Lively Take On Life