Chap­ter 27 of We Solve Mur­ders delves into Steve’s prepa­ra­tions for a trip to the Unit­ed States, where he is tasked with pre­vent­ing a poten­tial crime involv­ing Amy. As he final­izes arrange­ments, Steve makes sure to con­firm the dri­ver, Ken, who will trans­port him to Farn­bor­ough Air­port. He recalls a recent encounter with Lin­da, a col­league from Hamp­shire Police, who had invit­ed him for drinks—a request he awk­ward­ly declined. With a sense of duty and urgency, Steve packs light for his jour­ney, includ­ing a book of puz­zles, some snacks for the flight, and a few essen­tials. He also makes sure Mar­garet is updat­ed on the sit­u­a­tion, remind­ing her to look after their pet, Trou­ble, who requires eye drops. Though the trip is nec­es­sary, Steve can’t shake the feel­ing of unease about what lies ahead.

Ken, ever the patient and reli­able com­pan­ion, awaits Steve as they set off for the air­port. Steve opts for the front seat of the car, believ­ing the back­seat is more suit­ed for chil­dren or pris­on­ers, which leads to a pleas­ant, casu­al con­ver­sa­tion on their way to the air­port. The easy ban­ter between them pro­vides Steve with a much-need­ed dis­trac­tion from the grav­i­ty of the trip, momen­tar­i­ly eas­ing his mind. Upon arriv­ing at the air­port, Ken guides Steve direct­ly to the pri­vate plane, where a pass­port offi­cer greets them warm­ly. Brad, the flight atten­dant, offers cham­pagne as a ges­ture of hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and Ken, a musi­cian, shares his con­tact infor­ma­tion, invit­ing Steve to a gig. This unex­pect­ed con­nec­tion offers Steve a rare moment of lev­i­ty before div­ing back into the seri­ous mat­ters at hand.

Once aboard the pri­vate jet, Steve is ini­tial­ly alone, which takes him by sur­prise, but the soli­tude is short-lived. The pilot, Sask­ia, invites him to sit in the cock­pit dur­ing take­off, a thrilling and rare expe­ri­ence for Steve. As the jet soars into the skies, Steve set­tles into his plush seat, where Brad offers a selec­tion of sushi and a vari­ety of bev­er­ages, includ­ing twelve dif­fer­ent types of beer. Despite the com­fort and lux­u­ry of the expe­ri­ence, Steve’s thoughts wan­der to a pre­vi­ous, far less lux­u­ri­ous trip to Turkey. He recalls deal­ing with an upset stom­ach and lim­it­ed tele­vi­sion enter­tain­ment options, which sharply con­trasts with the lav­ish set­ting of the cur­rent flight.

As the flight pro­gress­es, Steve begins to focus on the case of Andrew Fairbanks’s mys­te­ri­ous mur­der, which occurred at sea. He uses his Dic­ta­phone to doc­u­ment his find­ings, direct­ing his atten­tion to poten­tial sus­pects: François Lou­bet, an enig­mat­ic fig­ure with a his­to­ry of con­nec­tions, and Joe Blow, tied to Max­i­mum Impact Solu­tions. Steve’s mind is con­sumed by these sus­pects as he delves deep­er into the inves­ti­ga­tion. Just as his thoughts become more focused, Brad returns with a unique offer: a tast­ing of sev­er­al dif­fer­ent types of beer. Ini­tial­ly hes­i­tant due to the flight’s reg­u­la­tions, Steve soon finds him­self join­ing the tast­ing after a per­sua­sive con­ver­sa­tion with Sask­ia, mak­ing this moment a sur­pris­ing high­light of the trip. What began as a rou­tine flight has now become an unex­pect­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty for enjoy­ment.

The light­heart­ed beer tast­ing ses­sion serves as a stark con­trast to the more seri­ous busi­ness at hand, blend­ing both relax­ation and ten­sion. Steve’s pro­fes­sion­al focus nev­er wavers, even as he expe­ri­ences moments of lev­i­ty amidst the chaos of the inves­ti­ga­tion. His abil­i­ty to bal­ance per­son­al enjoy­ment and a high-stakes inves­ti­ga­tion speaks to his resilience and ded­i­ca­tion. As he con­tin­ues to reflect on the case and his next steps, Steve real­izes that this jour­ney could lead him to cru­cial rev­e­la­tions, though it remains unclear just how deep the con­spir­a­cy might go. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of light and dark moments in this chap­ter helps to build sus­pense, reveal­ing Steve’s abil­i­ty to stay ground­ed, even when sur­round­ed by lux­u­ry and uncer­tain­ty.

The chap­ter explores the com­plex­i­ty of Steve’s char­ac­ter, pro­vid­ing insight into his strug­gles, moti­va­tions, and unex­pect­ed moments of respite. His abil­i­ty to main­tain focus on the mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion, while still enjoy­ing the small plea­sures in life, under­scores the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al bal­ance he must strike. As the sto­ry pro­gress­es, read­ers are left won­der­ing how Steve will con­tin­ue to nav­i­gate the chal­lenges before him, and what new infor­ma­tion he might uncov­er along the way. His jour­ney not only reveals the lay­ers of the mys­tery but also demon­strates his adapt­abil­i­ty, allow­ing him to make the most of both the dra­mat­ic and mun­dane moments that come his way.