Page 11 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests

Then a shiny black Land Rover drives quickly down the road, causing an errant photographer to jump out of its way. It screeches to a halt in front of the church.

“How dare you?” a woman screams as she bursts from the car. She has Stella’s heart-shaped face and wears a fitted black dress cut low at the front, huge sunglasses, and a black scarf wrapped around her head. Stella’s mother. Has to be.

“Naomi,” a tall man in a well-fitted charcoal suit calls, exiting the car on the other side and marching after her. Presumably Stella’s father, Lord Cooke.

“Wait,” he pleads, in a voice that is clearly unused to pleading. “You misunderstood me. Remember, I loved her too.”

“Oh, yes, you showered her with gifts, sent her off to that ridiculous boarding school, but you never showed her love, never told her you were proud of her. She lived for your approval, and all you did was criticize,” Stella’s mother snaps back, walking a few steps ahead.

“You never told me that. Why did you never tell me that?” he yells at her back, his grief seeming to fuel his anger.

As they both disappear into the church, Matthew recalls Stella talking about her father that night with a curious mixture of sarcasm and pride.

“Perhaps going inside would be an intrusion too far?” Vivienne says quietly. “There’s a nice wine bar around the corner…”

“Yes, I need a drink,” Janet says, nodding effusively.

“Did someone say ‘drink’?” Melvin asks, suddenly appearing next to them with Dr. Gordon trotting behind.

“This way,” Vivienne calls once she’s greeted Melvin and Gordon.

As they walk, Matthew notices that the rain has finally abated, so he takes down his umbrella and gives it a little shake. He’ll be happy to get a whiskey to steady his nerves. It hasn’t been the best week for him.

The day after the dinner party, he met Robyn in town.

They’d been dating for a few months, and she hadn’t yet refused any of his requests.

He had something particularly depraved in mind for that night.

Three mojitos in, and Robyn was giggling as his hand slowly worked its way up her long leg when…

he heard it… The name he thought he’d consigned to history.

“Matty Mucus?” the voice said a second time. “Is that really you?”

Think, think, how to get out of it… But he found his brain strangely sluggish…

“You’ve got the wrong person,” was the best he could come up with, turning away from the bloke with slicked-back hair and a familiar toothy grin.

“It’s me, Gareth Atkinson. We were at St. Mary’s together,” he persisted. “You look so different. No mucus or jam-jar-bottom glasses now. Mate, we were so horrible to you in school…”

For once, Matthew was lost for words; all he could do was stare dumbly between Gareth and Robyn. From Gareth’s faux-leather biker jacket to Robyn’s vintage Louboutin heels. Two worlds he’d never imagined would collide. Finally, Gareth got the hint and sidled off, but the damage had been done.

“Matty Mucus?” Robyn chuckled.

“Erm… I had allergy problems as a kid…”

“I thought you’d be the bully at school, not the bullied ,” Robyn cried, her eyes wide with astonishment. “And I didn’t know you were northern . Did you used to talk like him?”

And just like that, Matthew’s power over her had seeped away.

It no longer mattered that he was an investment banker with a two-million-pound flat; that his eyesight was perfect thanks to laser surgery, his body was a sculpted masterpiece, and his accent as artificially smooth as his chest. Now every time she looked at him, Robyn would see the bullied kid at school, snotty and shortsighted.

The evening should have ended with Matthew bending Robyn over his coffee table for a spank.

Instead, she mumbled something about an early-morning meeting, and they went their separate ways.

That night his sleep was haunted by characters from his childhood he thought he’d forgotten, moments he’d hoped he’d left behind forever.

Acne-ridden bullies chanting, “Matty Mucus,” every time he put his hand up during class.

Sweating under his bed covers, the sound of his bedroom door creaking open, his mother’s unnaturally sweet tone.

“Matthew, dear, Uncle Nigel’s come to see you…”

Every weekend she’d introduce a new “uncle,” each bringing their own particular horrors.

At sixteen, he’d escaped his mother’s house for a tiny studio flat and began an accountancy course at the local college.

His GP had sorted out his sinus problems, he’d gotten contact lenses, and he’d opened his eyes to the possibility of reinvention.

So Matty Mucus had walked away from his past and become smooth, sophisticated Matthew.

His new life had been perfect, just as he’d designed it.

And now this, this…resurfacing of his past.

The following morning, he felt like hell, and so called in sick to work. Usually, his weekends were crammed with back-to-back dates, but predictably Robyn had gone quiet, and he couldn’t face the date he’d planned with a new girl whose profile picture had been promisingly sexy.

On Monday morning, he forced himself back into the office.

“You look awful.” His boss chuckled, giving Matthew a wink. “Busy weekend?”

“You could say that.” Matthew attempted his cat-that-got-the-cream grin but feared it was more like a hyena-with-a-hernia grimace.

While his computer was starting up, he pulled out his phone and opened Facebook. That was where he contacted his dates before he felt ready to upgrade them to swapping-numbers status. That name again, at the top of his inbox: Gareth Atkinson. He swallowed and clicked on the message:

Sorry we didn’t get to talk properly the other night. Let’s meet up for a drink to discuss old times. Don’t say no, Matty. I’ve got an old class photo here and would hate your colleagues to see it…

Followed by two laughing emojis.

Matthew breathed deeply. What did he mean? Was it a threat? In a daze, he typed a reply:

Sounds good, how about next Wednesday?

Seeing Gareth again was the last thing he wanted to do, but he couldn’t risk ignoring him.

He tucked his phone back in his pocket and then logged on to his work email account. That’s when he saw Melvin’s message about Stella.

Beautiful young Stella. Dead.

He thought of the last time he’d seen her, standing in front of his apartment door, saying those words: Maybe we can catch up again soon—unless my number’s correct . There could only be one explanation. Stella knew her number. And it was twenty-three.

Suddenly, sweat was dripping down his face, down his back, drenching his crisp white shirt.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and all he could see was Stella lying on the tube tracks, blood pouring from a wound on her head.

He stumbled through his office, into the lift, blindly pressing the buttons until he arrived on the top floor.

He made his way to the back right-hand corner of the roof, where he couldn’t be seen.

Leaned against the railing and forced himself to look out over the London skyline, trying to calm himself down.

His gaze followed the line of the Thames, snaking through the city.

It had always brought him comfort, that continuous movement of water, watched by Londoners for centuries, always there and yet always moving and changing.

But it brought no comfort then. Because all he could think of was his own number. Ticking ever closer.

Somehow Matthew made it through the rest of the week, enduring phone calls and meetings on autopilot.

He read over Melvin’s email several times, made the decision not to attend Stella’s funeral.

Yet that Saturday afternoon, he found himself marching along a rain-drenched Kensington High Street, pulled along by a force he didn’t understand.

Matthew focuses on Vivienne’s frizzy-haired head as they weave their way through the crowds of shoppers on the high street and finally file into a wine bar. Vivienne sits down at a large circular table by the window. The others take their place around her.

Tristan

Tristan waits patiently as the pretty waitress moves around the table to take their orders.

Predictably, she starts with Matthew (double whiskey), then works her way around the table to Janet (white wine), Gordon (sparkling mineral water), Melvin (draft beer), Vivienne (also white wine: “Let’s just get a bottle.

” Janet: “Of course!”), and finally himself (Guinness: Let’s see if she gets it right ).

As he looks around the group, Tristan realizes they have unwittingly sat in the same formation as at the dinner party.

There’s even an empty chair between Janet and Gordon where Stella would be.

He looks from Matthew to Janet and remembers their teeth-grittingly embarrassing flirting two weeks ago.

Then Matthew had lain his arm casually across the back of Janet’s chair while she had leaned toward him, lapping up the attention.

Today, though, Matthew’s arms are crossed; he looks gloomily down at the table, his body slightly angled away from Janet while she keeps sneaking side looks at him between nervously rubbing her teeth with her forefinger.

“Well, I wish we were meeting under better circumstances,” Melvin says, his large hands planted heavily on the table as if he’s chairing a board meeting.

“Poor Stella. What a tragic accident. Were there any witnesses, other people on the platform?” Vivienne asks as she fishes around in her handbag, finally pulling out a notebook with silver hummingbirds on the front, then a pen.

“Spot the journalist!” Janet guffaws—a strangely hollow sound—while her eyes move eagerly over to Melvin.

“No one else was down that end of the platform, it seems,” Melvin says.

Vivienne makes a note in her book. “Did anyone happen to speak to Stella at the end of the dinner party?” she asks, raising her journalist eyebrows at the others.