Page 12 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests

Janet clears her throat and gives Matthew a meaningful look.

“Erm, yes. We had another drink but went our separate ways afterward,” he says, looking down as he spins the bezel on his silver watch.

Tristan notices the dark shadows under his eyes, the stubble on his chin, and thinks back to the dinner party, where shiny Matthew’s attention had moved hungrily from Janet to Stella, even Vivienne, vying for their attention, their admiration.

Today’s Matthew is like a poor imitation, a second-rate tribute act.

“What about all that trolling stuff?” Janet blurts out. “Maybe she annoyed the wrong person and they came after her.”

“She was clearly a very mixed-up girl,” says Vivienne. “We saw what her parents were like. She’s had everything except love.”

“You know what they say: A man’s life does not consist of the abundance of his possessions,” mumbles Tristan.

In the days since Stella’s death, social media had exploded with the story of Stella’s secret trolling.

She’d targeted her rival YouTubers in a string of disgusting and hate-ridden messages.

The shocking discovery overshadowed the tragedy of her death and sparked a wave of criticism, from members of Parliament to reality TV stars to your average, run-of-the-mill troll.

Stella’s father even appeared on that women-only chat show to defend his daughter.

The table goes quiet as the waitress returns with a tray of their drinks, passing them around, leaving Tristan till last. He watches her place a pint of cider in front of him.

Closing his eyes, his jaw clenches painfully.

He forces himself to go through his numbers—one to fifty, then odd numbers, then evens, then prime numbers…

Finally, he’s able to pick up his drink.

Vivienne continues to scribble away in her notebook.

“Are you doing your own investigations now, Miss Marple?” Melvin asks. He’s smiling, but there’s irritation in his tone.

“Seems like you might need some help on that front, darling!” Janet pipes up, patting Melvin on his splayed fingers.

Melvin’s smile tightens, and his large chest rises as he takes a deep breath.

“ Did you get any closer to finding out who planned the dinner party?” Vivienne asks.

“It’s a bit of a mystery,” Melvin tells her, shaking his head.

“The building used to be a restaurant years back. Now it seems the landlord lets it out for events. I’ve been ringing the landline, left a few messages, but haven’t heard back.

I was planning on popping round there, but then this happened… ”

“I did a search online and rang around a few PR agencies we deal with, but no one knew about an event at Serendipity’s,” Vivienne says, scrawling another note in her book.

“I’ll get the next round in,” Melvin offers, jumping to his feet and then striding toward the bar. There’s a bounce in his step that was absent at Serendipity’s.

“Water for me, please, Melvin,” Gordon calls to his back.

As Tristan watches Melvin, he remembers him and Janet whispering together at the end of the dinner party.

He wonders what they were discussing. Perhaps they argued; they don’t seem to be on the friendliest terms today.

The night had fizzled out by then, Vivienne had just left, and Tristan had suddenly been overcome with tiredness, so he made his way upstairs.

Outside, he found Vivienne standing over the spilled contents of her handbag, staring blindly at her mobile, apparently disoriented.

“My phone seems to be out of battery,” she told him. “I need to call a taxi.”

“The tube station isn’t far,” he assured her.

Once he’d helped her pick up her things, they walked the twenty minutes together.

They talked a bit about the other dinner party guests, and then Vivienne opened up about her magazine’s struggling sales figures, her inexperienced boss and hopeless colleagues.

He listened, asked a few questions, and then, outside the station, she blushingly thanked him before stomping off toward the escalators.

Gazing into the bright station, he decided he’d had enough of people and noise for one night, so he turned away and made his way home on foot.

He marched through London with his thoughts about the dinner party guests similarly marching through his mind.

Janet’s red lips, Matthew’s impossibly black eyes, Melvin’s bass voice.

Then Janet’s horrified face when she’d opened her envelope…

Tristan was surprised to find himself already standing in front of his block of flats.

Going inside, he saw that everything was just as he’d left it: his small kitchen clean and tidy, his laptop closed on the desk, the sheets on his double bed perfectly ironed.

Everything was the same, but he felt different.

It was as if he was fully charged, having spent years on low battery.

His fingers and toes tingled with energy.

He tried to sit down on the sofa, but his body wouldn’t let him rest. He paced around his little flat, up and down, circling his small kitchen table.

Finally, he sat down at his little desk, opened up his laptop, and clicked on Facebook. He went straight to Ellie’s page and immediately noticed two changes: First, the blue button that usually came up saying Friends now said Send Friend Request. She had “unfriended” him.

“What?” he shouted at her smiling profile picture.

She must have known he’d looked on her page, must have known he would see this right away.

He knew she’d dated someone shortly after him.

It had nearly broken Tristan when he saw that she’d tagged a man alongside a series of pictures showing menus from posh restaurants, two hands (one clearly masculine, a chunky silver watch on his wrist) clutching champagne cocktails, and other shots of theater tickets and a private ride on the London Eye.

Then she had gone quiet and even deleted the pictures.

A friend had written a comment asking what happened.

And Ellie had replied with a broken-heart emoji.

But that was all months ago, and there had been no mention of him since.

Why would she suddenly unfriend Tristan?

They hadn’t spoken in months. The only thing he could think of was that she had started seeing someone new, someone serious.

Staring hard at the pixels that made up the word friend , Tristan forced himself to count.

The numbers—those lovely reliable numbers—were the only things keeping him from throwing his laptop against the wall.

“These should help with the shock,” Melvin says now, proudly bearing a silver tray with six shot glasses filled to the brim.

Melvin grins broadly as he hands the glasses around like the best man at his first-ever stag party.

It strikes Tristan that while Matthew is a sadder version of himself from the dinner party, Melvin appears to be a happier version.

Matthew grabs a glass and knocks back the shot.

He closes his eyes as the alcohol rolls down his throat, clearly enjoying the sensation.

To Tristan’s surprise, Vivienne quickly follows suit.

“Bottoms up,” Melvin says, lifting a glass and clinking it against Tristan’s.

“To Stella,” Tristan says before putting the glass to his lips.

The overwhelming taste of aniseed fills his senses.

It takes all his willpower not to spit it straight out.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he forces the burning liquid down, convinced his stomach will quickly give it its marching orders.

But no, it settles and then a warm feeling washes through Tristan, and he slowly opens his eyes.

Gordon

Gordon clutches the small shot glass in front of him.

The transparent fluid inside looks innocent enough, but he knows it contains around 40 percent alcohol and none of the antioxidant properties of a nice glass of Malbec.

Of course, Janet knocked hers back immediately.

He waited for Vivienne to push hers away or Tristan to abstain, but, to his amazement, they both threw back the disgusting drink.

Gordon lifts it to his mouth, takes the smallest of sips, and then hides it behind an empty pint glass on the table.

Thankfully, no one notices, and he breathes out a controlled sigh.

After what happened following the dinner party two weeks ago, he has no intention of overindulging this afternoon.

“Can you believe we were having dinner with Stella just two weeks ago, and now she’s gone?” Vivienne says, both hands clutching the handbag on her knee as if it is a wayward baby likely to throw itself onto the ground at any moment. “You just don’t know when your number’s up.”

Gordon’s hand goes to his jacket pocket. It’s time.

“Aren’t you going to ask about my information?” he says, and five pairs of eyes turn toward him.

“Oh, yes, Gordon—you said you knew something about Stella’s death?” Janet responds.

“Before we get to that, I wondered if Stella’s passing has made any of you give further thought to your numbers?” he says.

“Gordon, I really don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss this on the day of Stella’s funeral,” Melvin admonishes.

“Well, I happen to believe this is the perfect time…” Gordon goes on.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about it, if you must know,” Janet cries, her voice cracking.

“Now, now, Gordon,” Melvin says in his most calming police officer tone. “Didn’t we agree that we wouldn’t take those envelopes seriously? Stella’s death was a tragic accident; no one could possibly have known it would happen.”

“I watched her leave her envelope on the table,” Vivienne says. “There’s no point discussing it when we’ll never know the truth.”

“Won’t we?” Gordon asks, then pulls a tiny black envelope from his pocket and tosses it in the center of the table like a magician performing a trick.