Page 27 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests

But when Tristan had walked toward the Albert in Elephant and Castle a week later, a feeling of dread started to work its way upward from his toes.

As he got closer to the pub door, he found his legs carrying him past the entrance.

Tristan quickly glanced through the window to see Dave sitting at their usual table, two pints of beer in front of him.

His arms folded, long legs splayed out, although no one would call him “lanky” these days, and clearly finally able to grow a beard, but Tristan would have recognized him anywhere.

Later, when Dave messaged to ask What happened to you?

I waited for an hour, Tristan just deleted the message.

The following Sunday, Vivienne asked how it had gone, and he assured her they’d had a brilliant night and planned to see the other two the following week.

“The taxi driver said that Janet stepped out in front of him. He wasn’t speeding or driving dangerously. No one else was involved,” Melvin says now.

“Any CCTV in the area?” Vivienne asks.

“Not on that road,” Melvin says with a hint of irritation. “It’s not on every street in London, contrary to what a lot of people think.”

“So you’re claiming it’s another accident? But how could anyone have possibly known?” Vivienne queries.

But Melvin isn’t listening; he’s focused on the tray of cocktails. Having polished off his first, he takes his time choosing a second one. Finally, he picks up a bright-blue drink with a yellow umbrella, takes a long sip from the twisty straw, then pulls a face and coughs.

“Too sweet,” he splutters.

“Melvin?” Vivienne snaps. “You told me you’d look into Janet’s background after Matthew’s memorial. And the CCTV on the street.”

“Not much point now, is there? With Janet dead too,” Melvin says. “You can’t pin it on her anymore.”

“I do feel bad about accusing her,” admits Vivienne. “She did seem to be the most likely candidate, but perhaps I was too quick to point the finger at one of the guests. These numbers are just getting to me, I think.”

“I understand,” says Melvin, reaching across to take Vivienne’s hand. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot too.”

Then Melvin’s mobile beeps. He drops Vivienne’s hand, and Tristan sees his expression switch in an instant from sympathy to frustration. He pulls the phone from his pocket, quickly reads the message, then drops it roughly onto the table.

Vivienne meets Tristan’s eye; then her gaze shifts to the window behind him. He watches her face suddenly freeze, her eyes wide with shock. She gasps, pointing at the window.

Melvin and Tristan spin around, but there’s nothing to see, just the usual Sunday-afternoon shoppers marching by.

“What was it?” Tristan asks.

“A face looking through the window. Its mouth and head were covered. I just saw these menacing eyes staring at me,” Vivienne explains, taking a large sip of her cocktail.

“I wondered if I would find you three here.” A man wearing a bright-white tracksuit with his hood pulled up and a white scarf wrapped tightly across his mouth is suddenly standing over them.

“It’s you!” Vivienne cries.

“Gordon?” Tristan says, recognizing his Edinburgh lilt.

“Yes, it’s me,” Gordon replies, keeping his hood up but pulling his scarf down slightly to reveal red, cracked lips and alarmingly sharp cheekbones. “So that’s three correct predictions now. How are you going to explain that then, Melvin? Vivienne?”

Before either of them can respond, Bill ambles up to the table.

“I presume you’re friends of my Janey?”

They all look up at him, and Tristan sees that his previous bonhomie was merely an act. Up close, Bill is cloaked in sadness, pulled down by it. As he shakes their hands, his movements are heavy and labored. This is a grieving man.

“We’d just recently met Janet, actually,” Vivienne starts to explain, smoothing down her hair with her fingers—but Bill is ready to talk, not listen.

“Married for seventeen years, hardly said a cross word to each other,” he says, beginning a speech he’d apparently been performing all day.

“The key to a good marriage is to have your own interests; that’s what I always say.

My Janey, she loved to socialize. She was always at one work party or another, whereas I prefer a quiet whiskey at home… ”

“So she’d been at a work party on the night of the accident?” Gordon asks. Vivienne sighs loudly and Melvin glares over at him, but it’s clear Gordon is oblivious.

“Actually, I don’t think so,” Bill mumbles, his sails suddenly empty, his hull momentarily unsteady. “Her colleagues hadn’t known about a party. She was in Notting Hill, but no one’s sure why. Must have been visiting a new friend. She had so many, I couldn’t keep track.”

As Gordon glances around the others, Tristan sees his face change as the truth emerges. The tiny silver ball dropping into the hole on a pinball machine. Oh . Janet had been with another man on the night she died.

“We’re so sorry for your loss, Mr. Tilsbury.” Melvin stands up to shake Bill’s hand. “She was a lovely lady.”

Bill takes the larger man’s hand, and he opens his mouth to respond—but then closes it again. He looks at Melvin and nods.

“I don’t know what I’ll do without her,” he says quietly.

“Bill, sorry to interrupt,” says the woman holding the now-awake baby on her hip. “But Auntie Maureen is leaving and…”

As she looks over apologetically at the group, Tristan notices her familiar eyes.

Amber, the exact shade of Janet’s. In fact, she’s just like Janet, only a more rumpled, shrunken-down version.

This woman’s blond highlights make way for a couple of inches of dark roots, her black long-sleeved dress accessorized with a milky stain on the shoulder.

“This is Caroline, Janet’s sister,” says Bill, visibly pulling himself back together. “And baby Tabitha, our niece, who sadly Janet hadn’t met yet.”

“Hello everyone,” Caroline says as she distractedly bounces the grumbling little girl, who has pink cheeks and a matching pink pacifier that twitches rhythmically under her furious sucking. Tristan hears a little tut from Gordon.

“She’s beautiful,” says Vivienne.

“Thank you,” Caroline responds, smiling, though the joy doesn’t reach her eyes. “She’s teething and not very happy today. The dummy seems to be the only thing to settle her.”

“Darling, Auntie Maureen needs to go to the restroom,” a man says, putting his hand on Caroline’s shoulder, which she quickly brushes off.

“On my way, Giles,” she snaps. “This is my husband.”

They watch the three of them walk away, Bill a few steps in front, Caroline gazing down at her baby, who starts to cry again, and Giles trotting behind.

“So how are you, Gordon?” Vivienne asks, pointedly looking him up and down.

“In excellent health, Vivienne,” he says, pushing his hands into his pockets and hopping from one foot to the next. “Clean living is agreeing with me, it seems.”

“Been for a run?” Melvin frowns when Gordon fails to offer an explanation.

“Not today,” he says. “I just wanted to check in with you all following the news of Janet’s demise. The email group has gone quiet. Vivienne, did you find your envelope in the end?”

Gordon

Rather than answering his question in a timely manner, Vivienne turns to roll her eyes at the others and then takes a large sip from her repulsive-looking drink, no doubt laden with sugar and artificial food coloring.

They all seem to be annoyed by his very presence, that much Gordon can perceive, but he really doesn’t have time for this.

Then he’s distracted by a pile of coins that sits on the table in front of Melvin.

Research has shown that coins can harbor pathogens like E.

coli and Salmonella . They’re among the most bacteria-ridden things that people touch every day, including mobile phones, washing-up sponges, and remote controls.

He can practically see the little cucumber-shaped bacteria crawling over the coins and scuttling like centipedes across the table toward him.

He takes a deep breath and forces his eyes up to Vivienne, who is now flipping through her notebook.

“So did you find your envelope?” he asks again, ensuring he breathes through his nose, thus helping to protect him against any viruses his companions might unwittingly be sending his way.

Vivienne slowly lowers her drink back to the filthy table and sighs loudly.

Why can’t she just answer his question with a straight yes or no?

“Sadly not, Gordon,” she says finally.

“It really was quite careless of you to lose such an important piece of evidence,” Gordon admonishes.

“Don’t speak to her like that,” Tristan snaps, turning his cool blue eyes on Gordon.

“It’s OK, Tristan,” Vivienne tells him, touching his elbow. “I’m thoroughly annoyed with myself about it.”

“She’s not one of your students, you know,” Tristan mutters, grabbing a green cocktail and taking a noisy sip from the straw.

Gordon watches Tristan and thinks how, despite his age and reasonable intelligence, his behavior is reminiscent of Gordon’s teenage daughter. In other words, he seems constantly on the brink of a tantrum.

Then he glances at the police officer, Melvin, who is merrily slurping on his own luminous drink, and then to Vivienne, who is frowning as she flips through her notebook.

Sighing, he thinks of Elizabeth, who might have offered some advice in dealing with these people.

But he hasn’t spoken to his wife in three weeks, hasn’t seen her in months.