Page 29 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests

Gordon isn’t here for small talk. He doesn’t want to hear about Janet’s redeeming features, socialize in grubby public houses, or listen to Vivienne’s crank theories.

He’s here to keep track of his fellow dinner guests, to see how they are reacting to their numbers so he can keep up-to-date with the rival experiment.

The dinner guests have thrown around all sorts of theories, from serial killers to psychics to self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gordon doesn’t know exactly how the secret science group has organized the deaths, but it’s irrelevant.

There’s something much more important at play here.

Sacrifices must be made in the name of scientific advancement.

Three months after he’d moved into his new flat, Gordon’s boss, Professor Linus Goodacre, knocked on his office door.

“All well with you, Gordon?” he asked, sitting down in the chair opposite Gordon’s desk without waiting for an invitation.

Gordon sighed and put down the paper he’d been reading.

Professor Goodacre was an ambassador for informality, had never once used the title “Dr.” when speaking to Gordon, as if he hadn’t toiled away for five years at medical school.

Gordon nodded. “Yes, thank you, Professor.” He made sure to always give others their full title, hoping they would follow suit. In the past five years, this hadn’t worked once, yet Gordon wasn’t about to give up.

“Linus, please. I haven’t seen you pop up on my morning television lately. No longer doing your cameos?” Professor Goodacre asked.

“Oh, no. I felt my time was better served elsewhere,” Gordon responded, taken aback that his boss had ever watched The Morning Show .

Professor Goodacre nodded knowingly, adjusted his maroon tie, then leaned across Gordon’s desk (spotting ink on his thumb, Gordon wondered when he’d last washed his hands) and picked up the paper he’d been reading.

“ The Longevity Project . Not your usual area of expertise.”

“No, but I’ve been considering how calorie intake and exercise might impact life expectancy,” Gordon said, thinking on his feet.

His boss nodded. “Oh, fascinating. I could put this to the board, see if we can send some money your way.”

“That would be…most beneficial,” Gordon told him.

Watching Professor Goodacre walk out of his office, Gordon was struck by the thought that perhaps he was part of the secret science group.

He’d never once encouraged Gordon’s research or shown any interest at all.

Now here he was, offering up funding and support.

Now that he thinks of it, had the maroon tie been a sign?

Back in his university days, the tie had been a sign of membership in an elite group at the college, only accessible by personal invitation, only for the most intelligent and best-connected students.

Despite his excellent grades and highly regarded research, Gordon had never once received the invitation.

Professor Goodacre, then just Linus, had been a few years younger than him but had suddenly started wearing the maroon tie.

Was the secret science society linked to this group?

Gordon would just have to wait for explicit notification from them.

It wouldn’t be long; he was sure of that.

Though his experiment had been an unrivaled success up until now, there were some slipups.

He blames Elizabeth for those. Every week, she phones him up, asking how he is, what he’s working on, when he’s planning on seeing Louisa next.

He finds her never-ending questions wreak havoc on his clean and serene mind.

As soon as he hangs up, he inevitably starts to doubt his new life, even thinking fondly of the warm double bed (with its ugly purple bedspread) back in their bedroom in Wandsworth.

Sometimes the only thing that wipes the slate clean is to splurge on some disgusting takeaway food from the twenty-four-hour burger restaurant opposite his flat or a large fruit pie from the bakery, depending on whether his savory or sweet tooth kicks in that day.

He stands in front of his white kitchen countertop, plants his feet squarely on the floor, and focuses all his being on consuming every crumb of food in front of him.

He then allows himself ten minutes to lie on the sofa, stroking his bloated belly and picturing the food slowly working its way through his digestive system, unaware of where the journey will end.

Then he makes his way to the toilet, retrieves his toothbrush from under the sink, and rids his body of the vile pollution.

The guilt he feels immediately afterward is fleeting.

Once it passes, he’s flooded with a feeling of renewal, of calm, ready to continue with his experiment the next day.

“How’s your daughter getting on, Gordon? It’s Louisa, isn’t it?” Melvin suddenly asks.

For a few seconds, the question throws him. He can’t remember telling this man his daughter’s name.

“She’s well, thank you,” he says. Just last week, they spent a particularly awkward hour sitting side by side at a coffee shop near Gordon’s flat. After almost twelve minutes of silence, Louisa stopped looking at her phone and came out with something that surprised him.

“So what’s your new project about, then? Mum says it’s ridiculous.”

“Well, your mother is no scientist,” he snapped, but then looked at his daughter and noticed she was waiting for an answer.

It was possibly the first time she’d shown an interest in his work.

Even when he’d been on The Morning Show , she hadn’t bothered to watch it.

So he took a deep breath and told her. About the calorie cutting, the weight training, the medical tests, and even the headstands.

Afterward, two lines appeared above her nose (just like his, he realized).

She started to speak, then stopped herself.

“What is it?” he urged. He had to admit, he hadn’t planned on giving her such depth of detail. But he hadn’t told anyone about it, and it felt good to speak about his work.

“It’s just… I was thinking, what’s the point in living longer when you’re on your own, away from me and Mum? What are you living for?”

Gordon was initially stuck for a response, until he remembered that his paper was for the good of science, for the good of humankind. Louisa seemed satisfied with the response, and at the very least, the meeting would keep Elizabeth off his back for a few weeks.

He reaches into his pocket for his antibacterial spray, but his hand goes to the envelope and the folded piece of paper he brought.

“Melvin, I picked this up at the dinner party,” Gordon says, placing the envelope down on the table. “I suppose I should have given it to you before now, but you didn’t seem interested in its contents. Anyway, it’s your decision to make.”

“Oh, thank you, Gordon,” Melvin mumbles, glancing briefly at it.

“You had it all this time!” Vivienne cries.

“It wasn’t yours to keep hold of,” Tristan snaps.

“Perhaps this will be of more interest,” Gordon says to Melvin, ignoring Vivienne and Tristan’s uproar. He places a folded piece of paper on top of the envelope.

“What is it?” Tristan asks.

“It’s something I’m working on. How a solitary existence, alongside a calorie-controlled diet and exercise, can lead to a longer life,” Gordon says. “It really has proven to be beneficial to my own situation. I haven’t felt this healthy in a long time, let me tell you.”

Melvin picks up the paper and frowns as he skims the information Gordon has carefully written down for him. Then he drops it back onto the table, right on top of the infested coins.

“I appreciate it, Gordo, but this isn’t for me,” he says with a shrug. “If my number’s coming up soon, then so be it.”

Gordon stares at Melvin, speechless for a moment.

That information is the result of months of research and careful experimentation.

It will soon be on the front page of every newspaper and make Gordon himself a big name in his field.

And yet Melvin has barely bothered to look at it.

For the first time today, he takes a closer look at the police officer.

His shirt is stained on the sleeve; he’s lounging in his chair, legs akimbo in front of him, head rocking back as if he can’t be bothered to hold it up.

The whites of his eyes are beginning to yellow—a sure sign of a regular drinker.

This man does not deserve to benefit from Gordon’s work.

He is disgusting, just like that Janet woman.

Weak Matthew and rude Stella weren’t much better either.

“Don’t you see? We need to learn from them,” he cries. “I’ve given you a chance, and you’ve blown it.”

Then he marches out of the pub without a backward glance.

Melvin

Melvin watches Gordon, in his ludicrous white tracksuit, flounce out of the pub clutching the piece of paper in his hand.

“What was all that about?” he says, turning back to Vivienne and Tristan.

“No idea,” Vivienne says. “Can you believe he had your envelope this whole time?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Melvin says with a shrug.

“You’re not tempted to look?” Vivienne asks.

“I meant what I said to him,” Melvin says. “I’m going to let life take me where it will. I’m just along for the ride.”

“You know what they say: ‘Evil exists when good people fail to act,’” Tristan mumbles. Melvin just about makes out what he’s saying.

“Well, that’s a new one on me.”

“It seems like Dr. Gordon is trying to fight his number with science,” Vivienne says. “I suppose you can’t blame him. We’ve lost three of the group now, and his number isn’t far off.”

“Perhaps you should have listened to him. He might be onto something,” Tristan says directly to Melvin, icy-blue eyes aimed straight at him. He hasn’t noticed the color before, so pale they almost blend into the whites of his eyes.