Page 53 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests

By the time they’d gotten to a nightclub in Soho, Melvin could barely walk straight.

It had been so easy to approach him, slip him the little bag of pills, and whisper, “Sex on ecstasy is amazing.” Melvin had just grinned inanely at him, far too gone to recognize him or realize that he hadn’t paid his “drug dealer.” The following evening, he’d seen the message pop up from Vivienne that Melvin was in the hospital, and he’d known right away that the poisoned drugs had worked their magic.

And then there had been Vivienne. In the three years following the dinner party, she hadn’t acted as he’d expected her to.

He’d watched in amazement as she’d slowly changed her ways, letting her envy drop away from her.

She’d invited Cat and Charlie to come and live with her, learning to love them both; she’d embraced technology and grown an army of online fans thanks to the empathetic and considerate content on her website.

Their own friendship had sprung from nowhere, surprising him at every turn.

No matter how much he’d tried to push her away—claiming panic attacks, heartbreak, depression—and rudely ignoring her messages and boycotting her birthday parties, she’d clung to their friendship, turning up for him again and again.

That’s why that night on the bridge had been so hard for him.

He’d known what he had to do, and yet a part of him had hated himself.

And even after he’d gone through with it, she’d surprised him once more.

He’d planned out the bridge fall with the utmost precision, spent weeks watching the tide, even practiced the “fall” a few times, working out the best point he’d be able to get out of the river and even studied how people look when they’re drowning.

It had all gone perfectly to plan—except the part where Vivienne was supposed to die.

She’d told him that she hadn’t swum since she was a teenager, when her parents had taken her to the French Riviera.

She’d told a very long-winded story about struggling in the deep water and a handsome Frenchman rescuing her.

Her health had been fading at the time, she’d had a busy day, and he’d made sure she was tired after a long walk when they’d gone into the water.

He’d been convinced she wouldn’t stand a chance.

He stands and casts his eyes across the mourners one last time.

This number far exceeds his expectations.

It is a tribute to the extent to which Vivienne turned her life around in the last ten years.

He looks at Cat, Charlie, and Angharad, and sees a family mourning their mother and grandmother.

Vivienne’s fiancé, Ian, his face also drawn, openly sobs.

She found love in the end, real love rather than a teenager’s infatuation.

After their first disastrous date, Ian wouldn’t take no for an answer and eventually pulled Vivienne into a six-year love affair involving cruises and ballroom dance lessons.

Vivienne’s website had continued to flourish, and she’d earned herself a devoted following of “free-thinking women.” In the end, she’d sold it for an excellent nest egg to pass on to Cat.

At his funeral, he’d seen that Vivienne had mourned him and carried unnecessary guilt that she was the only survivor of Serendipity’s.

Or at least, that’s what she’d thought. That’s what he’d led her—and everyone else—to believe.

That night, he’d seen the Thames guard patrolling for him.

Made sure they saw him slip under the water.

Six months later, they’d concluded he’d died—though they’d never found his body—and then he was safe to live his next life.

As Kieran, the quiet chap who works at a tiny village library hidden away in the Yorkshire Dales.

As he watches Vivienne’s casket being lowered into the ground, he allows a tear to fall down his cheek.

It’s fair to say that Vivienne did well with her extra years.

He doesn’t know for sure if she got her hands on the package he’d left in his old bedroom but presumes that Susan would have passed it on, probably at his funeral.

Straight after the dinner at Serendipity’s, he’d had a stroke of luck when Vivienne had spilled the contents of her handbag, including the envelope, onto the pavement.

He’d quickly stuffed it in his pocket, having the instinct that her not-knowing might be more damaging to her in the long run.

On his first visit to Vivienne’s cottage, as he’d “spring cleaned” her laptop, he’d also installed Moralia to keep an eye on her internet searches and correspondence.

He can’t be certain if Vivienne ever opened her envelope, although he guesses she wouldn’t have been able to resist. If she had, she’d have seen her number was sixty-three, the age she’d been on the bridge that night.

She would have known that the “fall” had in fact been a push, intended to end her life.

Well, she’d had another seven years until death caught up with her.

Perhaps she never did open it and lived out her days still wondering about the mysterious party planner.

The woman had always surprised him. He supposes he’s inherited her tenacity.

He would have given anything to be there when she found that old letter she’d written to James.

The letter that proved he was her son, the son she’d given away all those years ago.

When he’d found the adoption papers and Vivienne’s letter hidden under his parents’ bed, he’d found other letters, too—a series between Vivienne’s mother and his own father, at first accusatory, then negotiating, and finally acceptance and a plan.

He’d pictured Vivienne in the background, acquiescing to this arrangement while plotting her journalism career without a baby to worry about.

But then, on his fortieth birthday of all days, she’d told him about her fugue states, beginning with the day he was born.

He understood then that Vivienne’s mother had lied to her.

Vivienne thought that her baby hadn’t survived.

The realization had added to his dilemma that night on the bridge.

But then he’d remembered her selfish words in the letter to his father, how enviously she’d behaved over the years since.

So, he’d decided she deserved to die, just like the others, just as he’d planned.

And yet, like him, she’d survived—for a few years at least.

He walks away from the graveyard. As he goes, he thinks how Vivienne had been right about a lot but wrong about one thing: He hadn’t planned to allow the guests a chance to change their ways. And yet look how well Vivienne had done. Because of him.

***

He approaches the letter box and pulls the six envelopes from his bag, then drops them one by one through the slot. An invitation to a fancy dinner party no one would refuse. He smiles to himself and then walks along the street. His pace quickens. It’s time to go home and get to work.