Page 71 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
“Looking for Serendipity’s?” he asks.
The Graveyard
May 2025
Kieran
He watches the sobbing woman walk slowly through the graveyard.A lanky teenage lad—tie askew—throws an arm around her on one side and a younger girl clutches her other hand while carelessly carrying a bunch of white flowers by their stalks. Loose petals flutter unnoticed onto the grass behind the sad group, making him think of a funeral flower girl. Following them are two men, one middle-aged with dark, curly hair streaked with gray, the other older but very straight and tall with a full head of silver hair. (Lucky sod, he thinks, scratching at his bald head beneath his cap.) The older man pats at his cheeks with a large white handkerchief while the younger man keeps glancing over to check on the crying woman, who is now by the grave, crouching down next to the girl and holding the battered bouquet close to her chest. She suddenly looks up and frowns in his direction. Instinctively, he pulls his collar up and bows his head. But he’s worrying over nothing; the bench he’ssitting on is a good fifty meters away from her and is hidden by a sprawling magnolia tree. It’s a large graveyard—he could be here to pay respects to any of the hundreds buried here. But he isn’t. He’s here for the same person as that woman. He just has to stay hidden.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” a voice asks, and he has to stop himself from jumping up and running away.
“Erm…no, it’s fine,” he mumbles, putting his hands together and lowering his eyes to give the impression he’s praying for the departed so that the woman won’t engage him in conversation. She doesn’t get the hint.
“Who are you here for?” she asks, the wooden bench shaking as she plonks herself down. He keeps his head bowed but sees a purple coat in his periphery.
“My grandfather. He was buried last week,” he responds, gesturing to the gravestones closest to them.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” she says, in the same tone she might have used to comment on the inclement weather or the latest hopeless prime minister.
“He was in his nineties,” he finds himself saying.
“I’m Sally. That’s my old colleague being buried over there,” she says, pointing toward the group he had been watching. More mourners have joined them.
“Kieran,” he mutters, still not turning toward her or offering his hand.
“Hadn’t seen her in years, but when I heard she’d died, I felt I should come along. She was quite a lonely woman—never married or had children, not much going on in her life,” she says. “Plus,I heard they’d hired out that fancy bistro around the corner for afterward; it does the best prawn satay you’ve ever tasted.” As she speaks, the trickle of mourners keeps coming; then a large group of gray-haired ladies appears, bringing a chorus of chatter and even some laughs.
“Are they all here for her?” he asks, more to himself than the woman sitting next to him.
“They must be,” she says, her eyes widening. “Here was me thinking that no one would turn up. There already looks to be more than twenty people here, and still more arriving.”
Six years ago, he’d watched a smaller group of mourners gather at a different churchyard. Sure, it had been a risk to go, but he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of turning up at his own funeral. How many people get the chance to do that? That day, he’d pulled on a tweed flatcap and a baggy beige suit he’d picked up in a thrift shop. To complete the look, he’d clutched a wooden walking stick and adopted a stooped shuffle when he’d taken his spot on a stone bench on the farthest side of the yard, the perfect place to see the comings and goings that morning. It was the first time he’d seen Vivienne since they’d “fallen” off the bridge together, and he’d been shocked by how much older she’d looked in a matter of only six months. She’d had her own NHS-issued metal walking stick, and she was frailer than he’d ever seen her. He’d watched her lean heavily on Cat’s arm as she spoke briefly to Susan before making her way inside.
Ellie had arrived shortly after, with no muscular husband holding her hand, as he’d pictured following Matthew’s death. He’d been gratified to see her wipe tears from her eyes, take a deep breathbefore walking inside. Clearly, she’d been shaken by his “passing.” Maybe she’d finally regretted ending their relationship, he’d wondered. And then he’d watched his old uni pals arrive, their happy chatter quickly curtailed by his mother’s indomitable presence. He had imagined them comparing old stories about their student days, no doubt that first hellish hangover getting a mention. His toes had wriggled in the secondhand boots; he’d never quite forgiven them for spiking his drink that night.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to go inside, but he’d enjoyed listening to the hymns and then had stood to leave but was caught unawares by Vivienne hobbling out of the church, alone and clearly agitated. She’d glanced around the churchyard, and so he’d abruptly sat back down, gripped with fear that she’d somehow worked out what had happened and would march straight over to confront him. But no, she’d turned away from the church and made her slow way down the road, toward the village pub. After that scare, he’d decided he’d overstayed his welcome. Leaving his stick propped up on the stone bench, he hopped over the wall from where he recovered his old bike and backpack from the lane behind the church. Without looking back, he’d set out on the long cycle to the nearest big town, where he’d caught a train to take him to his new life.
“I suppose I should go over,” Sally says, finally standing up. “Gosh, I hope I get this many people atmyfuneral. She wasn’t even a nice woman!”
He watches her thick ankles and voluminous coat totter across the grass toward the still-growing group. He exhales through an ironic smile. In that brief conversation, this woman had shownenvy, pride, and greed. Three out of the seven deadly sins. If you looked hard enough, they were everywhere.
As he watches the large group at Vivienne’s grave, they gradually fall silent, and the priest in his long white robes makes his slow procession to the makeshift lectern at the head of the grave, bows his head, and clutches his hands together. He cannot hear what the priest is saying, but he murmurs his own prayer for Vivienne. Things hadn’t turned out quite as he’d expected—not in the end, anyway. Not when it came to Vivienne’s death.
The dinner party itself had gone perfectly, and the guests had shown themselves to be worthy of their sins—as well as their deaths. He’d been nervous as he’d waited for Stella at the tube station. She’d been his first, after all. But he’d done his research, so he knew she’d be at the press party and that she’d take the tube back, as it was only a few stops to her place. He’d found a NO ENTRY sign, waited for Stella to walk by, and then placed it in front of the stairs so that no one else could come down that way. He’d pulled his black hood tight around his face and waited in the shadows until he felt the warm air of an approaching train. Stella had been tapping on her phone and holding an armful of gift bags in her other hand. She stepped forward when she’d heard the train approaching. Just a little push had sent her headfirst under that train, still clutching her beloved phone.
Matthew’s death is the one he is most proud of. It wasn’t as simple as pushing him in front of a taxi or tube train. It had involved some creative thinking, some serious engineering. His research had shown that Matthew had suffered from depressionin the past. No doubt a result of his dreadful upbringing, his cruel mother. In fact, Matthew had still been taking antidepressants. So he’d decided to remind Matthew of where he’d come from, remind him who he was, underneath the well-cut suits and expensive dental work. He’d used one of his Facebook alter egos and joined Matthew’s old-school group, had pretended that he’d attended the school in Matthew’s year and soon pinpointed the worst of the bullies—Gareth Atkinson, now living in London. He’d contacted him, got chatting about “poor old Matthew,” told the bloke that he was in touch with him and suggested they all go out for a drink, at the same spot where he knew Matthew would be taking his latest date.Thathad certainly shaken him up. Then he’d created a bogus profile for Gareth and sent a few threatening messages. In the end, Matthew had agreed to meet “Gareth” at work, and then he had turned up himself, pretending to be just passing and offering to help Matthew out. They’d gone to the top floor to get some air and, well, Matthew hadn’t needed much persuading in the end. Afterward, he’d made sure to drop Janet’s glove up on the roof. He’d kept it in his pocket since picking it up at Serendipity’s, had hoped someone might find it. It had taken everything he had not to laugh out loud when Vivienne had pulled it out at Matthew’s memorial and accused Janet of murder.
Once Janet had accepted that her number was soon to be up, she’d allowed her sin to overtake her completely, the eating, the drinking, the shopping, and also the sex. He’d taken to following her after work, and most nights she was at her brother-in-law’s flat. She’d emerge around 2:00 a.m., drunk and unstable, as her feetswelled more every day thanks to her ever-increasing weight. It had been so easy—almost laughably so—to give her a little nudge off the pavement right into the path of a taxi. He’d made sure it happened on a road with no CCTV and had arranged for a taxi to be driving along at just the right moment.
Gordon’s death had been quite straightforward in the end—and arguably his own fault, as the man had eaten the pie of his own volition. He had, however, gone to the trouble of buying an apple pie from Gordon’s local bakery, thrown it away, and then baked his own, with enough sesame seeds to do the job. He’d known about Gordon’s binge eating and purging and felt sure that he wouldn’t be able to resist the apple pie and that he wouldn’t stop until it was all gone.
He’d watched with interest as Melvin’s life had fallen apart thanks to his inability to act. In the end, it had been so easy to get rid of him. Melvin had done most of the work himself; he’d just needed a gentle steer. He’d pulled on his baseball cap, left his glasses at home, followed Melvin and Christian as they’d hopped from bar to bar that night. He’d seen them argue outside one club, a devastated Christian questioning Melvin about whether he had in fact slept with a man they’d just bumped into. Melvin had laughed it off with the line, “Isn’t that what gay men do?” to which a horrified Christian had responded, “Not this gay man.”
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 recognizehim 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 deepwater 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.
