Page 15 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
Matthew breathed deeply. What did he mean? Was it a threat? In a daze, he typed a reply:
Sounds good, how about next Wednesday?
Seeing Gareth again was the last thing he wanted to do, but he couldn’t risk ignoring him.
He tucked his phone back in his pocket and then logged on to his work email account. That’s when he saw Melvin’s message about Stella.
Beautiful young Stella. Dead.
He thought of the last time he’d seen her, standing in front of his apartment door, saying those words:Maybe we can catch up again soon—unless my number’s correct. There could only be one explanation. Stella knew her number. And it was twenty-three.
Suddenly, sweat was dripping down his face, down his back, drenching his crisp white shirt. He squeezed his eyes shut, and all he could see was Stella lying on the tube tracks, blood pouring from a wound on her head. He stumbled through his office, into the lift, blindly pressing the buttons until he arrived on the top floor. He made his way to the back right-hand corner of the roof, where he couldn’t be seen. Leaned against the railing and forced himself to look out over the London skyline, trying to calm himself down. His gaze followed the line of the Thames, snaking through the city. It had always brought him comfort, that continuous movement of water, watched by Londoners for centuries, always there and yet always moving and changing. But it brought no comfort then. Because all he could think of was his own number. Ticking ever closer.
Somehow Matthew made it through the rest of the week, enduring phone calls and meetings on autopilot. He read over Melvin’s email several times, made the decision not to attend Stella’s funeral. Yet that Saturday afternoon, he found himself marching along a rain-drenched Kensington High Street, pulled along by a force he didn’t understand.
Matthew focuses on Vivienne’s frizzy-haired head as they weave their way through the crowds of shoppers on the high streetand finally file into a wine bar. Vivienne sits down at a large circular table by the window. The others take their place around her.
Tristan
Tristan waits patiently as the pretty waitress moves around the table to take their orders. Predictably, she starts with Matthew (double whiskey), then works her way around the table to Janet (white wine), Gordon (sparkling mineral water), Melvin (draft beer), Vivienne (also white wine: “Let’s just get a bottle.” Janet: “Of course!”), and finally himself (Guinness:Let’s see if she gets it right). As he looks around the group, Tristan realizes they have unwittingly sat in the same formation as at the dinner party. There’s even an empty chair between Janet and Gordon where Stella would be. He looks from Matthew to Janet and remembers their teeth-grittingly embarrassing flirting two weeks ago. Then Matthew had lain his arm casually across the back of Janet’s chair while she had leaned toward him, lapping up the attention. Today, though, Matthew’s arms are crossed; he looks gloomily down at the table, his body slightly angled away from Janet while she keeps sneaking side looks at him between nervously rubbing her teeth with her forefinger.
“Well, I wish we were meeting under better circumstances,” Melvin says, his large hands planted heavily on the table as if he’s chairing a board meeting.
“Poor Stella. What a tragic accident. Were there any witnesses, other people on the platform?” Vivienne asks as she fishes around in her handbag, finally pulling out a notebook with silverhummingbirds on the front, then a pen.
“Spot the journalist!” Janet guffaws—a strangely hollow sound—while her eyes move eagerly over to Melvin.
“No one else was down that end of the platform, it seems,” Melvin says.
Vivienne makes a note in her book. “Did anyone happen to speak to Stella at the end of the dinner party?” she asks, raising her journalist eyebrows at the others.
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 realityTV 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.
“Didyou 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 thenthishappened…”
“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.
