The Dinner Guest
The Dinner Guest
B P Walter
One More Chapter
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
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Copyright © B P Walter 2021
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Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Cover photograph © Robert Jones/Arcangel.com
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B P Walter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
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Source ISBN: 9780008446086
Ebook Edition © April 2021 ISBN: 9780008446079
Version: 2021-02-25
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading…
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About the Author
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For Rebecca and Tom
Here on my knee I vow to God above,
I’ll never pause again, never stand still,
Till either death hath closed these eyes of mine
Or fortune given me measure of revenge.
— Henry VI, William Shakespeare
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There’s a storm coming, Mr Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.
— Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan
Prologue
The day of the murder
My husband Matthew died on an unseasonably chilly August day at dinner time. We had been together for just over ten years, married for five, and yes, we did love each other. But love changes over time, and in those final moments when I knew he was dying, well, I must confess that through the horror and the blood and the shock, the love I felt for him wasn’t quite as profound as I would have expected. Even after everything that had happened. Back when we married, the thought of losing him would have sent a wave of devastation through me. It would have been barely comprehensible. And I thought it would always be so. It took the worst to actually happen for me to realise that things don’t always play out like you think.
The moment that most stuck in my mind wasn’t the knife going in, nor was it the terrible sound Matthew made as he realised what had happened. It was him struggling to speak that lingered the most. He had tried to say something, something he clearly really wanted to say. And I couldn’t make out the words. He couldn’t form them enough to convey any meaning. I couldn’t even hazard a guess. The word ‘after’ might have been in there, although I couldn’t be sure. But it was that not knowing, that sense of frustration, and ever since, the wondering and ruminating about what it was he wanted to tell me in his final moments.
Rachel was sitting calmly on one of the dining chairs, on the phone to 999, the knife in her hand. She wasn’t even supposed to be there that evening. But I’d got used to Rachel’s trademark: finding a way into places, situations, and events that would otherwise go on without her. Always the outsider. Not today, though. Today she was to take a starring role.
The police, when they arrived, placed her under arrest there and then. She confessed, after all. She sat there, holding the knife, the glint of a tear in her eye. ‘I did it,’ she said, in a small yet confident voice. ‘I killed him.’
They were about to take her away, when one of the younger of the two officers asked her the question. The multimillion-dollar question, as they say. ‘Why did you kill him, Rachel?’ I suspect the older of the two would have wanted to keep this kind of thing for the interview room, but still turned to hear the answer. But Rachel kept her face almost impassive. Just a tiny tremor of emotion disturbed its calm surface for a fleeting second. Then she just shook her head, and lowered it to face the floor. ‘I can’t,’ she said. Then she refused to say any more.
They took her away, into custody, and left another officer to take me and Titus to the station in a car with flashing lights. I had to coax Titus out of his room. He was on his bed, curled up amidst the blankets, headphones on, cancelling out the horror of the world around him. He had open in front of him an old scrapbook diary. He used to make one for every school holiday, back when he was a kid. It was something Matthew’s sister had done, apparently. He’d told me that, once, when we’d watched the young Titus gluing in print-outs of holiday snaps. I couldn’t quite work out if he was glad the boy was so involved in the activity or troubled by it. And the fact Titus had now reached for a volume filled with happy-family photos of us all just after the scene of violence in the kitchen was unnerving to me.
‘We need to go,’ I said to him gently. ‘The police are here. We need to go to the station now, so they can talk to us.’
The officer behind me told me that we both needed to go downstairs now. He came and stood close, making it clear we didn’t have a choice.
I saw the tears slip down Titus’s face, and I wanted to pull him close, tell him everything was OK. But he drew away from me.
‘Please, Titus. We need to go. They’ve already taken Rachel.’
He looked up at this, as I suspected he would.
‘Rachel confessed. She told them she did it.’
The fringe of h
is light-blond hair fell over his face as he straightened up, mingling with his tears.
‘But … why?’
He mouthed this last word, silently. I stared back at him, the real question swimming in the air, unanswered, between us. Why would Rachel confess to a murder she did not commit?
Chapter One
Charlie
Eleven months to go
We first met Rachel in a bookshop. Matthew and I had gone into town, leaving Titus at home baking cakes with my mother. When we’d decided to settle in Chelsea, it was one of my fears that my mother, based in neighbouring Belgravia, would try to micromanage our lives, but we generally muddled along just fine, with her popping in a couple of times a week.
It was my idea, that sunny Sunday morning, to go into Waterstones on the King’s Road. I’d wanted to pick up a pretentious-sounding hardback I’d read about in one of the morning broadsheets, more to be seen reading it than because I would enjoy it. Matthew had always been critical of this. ‘You treat books like lifestyle accessories.’ He’d said the last two words with total contempt, a knowing smirk spreading across his handsome face. He was winding me up and I took the bait, telling him that what I decided to read and why was my own business.
When we got to Waterstones, he went straight to the fantasy section, probably to pick out a book so large it could pass for a fairly effective weapon, while I browsed the table of new hardbacks. I’d found the volume I’d wanted, and was just stretching out a hand to pick it up when another collided with mine. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, laughing, pulling her hand away. I looked up at her, at her wavy blonde hair, her bright blue eyes. There was something alive about her. Cheery. Carefree. Like she’d floated in on the breeze. I saw her looking me up and down too, the way women often did. I’d noticed it throughout my entire adult life. Longer, in fact. When I was a young lad, on the rugby field or at the clubs, there’d always be someone whistling at me, or a group of girls willing to talk to me. Then, as I journeyed into adulthood, through my late twenties and now, mid-thirties, the signs of attraction had become more subtle, but they were still there. I sometimes wondered if it had damaged me somehow, being the one in my group with all the looks. Wonder boy, my mate Archie used to tease me, nudging me playfully as girls instantly appeared by us as we walked into bars in our late teens. He used to love ‘the moment’, as he used to call it, when they’d come on to me, encourage me to buy them a drink, and I’d do my best apologetic smile and tell them that I’d happily buy them a drink but I was really sorry because I was into guys rather than girls. Usually, after a moment of disappointment (which, I admit a little painfully now, used to give my ego a boost), they would remain friendly but, more often than not, transfer their attentions to Archie, or one of the other guys with me. Or sometimes they’d just stay and chat. Either was cool.
It didn’t quite get to that point with Rachel. Not that I knew she was called Rachel then. She was just the woman who went to pick up the same book as me. But as our hands drew back from each other, and our eyes met, I somehow knew she would end up becoming part of our lives. I just didn’t know quite how much.
‘I’m sorry, you first,’ I said, grinning at her.
Another little laugh. ‘No, you, honestly.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not even sure if I’m going to buy it. You seemed more certain.’ This wasn’t true. I knew I was going to buy it, but it was a habit of mine, coming out with chirpy little lines. Part of my constant need to put people at ease. After a few moments, we’d started talking about the review of the book in the Observer and how it had also been discussed on Radio 4’s Saturday Review the night before. She was all nods and smiles and mentioned one of the author’s other books, but I confessed I hadn’t read any of them. ‘My husband’s the real reader,’ I said, nodding over to where Matthew was, now browsing the buy-one-get-one-half-price paperback tables. ‘Mostly fantasy stuff, but other books too.’
There it was. That very slight flicker in the eyes. I thought at the time it was the typical mild-to-moderate disappointment to hear I was married, coupled with the further surprise that I was married to a bloke. But of course, in retrospect, I know it was something more sinister than that. In that moment, however, it was another little boost to my ego. I’d once told Matthew about the double-no-chance disappointment theory and how I was sure I saw it in women’s eyes every time. We’d been out with the guys, Archie and George next to us getting steadily drunk, and I’d expected them all to laugh, but Matthew hadn’t. He’d just shaken his head and said, ‘Please, please, please, my love, never presume to have an insight into how women think. It isn’t endearing.’ He’d laid a hand on my knee in semi-mock seriousness. ‘Why not?’ I’d asked, surprised by his comment. ‘Because it sounds self-satisfied and patronising and maybe a little bit sexist.’ And with that, he’d gone to fetch another round of pints, leaving me to look at the other two with confusion.
Because of all this, I hadn’t planned to mention to Matthew the woman in Waterstones. We’d said our goodbyes and she’d gone off to purchase the large tome and I’d continued to browse, with the book under my arm. But then we’d bumped into each other again, just half an hour later, in the food section at Marks & Spencer’s across the road. What are the chances? I’d thought to myself. She was balancing two packets of halloumi on top of a punnet of raspberries. ‘Interesting combination,’ I commented to her. That cool, breezy laugh came out again. And then, because it would have been strange and awkward not to, I’d introduced her to Matthew and she said hi and that was when I realised I didn’t actually know her name, nor she mine. ‘I’m Rachel,’ she said. ‘I’ve just moved to the area.’
‘From the North?’ I asked, then added, ‘Sorry, I noticed the accent.’
There was a little falter in her response – maybe the presumption had irritated her – but she still replied with a smile. ‘Yes, Yorkshire.’
Matthew nodded. ‘Very nice.’
Even I, the most personable, at-ease-with-himself guy you could ever hope to bump into, had started to wonder by this point how we were going to finish this without it seeming weird. Just because it was something to say, I bobbed my head towards her Waterstones carrier bag, slung under her arm, the corners of a hardback digging in a little to her bare arms. ‘I see you got more than just our shared choice of interest.’
She peered down at the bag, as if she’d only just noticed it, and one of the halloumi packets went bouncing along the aisle. Once Matthew had caught it, after some awkward chuckling, she pulled out a few of her purchases. ‘The guy at the counter said these were good.’ I looked at the covers: traditional book-club-esque crime-fiction. More Matthew’s sort of thing than mine.
‘Oh, we’ve got this one coming up for our next reading group meeting,’ he said, pointing at the blue one with a lighthouse and the silhouette profile of a woman on the cover.
‘Oh, what a coincidence. I’m looking forward to starting it.’
‘You should come,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘We’re always looking for new members.’
What the fuck? There’s friendly, and then there’s weird. This random woman didn’t need an invite to his book club. I cringed inwardly at the oddness of it, but to my surprise, she didn’t shrink away, saying she’d got a lot on and it was a nice thought but she was OK thank you – none of that. She actually smiled and nodded, her eyes wide. ‘That would be brilliant. If you don’t mind me gate-crashing.’
‘You wouldn’t be gate-crashing at all,’ he said, waving away her protests. ‘It’s just me and a few friends.’
‘That sounds great,’ she said, still nodding.
‘They’re a bit older than … well, than us, but we’re all great fiction-lovers. You may have heard of one of them … Jerome Nightly? He’s an actor. Was in a lot of those British romcoms back in the early noughties.’
Rachel had clearly heard of him. ‘Oh yes, wow … I don’t think of actors doing normal things like going to book clubs.’
‘T
urns out they’re just human after all,’ Matthew said, and they both laughed. And then it was settled. She got out her phone. He got out his phone. Numbers were swapped. And there was me, staring on, like a fucking nobody, while the two of them made their arrangements. ‘It’s at our house on Carlyle Square, the next meeting,’ explained Matthew. ‘Everyone normally arrives around 7pm. We take it in turns to host, but don’t feel you have to.’ He then gave her our home address – to a total stranger, the address where the two of us and our son lived and slept – and then it was time to say goodbye.
‘Looking forward to it,’ Rachel called after us. ‘This has made my week.’ She then vanished in the direction of the tills.
‘Well, that was nice,’ said Matthew, looking genuinely happy, apparently pleased to have made a new friend amidst the refrigerated food aisles. I give him a quick smile in return, and put a pack of gourmet burgers in our trolley.