The Dinner Guest

by B P Walter

  I offered a vague nod at this, unsure how to respond. Eventually, and probably a tad belatedly, I decided to try to act pleased at the news. ‘Well, I suppose once again you’ll have a very easy walk to work,’ I said. ‘Must only be a fifteen-minute walk from Churchill Gardens to Eaton Square.’

  ‘Oh, she’s no longer in that tiny little flat,’ Meryl said, looking scandalised. ‘I couldn’t have her living there. It just didn’t feel right. Rachel’s come to join me in my house while we find somewhere more suitable for her, closer to her place of work.’

  Closer to her place of work? How could she get closer, unless she moved over to Belgravia itself – although that might be on the cards if Meryl had put her on a decent salary.

  ‘It’s so kind of you,’ Rachel said, looking at Meryl with what she probably considered to be an expression of wistful respect. After all, Meryl was now her saviour twice-over, a benefactor beyond her wildest dreams, taking her from a council estate to Eaton Square with a quick flourish of her hand.

  We had to go through the whole tale all over again when Matthew appeared by my side. Matthew was comparatively chuffed for Rachel, remarking how perfect he thought she was for the job.

  ‘Why do you think she’d be perfect?’ I asked him in a hushed tone later in the evening after our Atwood discussion, while the others were discussing politics. Matthew looked confused at my question. ‘Rachel,’ I clarified, impatiently. ‘You said you thought she’d be “perfect” for the job of Meryl’s PA.’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, I just thought she’d probably do a good job.’

  ‘But without any experience? Without ever doing the job of a PA – or anything secretarial or organisational in her life? How can she be perfect?’

  Matthew didn’t seem interested in discussing the topic further. ‘We don’t know that. We don’t really know anything about her past life before she came to London.’

  How right he was.

  The evening became steadily weirder still when Titus, who had enthusiastically taken part in the discussion on The Testaments, followed by Brexit, House of Lords reform, and alleged BBC political bias, politely asked Jerome if he could have a look at the extensive collection of paintings he had on the staircase leading to the upper level.

  ‘Of course, dear boy. There are more on the landing upstairs, too. Go ahead and roam about.’

  Titus eagerly accepted the invitation and left the lounge. I didn’t notice Rachel slipping out too, but after five or ten minutes or so, I realised she had also left our throng by the fire in the lounge.

  I’m not sure what it was that made me get up and go and explore as well – I had next to no interest in Jerome’s depressingly gothic art collection, but I just had a strange, tingling sense that something was slightly off.

  There was no sign of Titus in the corridor, the striking, very modern cream-coloured surroundings (the pale tones emphasised by the jet-black steps of the stairs) completely deserted. I climbed the stairs towards the landing and saw Titus, peering closely at one of the paintings on the landing. I was about to call out to him, to tell him it was time to be getting going, when I saw Rachel walk confidently from down the other end of the long landing gallery, remarking on the brush strokes of one of the paintings at the end. Titus listened to her and nodded. It was as if the two of them were out at an exhibition together, comparing thoughts on the work, like a couple of friends. I watched them, oddly mesmerised, and I had a strange sense of déjà vu – my mind leaping back to that first time Rachel went walkabouts at our house and was found upstairs, snooping around the main bedroom. As I watched, I saw Rachel lean in to study the painting that had seemingly transfixed Titus. She put a hand on his shoulder and brought her head so that it was almost touching Titus’s and seemed to whisper something in his ear. And he smiled, then laughed.

  I started to feel my balance go and I stumbled forward, grabbing hold of the side of the wall and knocking one of the framed paintings askew. Titus and Rachel both turned to see my baffled, and no doubt guilty, face looking back up at them.

  ‘It’s … time to go,’ I said to Titus. I was slightly cheered by the fact that he didn’t put up any protest at his and Rachel’s time being cut short. Instead, he came down the stairs, his normal cheery self, and we all started saying our goodbyes and thanking Jerome for a splendid dinner.

  ‘He didn’t cook it himself,’ Anita said, slightly sneeringly. ‘If you want to thank somebody, his Vietnamese housekeeper is the one you should bring out of the cupboard and speak to.’

  ‘She’s not in the cupboard,’ Jerome replied. ‘And don’t you think you’ve had a little bit too much wine, my dear?’

  Anita said nothing in response, but clutched her glass protectively close to her, as if it might be snatched away at any moment.

  On the drive home, I decided to bring up what I had seen on the stairs, aiming for a casual, making-conversation sort of tone.

  ‘You and Rachel seemed to be enjoying Jerome’s art collection.’

  I heard Titus yawn, then say, ‘Yeah, she seems to like the same sort of thing.’

  ‘What painting was it you were both looking at? You seemed hypnotised.’

  Titus considered for a moment, ‘Oh, er, it was called Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime.’

  I nodded, as if I knew it well.

  ‘By Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, I think.’

  I drove on for a few seconds in silence, but the more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. Taking a deep breath, I just asked him outright. ‘And what did she say to you about this bleak-sounding painting that meant she needed to whisper in your ear?’

  I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Titus frown a little, then shrug. ‘She had just described what was happening in the painting, saying how powerfully she felt the main themes of the piece are conveyed. And she didn’t whisper, she just spoke quietly; I think you’re probably going deaf.’ He smiled, playfully, but I was too distracted to acknowledge the teasing.

  ‘What themes?’ Matthew asked, acting the casually interested parent.

  ‘Retribution and revenge,’ Titus replied.

  He said the words as if they were nothing. But they continued to haunt me all the way back to Chelsea.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rachel

  Five months to go

  I expected the Allerton-Joneses to be surprised at my new job and I was pleased with the way Meryl dealt with Charlie’s obvious, snobbish disapproval.

  Over the months that followed, as winter became spring, I threw myself into executing my role as best I could. I arranged appointments for Meryl, sorted out her social calendar, did the shopping, booked a mini-break away for her with her son, who was based in the States but flew to meet his mother in Paris every February. I’d worried at first that her housekeeper, Iona, would think her job was being taken from her, but she seemed thrilled to have fewer responsibilities. Meryl clearly enjoyed my company, taking me out to dinner at least once a week, but I never found her overbearing. I had a large room and bathroom all to myself in the house, on a floor above her bedroom. Meryl even had plans for me to eventually move into the house on Belgrave Place that she was in the process of doing up. I would end up living in one of the new apartments there once the renovations were finished.

  Me, in a luxury flat to myself in Central London, in one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in the country. It was something I’d never have dreamed of. I think, for years, I had been ruminating on how I wanted to change the past, rather than shape my future. Finding myself in this situation in London, working for Meryl, friends with famous actors like Jerome, and of course the Allerton-Joneses, made me realise how things can change. How the impossible can suddenly be made possible. I felt a little guilty for enjoying it all, considering why I had come here and what I was supposed to be doing. But I’d lived under a cloud for so long, it was impossible not to look up and enjoy it for a bit. To move on, at last. No, move on wouldn’t be the right words. That sugge
sts I was ready to let things go, to step off my chosen path. To move forward. That would be more appropriate. And a conversation I would have with Meryl that spring would show me just how far forward I was moving.

  It was when we were going through her upcoming appointments for April that I found out her plan. We were sitting in her beautiful lounge; it was truly like something from Upstairs Downstairs, only with a more modern edge, and I had to force myself to stop staring at the décor around me. I had her diary open on my legs and was pencilling things in when I turned the page to the first week of May. ‘Goodness, how this year is racing by,’ she remarked, ‘I hardly feel it’s begun. Our New York holiday will be here before we know it.’

  This was the first I’d heard of anything to do with New York. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were going to the US. I’ll mark in the dates, so we don’t book anything over it.’

  She produced her iPhone – into the calendar app of which I would later painstakingly copy everything from the written diary – and scrolled through her messages. I could see from the contact name at the top it was a message thread with Cassandra Allerton. ‘Let me see… Saturday 9th to Wednesday 20th. Flying out Saturday morning and flying back home the Wednesday afternoon.’

  I flicked forward in the diary to those dates and wrote at the top of them New York.

  ‘You’re so organised, my dear,’ Meryl said, admiring how neatly I had everything laid out in the large leather-bound volume.

  I laughed a little. ‘I like everything to be laid out and in order. If you give me the details of anything you’d like arranged for when you return home, I’ll get that done while you’re away.’

  Meryl looked puzzled. ‘While I’m away? No, no, dear, while we’re away.’

  I stared back at her, blinking. ‘You mean, you and the Allertons?’

  Meryl smiled. ‘Well, yes, Cassandra and Michael, and Charles and Matthew and Titus. And you.’

  I continued to stare, this time with my mouth slightly open, only just comprehending what she was saying. ‘What? You mean, you want me to come?’

  Meryl laid her palms upwards in an of course motion. ‘Oh, my dear, I’m not sure I’d manage the whole thing without you. You really are proving yourself to be indispensable.’

  And with that, she put her phone away, gave me a kindly pat on the shoulder, and wandered off in the direction of the kitchen and her 11am green-juice smoothie, leaving me on the sofa with a sense of steadily rising excitement. It would be nice to have one last holiday, I thought. Before I go to prison for murder.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rachel

  Two days after the murder

  I sit in police custody, waiting. I’m still partly in shock at what I’m doing. But the other part is relieved it’s all over now. That everything will, hopefully, be plain sailing from now on. It was fun while it all lasted, of course. Living with Meryl, mixing with people from a completely different world to the one I came from. But I always knew it wasn’t going to last for ever. I think back to that time now not with regret, just contentment. I’m pleased I got to live a little myself before things had to end in this way. Because they always had to end in this way.

  But as the hours, and now days, go by, I’m starting to wonder if everything is as clear cut as I’ve presumed. Is there, perhaps, something I’ve missed? Or have the other two talked? Talked too much? Tripped themselves up? Got their stories in a mix too far-fetched for the police not to suspect something strange is happening here? Because all this depends on one clear thing: Charlie and Titus must stick to the story. That’s the only way this can all work. And for everyone to be happy.

  My thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of Detective Inspector Susan Okonjo. She walks into my cell, leaving the door open, with another police officer, this one uniformed, standing behind her. ‘Good afternoon, Rachel.’

  Is it afternoon? I can hardly tell. I know more than one day has passed, but time is starting to get the better of me. When I don’t reply, DI Okonjo carries on with whatever little speech she has planned.

  ‘I’ve had a conversation with the CPS and it’s time for you to be formally charged for the murder of Matthew Allerton-Jones. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  I nod.

  ‘Good.’ She turns to go, but stops before she’s properly left the room. She turns her small, slim frame back round to face me, with a curious look on her face, like something’s bothering her. ‘I have to say, Rachel, when we brought you in, I thought this was going to be fairly simple. But it’s not, is it?’

  I stay silent.

  ‘In fact, I’ve been putting off charging you because, well … something just feels a little odd.’ She bites her lip, as if she’s thinking about what she’s going to say next. I get the feeling she’s going off-script now. ‘If I were to give you one more chance, one last attempt to unpick this whole thing, would you take it? We could have it out right now, you and me. You can tell me anything you want. Any details you’re keeping back. Anyone you might be … protecting.’

  She gets my attention with this. Slightly impresses me, even. But it’s not going to work. She’s wasting her time. So I tell her.

  ‘I murdered Matthew Allerton-Jones. I went to the house to do it. It was the easiest thing in the world. If you’re a real detective, it shouldn’t be hard for you to work out why. You’ll see I had a very good reason to. But I’m not doing your job for you. Charge me. Let’s just get this over with. I’m not going to speak anymore.’

  I see her eyes widen in surprise, but she doesn’t say anything. Just watches me intently. Then she turns on her heel and walks out of the room, leaving me alone once more.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Charlie

  Three months to go

  The day before we were due to fly to New York, Matthew went AWOL again. I kept on trying his phone, worried that I couldn’t find our passports and irritated he wasn’t home helping me pack.

  Even though I knew he was probably fine – stuck in traffic, out of signal range – I couldn’t help but be reminded of October last year, when Matthew was absent just when I needed him. When Titus had been attacked. Although this wasn’t as dramatic a moment, of course, if we didn’t find the passports soon it looked like our part in the trip would have to be cancelled and my parents and Meryl would be jetting off without us. Then there was the strange instance at Christmas, when the car had broken down. All these signs were mounting up, and I probably, deep down, knew how stupid I was being then not to properly string them together. But up until that point, my marriage had been the most concrete, indestructible thing in my life. We’d been a proper partnership, a team, so unified and at one with each other, very different from, say, my parents’ weirdly distant relationship.

  He eventually arrived home later, apologetic and starving, saying he’d had to go on an impromptu trip to Surrey to see this ageing philosopher whose paper they were publishing in some dull-sounding left-wing polemic. I was less interested in where he’d been and more about where the passports could be, and, as expected, Matthew was able to lay his hands on them immediately in a drawer in the library that I’d forgotten even existed.

  Matthew went to take a hot bath to de-stress after his hectic day and I took off my clothes and left them out for Jane to add to the other washing while we were away. I picked Matthew’s up off the floor too, emptying his pockets of his wallet, some tissues … and a train ticket. I almost missed it, caught between the tissues, and grabbed hold of it as it fluttered towards the bin. It was from Marylebone to High Wycombe. It made me pause. Why would Matthew need to go to High Wycombe? He’d said, minutes earlier, he’d been to Surrey, and blamed traffic for his lateness. Not trains. A deep, angry burn started to blush through me. Was he lying to me? He had to be, surely. But Matthew never lied. Not throughout our entire marriage had I caught him out in a lie, not even a small one. It felt incompatible with his character. Incompatible with my idea of us.

  I was still holding the
ticket when I heard him come out of the bathroom and walk back towards our room.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked, holding it out to him. In retrospect, I’d like to say there was a definite flicker of something in his eyes, some look of being caught out. But in truth, I can’t quite be sure if there was or if I imagined it, as he answered almost immediately and smiled his usual, gorgeous grin, taking a step towards me. ‘A train ticket.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said, taking care not to sound angry, ‘It’s just, well, you said you went to Surrey today and the ticket is a return to High Wycombe.’

  Matthew took off the towel around his waist and started to dry his hair. ‘Oh, did I say Surrey? I meant High Wycombe.’

  I frowned. ‘That’s … quite a mistake.’

  He pulled a face. ‘Is it?’ he said. ‘You make mistakes like that all the time. We’re getting old. Cognitive decline, I’d wager.’ He stood there, remarkably confident, his perfect naked body suddenly taking on an oddly alien, unknown appearance in my eyes, even though I knew it so well.

  ‘It doesn’t even start with the same letter,’ I said. ‘And you don’t normally take the train. Surely you’d drive?’

  He let out a sigh of exasperation. ‘It’s because I’m going to Surrey when we get back from New York,’ he said, picking up some pyjama trousers and pulling them on. ‘I made the arrangements earlier. That’s what made me think of it. And I had a meeting in Marylebone this morning. High Wycombe is only thirty minutes from Marylebone station, and I was going with Ali, who lives in Marylebone, so it all made sense us getting the train from there.’ He looked at me, still good humoured and smiling. ‘All fine now?’