The Dinner Guest

by B P Walter

  Her eyes flash and she places her hands flat on the table. Her voice takes on an ice-like whisper. ‘May I give you some advice? Stop pissing off the woman serving your jail sentence. You are playing with fire.’

  The words hit home. I hate myself for it, but I close my mouth, biting back the retort I so want to fling at her.

  A pinched, angry expression has settled on her face now, and it remains as she opens her mouth to speak, then stops, clearly finding the sentence she’s trying to get out too difficult to say aloud.

  ‘I did something … unforgivable,’ she said, brushing away a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘We did something unforgivable. Me, Mum, and Dad. We let Titus go. After Johnny died, we let him be taken in by Collette’s brother, a man who I had never properly met, and Collette went home with them. At the time, it was too painful for us to even recognise the baby’s existence. Mum’s Catholicism, mixed with her grief, warped her into something close to madness. Then followed cancer and chemotherapy. It’s no wonder she couldn’t face reality. Dad was of the opinion that the child would have a better life growing up with a rich family. And to be honest, I don’t think he had the strength left to fight or even be involved in the care of a young child. When I think back, there are so many things I regret, but I think my actions around then weren’t made by the same person I am now. Watching my mother die before my very eyes, dying herself just after her own son had passed away, knowing she was leaving behind her a father and a daughter fucked up by grief … that sort of thing changes you. Pulls you inside out. It’s easy to look back now and say how, if I had that time again, I would have fought for us to be a part of the life of our nephew and grandson, our last connection to Johnny. But it sends you mad, that sort of thinking. If you dwell on it for too long. Maybe it did.’

  For a moment, I wonder if she’s finished talking. The angry expression has now been replaced with a far-off look. I get the feeling I could get up and walk away and she wouldn’t see me. Then, at last, she speaks. ‘I suppose he told you how I knew what he’d done. How I’d photographed him. It was an accident, actually. I was very lucky to have been gifted an exceptionally good camera, by 2005 standards, by my partner at the time. He was keen for me to get back into photography. So while I was in Norway, I took photographs in the forest surrounding the hotel accommodation. And thanks to its then pioneering full-frame sensor and 12.8 megapixels, I could make a very close extraction from the digital image in Photoshop and blow it up to fill the screen. I probably don’t need to tell you what it showed me.’

  Her eyes fix on mine meaningfully. I nod. ‘Matthew,’ I say, my voice croaky from not speaking for so long.

  She nods back. ‘Matthew. Standing there. Holding Titus in his arms. Watching my brother in the hot tub. You can see he’s asleep in the photo. And Matthew does nothing. Doesn’t try to wake him. Doesn’t try to save him, to lift him out of the pool. Johnny was smaller than Matthew. The drugs had made him thin and wiry. It would have been nothing for Matthew to save his life. But he didn’t. He had the chance and he left him there to die alone.’

  ‘How do you know Johnny wasn’t already dead? Maybe Matthew simply saved Titus from drowning in the arms of an overdosed corpse.’

  She doesn’t look impressed with this. ‘Because in spite of the heroin and cocaine in his bloodstream, my brother managed to inhale quite a bit of water before his heart stopped. Corpses do not try to breathe under water.’

  She pauses for a moment, as if to let this sink in. I take advantage of the pause to ask another question. ‘Why didn’t you just go to the police? Or track down Matthew then and there?’

  She sighs. ‘Because my mother died. Literally the next day, after I found the photo. And it took it all out of me. For a time, at least. But in the years that followed, an obsession started to grow. I kept an eye on any news I could find about him, which wasn’t much. Just his work and graduation. The internet was a much smaller place, back then. Before we put every single little thing online, as people do today. It seems strange, but I was a lot more fixated on hating him and wishing him dead than I was on checking my own nephew was OK. But I knew Titus was living a happy life. I found a photo a few years later of him on the Eaton Square school website playing a tambourine. He looked happy. I only stopped obsessing because I fell in love. A guy I’d been friends with for years. The guy who’d given me the camera, actually. Kevin, his name was. He was insistent that I let the past go. He said it was unhealthy me obsessing about the Joneses, although he never knew about what I’d seen in the photograph. He just thought I hated them because of Collette’s influence on Johnny and their snobbish attitudes towards him. He said he’d support me if I wanted to try to re-enter Titus’s life, but he thought my burning hatred towards them needed to either be cleared up or let go. So I let it go. In theory. I moved on with my life the best I could, although it never quite worked out between him and me. It felt weird, us being intimate like a couple, since I’d regarded him as a platonic friend since I was, like, seven. We pretended there weren’t any problems for years, until he eventually said he wanted children with me. I knew then that things needed to end. So we parted and left the flat we were renting together.

  ‘Even though I’d started up my photography commissions again over the years, I couldn’t support myself on them alone, not without Kevin’s income. So I got a job at a garden centre. And it was when I was working there that, on a fucking miserable day, I came across your Instagram account. It was on my “recommended” feed. A charming photo of two men and a boy standing around a cake they’d just baked. I can’t even describe to you the effect the photo had on me. After all those years of burying that side of my life and trying to move forward, to be confronted with it again … well, it was like someone had started choking me. And everything sort of imploded from that moment onwards.

  ‘It became absolutely clear that I needed to find Matthew and make him pay for what he did to my brother. I suppose I was depressed, not in my right mind, but I genuinely welcomed the purpose it gave me. It was as if I’d been sleepwalking through my life in black and white and suddenly someone had turned it into Technicolor. It was astonishing. I’d wanted Matthew Jones dead for so long that to finally give myself permission to go after what I’d wanted was like one of those moments religious people talk about – an epiphany. So when I saw him lying there, saw you’d got there first before me, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to confess to the crime. Because it was what I had come to the house to do. I don’t consider myself a Christian or anything, but sitting there, with the knife, waiting for the police to arrive, I felt calmer and more content than I had ever felt before. I felt close to God, or what people call God. I don’t have a name for it myself, but you can call it what you like – the creator, the universe, destiny. It’s probably too much for you to understand. But it’s genuinely how I felt.’

  I stare back at her. I’m both terrified and impressed. Impressed at her description of the experience and her ability to articulate it, and terrified by how closely it resembled my own. The sensations, the sudden calm that had enveloped me after the bloodletting was – she was right – an experience to which one couldn’t help but attach religious significance. It was divine, in the true sense of the word, with vengeance and justice coming together to stabilise an imbalance in the world. It was something greater than anything the day-to-day human life encountered, and therefore required such language to even come close to describing it. Those who claim there is no beauty in violence really have no clue.

  ‘The irony is,’ she says, after a few moments of silence, ‘that I planned to do it exactly the same way as you did. I’d even studied which area of the torso to drive the knife into – an internet history detail which was very useful to the police during the process of charging me. So to find the job already complete, with you sitting there at the table, I must admit I was kind of grateful. I was grateful you’d done what I’d wanted to do for so long. Which made it easy to do what I did
next. I knew Titus loved you as a father – someone who had been there throughout his life, unlike me. And I needed to do something to avenge my brother’s death. So confessing to it in court and coming here kept that sense of purpose going; it meant I could pay Johnny back for not spotting the signs of his decline sooner, not succeeding in steering him towards a safer path. Not being a good enough sister, daughter, or aunt. Who knows, maybe after ten years here I’ll feel differently. But for now, you and Titus are free to live your lives.’

  We are running out of time, and I get the sense from her tone that we’re coming to the end of our conversation. Just one thing sets off a small warning bell in my mind and makes me look back at her with mounting concern. ‘For now?’ I repeat back.

  Rachel considers this for a few seconds, then says, ‘Be careful of Titus. It’s a lot for him to handle on his own. That secret. It has the power to become … explosive. One day, he may need your encouragement to stay silent. If I were you, I wouldn’t get complacent. Or take his silence for granted. Just … be careful.’

  Whatever I had expected Rachel to say, this was not it and it throws me off balance. ‘I … what? I don’t think Titus is going to say anything…’

  ‘Just look after him the best you can,’ Rachel cut across me. ‘For me. That’s all I ask. Do that, and all will be fine. And hopefully, I’ll never have to use this.’ From her sleeve, which she’s kept bunched around her right hand the whole time, she allows me to see something small and silver with a flashing red LED on its side. A digital recorder.

  ‘Why … how have you…?’ I look around at the prison staff either side. Neither of them seems to have noticed anything.

  ‘Oh, you can get anything in here, so long as you know the right people. It would have been a bit harder in the first prison I was in, before the trial. A lot hotter on the rules. But this place has rather lax security in comparison, and in the end it’s all just a question of making connections. Honestly, Charlie, for a man of the world, you really are very naïve.’

  The call to end the visitation session sounds around us and Rachel starts to get up. ‘Although, you’re not really a man of the world, are you? Just your little world.’

  I don’t know what to say to this, so I remain silent.

  ‘Well, best of luck with your new life,’ she says, with a small smile. ‘All going well, I’ll see you in about fifteen years.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Charlie

  Seven months after the murder

  The drive back from the prison seems a lot greyer and colder than it had done two weeks previously when I was driving from London to Oxford. My conversation with Rachel continues to echo through my ears. The things she said about Matthew. And Titus. The future, which had felt so bright and idyllic, suddenly seems uneasy and unsure. As if once-still ground is now breaking apart beneath me. It has taken me months to achieve a sense of equilibrium, any kind of stability. And now it has been disrupted.

  But of course, all this is just in my head. Nothing has changed. Nothing is different. Rachel’s words don’t have to affect me if I don’t want them to. I could decide just to ignore her warnings. Her suggestion that my position isn’t as safe as I’d like it to be could just be her trying to unsettle me. Things will be just fine, I try to tell myself as I park the car outside the manor and go inside.

  I go into the library, pour myself a brandy, and take a sip. I’m about to send a text to Rupert to ask where he is when I hear noises coming from the passageway that leads down to the indoor swimming pool. It sounds like whooping and shouting, as if an entertaining game were being played inside an echoey cave. Sure enough, Rupert, Titus, and Pippa are engaged in some sort of ball-throwing contest, with Rupert apparently taking on two against one. He gives me a big sweeping wave with one of his large hands as I come in, earning himself an inflatable ball in the face for his drop in focus.

  I sit by the side of the pool on one of the loungers and watch them for a bit, then unlock my phone and start mindlessly scrolling. The habit to open Instagram still kicks in occasionally, and I find myself falling into its clutches once more, the photos unfurling before me, senseless and bland. Until my hand brushes against the icon leading to my profile. And picture upon picture of me and Matthew fills my screen in a cruel, beautiful grid. I’ve been so sure, for so long, that what I did was right. Was just. Was necessary. But now, after speaking to Rachel, I find a niggling feeling threatening to take hold. Doubt. The feeling is doubt. And it terrifies me.

  I leave the poolside and go into the changing area and march straight into the showers, letting the cold jet of the water soak me. I take deep breaths, trying to stop the panic, the burning anxiety taking me over.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  I turn around and see Titus at the doorway, his trunks dripping, his hair, darker from the water, hanging slightly across his face. He looks concerned at my behaviour. We’ve become spies, really. Each of us watching the other, waiting for someone to crack first under the strain. I think I’ve been pretending it isn’t true. Pushing myself to believe everything’s fine. It really isn’t.

  ‘I just … felt hot,’ I say, stepping out of the shower, my shirt sticking to me as I move. ‘So I took a shower…’

  ‘In your clothes?’ he asks, raising an eyebrow. ‘Why don’t you just get your swim things and come in the pool?’

  I laugh, playing for time, but it comes out false, and Titus knows it. He knows I’m faking. Instead of answering his question I go and sit down on the long bench in the centre of the room. I hope he will come and sit next to me without invitation, but he doesn’t. He just stays there, standing still, looking at me. Eventually he speaks.

  ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

  I look up at him properly. His words don’t comfort me; they do the complete opposite. But I reply in the way all dads should reply. ‘You can talk to me about anything.’

  He nods, as if he expected this response. A pause passes between us, then he says he wants to start seeing Pippa properly. Like, boyfriend and girlfriend. ‘I realise this will probably upset you, after what her mother did, but I love Pippa and we want to be together. I won’t talk to her mum, and you won’t need to either. But I like her too much to worry about that now.’

  This is not what I was expecting, and I’m so relieved that I laugh – properly this time – feeling the tension start to flow out of me, my shoulders starting to relax.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Titus asks, looking a little irritated, and I reply, still smiling, ‘Nothing. That’s all fine. Pippa’s a lovely girl. I just … thought you wanted to talk about something else.’

  Titus gives me a weird look, then walks over to the far wall and takes a towel from the folded pile in the corner. I hear him tug off his wet trunks and toss them to the side, then start to dry himself. When he comes back into view, his hair is out of his eyes, the towel tied around his waist, his expression blank and unreadable. ‘I will never want to talk about that,’ he says at last.

  His response sends a jolt through me. ‘Of course,’ I say, standing up, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘I understand. I just … want you to be OK.’

  Titus looks me in the eye and nods. ‘It’s done. Finished. We don’t need to talk about it.’

  He walks to the other benches over to the side where his clothes are folded in a pile and turns his back to me, but I can’t let the conversation end like this. ‘I agree,’ I say, slightly hurriedly. ‘So long as you’re OK?’

  He stops, then turns around and gives me a small nod. ‘I’m fine, and don’t worry, I’m not going to tell Rupert, or Pippa, or anyone for that matter.’ It’s now that I notice a weird look in Titus’s eyes. I just nod at him, unsure what to say. There’s a hardness in his expression that’s disturbing me. I’m about to leave, to give him the privacy to dress alone, but he speaks before I reach the door.

  ‘Actually, while we’re on the subject, it would be helpful, when Pippa comes over to stay, that she
sleeps in my room. With me. Instead of a guest room.’ He pulls on his jeans, tightening his belt with a loud snap.

  I’m thrown by his words. ‘Well, er … I don’t really think that would be appropriate. You’re both still fifteen…’ I trail off, and Titus’s expression turns cold.

  ‘We’re nearly sixteen. And I want it that way.’ He’s now doing up his shirt buttons, calmly and carefully, without a single tremor in his fingers. ‘I’m sure you could make it OK with Rupert. And also, we’d like to go on a holiday later in the spring, once we turn sixteen. Just the two of us. And we’d need some spending money, of course. That would be OK, right?’ He stares back at me, a defiant glint in his eyes. ‘I mean, I think it would make me feel a lot better if all those things could happen. If you see what I mean.’

  The panic is back, flooding through me, returning with such a rushing force that the momentary relief I felt seconds before now feels as if it were a cruel trick. As the boy I’ve spent the last ten years of my life with looks back at me with a slight smile playing on his lips, I feel my ability to talk leave me. Eventually I nod, and manage to whisper, ‘Of course.’

  Titus grins. ‘Thanks Dad. I knew you’d understand.’ And then he goes back out to the pool to join Rupert, leaving me sitting on the changing-room benches. Trying to stop myself shaking.

  Epilogue

  Elena

  Three years after the murder

  The main lobby of the St Regis hotel, Washington DC, was surprisingly quiet the day I got the call. I’d been meeting up with a prominent website owner to discuss him contributing to the re-election campaign I was co-managing – a quietly spoken, smooth sort of man of around fifty. Even though there was nothing remarkable about his dress or appearance, he seemed to exude charisma and power.