The Dinner Guest by B Walter (best short books to read txt) 📕

a low profile, never to have sought out the Allerton-Joneses, to have avoided the long game for a quick moment of shock and adrenalin, and it would all have been over.

But that’s too kind, a voice said in my head. Much better to make him suffer.

So I kept myself together. Just. I decided to carry on biding my time, exploiting the connections I now had, and waiting to see what the New Year would bring.

On December 20th, Sophia came up to me at the coffee machine in the staff canteen. ‘Rachel, I’m so sorry, but I forgot to ask you if you’d like Christmas off? Do tell me if we’ve already spoken about this; my mind’s like a sinkhole at the moment.’

She always did this – making herself out to be scatty and hopeless, whilst also giving the impression of having everything under control in a smooth and seamless way. There was an art to it that I couldn’t help admire.

‘Would it be OK to take some days off? I might go and visit my father in the North.’

‘Of course, no problem at all. I’ll book you off until January 2nd, if that works with you?’

I nodded, grateful to be handed such generous annual leave after only just starting the job. Allen at the garden centre would have had an aneurism if I’d tried to take that many days off in December. ‘Thank you so much. Only if that’s not a problem…?’

Sophia waved her hands. ‘Not one bit. I’m going off to Denmark for two weeks with my husband, anyway, followed by an outdoors Twelfth Night ball on the ice in Sweden – I’d better pack my furs or I’ll freeze to death!’

Even though I didn’t think the idea of going to a ball held out of doors in arctic conditions sounded very fun, nothing about my Christmas plans could compete with this, so I didn’t bother to try. Instead, I just told her it sounded enchanting and thanked her again.

As it would turn out, I ended up enviously fantasising about Sophia enjoying an icy sparkling romantic holiday with her husband followed by a shimmering, exclusive ball on a frozen lake under the Northern Lights. Anything to escape the dull, drab, dreary and disappointingly snow-free Christmas I experienced. It was just me and my dad in his small terraced house, watching film after film on television, shovelling a Lidl roast dinner into our mouths without saying much to each other. At one point, he said to me, ‘Don’t you want to spend some time with your young friends? I saw that Kevin of yours up walking on the hills a few weeks back. Maybe give him a call? Do something nice and festive with him.’

I told him that calling my ex-partner out of the blue on Christmas Day – a man who is now married to a property-rich yoga instructor named Demelza and currently expecting their second child – would be the opposite of ‘nice and festive’.

It was later that evening, when the grey skies outside gave in to rain, that I had my moment of weakness. Dad had fallen asleep in front of Paddington 2 and I snuck upstairs, very quietly, trying not to wake him. I pulled the ladder down to the loft with the precision of a surgeon and trod carefully on each step, holding my breath as I hauled myself into the dusty darkness. Inside, I used the torch on my phone to light my way and crawled to the end where two boxes of photo albums were housed, providing refuge – as I discovered to my temporary fright – to two spiders the size of mice. Once I’d batted them away, I reached inside one of the boxes and pulled out a photo album.

I saw what I was looking for immediately. The photos Mum would routinely hide away, desperate to forget, then, when she couldn’t bear it any more, frantically scrabble around for them again in a panic, convinced the pain would go away if she looked at them one last time.

The pain didn’t go away when I looked at them. It burned even brighter. And, even though it made the tears fall from my eyes, it was worth it. Worth every painful second.

Chapter Nineteen Charlie

The day after the murder

My father is here. I hear his car, no doubt driven by his almost comically obedient Scottish chauffeur, Malcolm, purr into its space outside the house followed by the unmistakable bold, purposeful tap of his shoes on the pavement.

My father’s the type of man who you don’t want to be caught out by. He’s never been cruel or unkind to me, but he can be sharp and makes it clear he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He can command a room with a steely charisma – something I’ve been lucky enough to inherit to a degree when it comes to pitch meetings with clients, but haven’t perfected as well in a social setting.

His work has always made me somewhat … awkward. I’m aware some people have a problem with it. Others just accept it as the way of the world. He owns a small consultancy business, working alongside two other partners, with a small staff working beneath them. They have offices in Millbank. Their work is very slow, complicated, and boring. That is the official version, anyway. The unofficial version is this: they are the men you go to when you need something to be done. When you need a certain member of the opposition party to be removed from their seat. Or if a member of the cabinet needs a conviction for drink driving to just conveniently … go away. But it gets darker than that.

Earlier this year, the CEO of a large supermarket chain was accused of improper behaviour towards a female colleague when visiting one of his stores. According to the newspapers, he touched her in a lift. Within a week, the accusations were dropped. I discovered my father’s involvement via