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

a period, played the clarinet at school. The night I had my first recital at one of their end-of-year concerts, I was both excited and nervous to perform. The thought of performing in front of others properly for the first time brought with it a buzz, a sense of risk and danger – mild of course, but intoxicating. I remembered as I waited in the empty room away from the performance area, my hand had trembled as I poured myself a glass of water. But, minutes later, when I came to pick up my clarinet from the table and go through the door out to the waiting audience, my outstretched hand closed around the instrument without a tremor. It was completely steady. Everything was going to go according to plan. I just knew it. And it was like that right now. With Matthew’s hypocrisy swirling around me like wisps of smoke – his indignant, self-righteous anger at his son’s behaviour while trying to hide his own – I had no difficulty in picking up the knife from the table. The knife that wasn’t needed for the meal, but nobody had noticed. Matthew noticed it, of course, as I took hold of it with my perfectly steady hand. And as I walked around the table, calmly and quietly, towards him, with it held tightly in my grasp.

I think it was the surprise of the whole thing that stopped him properly fighting back. That was quite a gift, where forensics was concerned. It meant there was no blood splatter to incriminate me, no scratches on my face, skin cells crammed under his fingernails. He was sitting still in shock as I leant down towards him, held his shoulder with one hand and pushed the knife between his ribs. I felt the tip of it snag and crunch through something as I pushed it deeper. He started to panic, once he’d registered what was happening, but I’d managed the insertion well and he wasn’t able to do much more than fumble, clutching limply at the knife within him as the blood soaked his light-blue shirt and he struggled to say what he so desperately wanted to say.

I never found out how much Titus had witnessed. Or why he’d come back to the kitchen. I just remember turning round and finding him standing at the doorway, his mouth slightly open, his face even paler than it had been before. I saw him sway a little, and suddenly I was able to act like a responsible parent again. I pulled his chair back out from under the table and sat him down. I poured him a glass of water. He took a meek, quiet sip from it then set it down on the table. There was a strange companionability to the silence, as if we were both sheltering from a storm that was going on all around us. And in the quiet and stillness, I found I too could no longer stand.

I don’t know how long we sat there at the table, but it can’t have been longer than a minute or two. I didn’t hear Rachel come in. I only registered her presence once she was in the room with us. Taking in the scene. Her eyes open in … amazement? Horror? She looked at the two of us sitting there, then just said, ‘The door was open.’

She then walked over to Matthew’s body. I saw her touch his neck with her finger. Then she pulled the knife out of his chest. It’s odd, but for some reason I imagined him gasping for breath as soon as the knife was out, as if it were the only thing stopping him from taking in oxygen, like something trapped in his throat. But he remained still as she stepped away, the bloodied knife in her hand. She looked down at it for a few moments, then said, ‘I’m going to call the police now. Stay quiet while I talk to them. Whatever I say, whatever you hear, don’t interrupt me.’

We didn’t agree or disagree. We just stared at her. She seemed to be controlling her breathing, trying not to take in too much air too quickly, as if she was fighting not to become emotional. In spite of her efforts, I noticed a tear falling down the side of her face as she sat down in the unused seat at the table and took out her phone. And in spite of my odd, hypnotised state, I couldn’t help but ask, ‘Are you OK?’

A strange thing to say, I know. It would have been normal to ask her what she was doing, why she wasn’t screaming, running from the house, or demanding an explanation. But I think we’ve already clarified that I’m not that normal. Nothing about this situation was very normal.

She didn’t reply to my question. Instead, she stayed sitting at the table, with the knife on her lap, the blood staining her light-blue jeans, and took out her phone.

‘Police please. A violent incident. I’ve killed someone.’ She waited for a second, apparently listening to the person on the other end of the line. After the pause she gave them our address, went silent once again, then continued. ‘No, he’s not breathing; he’s dead. I stabbed him. Please send the police. There’s no need for any armed response or anything like that, I’m not going to hurt anyone else. I have the murder weapon, but I’ll put it down on the table when they arrive. I won’t resist being arrested or anything like that. I’m ending the call now.’

If I wasn’t already sitting, I might have fainted. As my vision started to cloud and distort, I became vaguely aware of Titus getting up from his chair and walking out of the room. Part of me wanted to call after him, tell him not to leave the house, but I wasn’t able to and, as it turned out, I didn’t need to. I heard the creak of