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

eager to get out of the interview suite. Probably off to splash some cold water on his face.

Before I’m led out of my cell, I ask him when I’m likely to be charged. He gives me an odd look, like he can’t quite work me out. ‘That’s to be decided,’ he says eventually.

I curse myself as I sit down on the padded bench in my cell. Too keen, I think, leaning back against the wall, enjoying the clinking and thumping sounds of the police station around me. I need to be better at this. For this to work, I need to stay quiet and let the police do their jobs and see what they want to see. That’s all I need them to do.

Chapter Six Rachel

Eleven months to go

Moving into my new rented London flat was an ordeal. I’d resisted buying any new suitcases or travel bags – I didn’t have that much stuff, and would need all the money I could save. I regretted this decision when the zip on my old suitcase split open at the seams while I was lugging it into the lift to go up to the third floor. My clothes went everywhere, mixing with the dirty footprints and discarded junk mail.

‘Oh, bad luck, dear. Here, I’ve got a few bags-for-life you can use.’ The voice came from an older woman who was smiling down at me. I was so grateful, I could barely whisper my thanks as I threw jumpers and socks into the large Tesco bags she’d handed me.

‘Are you moving in?’ she said, looking at the other two rucksacks I’d dropped in my efforts to get the main suitcase into the lift.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m trying to get to Number 32. I think it’s on the third floor.’

She beamed a wide red-lipped smile. ‘It is. That’s right next to us.’ She said ‘us’ as if there were someone else with her, so I presumed she must have a family or partner at least. I tried to guess her age, although it was hard underneath the make-up. There was something a little too strong in the colour of her red-brown hair, suggesting it was dyed, and looking closer I could see some substantial wrinkles around her eyes. She was probably well past fifty, maybe even in her sixties. ‘I’m Amanda,’ she said, warmly. I thought I detected a slight northern accent in her words, and I was tempted to ask where she was from, but worried it might sound rude. ‘Come on,’ she nodded at the lift, ‘let’s get your things upstairs.’

She helped me with my stuff all the way to the flat, and seemed happy to lug two of the bags inside once I’d unlocked the door. ‘Oh, this is lovely,’ she said as we walked in.

She was lying to be kind. It wasn’t lovely. It was gloomy and small, with a scuffed carpet and a narrow corridor. At least the air smelled clean. I led the way down the corridor to the kitchen.

‘Is this like your place next door?’ I asked as I set the broken suitcase down on the countertop with a thud.

‘Yes, well, ours is slightly bigger, I think, but generally the same. I live with my husband, Neil. We’ve been wondering who would take up the rent on this one. We’ve had…’ she lowered her voice a little, ‘we had a bit of a problem before. With the other tenant, I mean. He would play this terrible music at an astonishing volume. I don’t know what it was; it sounded like a mix of bins being kicked over and livestock being slaughtered. We think he had a drug habit as well, but I don’t think that’s as unusual as we’d like to think it is.’ She shook her head.

I nodded, not sure how I should respond to this, but Amanda seemed quite content to carry on without encouragement. ‘And before him we had a young woman named Carly who,’ her voice now dropped to barely a whisper, ‘killed herself.’ She shuddered a little, as if the memory still bothered her. ‘Poor young girl. She had deep, desperate problems, I think. Drugs too, probably. Never had much to do with her, though heard she’d come over from Clapham. We had a suspicion she may have worked as a … well, you know, a … lady of the night. A lot of gentlemen callers.’

Again, I had nothing to add to this, although it made me worry even more about what my neighbours might be like on the other side. Though this Amanda woman was gossipy and a bit full-on, at least she seemed relatively safe and normal. As if she could read my mind, she suddenly said, ‘Oh, but I don’t want to put you off, love. Pimlico’s a lovely area, really. I know we’re not exactly in the local beauty spot on the estate here, but there’s so much history around these streets. All sorts of interesting people.’ She gave me a big red-lipsticked smile. ‘Well, I’d better leave you to get unpacked. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.’

I spent the rest of the day unpacking. It shouldn’t have taken long, but I was starting to get a familiar anxious feeling – of being out of my natural habitat and surrounded by strangeness and uncertainty. Folding my clothes carefully and putting them in the white IKEA drawers provided in the pre-furnished flat helped calm me a little. After that, I needed to think about food. I was pleased to find the fridge nice and clean – it looked brand new – and there was a surprising amount of cupboard space for such a small kitchen. I put the keys in my pocket, put on my coat, and set off back down the stairs and out of the building.

My block was in the centre of the estate, and it was a bit of a maze to find my way out onto a main