The Dinner Party. R. Parker J.
inside and no signs of a disturbance. The heat from the towel radiators and an aroma of tea tree oil rolled out at them.
Ted was at the third left door first. These had to be the bedrooms. ‘Jakob.’ But he didn’t wait for an answer.
It was a spare room. A double bed made up, but lots of paperwork and magazines stacked on the duvet.
Juliette had already moved to the last two doors at the end of the passage. ‘Evie?’
Ted opened the one nearest to him. It probably used to be a bedroom but now it was a generous changing room with doorless wardrobes along the right wall. Evie’s clothes took up considerably more space than Jakob’s. He recognized the outfit Evie had been wearing lying on top of a laundry basket. A familiar feminine scent hung around the room. No trace of a struggle in here either.
There was only one door left to open and they both paused outside. This had to be the main bedroom.
Ted yanked the handle down but stayed where he was as the panel swung wide. It bumped against the wall as they took in its interior.
No Evie or Jakob and the king-size was still made.
Juliette switched on the light and the bulb buzzed overhead.
‘So the argument started before they went to bed.’
‘Look.’ Juliette nodded to the far side of the room.
There was brown blood smeared on the long radiator under the window.
She crossed to examine it and Ted joined her there. On the oatmeal carpet in front of it were more dark red patches. The heat from the radiator had dried the fingerprint stains but the ones on the floor still looked wet.
Ted scanned the rest of the carpet. ‘Let’s not touch anything.’
‘We’d better go outside.’ Juliette gulped. ‘I don’t want to be in here.’
Ted was about to move when the light in the room changed. He turned to the window and realized the security light had come on at the rear. A cat was slinking across the back lawn. ‘Motion detector.’
But Juliette moved her face closer to the pane. ‘Is that …?’
Ted followed her gaze. Somebody was lying on the frosted grass by the summerhouse.
Ted and Juliette raced back down the stairs, across the hallway, along the passage and through the kitchen to the lawn. Just as they reached it the security light went out shrouding them in darkness again.
Ted waved his arms and it lit up once more. The person lying on their back by the summerhouse was about thirty yards away and as his feet crunched over the crisp grass he could see dark footprints leading to them.
‘Evie!’ Juliette bolted past him when she recognized who it was.
Ted was close behind and knelt with her beside Evie. Their friend was barefoot and wearing only a magenta silk night robe, which had ridden up her waist. There was a dark patch of blood around the right side of her head and red marks on her throat.
‘Evie.’ Juliette put a shaking hand to her face. ‘She’s cold.’
Ted gripped Evie’s icy bare shoulder. As he did a tiny wisp of breath escaped her lips. ‘Evie.’
She didn’t stir.
‘Evie.’ He shook her.
Juliette put a finger behind Evie’s ear. ‘I can’t feel a pulse. Wake up!’
Ted tried mouth-to-mouth. Her lips were freezing. He’d forgotten his training but was sure chest compressions were more important. Interlinking his fingers he started pumping the lower half of her sternum.
‘Evie, stay with us!’ Juliette slapped her face.
He kept going, tried breathing into her mouth again. She tasted of alcohol. ‘Evie!’
He could hear Juliette on the phone yelling for an ambulance as he frantically shifted position and put his weight behind his wrists. Wasn’t there a danger of breaking ribs? He kept going.
Her eyes half opened.
‘Evie?’ Ted shifted back so his shadow wasn’t obscuring her face.
But there was nothing in her pupils.
‘Evie!’ Juliette held her hand tightly.
No more vapour from her mouth.
‘She was just breathing.’ Juliette jerked her arm.
But Ted assumed it had been trapped air. She was dead.
Juliette continued to shake her and Ted, dazed, surveyed the shadowy hedges. Could whoever have done this be watching them? But they’d heard someone sprint down the driveway and, as he was nowhere inside the house, it was very likely to have been Jakob. What the hell had happened? ‘Juliette …’
She was still clutching Evie’s wrist.
Both his hands were trembling. ‘I don’t think we should touch her anymore.’
‘This is …’ Words failed her, and her eyes bulged with tears.
‘We should go to the front of the house. I’ll let the police know what’s happened.’
Juliette looked at him as if he were insane. ‘I’m not leaving her.’
‘I understand …’ His breath caught in his chest. He was as shell-shocked as she was. He wanted to embrace her so that she didn’t have to look at Evie’s body. But her features were set. ‘But this is a crime scene now …’ Ted examined their footprints intermingled with the others.
‘We’re in it already. I’m not moving.’ Her attention shifted back to Evie and a tear dropped from one eye onto her lap. ‘Where the hell does he think he can run to?’
Ted was thinking the same. Jakob had clearly gone mad. He knew alcohol changed his personality, but he’d never seen him get aggressive with Evie. They were such a stable couple. That’s what was so horrifying. And recently Evie’s cancer treatment had seemed to cement their relationship. He recalled how Jakob had told him how it made him re-evaluate everything afterwards. That nothing he stressed about before seemed significant in the face of losing his wife.
Juliette shook her head. ‘If we could have got here sooner … Minutes sooner.’
‘We got here as quickly as we could.’ But Evie had still been alive forty minutes before. If they’d told the cab driver to put his foot down, would they have arrived in time?
Juliette unstuck a red curl that was plastered to Evie’s face.
‘Juliette, you mustn’t.’ Only hours before Ted had kissed Evie’s cheek.
Juliette retracted her hand.
The security light went out and Ted got to his feet to wave his arms at the house. The lawn was bathed once more. His legs quaked.
Juliette pulled Evie’s robe down.
‘Juliette,’ he cautioned.
She ignored him and tugged it over Evie’s exposed thighs.
Ted knew there was no doubt what had done this. It was Evie’s game. That’s what had altered the entire evening. Jakob had seemed fine when they arrived.
Was this how paper-thin the wall was between the happiness Evie and Jakob appeared to have and what had just happened? Ted had seen how the notion of unspoken secrets had instantly engendered hostility between their friends. Had one or both of them revealed what had been written on their piece of paper?
Juliette closed her eyes. ‘Maybe I didn’t know them at all.’
Ted