Dead Man's Dinner Read online

  Dead Man's Dinner

  by

  Una Gordon

  Chapter One

  Despite the fact that all the invitations bore a first class stamp, the vagaries of the British postal system precluded their all arriving by the same post.

  The first person to open his envelope was Lord Gresham Erdington. He viewed the envelope for some time, as people often do, as if the contents would reveal themselves without his slitting the envelope. At his large mahogany desk where he always dealt with his private correspondence, he picked up the long, elegant, sharp letter opener, holding it above the letter for a second with an air of hesitation as if he had a premonition that there would be something unpleasant inside. Lord Erdington, like his letter opener, was sharp and elegant. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, his student days had been peppered with wild escapades with girls and fast cars. He had been no stranger to the ski slopes and his apres ski adventures had given him a reputation at the time which had been the envy of many young men.

  With regret he had had to leave his wild oat days behind after he was injured in a serious car crash for which he was in no way to blame. Sport of any kind was now out of the question. He now walked with a stiffness reminiscent of a guardsman, but his erect carriage was the result of serious back injury, not army training.

  All his talent was now consumed by the intricacies of the Stock and Property Markets and while, when his father died and he inherited the title, he had been by no means poor, he was now a man of considerable fortune. He had, however, little time for ostentation and his extravagances were few. There were occasions, however, when he found the power that money brought rather useful and on these occasions he could be completely ruthless. To be fair to Lord Gresham he behaved in this way only when he felt someone was taking an unfair advantage of a situation. His sense of fair play had been learned on the playing fields of England and remained with him still. This, allied to his strong conscience, made him seem at times like a man of two parts – that which had such a sense of what was right as to be almost Puritanical and the other which thought power, influence and money were there to be used.

  His slitting of the envelope and the removal of the paper within all seemed to merge into one deft movement. There was no gasp as he read what was written; simply the slight raising of one eyebrow.

  “Mr Derwent Mollosey,” he read, “will be pleased if Lord Erdington will dine at his house in Salisbury Square on the evening of Thursday, 22nd October, 1987 at 8pm. RSVP

  Scrawled at the foot in an unknown hand was, “Please tell no one – not even your wife.”

  The invitation, apart from the last injunction, seemed very ordinary except for the fact that Derwent Mollosey had died on the 10th of September. Quickly Gresham checked his calendar – the 22nd was exactly six weeks after Derwent's death.

  No audible groan escaped Gresham's lips, but it was there nevertheless. Not another of Derwent's jokes! Derwent had been an extremely wealthy man, unmarried and with few friends – in fact it was doubtful whether he had any true friends. Gresham had attended his funeral, but had heard nothing of the will. If he had thought of it at all, he presumed that Derwent had left his money to some obscure cause because if he had any relatives, he was as likely to ignore them in death as he had done in life. Derwent's forte had not been personal relationships. In fact he had a distinct tendency to rub people up the wrong way.

  What would this dinner entail, Gresham wondered? A rerun of “The Cat and the Canary” where the invited guests would sit watching a video of Derwent as he had been in life, issuing his instructions about what he wanted them all to do? Well, if he was expected to get up to some escapade in order to inherit some money, no chance. He already had plenty and elaborate parlour games were not his style. Derwent had loved to manipulate people – that was why he had no close friends! He had imagined he was good at handling people and he often held the trump card. For a moment Gresham's blood ran cold, then he gave a shrug. What could Derwent possibly do to him now?

  Gresham stuffed some papers into his briefcase, suddenly feeling in a very bad mood. He walked through to the dining room where his young wife, Fiona, was opening her morning mail. She looked up and smiled as he entered and immediately Gresham's bad mood disappeared. Derwent had never had luck like this – a lovely, young wife and a bouncing son and heir.

  Gresham bent to kiss Fiona. “Anything interesting?” he nodded towards her letters.

  “No,” she replied. “In yours?”

  “No.” He shook his head, little suspecting how that one small lie would affect his life. Afterwards he could never understand why he had done it. His only explanation was that Derwent was still manipulating him.

  He shrugged as he went out the door. Time would tell what Derwent had up the sleeve of his shroud. He would have to wait patiently until October 22nd.

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  Guy Pather did not receive his invitation until he came home that same evening. His wife had examined the envelope carefully, eventually laying it on the hall table to await her husband's return. A small smile hovered around her mouth and she was humming softly as she dressed to go shopping.

  Guy and his wife, Melissa, had been made in the same mould. They were both good looking; he in a salesman kind of way, and she, with crown and cloak, could have passed for Miss World. But these wide, innocent eyes of hers concealed a cunning mind which was a match for her husband's any day. They exploited everyone – even each other – and every relationship. If they had had a motto, it would have been, “People are there to be used and things are there to to be acquired.” It was difficult to decide which of them was the more acquisitive. With every deal he completed, Guy was looking forward to the next one, his thirst for money never satiated. He did work for his money, however, which was more than could be said for Melissa. She coveted everything she saw and she saw men as providers. Any man would do as long as he provided her with what she wanted. Love didn't enter into it and sex didn't interest her a great deal. She saw it as her way of paying for whatever luxury she wanted. She and Guy had a perfect understanding. She looked decorative when he needed her for business occasions and they both acquired wealth in the best way they knew. He always knew of her “lovers”. In fact he kept a file on them. One never knew when information like that would come in useful. In that file was the name of one Derwent Mollosey.

  Melissa had been quite open about the time she'd been invited to Derwent's flat where, she told her husband, she had been very willingly seduced. Derwent had laughed at her when she had hinted she wanted some money. “On the game now, are you? You should have struck a bargain before the deed. I don't pay for sex – never needed to.”

  Melissa concealed her fury and on her way out had slipped, what looked to her like a very expensive ornament, into her handbag. It had yielded a very tidy sum at an antique shop. Derwent had never accused her, but she was not invited to his flat again. She had not told Guy about the theft and when he opened the invitation and speculated that there might be a nice little inheritance coming their way she still thought it wise not to reveal what she'd done.

  Guy had opened the envelope as soon as he entered the flat. He dashed through to the kitchen, revealing the contents of the envelope to Melissa despite the warning at the foot of the invitation not to tell his wife. Laughing he lifted her off her feet. “I think we'll soon have an addition to our bank balance.” Melissa knew she'd have to contend with his bad mood when that didn't happen, but so what? She'd had her pound of flesh.

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  The third London flat where an invitation was delivered was less grand than the previous two and the couple who lived there several years younger. Diana was very pregnant and was resting in b
ed when her husband, Gary, picked up the mail from behind the door – bills mainly. He picked out the thick, white envelope as being the most interesting item, and still standing in the hall, opened it. He had met Derwent Mollosey on a few occasions only, but knew of his death. He was puzzled by the invitation and stood staring at it. Why should he be invited to dinner there when he had scarcely known the man when he as alive? He presumed it must be for the reading of the will or some sort of meeting of friends of Derwent. He was unlikely to have been left anything in the will and he could hardly be counted among Derwent's close friends. He was unaware that Derwent had no close friends.

  He knew how easily upset Diana was these days and he decided to say nothing to her even before he noticed the scrawl at the foot of the card. They had waited a long time for this baby and it would be catastrophic if something went wrong now. Not a devious man by nature, Gary had already started thinking of excuses he could make to be out on the 22nd. Strangely it never entered his head to refuse the invitation. He was curious as to why he had been invited. When Derwent had thought this plan up, he knew none of them would be able to refuse the invitation. Much as most of them disliked him, they would all wonder what he was up to.

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  The fourth invitation caused more than a ripple in the small, luxurious dockland flat where it arrived. Peter Dewey always hovered near the door when he thought the post would arrive. He was one of the world's big spenders and he usually thought it prudent to protect his wife, Bianca, from the almost continuous onslaught of final demands which cascaded through their letterbox. If he had been more honest with himself, he would have admitted he was more anxious to protect himself from the verbal onslaught of his wife than he was to protect her in any way. Even as he picked up the post, her high-pitched, nasal voice echoed through the flat, “Anything for me?”

  “No,” Peter replied, his interest already caught by the thick white envelope. He quickly stuffed the obvious bills in his pocket and opened the invitation. When he read it, he whooped with glee. “Bianca! Bianca! Look at this.” He had not even noticed the scrawl. “I've been invited to dinner with the dead.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bianca read the invitation thrust in her face, She was too worldly to be shocked or even to be mildly interested. “What does he intend to do? Get you all to hold a séance and send messages from the other side as to how you can get your hands on his lolly? Cryptic messages.” She laughed harshly.

  “Don't you see, darling?” The endearment was one of usage rather than affection. “Don't you see? You know how keen Derwent was on having a little joke. He'll have devised some plan and the one to solve his little puzzle will win the jackpot and boy will it be a jackpot! Derwent must have been worth millions. I wonder who else is going.” Derwent was dying to know what Derwent's competition was. He was not averse to this kind of thing as long as he was the winner, but then neither was he averse to a little cheating and he wanted to know who else would be present, so that he would know who he had to outdo by cheating and what chance he had of getting away with it. It was only when Peter looked at the card again that he saw the handwritten scrawl. It didn't bother him that he hadn't played by the rules; he never did. He also found the name of the solicitors to whom he had to reply. He looked at the time. Too early yet to phone, but when he did, he was told very politely that he would find out who else had been invited on the night if he attended. Well, he could wait and he'd go along. The chances were that the odd million would come his way and could he do with it! He was getting no younger and sometimes he had to keep all his wits about him to survive and a little bit of the needful would come in very handy even if the only purpose it served was to keep Bianca quiet – the shrew. Her parents had called her after the wrong Shakespeare sister; she should have been called Katherine the way she went on and on.

  “Why can't we have this? Why can't we have that? Why did you do that? Why didn't you do that? Why does everyone have such and such except us?” The monstrous whine of her voice had worn away any sweetness there had once been in the relationship and if he had loved her that love had all disappeared in the mists of time, but he was used to her; she had become a habit. Anyway he couldn't afford to divorce her and pay her maintenance. The idea of Derwent's money became more and more attractive. As the day wore on, Peter even convinced himself that he and Derwent had been mates, close friends, and he romanticised his few meetings with Derwent until he saw himself as Derwent's saviour, the shoulder on which he had cried, the one friend on whom Derwent could call if he was in trouble. He became so overcome by his own imaginings that he almost shed a tear at the thought of Derwent's lonely death. Derwent had died in hospital without apparently letting anyone know how ill he was. Why? It did not occur to Peter that if he had been the close friend he was now purporting to be he would have known because he would have been in touch with him regularly.

  Peter's frame of mind by the time he went to bed that night was benevolent. All was well in his world. He had been, he now firmly believed, a good friend to Derwent and he was about to be repaid for that kindness. He fell asleep to sweet dreams in which he was now in some sunny paradise far away from Bianca's nagging. Even his headache next morning could not dispel the golden glow in which he now basked. Roll on the 22nd and money galore!

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  Marcus Reeves' frame of mind was very different from Peter's as he went to bed that night. Marcus' lover, Perry, had been in a particularly difficult mood and that was quite a statement because none of his moods was ever easy. Marcus often felt he couldn't live with him, but then realised he couldn't live without him. Perry often took the liberty, as he did in so many other ways, of opening Marcus' mail, and when Marcus had arrived home that evening Perry was sulking and pouting like some child who has not been invited to the party and that, of course, was exactly what was wrong with him. He had read the invitation and had seen the scrawl which this time substituted “lover” for “wife”. All evening he had gone on and on about it. Why had Marcus been invited and not him? What special relationship had Marcus had with Derwent that he didn't know about? Marcus was as much in the dark about the invitation as Perry, but Perry would not believe him. Marcus had had a tough day at the gallery; his head was pounding and he could not have cared less whether or not he went to Derwent's dinner party. He had told Perry he would refuse the invitation, but that would not do. Why had he got an invitation in the first place? The more Marcus tried to reason with Perry, the more unreasonable Perry had become. He even packed his bags as he had done many times before and waited for Marcus to coax and cajole him to stay, but this time Marcus could think of nothing to convince him that he had not known Derwent well. Perry wept like a child, hurled abuse at Marcus that would have made Bianca's nagging sound like pleasant conversation, went into deep silences followed by long, wailing accusations of “You don't love me. If you did, you wouldn't behave like this.”

  Like what, Marcus wondered? He had done nothing except receive an invitation to a dinner at the flat of a dead man – an invitation he did not even want. In the end, exhausted, Marcus went to bed, unaware that Perry had not left, but had sat up all night brooding. Of course, thought Marcus, I should have known he wouldn't leave. He'll want to find out what happens. Perry was nothing if not curious. Marcus couldn't have cared less what was to happen at the dinner party. One way and another Derwent had caused him a lot of trouble when he was alive and he was causing more now he was dead. Blast the man! Marcus knew he would go to the dinner party. Perry would insist.

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  When the sixth envelope plopped through the letterbox, the intended recipient was on his way to Devon. Graham Carson's mother-in-law was seriously ill – again! He was driving his wife, Rachel, down to look after her. Graham was an orderly man and he hated these disruptions to his routine especially when he suspected that most of t
he illnesses were simply attention seeking, but Rachel, as an only child, felt it was her duty to go and Graham could think of no good reason why she shouldn't. It wasn't that he couldn't manage, but he liked his meal to be ready when he got home in the evening; he liked a supply of freshly laundered shirts and he liked someone to listen to his almost constant moans (not that he would have described them as such) when he arrived home in the evening.

  Graham was the type of man who, although not unattractive, would have benefited from a dash of devilment added to his personality. He always seemed so prim and proper. Rachel was of a similar type, but by no means without looks – her facial bone structure was excellent. She looked like one of these “before” pictures in a magazine and one longed to see what she would look like after a visit to a hair stylist and wearing some fashionable clothes. Her clothes were always “good”, but when she bought them her eye was more on their lasting quality rather than their stylishness and she seemed to have no idea which colours suited her. Her physical technique of merging into the background resulted in her being overlooked at any gathering; her inability to sparkle conversationally was unfortunate because she was a well educated woman whose opinions could have added interest and weight at most dinner parties. She never pushed herself forward, seemingly content with her backwater position. Even those who thought they knew her well would have been surprised if they had been able to read the poetry she wrote and even more surprised had they been able to read the novel she had started.

  She sat beside Graham on the way to Devon, aware of his displeasure, but saying little. She never argued with him, but when the need arose she just did her own thing. She had found it a very satisfactory way of living her life and Graham never seemed to notice. He was too interested in himself to really care about Rachel, but he did not keep her short of money, so she accepted her life with him, boring though it was, in very much the same way as she had accepted her life with her parents before she was married. Her parents, although not unkind, had never considered her interests and they would have been surprised if they had known the thoughts that had been in Rachel's mind. Of course Graham would have been also!