Читать книгу The Dinner Party - R. J. Parker - Страница 16

The small hamlet that Evie and Jakob lived in had very few streetlights and the narrow road that ran through it was often manned by retired residents taking speeding drivers’ registration numbers. Ted had been caught on more than one occasion and had received stiff letters through the post. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find pensioners with clipboards lurking in the hedges even at this hour of the morning.

The driver took the sharp right into Fencham Place and the headlights illuminated a tall hedge that bordered the left side. Evie and Jakob’s redbrick Victorian house was opposite the crossroads at the end. Lights burned in the downstairs and upstairs windows.

‘This is it. Just drop us in front of here,’ Juliette instructed.

The driver did and she paid him.

‘D’you mind waiting?’ Ted asked.

‘It’s OK.’ Juliette gave him a tip. ‘We might be a while.’

As soon as they got out, he pulled away without a word.

They both crunched up the long, gravelled driveway. Ted studied the lit panes for either of their friends, but there was no movement.

He rang the bell. No sound of anyone coming to answer it. Ted tried again and Juliette thumped the panel with her fist. He stood back from the door and scanned the windows above.

‘Evie!’ Juliette yelled and banged a second time.

‘Call her again. I’ll try Jakob.’

She did but shook her head.

He left a message. ‘Jakob, let us in. We’re outside your front door and we’re worried about Evie. Please ring me straight away.’ He hung up. ‘They don’t have a landline?’

‘No. Let’s try the back.’

Ted felt uneasy as he followed Juliette down the side of the house to the rear of the property. Maybe they were upstairs having a tête-à-tête, but surely they would have heard them at the door. Something felt badly wrong.

The glass door to the kitchen was wide open. The light was on, the room empty.

Ted peered at the darkened lawn. ‘Anybody out here?’ he said loudly. His breath drifted back to him, but the only response was the muted sound of the motorway.

Juliette had already stepped over the threshold and edged across the wooden tiled floor to the breakfast bar in the middle of the kitchen. The polished tiles were Jakob’s pride and joy. He’d rescued them from a gutted church nearby and lovingly laid them there, all the way through the hall and into the dining room.

‘Evie? Jakob? We’re coming in!’ There was a nervous tremor in Juliette’s voice. She reached the sealed door into the hallway and paused. ‘I’ll try her again.’ She hit Evie’s number.

A loud extract of Funktown America’s ‘Celebrate Good Times’ made them both jump and their attention shifted to the phone vibrating on the floor in the kitchen.

Ted walked over to where it lay beneath the sink unit, then froze.

‘What is it?’ Juliette joined him there and examined it more closely too.

There were dark smears over the handset.

‘That is blood, isn’t it?’ Ted straightened.

Juliette nodded and turned back to the sealed door.

‘Wait. We should be careful.’

There was panic in Juliette’s eyes. ‘Call the police?’

‘Yes.’ Ted took out his phone.

A series of thumps from above them. They both looked upwards. Sounded like somebody walking across the floor.

Juliette hurried to the door, but Ted intercepted her there. ‘I’ll shout up the stairs. If there’s any sign of trouble we should both leave.’

Juliette nodded.

Before Ted could open the door they heard more thumping. ‘They’re coming down the stairs.’ He swung it wide and they hastened along a darkened passage with three open doors off it that led to the hallway. They glanced into each deserted room they passed. The third was the familiar dining area where they’d spent many an evening, the chairs tucked neatly under the long table at its centre.

When they reached the hallway, they heard the front door click shut. The light was on, but nobody was at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Have they just left?’ Juliette rushed to the front door and opened it.

They could hear the sound of receding footsteps on gravel.

‘Evie! Jakob!’ Juliette shouted.

They both held their breath and under the sound of his thudding circulation Ted heard the footsteps falter and stop.

‘It’s Juliette!’

They both gazed into the pitch blackness.

Then the footsteps started again and picked up speed.