#2 In The Dark

Chap. 6_a Welsh monologue and canoodling in the corner?

Two minutes later, there was complete quiet in the restaurant. No-one was crying. No-one was speaking. The occasional deep sigh pricked the odd ear up, but, in reality, silence had effectively graced its presence on the party. And it was all very organised.

Also organised were the layout of people sitting down.

On one table, the Babbitts. Mum and Dad were either side of Owen, who was sat looking around, slightly impatiently, wearing that expression that he almost always wore. The expression that he wanted to say something. None of the people in the room doubted it either.

The next table along was the Askhams'. The ever-hushed girls sat in their creepy tryptic-esque way, like staring into a hall of mirrors. Esther and Colin were next to them, holding each other calmly, thoughts buzzing through their tired minds.

The next table, Alison, Russell, Huw and Mary were sitting. There was an awkward force between them, not visible just sensory. All three of Alison, Russell and Mary had lost someone close to them – more so with Alison and Russell – but Huw had a dead-pan, stony countenance, harsh but somehow unintimidating. Nevertheless, the three seemed like they all wanted to be alone. There was no contact between them, not even a sidelong glance. They were elsewhere.

And finally, came the last table along. Sat there were Rob and Frank, whose real names had now been exposed to everyone along with Sarah's. But Sarah was standing and facing the four tables, all in a line.

She'd organised this, promising them answers. But 'only if they were completely silent', she'd said, much to Owen Babbitt's dismay.

Since Yasmin's suicide, there was now something different about everything. It was out of their control. Because Yasmin died exactly on the 10 minutes mark. She could've done it a second before or after, but she didn't. And she wasn't wearing a watch – Rob had checked her body. Somehow, the voice up above had perfectly predicted everything. Or something else was going on. And that was what Stark was worried about.

"Hello, everyone," she started cautiously, breaking the long pause, "I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Detective Inspector Sarah Stark. This is my... well... boyfriend, I suppose, Frank Matthews. And next to him, is my ex-boss Rob Easton."

Rob shot a stare at Sarah. She'd revealed their cover. But he soon changed perspective. There's nothing else she could've done, Rob.

"Rob invited Frank and I here, to discuss a business proposition, and we assumed false aliases due to not arouse suspicion of anyone watching. I'm fairly confident none of you lot are spies, so I'll carry on."

A small wave of titters briefly skimmed the rest of the room. Let's hope they've lightened up a bit.

"As a current police officer, I tried to adapt that for the character I was playing as my false identity, but thanks to Frank, here..."

She gestured towards him, and he suddenly became very unprotected from glares at him, from most of the room, including Sarah.

"... that didn't work. And I'm sorry we lied. I am. But we had to make sure we weren't noticed. That's out of the window now. So we can move on."

She took a deep breath. That had been hard to say.

"Now has anyone got any questions?" she asked.

"Yes," Huw said almost immediately. "How can we trust you now, if you lied before?"

The man had taken an instant step back, after their identities were revealed. And he was steadfast in staying there, it seemed.

"Because there are 15 of us left here. And one of us is going to die in seven minutes," she coolly said, checking her phone for the time. "Meaning in two and a half hours' time, there'll only be two of us left. One the killer, one not. And they're both going to suspect each other. Who knows what'll happen? So please, Huw, to save ourselves, just trust me for these two and a half hours. Have a little faith in me, and then you can hate me for as much as you like afterwards."