Prologue Prologue JULY 1999 It was the last Friday in July and I was trying hard not to panic about the deadline when Lily made the suggestion that would change everything. "I've had an idea," she said, in that measured tone of hers. "I want to devise a test that will tell us if someone is a psychopath." There were only three of us left in the library: Lily, Sophie, and me. The others had gone outside to smoke or get some air while we carried on working, though at least we were cool in that dark-paneled room that the sun barely touched. The library was now a makeshift office. Antique tables and chairs with wobbly legs had been dragged in from other rooms, and cables snaked across the floorboards to connect the fruit-colored iMacs that we'd been sitting in front of since first light. We were spurred on by the date that was written on a whiteboard and propped on a shelf in the fiction section. The launch date, just four weeks away. The fiction section was apt because there was no way the site would be ready by then. But we kept hearing rumors that our rivals were going to beat us to the punch, that they would revolutionize online dating, not us. "No prize for second," Sebastian kept saying, and we could always tell when he'd been on the phone to his chief investor. He would march into the office, sweat gleaming on his creased brow, and demand to know exactly what we had achieved that day. "This is our revolution," he said to us many times. "We can't let them take it from us." I could hear the professor upstairs in his study now, pacing from one end of the room to the other. I looked up. One of the dogs, sitting by my feet, lifted his head too. "I want to help him," Lily said, following my gaze toward the ceiling. And that was when she came up with her suggestion. A test to identify psychopaths, a subject I had been obsessed with over the past couple of weeks, since we'd been up there, in Sebastian's study, searching through his papers and scouring the psychology periodicals that he still subscribed to. "We could ensure it was reliable, trustworthy, something he could use in his other work. What do you think? Will? Sophie?" A test. Hadn't we done enough of those this summer? I'd been tested before I even met the professor and since coming here, to his house, I'd spent hours in front of the computer, completing questionnaires, trying to figure out how much I agreed or disagreed with statements like I feel comfortable around strangers . "How would you go about it, Lily?" That was Sophie. She was seated across from me, leaning forward with her elbows on her desk, her wavy black hair tumbling around her face; a face I found it hard not to stare at. Lily smiled. "I haven't quite figured that out yet. I'll have to make sure it's not easy to fool." I could almost hear the crackle of that remarkable brain, the firing of synapses, as she grabbed a pad and pen and began making notes. Sophie and I got up from our desks and peered over Lily's shoulder. She scribbled fast: a flow chart, arrows, and question marks. Beyond the library I could hear chatter and laughter. My colleagues. After a month at the professor's, I was still unsure how many of them I could call friends. "What do you think?" Lily asked, when she'd finished making notes. I picked up her notepad and tried to make sense of it. I quickly put it down again. It was like being a work-experience kid on the Manhattan Project. "Will?" I chose my words carefully. "It sounds... interesting. And I want to help the professor too. But aren't we busy enough? Everything we're here to do. Our stock options. All of it. We're already running out of time." Lily had the smile of a benevolent dictator. "It will be fine. I have the capacity, Will. I'll base it on the same algorithm we're using for the site. It's just another form of psychometric testing, really. And if I can't pull it off, we won't have lost anything." A pause. "So? Shall we do it?" I caught Sophie's eye, thinking about another test we'd taken and the results it had spat out, and I wondered if that would ever lead to anything or if work and pressure would get in our way. We still had so many problems that needed fixing. Words that had to be written and polished. Bugs squashed. I was about to tell Lily we were too busy, that it would be too difficult. A test to catch a psychopath? I had faith in her genius, but did she really have time? And could she really create a test that a psychopath wouldn't be able to fool? But as I opened my mouth to put forward my argument, Sophie said, "I'm in. I think it's a brilliant idea. Surely you do too, Will?" They both turned to me and I swallowed my words. I simply couldn't say no to them. "Let's do it," I said, and both Sophie and Lily clapped their hands. "What's all the excitement about?" Georgina came into the room, followed by the others, smelling of cigarettes and sunshine, the spaniel rousing himself and running over to greet them, tail a happy blur. Once everyone was inside, Lily began to tell them about her idea, explaining that we would all need to take part, volunteer to be tested, just as we'd acted as guinea pigs for the dating site. As they listened to her, the ceiling creaked again. Sebastian, still up there, pacing. I looked over at my colleagues. Sebastian's six hires and the other two, spending all our time together, sunrise to sunset and sunset to dawn. No one had protested, not then anyway, although there were one or two frowns of doubt, signs of disquiet that would come out later. At that point though, there were no arguments, and I knew that, at some point in the coming weeks, we would all risk exposing a darkness in ourselves. A difference. I looked around again, as the conversation turned toward the evening, to plans, to beer and wine and a dip in the lake. The genius. The lothario. The salesman. The affluent couple, the joker, and the local girl. Finally, me, the wordsmith, whose role was to write it all down. If any of us were a psychopath, I already had a good idea who it would be. Chapter 1 1 FEBRUARY 2024 Of course Georgina and Theo lived in an enormous house. Out of all of us, they were the ones who had always been the most likely to achieve success. As individuals, each would have made something of themself, I had no doubt of that. But as a couple? They were unstoppable. Still, even after the invitation had landed on my doormat and I'd checked the address on Google Maps, I hadn't expected the Howard residence to be quite so impressive. It was a Georgian town house, four stories plus a basement, the last one on a row of imposing terraces in Notting Hill. The house to its left was covered with scaffolding that appeared to have been there some time, green netting flapping in the wind. Next door to the right, set just a little way apart from the row of terraces, was a grand detached house that seemed empty too, its windows dark, the wrought-iron gate secured with a chain and padlock. Between these two unwelcoming buildings the Howards' home stood even prouder and taller, its front windows illuminated, the white paintwork immaculate, a family home that happened to belong to two people I had once known but hadn't seen for over twenty years. It had taken a death to bring us back together. You are cordially invited to a dinner party to celebrate the life of SEBASTIAN MARLOWE Hosted by Theo and Georgina Howard RSVP The invitation was printed on thick ivory card, a little grubby at its edges now where I had examined it so many times. Beneath the RSVP was an email address and, on the back, in looping cursive handwriting, a personal message written in blue ink: Dearest Will. Please come! All the old gang will be there and it will be lovely to remember the professor. Can't wait to catch up. G xx Catch up. Tell us what you've been up to for the past twenty-five years. It would take twenty-five seconds. And it was that thought, picturing Georgina's attempts to suppress the pity she felt for me, that almost sent me back to the tube station, back to my little flat south of the river, where I would spend another evening in front of the TV, waiting for the Deliveroo driver, sharing my dinner with Bernard, my cat--my sole companion since Danielle had left. Bottle of supermarket wine and the optimistic opening of my laptop, the blinking cursor on the blank page. Waiting for me to tell my story. That blinking cursor was one of the main reasons I'd accepted the invitation. "Will?" The voice, male, came out of the darkness. It was a voice I hadn't heard in a long time but was instantly familiar. Rohan stepped into the sodium light, brandishing a piece of card that matched mine. "Mate," he said. "I'm so happy to see you. I thought I might be the only one stupid enough to come." He grinned as I put out my hand. "A handshake? Come on, man. Bring it in." He pulled me into an embrace, patting my back before releasing me and saying, "You're still as skinny as ever." "You're looking good," I said, though I wasn't sure I meant it. It's always a little depressing to meet up with people you haven't seen in over twenty years; a reminder that youth is a speck in the rearview mirror. There were dark smudges beneath his eyes, like he'd suffered through a few sleepless nights, and he'd filled out since I'd last seen him. But in other ways, Rohan looked distinguished: his black hair was streaked with silver and he was dressed well. I told him so: "Looking sharp , I should say." He held his overcoat open. "The suit? You like it?" Beneath the streetlight I could see it was midnight blue, well made. "My brother-in-law's a tailor." So he was married. I was going to ask the customary question about whether he had kids--a little later in the evening I would find out that he had two boys, aged nine and eleven, and that he'd been married to Anika for thirteen years--but before I could say anything he let out a whistle as he swiveled on his heels and took in the house. "Look at this place." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "Know how much it's worth?" He told me. It was the kind of figure that's hard to comprehend, mind-boggling even for London. "What do they do?" I asked, somehow knowing he would have looked it up. "For a living, I mean?" "Theo is in investment banking. Do you remember James? Sebastian's angel investor? Apparently, he gave Theo his first break." I did remember him. A flash bloke who drove a Porsche and couldn't keep his eyes off Sophie. "I'm not sure about Georgina, but her family were loaded, weren't they? Probably inherited a fortune. Whatever--can you imagine? Being able to afford a place like this?" "How do you know I'm not loaded? I might have flown here in a gold helicopter." He laughed. "I've been keeping an eye on the bestseller lists, mate. Waiting to see your name. Hasn't happened." "Not yet." "But when it does you'll be able to afford a gaff like this, right? Maybe a decent suit." I tried not to look offended. I was wearing my nicest clothes: a shirt that Danielle had bought me the Christmas before last and a smart pair of Levi's. My coat, which had seen me through several wet English winters, was a little thin though, especially in this biting wind. "Do you know who else is coming?" Rohan asked. "All the old gang, apparently." These words, quoted from the back of the invitation, sent a little shiver through my veins. "Nice. I saw Lily a few years ago at a conference. She's married with kids too. I think she told me her wife is a lawyer." "You sound surprised." A shrug. "I never pictured Lily getting married." I hadn't either. For someone who had worked for a dating site, Lily had been remarkably uninterested in romance. "What about Sophie?" I asked, trying to sound casual. "Do you know what she's up to?" "Yeah, married to a firefighter. Eight kids." "Oh. I never--" He erupted with laughter. "Mate, your face. I haven't got a clue what happened to her. She's not on Facebook or anything." I already knew she wasn't on social media, not in a way that was easy to trace, anyway. I'd looked for her several times, late at night when I'd had a couple of drinks and started thinking about the past. "Have you stalked all of us?" I asked. "Of course. Actually, I sent you a friend request about ten years ago. Guess you never saw it. Or maybe you didn't want to be friends with your old colleague." He thumped me playfully on the shoulder. "It's all right, I don't hold grudges." A wink. "Much." We went up the front steps, Rohan ahead of me. I tried to remember if I'd seen and ignored his friend request. I had no memory of-- A noise stopped me dead. "Did you hear that?" I asked. He had reached the top step. "Hear what?" I held up a hand. "Wait." We both paused, listening. It had been faint. Muffled. But I was sure I hadn't imagined it. It had sounded like someone crying out. Distressed. Possibly in pain. "What exactly did you hear?" Rohan asked. But I didn't get a chance to answer, because the front door opened and there, before me, stood two more people I hadn't seen since the summer of 1999. Theo stepped forward first, pumping Rohan's hand, and then Georgina was there with air kisses, the scent of expensive perfume, her cheek warm against my cold face. "Just you two?" she said. "So far." "Come in, it's freezing." Theo gestured for us to go inside. The three of them went in--Rohan telling Georgina she hadn't aged at all; her half-hearted protests--but I held back, waiting to see if the noise came again. Cars rushing by on neighboring streets. The metronome thump of music and a dog barking in the distance. The background hum of London. No cries. No shouts. I let it go and followed them in. Excerpted from The Wasp Trap: A Novel by Mark Edwards All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
