Her Perfect Life: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist

‘And you’re sure you had them on when you walked through that door?’ He points his biro towards the hall.

‘Not one hundred per cent, but I’m usually pretty good about not leaving things behind.’

‘Did you go out that evening?’

‘No. I was packing for New York.’

‘Any more notes, phone calls or unwelcome cyber contact since you last spoke to Reeves?’

She shakes her head. He fixes her with his pale probing eyes. ‘I’m sure you know that this type of harassment is typical of someone who thinks you’ve humiliated them in some way or treated them unfairly. The trigger can be the smallest of slights or even something imagined, but it’s very real to them.’

‘Yes,’ she says. Why is he talking to me as if he’s reading from a charge sheet?

‘Can you think of anyone who might bear you a grudge? Someone from your past who might resent your success?’

Gracie wants to scream. She’s been over this a hundred times with Reeves, starting the morning she got the first note. Four words, printed on pristine white paper in the typeface she’s come to loathe.

How could anyone read a message like that and not search their past for an unpunished crime: a casual cruelty inflicted in a long-forgotten playground, the spurning of a lover, the blunt rejection of a grating, over-eager job applicant? She is guilty, she knows, of all these sins and more. Which is why the word deserve stays with her. Not you will die or you must die but you deserve to die as if, as those latex-gloved fingers typed the words and folded the note into the envelope, they were acting as agents of justice, disclosing a truth which Gracie’s own conscience was refusing to accept.

‘I can’t think of anyone I’ve hurt deliberately but there’s obviously someone out there who thinks otherwise.’

‘Anyone you’ve had problems with recently?’

I could shout it out, she thinks. Tell him everything: Yes, Inspector, there’s a girl my husband slept with who wants to destroy my marriage. But that’s not the line that she and Tom have agreed. She hunches forward, sliding her hands between her knees like a nervous child. ‘No.’

That look again, as if she is a specimen in a jar. ‘Anyone who’s come back into your life after a prolonged absence?’

‘Not that I can think of.’

He studies the file. ‘I see from the notes that these packages began soon after you moved into this house, then suddenly stopped about six months ago.’

‘Yes.’

‘Reeves thought the lull could be due to the culprit going to prison for another crime.’

He doesn’t volunteer what kind of crime Reeves thought that might be and Gracie, probably sensibly, doesn’t ask. He says hurriedly, ‘Personally, I think he’s wrong. Apart from this fixation with you I think your stalker probably behaves like a normal, law-abiding citizen.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Just a gut feeling, Ms Dwyer.’

Gracie’s fingers pull at the edge of her shirt. ‘What else does your gut tell you?’

‘Given the objects they pick, I think it could well be a woman, or a man and a woman working together.’

‘So why would they suddenly stop?’

‘Maybe they didn’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Not making contact for a while might be part of the power game. A ploy to keep you on edge, not knowing when, or if, it’s all going to start up again. Likewise the switch in packaging – trying to keep you guessing. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, stalkers who suddenly change their tactics to deny their target any sort of certainty. Now, have you got those names for me?’

Gracie fetches a printout from the countertop. She points to the two neatly typed lists and says in a small voice, ‘These are the people who were at the shoot and these are the ones who came to the house. I’ve marked everybody who’s been interviewed before.’

He raises an eyebrow, impressed by her efficiency. Gracie carries her mug to the sink and looks out across the river as she rinses away the coffee dregs. ‘They’re mostly other nannies that Heather’s had round after school.’

‘Heather … that’s your nanny, Heather Patterson?’

‘She’s been with us for three years. She’s totally trustworthy.’

‘And your husband?’

‘My husband?’ No, Inspector. My husband is not trustworthy.

‘Did he have people round while you were away?’

‘A few from his work.’ Gracie’s chest tightens as she bends to stack the mug in the dishwasher. ‘He’s an architect.’

‘Alicia Sandelson, is she a nanny?’

‘No. She’s one of Tom’s interns.’ The pressure on her chest grows unbearable, as if a giant hand is trying to flatten her. ‘She came to photograph the house. People do, especially students.’

‘All right, we’ll contact everyone on this list and I’ll get the earring and the envelope analysed but if they’re as clean as the other packages I can’t see us getting very far.’ He lifts the makeshift evidence bag between his thumb and forefinger and lets it sway. ‘It’s important that you stay vigilant. As I say, the culprit is probably the last person you’d expect to be capable of doing something like this.’

Gracie gazes out at the rain-puddled terrace, with its stone planters and tidy islands of paving and pebbles, her eyes drawn to an ugly little figurine that Louise brought back from a trip to Borneo. Its head is far too big for its clumsily dancing body, its eroded mouth is stretched wide in an eternal leer and its hollow eyes stare back steadily, mockingly, into hers.

9 (#ulink_1ffa592f-6045-5159-9cbf-ca6c293e1452)

Gracie pushes open the door of the steamy little trattoria in Meard Street and feels a choke of relief as she sees Daphne Dawes, lifestyle journalist, regular pundit on the daytime TV circuit and Elsie’s sporadically enthusiastic godmother, sitting in a dimly lit booth at the back, her face partially hidden by a fall of dyed red hair. Wine glass in one hand, phone in the other, she taps the toe of a shiny ankle boot against the table leg; an exotic oddity in this world of vinyl-covered banquettes, oversized pepper mills and autographed portraits fading in their frames. But Stefano’s is where she and Gracie come to thrash out their problems, attracted by the comforts of the unreconstructed menu and the certainty that they will never bump into anyone they know.

Gracie feels steadier as she squeezes towards her through the closely packed tables. Oddly, Daphne has had this effect on her since the day she teetered past Gracie’s cake stall in Broadway market, caught a kitten heel in a rise in the road and fell over. Despite her smudged makeup and mussy beehive there was a wobbly dignity about the way she ignored her bloodied knee, pulled herself into Gracie’s chair and lit a cigarette; and something brave and heartening about her snappy response when Gracie asked her if she was OK. ‘No. I’m bloody not. I’m hungover, I’ve just been dumped and my editor wants eight hundred words on the latest leisure trend by tomorrow. Oh yes, and it’s got to be sharp and funny.’

They agree that it was one of those moments when fate snaps her fingers and everything changes, though ten years on they still argue about whose idea it was for Daphne to devote her column to the joys of baking. Either way, Gracie couldn’t believe it when Daphne rang the next day to set up a photo shoot and asked for the address of her website. Still in her pyjamas, she managed to race to her laptop and pull the name Gracie’s Kitchen.com off the top of her head, twenty seconds before she clicked ‘confirm’ to buy the domain name. She’s still got that article, along with the letter it prompted, asking her to audition for an occasional baking slot on a daytime TV chat show.

‘Sorry I missed the launch,’ Daphne says, eyes still on her phone. ‘How’d it go?’

Gracie slides into the seat opposite. ‘All right.’

‘We’re running the first extract on Sunday. They’ve agreed to a sidebar plugging the series.’

‘OK.’

‘You could sound a bit more enthusiastic.’

‘It’s started again,’ Gracie says shakily. ‘One of my coral earrings and a note saying, “Hello Gracie.”’ Daphne’s thumb pauses. ‘Only this time the packaging was different, so I didn’t realise what it was till I’d opened it.’

‘Have you told Reeves?’