Sam Hepburn - Her Perfect Life - A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist

But there is guilt there too, at how good it had felt to be in New York. To walk from her mid-town hotel to the TV studios, join a queue for coffee or test out a lipstick untroubled by the glances of strangers or the scuff of a footfall catching up with her own. If the Americans buy her show is she crazy to think that at least in the States life could go back to the way it was before the threats began? When she enjoyed being recognised in the street, and jokey requests from passers-by to sign crisp packets, plaster casts and body parts made her laugh and reach for a Sharpie?

She folds forward rubbing her arms. Two weeks in New York have softened her, weakened her guard, but she feels it now, the wariness seeping back into her bones, stiffening her spine, vertebra by vertebra. How quickly it comes, she thinks, and a part of her accepts its return, welcomes it even; the part that still clings to the childhood belief that she can pay with pain to keep the precious things safe.

She glances up, drawn by the hiccupping wails of the baby across the aisle. He’s a square-faced little boy in a tiny checked shirt and denim dungarees, writhing in his mother’s arms and batting away the bottle she dabs at his mouth, just like Elsie did, all the way home from St Lucia that first summer she and Tom took her on holiday. Gracie remembers their helpless attempts to comfort her, the irritation of the other passengers and her own mounting fear that her mothering would never be good enough. The woman thrusts the baby and the bottle at her husband and stands up, smoothing her milk-stained T-shirt and wrinkled skirt. Gracie darts her a sympathetic smile. The woman is pregnant again, two, three months maybe; barely enough to show, but enough to draw her hands to the curve of her belly. The sight of those cupped, protective fingers loosens other memories. Gracie’s thoughts skid and slide away to seek calm among her plans for the weekend: the park with Elsie, bed with Tom.

Her heart beats hard as she returns the glazed goodbyes of the cabin crew and passes from the warmth of the plane into the cool of the covered walkway. Not long now. Tom will be standing in the arrivals hall, holding Elsie’s hand and pointing at the flashing ‘landed’ sign beside her flight number.

The baggage hall is busy, even for a Friday night. Fretful children traipse after ratty parents and hollow-eyed tourists grip their trollies and twist around looking lost. Gracie stands beside the carousel, head down, pretending to rummage in her handbag. The moment her suitcases bump into sight she sweeps them onto her trolley and runs.

‘Gracie! Gracie Dwyer! Would you mind?’

Damn! Heads crane. She feels them. Taking a breath she stops and turns. A middle-aged woman is fluttering towards her in a pale blue mac, phone held high, while her tall, balding husband stands by, clenching apologetic hands. ‘I love your show,’ the woman says, breathy with delight. She tilts the handset and presses her powdered cheek to Gracie’s as she clicks. ‘Your lemon and walnut tart is the only way I can get my son to come home.’

‘There’ll be lots more puddings in the new series, so make sure you catch it.’ Gracie’s smile is warm.

The woman glows and says coyly, ‘You know, you’re even prettier in the flesh than on TV.’

‘That’s very sweet of you, but after six hours in the air I feel like a total wreck.’

With another smile Gracie breaks away and hurries through ‘Nothing to Declare’.

The glass doors slide back. Her eyes flit across the waiting faces. A swell of joy as she spots them behind the barrier, jammed between a collection of bored drivers bearing name cards; Tom’s dark head, bent to check something on his phone, and Elsie, her gorgeous girl, reaching out shouting, ‘Mummy, Mummy!’

Gracie runs faster, letting her trolley roll away as she scoops Elsie into her arms and presses her nose into her hair. She lifts her face to Tom’s, eager for the greedy pressure of his lips. He’s bending down, snatching Brown Bear from the floor, returning him to Elsie’s outstretched hand and his kiss, when it comes, is almost lost in their exchange of eye-rolling relief at disaster averted.

Tom picks up her bags. She follows him to the car park, hand in hand with Elsie who jumps and skips, bursting with stories about school and sleepovers and other people’s dogs. When the fuss with luggage and seat belts is over Tom sits and holds the wheel for a moment before he turns the ignition. She sees a tiny patch of stubble he’s missed with the razor, six or seven coarse dark hairs standing upright and defiant on the curve of his jaw.

‘You OK?’ she murmurs.

‘Yeah, fine.’

‘You seem … tired.’

‘Oh, you know.’ He tilts the mirror and backs out of the space. ‘So, how did it go?’

‘The execs seemed happy enough. But in the end it’s all down to the focus groups.’

‘When will you hear?’

‘Could be weeks, could be months. But if they do go for it why don’t you bring Elsie over for the last week of the shoot? We could stay on for a few days, have a holiday.’

‘Depends what I’ve got on.’ He shoves the ticket into the machine. ‘Things at work are a bit … up in the air.’

The car gives a little jerk as he accelerates up the ramp and out into the grey Heathrow dusk, blustery gusts of rain buffeting the car. She lays her hand on his shoulder. ‘Pain about Bristow’s.’

He rams the gearstick and pulls out into the traffic. ‘If they want crap they’ve gone to the right place to get it.’

She twists round to catch Elsie’s sleepy story about the real witch’s cat she saw when she went trick or treating. ‘He had a little pointy hat and everything. ’ Gracie looks back, seeking Tom’s smile. The wet road holds all his attention. The raindrops on the windows glitter blue and green and red, brightening the darkness as he pulls off the M40 onto the rain-slicked streets of Hammersmith. The wipers thump and swipe across the windscreen. She murmurs softly, ‘Was there anything … in the post?’

He shakes his head without looking at her. ‘God, no.’

Gracie waits for him to acknowledge her relief, slide his hand through her hair and tell her how glad he is to have her home. But he’s flicking on the news – Syria, Iraq, the economy. She tries not to mind. Losing the Bristow’s tender will have hit him hard. All that work. All that build up. All that disappointment. Best to say nothing. They’ll talk about it later. When they are alone and she can comfort him properly. A flicker of warmth curls between her thighs.

As Deptford gives way to Greenwich she stares out at the ghostly domes of the old admiralty buildings, the winking blur of pubs and cafés, the narrowing streets and the stretches of river glimpsed between blocks of newly built flats. He pulls off the road onto a cinder track that winds past shadowy building sites caged by wire fences, lit here and there by the jaundiced flare of security lights. The tyres splash and bump through puddles of oily water until they find tarmac again. Tom clicks the fob, the security gates slide open and the pale glow of their house of glass rises through the darkness.

Gracie swings her legs out of the car. Blinking into the rain she turns to gaze across the vast black shimmer of the river to the glitter of lights on the Isle of Dogs. There is a taint in the air, a reek of rot pouring in from the sewers of the city and seeping up through the silt. A squat river barge chugs downstream, its bow lights casting a gauzy glow across the water. As the slide of the electric gates cuts off the view she turns back to the Wharf House. Even after three years she still has moments like this when she can’t quite believe that this minimalist expanse of glass and sunken spaces is her home. It took years to complete and won Tom a prize: a moment of glory and a shard of bronze sprouting through a block of granite. She remembers the first time he brought her to see the site; how she’d picked her way across the pipes and coils of cable lying idly in the mud, and nodded and smiled as he’d turned his back to the wind to steady the flapping plans, wishing she could lift her eyes to the skeleton of ribs and struts and see what he could see.