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

‘Look, Mummy, look what I made!’ Elsie is hopping from foot to foot, pointing to the ‘Welcome home’ banner strung across the door.

‘Wow, darling! That’s amazing!’

Tom lugs her bags across the hall and dumps them down while Elsie hovers close, pulling at the catches. ‘What did you get me, Mummy?’

‘Oh, no!’ Gracie claps her hand to her mouth. ‘I forgot to buy presents.’

Elsie howls with laughter and swings back on Gracie’s free hand, pivoting on one foot. ‘No you didn’t!’

Gracie unzips one of the suitcases and pulls out a pair of pink sequined trainers. ‘Ta – daa!’ She smiles at the joy on Elsie’s face, delves again and brings out a grey cashmere beanie hat for Tom that took her a stupid amount of time to choose. He pulls it on and wears it as they put Elsie to bed. They stretch out, one either side of her, while she hugs the trainers to her chest and Gracie opens The Worst Witch , picking up the story where she left off the night she left for New York. After a couple of pages Tom kisses his daughter and slips away, murmuring about supper. Hungry for one of his blackened, bloody steaks and some good red wine, Gracie smiles and glances up to watch him go.

She reads on until Elsie’s eyes flutter shut and her breath grows deep and steady, then she sits for a moment, drinking her in; the dark curls coiling across the pillow, the golden skin, the snubby little nose and chin – softened versions of Tom’s – before she kisses her forehead and runs down to the kitchen.

The absence hits her.

No clinking plates. No hissing pans.

So it’s a takeaway then. Their favourite Thai, or the new Burmese she’s been dying to try. Tom fills a glass and passes it to her. She sets it down beside the discarded beanie hat and moves closer, hips swaying, arms held high to slip around his neck. He stiffens, sweaty and grey, his pupils fixed, unwilling to focus even as he looks at her.

‘Tom?’

He pulls away and picks up a paper tub, still icy from the freezer. She moves forward, her eyes seeking the label on the lid. A little laugh erupts from her throat. Laugh with me, Tom. Tell me you love my fish pie. Tell me you didn’t want to waste time cooking on my first night back.

He clicks open the microwave and in it goes. Her homecoming supper.

‘I’ll make a salad.’ She bends into the fridge, little detonations of panic exploding down her spine.

Behind her he’s opening drawers, rattling cutlery, making noises that float in the silence. Thoughts stream across her mind like a band of breaking news: robberies, accidents, death, disaster. But how bad can it be? Elsie is tucked up in bed and the two of them are here, safe, together. Refusing to acknowledge the darker possibilities unfurling in her brain she tears at leaves, makes a dressing, picks up the servers.

The microwave pings.

‘It’ll need a few minutes in the oven to get crispy,’ she says.

He doesn’t move. She gives it a beat and says quietly, ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’

He stands looking at the floor, gesturing helplessly with his hands. ‘You have to believe me, Gracie. I never meant it to happen.’

She pushes at the rising dread. ‘Just tell me. Whatever it is we’ll deal with it.’

He drops into one of the narrow steel-backed chairs he designed himself, his head down, his fingers pressing into his scalp; long, sensitive, blunt-nailed fingers that wear the slim platinum band that matches hers. She reaches for the moment when she slipped it over his knuckle, the pride and nervousness she’d felt as everyone they cared about looked on. Please, God, let it be a problem with money or work. Something that can be borne, or fixed, or forgotten.

‘I swear I didn’t plan it. I hardly know her.’

‘ Her? ’ The word spurts like vomit through her teeth. She knows then that this is beyond fixing or forgetting.

‘We’d just lost the tender. I was drunk. We all were.’

She pictures the women she meets at ACP functions: attractive, smartly dressed women who smile at her and remember her name when she struggles to remember theirs, an eternity passing before she manages to whisper, ‘Who?’

‘One of the interns.’ Tom clenches his fists. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. I was in a bad way. You know how much I had riding on that job.’

All that fear, Gracie thinks. All that pain. It wasn’t enough to keep the precious things safe.

‘So you thought, oh, I know, I’ll fuck a twenty year old. That’ll cheer me up.’

‘No!’ His head hangs on his chest. ‘I lost it. I wanted to pass out, forget everything. Then someone called me a cab and suddenly there she was, telling me she’d always wanted to see the house.’

She backs away, her head shaking slowly. ‘Not here, Tom. Please don’t tell me you slept with her here.’

His hunched silence rips something inside her and all the quiet confidence she has built up over the years of her marriage comes spilling through the tear. She slithers down the wall, crushed by the realisation, stark and sudden, that the barrier between having everything and having nothing is as flimsy as a rejected blueprint.

‘Where was Elsie?’

‘Issy’s sleepover.’

That pinpoints the night. Gracie sees herself finishing up at the studios and rushing off to eat sushi with the crew. Sipping sake, discussing the next day’s running order, catching a cab back to her hotel room. Sleeping alone. She raises her head. ‘Is she beautiful?’

‘What?’

‘I said, is she beautiful?’

‘No! God, no.’ He says it vehemently, as if somehow this will exonerate him. ‘It wasn’t about that.’

She looks around her at her home, her life, her husband. All she sees is a tumble of rubble. ‘So what was it about, Tom?’

‘I don’t know.’ He presses his palms against the bevelled edge of the table and sinks his head towards the green of the glass. ‘I felt empty, angry. I couldn’t face being on my own.’

‘Don’t you dare put this on me. Don’t you dare!’

‘I’m not …’ He throws back his head and drags in air. ‘When I sobered up I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I told her it was a mistake and she went crazy. She … threatened me. She said she’d tell you and the board if I didn’t let her work on one of my projects.’

‘So did you?’

He swallows. ‘The Copenhagen clinic. But I won’t have to see her. I put her with the team working on the atrium and I’ve handed that side of things over to Geoff.’

As if this is penance enough, he kneels down and reaches for her. Her hands fly out, pushing him away, startling them both with her strength. ‘You’d never have done this to Louise!’

He jolts at the accusation, a shock response as if he’s been struck. She can see he’s steeled himself for fury, tears, distress. But not for this. She doesn’t care. He searches for words to deny it but the effort breaks him down into sobs. ‘It’s not about Louise.’