Читать книгу Her Perfect Life: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist - Sam Hepburn, Sam Hepburn - Страница 24

Juliet is drumming her fingers on the wheel, impatient for the lights to change when a sleek blue Audi draws up beside her. She catches the glare of the woman at the wheel. OK, so she’s finishing a fag with her kid in the car. Big deal. She pings the cigarette through the open window. It hits the Audi’s bonnet and spins away in a shower of sparks.

‘Here you are, love.’ She passes a box drink over her shoulder.

In the rear-view mirror she watches Freya pierce the seal on the box, a rush of heat beneath her skin as she asks, ‘What’s the new girl like?’

Freya puts the straw to her lips and sucks happily, rocking her head in time to some inner song.

‘The new girl. Elsie.’ Juliet raises her voice over the rattle of the engine. ‘Dark plaits, pink leotard. Is she nice?’

Freya stops sucking and wiggles her front tooth with her thumb.

‘Would you like to be her friend?’

‘Liane’s my friend.’

‘Elsie could be your friend too.’

‘Liane says I can be her friend forever. Even if I stop ballet again.’

‘You’re not going to stop ballet again.’

‘If you don’t have money, I don’t mind.’

‘I told you. It’s fine. I’ve got a big new project lined up.’

‘What’s for tea?’

Juliet’s thoughts flick to the dwindling contents of the freezer. ‘Spaghetti meatballs. And if you’re a good girl you can have some ice cream.’ She makes a sucking sound and waggles her shoulders – a feeble pretence that another ready meal and the scrapings of a budget tub of vanilla are some kind of treat.

The woman in the Audi draws level again, shaking her head and tutting. The porridge-faced kids she’s got in the back are probably going home to steamed salmon and organic broccoli, paid for by some sodding banker. But it’s not just the money. Juliet has never been much of a cook and she’s been so busy chasing work she hasn’t had time to get to the supermarket. Maybe tomorrow she’ll make Freya her favourite cauliflower cheese and pick up a bag of apples or tangerines. Something healthy. The thought jolts her back to Gracie Dwyer.

When she’s home again, slamming the door on the microwave, sweeping plates into the sink, pushing work files to the edge of the table, her phone beeps. A brush-off from Ryder’s. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! She wrenches the plastic tray out of the microwave and stares down at the sloppy mess of meat and sauce, biting on her lip as the burn of disappointment gives way to a sharpening sense of purpose. She tips the meatballs onto a plate and carries it over to Freya, who’s on the sofa glued to Hollyoaks.

‘Elsie’s mummy seems nice.’

Freya’s eyes swivel glassily from the television to her plate. Enough for today, Juliet thinks. Small steps. She retreats to her bedroom with her laptop, kicking the chair round so it faces the little desk she uses when she needs privacy, aware now of just how wound-up she feels. She rifles through her cuttings drawer, snatching up a photo of Gracie hosting a charity auction, microphone in hand, looking for all the world like a fifties pinup with her taffeta swing-skirt, crimson lips and Betty Page hair-do.

She slams the drawer shut. A Google search throws up some shots of Gracie with that mouthy journalist friend of hers at some glitzy restaurant launch, the trailer for her latest TV series and her top tips for making a perfect bloody pavlova. After that it’s mainly stuff Juliet has picked over a hundred times: fawning interviews about her charity work and pieces about the sale of the Wharf House. She gazes at a carefully staged press shot of Gracie and Tom, arm in arm on the steps, before stabbing the photo off the screen. Breathing fast she spools down to the coverage of the stalking campaign – the little maggot gnawing at the core of Gracie’s glossy world: the leaked messages, the apology from the police, a psychiatrist’s comments on the mind-set of the stalker and acres of tabloid prurience dressed as sympathy – the kind of exposure that money can’t buy. The kind that works wonders for TV ratings and book sales. Her fingers tighten on the mouse. Gracie’s just been appointed patron of the Stay Safe support group for victims of stalking. Juliet can guess who put her forward for that and even she has to admit it’s a genius move. But Gracie Dwyer hardly needs a PR machine to power her success. It’s as if she’s golden, blessed, untouchable.

Sticky clots of resentment stay with her all evening, thickening her misery as she puts off the moment when she’ll have to tell Freya Ian’s news.

‘Daddy’s back from Sydney,’ she says in a strained upbeat voice as she tucks her into bed.

Freya stops bouncing her hippo on the pillow and looks up with a sleepy smile. ‘Can he come and see my dance show?’

‘You can ask him when you see him. He’s going to take you out this weekend.’

‘Can you come too?’

‘No, love. I’ve got too much work on.’ If only. Juliet hitches her legs onto the bed and wriggles down so they lie face to face. Freya gazes at her with steady brown eyes, blinking as Juliet reaches over to brush back a strand of hair that has fallen across her cheek.

‘He told me something really exciting.’ For a moment the words sit on her tongue, too painful, too powerful to speak. ‘He and Merion are going to have a baby. It’ll be your little brother or sister.’

Freya pushes her nose into the hippo’s fur and turns away to the wall. Juliet pulls her close, feeling the warm press of her back. ‘It doesn’t mean he’ll love you any less. And if my new project works out we’ll have all the money we need to do lots of fun things together. You and me. We might even be able to buy a flat of our own, maybe with a little garden.’

She lies in the half light, feeling the stillness of Freya’s held breath and the flutter of her ribs when she finally speaks. ‘Is my daddy going to marry Merion?’

Juliet’s voice rises high. ‘I don’t know.’

Kids are strange. Instead of worrying about sharing her daddy, she’s tuned straight in to Juliet’s fears about Ian wanting a divorce, as if somehow she senses her mother’s dread of a judge getting involved in the decision about custody.

Restless now, she kisses the top of Freya’s head and slips away to the sitting room where she lights a cigarette and logs onto Merion’s Facebook page. She clicks through the posts. No mention of wedding plans or even of the pregnancy and she is calm, calm, calm until she sees a post from last week and has to get up and there’s no room to walk off the panic so she’s beating at the wall with the side of her fist. Ian and Merion are buying a house in Sydney – a five-bedroom executive home. Juliet doesn’t give a damn about the price tag or the size of the pool. It’s the developer’s blurb that is tearing her up, the chatty The perfect home for a growing family, designed to accommodate the needs of children from tots to teens, that drags a silent yell from her throat.