The Perfect Couple: The most gripping psychological thriller of 2020 from bestselling author of books like The Party and Have You Seen Her

by Lisa Hall

  ‘No, it’s not. I should have thought about it. I’ll explain to the owner what happened to Caro… I feel awful, especially after what happened at yoga today with the instructor.’ Rupert wants to make it up to her, but if he’s honest he doesn’t really know how to even start. Nothing like this ever happened between him and Caro, obviously.

  ‘Really, Rupert, I’d rather you left it.’ Emily takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly and forcing her mouth into a smile. ‘Let’s just have a nice dinner, like we planned. Ahh, here we go, menus.’ She turns the full-watt smile onto Gino who hands over the menus and discreetly backs away.

  Rupert eyes her carefully as she reads the menu, her face serious. Is that really all she’s going to say about his giant fuck-up? If it had been Caro then he would have been in serious shit, and they probably would have rowed for days. Emily must feel his eyes on her, as she looks up and smiles. ‘Are you ready to order?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rupert smiles back. She really does seem to be OK about things. He waves Gino over. ‘We’ll both have the veal, please, Gino. That’s OK with you, Em, isn’t it? It’s the best dish on the menu, I have it whenever I come here.’ Too late, he realizes he probably shouldn’t have said that last part.

  ‘Um, I quite fancy…’

  ‘It’s really, really good. We’ll have a bottle of Chianti to go with it, Gino.’ Rupert snaps the menu shut and hands it back, before turning to Emily. ‘Now, let’s concentrate on us. How was your first week as a lady of leisure?’

  ‘If I’m honest with you, Rupert, I’m not sure I’m cut out for this housewife lark,’ Emily says, tapping lightly on the table with her fork. ‘I’m not really enjoying being at home on my own.’ She looks as though she’d like to say more but doesn’t.

  ‘Em, it’s only been a week! Once you get in the swing of things, you’ll be OK. There’s always plenty of stuff to do at home; Sadie and Amanda are always busy.’

  ‘Well, Amanda still works, so of course she is.’ Rupert had forgotten about Amanda’s little interior design company she’d set up after marrying Will.

  ‘Sadie, then. Sadie always has stuff to do – I’m sure she can give you some ideas on how to keep busy. I mean, if you really want to work then of course you can, but I won’t lie to you, I am quite old-fashioned about things like that. I loved coming home to you tonight, seeing you curled up in the armchair waiting for me.’ Rupert reaches across the table and grasps her hands in his.

  ‘Well, Sadie has given me a few things to think about.’ Emily pauses as Gino brings over the wine and Rupert is made to taste it and approve it. She waits until Gino leaves. ‘We were talking about charity work and I know you have one that you like to donate to regularly… it might be something to consider.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Rupert says, sipping at the wine. It really is excellent – he’s sure Gino has brought them over a better vintage than they ordered. Presumably to make up for the faux pas when they arrived.

  ‘I think if I have things to do then perhaps I won’t have time to dwell on things so much… you know—’ Emily looks at him from under her lashes ‘—the feeling that someone is… there all the time.’

  ‘Yes, of course I understand. Look, Em, I just want you to be happy.’ And he does, but more than that Rupert just wants to eat, his veal has arrived, and the smell is driving him mad.

  ‘I am happy. I don’t want you to think I’m not, it’s just that I need to keep myself occupied. So, you’ll be OK if I contact the charity and see if there’s something I can do for them?’

  ‘Hmmm?’ Rupert looks up, his mouth full of food. ‘No, I don’t mind. You go for it. Have you tried this yet? It’s fantastic.’

  The mood lightens for the rest of the meal, both of them enjoying the spark of electricity that still leaps between them every time their hands accidentally meet, although Emily doesn’t manage to finish her veal, meaning Rupert gets to eat the rest. It’s an unexpected pleasure – Caro would only ever order a Caesar salad, and while she would never finish it, Rupert doesn’t find leftover salad quite so appealing. They talk about Sadie and Miles, about how Emily must meet the children properly soon (a statement that Emily admits makes her nervous – she has zero experience when it comes to entertaining children), and Emily asks about Rupert’s job, but he changes the subject. He really doesn’t want to talk about work on a Friday evening, even leaving his phone in his jacket pocket so he can’t check his emails.

  ‘I could get used to this married life lark,’ Emily says with a grin, nudging him in the side as they head back home, and Rupert thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s won her over on staying at home instead of working. They are both a little tipsy, after the wine, some grappa, and Rupert’s bright idea of an Irish coffee to finish the evening off. The walk back to the taxi rank takes longer than anticipated as they keep stopping to kiss under the streetlamps, like teenagers, unable to keep their hands off each other.

  As they step out of the taxi, Emily sighs and leans against Rupert’s shoulder. ‘Are you going to take me out for dinner every Friday night?’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Rupert laughs, ‘what will I get in return?’ He leers at her and she shrieks, kicking up gravel as she runs up the driveway towards the front door, before he catches her and they crash against the solid oak door, kissing, bodies pressed hard together. Emily breaks away, her cheeks flushed and pink as she fumbles for her key.

  ‘Come on, it’s bloody freezing out here now.’ She shoves open the door, kicking off her shoes and making her way towards the sitting room. ‘I forgot to tell you,’ she calls out as Rupert takes off his jacket and moves to follow her. Maybe they can go straight upstairs and finish what they started on the doorstep? ‘Your mother left a message. Something about Christmas… Oh.’

  ‘What is it?’ Rupert stands behind Emily, where she is frozen in front of the fireplace. He follows her gaze, to where, on a mantelpiece that Rupert is sure held only candles and a tiny Tiffany lamp earlier this evening, Caro’s face beams out from a photograph. Not just any photograph – framed in heavy silver, it’s Rupert and Caro’s wedding photo.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Did you put that there?’ My voice is strangled, and I rest my hand lightly at the base of my throat, my pulse jumping wildly under my fingers. The shock of seeing Caro’s face staring out at me from above the fireplace has made my chest tighten, my throat close over.

  ‘Me? No, I didn’t put it there.’ Rupert steps past me and I catch a whiff of his aftershave. Hugo Boss. I bought him a bottle of some swanky Tom Ford aftershave before the wedding, but he rarely seems to use it, instead reaching for the bottles of Hugo Boss that Caro bought him, left in the bathroom cabinet. Habit, I hope, but part of me wants to smash every bottle in the cabinet.

  ‘I’d rather you were just honest with me, Rupert. If you want a photograph of Caro on display, then that’s fine. You don’t have to sneak it onto the mantelpiece while I’m upstairs changing for dinner.’

  ‘I didn’t put it there, Emily! Do you really think that I’d put up a photograph of my dead first wife without speaking to you about it? Did you not notice that there are no photographs of Caro anywhere on display in this house?’ Rupert marches the few steps across the room to the fireplace and snatches the silver frame up, shaking it in my face.

  I take a step back, unnerved by how quickly Rupert has lost his temper. We’ve gone from pressed against one another, heat drawing us together, to icy cold within a few seconds. I’ve never seen him like this before; he’s always calm and laidback, nothing ever really seems to faze him. A thought flashes through my mind that maybe I don’t know him as well as I think I do.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ I almost shout the words, splaying my hands in a gesture of apology. Adrenaline makes my legs feel wobbly as I am back there in an instant, and it’s Harry’s voice I hear shouting at me, just before he lays his hands on me, leaving big, purple bruises on the pale skin of my arms. I draw in a ragged breath, trying to compose myself. This is Rupert,
not Harry. ‘I’m sorry, OK? But Rupert, if you didn’t put the picture up there and I didn’t put that picture up there, then who did?’

  Rupert stares down at Caro’s face and I am unsettled by the look that crosses his face as he takes in Caro’s features as if recommitting them to memory. ‘I don’t know. Didn’t you say Anya came today? Maybe she put it up?’

  ‘No. That’s just it.’ Exhausted, I sink into the huge, squashy armchair. ‘I don’t think she did come today. Amanda said she thought she saw someone leaving at lunchtime and assumed it was her, around the time I was about to crack Sadie’s head open with a poker. But if she did work today, then why were your clothes still left all over the floor when I came home?’ I scrub my hands tiredly over my face. Any good feeling from our evening out has been washed away in a tide of mistrust and anxiety, and I feel the irresistible urge to fight to get it back.

  ‘Maybe she had to leave suddenly?’ Rupert frowns. ‘I don’t know, Emily. But I swear to you that I didn’t put that picture up there.’

  ‘What if it wasn’t Anya? What if someone else did get in the house? Because someone put it up, Rupert. I found a lipstick on the bedside table today… and it matches that shade.’ I can feel a mildly hysterical note creeping into my voice as I gesture towards Caro’s face, trying to push away the panic at the thought of someone breaking into the house, while at the same time I feel an overwhelming sense of relief that I wasn’t imagining things.

  ‘A lipstick?’ Rupert looks confused. ‘It probably is Caro’s; she did live here.’

  There is something sharp underlying his tone and I have to blink hard, his words pricking my skin like tiny darts. ‘I know that, Rupert, believe me I am fully aware of how Caro lived in this house before me, but I still feel as though someone was in the house.’ I can’t help the bitter note that sours my tongue, my words coming out with a serrated edge.

  ‘Please, Emily, not this again.’ Rupert lays the photo down on the coffee table and comes to sit beside me. ‘Em, I’ve told you there’s nothing to worry about. Have you had anything else come to the house? Letters, texts, anything at all?’

  I shake my head, avoiding his gaze. ‘No. But that doesn’t mean…’

  ‘It does, Emily,’ Rupert says softly. ‘No one wants to ruin things between us. I hate to say it, but you are being a bit paranoid – I went through all of this with Caro and I don’t think I can do it again, do you understand?’

  ‘What are you saying,’ I turn to face him, a sick feeling building in my stomach, ‘that you’ll leave me?’

  ‘What? No, Emily, God, no.’ He takes my hands in his, his palms warm against my icy fingers. ‘I think you’re a bit overwhelmed, that’s all. I think you had a tough time with Harry, you told me that yourself, that he was violent towards you, that he threatened you, and I think maybe you’re anxious now that you’re finally happy, that someone will find some way to ruin it. I promise you, they won’t.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain how Caro’s photograph suddenly appeared on the mantelpiece though, does it?’ Rupert’s hand is stroking my hair and I have to fight down the urge to wriggle away from his touch. I can’t help feeling as though he is trivialising this. This isn’t about Harry; this is about us.

  ‘Well, who else was here today, who could have done it?’

  ‘Only Sadie and Amanda,’ I say, quietly. ‘They both came over for lunch, after the yoga class. That’s when Amanda said she thought she saw Anya leaving.’

  ‘Well,’ Rupert gets to his feet, picking up the photo frame. ‘It definitely wouldn’t be either of them.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you sure? That neither Sadie nor Amanda would have put that photograph on display? Because at the end of the day, Rupert, between the letter calling me a bitch and this – not to mention someone changing our wedding song – it feels as though someone is trying to come between us. Why not one of them? Sadie was Caro’s best friend, and Amanda was her sister-in-law.’

  ‘Out of the question,’ Rupert says, and there is a hint of finality in his tone, ‘you’re being ridiculous, Emily. Sadie was Caro’s best friend, now she’s yours. Amanda was Caro’s sister-in-law, and now she’s yours. No one is trying to come between us; the only thing that’s going to come between us is you thinking that everyone is out to get us.’

  I say nothing, blinking back hot tears as I try to process Rupert’s words. His reaction is not what I was expecting, and I don’t know how to respond. In the end, once I am sure I have my tears under control, I get to my feet trying not to let him see how he’s made me feel. How little and pathetic. ‘Of course, you’re right. I’m just being silly. I think I’d better go to bed. I’ve had a bit of a long day.’ I brush past him, pausing as I get to the bottom of the stairs. ‘If it’s OK with you, I’d prefer it you could put the photograph away, or at least display it somewhere a little less… prominent.’ Then I turn and hurry up the stairs, without waiting for an answer.

  I think about feigning sleep on Monday morning as I hear Rupert up and moving around, getting ready for work, but when he leans over and kisses me, I open my eyes.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. And I’m sorry about this weekend.’ We have barely spoken since Friday night, Rupert busy on Saturday with rugby, and then meeting Will for a few pints after, and me borrowing the car to spend Sunday in Salisbury, browsing the artisan market alone. It would have been that way regardless of whether we had argued on Friday night, our plans already made, but because we had argued, I’d felt as though I’d moved through the weekend under a thick black cloud. Rupert’s kiss is like a chink of sunlight on a grey day.

  ‘Me too.’ I give him a sleepy smile. Part of me does want to stay cross with him, at the way he just seems to brush my concerns aside, but I’ve been through so much to get where I am – to be with him – that I can’t. Rupert kisses me again properly this time, not even minding about morning breath, and I wait until I hear the door snick closed before I get out of bed. Heading straight for the bathroom, I shower quickly and brush my teeth. It sounds ridiculous, but it doesn’t seem to matter how many times I brush them, I still think I can taste Friday night’s veal at the back of my throat. I managed to mask my horror as Rupert ordered it for me, but I couldn’t eat it. I try to drown it out downstairs by making a large mug of coffee, and then heading upstairs to brush my teeth again, but it’s still there, coating my tongue and making me feel slightly nauseous. Or maybe that’s just nerves.

  I’m excited, my stomach fluttering at the thought of what I am about to do today. No more drifting around the house with nothing to do; I’m going to follow Caro’s lead. My mouth twists a little at the thought of Caro. Rupert and I didn’t discuss the photograph again after Friday night. I don’t know where he’s put it, and I don’t want to know either. All I do know is that it isn’t on display anywhere, and on Sunday evening when I got back from Salisbury, our own wedding photo was on display in the sitting room. Still, the very fact that Caro’s picture somehow found its way onto the fireplace makes me feel unnerved, as though Caro’s ghost floats through every room in the house. I wonder briefly whether to ask Sadie or Amanda about it but push the thought away. Like Rupert said, they are my friends now, even if I do feel as though I have only a tenuous grip on the friendship. I’m just starting to feel accepted, and I don’t want to accuse them of something and potentially rock the boat. I scoop up my bag and grab my scarf, realizing as I check my watch that I’m going to be late, and that wouldn’t do, not today.

  Half an hour later I am rushing along the pavement, head down and mindful of what I am about to do, when I collide with someone, losing my grip on my bag – tampons, pens and make-up tumbling out across the pavement as it hits the floor.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ I exclaim, as the guilty party, a man in a suit apologizes profusely before dashing away down the street without even offering to give me a hand to pick my things up. Sighing, I crouch down, biting my lip hard in frustrati
on.

  ‘Em? Is that you? Are you all right?’

  On hearing a familiar voice, I look up from where I am scrabbling in the gutter for my favourite mascara, aware of the soggy, blackened leaves perilously close to the hems of my designer jeans, to see Mags standing over me. ‘Oh, Mags.’ I swallow hard, suddenly caught off-guard. Mags is the last person I was expecting to see. ‘Hi. Yes, I’m fine, that… idiot just knocked me flying.’

  ‘Let me help you.’ Mags bends down and I am assaulted by that old familiar scent of patchouli oil and weed.

  ‘It’s fine, Mags, honestly,’ I say as Mags grabs the last of the detritus from the filthy pavement and slides it with a grimace into my bag. ‘I should…’

  ‘It’s been ages,’ Mags interrupts, ‘I haven’t seen you since you came and got your things. How was the wedding?’ Her voice is cool.

  I cringe inside a little, guilt making me feel hot and prickly. ‘It was lovely, thank you, I’m sorry I…’ I break off. I’m sorry I didn’t invite you, were the words on the tip of my tongue, but it seems too cruel to say it so bluntly. I had had every intention of inviting Mags to the wedding, had even started to write her name on an invitation, but when I thought about the way people – new friends like Sadie and Amanda – would look at Mags, the way Rupert had said, ‘Are you sure you want her there?’, I had torn the invitation in two and stuck it deep down into the kitchen bin. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No problem. I was probably busy that day.’ Mags sounds hurt, but she hides it with a cool smile, nothing like her usual wide grin. ‘Your new life seems to be suiting you, anyway.’ She looks me up and down, taking in the expensive jeans, the silk top, the Hermès bag that now swings from my forearm, a honeymoon present from Rupert.

  ‘Look, Mags, I really do have to dash, I’m sorry.’ Discreetly, I check my watch again, ‘I know I should have called, or come over, or something, but we’ve only been back from our honeymoon for a few days and things have been kind of manic.’