Praise for The Perfect Father
‘I absolutely loved The Perfect Father! A real thriller of a ride with a twist I did NOT see coming’ Nikki Smith, author of All in Her Head
‘Unpredictable, tense and engrossing, The Perfect Father will challenge your perceptions of parenthood and keep you hooked from the first page to the last’ Rebecca Fleet, author of The Second Wife
‘Modern, smart and fast-paced, this thriller had me hooked from the first page’ Ruth Heald, author of I Know Your Secret
‘I love Charlotte’s dark, messy takes on modern relationships, and this is no exception’ Claire McGowan, author of The Push
‘I loved this book. The Perfect Father is an emotional and intelligently written thriller. The twists are so expertly woven in that at times I had to pause to let them sink in. Highly recommended’ Elisabeth Carpenter, author of The Woman Downstairs
‘Such realistic, well-drawn characters, gripping emotional plot twists (that also feel rooted in reality) and a really distinctive story style’ Nicola Mostyn, author of The Love Delusion
‘Doctor Foster meets Gone Girl. Tense, twisty and deeply unsettling’ B P Walter, author of Hold Your Breath
Charlotte Duckworth has spent the past fifteen years working as an interiors and lifestyle journalist, writing for a wide range of consumer magazines and websites. She lives in Surrey with her partner and their daughter. You can find out more on her website: charlotteduckworth.com.
Also by Charlotte Duckworth
The Rival
Unfollow Me
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Quercus
Quercus Editions Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © 2020 Charlotte Duckworth
The moral right of Charlotte Duckworth to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
PB ISBN 978 1 52940 8 300
EB ISBN 978 1 52940 8 294
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook by CC Book Production
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
For Sophy
Contents
Praise
About the Author
Also By
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Now
Robin
Esther
Three Years Earlier
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Now
Esther
Two Years Earlier
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Now
Esther
One Year Earlier
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Now
Esther
One Month Earlier
Robin
Esther
Robin
Esther
Esther
Now
Esther
One Month Earlier
Robin
Esther
Esther
Robin
Esther
Esther
Robin
Esther
Now
Esther
One Week Earlier
Esther
Esther
Esther
Robin
Esther
Now
Esther
Esther
After
Esther
Acknowledgements
Now
Robin
Sorry.
The message to Esther was a mistake. But I meant it.
My cheeks are wet. I swipe at the tears, sniffing so aggressively my nose aches.
Sorry.
I am sorry now. Sorry I sent it.
Never mind. Too late. No going back.
Literally, no going back.
I stare at the clock behind the steering wheel. We’re lucky, rush hour is at least forty-five minutes away, the traffic is light – or as light as it ever gets in this part of London. This traffic-clogged Petri dish of Boden kids and city fathers and yoga mothers that we call home.
How did I even end up here?
I glance in the rear-view mirror. Riley is staring out of the window from her car seat, taking in the parade of filthy shopfronts we pass. Soon we’ll be on the A24 and then . . . what?
The ferry to France?
Or Gatwick? Riley’s never been on a plane.
If we go to Gatwick we’ll have to leave the car.
I sit back in my seat, my mind running through all the possibilities. The traffic lights ahead turn to green as I approach and I accelerate hard through them: 30 . . . 35 . . . 40 mph. I revel in the empty road ahead.
Just one more turn and then I hit the A24. Riley laughs as the car’s engine roars. My fearless kid. I glance back at her; she’s clapping her hands. Thrilled at the adventure.
We are a team. There is nowhere she’d rather be. No one she’d rather be with.
I hit 65 mph. The sense of freedom is exhilarating. The tears dry up.
Seventy now. I take my phone out of my pocket, fumble to switch it on. My battery has four per cent left. Just enough to look up ferry times.
France first.
France first, just to give us some distance, and then we’ll make a proper plan.
Esther
Sorry.
That’s all Robin’s text message said. What does that mean? By the time I turn the corner on to our street, my hands are shaking so violently I’m not sure I’ll be able to turn the key. Please God, please God, just let me find them at home as usual. Let him have sent that message to me by mistake. A stupid, thoughtless mistake. Or a joke. Yet another joke I don’t understand.
We’ll be laughing about it in a few minutes. Please, please.
I spent t
he entire journey here talking myself down from the edge, like the rational woman I am, reading over Amanda’s reply to my message, telling me that she dropped Riley off with Robin just before 3pm. That he seemed a bit preoccupied, but no more so than usual. Nothing that gave her any cause for concern.
But . . . a bit preoccupied?
I phoned, said I was worried I hadn’t heard from him and asked her to pop round to ours, to see if he was there, but she was at the swimming pool with Madeline and wouldn’t be back for ages.
No matter how my mind torments me, there is one thing I know for sure: he would never hurt her. He adores her. He’s looked after her since she was born, so that I could go back to work as soon as possible. Back to the career I love. Their bond is undeniable.
I push open our small gate – newly painted – and I run up our front path. The house is pitch-dark, but the front door is ajar. The panic sets in again, followed closely by anger. What the hell is he playing at? Why is the front door open?
I swallow the vomit that rises to my throat, as salty and disgusting as seawater, then I push the door open fully, fumble for the light switch and squint as the spotlights blind me.
‘Rob!’ I call out in the silent house. ‘Rob! Where are you?’
My voice soon becomes a scream. I race from room to room, but there’s no one here.
There’s no one here.
I grab my phone from my bag and ring his number again, but it goes to voicemail, as it has done ever since he sent that text message. There’s nothing too unusual about that – he often has his phone switched off.
I try to think. Where could they have gone? It’s nearly 4.15pm. They might be at the park. They’re probably at the park.
But it’s freezing outside.
And why was the front door open?
I check the coat rack in the narrow hallway. Riley’s coat is not there. Neither are her little boots. His shoes are missing. He has taken her somewhere. But where?
Why is he sorry?
I look around our shiny new house, remembering a time when I thought the extension project wouldn’t end. It was meant to be a fresh start. It’s not a big house, but it’s big enough for the three of us.
But now. Now that it’s just me, standing here alone, it feels too big.
Of course it’s too big. Riley isn’t here. Her absence is the biggest space of all.
I go through to the kitchen, wondering who to call. The police? Would that be an overreaction? What if that just made everything worse? And then my phone pings.
A message from my friend Vivienne, telling me that she’ll have Robin ‘disappeared’ as a birthday present for me if I like? Her humour has always been the blackest, yet the timing of her message is unnerving.
I stare around at our shiny new kitchen, the immaculate white stone worktops gleaming at me. The space is cavernous, and it echoes. It’s too empty. It’s empty of everything: warmth, trust, passion. Just like our marriage of late.
I turn again and then I notice that the biggest kitchen drawer is open wide. The drawer in which we fling all the stuff that has no other home: batteries, key rings, paracetamol, old Calpol syringes, pens that have nearly run dry . . .
The doorbell chimes, catching me unexpectedly. Please let it be them. Please let it be him bringing her home.
I rush through the hall to the front door. But when I open it, I don’t find my husband. Or my daughter. My tiny, vulnerable two-year-old girl.
Instead, there are two police officers: one male, one female, their breath misting in the cold.
Sorry, his text message said.
What has he done?
Three Years Earlier
Esther
Pregnant.
This is what we both wanted, so why do I feel so shocked? Perhaps it’s the fact that I had resigned myself to it never happening. To this never happening – this moment of staring down at the pregnancy test, and not just seeing the usual single line, staring sadly up at me.
Two lines. Two pink lines!
My eyes fall on the huge pile of paperwork we took home from the IVF clinic last week, sitting right opposite me on the coffee table. The complicated array of different options, and pricing plans and decisions that needed to be made: would I like my tubes flushed first as a precaution?
Suddenly, none of it is relevant any longer. We can burn it all: all the paper and the jargon and the decisions and the appointments.
‘How?’ I say. ‘How is this . . . possible? After what they told us, after what they said . . . nearly two years! Two years of trying . . . why . . . how?’
I’m so bewildered by it all, so terrified that it’s a mistake, that the test is faulty.
‘I’ll do another test,’ I say. ‘Just to be sure.’
But I am sure. I know it, I feel different. So different from all those months when I had held my hopes up as high as I possibly could, only to have them punctured by that single pink line again.
The second test confirms the first. I am pregnant.
All my dreams come true.
I sit back down on the sofa in the living room of our tiny flat, our pride and joy, the shared creation that we are both so passionate about. I pull the check blanket over my legs, a souvenir from our latest minibreak in the Highlands, turning the situation over in my mind. Robin sits beside me, still. So very still. It’s unlike him; he’s usually a ball of energy.
He hasn’t said anything yet.
‘Rob . . .’
I think about his reaction when I showed him the pregnancy test, trying to work out what the facial expressions meant. I’m nearly thirty-eight. We’ve been together for five years. The most unlikely of couples. Me, Mrs Sensible, with my first-class English degree and reluctance to drink more than one glass of wine at any occasion. Him, Mr Reckless, smarter than me but not academic, quick-witted and sociable, the non-stop talker, the life and soul of a party who can never have ‘just one’.
Opposites attract, I always say to people. We bring out the best in each other.
We got married two years ago. Just woke up one freezing Saturday morning in February and marched down to the registry office and did it. Dragged two witnesses in their fifties off the street – they were less enthusiastic about it than we’d hoped, and we laughed about them afterwards, how unromantic their souls must be. Swore never to end up like them. Came home and interspersed making love with eating Ben & Jerry’s straight from the tub for the rest of the day. The high I felt afterwards lasted weeks.
It remains the most unlikely and the most spontaneous thing I’ve ever done. But at the same time, I had never felt surer of a decision in my life.
We started trying for a baby straight away. I have wanted this for so long, but now I feel terrified.
It’s almost too much, isn’t it? To get everything you ever wanted? No one gets everything they ever wanted.
‘Rob, say something!’
Why is he so quiet?
At best, he is stunned. At worst, he is devastated. Did he secretly hope it would never happen?
‘I need to work out the dates,’ I say, pulling my phone towards me. ‘It’s December now, so that means . . .’
‘August,’ Robin replies. ‘I think. Shit. The festival. An Edinburgh baby!’
He beams.
‘That’s nice,’ I say, stupidly. The festival. Typical that he should think of that straight away. ‘A summer baby. I always wished I had a summer birthday.’
In a moment, my life has changed completely and forever. Like a train suddenly switching track. No way back. Whatever the outcome, this will define me, my life, my story.
A baby.
My face breaks into a smile; a strange gurgle of childish glee escapes.
I’m pregnant!
But then I think of Vivienne. I can picture it now: the way her lip will twist in sur
prise, followed by an abrupt shake of her head and look of disbelief. She will be shocked. She thought it would never happen for us.
Deep down, perhaps, she hoped it never would.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ My voice wavers. ‘I don’t know how to feel. I’m just . . . I was so sure it would never . . .’
Suddenly, I am sobbing.
‘Hey, Tot, it’s OK,’ Robin says, in a surprisingly steady voice. ‘It’s overwhelming, that’s all. You clever girl. You did it. You did it!’ He grips my hand in his, the wide smile still stretched across his face.
That’s when I finally exhale. This is how our relationship works, how it has always worked. I feel guilty for my momentary lack of faith. We take it in turns. When he is feeling weak, I give him his strength. When I am feeling weak, he gives me mine. We are a team, two sides of a coin; we are perfect, but only if we’re together. It makes sense that I am the one feeling overwhelmed – it’s my body, after all.
‘We did it,’ I say, returning his smile.
‘Yes, we did. And it’s awesome, Tot. Imagine, a tiny boy or girl. Ours. Fuck!’
I nod, the relief all-encompassing. I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him through the mess of curly hair that hangs down almost to his chin. He smells of sleep and warmth; he feels like home.
‘It’s Christmas next week,’ I say, my cheek pressed tightly against his. ‘Are we going to tell people? What about the alcohol?’
Robin turns to me and takes my face in his hands. I can smell coffee on his breath. It would never normally bother me, but this time I feel my stomach lurch in protest.
‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ he says, staring straight into my eyes. And then finally he leaps to his feet, his arms wide as he beams down at me and does a little dance on the spot as I sit there, staring up at him and laughing, thinking, as always, how lucky, lucky, lucky I am.
‘It’s going to be brilliant,’ Robin says.
He will be the perfect father.
Robin
So this is it, she’s pregnant.
The Perfect Father: the most gripping and twisty thriller you'll read in 2020 Page 1