The Perfect Father: the most gripping and twisty thriller you'll read in 2020

by Charlotte Duckworth

  She pauses, looking at me.

  ‘But it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘No, but . . .’ I stop. It wasn’t my fault. She’s right. ‘I really wanted a baby. Somehow, I was able to separate it all – Riley, you, what Robin did. I just saw a baby that needed loving. It felt like fate. And at the end of the day, I might have been stupid and naive, but I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of it. How can I? I am so lucky to have Riley in my life.’

  ‘I’m sorry. For judging you,’ she says, looking up at me. Her eyes are bloodshot but they’re still the same as Riley’s, and I look in them and feel the same love that I feel for my child. ‘I have to be honest. While a part of me thought you were dull, a bigger part of me wished I was just like you. Sensible. Mature. Safe. Even if I wasn’t ill, I knew you’d be a better mum than me. Someone who could offer her a stable life. Money. Loving parents.’

  ‘That was all I wanted,’ I say. ‘And you know, I was forty last year, so I felt like my time was running out.’

  ‘I know,’ she says, twisting her scarf in her hands. ‘I’ve been a dick. And Robin . . . he’d always intrigued me, you know? He just didn’t give a fuck. We met years ago, when he was on the circuit. Got drinking in some bar late at night. I think he was already seeing you then – nothing happened anyway. He thought I was just some trashy dancer. At Viv’s New Year’s Eve party he didn’t even remember me. But I remembered him. He was right, it was my fault. I kissed him. I was off my face that night. Facing the new year alone again, knowing that I was probably on borrowed time. But then I got pregnant and . . .’

  ‘Everything changed.’

  ‘I wanted her to have a different life from me,’ she says. ‘I saw the way you were – how self-possessed and together you seemed. I knew you’d be the kind of mum who’d make sure she had all the best stuff: shiny new shoes at the start of each school year, the must-have toy that sells out in days at Christmas . . . all the things I never had. I couldn’t give her a future like that, even without the cancer. But I never thought . . . I never thought he’d just try to cut me out like that. To delete me from her life.’

  Tears come to my eyes.

  ‘Listen,’ Kim says, leaning forward. ‘I know I have no right to ask anything of you. But I’ve run out of options now. I don’t have the time to mount a legal case against Robin for custody. And no judge would grant me it even if I did. But I can’t bear to die and leave my daughter with just him as a carer. So either you have to get custody – somehow – or you have to promise me you will never leave him. I mean it. Never.’

  I stare at her fiery eyes, and I find myself nodding. It’s an easy promise to make. For once, Kim and I are firmly on the same page.

  Esther

  ‘Esther?’

  The voice is instantly familiar. My stomach turns over again, but I swallow away the nausea. I’ve had enough of it debilitating me. I steel myself and turn to look at the voice.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Sarah. Thanks so much for coming. This is . . . this is Kim.’

  Sarah smiles and takes a seat next to us. She’s smaller, slighter than she seems on television. And prettier. Delicate features framed by that heavy, impossibly glossy fringe and her huge black glasses. As she sits down I notice the couple on the next table whispering and pointing at her. She must have to deal with that all the time. What a peculiar life.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ I say.

  ‘Water’s fine,’ she replies, helping herself to the jug I brought over earlier. ‘Thanks.’

  I clear my throat.

  ‘I don’t know what Viv told you,’ I say. ‘I’m Rob’s . . . wife. But it would be really helpful – I mean, really, really helpful – if you could . . . just tell me a little bit about your relationship with Rob.’

  She bites her lip. This is not how I expected her to be. Not serious like this. She’s always so confident and energetic on screen.

  ‘He came to see me a few days ago,’ she says. ‘At the theatre. He was waiting at the stage door. With a little girl. Is that your daughter?’

  My eyes flick to Kim.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Well, actually, she’s Kim’s biological daughter. I’m her stepmother.’

  Sarah frowns, the fringe covering even more of her eyes.

  ‘It was a shock to see him. He’s not meant to come near me. He knows that. I . . . I don’t know why he did it. He could get five years in prison just for approaching me.’

  My heart lifts a little. Perhaps this is something we can use.

  ‘Five years?’ Kim says, clapping her hands. ‘That’s brilliant.’

  I frown at her. Sarah looks confused. I’m suddenly terrified we’ll scare her off.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I know it’s probably horrible to talk about, but if you could let us know why you took out a restraining order against him, it would be so helpful.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sarah says, her voice suddenly more confident. I can tell it’s a story she’s told often. ‘Rob and I met at drama school. It was a pretty intense relationship from the very beginning. Fiery. Passionate. Whatever you want to call it. My parents hated him.’

  I smile at her.

  ‘But you know, I was twenty-one. I thought he was amazing. We . . . clicked. We were inseparable, really. And we started writing together, and then performing, and eventually we launched as comedy partners. Did all the usual venues. Edinburgh for four years in a row. Got rave reviews, lots of regional tours. It was all . . . well, it was all great. A dream come true.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘But then . . . Rob didn’t deal with success very well. Some people don’t, you know? It sounds ridiculous, but in many ways it’s more difficult than failure.’

  I frown but nod anyway.

  ‘And I got approached by a producer – a woman – who wanted me to write something on my own. A sitcom pilot. It was fine. Rob was a bit miffed, but he said it was cool, to go ahead. So I did, and the producer loved it and . . .’

  ‘Was that Holding Place?’ Kim asks.

  Sarah nods, her face splitting into a wide smile. As it does so, I can see why Rob loved her. Truly the sort of face that lights up a room. There’s a charisma about her, some indefinable quality that makes you want to never leave her side.

  ‘I was so proud of that show. It was the first thing I wrote completely solo, you know? It did pretty well, the BBC picked it up. I got three series out of it, decent enough viewing figures. It was amazing. But Rob . . .’ She sighs. ‘He couldn’t handle it. He was jealous. It was all so predictable really. I was working all the time and he was left behind. I mean, he was writing his own scripts and stuff, but nothing was getting picked up. And I was getting recognised more, and getting lots of exciting phone calls . . . he couldn’t handle it.’

  It’s so hard to believe she’s talking about my husband. This whole other life he had, before I even knew him. If only I’d Googled him, would I have found all this out myself? When we met he told me he’d only ever done solo stand-up, that that was his thing.

  ‘He was drinking a lot,’ she says. ‘Then there was the coke. Loads of coke. Everyone did it, it was part of the scene, but he was becoming a bore. We started to fight. By that point we were fighting all the time. I was pissed off with him, frustrated that he wasn’t being supportive. And he thought I was leaving him behind. Couldn’t handle my success. He couldn’t be happy for me. Every time something good happened, it would remind him of how things weren’t working out for him.’

  ‘Sounds familiar,’ I say, unthinking, and Sarah looks back up at me.

  ‘Sorry,’ I continue, ‘it’s just . . . well, ever since I met him he’s been in and out of jobs. Not really working much, doing some stand-up but nothing really substantial. Whereas I’ve been lucky – no, not lucky, I’ve worked my arse off – and I’ve been promoted quite a few times. My job has always been so important
to me; I work for a charity, and it’s something that’s, well, really close to my heart. It was becoming an issue, but then I got pregnant . . . and . . . well, he offered to be a stay-at-home dad. It seemed to be the best solution.’

  ‘He always said he wanted to have kids,’ Sarah says. ‘That was another thing we fought about. I wasn’t sure. And I certainly didn’t want them in my early twenties, when my career was really starting to take off . . .’

  ‘He just wanted to control you,’ I say.

  She raises her eyebrows.

  ‘Maybe. Anyway, things came to a head. I said I wanted a break. I said I’d move out of our flat and go and stay with friends for a bit, just to get my head together. I mean . . . don’t get me wrong, I still loved him. Or at least, I loved the memory of us, the way we were in the beginning. He was very lovable then. Funny, charming . . . fit too. But there was something underneath it all that I didn’t like. A nasty streak, which he was finding harder to hide.’

  She takes another sip of water.

  ‘He didn’t take the break-up well. He was hysterical. It was pretty shocking, seeing him like that. He cried and begged me to stay, tried to barricade me in the flat. He said he couldn’t live without me.’

  I swallow. It still stings, despite everything. Would he have ever said these things to me? Was I always just second choice?

  Would I ever live up to her? His beautiful, famous ex?

  ‘I got out of there,’ she says. ‘Took my stuff and went to stay with a mutual friend. But it was awful. He would turn up all the time, off his face, and shout and hammer at the door to be let in. We called the police a few times, but they didn’t really care. He never threatened me . . . he was just annoying: crying and shouting and begging. It wasn’t fair on my friend. So . . . I told him I’d move back in. I was so busy with work, I just couldn’t deal with the drama. But then . . . then I met Dean.’

  ‘Your husband?’

  Sarah nods, her face brightening again.

  ‘He’s my everything,’ she says. ‘I don’t know how I could live without him. We were paired together by a production company who wanted us to workshop this idea they had. As soon as we met, I knew, I just knew, he was the one. But I handled it all wrong. Dean and I started sleeping together, but I was still technically living with Rob. Although he wasn’t there most of the time. He was out, getting drunk. Or passed out on the sofa. He had some obnoxious friends – hangers-on. Drug dealers. We were like ships in the night. But then he came home one day and he was being really weird. Agitated. Said he wanted to take me out, to talk about our relationship.

  ‘It was a Sunday. I was knackered, but I knew things had to get sorted, so I agreed. I got in the car with him. I didn’t realise he was still totally off his face . . . I should have known, it was stupid. It was Sunday morning and he’d been out all night – nothing too unusual about that – but I thought he might have sobered up. Anyway, I got in the car with him and that’s when it all went wrong. I thought we were going to our favourite pub by Victoria Park for lunch, but he locked the doors and just kept driving until we were out of London. I asked him what he was playing at but he wouldn’t answer, he just kept driving. He had this look on his face. I’ll never forget it. Just blank, like he’d checked out of his own head. I was screaming at him to pull over and let me out, but he wouldn’t, and then, eventually, when we were in the middle of God knows where, he told me he knew all about Dean. That we were sleeping together. He started smashing his head on the steering wheel, screaming and ranting. He wasn’t making any sense. Then he started driving again, going further away from London, talking about how he was going to find Dean and kill him. I couldn’t get out of the car, he was driving so fast. I honestly thought . . . I thought he was going to kill us.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I say.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. I tried everything – denying it, being nice – I even said Dean . . .’ She hangs her head. ‘I even said Dean had come on to me and I didn’t know how to turn him down. I know, it’s just awful. But I was so scared, I was trying everything to talk Robin down. But nothing worked. He just got more and more angry and eventually, he was winding all over the road and I knew it wouldn’t be long before he crashed. I resigned myself to it. I thought that was it for me. I was going to die.’

  She laughs.

  ‘I didn’t die. And neither did he, obviously. But he did crash the car. I broke my leg in three places. I cracked my head open on the dashboard. I was in hospital for two weeks.’

  She lifts her fringe away from her forehead and it’s then that I see the scar – not just a scar, but a deep groove, as though someone has taken the top of her head off and put it back in the wrong place – that runs across it.

  She takes a deep breath.

  ‘He was fine. Arrested for dangerous driving initially, but they let him off. Some issue with the evidence. I don’t know. I was in hospital. In no fit state to deal with it really.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Kim says.

  ‘He tried to make it up to me afterwards. He even came to the hospital. But my parents got involved and the court issued a restraining order against him. And I hadn’t seen him since, until he turned up at the theatre this week. Still, I always knew, somehow, that he would come back into my life at some point. But I never expected to see him there, outside my show. And especially not with a child. I was shaking for hours afterwards. It was horrible.’

  I reach out and take her hand and she smiles at me.

  ‘Now, I’ve told you everything,’ she says. ‘It’s your turn.’

  Robin

  Esther has never been very good at deception. I picked well when I picked her.

  She’s trying to hide something, but she’s not succeeding.

  Her behaviour last night really bugged me. The adoption thing. It’s not going away.

  I don’t know what to do.

  So I do what I always do when I’ve exhausted all other options: I phone my big brother.

  As I listen to the phone ringing, I tell myself that if he doesn’t answer then it’s fate. I’m not meant to share this. But if he does . . .

  ‘Bro,’ he says, cutting through my thoughts and sending my blood pressure rising. ‘Everything all right?’

  He knows. He knows I only phone him when I’ve dug myself into a hole and can’t see any way out.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, and suddenly I’m thirteen again, and the bigger boys at school have stolen my lunch, and I’m pathetic and too scared of them to stand up for myself, and I come snivelling to him for what – comfort? A bit of his sandwich? Whatever. He loves it. It’s his favourite role: the hero of the hour.

  ‘You on your coffee break?’ I say.

  He laughs; his deep, masculine laugh.

  ‘What’s a coffee break?’ he says, and my temper rises. Yes, all right, Nick, we all know you work So Bloody Hard. ‘It’s fine, I’ve got time to talk.’

  ‘I’ve got myself into a situation . . .’ I begin, and I hear him inhale. I picture him at his desk, pushing his hands into his eye sockets in exasperation.

  ‘Not like last time, I hope?’ he says. ‘Not . . . Sarah?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No, it’s . . .’ The crushing weight of failure strangles my ability to speak.

  ‘Well, that’s something at least,’ Nick replies.

  I take a deep breath myself.

  ‘It’s Riley’s biological mum.’

  ‘The surrogate?’

  ‘She . . . she wasn’t a surrogate,’ I say. A perverse tingle of pleasure runs through me and briefly I wonder if I have been doing this all my life. Just trying to get attention by shocking people. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She was someone I . . .’ I say. ‘We had a thing. It was complicated.’

  ‘Go on,’ Nick says. The tone of his voice has dropped.

&nb
sp; ‘You have to promise never to tell Dad. It wasn’t anything, just a brief . . . Esther and I were having a hard time. But anyway, she got pregnant. And after what happened with Esther . . . we decided to take on the baby.’

  I pause. There’s no way of explaining this so that I come out of it looking good. No way at all.

  ‘Esther wanted to,’ I say. ‘I know it sounds mad, but she did. And the other woman . . . she was ill. She’s got cancer. I said we could take care of the baby while she was getting better, then, I don’t know. We’d see. She’s a bit of a train wreck. Fuck, that sounds bad. It’s not her fault. I just really wanted to be a dad, you know. I really, really wanted that. And it was my baby too. Plenty of single mums bring up babies without their biological fathers, why can’t dads? I thought it was for the best if we took the baby on and . . .’

  ‘Stop,’ Nick says. ‘Just back up a minute. Let me get this straight: Riley’s mum is someone you had a fling with. She got pregnant, but she has cancer, so she gave you the baby . . .’

  ‘Yes, but . . . she thought, I guess she thought she’d get better, and one day we’d share custody or something. But I couldn’t tell Esther that, could I? She would never have agreed to it if she thought she might have to give Riley back one day.’

  ‘Right . . . so you lied to Esther.’

  ‘The other woman . . . her life’s a mess. I guess I thought she’d just . . . move on. Get over it.’

  ‘Move on? Are you kidding me? So what’s happened now? She wants her baby back?’

  ‘No,’ I say, scrunching up my fists. I hate when he does that patronising thing. ‘No, it’s not that. She’s still really ill. She’s in no position to take her back. It’s Esther. She’s . . . she’s totally obsessed with the idea of adopting Riley. Officially. She never . . . she never did. Of course we couldn’t do it when Riley was first born because the other woman would never have agreed to it. I thought Esther would just drop it. But lately she’s like a dog with a bloody bone.’