The Perfect Life

by Nuala Ellwood

  Nuala Ellwood

  * * *

  The Perfect Life

  Contents

  Prologue: Goring-on-Thames – August 2018

  PART ONE 1. Now: Wimbledon, South West London August 2018

  2. Then: July 2017

  3. Now: West Hampstead Police Station

  4. Then: 30 September 2017

  5. Now: West Hampstead Police Station

  6. Then: 2 October 2017

  7. Now

  8. Then: November 2017

  9. Now

  10. Then

  11. Now

  12. Then: January 2018

  13. Now

  14. Then: March 2018

  15. Now

  16. Then: May 2018

  17. Now

  18. Then

  19. Now

  20. Then: July 2018

  21. Now

  22. Then: July 2018

  23. Now

  PART TWO 24. Wimbledon Magistrates Court 25 February 2019

  25. Then: August 2018

  26. Now: August 2018

  27. Then

  28. Now

  29. Then

  30. Now

  31. Then

  32. Now

  33. Then

  34. Now

  35. Now

  36. Now

  37. Now

  38. Now

  39. Now: Six hours later

  40. Now

  41. Wimbledon Magistrates Court 5 March 2019

  Epilogue: Two years later

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Nuala Ellwood is the author of three bestselling novels: My Sister’s Bones, for which she was selected as one of the Observer’s ‘New Faces of Fiction 2017’, Day of the Accident and The House on the Lake. Nuala lives in York with her young son.

  For my mother

  What readers are saying about

  The Perfect Life

  ‘A compelling and twisty thriller – I was hooked’

  Joanne, Netgalley

  ‘A great read – found myself doing that “just one more chapter” thing ’

  Stephanie, Netgalley

  ‘I couldn’t put this down’

  Lisa, Netgalley

  ‘Loved this one! So easy to read and lots of twists and turns along the way ’

  Kelly, Netgalley

  ‘Oh my! Hooks you right from the start. Suspenseful and twisting – simply brilliant’

  Cathy, Netgalley

  ‘Full of mystery and drama’

  Shabana, Netgalley

  ‘Fast-paced and thrilling. Nuala Ellwood knows how to get the reader enthralled from the start’

  Julie, Netgalley

  ‘A truly fantastic book which kept up the pace from beginning to end. Never in a million years did I see the twist coming!’

  Lynn, Netgalley

  ‘Nuala delivers again’

  Angela, Netgalley

  ‘A taut, riveting psychological thriller – thoroughly recommend’

  Karen, Netgalley

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Dear Reader,

  I wanted to make some content notes available for you to inform yourself, if you wish – but some readers may consider these spoilers, so please skip the rest if you would rather not see.

  This story touches on some difficult topics, including sexual assault. I have tried my best to portray these issues delicately and I hope this comes across as you read The Perfect Life.

  If these are topics that you are sensitive to, please be aware.

  Nuala x

  ‘Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.’

  – G. K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

  Prologue

  Goring-on-Thames – August 2018

  ‘What a view,’ says the estate agent. ‘I’d imagine you can see right across the county from here.’

  Her eyes flash with delight. She’ll be thinking of the possible commission, a hefty sum on a property this expensive.

  ‘It’s stunning,’ I say as I look out on to the milky-blue river and clear, unpolluted sky. ‘So tranquil.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, stepping away from the window. ‘The only noise you’ll hear is the sound of birdsong and the trickle of water. Quite a change from the bustle of London.’

  I nod my head, smiling. How surprisingly easy this has all been.

  ‘The current owners are retiring and want to downsize,’ says the estate agent as she leads me through to the drawing room. ‘As you can see, this has been a wonderful home for them. Now it’s ready to be passed on to another family.’

  She gestures to the huge seating area, which is larger than the average London flat. Plush moss-green velvet sofas surround a beautifully crafted bamboo coffee table, which is piled artfully with a spread of books and a vase overflowing with freshly picked hydrangeas.

  ‘You said you had three children, is that right?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘Two boys and a girl.’

  ‘How lovely,’ she says, smiling warmly. ‘I bet they keep you on your toes.’

  ‘I love them but they’re hard work; the boys are so naughty sometimes. That’s why I thought I’d make this trip alone,’ I say, running my hands over the soft velvet armchair. ‘But my little Lavender is an angel, and I wouldn’t swap any of them for the world.’

  ‘I bet they’d love the space to run around here,’ the estate agent continues, selling this idyllic place to me even though my heart already knows what it wants.

  ‘Oh yes, Freddie would go mad with all this space to play football and Barclay would run wild and most likely break an arm like he did on his ninth birthday last year! He’s forever getting into trouble,’ I chuckle.

  ‘Imagine the birthday parties you could give them here,’ she says, unlocking a side door that leads out to a sweeping stone terrace.

  I step outside and breathe in the crisp morning air. As I stand on the terrace the air fills with children’s laughter. I see trestle tables groaning with party food, guests bearing brightly coloured parcels, music filtering out from the kitchen, balloons and bunting and candles on a cake, birthday wishes to be made.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ I whisper as the estate agent leads me back into the house. ‘Just perfect.’

  But as we walk back through the living room and head towards the hallway, a chill ripples through me. What would Connor say if he could see me?

  ‘Now,’ says the estate agent, consulting her brochure. ‘Let’s show you the first floor, shall we, Imogen?’

  I nod my head.

  If only you knew, I think to myself as I follow this poor, unsuspecting young woman up the winding staircase. That there are no children, no birthday parties, no prospect of a commission. That Imogen isn’t even my real name. That all this is a perfect lie.

  PART ONE

  1. Now

  Wimbledon, South West London August 2018

  I sit in my sister’s living room, sipping coffee from a cup that says MUM, though I have no children to call my own, my eyes transfixed by the laptop screen in front of me. I know I shouldn’t have logged on, know that this addiction will be the ruin of me, but nothing else will help tonight, nothing else will stop the dark thoughts invading or stem the fear that is creeping like poison through my body.

  I think back to five days earlier, the momentary happiness I had felt as I walked up the driveway and saw the topiary animals and the griffins, smelt the faint scent of honeysuckle in the air. I think of the look on his face as he answered the door, the smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  Don’t think about it, I tell myself. Not tonight. Tonight, I need to escape it all. So I let the memory fade
and, instead, try to focus on the website, wincing as I take a sip from the coffee that has now gone tepid. Nothing new has been added in the last few hours, but simply seeing the familiar listings is reassuring.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  I look up and see my sister standing in the doorway. She’s wearing her oversized navy-and-white-striped apron. The smell of roasted vegetables wafts through from the kitchen. Georgie is a great cook, like my mum was. I, on the other hand, can just about rustle up a basic pasta if I have to.

  ‘Yes, all fine,’ I say, minimizing the window on my screen. ‘Just having a look at some job sites. Seeing what’s out there.’

  Georgie gives me that look, the one I’ve become accustomed to these last few weeks: a mixture of sympathy and bewilderment. A look that says How did my ambitious, confident little sister get herself into this state? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot too.

  ‘Dinner won’t be long,’ she says, wiping a strand of dark hair from her face. ‘I’m making stuffed peppers.’

  ‘Thanks, Georgie,’ I say, aware of the fact that she is trying her best to perk me up. ‘They smell delicious.’

  She goes to speak but is interrupted by a loud hammering on the door. My heart leaps in my chest as she goes to answer it.

  Breathe, I tell myself; try to focus back on the page I’ve been looking at.

  I hear muffled voices in the passageway and my throat tightens. I scroll down the page, cast my net a bit wider. Draining the last of the coffee, I try to think of somewhere new, somewhere I’ve never been before. But my brain is muddy, nothing will come, so instead I close my eyes and type a random letter into the search engine. G. I shiver at its meaning, then quickly click on the first suggestion – Gloucestershire – before his face has a chance to appear in my head.

  I’ve never been to Gloucestershire but now, through the power of the internet, I can. My skin tingles as I enlarge the picture and step into a golden world. A world where everyone is wealthy and secure, where the floors are polished and gleaming, the gardens manicured and bursting with fragrant plants and flowers. A world of laughter and sunshine and families gathered together at outdoor tables, an abundance of food and drink. It should be making me feel better, but as I wander through this fantasy land, it only reminds me of what I have lost.

  ‘Come through.’

  Georgie’s voice cuts into my thoughts and I look up. What I see makes the room constrict and my hand, poised over the computer mouse, starts to shake. There are two police officers standing in the doorway, one male, one female. Behind them I see my sister’s face, all colour drained away.

  ‘Iris Lawson?’ says the male officer, his eyes fixed on me.

  The name sinks like a stone in my stomach, but I nod my head all the same.

  Georgie pushes past them and comes to stand next to me.

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ she says, placing her hand on my shoulder, her voice solid and commanding, ever the older sister. ‘Her name is –’

  ‘Shh,’ I interrupt, shrugging my sister’s hand away. ‘It’s okay, Georgie.’

  ‘I’d like to ask, Miss Lawson,’ continues the officer, a flabby-faced man who looks to be in his mid-fifties, ‘if you know a man named Geoffrey Rivers?’

  I look up at him. His eyes are the colour of damp autumn leaves. I turn from him to my sister. She shakes her head. We both know the significance of the name.

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper, my hand still hovering on the mouse. ‘Yes, I do.’

  The officer nods his head then takes a step forward.

  ‘Well, in that case, Miss Lawson,’ he says, his voice hardening, ‘I’d like to ask you to accompany me to the police station. We need to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Why do you need to do that?’ cries Georgie. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Rivers was found dead at his home in Hampstead,’ he replies, his voice steady.

  I hear my sister inhale sharply. In front of me the screen darkens, obliterating Gloucestershire and polished floors and perfect lives, leaving me only with the stark truth of what I have done.

  2. Then

  July 2017

  The hooded figure rises from its haunches and creeps towards the unsuspecting young woman. She is looking up at the stars, trying to pick out Venus. So lost is she in her stargazing, she doesn’t sense the shadow that has just crossed her path. Somewhere in the distance an oboe strikes up, playing a single note. It’s an ominous sound, funereal. It gets louder and louder as the hooded figure bears down on the woman and clasps its bony hands around her throat. She tries to break free, but the figure is stronger than she is and soon she’s overwhelmed. Her body loosens and flops backwards like a limp rag doll. In her final moments she turns her head to look at her killer, but her eyes are full of starlight.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ whispers Lottie, in the seat beside me, as the curtains close and the audience strikes up a reticent applause. ‘The things you make me do, Nessa.’

  She starts to giggle.

  ‘Puppet theatre for adults?’ she says, shaking her head. ‘I mean, really?’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Lottie,’ I say as the lights come up in the auditorium. ‘It got such a good write-up in the Observer too. Still, at least we didn’t have to pay for the tickets.’

  ‘Murderous gothic puppets,’ says Lottie, her eyes widening.

  She looks at me and her face is so astounded that we both burst into fits of giggles. A woman with cropped grey hair and a batik-print jumper, sitting in the row in front, turns to us with an expression of dismay.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, sliding out of the seat. ‘Let’s get out of here before they do an encore.’

  ‘Christ, yes,’ says Lottie, stumbling behind me.

  When we reach the exit I turn and take Lottie’s hand and, released from the deathly quiet auditorium, we explode into loud laughter.

  ‘Remind me to thank Georgie for the tickets,’ says Lottie as we make our way down the corridor to the bar. ‘I wonder why she passed them on to us.’

  As senior curator of a successful independent art gallery in Mayfair, my sister is always being given free tickets for exhibitions and theatre shows of the more experimental kind. Tonight’s murderous puppets were part of a six-part show produced by a Danish theatre company who specialize in something called ‘Puppetry of the Macabre’. I smile as I imagine Georgie trying to convince Jack, my rugby-loving, no-nonsense brother-in-law, to go and watch a puppet show. ‘Give the tickets to Vanessa,’ he would have said. ‘She likes fairy stories.’ He would have been right about that. I do. Though, if I’m honest, there was something about the puppet show that got under my skin.

  ‘Next time, I get to choose,’ says Lottie as we walk into the rather crowded Royal Court Theatre bar. ‘And I’m going full-on musical theatre. You’re going to have to sit through two hours of Mamma Mia or 9 to 5 to make up for that, agreed?’

  I smile. Lottie really is the light to my darkness. It was the same at university. I loved Emily Brontë, she was more Jane Austen. I liked listening to PJ Harvey – whose records Georgie had introduced me to – while Lottie loved cheesy pop. On paper, we shouldn’t be friends, but somehow we balance each other out.

  ‘Agreed,’ I say as we spot two vacant seats by the bar. ‘Now, what can I get you to drink?’

  Lottie purses her lips. She always does this when she has a decision to make. Or, at least, when she feels she has to look as though she’s making a decision. I know for a fact that after a minute’s deliberation she will say, ‘A glass of Merlot, please.’ Her usual. The drink she always has. Yet she will still give herself a moment to weigh up the options.

  ‘Er … I’ll just have a glass of Merlot, please,’ she says, pushing her hand through her thick red curls.

  ‘What a surprise,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Dry-roasted nuts?’

  Lottie smiles widely. One of the great things about our friendship is the fact that we know and understand the little things, the t
hings that other people might not find important, but mean everything to us. I know that Lottie always drinks Merlot on a night out but has to have a packet of peanuts with it to line her stomach. She knows that I have to drink my coffee when it’s steaming hot because tepid coffee makes me feel queasy. And I know never to engage her in conversation or ask important questions of her before eight in the morning because it takes at least two coffees and a shower before her brain is able to function. Little things. Silly things, some would say. But remembering these things and honouring them is what, I have always felt, has kept our friendship going for so long. We’re like a married couple, just without all the boring relationship complications.

  ‘So,’ I say when the drinks arrive. ‘How was today? Craig behaving himself?’

  She rolls her eyes. Craig is her colleague and desk partner at the children’s charity where Lottie works as case manager. She’d always got on well with him until last week when he got very drunk on an office night out and told Lottie he thought he was in love with her.

  ‘He’s been very quiet, thankfully,’ she says, taking a sip of wine. ‘Though it’s tricky when you’re sharing a desk. I keep catching him staring at me.’

  ‘Awkward,’ I say, taking a handful of nuts from the opened packet. ‘That’s why I’m glad I have an office to myself.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we can’t all be super executives like you,’ says Lottie, tapping me playfully on the arm. ‘My mum says you’re like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. We watched it together on her birthday. Pure eighties yuppiedom.’

  ‘I’m hardly a yuppie, Lottie,’ I say with a laugh. ‘My office is no bigger than a cupboard. Yuppies. I remember my mum using that term to describe my dad’s sister, my Aunt Yvonne. She worked in the City and used to wear trouser suits with huge shoulder pads.’