The Perfect Life

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by Nuala Ellwood


  I walk through the kitchen and out on to the roof terrace where I’m greeted with a sight so lovely it brings tears to my eyes.

  There are candles on every surface, fairy lights threaded round the railings, soft cushions scattered on the ground and, on the table, a feast fit for a queen: a whole roast chicken with blackened crispy skin, just as I like it, bowls of couscous with pomegranate seeds scattered over it like tiny jewels, platters of roasted vegetables and flatbreads, hummus and salads. The little South London terrace has been transformed into a Moroccan souk.

  ‘Oh, Connor, it’s magical,’ I say, kissing his cheek, inhaling his peppery scent. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

  ‘Well, we were talking about going to Marrakesh next year,’ he says, handing me a glass of Laurent-Perrier rosé champagne, another favourite. ‘So I thought I’d give us a little taster. Happy birthday, baby.’

  He kisses me and his mouth tastes of champagne. As we draw apart I recognize the song that’s playing.

  ‘God, I haven’t heard this for years,’ I say, sitting down on the cushions. ‘It was Mum’s favourite.’

  ‘I know. I remember you saying so I dug the album out on Spotify,’ he says, taking a knife and carving the chicken into thin slices.

  I take a sip of champagne and listen as Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ rings out into the crisp autumn air, remembering how Mum used to play it over and over in the car on the way to school. I pause the memory as the song fades and I take Connor’s hand. I want to be in the moment now; want to allow myself to be happy.

  ‘Oh, before we eat,’ says Connor, getting up from the cushions and heading inside, ‘I’ve got a little something for you.’

  He disappears indoors. I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. Taking it out, I see two texts from Lottie. The first, sent while I was on my way home, reads:

  Nice to see you today. I’d forgotten what you looked like. Hope you have a good evening.

  The second, which she has just sent, is more terse:

  Sorry to be a pain but could you transfer your share of the gas bill ASAP. It needs paying this week.

  She knows I always pay my share on time, making sure it goes into her account on the same day each month. But then I realize, this isn’t about the gas bill, it’s about Connor. She doesn’t like the fact that I’m spending so much time with someone other than her.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  I look up and see Connor standing in the light of the kitchen doorway. He has his hands behind his back and his eyes are twinkling in the moonlight.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, sliding my phone into my pocket as he comes to join me. ‘Everything is fine.’

  ‘Right, I want you to close your eyes and hold out your hands,’ he says playfully.

  I do as he asks and he places a small parcel into my palm.

  ‘Happy birthday, baby,’ he says.

  I open my eyes and my stomach does a little lurch. It’s a box, beautifully wrapped in rose-gold paper; a ring-sized box.

  ‘Connor, I …’ I say, my hands trembling.

  ‘Open it,’ he says, sitting down next to me.

  I carefully peel away the paper and take out a blue velvet box. Surely, it can’t be, I think to myself. It’s too soon. But as I lift the lid I see, not an engagement ring, but a pair of square sapphire earrings.

  ‘Your birthstone,’ says Connor, taking the box from my hands. ‘And art deco, according to the woman in the shop.’

  He laughs in that nervous way people do when they’re unsure if they’ve got the gift right, then hands the earrings to me.

  ‘They’re just a little token to say how much I love you and how happy you’ve made me these last few months.’

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ I say, putting them on. ‘What do you think?’

  I push my hair out of the way and turn my head this way and that.

  ‘They suit you,’ he says, kissing me lightly on the neck. ‘I’m glad you like them. Now, let’s eat.’

  Three hours and two bottles of champagne later, we’re still out on the terrace. Connor has located a couple of herringbone-patterned wool blankets and we sit huddled up together on the bench, looking up at the night sky.

  ‘Thank you for this evening,’ I whisper. ‘It’s been a wonderful birthday. One of the best I’ve had for a long time.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he says, nuzzling my hair with his mouth. ‘I love being with you, Vanessa. I just wish that … No, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No, go on,’ I say, pulling him closer. ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘I just wish we could always be like this,’ he says, stroking my arm lightly. ‘I hate it when you have to go back to Fulham. Waking up without you, it’s horrible. I know it’s crazy, because we’ve only been together for a few months, but you’re the person I want to be with, Vanessa. I know that. What I’m saying is, how about we just go for it? How about you move in here properly?’

  He sits up straight and looks at me. Everything about the evening feels right: the air, the food, the music, the champagne and the warm fug it has enveloped me in.

  ‘I want that too,’ I say, and his expression relaxes into a broad smile. ‘I want to be with you all the time. God, sometimes I’m even jealous of your colleagues because they get to see you more than I do. Waking up next to you each morning would be heaven.’

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Yes, I mean it,’ I say, reaching out for my glass to drain the last of the champagne. ‘I love you, Connor. And you’re mine. You’re all mine.’

  5. Now

  West Hampstead Police Station

  ‘It isn’t me.’

  I hadn’t meant to speak but Bains was goading me, pushing me to admit that I was there, that I had something to do with Geoffrey’s death. In the end, the words just spilled from me without my consent.

  ‘Honestly,’ I say, trying to keep my voice steady, though my legs are trembling. ‘That person on the CCTV. It isn’t me. Like you said earlier, that woman’s name is Iris Lawson.’

  ‘No, Vanessa,’ says Bains, his eyes widening as though he can’t quite believe how crazy I am. ‘That is what you told our friend Mr Carter-Vaughan your name was.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I say, as beside me Frank Solomon clears his throat. ‘It’s just … just someone who looks like me.’

  ‘A doppelgänger?’ says Bains, leaning back in his chair. ‘That’s an interesting theory. Straight out of a fairy story. But then, you’re rather fond of stories, aren’t you, Vanessa?’

  He stares directly at me, his lips pursed. I shiver under his gaze then look away.

  ‘You particularly like inventing characters, don’t you?’ he says, his voice hardening. ‘So much so it would seem like you missed your vocation. You could have been another Geoffrey Rivers. A bestselling novelist.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I say as Bains riffles through a bundle of papers. ‘I swear to you that the person on the CCTV is not me. I’m not Iris Lawson. I have no idea what any of this is about.’

  ‘I could believe that, Vanessa,’ says Bains, straightening out a piece of paper on the desk in front of him, ‘if only I hadn’t had statements from at least a dozen estate agents up and down the country with CCTV footage of you doing this same thing over the last six months. Now, do any of these people ring a bell?’

  My body goes cold as he recites the list of names.

  ‘Tabitha Richardson; Elsie Summers-Allan; Eleanor Hawkins; Monica Holmes; Imogen Hartley.’

  The names make me cringe. How does he know?

  ‘I can see by your reaction that you’re familiar with them,’ says Bains.

  He stops reading and places the piece of paper to one side.

  ‘We’ve all done it, Vanessa,’ he says, leaning forward, his voice softer now. ‘Looked at something we have no intention or means of buying. I mean, I spend my Lotto win in my head every Saturday night before the draw. A place in
the Bahamas, new car, that kind of thing. My missus used to like viewing those new-build show houses, back when they were a “thing”. We used to go and have a look at them, imagine ourselves living there with all the snazzy furnishings.’

  I don’t know where he’s going with this but I try to keep my face still.

  ‘What I’m saying is that we all do it,’ he says, shrugging his shoulders. ‘We all dream, imagine other lives for ourselves. Only, you went one step further, Vanessa. You actually created different personas for yourself – posh Tabitha Richardson, tree-hugging Eleanor Hawkins. You admit that, don’t you?’

  I glance at Frank Solomon.

  ‘You don’t have to answer,’ he says, shaking his head.

  I turn back to Bains. He has another set of notes in front of him now.

  ‘Estate agents are used to this,’ he says, flicking through the notes with his index finger. ‘I mean, they’re wise to the time wasters, aren’t they? The people who just want to have a nose around a posh house with no intention of buying it. That must be really annoying for those estate agents. Most of them are on commission, aren’t they, poor sods?’

  I don’t respond but as he speaks I feel a creeping dread rise up my spine.

  ‘It was a Mrs Ros Coverley from the Whitstable branch of Harrison and Uttley Properties who put the warning out,’ says Bains, his deadpan voice cutting through my thoughts.

  At the mention of that name I’m taken back to the disastrous viewing of an eco house in Whitstable, Ros Coverley watching me like a hawk as I walked from room to room.

  ‘Mrs Coverley noticed, right at the beginning of the viewing, when you opened your purse to put away the business card she’d given you, that the name on your credit card was not the name you had given her: Eleanor Hawkins.’

  I flinch as I recall that viewing. Ros Coverley’s eyes watching me.

  ‘After you left that day, Mrs Coverley did a cursory search of your name and found that you were not a wealthy financier but a marketing manager for a cosmetics company. Yet when she contacted the company – Luna London – to ask about you, they said that you no longer worked for them.’

  My cheeks burn as he continues.

  ‘She’d heard, from colleagues in other offices, of a woman doing the same thing – wasting their time, using fake names – so she put an email out to them, flagging you up and telling them to be aware. One of the agents, Jane Treadwell, recalled a viewing she’d conducted a few months earlier with someone who matched your description. She was shocked because the woman she had met had seemed – how did she put it? – “so convincing”.’

  I feel sick with shame.

  ‘Of course, there’s no crime in doing what you did, Vanessa. But the amount of planning and subterfuge involved is quite something. And we can now safely say that it was you who visited the offices of Price Burrows Estate Agents on the 11th of August using the name Iris Lawson, can’t we?’

  There’s no crime in doing what you did. His words roll around my head. There’s no crime. He just wants to ask me some questions, rule me out.

  He takes my silence for affirmation.

  ‘So now that’s clear,’ he says, putting his hands to his temples, ‘how about you tell me what happened that afternoon at Holly Maze House?’

  ‘I didn’t go to the house.’

  The lie drops easily from my lips, though somewhere inside me a voice is screaming: What are you doing, Vanessa? This is going to make it so much worse.

  But then I haven’t been able to do what’s best for me for a long time now.

  ‘I’m sorry, could you speak up?’ says Bains, pushing the Dictaphone into the centre of the table. ‘I didn’t quite catch that.’

  Come on, Vanessa, urges the voice inside me, just tell him the truth. Don’t dig yourself in deeper. But I can’t do it. I can’t admit that I was in that house.

  ‘I said, I didn’t go to Holly Maze House in the end,’ I say, staring down at my clasped hands. ‘I … I was on my way out of the office when I remembered I’d arranged to meet my sister for lunch and –’

  ‘Hang on, I’m confused,’ says Bains, putting his head in his hands. ‘You leave your sister’s house in Wimbledon first thing Saturday morning to travel to Hampstead to insist on booking an appointment to view a house you are in no position to buy. Then, once you’ve booked it, you suddenly remember you have to meet your sister for lunch?’

  I feel bad for lying and even worse for bringing Georgie into all of this.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, trying to sound composed. ‘She … she works in Mayfair. We’d arranged the lunch date the night before but in all the excitement of – I mean … after seeing Holly Maze House was up for sale I just got carried away and it slipped my mind.’

  ‘Miss Adams, you can see why your behaviour may be confusing to others, surely?’ says Bains. ‘Like I said earlier, we all have our moments of escapism – spending lottery wins in our head, pretending we’re Elton John when we get on the karaoke down the pub, that sort of thing – but the way you have gone about creating whole new personas for yourself, duping estate agents and travelling up and down the country to view multi-million-pound properties you cannot possibly afford has been calculated and, may I say, somewhat disturbing. Not just that, but you’d become more than a menace to a lot of hardworking estate agents.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ I say, my voice cracking. ‘It was just harmless curiosity, that’s all.’

  ‘Harmless curiosity?’ says Bains, nodding his head. ‘You see, Vanessa, I don’t think this is just harmless curiosity, as you put it. I think you visit these houses to torture yourself with what you can’t have.’

  I shake my head. I don’t know what he’s getting at but his voice is growing loud and menacing.

  ‘And what happens when you can’t have something, Vanessa, hmm?’ he continues, spittle gathering at the corner of his mouth. ‘You get angry, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say, my voice dry and reedy.

  ‘Well, let me make it a bit clearer,’ he says.

  He reaches across and opens the cardboard folder, licking his finger as he flicks through the pages.

  ‘It seems, Vanessa,’ he says, laying the folder flat in front of him, ‘that you’ve had a rather eventful few months.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I say.

  ‘You left your job at Luna London after increasingly erratic behaviour,’ says Bains, looking down at a sheet of paper. ‘Spiralled into depression. Couldn’t pay your rent. And then there are these violent altercations.’

  ‘What? Who has told you all this?’ I say, panic rising in my voice.

  ‘The truth is you’re not satisfied with what you’ve got,’ says Bains. ‘You think you deserve better, is that right?’

  ‘No, that couldn’t be further from the truth,’ I say, trying desperately to see what is written on that piece of paper.

  ‘I think it’s a lot closer to the truth than you will admit,’ says Bains, a sick smirk spreading across his face. ‘That’s what all this is about – the fake names, the fantasy world, the inability to stick at a job – it’s because you feel superior to others, don’t you? So superior you think you can fool everyone with your lies. In fact, I’ve been told that you have admitted to people that you enjoy creating different characters to suit different situations.’

  I flinch as I recall saying that to Connor when we first met. But I had been talking about work, about using make-up for different occasions, not actually becoming different people.

  ‘Look, I know what this is about,’ I say, my chest burning with anger. ‘You’ve been talking to my ex-boyfriend. He has an axe to grind because I ended the relationship. He wants to get back at me and he’s made all this nonsense up to frame me. This is bullshit.’ I spit the last word out.

  Bains’s mouth turns down. I’ve walked right into his trap, losing it like that. I need to calm down.

  ‘Geoffrey Rivers had what you didn’t
,’ he says, his voice laced with contempt. ‘Financial security, a big house, a successful career. All the things you’ve observed in your little trips across the country, viewing spectacular properties, seeing how perfect life can be. But on those trips you had an estate agent with you so your anger had to be curbed. No matter how furious you were that the Georgian pile in Surrey or the eco mansion with the sea view could never be yours, that anger had to be held in, didn’t it? Yet that afternoon at Holly Maze House something changed. You’d had enough. You couldn’t deal with being inadequate any more. So, when you met Mr Rivers, you – what, threatened him? Got into an argument? What happened, Vanessa?’

  As he speaks I’m back there in the house. Geoffrey is telling me something then stops mid-sentence. ‘I’m awfully sorry but will you excuse me?’ I remember watching him as he walked out of the room. And then … My skin prickles at the memory but I can’t let Bains see that I’m cracking.

  ‘I want to know what it was about Geoffrey, about that house, that sent you over the edge,’ he says, leaning forward in his chair. ‘There’s more to this than you’re letting on, Vanessa. This is more than just jealousy, isn’t it? What was it that made you snap?’

  ‘This is crazy,’ I say, trying to keep my voice calm. ‘You’re actually saying I had something to do with Geoffrey Rivers’s murder?’

  ‘I’m saying that you have a temper, Vanessa,’ says Bains, tapping his fingers on the table. ‘When things don’t go your way you lash out. That’s what happened to Jackie Dawkins, isn’t it?’

  At the mention of Connor’s mother my legs buckle. If he’s told them what I did to her then it’s all over for me. I’m finished.

  I get out of bed and make my way across the landing. I can hear you singing along to the radio in the kitchen. Radio 2. Terry Wogan’s breakfast show. You’re singing along to a song. It’s an old song. One that Terry Wogan must really like because he’s always playing it: ‘January, February’ by Barbara Dickson. You seem to like it too because I hear you turn the radio up so the song fills the house. I stand holding the banister, glowing with contentment. It’s the first day of the summer holidays. There’s no school to worry about, no cross-country runs, no wandering round the edge of the playground wishing I was somewhere else. I don’t have to worry about any of that because I am at home with you.

 

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