Her Perfect Life: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist. Sam Hepburn
Gracie hesitates. ‘Dwyer. Grace.’
The familiar pause. Just a fraction of a second as the operator registers who she is. ‘Putting you through to Inspector Jamieson. One moment, please.’
Mark Jamieson has a look of a bull terrier – prematurely white-haired, hard-muscled and pinkish around the eyes. He gives the kitchen an openly curious glance as he sits down, appraising Gracie’s pans and knives and the layout of her workspace. She thinks fondly of Reeves’s paunchy bulk and good-natured contempt for what she does. Cooking? I leave all that to the wife.
Jamieson accepts a cup of coffee, asks awkwardly about the blend of beans and lines up a biro beside the folder he’s taken from his briefcase. ‘I had a look at the case file before I came out, Ms Dwyer, and I’d like to apologise for the press leaks.’ He hands her his card. ‘I’ll do my best to see it doesn’t happen on my watch. But unless it’s an absolute emergency it might be best if you contact me direct on my mobile.’
She nods and pushes a jar of cookies across the table. Jamieson selects a square of pecan shortbread. ‘Thank you.’ He takes a bite, unable to disguise the kick he’s getting out of eating biscuits baked by Gracie Dwyer. Gracie doesn’t let on that these were made by Elsie’s nanny.
‘Is that the package?’
She slides the Ziploc bag towards him. ‘The font and the envelope are different,’ Gracie says. Her eyelids flutter shut. ‘My husband thinks it might be a copycat.’
‘It does happen. Idiots after a taste of publicity.’ Jamieson scans his notes, his fingers beating a rhythm on the side of his coffee mug. ‘Is there anything to link this earring to any of the other items that were sent to you?’
She flinches as he names them one by one: the lipstick she’d mislaid, the scrap of silk from a favourite scarf she’d hung briefly in a restaurant cloakroom, the clasp from one of her handbags, the lid of the fountain pen she’d had since she was at school. Fragments of her life transformed into threats: If I can get close enough to steal this, I can get close enough to touch you, to punish you, to kill you.
‘Only that it was mine.’
‘You last wore these earrings at a photo shoot on the tenth?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re sure you had them on when you walked through that door?’ He points his biro towards the hall.
‘Not one hundred per cent, but I’m usually pretty good about not leaving things behind.’
‘Did you go out that evening?’
‘No. I was packing for New York.’
‘Any more notes, phone calls or unwelcome cyber contact since you last spoke to Reeves?’
She shakes her head. He fixes her with his pale probing eyes. ‘I’m sure you know that this type of harassment is typical of someone who thinks you’ve humiliated them in some way or treated them unfairly. The trigger can be the smallest of slights or even something imagined, but it’s very real to them.’
‘Yes,’ she says. Why is he talking to me as if he’s reading from a charge sheet?
‘Can you think of anyone who might bear you a grudge? Someone from your past who might resent your success?’
Gracie wants to scream. She’s been over this a hundred times with Reeves, starting the morning she got the first note. Four words, printed on pristine white paper in the typeface she’s come to loathe.
How could anyone read a message like that and not search their past for an unpunished crime: a casual cruelty inflicted in a long-forgotten playground, the spurning of a lover, the blunt rejection of a grating, over-eager job applicant? She is guilty, she knows, of all these sins and more. Which is why the word deserve stays with her. Not you will die or you must die but you deserve to die as if, as those latex-gloved fingers typed the words and folded the note into the envelope, they were acting as agents of justice, disclosing a truth which Gracie’s own conscience was refusing to accept.
‘I can’t think of anyone I’ve hurt deliberately but there’s obviously someone out there who thinks otherwise.’
‘Anyone you’ve had problems with recently?’
I could shout it out, she thinks. Tell him everything: Yes, Inspector, there’s a girl my husband slept with who wants to destroy my marriage. But that’s not the line that she and Tom have agreed. She hunches forward, sliding her hands between her knees like a nervous child. ‘No.’
That look again, as if she is a specimen in a jar. ‘Anyone who’s come back into your life after a prolonged absence?’
‘Not that I can think of.’
He studies the file. ‘I see from the notes that these packages began soon after you moved into this house, then suddenly stopped about six months ago.’
‘Yes.’
‘Reeves thought the lull could be due to the culprit going to prison for another crime.’
He doesn’t volunteer what kind of crime Reeves thought that might be and Gracie, probably sensibly, doesn’t ask. He says hurriedly, ‘Personally, I think he’s wrong. Apart from this fixation with you I think your stalker probably behaves like a normal, law-abiding citizen.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘Just a gut feeling, Ms Dwyer.’
Gracie’s fingers pull at the edge of her shirt. ‘What else does your gut tell you?’
‘Given the objects they pick, I think it could well be a woman, or a man and a woman working together.’
‘So why would they suddenly stop?’
‘Maybe they didn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Not making contact for a while might be part of the power game. A ploy to keep you on edge, not knowing when, or if, it’s all going to start up again. Likewise the switch in packaging – trying to keep you guessing. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, stalkers who suddenly change their tactics to deny their target any sort of certainty. Now, have you got those names for me?’
Gracie fetches a printout from the countertop. She points to the two neatly typed lists and says in a small voice, ‘These are the people who were at the shoot and these are the ones who came to the house. I’ve marked everybody who’s been interviewed before.’
He raises an eyebrow, impressed by her efficiency. Gracie carries her mug to the sink and looks out across the river as she rinses away the coffee dregs. ‘They’re mostly other nannies that Heather’s had round after school.’
‘Heather … that’s your nanny, Heather Patterson?’
‘She’s been with us for three years. She’s totally trustworthy.’
‘And your husband?’
‘My husband?’ No, Inspector. My husband is not trustworthy.
‘Did he have people round while you were away?’
‘A few from his work.’ Gracie’s chest tightens as she bends to stack the mug in the dishwasher. ‘He’s an architect.’
‘Alicia Sandelson, is she a nanny?’
‘No. She’s one of Tom’s interns.’ The pressure on her chest grows unbearable, as if a giant hand