My Perfect Wife: An absolutely unputdownable domestic suspense novel

by Clare Boyd

  When Agata returned, Elizabeth said, ‘We’re going to need Heather’s help. Is that okay with you?’

  Agata looked at the conveyor belt crammed with food, as though this were what Elizabeth had been referring to. Elizabeth laughed.

  ‘Not that. The paintings.’

  Agata clicked her tongue and shook her head. ‘She is back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Gordon and Sally …’

  ‘Yes. We’ll have to keep them out of it somehow,’ Elizabeth said.

  * * *

  Elizabeth waited for Gordon and Sally to leave. She had requested they go to the garden centre to pick up some extra-large plant pots and foliage to put in place on the terrace for tomorrow.

  ‘We’ve got some friends coming over and Piotr’s going to do a barbecue,’ she had said. ‘Lucas thought we could jazz the place up a bit. One big pot there, and one there?’ she said, pointing to each corner of the slate-tiled terrace.

  She was good at lying. Her mother had taught her how.

  ‘Square black ones, I thought,’ she continued. ‘You can choose whatever you like to fill them with.’

  Both Gordon and Sally were silent. She knew they did not appreciate suggestions that interfered with their designs.

  ‘And you want these by tomorrow?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Yes please. Is that all right?’ She knew they couldn’t refuse.

  ‘Of course. We’ll go now,’ Sally agreed, checking her watch. Gordon gave her a sideways glance that expressed how disgruntled he was.

  ‘Thank you. You’re superstars.’

  It was that easy to get rid of them.

  * * *

  Large raindrops began to plop onto Elizabeth’s head as she hurried to Connolly Close. It had been sunny five minutes before, and she had failed to put on her raincoat or take an umbrella. The heavens opened. She contemplated turning back. But, she thought, did it matter that she was cold and uncomfortable? Not any more. The comforts of her life were over, rendered meaningless by the misery engendered in the pursuit of them.

  She ran along the lane and into Connolly Close to shelter under the small porch of the Shaws’ bungalow. The rain lashed into her left side. Her summer blouse stuck to her arm. With her heart in her mouth, she pressed the doorbell. As she waited, she began shivering, but she didn’t care if she died of cold, curled on their doorstep.

  When Heather opened the door, Elizabeth saw how thin she had become, like Agata, and her resolve strengthened further.

  ‘Can I please come in?’ she asked, teeth chattering.

  Twenty-Seven

  I stared at Elizabeth Huxley standing on the doorstep. She was almost unrecognisable, bedraggled, her small frame hunched and her golden hair smeared to one cheek. Instead of ushering her in, as I would have done for anyone else, I hesitated and began to close the door. I didn’t want her money or her threats.

  Her hand shot out to stop me from closing the door.

  ‘Please, hear me out.’

  ‘Is it work-related?’ It was only Thursday afternoon. There were three more days before I had to start work again.

  ‘Just five minutes.’

  I noticed how her body juddered with cold and I weakened.

  ‘Here, take this and change in there,’ I said, handing her a jumper from the peg, pointing to the sitting room.

  After a minute, she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. The jumper – Dad’s green cable-knit with the brown elbow patches – was five sizes too big for her and made her look comically small and young. Her hair was drying curlier than the tamed waves I was used to seeing tucked neatly behind her ears. She drew her finger under both her eyes in an attempt to neaten up the smudge of mascara, but it wiped stripes towards her temples, making her look wild and unsophisticated, and I had a flash of who she might be inside, behind the wealth and grooming.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ she said, rolling up the sleeves of the jumper.

  I brought out the teapot and dusted it off.

  As the kettle boiled, I leant back into the work surface and waited for her to tell me why she was here.

  ‘I would like your help,’ she said. Her pretty blue eyes blinked up at me, and I tried not to be drawn in by her beguiling, vulnerable face, which brought to mind Lucas and how he must have loved her once.

  ‘I’ll be back at work on Monday.’

  ‘I need you this weekend.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Transport Jude’s paintings to his lock-up. I’m reframing them for him,’ she said. ‘Can you help?’

  I placed her tea in front of her. ‘Why not hire a van?’

  ‘It’s a secret. For Lucas. It’s his birthday coming up.’ She sipped her tea. ‘And he’d find out if I used our joint account.’

  ‘I’ll have to ask Dad.’

  ‘That’s the thing. You’re going to have to do it without telling either of your parents.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I can’t risk Lucas finding out.’ She laughed nervily.

  ‘My parents are the most discreet people you’ll ever meet.’

  ‘And the most honest,’ she countered. ‘They won’t be able to lie to Lucas.’

  I crossed my arms over my chest, sensing that her request had nothing to do with a birthday surprise. ‘And if I refuse to help you?’

  Her light smile disappeared. ‘You’re contractually obliged to do as I ask. All three of you.’

  ‘So you’re giving me no choice,’ I said through a tight jaw, loathing my capitulation, loathing her entitled air and her presumptuous, ill-gotten power over me.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just the way it has to be,’ she said, standing to leave.

  * * *

  The following night, I parked my old car in the spot on the drive nearest to my parents’ bedroom window, forcing my father to park the van on the street. This was how I wanted it to play out – the further away the van was from the house, the less likely it was that they would wake up. And they didn’t.

  Like a thief in the night, I drove out of Connolly Close at 3 a.m. and waited in the lane outside Copper Lodge. The engine purred. The headlights shot out into the gloom. Two diminutive figures, carrying one painting each, crept across the gravel. Their footsteps were magnified by the silence and I winced at every sound they made. I climbed out and opened the back.

  Silently, wordlessly, Elizabeth and Agata slid the paintings into the back. While Agata went back for the third, Elizabeth and I wrapped the two canvases in blankets and secured them to the side with straps.

  We left Agata at the house.

  Once we were safely away, I turned on the radio. The noise was worse than the silence. The fast drumbeat of the dance track heightened the tension between us. The orchestral piece on the classical station added melodrama to an already hair-raising drive. I turned it off. It allowed space for me to think. I realised I had no idea what we were doing, and I became frightened.

  ‘Are we stealing these?’

  ‘They’re my brother’s paintings. How could I be stealing them?’

  ‘Elizabeth. Please tell me what we’re doing.’

  ‘As I said, it’s going to be a surprise for Lucas.’

  I glanced down at my naked ring finger. I did not like surprises. I did not like driving in the middle of the night. I did not like sitting next to Elizabeth. She was highly strung, over-polite. Held-in secrets, pulled-back feelings, unvoiced grievances shimmered behind her eyes, trapped under the cool surface of her prettiness. I sensed she was changeable, unstable, as Lucas had intimated. In fact, he had said she was mad, and now I believed him.

  He was only a phone call away.

  ‘We need petrol,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, really?’ She leant over to look at the gauge. ‘There’s enough to get us to London and back.’

  When we reached the motorway, I pulled into the first petrol station we came across.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I need the loo,’ I
said, checking to make sure my phone was in my jacket pocket.

  ‘Be quick!’ she said.

  The shop was empty. On the way to the toilets, through the aisles, I scrolled to Lucas’s number on my phone.

  ‘It’s out of order,’ the man said from behind the counter, and I jumped, too on edge to handle the smallest disturbance. My mobile screen flicked off. I pulled up my contacts again and stared at his name: Lucas Huxley. My finger hovered over the green button. Could I really call him in the middle of the night to tell him that I was on the A3 with his wife and her brother’s paintings? Could I? Would he laugh and tell me that he knew about Elizabeth’s little birthday surprise? Would he order us home? Would he call the police? Was I in too deep already? Retrospectively, would I be able to convince Lucas and my parents and the police that I had been coerced into stealing the paintings?

  Could I take the risk?

  Elizabeth had made it clear that she would make trouble for me and my parents if Lucas found out. The madness behind her eyes led me to believe she was capable of anything. No, I could not take the risk. I turned on my heel and returned to the van, committed to this night-time run, praying I wasn’t making a decision that I could never recover from, that would have far-reaching consequences, that might ruin my life.

  Twenty-Eight

  Lucas ended his call and chucked his mobile on the coffee table in front of him.

  ‘Jesus!’ he said, stretching out on the leather sofa, crossing his ankles, linking his hands across his chest, yawning loudly. The sun streamed in through the window. A shaft of light on his head, as though it could suck him upwards into the heavens like the soul from a dead body.

  Elizabeth curled her legs underneath her and put the Saturday newspaper supplement down. She hadn’t been reading it. She was too tired after last night.

  ‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

  He sat up and leant his elbows on his knees. A chunk of his hair stuck up at the back. ‘More than okay! Fuck! It’s actually fucking happening. Can you believe we’ve almost actually done it?’

  Her duplicity came down on her, heavy and hard. Panic set in. She wondered if it was possible to reverse what she had done. Bring the paintings home, carry on as before.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Cadogan Tate are managing the logistics for the paintings after the deal’s signed.’

  She stood up. ‘Another coffee?’

  ‘Oh darling, you’re going to miss them, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ she said, taking his cup.

  ‘Let’s go take a look at them, shall we? Check they’re in one piece. And have a swim afterwards.’

  She opened the fridge for the milk and stood there sucking in its cool air. ‘Later maybe.’

  He came up behind her. ‘Why don’t we ask Jude to paint us some more?’

  ‘I don’t think it works like that.’

  ‘Yes it does. I can commission him. After next week, I can pay him anything he wants.’

  She repeated what he had said. ‘Yes. After next week.’ After the party. After the pool house. After this. After that. Where was the ‘after’ for Agata and Piotr?

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘After next week, we’ll be set for life.’

  ‘When did you say they were coming to stay?’

  ‘Wednesday after next.’

  ‘I’ll call Bo and ask her what she’s not eating these days.’

  ‘Come on. Join me for a naughty caffeine hit by the pool.’

  She put a coffee pod into the machine.

  ‘Where’s Agata?’ Lucas asked.

  ‘She’s taken the kids to Wisley.’

  ‘Oh, okay. I’ll get my trunks and then go check on those paintings.’

  As soon as he had gone through to the bedroom, Elizabeth abandoned the coffee pod and began to pace, squeezing her skull until she couldn’t see straight. She wanted to find Heather, send her back to the lock-up in Clapham, bring the paintings back. But oh Christ, there wasn’t time! A stone of panic lodged in her chest, ready to explode. She was minutes away from Lucas discovering what she had done.

  She drank from the tap as though this were her last drink, wiped her mouth, began a mental preparation for what was to come.

  ‘See you down there!’ Lucas said, whistling as he slipped out into the garden in his swimming trunks with a towel thrown over his shoulder.

  Pointlessly, she made two coffees, as something to do, but she didn’t follow him down to the barn. She waited as they grew cold. She waited.

  Four minutes. Four minutes before the day turned. Four minutes of calm that she would never get back.

  Lucas was running up the lawn, a spray of sweat flying off his head.

  ‘They’re gone!’ he cried. He was holding his forehead, wide-eyed, tearful, staring at her, pleading for help. ‘The paintings! They’re gone, Elizabeth!’

  Elizabeth gulped and her elbow knocked over the cold cup of coffee behind her as she backed into the kitchen units. She stared at him.

  ‘I think they must’ve been stolen!’ he shouted.

  As she spoke, her voice sounded strange, as though it wasn’t hers. ‘They haven’t been stolen.’

  ‘What? Have you moved them?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve moved them.’

  ‘Jesus! Why didn’t you say? I almost had a fucking heart attack.’

  She could have lied. She could have said she had wanted them in a safer place. She could have said she hadn’t wanted to bother him with it.

  ‘They’re safe.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Safe.’

  ‘Stop saying that. Tell me where they are.’

  The image of Piotr fixing the daisy-chain ring onto Agata’s finger played through her mind on a loop.

  ‘I’ll tell you where they are when you’ve returned Agata and Piotr’s documents.’

  Lucas guffawed. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  ‘No joke, Lucas.’

  His lips were wet. They hung open. He scratched the mole on his cheek. He didn’t look angry; he looked utterly lost. ‘Elizabeth?’

  Her voice began to break. ‘You can’t hold them here against their will,’ she said.

  ‘But there’s a good reason I’m not giving them back their passports and their papers.’

  ‘There’s no good reason for forcing them to stay!’

  ‘Elizabeth! They’ve tricked you! They’re probably halfway to Poland by now.’

  Her heartbeat slowed. ‘Wasn’t Piotr working on the pool-house?’

  ‘He wasn’t there. You have to tell me where you took them.’

  ‘No. I won’t let you mess with my head. Piotr and Agata would never steal from us.’

  ‘You really know them that well?’

  ‘I trust them.’

  ‘Think about it. Think, Elizabeth! Whose idea was it to take the paintings?’

  ‘Mine,’ she lied, remembering Agata dropping the cheese into the trolley and suggesting the idea after her phone call with Jude.

  Lucas stepped towards her and said in a low, urgent voice, ‘Where are the kids?’

  ‘They’re with Agata. At Wisley.’ Saying it made it real. Anything else was unthinkable. She pictured them running through the droopy branches of their favourite willow tree and playing in the stick teepees and laughing at the naked lady statue.

  ‘Are you one hundred per cent sure about that?’

  Her palms were wet with sweat as she pressed Agata’s number on her phone. ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  It rang and rang. Elizabeth thought she might die waiting for her to pick up.

  ‘Where are those paintings, Elizabeth?’

  ‘I will not tell you unless you give me Agata and Piotr’s documents,’ she repeated, steadfast. She blocked out his shouting and flinched when he came near her. He pointed into her face, threatening her with everything and anything he could think of. It would pass, she told herself, blinking away her fear.

  Running
out of steam, Lucas went outside and made a phone call. Elizabeth didn’t know to whom. She watched him pacing across the flagstones. There was a redness high on his cheekbones.

  A few minutes later, Gordon’s tall figure appeared on the crest of the lawn. His greying brow was heavy over his eyes as Lucas talked to him. He nodded repeatedly and went away again.

  Lucas came back inside and cut across the room, straight to her.

  ‘You know Agata will go to prison for this. For theft and kidnap. Is that what you want?’

  Elizabeth called Agata again, feeling the oppression of Lucas’s questions, feeling the doubt crash over her in waves. She revisited her conversations with Agata, how assured she had been, how calm, how determined; how they had shared what felt to Elizabeth like a real alliance, a friendship, an affection even. How she had entrusted her with the address and code of the lock-up. Just in case something went wrong.

  No, she thought. Lucas is trying to mess with my head.

  ‘Agata did not take them,’ she said, wanting him to stop accusing her.

  He ignored her and stared down at his phone, as though it might have the answers. ‘How could you have been so stupid?’

  It was she, Elizabeth, who had the answers, and yet still he could not defer to her. Still he wouldn’t allow himself to bow to her demands. In the face of his lack of respect, she became a little stronger. ‘It’s simple, Lucas. If you give me the passports and work papers, I’ll tell you where we took the paintings.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘How did you transport them?’

  She didn’t answer, realising her mistake. He looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘Of course,’ he said quietly. ‘Heather. Heather helped you. You asked her to use Gordon’s van, didn’t you?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  For a brief moment, the tension fell from his face. What she saw, she fully understood. It was the look of a man who had been hurt by someone he had trusted, and this riled her. Historical jealousy reared up inside her. ‘You don’t like the idea of Heather knowing everything about you, do you?’ she said, wanting him to know that Heather could never love him back.