The Perfect Couple (ARC)

by Jackie Kabler

  to breathe deeply, tried to remember. I was safe. I was in hospital, and Danny was gone, and I

  was safe. Danny … the fear rose again. My husband, the serial killer. My physical injuries

  would, I’d been told, heal – but the rest of it? How did anyone, could anyone, recover from

  that? I’d been married to a monster, and I’d had absolutely no idea. How stupid did you have

  to be, how dim, to be married to a man who spent his spare time murdering people, and not

  realize it, any of it? To be married to a man who was so clearly deranged, and not know? I

  groaned. What was wrong with me?

  But none of it was my fault, that’s what they’d told me, the two officers, and I had to

  believe them. The woman, DCI Dickens, had pulled her chair close to my bed, looking stricken,

  telling me how desperately sorry she was, had even, briefly, held my hand, her touch cool and

  strangely comforting against my hot, dry skin. DS Clarke had remained standing, shifting from

  foot to foot, making rapid notes on a pad he pulled from his pocket as I, slowly and hesitantly,

  through the acuteness of the pain and the haze of the medication, told them everything,

  everything Danny had told me. Everything he’d done, why he’d done it, and what he planned

  to do next.

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  They had remained silent for a long time when I’d finished, staring at each other, horrified

  expressions on their faces. Then DCI Dickens had turned back to me, gripping my hand again.

  ‘I can’t even imagine what he went through as a child. It’s horrendous, and no kid should

  ever have to experience an upbringing like that. But it doesn’t change what he’s done, Gemma.

  He’s clearly a very sick, and very dangerous man. He’s killed four men, tried to kill a fifth, and

  nearly killed you too. And I promise you, we’re going to stop him hurting anyone else. This

  ends now.’

  And then they’d gone, telling me that everything would be OK. Would it though, really?

  How could it be? I’d asked them that, and they’d looked at each other, and then she’d squeezed

  my hand gently. One day at a time, one hour at a time, that was the only way to get through

  this, she said. Get well first, worry about the rest later. But it would get easier. Hour by hour,

  day by day. I’d find happiness again, she promised.

  ‘You’re strong, Gemma. You’re so bloody strong. Look at how much you’ve gone

  through already. You’ve had your throat cut, for goodness’ sake, and you’re still here, you’re

  still fighting. You can do this, and we’re going to make sure you get all the help you need, OK?

  And we’re going to find Danny and make him pay for what he’s done to you, and to all those

  men. We’re going to leave here and make an urgent press appeal, and within hours his face is

  going to be on every TV news bulletin, in every paper, on every news website, not just here

  but across Europe, across the world. We’re going to find him, Gemma, OK? And his cousin

  too. He’s going to pay for this as well, they both are.’

  She’d told me, to my great relief, that Albert was fine, distressed but unhurt, and had been

  taken again to the local kennels to be cared for until I was better. She made some phone calls

  for me then too, breaking the news, and Eva was coming today, and my parents too, I

  remembered. Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes, and I moved my hand from my throat to wipe

  them away. My parents … how would they ever understand all of this, how could I explain …?

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  And then another thought struck me, and I gasped. Danny had tried to kill me to stop me

  telling anyone what I now knew, what he’d done. But I wasn’t dead, and I had told. And very

  soon, he’d know that, because the police would make their appeal, the appeal that would see

  his face being beamed from TV screens and on social media sites around the world, naming

  him as chief suspect in the UK serial killer case. Danny would see that, there was no way he

  wouldn’t, and he would know. He would know I was still alive, and what I’d done. And what

  would he do then?

  Fear began to sweep over me, and suddenly my breaths were coming fast and shallow,

  black spots dancing before my eyes. When Danny had pulled out that knife, in our kitchen, it

  had been so quick, so unexpected, that I hadn’t had time to feel real fear before the sharp blade

  whipped across my throat. I’d felt the blood spurting, oozing, felt the weakness in my body as

  I sank to the floor, heard Danny’s footsteps crossing the room, pausing, moving on again, heard

  Albert howling in the hallway, heard the front door slamming, closed my eyes as the darkness

  descended. But fear … not fear, not really, not then. Now it was there though, in every rasping

  breath, in the tremor running up my spine, in the pain shooting across my throat, in the sweat

  running down my forehead into my eyes, blurring my vision.

  ‘Mrs O’Connor? Mrs O’Connor, are you awake? Are you OK?’

  I jumped in terror, then took a shuddering breath as I recognized the doctor who’d been

  treating me. He was peering down at me, a concerned expression on his kind face.

  ‘Fine. I’m fine,’ I managed.

  ‘Well, good. Because I have some news for you,’ he said.

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  47

  Seven months later

  ‘Gemma, are you coming in? We’re pouring the bubbly!’

  Clare’s voice rose above the hubbub of chat and laughter coming from the living room.

  They were all there today – Clare, Tai, Eva and a whole group of other women too, ones I’d

  met over the previous months at the classes I’d unexpectedly found myself attending, women

  who were now firm friends, my support group, my Bristol family. Women I could laugh with

  and cry with in equal measure; there’d been plenty of the latter but, thankfully, enough of the

  former to keep me sane, to keep me moving forwards, to stop me from looking back too much.

  I still did, of course, in the dark, silent hours, when the fear would grip me and I’d cling to

  Albert, shaking, desperate for dawn when the sunlight would drive away the shadows. But I

  was trying, and I was winning, most of the time.

  Out in the hallway, I bent to scoop a small pile of letters from the doormat.

  ‘Be there in a mo. Just checking the post!’

  I flicked through the envelopes, most of them clearly greetings cards. I’d had so many in

  the past week, from friends, former colleagues, even from strangers, all sending me love and

  wishing me well as I embarked upon this new, unforeseen journey.

  As I put the pile down on the hall table, there was a burst of laughter from the living room,

  and then the pop of a champagne cork followed by a yelp from Albert and a booming ‘well

  done!’ I smiled. Dad. My parents were in there too, had come to stay for a few days, instantly

  hitting it off with my neighbours, Jo, Jenny and Clive, who I now saw almost daily and who

  were currently buzzing around in the kitchen, laying out neat triangular sandwiches and dainty

  fairy cakes on platters, food they’d insisted on providing for the party. There were balloons

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  too, tied to the backs of chairs and to door handles, bobbing on their long strings. Blue balloons,

  to greet the guest of honour.

  I turned to stare at him, and he stared back at me, wide awake, alert. I reached out and

  gently stroked his f
orehead, then moved my hand slowly to my throat, running my fingers

  across the livid scar that ran across it, less painful now, less raw, but still raised and ugly, a

  permanent reminder of the day my life changed forever.

  He was still out there somewhere. Danny, and Quinn too. The police kept me updated on

  a weekly basis, but each time they called, there was less and less to say, less information to

  give me. At first, police forces across the world had been inundated with sightings, people who

  believed they’d seen Danny in a restaurant in Marbella, or Quinn working in a supermarket in

  Manhattan, or both of them hitchhiking at the side of the road at Bondi Beach. But none of the

  sightings had come to anything, and slowly the reports began to dry up. Helena and Devon –

  that’s what I called them, these days, the formality of DCI and DS long behind us – were in the

  living room too, taking time out from work to attend the celebration, and I was glad, not just

  because I’d come to think of them as friends, but because somehow they made me feel safe.

  They had, after all, saved my life. Saved two lives, because if I had died, he would have too.

  I looked down at him again, his eyelids fluttering wearily now, the soft white blanket

  tucked under his chin, a rainbow-striped teddy bear nestling at his feet. I reached for the pram’s

  handle and began to rock it gently. My baby. My son. When the doctor had told me, that day

  in the hospital, that I was pregnant, the shock had been so immense I’d been unable to speak

  for a full minute. Pregnant? I’d actually lost weight in the previous few weeks. And yet it

  explained so many things; the tiredness I’d been feeling, the frequent waves of nausea, things

  I’d assumed at the time were simply reactions to the situation I was in, the stress and my grief

  at Danny’s disappearance. I’d conceived, it seemed, just a few weeks before the move to

  Bristol, back in January. Back in January, when Danny had already killed two men and was

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  planning his escape. The thought of it chilled me. How could he have made love to me then,

  knowing what he’d done, what he was about to do? Knowing the hell he was about to put me

  through?

  As I lay in hospital, recovering after the father of my new baby had slit my throat, had

  tried to kill me, I’d considered, briefly, terminating the pregnancy. How could I bring a child

  into the world when one day I’d have to tell him that he was the offspring of a serial killer, one

  of the world’s most wanted men? But almost immediately, I dismissed the thought. I could

  already feel my child’s presence, his life force. There had been enough killing.

  And now he was here, my baby, born just a few days ago, and we were about to celebrate

  his arrival. The only significant person in his life who wasn’t there was Bridget, and although

  we were now slowly building some sort of relationship by phone, I knew we still had a very

  long way to go, me and this damaged woman who had suffered so much. It was as if she’d

  spent so many years keeping the secret about her abusive husband, shutting the world out, that

  it was just too hard for her to let anyone in, even now. Or maybe especially now, when the

  world knew she was the mother of a serial killer. She seemed to be dealing with that the same

  way she’d dealt with everything that had gone before – quietly, and alone. But at least she took

  my phone calls, asked a few questions about how I was, had even sent a ‘new baby’ card. We

  would never be close, I knew that, but I hoped that maybe one day I might be able to visit, let

  her meet her grandchild, the child I’d now be rearing alone.

  We’d manage though, the two of us, wouldn’t we? The three of us, I corrected myself, as

  I heard another excited bark from Albert. For a while, I’d wanted to move from the Clifton

  house, terrified that Danny would come back, shaking every time I walked into the kitchen,

  remembering the horror of his words, the knife, the pain. And then, quite suddenly, I’d changed

  my mind about that too. I loved this house, loved my courtyard, loved my neighbours now too.

  And Danny had taken so much from me. He wasn’t taking this place as well. One day, when I

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  could afford it, I would buy somewhere, but for now this was home, and to my surprise, I could

  afford to live a comfortable life in it. The money Danny had claimed he’d put away for me

  never materialized, not that I would have taken it if it had. But far from drying up, as I had

  feared, work offers had doubled, trebled, after my ordeal, and although I knew that this was

  due to my newfound notoriety as the wife of an on-the-run serial killer, I was grateful for it.

  The Lookalike Killer, that’s what they’d dubbed Danny. The murderer who’d killed men who

  looked like him, trying to slay the ghosts that haunted him. At first inundated by requests for

  interviews, for the inside story, I turned every single one down, and in the past couple of months

  things had returned to near normality.

  ‘And I’m lucky enough to have a job I can do at home, with you,’ I whispered. I turned

  away from the pram for a moment to check that the front door was double locked, that the chain

  was secure. I’d heard noises again last night, as I had the previous couple of nights too,

  scraping, tapping noises that chilled my blood, noises that made me sit bolt upright in bed,

  rigid, gasping for breath, shaking finger poised over the panic button the police had installed,

  just in case. But the noises had stopped, or maybe they’d never been there at all, and I’d fallen

  back into an uneasy sleep, the baby’s hungry cries waking me again what seemed like just

  minutes later.

  ‘Gemma! Come on!’

  Clare again.

  ‘Coming! Just settling the baby, one minute, I promise!’

  I turned back to the pram. His eyes had opened again, wide dark pools framed by fluttery

  lashes. Dark hair too, a surprising amount of it, not just wispy peach fuzz but a thick dark mop,

  soft curls on his forehead. Eyes like Danny’s, hair like Danny’s. Danny’s son. Son of the

  Lookalike Killer. A baby who looked just like his father, like his grandfather. Like four dead

  men, his father’s victims. I looked into my child’s eyes, and suddenly I felt a creeping sensation,

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  like insects running across my skin. I shivered, and turned again to check the door, testing the

  chain, taking deep breaths, trying to slow my suddenly racing heartbeat. It was fine. We were

  safe, we were OK. The house was full of people, full of love and laughter. For today, at least,

  nothing bad could happen here.

  I looked at my baby again. He’d fallen asleep, lashes resting delicately on his cheeks. I

  gripped the pram handle, watching him for a moment, the way the blanket gently rose and fell

  with each tiny breath. I glanced at the door again, checking one more time. Then I wheeled the

  pram carefully into the living room and went to join the party.

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My previous book, Am I Guilty? , marked a change in genre for me; my first three books were

  a series of cosy crime novels, but I had increasingly begun to feel that I wanted to try writing

  something a little darker. It was a huge risk, and I really wasn’t sure whether I could it pull it

  off. The response, however, has been amazing, and I want to begin
these acknowledgements

  by saying a massive thank you to everyone who took a chance on me and my first psychological

  thriller/suspense/domestic noir/whatever you want to call it novel. I am so grateful not only to

  my agent and publisher (more on them later) but to all of the book bloggers, reviewers and

  fellow authors who have supported me through this change in direction, and to everyone who

  bought and read and wrote such wonderful reviews about the book.

  Now here we are with psychological thriller number two. The idea for The Perfect Couple

  came to me rather randomly, when I was sitting in our garden in Gloucestershire one sunny

  day playing the ‘what if” game that so many authors play: what if this happened? What if that

  happened? What if a woman came home from a business trip one day to find that her husband

  had simply vanished? And so another book baby was conceived.

  As always, writing a novel and getting it to the point where it is ready to be released into

  the world is by no means a solo effort: so many people help to make it the very best it can be.

  My husband, friends and family, who know how important writing is to me and give me the

  time and space to do it. My wonderful agent, Clare Hulton, who is always there if I need a

  helping hand. The team at HarperCollins and One More Chapter (and oh my goodness, what a

  summer party that was!) especially my fantastic editor, Kathryn Cheshire (thank you so much

  for your brilliance when it came to editing The Perfect Couple – there were moments when I

  thought I’d never get this book right, and you got me there in the end!); marketing queen, the

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  super-stylish Claire Fenby, always so supportive; my fabulous copy editor Janette Currie; and

  the very talented Lucy Bennett, who designed the cover.

  Thank you yet again to all the members of the wonderful book blogging community, who

  are always so kind and supportive, shouting loudly about cover reveals and release dates and

  taking the time to write such considered reviews; none of us could do this without you.

  And of course, thank YOU. Without readers, we are nothing. When I wrote the

  acknowledgements for my very first book back in 2015, I told my agent and publisher that my

  book deal had made a little girl’s dream come true and a big girl very happy. Even now, I