Cover

Dedication

To mother-in-laws everywhere.

Praise for Amanda Robson

‘A fabulous rollercoaster of a read – I was obsessed by this book’

B A Paris, author of Behind Closed Doors

‘Fast-moving, compulsive reading’

Jane Corry, author of My Husband’s Wife

‘An addictive, compelling read, full of tension’

Karen Hamilton, author of The Perfect Girlfriend

‘Compelling and thoroughly addictive’

Katerina Diamond, author of The Heatwave

‘Characters you will love to hate and an ending that will make your jaw drop’

Jenny Blackhurst, author of Before I Let You In

‘A taut thriller full of page-turning suspense’

Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths

‘Expertly injects menace into the domestic’

Holly Seddon, author of Try Not to Breathe

‘No one does toxic relationships quite like Amanda Robson’

Sam Carrington, author of The Open House

‘Twisty, taut, vibrant and addictive.

The queen of the page-turner’

Caroline England, author of My Husband’s Lies

‘A compelling page-turner on the dark underbelly of marriage, friendship and lust’

Fiona Cummins, author of Rattle

1

Saffron

I look across the breakfast table at my husband, Miles, and the reasons I married him move towards me with certainty. We are in tune, both physically and mentally. Why do I ever doubt him? It’s not Miles I have problems with, but you, Caprice. His mother. A frail and lonely widow, with kind eyes and a swan-like neck? Or the mother-in-law from hell with a witch’s cackle for a laugh? Whichever, you have infiltrated our lives.

You were living in the self-contained annexe that abuts our house, built especially for you. But you have decided it no longer suits. It’s suddenly become too poky, so you’ve moved in with us. And you’re here, at breakfast time, sitting next to me, cracking the top of your boiled egg with sledgehammer ferocity.

As my husband frequently points out, you are still a beautiful woman. I like to reply for your age, just to remind us both that I am young and you are old. Youth is more powerful than age, I hope, for our relationship has become a battle.

Over the years I have tried so hard to make you like me. But it was difficult from the start. You made it quite clear I wasn’t your sort of person the first time we met, when Miles invited me to your family home for Sunday lunch. A painful affair in your large, medieval hall of a dining room, which looked out onto a garden that never ended. It blended into the horizon, dripping with thousands of pounds’ worth of showcase flowers. Rupert, Miles’ father, was still alive then, presiding at the head of the table carving a succulent joint of beef.

Miles sat opposite me. A low-slung crystal chandelier dangled between us. His eyes glistened into mine, trying to encourage me to relax. Aiden, Miles’ younger brother, was sitting next to me. The silence in the room was suffocating.

After a while, you leant towards me. ‘Well, Julie,’ you said.

Julie. Miles’ ex-girlfriend, and now Aiden’s current squeeze.

‘It’s Saffron,’ I replied, with what I hoped was a wide friendly smile.

‘Well,’ you coughed. ‘Sa … a … a … ffron. Tell me how you two met.’ Too much emphasis on the a. Long and slow. As if my name was difficult to pronounce.

I couldn’t tell you the truth. No mother wants to hear her son was seduced at a party when he was drunk and then didn’t leave his new girlfriend’s room for over a week because they were smoking dope and having experimental sex. So I just smiled and explained that we met at college.

‘Oh. Are you at the poly?’ you asked.

Aiden and Miles both laughed.

‘Polys don’t exist anymore. Haven’t for almost twenty years. You know that, Mum. They’re new universities now. Cambridge poly is Anglia Ruskin University,’ Aiden said through a mouthful of homemade Yorkshire pudding.

‘Is that where you’re studying, Anglia Ruskin, dear?’ you asked, with a strong false emphasis on the word dear that made me squirm inside.

‘No. Actually I’m at the old university; Trinity College with Miles.’

Your lips tightened. ‘A bluestocking, then?’

‘She doesn’t exactly look like a bluestocking, does she?’ Rupert trumpeted from the end of the table.

Annoyed by this attempt at a compliment, you thwarted your husband with your eyes. The room fell silent again, interrupted only by the scraping of knives and forks across fine china. After a while you leant towards me again. ‘Now, Cinnamon …’ you said.

After a heavy Sunday lunch of roast beef with all the trimmings, followed by apple pie, which settled like lead on my stomach – I was already well on the way to being a vegetarian and subsequently a vegan – you asked me to help clear the table and wash up, while Miles’ father invited his sons to admire the new dahlia border in the garden. A sexist division of duties. A throwback to the 1950s. But, on my best behaviour with the family of the man I was besotted with, I didn’t comment or complain.

As we were loading the dishwasher I saw the men walking along the path at the side of the house, past the kitchen window.

Rupert’s voice crashed towards us. ‘Your girlfriend’s a pretty filly. Taut and muscular like a fine racehorse.’

Sexist again. My stomach tightened. So he thought I was pretty. Despite the sexism of the comment, that pleased me. But I sensed your body stiffen with envious displeasure. I guessed that, as far as you were concerned, it was unnecessarily flattering.

We continued our chores. You washed the pans and I dried, racking my brains for something to say, wanting to fill the airwaves with friendship and conversation.

‘It’s a lovely area. How long have you lived here?’ I tried.

‘All my life.’

‘So you were brought up around here?’

‘That’s what “all my life” means, yes.’

The silence expanded. Ask open, not closed questions, I told myself. ‘Where do you work? Tell me about your job,’ I persisted.

You stopped washing up, pulled off your rubber gloves and stepped towards me, pouring your angry eyes into mine. ‘I’m a wife and mother. It isn’t a job. It’s a privilege and a pleasure. I would have thought a girl like you with brains sprouting out of your ears would have realised that.’

2

Caprice

‘Have a good day at work, dear,’ I shout as you leave. ‘I’ll tidy up, and then I’ll take the children to school.

‘You’re welcome,’ I mutter beneath my breath as the front door bangs shut.

You never really thank me for all I do with the children. Difficult to work with, getting through nannies like cannon fodder, you are coming home from work early tonight to interview yet another one. In the meantime, I take the flak and help you out. And recently your ingratitude has ramped up a notch. Since I could no longer bear being cooped up in the poky annexe at the back of the house like a factory-farmed chicken, and insisted on moving into the guest suite of the house I paid for in the first place, you have been even more sparing with your thanks.

Saffron, why, when he had a homemaker for a mother, did my son choose to marry you? A selfish career-obsessed woman?

I sigh inside and begin to clear the breakfast table. I wouldn’t mind so much, but you are such an intellectual snob, looking down your nose at me because I went to secretarial college. You may have a double first in philosophy from Cambridge University, and have set up your own boutique law firm, but you live in an intellectual bubble; no empathy with real people. You talk to Miles endlessly about politics and legal issues but you never ask my opinion about anything. I am irrelevant. Invisible.

It’s not as if you have any redeeming features. I can’t understand why Miles finds you physically attractive. Your clothes are too masculine. Sharply tailored trouser suits for work. Jeans, Doc Martens and T-shirts riddled with designer holes for home life. I have to admit, you have long bleached blonde hair, which is nicely conditioned, and pretty cheekbones. But why do you spoil your face with thick horn-rimmed glasses? Haven’t you heard of varifocal contacts?

Table cleared, dishwasher loaded and rumbling, I take off my apron and walk towards the playroom. Even though you have washed and dressed the children, and given them breakfast when you got up at 6 a.m., I expect you have left them watching a boring educational programme again.

Upper middle-class children can be as underprivileged as those on benefits. ‘Quality time’ is a fallacy that deprives in its own way.

3

Hayley

I want this job. It pays well. It’s in a good neighbourhood. The agency I’m with informed me that the nannies who’ve worked here have enjoyed the experience, and have felt cherished and respected by their employers.

When I commented, ‘But there’s been a high turnover,’ the agency boss replied, ‘It’s just been one of those things. The last two nannies had trouble renewing their work permits. Our government has been tightening up on immigration.’

I ring the doorbell, feeling nervous. A young woman with razor-blade cheekbones and sharp glasses opens the door. She looks a bit like Margot Robbie. I would so like to look edgy and sexy like that. Super-skinny. A real clothes horse. The sort of woman who would look good in anything, even a bin bag.

‘Welcome. Do come in,’ she says.

I step into this modern mansion. The hallway is laced with thick-pile carpet. A designer dresser built of metal and mirrors stands to the right of me, displaying a crystal vase bristling with flowers: lilies, roses, agapanthus and delphiniums. They fill the air with scent. A spiral marble staircase with a curved mahogany handrail coils upwards from the back of the hallway. Impressionist paintings adorn golden rag-rolled walls. I drink it all in to write about in my diary later. The diary I’m keeping to show my mother when I get home.

‘I’m Saffron. How do you do?’

Saffron. Even her name is interesting. Her voice is deep and husky. Deep, but not masculine. Saffron oozes style and femininity.

‘I’m Hayley,’ I reply, shaking her hand.

‘Are you from New Zealand?’ Saffron asks.

I nod my head. As soon as I open my mouth everyone guesses where I’m from. My English boyfriend tells me my vocal cords are as soft as guitar strings and that, like all New Zealanders, I sound as if I am talking through my teeth.

‘Whereabouts in New Zealand?’ Saffron asks.

‘Queenstown.’

‘We’ve been there for a holiday. It was fabulous. How could you bear to leave?’

‘Every young New Zealander craves some time in England.’ I pause. ‘New Zealand is small. Parochial. There’s more to life than sharp-edged mountains and life-threatening adventure.’

My insides tighten. Actually, I miss our small cosy family bungalow full of finely stretched enthusiasm. My cheery father and brother who spend their days strapping people to bungee elastic. My thin, worried mother who works stoically at the local supermarket.

Saffron puts her head on one side and her lips burst into a wide smile. ‘Do come and sit down.’

I follow her into the drawing room, which looks like a film set. It has a large curved window adorned with tumbling white damask curtains and matching window seat. This white extravaganza frames a view of a tennis court and a swimming pool. Am I dreaming? Have I arrived in Hollywood?

‘Please sit down,’ Saffron says, smiling across at me.

I sink into a silk-covered antique walnut chair, to the right of the fireplace. Saffron sits opposite me and leans forwards.

‘I’m sure you’ve read our job description. We need help, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., five days a week.’ She pauses and crosses her shapely, slender legs. ‘Our elder son Ben is eight years old. He attends a private school, City of London Freemen’s. Its name is a bit confusing.’ She smiles. ‘It’s not in London, but Ashtead, not far from here. His younger brother Harry is six. He’s still at the local C of E Primary.’ She pushes her glasses further back against her nose. ‘In term time, we need them taken to school and picked up, and for them to be looked after until 6 p.m., when either Miles or I will be home. If they are ill or it’s the school holidays, we need them cared for full-time.’ She leans back. ‘Does the package we sent to the agency seem suitable to you?’

I smile slowly. ‘It does. Very much so. And I love working with this age group. I expect you’ve looked at my CV. The last children I looked after were the same age and we got on so well.’

‘Look, Hayley,’ Saffron says, sitting back, frowning in contemplation. ‘I’ve read your references. You come highly recommended, but are you available? I need someone to start quickly.’

I take a deep breath to slow down my reply. I mustn’t sound overeager. It will make me seem desperate. But this is by far the best opportunity I’ve had since I arrived in the UK. So far I’ve only had a few temporary appointments at homes where the regular nanny was on holiday.

‘Well, I could move some things around … That way I could start on Monday,’ I say hesitantly.

‘Great stuff.’ She gives me a wide beaming smile. ‘Well, I’ll show you the accommodation. You can meet the children and we can take it from there.’

She stands up, and I follow her back into the hallway. An older woman is now attending to the flower arrangement on the dresser, cutting stamens from the lilies. When she sees us she straightens her back and rubs it, watching me through sad grey eyes.

‘Let me introduce you. This is my mother-in-law, Caprice,’ Saffron says. ‘Caprice, this is Hayley, who’s considering coming to work for us.’

Caprice nods her head at me, and carries on trimming the lilies.

I follow Saffron up the spiral staircase, along a landing decorated with a combination of modern art and landscapes, through a mock-Georgian doorway, into the nanny’s accommodation. I exhale in admiration, as I look at a boudoir with a curved window that drips with what must be thousands and thousands of pounds’ worth of rich red-and-gold-striped silk. There’s a four-poster bed with red silk curtains and a matching counterpane. A four-poster bed? Silk? For the nanny? My breath escapes from my body like a waterfall. I have to get this job. I will never find a better one in the UK. Not only is the room I am standing in lavish in its soft furnishings, it also has a generous sitting area with two armchairs, a two-seater sofa and a fifty-inch TV. And there’s a kitchenette with a minifridge, microwave, kettle and hob. I am practically salivating.

‘There isn’t an oven,’ Saffron apologises, ‘but you’re welcome to use the main kitchen whenever you want.’

‘It’s fabulous,’ I gush.

Even if the children are monsters, I determine to fall in love with them as we move across the bedroom to the bathroom. It has the full complement: toilet, bidet, shower cubicle, ornate basin with a cabinet and full-length mirror. An extravagant claw-footed bath. A black and white marble floor.

‘It’s so lovely. I’ve never seen accommodation as special as this.’

Saffron smiles proudly. ‘I chose the décor.’ Then she shakes her head and her face tightens. ‘But Caprice doesn’t like it. She says I should have chosen a floral pattern for the bed.’

Caprice. The woman downstairs. The mother-in-law.

‘Come and meet the boys,’ Saffron continues, suddenly keen to move on.

Please. Please, God, let me get on with the kids, I pray silently.

I walk downstairs with Saffron, and together we step into the playroom, where two skinny blond boys are sitting on the sofa watching TV. So like Saffron, they look as if they have been cloned from her, no man involved. As soon as we enter the room they jump off the sofa and run towards us.

‘Mummy, Mummy,’ one of them squeaks.

Saffron bends down and takes them both in her arms. When they have all finished hugging, their eyes turn to me.

‘I want you to meet Hayley, your new nanny,’ Saffron says, smiling.

My stomach leaps. New nanny? Am I employed already? They stand wide-eyed, staring up at me.

‘Would you like me to read you a story?’ I ask.

‘Can we have The Gruffalo? Granny says it’s too babyish for us, but we love it.’

Granny. Caprice, again? She seems to have a lot of influence in this house.

‘I can’t see why not. What do you think, Mummy?’ I ask.

‘Great idea,’ Saffron replies as she switches off the TV.

I settle on the sofa, between the boys, and start to read. I love reading out loud. I was into amateur dramatics when I was younger, so I enjoy putting as much expression as I can into every sentence, and playing with my voice. The boys, one each side of me, snuggle against me as if they’ve known me forever. Saffron stands watching us, a fond smile playing on her lips.

Once the story is over, Saffron prises the boys away from me, and we step back into the hallway.

‘Thanks for coming to visit,’ Saffron says. ‘I’m definitely offering you the job. If you’re interested, I’ll send the contract to your agency tomorrow. You could move in on Sunday, and start work on Monday. That would be great for us.’

I am so thrilled I feel like taking her in my arms and hugging her. Just as I am trying to stop myself from doing that, I see a man walking towards us. A man with foppish brown-blond hair and broad shoulders, smiling a high-wattage smile. My stomach rotates.

‘This is my husband, Miles.’

4

Saffron

I’m sitting on the train to work when a woman with square shoulders sinks down next to me. She presses against me, squashing me. Making me feel claustrophobic. I lean away from her, against the carriage window, contemplating the late payment from my client, Sasha Reznikovitch, who promised the money three weeks ago. We chased her and she agreed to send it by BaccS, last Monday. It still hasn’t arrived. We need to chase her again.

My law firm, Belgravia Private Clients – BPC – is a high-turnover outfit with only three members of staff. Me – the only lawyer; Ted Beresford-Webb, a friend from my school days who acts as my financial and office manager; and Julie Walsh, my PA. Julie was Miles’ first girlfriend and is Aiden’s ex-wife. And we have three clients. Three high-net-worth clients, demanding access to legal advice 24/7, which is why they pay generously.

For a second, as I sit on the train, worrying about cash flow, I regret leaving the magic circle law firm where I trained. I was a senior associate, aspiring to be a partner one day. But then I remember the excitement that tingled through me like electricity when my major client, Aristos Kaladopolous, began talking me into leaving to set up my own firm. Promising to bring all his legal issues to me lock, stock and barrel, if I did. He kept his word. And, so far, it has worked like clockwork.

Hard-working clockwork. Working around the clock more often than you, my dear mother-in-law, would like. I know you think I’m an absentee parent, Caprice. You frequently remind me, with your eyes. With your waspish comments. It is rich coming from you, a woman who has never contributed to family finances. A woman who does not understand the importance of earning money. A woman who married a wealthy man and expects money to flow towards you, like a river. Don’t you know that river would stop flowing if it wasn’t for aspirational individuals like me? Aspirational individuals like your husband, whose hard work you took for granted?

The train jerks to a halt and I look out of the window. We’ve arrived at Vauxhall. People begin to decant onto the platform like ants. The mass next to me eases away, and for the first time in half an hour I feel as if I can breathe without concentrating. I sigh as I stand up. Now I must battle with the tube.

Having survived the journey, I walk along Ebury Street, Belgravia, with its fine Georgian architecture, and any doubts about my choice of career vanish. Once again my body solidifies with pride. I am proud of my independence. Proud of what I have established.

Into the building. Up in the compact lift. Left out of it, through an ugly modern glass fire door, into BPC’s half of the third floor. Julie is sitting behind a wide imitation marble plastic counter, typing. Her face is partially obscured by a large flower arrangement. She stretches her neck above pinks, chrysanthemums and alstroemeria to say, ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning,’ I reply.

I look across the room. Ted has arrived too. His thick hair damped and scraped back, neat and tidy as ever.

‘Still no news from Sash,’ he informs me with a grimace.

‘Well then, why don’t you chase her?’

An instruction, not a question. He nods his head. I walk across their office, through another glass door, into mine.

My office is too tidy. There’s a dearth of the usual scattered papers. No large cardboard boxes filled with files of documents at the moment. No Post-it stickers plastered around my computer screen and desk to remind me of urgent tasks. I’m not as busy as I’d like. My favourite shipping magnate, and major client, Aristos Kaladopolous, is on holiday, breezing around the Greek Islands on his superyacht. A blue and white plastic monstrosity, complete with a helicopter pad, three launches and an army of jet skis. His new wife is keeping him occupied, so, disappointingly, he hasn’t become involved in any legal spats for eight weeks.

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