Her Perfect Life: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist. Sam Hepburn

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      ‘OK, Gracie. Let’s go again. Just hold the bowl a bit higher when you show us the chillies.’

      She pouts for Emma’s waving wand of lip-gloss and swings into action. This is how I get through this, Gracie thinks while her hands move deftly over the bowls and pans on the countertop. I chop and dice and stir for the cameras and pretend that everything is fine, that I sleep at night, that this suffocating sense of loss is something I can bear.

      The running order is full – black noodles with prawns, then her super quick fig and blueberry tarts, a chat on the sofa with specialist herb grower Akshay Kumar, tips for healthy packed lunches that kids will actually eat and, for the leftovers slot, her new garden pie, adapted from a family recipe sent in by a viewer. She spears a prawn, bites through the spicy pink flesh and smiles at the camera.

      ‘Cut!’ The floor manager gives her a thumbs-up, calls a ten-minute break and stands back to let a flurry of assistants swoop in to reset the counter. Emma hands her a mug of coffee. ‘You all right?’

      ‘Bit tired.’ Gracie slips off to the loo and locks herself in a cubicle. She presses her forehead against the tiles and spends the first five minutes of the break sobbing quietly, imagining the worst, the second five patching up her makeup and assuring herself that the worst can’t happen. She won’t let it. She twists a strand of hair back into the soft knot on top of her head, flicks her fingers through her fringe and gives her cheeks a savage prod. She’s nearly thirty-six for heaven’s sake and her face still has an open, almost childlike quality which she tempers for the cameras with sweeps of black eyeliner and slashes of crimson lipstick. Her height doesn’t help. At five foot four she’s used to people blinking when they meet her. ‘Gosh, you look so much taller on TV.’

      So different from Louise’s fair, willowy elegance and the pert freckled features of that scheming little cow Alicia Sandelson. She rocks forward, closing her eyes. Like a fool she’d looked Alicia up on Facebook and now that hiss of a girl has a face – a milk-skinned, pink-lipped, heart-shaped face with a halo of pale curls. She’s smart too – Oxford and an internship at ACP. But it’s not the endless posts charting her glittering time at university or the photos of her partying in skinny jeans and halter tops that flicker through Gracie’s head on an unstoppable loop, it’s the shot of her lying on a beach in a white bikini. Not because Alicia looks particularly pretty in it. She doesn’t. And not because her body is anything special, it’s angular and streaked with sunburn across the chest and shoulders. It’s the unshakeable self-confidence in her eyes that spreads hurt through Gracie’s body. This is a girl who has no fear of failure, a twenty-two year old who functions without doubt.

      She pictures Alicia sitting up pale and freckled against her own freshly laundered pillows, those small nubby breasts flushing pink with indignation as she threatens to tell the world that Gracie Dwyer’s husband lured her into bed with promises of future employment and long-term emotional commitment.

      She appears back on set, moving stiffly across the studio floor as if she’s carrying a brimming pan. She reaches the safety of the counter and focuses on the flour drifting through her fingers, ghosting the sides of the glass bowl. This is how I survive. She pricks and peels and slices and sprinkles and listens to the light-hearted voice that flows from her lips extolling the virtues of unsalted butter and unbleached flour. But her heart is not light. Not light at all and her mind is spinning and spinning and spinning.

      She smiles for Akshay Kumar, rattles off the link to her filmed discussion with a class of face-pulling six year olds about the yuckiness of squidgy bananas and soggy sandwiches, keeps her voice upbeat as she guides the viewers through a selection of stuffed pitas, cold pastas and gaily filled wraps, and gets serious about waste as she slices cold carrots for the garden pie. When the floor manager signals that the gallery is happy she calls a hurried thank you to the crew and leaves without stopping to check in with the production team or even to wipe off her makeup.