The Escape: The gripping, twisty thriller from the #1 bestseller. C.L. Taylor

cold but the sound is distant and echoey, as though it’s being shouted from the base of a deep well. The police must have informed Social Services about the drugs bust. And now they think I’m an unfit mother.

      ‘There’s no need to worry. I’ll explain more when we meet,’ Lorraine says. ‘Is this afternoon any good for you? I have a free appointment at 3 p.m. You’re number 37, Brecknock Road. That’s right, isn’t it?’

      ‘I … I’m not there. I’m at my Mum and Dad’s house in Chester.’

      ‘With your daughter Elise?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And when were you thinking about coming back?’

      ‘In a couple of days. Sunday. In the afternoon. I haven’t decided for sure.’

      I don’t ever want to go back to our house but I can’t tell Lorraine Hooper that. Or can I? If I tell her what’s happened maybe she’ll understand. All I’ve done is protect my child from someone who threatened her. I haven’t done anything wrong. None of this is my fault.

      ‘I have an appointment for the same time on Monday,’ Lorraine says.

      ‘Do you need my husband to be there too? We’re currently separated but I could ask him to come home if he needs to be there.’

      ‘Yes, we do legally have to include both parents.’ I hear the sound of paper rustling on the other end of the line.

      ‘OK. I’ll tell Max to be there too. He’ll have to get time off work but that should be OK.’

      ‘Great, so 3 p.m. on Monday?’

      ‘That’s fine.’

      ‘OK, I’ll see you then, Jo. Take care.’

      The line goes dead. I stare at the phone as it quivers in my palm. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m a good mother. So why this feeling of dread?

      It’s Monday afternoon and my nerves have been building the whole way back to Bristol. Elise distracted me for the first hour, demanding her iPad, a snack or her Frozen CD, then insisted that I sing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ over and over again until I’d covered windscreen wipers, doors, horn, children, mummies, daddies and the driver on the bus saying, ‘Move on back.’ Finally she fell asleep. But with the silence came fear. I spent last night Googling different permutations of the words ‘drugs’, ‘drug use’, ‘drug possession’, ‘social services’, ‘children’ and ‘care’. I found a lot of posts in forums, mostly from women whose partners used drugs and were worried that their children would be taken into care, but I couldn’t find anyone who was in the same situation as me. I did find a website that said that if someone had alerted Social Services to potential drug abuse, then a social worker would carry out a basic assessment to decide if there needed to be a more detailed investigation. I barely slept for worrying.

      Mum could tell that something was wrong when I joined her and Elise for lunch when I got off the phone, but I distracted her with questions about Dad and his consultant, then I excused myself to the toilet and rang Max. I told him that Elise and I would be coming home today and that Social Services wanted to meet with us. He sounded so alarmed I burst into tears and it took him ten minutes to calm me down. He told me over and over again that no one was going to take Elise from us. They were just following protocol as a result of my drugs arrest and all we had to do was tell the truth and be co-operative and we could get back on with our lives.

      I couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so gentle and caring. It was like having the old Max back, the one who’d come round to my house in the early days with hot soup and tissues when I had a grotty cold, and sent me flowers at work when he knew I was having a tough day. After Henry was born Max changed. He was supportive initially, in the hospital, on our return home and then at the funeral. Afterwards he closed down. He stopped talking to me. He stopped touching me. He stayed late at work or locked himself away in the study as I sobbed in front of the TV. I made excuses. I told myself that he’d shut down emotionally as a way of dealing with his grief. I waited for him to heal, to come back to me, to open up again, but he got worse. He started snapping at me about small things. Why had I left potato peelings in the sink? Why didn’t I answer the door to the postman? Why did I watch so much mindless reality TV? I felt like a burden. A lost cause in day-old pyjamas with dirty hair. He’d lost a son too but he was going to work every day to make sure we had food to eat and a roof over our heads. Why couldn’t I pull myself together, like he had – in appearance if nothing else? And then he threatened to leave me if I didn’t go and see a doctor. It took every ounce of strength to step out of the front door and get into his car but I did it. I nearly fainted twice in the waiting room. The doctor diagnosed me as suffering from agoraphobia and anxiety and she prescribed an SSRI and a course of CBT. The antidepressant made me feel sick and gave me blurred vision but slowly, slowly, with the help of my counsellor I started to feel better. I was able to leave the house if I knew exactly where I was going and if Max came with me. Eventually I was well enough to go back to work. Max seemed to have respect for me again. Fancied me even. And then Elise was conceived and I became scared and neurotic and my agoraphobia returned with a vengeance.