The Bad Mother: The addictive, gripping thriller that will make you question everything. Amanda Brooke

31

      

       Chapter 32

      

       Chapter 33

      

       Chapter 34

      

       Chapter 35

      

       Chapter 36

      

       Chapter 37

      

       Chapter 38

      

       Chapter 39

      

       Epilogue

      

       Acknowledgements

      

       Keep Reading …

      

       About the Author

      

       Also by Amanda Brooke

      

       About the Publisher

       Prologue

       Coils of copper hair fly across her face, and when she pulls them from her damp cheeks, it feels like ice-cold fingers stroking her skin. She takes a step into the darkness and her foot snags on a tree root threaded through the craggy ledge – or is it another skeletal hand impatient for her fall?

       Far below, the night is punctured by a thousand lights that splutter and die where land touches the sea. She’s too far away to detect the salty air washing in from Liverpool Bay, or the urban mix of exhaust fumes and takeaways that remind her of home, but that’s where her thoughts lead her. She follows the dark path of the Mersey and her gaze settles on the sprawling city. She doesn’t dare imagine the pain she is about to inflict on her family.

       You can do this, she tells herself.

       You have to do this, comes a stronger voice from within. It’s a voice she had all but forgotten since carving her name next to Adam’s on this desolate sandstone ledge. Life had been so full of promise back then. There were a few frayed edges perhaps, but nothing that couldn’t be mended with the love of a good and patient man, or so she had thought. She had realized too late that she had been unravelling and now she was completely undone.

       Buffeted by another gust of wind, her summer dress billows out like a parachute and if she dared lean over the precipice, she might see the heavy boughs reaching up, promising to catch her when she falls. They won’t have long to wait.

       In the light of a torch, her wedding ring shimmers and unwelcome doubts assail her. If there was another way, she would find it, but even as she tries, her mind spins. The queasy sensation is a familiar one and she knows if she’s not careful, she will lose sight of the path she must take.

       ‘Lucy.’

       Adam’s voice rises above the howling wind as if he has the power to still the night. She knows he will blame himself for this, but there will be enough people to support him after the loss of his beloved wife. She blocks out his voice as she prepares to make the leap, but there’s another voice that cannot be ignored. What mother could fail to respond to the sound of her baby’s cries?

       She feels the softness of her daughter’s skin on her lips.

       ‘Hush,’ she whispers. ‘Mummy’s here.’

       1

      Six Months Earlier

      ‘This is a bad idea,’ Christine said as she stood by the garage door watching her daughter battle her way through what amounted to three decades of detritus. ‘Please, come out of there.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ Lucy said, stepping over the last fingers of light on the concrete floor to immerse herself in the shadows.

      Her hip brushed against a sun lounger that hadn’t seen a summer since the noughties when she and her school friends had lazed about in the garden while her mum was at work. They had knocked back blackcurrant alcopops as if they were Ribena, hence the dark vomit stain in the middle of the sagging canvas and the reason it hadn’t been used since.

      ‘It’s probably not even in there, love.’

      ‘Judging by how much other junk you’ve kept hold of, I don’t see why not,’ Lucy countered. ‘And I’m sure I remember it being at the back somewhere.’

      ‘Will you tell her?’ Christine said, turning to the man standing next to her.

      Adam stood with his arms folded and his tall, lean frame silhouetted against the cold light of a crisp winter’s morning. When he spoke, the warmth of his words appeared as vaporous swirls above the halo of his dirty blond hair. ‘Your mum has a point. I should be the one in there.’

      ‘Firstly,’ Lucy said, ‘I know what I’m looking for, and secondly, you’re terrified of spiders.’ She had stopped forcing her way through the junk to face her husband. Sweeping back a coil of copper hair, her emerald-green eyes flashed in defiance and she told herself she would stand her ground even if Adam insisted. To her relief, he didn’t.

      ‘I tried,’ he said to Christine with a shrug.

      Wrapping her Afghan shawl tightly around her shoulders, Christine muttered something under her breath that was unrepeatable. She appeared tiny next to Adam’s six-foot frame, but Lucy’s mum was stronger than she looked. She had brought up her daughter single-handedly since Lucy was eight years old and although the last twenty years hadn’t been easy, what should have broken them had made them stronger and they made a good partnership. They were best friends when they wanted to be, and mother and daughter when it was needed. At that precise moment, Christine’s maternal instincts had kicked in and she wanted to protect her only child.

      ‘I’ll be careful,’ Lucy called out.

      Taking another step into the past, she sized up the gap between an old bedstead and a dressing table. Where once she might have slipped her slender figure through with ease, now she paused to stroke a hand over the slight but firm rise of her belly; her mum wasn’t alone in having a child to protect. Raising herself on to tiptoes, Lucy stretched her long legs so that her bump skimmed the surface of the dresser as she passed.

      ‘Don’t go wedging yourself in or we’ll never get you out,’ Christine called, before adding, ‘Tell her, Adam.’

      ‘Don’t