A. L. Bird - The Good Mother

The greatest bond. The darkest betrayal.

Susan wakes up alone in a room she doesn’t recognise, with no memory of how she got there. She only knows that she is trapped, and her daughter is missing.

The relief that engulfs her when she hears her daughter’s voice through the wall is quickly replaced by fear.

Because the person who has imprisoned her has her daughter, too.

Devising a plan to keep her daughter safe, Susan begins to get closer to her unknown captor. And suddenly, she realises that she has met him before.

The Good Mother

A. L. Bird

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016

Copyright © A. L. Bird 2016

A. L. Bird asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9781474049566

Version date: 2018-09-20

A.L. BIRD

lives in London, where she divides her time between writing and working as a lawyer. The Good Mother is her major psychological thriller for HQ Digital, the fourth novel she’s written for the imprint. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London, and is also an alumna of the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course, which she studied under Richard Skinner. Amy is a member of the Crime Writers’Association. For updates on her writing follow her on Twitter, @ALBirdWriter

I am grateful to everyone who has given me the time, support and encouragement to write this novel. My wonderful editor Clio Cornish, who knows what I’m trying to write even before I’ve written it; my super-savvy agent Amanda Preston of LBA for her off-the-cuff creative brilliance and industry insight; my loyal family for the hours of childcare that enabled me to be closeted away in this new world; to Dr Abigail Crutchlow for her advice on characters (any straying from psychological truth is due to my artistic licence, not your input) and of course my readers, for coming back for more. Thank you.

And to my little one – welcome. May I be the best mother to you, always.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

The girl gets into the car that’s waiting for her. She looks over her shoulder first, like he’s told her to, to check Mummy isn’t watching. Would Mummy really mind? She can’t be sure. But he seems to think so. And he knows best, right? So she does the covert glance then slings her school bag into the back seat, like all the other times. He holds his cheek towards her for a kiss, which she dutifully bestows. Then he starts the engine with a vroom. Familiar buildings pass by. Buses on their way to places she recognises: Muswell Hill Broadway; Barnet (The Spires); North Finchley. There are a couple of kids from school. She raises her hand to wave but the man, seeing her, says, ‘Best not.’ So she lowers her hand and plays with the hem of her skirt, gazing absently out of the window.

Gradually, the territory becomes less familiar. The other man, the man they are going to meet, always insists on meeting outside of her home area. Says it’s safer that way. She hopes he’ll buy her a hot chocolate again. That was nice. Lots of whipped cream. Mummy always says whipped cream is bad: ‘You’ll end up big-boned. No one wants to be big-boned.’ The girl commented that the women at Mummy’s cupcake studio don’t seem big-boned. And they have lots of cream. ‘That’s because they spend a lot of time in the bathroom after each session,’ Mummy explained. That didn’t make much sense. But still, after the last visit, she hung round in the bathroom for a good ten minutes, so that the cream didn’t invade her bones and make them puff up.

And if there is hot chocolate, the girl thinks, it will be something to keep me busy. Because there’s not a lot of talking on these trips, so far. The other man doesn’t seem to know what to say. He looks at her a lot. Taking her in, from top to toe. She can feel his gaze travel down then up, up then down. Sometimes he gives a little smile. Other times a frown. She wants to please him, of course. She wants to please everyone. But when she tells him about the usual stuff – school, Mummy, music, boys even – he doesn’t say much back. And the two men glare at each other whenever they’re not looking at her. She can’t figure out why they keep hanging around together. Or what they want her to do on these occasions. So perhaps better just to concentrate on pushing the little wooden stirrer stick up and down in the hot chocolate to make holes, revealing the hot chocolate below. You have to get it to just the right meltiness to drink it. Then it’s delicious. She licks her lips in anticipation. Last time, the other man, the man they’re going to visit, looked like he was anticipating hot chocolate the whole time. Kept licking his lips. If he wanted some of her drink, he should just have said.

This might be the last time at this place, though. Because the previous time the other man, the man they’re going to see, had suggested they meet at his home. More relaxing. They could learn more about each other. He’d even given directions.

‘I just want us to be close, Cara,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll be quite safe. You’ll have your chaperone there throughout.’ He said ‘chaperone’ in a funny way. Like he was making a joke. Perhaps he only used that word because he didn’t know what to call the man who brought her. She didn’t, either, not really. Not once they’d had the little chat that evening in the car, his hand on her knee. Everything changed after that. She couldn’t be herself around him, couldn’t think of anything to say to him at all, never mind his name. She’d settled into the pattern after a while. But it was still odd. Of course it was odd. She would have asked Mummy. If Mummy were allowed to know.