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

‘If it’s Viv’s decision, you can’t be held responsible.’

‘You don’t know my brother.’

And that was the thing; Lucy knew very little of Adam’s half-brother, other than it pained Adam to talk about him. Scott had been twelve when Viv’s second marriage collapsed and it had been his choice to live with his dad. Fifteen-year-old Adam had been left with their mum and, already estranged from his own father, the fractures in the family had deteriorated. Long before Lucy had arrived on the scene, Scott had moved to the States and Adam had cut him out of his life completely. Viv’s relationship with Scott was only marginally better, although it was hard to tell because she rarely mentioned his name in front of Adam.

‘I did try to make her change her mind.’

‘I believe you,’ Lucy said, rocking him gently in her arms.

‘It seems like she spends her whole life saying sorry, but she can’t go back and change a single thing, so why try?’

When Adam fell silent, Lucy chose not to ask the many questions filling her mind. She wanted Adam to open up voluntarily about whatever childhood traumas made his relationship with his mum so fraught and the one with his brother untenable. She was desperate to hear his fears. Anything was better than considering her own.

‘How was your day?’ he asked. ‘Did you do anything else except decimate my bouquet?’

Lucy let the comment pass. ‘I went for a walk around Marine Lake with Hannah.’

‘You met her?’ asked Adam, pulling away from Lucy so he could see her face.

‘I said I would.’

‘No, you didn’t. I was under the impression that you thought seeing Hannah would be too much stimulus for you at the moment. That was what you said.’

‘Adam …’ Lucy began but suddenly her mouth was as parched as the shrivelled flowers she had thrown away.

‘When we were lying in bed and you were ignoring what I told you about eating at Mum’s, were you having a nice conversation with yourself about meeting Hannah, by any chance?’

‘No.’

‘So you didn’t tell me?’

‘Not then, but we’d talked about it.’

‘But you didn’t think to mention it this morning? Why sneak behind my back, Lucy?’ he asked and before she could answer, he added, ‘I suppose she’s as mad as ever. She hasn’t had any more kids, has she?’

‘No, she was fine. I liked catching up with her. Look, I called her on the off-chance she was free, it was a last-minute thing. You said I could.’

‘I – said – you – could?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that!’

‘Repeat after me,’ he said slowly. ‘Adam is not my lord and master.’

Lucy felt foolish but Adam held her gaze expectantly.

‘You’re not my lord and master,’ she mumbled quickly. ‘I know that. What I meant was, we both said I should see Hannah after Mum set me up.’

‘Luce …’ Adam wiped his hands over his face. ‘OK, fine, we said you should see her. Even though we said no such thing. So how was it?’

Lucy felt herself shrink inside but carried on bravely. ‘It was OK. She didn’t bring the kids with her and, for the record, even Hannah admits her life’s in chaos.’

‘Just like you said.’

‘Yes, just like I said,’ Lucy agreed, rather than open up that particular debate again. ‘And she doesn’t have more kids, but her cat’s had kittens.’

‘Poor mites. God help them in that house.’

Lucy bit her lip and, wanting to remind him of the people they once were, she said, ‘Which is why she’s looking for good homes. Remember when we were thinking about getting a kitten?’

‘Yeah, I wish we had now. I’d feel better letting you loose with a cat than I would a baby – at least it could look after itself,’ he said and, oblivious to how his barbed words had made his wife wince, he added, ‘So, aside from adding a cat to our household, what else have you two been conspiring about? Are you going to see her again?’

‘Only for business. She wants me to do a portrait of her nan. She died at Christmas and I said I’d meet her grandad to discuss what he wants.’

Adam’s body jerked. ‘Lucy, you said you’d stop painting.’

Lucy knew she had promised no such thing but she didn’t have the stomach for another argument. She could feel Adam tensing as he prepared to slide her off his knee. She stroked the side of his cheek. ‘I told her I’d do it after I’ve had the baby. I’ll keep putting her off,’ she promised.

‘Because it’s what you want or because you think it’s what I want?’ asked Adam, his stare intensifying as he waited for the right answer.

‘It’s what I want, Adam,’ she whispered softly.

Adam lifted the folds of her brushed-cotton shirt and began exploring her body with his hand. He pulled at her vest top until he found a route to her warm flesh. His fingertips were ice cold and she felt a shiver as he worked his way up to cup her breast. As his lips brushed against hers, he whispered, ‘That’s my girl. Now how about we go to bed and put all of this behind us?’

With a rush of relief, Lucy was eager to agree. Unlike the flowers, she had survived to fight another day.

Christine glanced anxiously at her daughter. ‘I’d feel better if you came in for a quick cuppa,’ she said. ‘It’s a long drive home.’

‘I don’t know, Mum. Adam should be back by now.’

Lucy took her hands off the steering wheel and dug her phone out of her pocket. The last text from her husband had been the apology for missing their introductory antenatal class.

Christine peered over her shoulder. ‘No message?’

‘Nothing,’ Lucy said through gritted teeth. ‘He can’t still be caught up in traffic.’

‘It must have been pretty serious to close off part of the motorway. We should be grateful Adam wasn’t the one involved in the accident.’

‘I know,’ Lucy said, ‘but I’d told the midwife how supportive he’s been and I felt really stupid turning up without him. He knew how important it was to me. He should have left earlier.’

‘And Adam will be thinking the exact same thing. Now come inside and relax before you race home to give him an earful.’

Lucy was forced to agree, and not simply because she didn’t think she would last the next forty minutes with the baby pressing on her bladder. The delay would give her time to build up the courage to drive back through the tunnel, a journey she would never have chanced if she hadn’t needed to pick up her mum as a stand-in. She expected Adam to be mortified when he found out.

There had been a time when Lucy joked with Adam that she was the better driver, but the one-and-a-half-mile drive beneath the Mersey had become a passage of fear. It stemmed from one particular incident when she had been driving through the tunnel with Adam, not long after she moved in with him and before she could use her baby brain as an excuse. Adam had been forced to yank the steering wheel to keep the car from drifting across the narrow lanes before Lucy even knew what was happening. Tonight, it was her anger alone that had kept her focused on driving between the white lines.

‘He’ll be as disappointed as you,’ Christine said after handing Lucy a cup of chamomile tea and taking a seat next to her on the sofa.

Lucy watched the rising steam curl and twist as she sighed. ‘He knows how much I want him to feel more involved. So far, all he’s been able to do is listen to my complaints about how sick I feel, or how tired I am,’ she said, stopping short of adding the more serious complaints about her ineptitude.

Since the disaster with the flowers a month ago, Lucy’s life had been peppered with similar mishaps, if not on such a grand scale. She wasn’t sure how she had managed to finish her painting of Ralph without calamity, but the end result had been surprisingly good. Lucy had been used to juggling three or four paintings in a month to earn a steady income, but it had been worth the time spent focused on just the one. When she handed over her latest piece to her overjoyed client, she had briefly regretted the call she had made to Hannah to put off her next commission. Her one consolation was that she was now painting for pleasure.