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

Shaking the bottle, Lucy attempted to release some of her tension. She was being overdramatic. It was a simple slip-up.

‘Bloody hormones,’ Lucy muttered.

Picking up her peppermint tea, Lucy studied the canvas. It wasn’t that bad and she wondered if she had been too quick to jump to conclusions about the thinner mix. With renewed determination, she picked up her paintbrush and this time used gentle strokes to transform her previous dabs of paint into a smooth wash that gave some sense of light and shadow to Ralph’s features. She felt calmer, and Adam chose the perfect time to call.

‘Hello,’ she said with a soft smile.

‘I can hardly hear you,’ Adam shouted. ‘Are you in your studio? Am I disturbing you?’

Lucy took another look at the canvas. ‘No, I’ll go downstairs,’ she yelled back as she dropped her brush in a jar of thinner so it wouldn’t dry out.

With her phone cradled against her shoulder, Lucy held her mug in one hand and used the other to grasp the handrail as she made her way down the staircase to the door on the first-floor landing. The entrance to her studio fitted seamlessly in with the rest of the house and Lucy reminded herself that she had reason to be proud of her accomplishments.

It had been hard graft, project-managing the building work and the wedding at the same time, but she had done it without so much as a mishap. Of the two, the wedding had been the simplest because she and Adam had chosen to marry on a beach in Santorini with only their mums in attendance. Adam’s boss had insisted on hosting a party for them on their return but it had been deliberately low-key because their budget had been tight. Adam had already invested all his money in the house, and most of Lucy’s savings – or at least the money her mum had saved up through the years on her behalf – had been earmarked for the loft conversion. They hadn’t wanted a big fuss anyway. They had each other and that was what marriage was all about as far as they were concerned.

Reaching the ground floor where the staircase split the house in two, Lucy said, ‘Can you hear me now?’

‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Do you need to make a drink?’

‘No, I’ve got one, but I might grab a biscuit unless you’re going to tell me I’m fat again,’ she said, turning right. Her bare feet slapped against the ice-cold porcelain tiles as she crossed the kitchen diner in search of sustenance. If she had been around when Adam had refitted the kitchen, she would have insisted on installing underfloor heating but at least the room itself was warm. In fact, it grew distinctly toasty as she passed the gas hob.

‘I would never call you fat and you know it,’ Adam said. ‘A bit bumpy around the middle maybe …’ He was expecting a retort but was met with silence. ‘Lucy?’

She was staring at a flickering blue circle. One of the burners had been left on its lowest setting. ‘Sorry, what?’ she asked as she quickly extinguished the flame.

‘Are you OK?’

Lucy considered whether or not to tell Adam. She certainly wasn’t going to mention the mix-up with the thinner because, the more she thought about it, the more likely it was that she had simply been doubting herself. Leaving the gas on, however, was irrefutably her fault. She had made breakfast hours ago and although she had eaten her porridge slouched in front of the TV, she had returned to the kitchen to wash up, and once more to make her peppermint tea. She had been distracted by the storm and her reluctance to set to work, but it was no excuse. Taking a sip of her tepid tea, she said. ‘I left a burner on.’

‘On the hob?’

‘It must have been when I made breakfast. Unless …’ she added as a thought occurred. ‘You didn’t use the hob this morning, did you?’

‘Did you see the gas lit when you made your porridge?’

‘There’s no need to snap. I only left it on for ten minutes.’

In the silence that followed, Lucy sensed Adam judging her and her anger began to build. She knew it wasn’t his fault but if he dared suggest she could have burnt the house down, or that the flame could have flickered out and sparked an explosion, there was a good chance she was going to scream.

‘Lucy,’ he said at last. ‘You have to be more careful.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’

‘OK, sorry, forget about it,’ he said as kindly as he could, but Lucy took offence anyway.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she scoffed. ‘Forgetting is the one thing you can count on with me.’

No longer feeling hungry, Lucy left her mug on the counter and headed to the far end of the kitchen. The large patio doors looked out on to a simple courtyard with a scattering of pots and planters. Her eyes settled on the winter-bare fruit shrubs she had failed to nurture during the summer, which were now being bullied by gale-force winds.

West Kirby was on the exposed western tip of the Wirral, a peninsula pinched between the fingers of the Dee and Mersey estuaries, and there was little to stop the storm sweeping in from the Irish Sea. Lucy felt its force as a sheet of rain hit the patio doors, causing her to slump down on to a chair at the dining table.

‘I take it you slept in this morning?’ Adam asked with a yawn. He was taking Lucy’s snappishness in his stride and his patience was irritating.

‘Only ’til about eight,’ she said. It had been nearer nine, which still wasn’t bad for someone who had refused to rise before midday in her misspent youth.

‘I wish I could have stayed there with you, but then again, your fidgeting is getting worse. I hardly slept a wink last night.’

‘Is that why you got up so early?’ she asked as she trailed a finger across the surface of the table, leaving a faint mark in a layer of fine dust that had no right to be there.

Lucy hated the monotony of housework. She and Adam shared their duties but he was a little more particular and she felt guilty whenever he came home after a long day and picked up the chores she never seemed able to finish. She didn’t remember housework being this hard when she lived with her mum, but that was probably because her mum had done most of it.

Adam groaned and she imagined him stretching his spine. ‘I needed to make an early start anyway. I thought I’d cracked it with this new user interface but unless there’s some miracle breakthrough in the next few hours, I’ll have to go to Manchester tomorrow to work on site,’ he said, his tone giving away his disappointment and his lethargy. He worked for a software company thirty miles away in Daresbury and while he loved his job when it was going right, dealing with clients and their ever-changing needs was the bane of his life.

‘I suppose I shouldn’t keep you then,’ she said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. She wasn’t ready to make another attack on her painting and she sensed Adam was in no rush to get back to his modules and macros either.

‘Are you going to have another stab at Ralph?’

That’s what I was doing when you phoned,’ Lucy said as she pulled out a second chair to rest her feet. Arching her back, she unbuttoned her shirt to reveal her white lace briefs and the gentle rise of her stomach punctuated by a belly button that had recently popped out. ‘I’ve spent an hour getting nowhere when I would have been better off catching up on housework.’

‘But I thought you’d just had breakfast?’

Lucy went to open her mouth to correct him but she knew why he was confused. She had lied about how long she had left the gas on. ‘What is this, Adam? Since when did I need to report all my movements to you?’ she asked, knowing the answer was an obvious one.

‘How long did you leave the gas burning, Lucy?’ Adam asked, his gentle tone fuelling her anger.