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

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Copyright © Amanda Valentine 2017

Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017

Cover photograph © Lyn Randle / Trevillion Images

Amanda Valentine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of 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, down-loaded, 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.

Source ISBN: 9780008219154

Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008219161

Version 2017-11-03

For Jessica and Nathan

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Amanda Brooke

About the Publisher

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.’

‘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.