The Role Model: A shocking psychological thriller with several twists by Daniel Hurst (big ebook reader txt) 📗

‘Is it done?’ she asks me, her voice still quiet even though I am in the same room as her now.

I nod.

‘Have you been able to get any sleep?’ I ask optimistically, but the shake of her head comes as no surprise.

‘I can’t stop thinking about him,’ Chloe confesses, and I approach her bed because I can see that she needs me now just as much as she needed me earlier in the night.

Taking a seat on the bed beside her, I stroke my daughter’s hair, and it’s a reminder of more innocent times when I used to sit like this when she was a child.

If only everything else was as innocent.

‘Did Zara text you back?’ I ask, noticing Chloe’s mobile phone lying on the bed beside her.

‘Yeah,’ she says solemnly. ‘She bought it.’

I almost say “good” before I catch myself and simply nod my head.

‘Close your eyes,’ I say as I continue to stroke my daughter’s hair, and she reluctantly complies.

I keep stroking for several more minutes, although I’m not sure if it’s more therapeutic for her or me. But I eventually hear the soft breaths that tell me she has drifted off to sleep, and I at least feel a little better about the fact that my last act for my daughter this evening was a pure one.

Taking care to exit her room quietly so as not to wake her, I close her door behind me before creeping into my bedroom and climbing straight into bed. Unfortunately, I have no one to stroke my hair and help me drift off. Instead, I roll over onto my side and stare straight at the wall, the images of what I went through in the woods tonight running through my mind.

The mud. The digging. The thud of Rupert’s body landing in that grave.

It was all so familiar to me. It was just like all the nightmares that have tormented me over the years. But that isn’t the only reason why I have been experiencing a strong feeling of deja-vu for the last several hours.

The reason for that is just as bleak as the part of the world where Rupert will lie hidden for eternity.

Tonight was not my first time hiding a body.

12

HEATHER

TEN YEARS AGO

‘Promise you will be good for mummy tonight?’

I don’t know whether my question will elicit an honest answer, but I have to ask it anyway.

‘I promise.’

‘Good girl.’

I lean down and kiss Chloe on the head before going back to stroking her hair because I know it’s the fastest way of getting her to fall asleep. Some kids like bedtime stories, but Chloe has always enjoyed having her hair stroked, and that’s fine by me. Anything that saves me from reading about dragons or wizards or whatever else is in those children’s books that my poor mum and dad had to read to me.

Leaving my peaceful child to get a good night’s sleep, I head for the door but not before checking that the nightlight is on the correct setting. There are numerous shapes and patterns it gives off, but Chloe prefers the stars, so I make sure they are projected onto the bedroom ceiling in case she wakes up during the night, before leaving her room and closing her door softly behind me.

Checking the time, I see that Tim is due any minute now, so I type out a quick message and fire it off to him.

Chloe has just gone to sleep. Text me when you’re outside. DO NOT KNOCK ON THE DOOR!

Using capital letters in a message might seem harsh for the recipient, but I know that Tim will take it in the spirit it was intended. It’s not as if he hasn’t been here plenty of times before and doesn’t understand how annoying it is to have to get a young child to sleep again after you thought you had already achieved it.

With the warning message sent, I have just about enough time to go into the bathroom and re-check my hair and makeup before my phone buzzes with Tim’s response.

I’m here.

I would have liked a couple more minutes to play around with my hair and maybe add a little more lipstick, but I guess this will have to do. But I’m feeling confident about my appearance, and a lot of that has to do with the beautiful compliment my daughter gave me as I was tucking her into bed tonight.

‘You look like a princess, Mummy,’ she had said, which made me beam because I know how much Chloe loves princesses, and she wouldn’t call me one unless I were worthy of such a lofty title. I thanked her for her kind words, as well as laughed them off and played them down, but I wasn’t fooling anybody, least of all my seven-year-old child.

She knows how crazy I am about Tim.

I’ve been seeing him for five months now, although I have taken things very slowly for a number of reasons. I’m aware that introducing a new man into Chloe’s life has to be done with the utmost care. But the fact she has met Tim on several occasions now proves both how much I like my new man and how important it is to me that Chloe does too.

Fortunately, he has already got the seal of approval from her, thanks in no small part to the hefty bag of sweets he always brings her whenever he calls round to visit. But I have also been taking things slowly for my own sake. I’ve had my heart broken enough times in my twenty-nine years on this Earth to know that I should proceed with caution when it comes to the opposite sex from this point on.

As well as Chloe’s father, a drunken adulterer of a man who I should never have allowed into my bed before summoning up the courage to kick him out again, there have been many false starts, false dawns and false promises when it comes to