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

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       Prologue

       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.’