The Role Model: A shocking psychological thriller with several twists by Daniel Hurst (read aloud TXT) 📕

what I did. I got on with my life. I can almost go a full day without thinking about that body I buried all those years ago. The hardest part of it all was dealing with the uncertainty.

Would somebody find it? Would the police come knocking at my door?

Would I be outed as a murderer?

So far, that hasn’t happened, and the uncertainty goes on. But there was always one thing I was certain about.

I was certain that I would never have to bury another body again.

I was wrong.

1

HEATHER

There’s nothing like a bit of retail therapy to solve most of the problems in your world. Several flashes of that plastic card and the worries, troubles and anxieties fade away into the background.

At least for a little while.

‘They don’t have it in my size.’

I look away from the rack of discounted dresses and see my daughter, Chloe, standing beside me with a disappointed look on her face. She has a beautiful flowery dress in her hand and had been to enquire with the store assistant about getting it in the next size up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like that went well.

‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ I say. ‘Maybe they have it online?’

‘She checked. It’s all sold out.’

Chloe begrudgingly returns the dress to the rack, and I wish there were some way I could get her the size she wanted. It really is a lovely dress, and it’s a shame they only have it in size eight.

‘Who the hell is a size eight around here anyway?’ she says with a shake of the head. ‘This is Bolton, not Los Angeles.’

I laugh at her comment as I look around at the other shoppers in the store. She’s joking, but she also has a point. This isn’t a town full of skinny models, that’s for sure. There’s a pastry shop on almost every street corner.

But it’s not as if my daughter is miles out on the size. She is a ten, which is certainly much more than can be said for me. I’m a sixteen, or at least I was the last time I checked, which I’ve stopped doing now I’m pushing forty. Chloe is only seventeen, which means that her metabolism is still furiously burning off every calorie that she puts into her mouth. In contrast, I am definitely showing the effects of a lifetime of visiting those damn pastry shops.

‘Is there anything else you like?’ I enquire optimistically, hoping to take her mind off the disappointment of this dress by reminding her that there is more than one nice outfit in this shop.

‘Not really,’ she grumbles back like a typical moody teenager.

‘Well, you haven’t done too badly today,’ I remind her, jiggling the multitude of bags that I am currently carrying.

‘But I still don’t have anything for tonight.’

‘There must be something in this lot you can wear.’

I know Chloe is not going to agree, but I chance my arm anyway. After three hours, eight shops and several swipes of my credit card, I’m hoping that my daughter might finally be prepared to call it a day. It’s not that I don’t like shopping with her or treating her to new things. I love it.

But my bank account doesn’t.

‘Can we try one more place?’ she asks, although the fact she is already heading for the door before waiting for my answer tells me that was more of a command than a question.

‘Sure. Then we’ll get lunch,’ I say, following behind her with the heavy bags. ‘I’m starving.’

We make it out of the store, and now we’re back amongst the busy throngs of shoppers who are all rushing around in this indoor shopping centre. It’s always busy in here on a Saturday, but it’s even more crowded today as everybody gets out of the rain lashing down outside. I’m not looking forward to racing back to the car in that weather when we’re finished up here.

‘I’m going to look in this one again,’ Chloe tells me before making a beeline for the first shop we went in when we arrived here this morning.

It’s the one with the loud music, which I now have to thank for the headache that is currently gripping me. But I say nothing as I follow my daughter back into the shop because we don’t need both of us to be grumpy right now. I’ll leave the mood swings to the teenagers and keep my emotions bottled up because that’s what adults are supposed to do.

To the dismay of me and my headache, the music is still pumping out of the speakers as I take my place by the clothes rack nearest to the door and wait to see if Chloe will find anything that she can wear for tonight. Often, I will leave her to it and go and browse through some of the items myself, but this isn’t the kind of store for older mums. Not unless they like wearing skin-tight clothing, and I know I certainly don’t.

I check the time on my mobile as Chloe keeps browsing and see that we still have another thirty minutes left before the parking ticket expires on my car. That should hopefully be enough for Chloe to find something and for us to grab lunch before we head back out into the rain and return home. All in all, it’s been a fairly standard Saturday so far. The shops are full, the weather is horrid, and I’m still feeling the effects of the bottle of wine I drank alone last night. But it’s the music that is causing my headache today, not the alcohol.

Definitely not the alcohol.

‘This is a waste of time. There’s nothing here,’ Chloe cries, clearly exasperated about not being able to find the perfect dress today. ‘I knew we should have gone to the Trafford Centre.’

I say nothing, mainly because I was the one who talked Chloe out of us going into Manchester. The fact that I couldn’t be bothered to drive all the way through the busy weekend