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

scene will give her the feeling that what happened in her past doesn’t have to weigh her down forever. Maybe we can both be alright. I don’t know about me, but I pray that my daughter will not suffer too much from all of this.

I’ve walked at a fairly slow pace for most of my journey through town, but the sight of the hotel at the end of the street tells me that I am almost at my destination now. I get a little closer before I stop and lean against a lamppost, removing my trainers and replacing them with the heels from the rucksack. Then I take off the coat, revealing my best red dress, the type that Jimmy requested and the one I haven’t worn for what must be at least two years. I think the last time this item came out of the wardrobe was when I had a date with a guy from work, although the fact there was no second date says it all about how well that first one went.

I was always told not to date another copper when I entered the police, and that tip-off turned out to be good advice.

With my coat folded over my arm and the rucksack over my shoulder, I march on towards the hotel, prepared to walk in and find Jimmy waiting for me inside. He might not be thrilled that his first glimpse of the “sexy blonde in the red dress and heels” he has been hoping to see is also accompanied by my unmatching coat and an unfashionable rucksack, but he has to give me some leeway. I couldn’t leave home looking like I was going on a date, even if that is essentially what I am doing.

As I totter up the steps of the hotel entrance, careful not to break my ankles in these heels, I try to console myself with the fact that just like my date with the policeman two years ago, there will be no second date in this instance either. Jimmy and I will get this over with, and we will go our separate ways, never to see each other again. Nobody has to know what we got up to in this hotel room apart from us, and soon, this will be just another bad memory that I try to forget along with all the others.

Striding into the hotel lobby, I see the man I am meeting relaxing on one of the plush sofas opposite the marble reception desk.

This is a nice hotel.

It’s just a shame that the person welcoming me into it is not a nice man.

28

CHLOE

I followed Mum after she left the house, and I trailed her all the way through town, wondering where the hell she was going when she continued on in the opposite direction to the park where I had been told the meeting with Jimmy was going to take place.

My suspicions about her lying to me had been proved correct long before I saw her lean against a lamppost and change her shoes, as well as remove her coat which showed to me that she was wearing a red dress underneath it that made her look like she was going for a night out, not to pay a man a bribe. But things got really weird when I saw her walk into the Royal Tree Hotel. That was over half an hour ago.

She still hasn’t come back out.

I resisted the urge to follow her straight in there and find out exactly what she was up to just in case I ruined whatever had been set up between her and, I presume, Jimmy. He is still blackmailing us, so I didn’t want to risk messing things up and giving him the chance to pass on our names to the detectives who are looking into Rupert’s disappearance. But I’m starting to wish I had just followed Mum in because I’m not learning much more about what’s going on by waiting out here on this busy street watching the hotel entrance for any sign of the blonde in the red dress again.

All sorts of crazy theories and ideas have come into my mind since I have been standing here trying to figure out what Mum is up to. I have thought about if she could be on some kind of undercover operation for the police. That might explain the sudden change in hair colour. I’ve considered the possibility that she is just on a date, although the idea that she has somehow managed to find time to arrange something for her love life right now is a ridiculous one. And I’ve even wondered if she has started working as a prostitute as a way of paying for the money that Jimmy has demanded from her. But the truth is, I have absolutely no idea what is going on right now, and I don’t like feeling this way.

I don’t just want to know. I need to know. But there are no answers for me out here.

I’m going to have to go inside and find them for myself.

Crossing the busy road, I reach the hotel and head up the steps that take me into the lobby of this posh venue. I’ve never been inside here before, but I know plenty about it. This is the best hotel in Bolton, although gaining such a lofty title isn’t as hard as it might seem when you consider the competition it is up against. But it is famous and attractive enough to have featured on numerous TV shows set in the North West, as well as being the place where a couple of local celebrities were famously caught carrying out an affair by the journalists who pictured them coming out one fateful day a few years ago. The thought of that scandal almost makes me wish I could go back to that simpler time when the story on the front pages of the newspapers was a silly one and not about the teenager