The Role Model: A shocking psychological thriller with several twists

by Daniel Hurst

  I roll my eyes. ‘Nope,’ I reply, leaving it at that.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Becky says, although I can tell that she is disappointed that I don’t have any gossip for her to brighten up this shift. ‘This is a waste of time, isn’t it?’

  She turns back to the grassy area behind us, and we see the rest of our colleagues all wandering around various parts of it with nothing to show for their efforts so far.

  ‘Seems like it,’ I reply, hating myself more and more by the second for the fact that I am now involved in a hunt for a missing man who I buried over the weekend. Maybe I would have been better off calling in sick today, after all. At least then, I would have been spared this.

  ‘He’s obviously going to turn up,’ Becky muses. ‘He’s not even been missing that long. Just a typical teenage lad making his parents worry over nothing.’

  I already know that Becky doesn’t have kids of her own, but if I didn’t, it would have been obvious after that. If she was a mother, there is no way she would be so calm about this whole thing. Instead, she would be feeling that sickly knot of dread in the middle of her stomach that all parents feel whenever they hear about a missing child in the news.

  They would have a fear of the same thing happening to their own one day.

  ‘I guess we should make our way back,’ I say, walking towards the car park. Becky follows closely behind, but I hope she is done with conversation now because my head is spinning, and I need peace and quiet to think. My paranoia is starting to ramp up, and it is going to be a full-time job to keep it at bay. The last thing I need is a fellow police officer giving me her theories on what may or may not have happened to Rupert. All I want now is the same thing that the missing man’s parents want: peace of mind.

  Unfortunately, none of us are ever going to have that again.

  Becky tells me she is going to have a look around the benches, and it’s a relief to see her walking away from me. It also gives me the opportunity to press send on that text message to Chloe, which I do quickly, before returning my phone to my pocket and continuing back towards the car park. But I can’t help glancing at the playground again as I go, and all those old memories come flashing back to me.

  Me. Chloe. Tim.

  Here in this park. Having fun.

  Completely unaware of what was to come.

  18

  HEATHER

  TEN YEARS AGO

  After the pizzas came the movie and the glass of wine, but time is running out if I want to ask Tim about moving in before he leaves tonight. I don’t have to do it this evening, but I know it won’t be any easier to pluck up the courage if I leave it to a later date. I should probably do it now, particularly while I have a little alcohol in my bloodstream, boosting my confidence levels slightly.

  ‘I’ve been thinking...’ I begin, keeping my eyes in the direction of the film on the TV screen instead of at the man sitting on the sofa beside me.

  ‘That’s always dangerous,’ Tim quips back, and I laugh before playfully slapping him on the arm.

  ‘Oi, cheeky,’ I say, allowing some of the nervous energy to leave my body as we enjoy the funny moment before I get back to more serious matters again. ‘As I was saying before you rudely interrupted. I’ve been thinking, and I thought maybe you could move in here at some point. Once your divorce is finalised, of course.’

  Tim turns and looks at me, and I instantly regret what I just said, feeling like I have needlessly rushed things between us and potentially ruined a great thing before it had really got going. That is until I see the smile break out on his face and realise that he likes that idea just as much as I do.

  ‘Are you serious?’ he asks me, trying to figure out if it’s now my turn to try and wind him up.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, shuffling myself around on the sofa so that I am now sitting facing him in that way people do when they are trying to show just how serious they are about what they are talking about. ‘I think things are going well between us, don’t you?’

  Tim gives me that smile again. ‘I do. But only if you’re sure.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘What about Chloe?’

  ‘She’s given it the seal of approval too.’

  ‘She has?’

  ‘Of course she has. She loves you. You’re really good with her. She likes having you around. We both do.’

  Tim is positively beaming, and he shows me just how happy he is by moving in for a kiss. I let my lips linger on his for a lovely few seconds, and I can’t wait until we can do this every night. At the moment, Tim comes around here once or twice a week, depending on how my work schedule is looking, although we do see each other elsewhere if we can, usually at the local park where he and Chloe have a great time on the playground. But it will be good to have him in my life on a daily basis.

  Our lips eventually part, and we are both smiling widely as the film continues to play quietly on the television in front of us. But we’re in that blissful state of early romance where not even a good movie can take our attention off each other, and I hope this feeling lasts a long time yet.

  ‘When do you think your divorce will be finalised?’ I ask him, deciding that it’s worth bringing it up now that we are trying to set some firm plans of our own for the future.

  ‘It’s hard to say, but I’m hoping by the end of summer at the latest.’

  I nod my head, praying that it is sooner than that. I could always ask Tim to move in before then, but I’d prefer him to have completely cut all ties with his ex before we take that big step in our relationship.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ I say, snuggling into him.

  ‘Me neither,’ he replies, although I can sense he isn’t quite as comfortable as me right now, and my paranoia is on the verge of kicking in once more until he speaks again. ‘I’m really sorry to spoil the moment, but I’m going to have to pop to the loo.’

  I laugh as I sit back up and allow him to leave the sofa, glad that his discomfort was down to a trivial matter and not any reluctance to go through with our plan of co-habiting.

  Watching him as he stands up and heads for the staircase, I notice that his mobile phone has fallen from his pocket and is still lying on the sofa where he was just sitting. As he heads up the stairs to go to the toilet, I think about how I might ask him to show me some of the videos and photos he has taken of Chloe at the park on his phone in all the times we have been there together. He must have some good ones because he’s spent a lot of time playing with her, and I almost felt a little bad myself at the time because I was happier to get a minute’s peace on the park bench while he ran riot with her around the playground. But then I realise I could just look at them now without waiting for him. I know his access code because I’ve seen him enter it several times when he has been sitting beside me on this sofa.

  Is it bad if I look at his phone while he isn’t here? Maybe. I don’t want to do anything that might annoy him. Then again, I’m only going to look at photos of my daughter on there, not snoop through his messages. And I would say we have that level of trust now where we could look at each other’s phone without feeling like we had anything to hide. I know I would have no problem if he looked at mine.

  I pick it up off the sofa and enter the access code, deciding that I’ll just have a quick look before he comes back down.

  The first thing that pops up on the screen is some article about a rugby match, so I navigate out of that and click on the app that stores photos. I instantly see all the little tabs that show his recent pictures, although many of them are of cars and various mechanical parts from his day job at the garage, so there’s little of interest for me there. But then I see the most recent one of Chloe and smile. She’s at the park, beaming as she sits on one of the swings, waving to the camera. It’s a great photo, and I’ll have to get Tim to send it to me.

  On the lookout for any other good ones, I find plenty more of Chloe at various places around the playground. On the slide. On the seesaw. Lying on the grass being silly. T
hey’re all very sweet and innocent. But then I see a photo of a young girl that I don’t recognise, although she does have a similar look to my daughter.

  This one hasn’t been taken on a playground. Instead, it’s in a bedroom. The girl is sitting on the bed and looking at the camera, but she isn’t smiling like Chloe was.

  I frown as I keep scrolling through the photos and realise that there are even more of this little girl than there are of Chloe. That’s when I figure out that this must be Tim’s ex’s daughter.

  I recall him saying that her name was Bethany, and the more I look at photos of her, the more I see that her resemblance to Chloe is quite uncanny. As well as being of a similar age, they have the same hair colour and length. The only real difference between them is that while Chloe is always smiling in the pictures, Bethany is not.

  I’m starting to wonder why Tim has kept so many photos of his ex’s child, because while I understand that they were close, it does seem weird that he would hold onto them now that he no longer sees her. It’s not as if he is her father. Sure, he might have bonded with her, but he could have always just kept one and deleted the rest. But it’s not the number of photos that is troubling me.

  It’s the fact that the child in them looks so sad.

  I wish that was as bad as it got. But unfortunately, I keep scrolling until I come across photos that are even worse than that. That’s when I realise that Tim isn’t interested in me at all.

  He’s here because of my daughter.

  Dropping the phone, I feel my skin crawling as I react in horror at the type of man I have allowed into my home. He’s not just some handsome guy who I was lucky to meet in the supermarket.

  He is a paedophile who targeted me when he saw me shopping with Chloe.

  My disgust quickly makes way for a wave of anger that sees me get up off the sofa, my fists clenched and my blood boiling, ready for him to come back down here so I can kick him out. All I can think of is thank God that I have never left him alone with her, although the fact that I would undoubtedly have done so in the future once he had moved in with us is enough to make me feel sick.

  But then I hear the creak of the floorboard above my head. He’s up there now supposedly using the toilet, but that sound didn’t come from the bathroom.

  It came from Chloe’s bedroom.

  I run to the stairs and take them two at a time, quickly arriving on the landing, and I’m just about to enter my daughter’s room when I see Tim coming out of it.

  He pulls the door closed behind himself as he does, but then he notices me, and it’s clear he is surprised at my sudden appearance.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he asks me, keeping his voice low, which is obviously to make out like he is worried about waking my sleeping child, but I know he doesn’t care about her. At least not in that way.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask him, my voice a little louder than his.

  ‘I thought I heard Chloe calling out when I was on my way to the bathroom,’ he says. ‘But she must have done it in her sleep.’

  I realise my hands are still balled into fists as I stand there in front of him, and all I want to do is scream and throw him out of the house. But the fact he is currently standing between me and my child’s bedroom gives me pause for thought. Maybe it will be best to keep playing dumb, so I don’t spook him. If I reveal what I know now, how can I predict what he will do?

  ‘Are you okay?’ Tim asks me, obviously noting how stressed I must appear.

  ‘Err, yeah. I’ve just got a bit of a headache coming on. I think I might need to call it a night. Would you mind going?’

  Tim frowns, and I worry that I have been way too transparent. He is still standing between me and Chloe’s room, and I fear that I might be powerless to stop him if he realised he had been rumbled and decided to go for broke. But then he smiles at me again.

  ‘Oh no. Have you taken something for it?’ he asks me, reaching out and placing his hand on my arm, no doubt to try and appear compassionate. But his touch sends a shiver through my body, and I do my best to brush his hand off without appearing to be rude.

  ‘I’ve taken some Paracetamol. I think I just need an early night,’ I tell him, hoping that will be all it takes to get him back down these stairs and out of the house.

  ‘Sure. I’ll just nip to the toilet, then I’ll be off,’ he says, giving me that cold smile again before walking past me and into the bathroom, where the sound of the door locking behind him gives me a welcome sense of security, at least for one moment anyway.

  But he is still in my house, and that means Chloe isn’t safe.

  Deciding to check on my daughter, I creep towards her bedroom door and open it slowly, unsure whether she really is asleep or if Tim might have woken her when he went in. Peering into the dark room, I can make out the shape of her underneath her duvet as well as hear her soft breaths that let me know that she is asleep. Relieved, I carefully pull the door shut and then turn back to face the bathroom, waiting for Tim to reappear.

  A couple of minutes later, I hear the toilet flush and the sound of the lock being turned, and Tim re-joins me in the hallway.

  ‘All okay?’ he asks me, probably wondering why I’m hanging around outside the bathroom.

  ‘Fine,’ I reply, forcing a smile onto my face that feels like the most unnatural thing I have ever done.

  ‘Guess I’ll be going then,’ he says, heading for the staircase, and I follow behind, my eyes burning into his back as he descends, each step taking him further away from the child I am trying to protect.

  Back in the lounge, I stay standing at the foot of the stairs as he grabs his coat and pulls it on.

  ‘Give me a call if you feel like it’s getting worse,’ he tells me as if he cares, but I nod my head and assure him that I will.

  Then I see him pat down his pockets just before he heads for the door in the way that many people do when they are checking to make sure that they have their most valuable possessions still on them.

  Keys. Wallet. Phone.

  That’s when Tim realises that his mobile isn’t on him. It’s on the sofa.

  There’s a tense moment as I watch him realise that he left it behind when he went upstairs, and I just know that all sorts of thoughts must be running through his head right now.

  Did she look at it?

  Did she see anything?

  Does she know?

  But I don’t want to give him too long to figure out the answer, so I head for the door and take it off the latch before opening it and allowing the cold air from outside to seep into the warm room.

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I tell him, doing my best to keep my voice light and breezy.

  Tim picks up his phone from the sofa, and I’m worried for a second that he is going to unlock it to see what I might have been looking at, but he just jams it into his pocket and walks towards me by the open doorway.

  ‘I hope you’re feeling better soon,’ he says, leaning in and giving me a kiss on the head. ‘And I’m excited about what we talked about earlier.’

  I do my best not to grimace as his lips come into contact with my scalp, and I have another go at that fake smile again.

  ‘Me too,’ I say. ‘See you soon.’

  He’s almost out the door now. I’m seconds away from being able to close it and put the lock back on. Then all that I will have to do is call the police and tell them what I saw. The fact that he is still a free man suggests that they don’t know about him yet. But I presume this is why his ex-wife no longer wants him around. If only she had notified the police instead of just divorcing him then I wouldn’t be in this mess now.

  But just before Tim is out, he pauses and turns back to look at me.

  ‘You saw the photos, didn’t you?’ he asks, and I feel as if all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room as I freeze and stare at his cold, calculating face right in front of me. But then it gets worse because he pulls on the door, and I lose my grip on the handle, allowing him to step back
inside before I can get him out.

  If I felt like I couldn’t breathe before, now I feel even worse with the door closed again.

  19

  HEATHER

  ONE MINUTE LATER

  Tim stares at me from his position in front of the door, and I bet he feels powerful blocking my best escape route. But he must know that I’m not going to try and get away because Chloe is still upstairs, and he definitely knows that I will do anything to keep her from him now.

  ‘Please, just leave,’ I beg, my smiley façade long gone as tears well up in my eyes. ‘I won’t tell anyone. I won’t call the police. I swear.’

  Tim studies me, trying to get a read on if I am telling him the truth or not. But right now, I am. I just need him out of here.

  ‘Why would you call the police?’ he asks me, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. So I’ve taken a few photos. All of the ones of Chloe are from the park, and she looks more than happy in them, I think you’ll agree.’

  I know there is obviously so much more to it than that, but I figure that arguing with him and fighting my point might not be my best course of action.

  ‘You’re right. You have been kind to Chloe, so I’ve got no reason to do anything,’ I tell him, nodding my head slowly as if to convince him. ‘Just go, and everything will be okay.’

  ‘But I’m guessing it’s not the photos of Chloe that got you so worked up, is it?’ Tim says, stepping towards me and forcing me to take a few steps of my own back towards the staircase. ‘You saw the pictures of Bethany, didn’t you?’

  I’d love to lie at this point and tell him that I didn’t, but my terrified expression must give myself away.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ he says, letting out a deep sigh.

  ‘What did you do to her?’ I ask, the question almost leaving my lips before I have a chance to think about if it was a good idea or not.

  But Tim doesn’t answer that, which is almost as scary as if he had.

  ‘This doesn’t have to be the end of us,’ he says, stepping ever closer to me. ‘We can still make this work. I can still move in here. You don’t have to be on your own.’