The Role Model: A shocking psychological thriller with several twists

by Daniel Hurst

  The email had Chloe’s name in the subject header, alongside the words Rupert Hall’s Murder and the date of death, but it was the video that was also attached to the message that would prove to be the damning piece of evidence required to put my daughter behind bars.

  It seems that Jimmy hadn’t just witnessed my daughter killing Rupert.

  He had filmed it as well.

  The email had stated the location that the crime had taken place, as well as the area where the body was buried, which was why the reports had come over the news channels today about the police digging in the woods. Jimmy had led them right to Rupert and, in turn, right to his killer.

  I know Chloe was just as shocked as I was when she was presented with the evidence, but she surprised me by taking it in good grace, telling me that she couldn’t really complain about being punished by a man she had killed in her bedroom with a kitchen knife. Fortunately, that was as far as her good mood extended, and she has not admitted to Jimmy’s murder, even though the existence of the email was done in such a way that it would have only been sent in the event that Jimmy was killed. He said as much at the bottom of the email.

  “If you are receiving this then I am dead, and Chloe Maguire probably killed me too.”

  Fortunately, without a confession, evidence or a body, the police can’t pin his death on my daughter too, which is some consolation, albeit not much considering she is already looking at one life sentence to serve.

  Now Chloe is awaiting confirmation of her punishment, and I am left to think not only about the terrible time that will await her when she is given her sentence but also about how lucky I am that I am not in that prison with her staring at my own grim fate.

  For the life of me, I cannot fathom why Jimmy only sent the video of Chloe killing Rupert to the police and not one of me burying him. I have to assume that Jimmy filmed that too. So why hold that back? It’s not as if he could have anything to gain by doing so. I know Chloe is wondering the same thing too. She even told me that she feared the worst when she learned of the video, believing that it must have also featured the part where I turned up and dragged Jimmy into that hole. But it didn’t. The video ended before I arrived, which is the only thing keeping me on the outside and not in there alongside my daughter.

  I seem to have got lucky.

  But to use that term to describe me is laughable.

  I’m not lucky. What I am is a single parent whose only child turned out to be a killer and is now in the place she deserves to be, no matter how much it hurts me. I am also unemployed, having left my role as a police officer in the wake of Chloe’s arrest, unable to go into work and face my colleagues who would no doubt have wondered how I could have spawned such a despicable person as the notorious Chloe Maguire.

  My daughter’s face has been in all the newspapers, of course, as well as mentioned countless times on television broadcasts and radio bulletins. My face has also appeared on the front page a couple of times; the image used one of me in my full police uniform taken not long after I started working in the force.

  The journalists seemed to like the fact that a copper’s daughter could be guilty of murder.

  So now here I am, sitting at home in my empty house, guilty of some of the same crimes as my daughter yet free to get on with my life while she has lost the right to live hers as she would wish.

  Do I still feel guilty? Yes.

  Do I still wish it was me in there instead of her? Yes.

  But do I at least feel a little better about the fact that Rupert’s parents have answers now?

  Yes, I do.

  The only thing that is still outstanding in my mind is what happened to the missing student up in Newcastle. Despite my fears that Chloe did to him what she did to Rupert, she has not confessed to any crime there, declining to ever speak about it when I bring it up with her. I have stopped asking her about it now, and I fear I will never know the truth.

  Maybe I’ll get her to be honest with me one day.

  I’ll still visit her inside, of course.

  I’m still her mum.

  And she is where she is because of me.

  44

  CHLOE

  I’ve come to terms with what my life looks like now.

  It’s been a month since I got sentenced to twenty years for the murder of Rupert, meaning I’ll be pushing forty before I get back out of here. Of course, there are those who say I should never be allowed out again after what I have done, and I understand where they are coming from. They see me as a lost cause, someone who is so capable of extreme violence that there is nothing that can be done to re-integrate me into society. But I think they’re wrong. I can change. I changed before, didn’t I? I wasn’t always obsessed with the thought of killing somebody. That only happened when I saw Mum do it. So I can change again. It won’t be easy, and I’m sure it’s going to take a lot of time, but that’s something I’m not short of now.

  One of the fellow prisoners on my wing tells me that the key to getting through a sentence like ours is to take it a day at a time, so that is what I will do. Sometimes, that is easier said than done, but today will be a good day.

  That’s because Mum is coming to visit me.

  I follow the prison guard through the door that takes us into the Visitor’s Room, and that’s when I see her, sitting at the third table from the back, her head down, and her shoulders stooped as if to make herself seem smaller and less noticeable in a place like this. It’s an obvious way to be considering Mum is actually one of the most famous people in town these days, thanks to her connection to me and my notorious crime. I did suggest that it would be easier if she was to move away and start again somewhere else, but she decided against it. She wants to be nearby so she can keep visiting me. I guess she will never stop loving me, even after what I have done.

  ‘Hi Mum,’ I say, as the guard sets me down in the chair opposite her and takes a couple of paces away before standing rigidly nearby to keep a close eye on me.

  Mum looks up with those tired eyes of hers and offers me a weak smile while doing her best not to notice my prison uniform and how much more intimidating it makes me look. I got a shock the first time I caught a glimpse of my reflection in one of the prison windows on the way to this room a while ago. I looked like a character in a movie with my hands bound, my hair all unkempt and my clothes signifying that I was a danger to society.

  It might have been cool if it hadn’t been so real.

  ‘How have you been?’ I ask her, instinctively moving my handcuffed hands across the table to be closer to hers until the prison guard clears his throat to let me know that I’m not to get any closer.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Mum replies, obviously more worried about finding out about me rather than telling me what she has been up to.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I reply, shrugging my skinny shoulders.

  I’ve lost a fair amount of weight since I have been in custody. I never thought I’d regret something like that, but I know I’m bordering on unhealthy now because I feel exhausted just walking here and back every two weeks.

  Mum nods, though she doesn’t look convinced. I don’t blame her. I look like hell.

  ‘Are you ready to talk about what happened in Newcastle yet?’ she then asks, which possibly hints at the main reason she has come to visit me today.

  ‘Not this again,’ I reply, shaking my head. ‘Is that the only reason you keep coming here?’

  ‘No, of course not. I want to see you, and I’ll always keep coming here as long as they let me. But that doesn’t change the fact that a young man is still missing, and a family don’t have any answers.’

  ‘Mum, how many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t kill that guy in Newcastle.’

  ‘You told me you didn’t kill Rupert either, and look how that turned out.’

  I sigh. Mum is always going to use that against me. I lied about Rupert, so she thinks I’m lying about everything else. But I didn’t treat her this way. She lied to me about what happ
ened to Tim for years. I haven’t held that against her, so why is she holding this against me?

  ‘Just give the family closure so they can grieve and move on like Rupert’s family have,’ Mum tells me. ‘What have you got to lose at this point?’

  ‘Besides another twenty years of my life, maybe?’

  ‘You’ll feel better for doing the right thing.’

  ‘I am doing the right thing.’

  I wish I could make Mum see things from my point of view, but it’s no good. As similar as we are in so many ways, we still have our differences, and this is just one of them.

  ‘Have you come here to talk about anything else, or shall we call it a day?’ I ask after we have wasted a couple of moments of this thirty-minute visit in silence.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Mum admits, lowering her eyes back to the table between us.

  ‘Tell me about what you’re going to do when you leave here,’ I reply.

  ‘What do you mean? I’m going to go home and hide from all the journalists and busybodies who are trying to get a photo of me.’

  ‘No. I don’t mean that. I mean tell me what you’re going to eat. What you’re going to drink. What you’ll watch on TV.’

  That’s one thing about being in prison. You stop worrying about the big stuff. While Mum is on the outside preoccupied with thoughts of what the newspapers are saying and if anybody in town even likes her anymore, all I can think about is making myself a sandwich or pouring myself a glass of something refreshing. I’ve lost all my freedoms, and while Mum’s life might seem like a nightmare to her, it still seems like heaven to me.

  But Mum doesn’t get it, and she won’t play my game. Instead, we waste even more time, and the prison guard is beside me again before I know it, pulling me up from my seat and leading me back towards the door I came in here through.

  I look back over my shoulder at Mum as I go, hoping to get a smile from her that will give me the strength to keep going in here for another two weeks until she visits again. But there is none.

  She isn’t even looking at me.

  45

  HEATHER

  I should get out of bed.

  The clock on the table beside me tells me that it’s almost noon and I have an interview for a job at the local library at two. But I can’t summon up the strength to get going. It’s as if all motivation to live has been drained out of me, and maybe it has. Maybe I should just stay lying here until I wither away and somebody eventually comes to find me, before taking a photo and putting it in the newspaper, like they did with all the other images of me. That would give them something else to talk about for a while, at least until the next person in this town makes a mistake and they have their lives plastered all over the pages for the public to read about.

  But then my stomach rumbles, a reminder that I haven’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, and there must be a part of me that still wants to live because I put my feet over the side of the bed and force myself to get up to go in search of food.

  Wearily putting on a dressing gown and padding down the stairs, I make it into the kitchen and find a couple of scraps of bread in the bottom of the bag, which I drop into the toaster before slumping into my seat at the kitchen table. As I wait for the potentially mouldy bread to toast, I look at my mobile phone, which is something I have been doing a lot less of lately. I’ve found it’s easier to avoid the news, as well as all the gossip on social media, if I just either turn it off or limit my usage of it to the bare minimum. But I’m also learning that we are social creatures, and there is a limit on how much we can isolate ourselves from the outside world before our brains demand that we give it something to remind us that there is a bigger world out there.

  Maybe that’s why I ended up on the news website, or maybe it was because I was holding out hope that this would finally be the day that the top story wasn’t something to do with my daughter’s crimes or a profile on how she became the way she did. Plenty of ‘experts’ have come out in the weeks since Chloe’s sentencing, all of them trying to explain to the general public how a seventeen-year-old woman could commit such a brutal act and try and get away with it, and there have been plenty of theories, although none of them hit the nail on the head.

  None of them mentioned that it is because she saw her mother kill a man when she was a young girl.

  I suppose I should be grateful for that, although part of me almost wants the truth to come out because at least that way, it will make all the experts profiting from our misery look like complete idiots for not suggesting it.

  As the webpage loads on my phone, I hold my breath, preparing to see what the top story is today.

  I keep holding it even when I see what it is.

  MISSING NEWCASTLE STUDENT FOUND SAFE & WELL

  I click the link to the article in disbelief before pouring over the details of it. While I hadn’t been hopeful about the news today, this is definitely positive. It turns out the student had been taken by his stepfather and kept locked away in a house just outside the city, apparently in a revenge mission because the older man had broken up with the student’s mother. While there’s no doubt it is still a harrowing story, I can’t help but feel happy. That’s because Chloe was telling the truth.

  She didn’t kill this man.

  She isn’t as dangerous as I thought she was.

  I feel terrible for not believing her and wish I could speak to her now to apologise, but I can’t. A phone call in three days will be the next time I am able to have any contact with her, so I will have to wait until then.

  I can smell my toast starting to burn, so I’m just about to get up and remove it from the toaster when my phone pings to let me know that I have a new email. Automatically following the sound of it into my inbox, I see the new message waiting for me at the top of the screen.

  I also see who it is from.

  Jimmy.

  Clicking on the new email, the message opens up, and I am able to see the contents.

  Subject: Rupert Hall Murder – Burial – One year warning

  Hi Heather. Remember me? If you’re reading this then I am dead, and your daughter is serving her sentence for her crimes. But I’m guessing you are not. That’s because I didn’t send the police the video of you burying Rupert. I’m sure you are grateful for that, but I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. That’s because I do have the video (attached here), and it will be going to the police in exactly twelve months’ time. There is nothing you can do to stop it. Consider this my final act of revenge from beyond the grave.

  Enjoy your year.

  Jimmy.

  My hand is shaking as I click the link on the email and see the video start to play. It’s very dark and very grainy footage, or at least it is until the camera operator zooms in and brings things more into focus. That’s when I see myself standing in the woods, the spade in one hand and the pile of dirt beside me. I keep digging for several minutes, and I hear my toast pop up as I watch, but I don’t take my eyes from the screen as the video continues to play. Then, at the six minute mark, I see myself stop digging and crouch down before pushing Rupert’s body into the hole. The video ends with a zoomed-in close-up of my face staring down at the corpse and breathing heavily.

  I lower my phone onto the table and catch sight of the black toast sticking out of the top of the toaster. It’s burnt to a crisp.

  Ruined.

  Just like I am.

  I don’t bother to read Jimmy’s email again. It was pretty self-explanatory, and its message is burnt into my brain now almost as much as the heat from my toaster has burnt into the bread.

  In twelve months, this video will be sent to the police, just like the video of Chloe was sent to them. And just like they did with her, they will come to arrest me. I’ll be dragged through the courts. I’ll be sentenced for a long time. And I’ll probably not see my daughter again until she is at least my age now.

  I don’t know what to do, but I know I can’t stop it.

  Do
I run? Do I confess and start my sentence earlier? Should I try to make amends?

  Or should I just make the most of the time I have left?

  I have to give it to Jimmy. I was feeling drained of life when I was lying in bed a few moments ago, but now I feel as if I’ve been struck by lightning.

  Whatever I decide on, I can’t waste my time.

  I have one year of freedom left.

  What would you do?

  A Letter from the Author

  Thank you for reading The Role Model. I hope you had as much fun delving into the lives of Heather and Chloe as I had creating them. As with some of my earlier books, I wrote this during the lockdown period in England and it gave me a great form of escapism from the realities of the world. I hope it has done the same for you.

  Without readers like you, I wouldn’t be living my dream as a full-time author, so thank you for picking up this book and thank you for any review you may choose to leave for it afterwards. Reviews really are the most powerful way of getting attention for my books as they help bring in new readers. If you have enjoyed this book then I would be extremely grateful if you could spend a couple of minutes leaving an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads (it can be as short as you like).

  Thank you and I hope you enjoy your next read.

  Daniel

  If you would like to get the latest news about my future books, receive free stories and learn more about the life of a writer, you can join my e-mail list at www.danielhurstbooks.com

  Also By Daniel Hurst

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