The Empty Cradle

by Lisa Rookes

Genres: Horror; Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

Amy's so sure that her husband, Joel, is deeply invested in their future together. After all, it's his dream of a family together that has them trying so hard to have a baby, despite a series of disappointments. It's this certainty that leaves Amy absolutely floored when she learns of Joel's affair with her best friend.

Heartbroken and horrified, Amy flees to a dilapidated cottage in a Yorkshire village, a place she'd bought with dreams of making it feel homey and warm. In the new village, she feels like a clear outsider, but a group of local women soon take her under their wing. They gather for a routine book club, they say. Before Amy knows it, these women are in her life, and in her home.

Amy wakes one night to find herself outside in the fields. Strange offerings seem to be left on her doorstep. And the surveillance camera she installs shows shapes creeping around her house in the night. Strangest of all, she suddenly finds she's pregnant. A pregnancy that feels like a cruel joke.

The book club is incredibly invested in Amy's pregnancy. And it might just be in Amy's mind, but the women's interest doesn't always seem safe. What do the women want with her? And what do they want with her baby?

Release date: August 14, 2025

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 352

Sample

It hasn’t turned blue yet, the second window, but I already can tell it’s not going to. There’s no faint line even trying to form, whereas its neighbour is raging and thick. It’s not relief as such. Although the supermarket toilets isn’t exactly the most romantic place for such a life-changing occasion.

But I definitely feel my shoulders drop and the tension headache that’s been giving me hell all morning start to fade almost immediately. It’ll come back when I have to break yet more bad news to Joel, but I’ll deal with that later.

There’s a cough from outside the cubicle. I pull up my jeans and chuck the stick in the sanitary bin once I’m sure there’s not going to be a late rider. I check my phone, but still nothing. I refresh my emails but the 30 per cent off Ted Baker offer stays stubbornly at the top.

The aisles are busy, Friday night students stocking up on special offer beers and cut-price cardboard pizzas. Knackered-looking women piling nappies and endless packets of baby wipes into trollies, probably just relieved to be out of the house for an hour.

It’s a sad state of affairs when doing the Big Shop becomes a leisure activity. I hope they at least treat themselves to a nice latte from the cafe.

I throw some bits in a basket without thinking. Some fat prawns, fresh linguine, chillies, rocket. I can’t be bothered tonight to try and create something without carbs. I don’t have the headspace.

Refresh my emails.

Still nothing.

The wine aisle is winking at me. I was hoping to pick up some fizz but it seems premature now, like I’m tempting fate. Which I don’t believe in, but still. I’m going to have to wait all weekend now, which is irritating.

There’s a couple of women about my age tottering about, dithering between Prosecco and rosé Prosecco. Just get one of each, for God’s sake.

Clearly they are on their way to some kind of girls’ night in. Book club, maybe. Are they still a thing? They were everywhere at one point. Now, it’s all ironic sewing clubs and some kind of extreme bingo to dance music. I’ve no idea.

I’m slightly envious of their nice tops and wedges, though, and they are obviously going to have a few laughs tonight over drinks and then some nice bar with jam jars for lighting, I expect. Better than my Friday night plans. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the freezer cabinets earlier and it’s safe to say I look like a bag of dicks, as Vix would say. My hair needs a wash and I’ve definitely gone up a jeans size. I can’t keep pretending all my clothes have shrunk in the wash. Not all of them.

I take a second look at the pasta in my basket, but I’m too brain dead to even contemplate fannying about with courgettes and a spiraliser. Life’s too short. Carbs it is. I’ll run tomorrow, I lie smoothly to myself.

Refresh email.

I don’t even shop at Ted Baker. I look like an overgrown toddler in everything.

I’m doing my own head in.

‘Cash or card?’ The heavily tattooed checkout man doesn’t even make eye contact.

‘Card.’ I tap my phone against the machine, then just as I pick up my shopping, it buzzes in my hand.

It’s the agent. I jab at the screen a couple of times before it slides to answer. My heart is pounding. It’s got to be good. Surely they’d have just emailed if not.

‘Hello.’ I stop short and a trolley crashes into me from behind. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I mutter and scurry out of the traffic. ‘Hello? Sorry about that.’

‘Is that Amy?’

I can’t gauge her voice. My stomach lurches.

‘Yes. Hi.’

‘It’s Fran at Brooks and Carter estate agents here.’

I know, I know. I feel sick.

‘Yes, hi.’

‘I’m so sorry to tell you that the property you bid on in Hollow Fold …’

My heart joins my stomach. I’m gutted. I really, really wanted this one.

I should have gone higher. I could have scraped together another five thousand maybe. I’m not even listening. It went to sealed bids. There’s no negotiation now.

We both clearly want to get off the phone. It’s awkward for everyone. I wished she’d just emailed and I bet she does too, but I guarantee her boss made her call as it’s more polite, apparently. Bet she was praying it would go to voicemail. We fake pleasantries even though my heart is full of misery. I really wanted this one. I don’t even know why. It’s not like this is my first rodeo of rejection, I remind myself as I head for the car.

The red mist of the brake lights looks angry in the rain, and the fog of the exhausts makes the car park look sinister, and almost ethereal.

For a minute I can’t remember where I left the Mini, and feel myself desperate to march back in and buy a packet of cigarettes and chain-smoke one after another. But Joel will smell it straight away. He’s got the nostrils of Wolverine. He once smelled a sour raspberry vape lingering on me after a kid at the bus stop offered me a puff because I was eyeing it thirstily.

I can almost taste the red wine in my mouth as I stand and hold my key up and press unlock. The forgetful woman’s gift. The rear lights of my Mini flash at me from two rows over, and I duck and dive among the trollies and children and slowly moving cars until I can finally get in, slamming the door. Blocking out the outside world. The noise.

Sometimes it all just gets too much.

Just as I’m about to turn the ignition, my phone rings and I snatch it off the passenger seat in the hope they’ve made a mistake and the cottage is mine after all.

But it’s Joel.

‘God, you don’t sound happy to hear from me,’ he says as I lean my head against the window and watch the rain blur the windscreen. It’s cocooning.

‘Sorry. I’ve just had really bad news,’ I reply.

‘Oh.’ He pauses. ‘Oh, baby. I’m sorry. We can try again.’

‘What do you mean? It’s gone.’ I’m confused. Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I feel a spark of irritation. Joel is a little like a man-child when it comes to the properties. ‘Adult stuff’, he calls it.

‘Gone? What’s gone?’ Joel says.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘What are you talking about?’ he replies.

‘The cottage, of course. The Cragg Heath cottage.’ I sound sharper than I intend to, probably.

‘Oh. Oh. Sorry, I thought you meant you’d done a test.’

‘I have.’ I bite my lip and realise straight away this is not going to sound good. ‘Yeah, that’s bad news too. Sorry. Negative.’

There’s a beat or two where neither of us says anything. I’m not quite sure if it’s still my turn to speak.

‘Sorry,’ I add again for good measure.

‘I just … So the house was really the bad news? Not the test?’

Oh God.

‘Well. Both. Shit day,’ I try. ‘But I suppose at least I can have a glass of wine.’

‘Right. OK. Where are you now?’

The atmosphere has definitely changed, but I’m not entirely sure in what direction.

‘Supermarket car park. I’ve got stuff in for tea.’

‘OK. See you soon, then.’

We say goodbye and I start driving. I feel uncomfortable and weird, but I’m not sure why. I know Joel is annoyed with me and I’m guessing it’s because I didn’t say the pregnancy test was the bad news, but I wish he’d just tell me that, rather than being off. I wish I felt as disappointed as he does. But when I try and pretend, well, I just don’t seem able to. It’s like when I was little. I could never play games of make-believe. I’ve no imagination, apparently.

I want a baby, one day. I’m sure I do. But the thing about being forty-one is there aren’t that many ‘one day’s left in your menstrual cycle. It’s like being presented with a delicious juicy rare fillet steak when you’re already full. It’s not that you don’t want the steak, you just don’t have room for it right now. But if you don’t eat it now, you’ll not get any tea.

This is a shit analogy but I call Vix to test it out anyway, even though she’s vegan. But she doesn’t pick up. So I drive back to our estate, with nothing but the sounds of the swish swish of the windscreen wipers. It’s completely dark when I pull in and the headlights catch Pixie, our overweight tabby, prowling outside the garage door near the bin. She stops and stares at me with her cold yellow eyes. I’ve never been a cat person, if I’m honest. They make me feel inadequate with their judgy walk and disdainful looks.

‘What are you doing out?’ I ask her as I get out of the car on the drive. I don’t know a single British person who actually puts their car in the garage. No room for it, with lawn-mowers and bikes and Christmas decorations and random boxes of crap that no one can bear to throw out but no one wants cluttering up their house either.

Pixie hates the rain. She hates the outside in general. We are perfectly matched.

I reach down to pick her up and take her in with me, but she squirms away, hisses and struts off down the side of the house.

Be like that then, I think to myself, wiping clumps of wet malting hair off my palm. There’s a parcel on the front porch, half of it sodden from the wind driving the rain diagonally. I scoop it up, and chuck it on the table in the hall.

Joel is in the shower, or I assume he is, as he doesn’t answer when I come in. I listen out for the water, and although I can’t quite hear it, I can sense there’s something moving through the pipes. The veins of the house. I’ve always thought of them like people. Another reason Vix thinks I’m strange.

There’s a smell as well. One that’s familiar. But it doesn’t feel right. I stop and inhale deeply but I can’t put my finger on it.

Dropping my handbag on the floor in the hall, I go through to the kitchen and unpack the shopping. The counters have been cleaned, which is unusual. I know because this morning’s marmalade spill isn’t there anymore. I was rushing out the door, but Joel doesn’t normally notice things like that. I was expecting to come back and find it solidified on the granite.

I open the wine and feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders start to drop at the first sound of the glug, glug, glug. Expecting Joel to be off with me anyway, I drink the first glass quickly and then start on my second. It will make it more bearable.

‘Joel?’ I shout up the stairs. ‘Are you nearly out? I’m cooking now.’

There’s still no reply. Rolling my eyes, I rip open the pasta and put the kettle on to boil. I still can’t get used to seeing my reflection in the gloss of the kitchen cabinets. It’s like a carnival House of Mirrors in here. All smoky grey and shiny. I don’t like it, to be honest, but Joel needed an answer for the builders and I was distracted at an auction, so just agreed.

The whole house smells of new car. Carpet and bleach. It’s not unpleasant, just a little clinical. Joel swore it wouldn’t be a beige box, even though it was a new build. Not with the slanted ceiling, sky tunnels and bi-folding doors, he claimed. He’s right in a way. It’s beautifully designed. But we ended up just having magnolia slapped on the walls because I couldn’t decide on colours, and oatmeal-flecked carpets as they’d go with everything.

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a custard cream biscuit.

I hear the cat flap go and Pixie comes in looking aggravated, turns her nose up at the dry food in her bowl and wanders off to rub muck all over the white sofa. I can’t be bothered with her mood, so I ask Alexa to dim the lights and play me some Carole King while I switch on the LED candles and long for the warm glow of real flame.

I rip open the prawns, then immediately take the packaging to the outside bin so it won’t stink the place up by morning. The rhythm of chopping up garlic and chilli makes my shoulders drop, and I start singing along and sipping my wine.

I’m already in a better mood when Joel comes down in his pyjama bottoms and a grey t-shirt, hair all dark and ruffled from the shower. He’s a handsome man. I’m not even being biased. There’s no argument to it. Like his taste in commodities, Joel is very symmetrical, smooth-edged and perfectly lined.

Sometimes I stare at his face, looking for imperfections or flaws. Or dare I say it … character? But he’s so polished, I often expect his front tooth to sparkle when he smiles, like a cartoon.

I have no idea how he ended up with ragtag me, with my Snoopy knickers and unravelling hems. He once said I make him laugh. But I don’t think I’m funny. Not intentionally, anyway.

‘You all right?’ I ask as I chuck the prawns in a frying pan with a bit of chilli and garlic paste.

‘Yeah.’ He doesn’t meet my eyes, or ask how I am, but he does walk past me and get a beer out of the giant fridge-freezer that has an AI setting. Even if we’ve never made the function work. Or work out what exactly it is supposed to do.

There’s a little silence.

‘Yeah. So … rubbish day all round.’ I pour boiling water onto the pasta.

‘Yeah. I’m sorry.’ Joel comes up behind me and gives the back of my neck a firm squeeze. As always, it makes my knees weaken a little and I lean back into him gratefully.

I normally hate being touched by anyone. But it’s different with Joel. He makes me feel safe in a way no one ever has before. Not in his words, or even his actions, but his mere presence. It soothes me. The way the sound of the front door used to when my foster-dad would come back in from the pub, or work, after I’d gone to bed. His presence flooded the house and made everything peaceful again.

He goes to give me a kiss on the cheek, but I turn my head around fully so it lands on my mouth. He tastes of toothpaste.

‘What’s for tea, then?’

‘Just some pasta and prawns. Making a chilli sauce thing.’ I look down and realise I must have thrown the spice sachet away with the prawn carton.

‘Oh, bollocks. I’ve chucked the whatsit in the bin.’ I move towards the back door but Joel puts a hand on my arm.

‘What is it? I’ll get it.’

‘Just a little sachet of peri-peri spices. It’s OK, I’ll go. You’re in your pyjamas.’

‘Yeah, but my hair is wet anyway,’ Joel says, halfway to the bin already.

‘Fair enough.’ I fill up my glass, and listen, my head out the window, to Joel rummaging outside while the garlic spits beside me. I try not to think of the lost cottage. I feel like I’ve been dumped. Which is silly. Look at what I’ve got.

The evening becomes sweeter. We watch some Netflix true crime documentary that Vix has a one-line part in, eat the pasta on our laps. Joel falls asleep on the sofa while I check my Airbnb requests for my other holiday rental. October half-term is full, and as usual, Christmas and New Year are both fully booked. Most weekends are blocked out now until the Valentine’s come down.

I take a deep breath and check Tripadvisor, but nothing new, so I take the plates through to the kitchen and bag up the flamingo pink shells of the prawns. The rubbish has just been taken out, so there’s no way I’m leaving them to fester at the bottom of the bin all week. I’ve made that mistake before.

The rain has stopped now, so I go outside and lift up the lid of the black bin and chuck the bag in.

It’s only when I get back inside I realise my engagement ring is missing.

‘Shit.’ I go straight to the counter. I remember taking it off to wash the garlicky prawn stench off my hands, but it’s not on the side where I thought I’d left it.

My heart tenses a little, but I tell myself it has to be here somewhere, and head back out to the bins to see if I accidentally swept it up with the rest of the prawn shells. It was a Waitrose carrier bag I’d chucked everything in, so I use my phone torch to rummage through the top layer of the bin. There are two.

I grab the first one and unknot it. But it’s not the prawn shells. It’s from the bathroom bin. I see my make-up-smeared cotton pads and tampon tubes, and I’m just about to knot it back up and chuck it back in, when I get that smell.

And then I know.

I know what it is.

At the bottom of the carrier bag, there’s a condom.

I push the tissue out of the way gingerly. It is. It’s a used condom. The wrapper is there too.

I’m still staring at it a few minutes later when Pixie leaps up on the side of the bin and starts pawing at the black bags, tearing the plastic, spilling the rubbish like guts out onto the street.

‘Have you ever heard of a … posh wank?’ I whisper the last bit down the phone to Vix. I don’t know why I’m whispering. Joel has gone to work, so it’s just me at home. I’m drumming my fingers on the kitchen counter, last night’s row going round and round in my head.

‘Yeah. Jerking off with a condom on, right?’ Why am I not surprised she knew?

‘OK. So it’s a thing?’ I ask. I flick the kettle on again. I’ve been trying to make a coffee for the past half-hour, but keep boiling the water and then forgetting to do anything with it.

‘Yeah, why?’ Vix asks.

‘Are you at work?’

‘Technically.’

Vix works at Holistic Spa when the acting jobs aren’t paying the bills. I’m not really sure what’s holistic about it apart from the plinky music and the Himalayan rock salt lamps everywhere. My guess is she’s in the solarium, having a little lie-down before it opens.

‘Joel … Well, I found a used condom in the bin last night.’

‘What?’ I can just imagine her sitting bolt upright. She’s never been Joel’s biggest fan. There may even be a touch of glee in those green eyes of hers.

‘Yeah, I know … He says he was … well. You know. With a condom on. So as not to make a mess. Apparently that’s what it’s called. I did google it.’

‘I mean, he did go to private school, I guess.’

‘Yeah. That was his excuse, too.’

‘Come on, Amy … You’re not thinking anything more sinister, are you?’

‘I suppose not. But why is he even doing that when we’re trying to have a baby? He’s the one who’s been so bloody rigid about everything. Cycles and temperatures and all that shit.’ I pour the water onto the coffee grains. Joel keeps trying to buy a fancy pod machine but I keep resisting. I’m just not a pod person. He laughs when I say this and ruffles my hair, which feels vaguely patronising, but I just can’t bear to pay that amount of cash for a drink I have to make myself.

‘That still going on, then?’ Vix asks. ‘I thought you were going to tell him you wanted to take a break for a bit?’

‘I was, but who am I kidding? I’m almost forty-two. It’s not like there’s plenty of time. Doesn’t help that I don’t have any family medical history either.’

‘Fair, but I don’t think you should rush this if you’re not a hundred per cent. You know what I mean? Once it’s there … well, you can’t return it to a store.’

Vix has never wanted children and is one of those women who doesn’t think it’s selfish or have The Fear of admitting it to other women. It’s one of the reasons I warmed to her in the first place. And the main reason I was so scared of telling her when we started trying last year.

‘Anyway. Point being … do we believe him?’

‘Darling, it’s more, do you believe him? I mean, personally, I don’t think he’s got it in him to have a side bird. But what are you thinking? Have there been other signs?’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Does he hide his phone? Work late? Buy you flowers for no reason?’

‘Not that I’ve noticed? And he’s never been the flowers type. I mean, he could be hiding his phone, I guess. I’ve not noticed. It’s not been on my radar. I’m not really sure when he’d have time to have an affair.’

‘Could it be a sex worker?’

‘Jesus, Vix!’

‘Well. Maybe the baby-making sex isn’t, you know, doing it for him. It might be he needs a bit of mucky sex to keep him going.’

‘Nice. Anyway, what is baby-making sex? Do you think we’re singing “Kumbaya” and banging tambourines in white chiffon?’

Vix lets off that loud belly laugh of hers. It ricochets round any room, but I imagine it’s particularly loud in the mosaic-tiled cavern she’s in.

‘No. Like The Handmaid’s Tale, maybe?’

‘I assure you, there’s only me and him.’

‘Not in his head!’

‘VIX! You’re not helping.’ I’m laughing as I sip my coffee.

‘Sorry. I assume you asked him outright?’

‘’Course.’

‘And he said …?’

‘Posh wank.’

‘Well. There we go. Think you’re going to have to chuck it in the fuck it bucket.’

‘What, the condom?’

‘Very good, You know what I mean.’

‘I do. Thanks, Vix.’

‘Well, since you’re not up the spout, drinks tonight?’

‘Yeah, OK. Joel’s out so it will just be me and Stranger Things, pretending not to have a Mrs Robinson-style crush on teenage boys.’

‘I’ve TOLD you. In real life both Steve and Billy are in their twenties, so it’s perfectly acceptable.’

‘I think I’m just menopausal.’

‘Ahhh, so that’s why you’re not getting pregnant.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘You’re too young. Don’t be daft. Where’s Joel, then?’

‘Football lads, night out.’

‘Deep joy. He’ll return stinking of kebab and beer. And wanting baby-making sex.’

‘I’ll be locking this chiffon and the tambourines away, then.’

We agree a time and place and I hang up. I really am going to have to take this posh wank at face value.

Taking out the brochure of the property details for the Cragg Heath cottage, I let my face slump into my hand while I flick through the pictures. I know I’m just torturing myself, but I need to let myself grieve.

I always get like this when I lose a house. Almost want to light a candle. I really thought I’d have a good shot, especially as it barely had any online presence. Not even on Rightmove. I wouldn’t have even known about it, but the estate agent mailed me directly. I’m on so many mailing lists, like other property flippers, I guess. It is made for someone like me. It’s absolutely nothing on paper. But it’s the location that’s bankable.

A three-storey weavers’ cottage, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire border, nestled snugly in the peaks, but spitting distance from the charm of Cragg Heath. The market town is not exactly chocolate box. A bit rougher round the edges than the twee versions, with their cask-ale tasting flights, micro breweries and beauty salons calling themselves apothecaries. But it’s still knocking on the door of being thought of as upmarket, so the property is still cheap. Just perfect for a dog-friendly Airbnb. Three bedrooms. Those beams. Wood-burning stove with all the original features. Yes, the brown and cream Formica kitchen would need ripping out, along with the ugly orange bathroom, and the yellow-and-red carpets you could almost see the silverfish jumping out of. But the fields stretch out behind it, trees that fill the sky, the warm lights from the cottages tumbling down the hillside.

When I went to see it, the autumn sun was kissing the roof tiles, and even though as soon as I stepped through the rotting front door that tell tale smell of damp should have sent me running, it felt like the comfort of hot tea and crumpets. Each creak of the stair, each blurred reflection in the smeared window; I could almost see myself – no, actually, I really did see myself, scrubbing and painting. Polishing the cottage back to life.

Ridiculous, really, since I can’t even rewire a plug, I’m hardly a DIY girl. I normally get locals in to do the flip. But there was something magical about this place that made me want to invest my time as well as my cash. It felt like home.

The next morning, just last week, I put my sealed bid in.

I’d just sold my tiny cottage in Holmfirth. Once famed for its sitcom about three old Yorkshiremen, it didn’t have the same tourist pull it once had now no one remembered the show, and I was losing occupancy slowly. I need two rental incomes to keep my head above water. My other one in Hebden Bridge was earning my keep, but I needed to find something else soon, and the weather is about to turn. It will be quieter bookings now until Christmas.

Joel is an estate agent, but his company is much more about securing the contracts to sell on new estates with normative names like Woodlands and Stoney Rivers. Open-plan living. Costa on the corner. You know the type. So he wasn’t really able to find me much either.

That cottage was perfect. I should have bid higher. I could have afforded to. I probably wouldn’t need that much cash to renovate it. I could kick myself.

My laptop hasn’t charged up, but Joel’s iPad is on the kitchen table. I never use it so I can’t remember the PIN, annoyingly, because I want to look at Rightmove.

Best way to get over a house is to get under another one.

Or something like that.

I message Joel for the PIN and carry the iPad and my coffee th. . .