The Imposter by Anna Wharton (i have read the book txt) 📕

seen Maureen straighten it once or twice as if each time she does might bring her closer to believing it.

Chloe goes upstairs to her room, familiar now with each floorboard that creaks on the landing. Out of the window at the top of the stairs, the flat Fens spread all the way back to the village and miles beyond the willow tree. She’s learnt over the last week that wildlife is their neighbour out here. Just last night a barn owl flew right into the back garden and perched on the edge of the outhouse roof. She and Maureen had got up and watched it from the patio doors. It sat there for at least ten minutes, blinking back at them with big black eyes.

‘In the old house I used to find white feathers every now and then,’ Maureen had said quietly, so as not to disturb the owl. ‘Just out of nowhere, you know?’

Chloe had nodded.

‘They say they’re left by angels, but if that’s so and it was Angie leaving them . . .’

Her sentence trailed off and Chloe had reached for her hand because that’s what people do in films. She knew what Maureen was trying to say but Chloe found it hard to think that she really thought Angie might be dead. She’d never given that impression in the cuttings.

Maureen talks more about Angie now. It’s as if Chloe being here has brought her daughter back to this new home. The dead flies are gone from this windowsill, and now there’s a little photograph of Angie in a mother of pearl frame. As she reaches the top of the stairs, Chloe picks it up. It’s one she never saw in the newspaper cuttings. She’s aged around three or four. Her finger runs the length of her orange summer smock dress with mustard-yellow flowers, then across the child’s smile. She puts it back and it falls face down. For a moment she thinks to leave it there, then walks back to return it to standing.

She looks out the window; from here she can see all the way up the lane to the willow tree. Maureen and Patrick will be back soon, their blue car will appear down this long straight road. The house feels different without them. Exposed, vulnerable even. Chloe looks towards the room next to her own, the one that is always kept locked, and that’s when she notices – the padlock is missing again.

From the wall, the crucifix watches as she crosses the landing. Surely it would be a wasted opportunity if she didn’t take a peep inside? It’s not really snooping, not if you’re investigating a disappearance. At least, if this were a police investigation, a chance like this would not be overlooked.

She glances over her shoulder, then tiptoes back to the top step to check down the road for Patrick’s car. Nothing. She looks back at the door. Just a look, that’s all she’ll take, a peep inside then she’ll close the door again. No one will know, and why would it matter anyway? It’s just a room. A room that is usually locked. Locked from both doors.

She takes a step closer, then another. The floorboards creak underfoot. She stops, listens. Hears a sound downstairs, a click – she holds her breath – the back door?

No, it’s just the fridge in the kitchen.

She takes another step, then another. The handle is almost within reach. A second later her hand is on it. She takes it within her grasp, turns, feels the click of the lock releasing. She pushes the door, waits to feel it swing open.

Just a look, that’s all.

But it doesn’t budge. She pushes again, harder. Nothing. She turns the handle – perhaps it’s stuck? It turns inside her palm, this way and that, but the door remains tightly shut. How can it be locked from the inside? She rattles it then, leans her shoulder into the wood, tries to push. The door resisting against the weight of her.

That’s when she hears it, a sound from the road, the crack of pebbles under tyres.

Chloe lets go of the handle and rushes to the window in time to see Patrick’s car pulling up on the driveway. She darts into her room and shuts the door behind her. Across the room her eyes fall on the connecting door through to the spare room – the identical padlock still in place. To lock the door to the landing from the inside, someone must have been in here. She scans her room – nothing looks out of place. But then a terrifying thought lands deep in the pit of her stomach. She is down on the floor in a second, searching underneath the bed among the dust and – there it is. Her archive. The panic stills inside her.

She sits back on her bed, hears the back door open, Maureen and Patrick’s voices downstairs. She looks back at the wall that separates her from the room next door. She has to see inside.

It turns out Maureen and Patrick have brought fish and chips home tonight.

‘We got you cod, I hope that’s OK?’ Maureen asks.

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Didn’t know if you liked mushy peas, though.’

Chloe guesses takeaways are the little treats they can now afford.

The three of them sit at the kitchen table, eating out of the chip paper. They eat in silence for a while. Maureen gets up every so often to butter bread for Patrick. He fills it with chips and folds it over in one hand.

Chloe can’t stop thinking of the room upstairs. The room they’ve never mentioned. Who needs to padlock a door from the outside unless there’s something in there you don’t want someone else to see?

‘You’re a bit quiet tonight, Chloe,’ Maureen says.

‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘Just a bit tired from work, you know?’

‘What is it you do again?’ Maureen says. ‘I haven’t asked you much about your job.’

She tries to think of something that sounds as boring as possible so as not to invite