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

Chloe sees how she glances at Patrick. She quickly looks down into her cereal bowl.

‘Well, she does but . . . well, they couldn’t look after her, or at least they did but not how social services thought they should so . . . yeah. But she got a new family, Dave and Rita. They’re nice. And then yeah, we stayed friends afterwards. We’ve always looked out for each other, I guess. We tell each other everything.’

She looks at Patrick when she says that last bit.

‘Hmm,’ Maureen says, and looks down at the tea towel in her lap. ‘You should bring her here.’

‘What?’

‘Hollie. Is that what you said her name was? Shouldn’t she, Pat? Wouldn’t it be nice to meet Chloe’s friend?’

Patrick pauses.

‘Well, Mo, I . . .’

‘Whyever not, Patrick?’

‘Well, it’s not that I . . .’ he starts.

Chloe sees how he squirms in his seat.

Patrick stands up, goes to the sink. He taps the side of the worktop with his signet ring as he searches the big Fen sky for something.

Maureen turns to Chloe.

‘So you’ll bring her tonight?’

‘Sorry?’ Chloe says.

‘Hollie. You’ll bring her home, here?’

‘Tonight?’ Chloe says, one eye still watching Patrick at the sink. His head is bowed now. Even the back of him looks guilty. She thinks of her archive and her stomach twists inside. ‘Oh, I think she’s busy tonight.’

‘But you said—’ Maureen starts.

‘Actually, I’ve just remembered’ – Chloe mimes slapping her forehead – ‘she text last night to say she’s going out for dinner with her boyfriend.’

‘She’s got a boyfriend, has she?’

‘Yes, Phil.’

‘That might be you some day, bringing a boyfriend home to meet Mum and Dad.’ She nudges Chloe’s elbow. ‘Still, we wouldn’t want you to leave us here, would we, Pat?’

‘Hmm?’ He turns round from the sink.

Maureen rolls her eyes. ‘Oh, men, no point talking to them about this stuff. Anyway, that settles it, Pat’ll bring you home tonight. It’s five you finish, isn’t it, love?’

Chloe nods as Maureen stands up and clasps her hands together.

‘Why don’t you two bring fish and chips home with you? We haven’t had them in ages.’

Chloe makes her excuses after a while, and mounts the stairs, saying she needs to get ready for work. Only when she gets to the top of the landing, something feels different. The door to her room is slightly ajar – she hadn’t left it like that, she never leaves it like that. Slowly, she pushes it open, the door creaking a little as she does. Inside, everything looks the same. For some reason, her eyes fall under the bed. She closes the door and gets down on her hands and knees. She slides one arm underneath, into the darkness, and feels her fingertips hit something familiar – her archive.

She squeezes herself under the bed, pulling it out with both hands. Tentatively she takes off the lid. It’s all there, just as she had kept it. She feels relief and fear, because she knows it wasn’t here last night. Someone had removed it. The box has been returned, but perhaps everything has changed now – maybe whoever has looked inside now suspects her. She leans back against the bed, her fingers feeling for each cutting in turn, each small brown envelope. She holds the archive to her chest as her heart beats against it.

FORTY-SIX

Chloe arrives at the glass building that houses the insurance company an hour before Patrick is due to collect her that afternoon. The last thing she wants is for him to catch her getting off the bus and hurrying across the road towards the office. When she walked by the other day, she noticed that there was a small cafe in the atrium on the ground floor, complete with a couple of chairs and tables spilling out of it. She arrives early and goes inside. She had worried, of course, about bumping into Phil again, but she figured the chances were slim and, anyway, she could always say she had a second interview.

At reception, a woman dressed like an air hostess with a silk scarf round her neck asks if she can help. Chloe points towards the cafe, and she nods, smiles and waves her forward.

Chloe buys a KitKat and a can of Diet Coke then sits there, in her winter coat, in the atrium, her bag at her side. A copy of the local newspaper peers out the top of her bag, but she resists reading it and instead sits staring out at the road, waiting for the first flash of Patrick’s blue car.

Chloe doesn’t want to get in that car. She hasn’t wanted to get into it all day. Not tonight, not on her own. Not without Maureen. Chloe has a thought that maybe Maureen has changed her mind and come along with him for the ride. How relieved she would be if they pulled up and Maureen was sitting alongside him in the front, ready to collect her. And then she stops and ponders on that image, how happy it would have made her not so long ago to have a mum and dad driving to pick her up from work. She always promised herself she wouldn’t take a proper family for granted.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket, making her stomach turn inside the padding of her coat. She pulls the phone out in case it’s Patrick and is filled with relief when she sees it’s Park House. But she can’t answer, not now. And so that same relief turns to guilt. She turns her phone off, as if that might dilute the unease. She has missed a few calls from Park House in the last few days. She’s deleted the voicemails without listening. Claire Sanders has called, too. Twice. Chloe knows what about. The house, the paperwork, the fees, but Chloe is not in that headspace now. Not when she’s living with a killer. She’s shocked even at her mind’s ability to use that word. A child killer. A man capable of murdering his own daughter, then lying to the