The Imposter, Anna Wharton [romantic story to read TXT] 📗

room window. She watches the street, hoping to see a familiar figure appear under the orange glow of the street lamps. Instead it’s just a fox that scuttles by.

Chloe watches TV for a while, skipping channels when she can’t focus on any one programme. She looks outside again. It has now been twenty-eight hours since Nan went missing. Chloe knows her chances of being found are falling with each hour that passes. In a newspaper story a reporter would describe her as clinging to hope. She thinks of the Kyles, how they first feasted on it, until even hope became famine. She settles down in Nan’s chair. The standard lamp in the window a beacon to return Nan home. Its long fringe shade casting shadows across Chloe’s face.

SEVEN

Chloe has an uncomfortable night on the sofa, twisting and turning in half-dreams the way she often does. She wakes throughout the night to check her phone, the living room close enough to hear if there were a knock at the front door. At some point she must drift off into a deep sleep because her ringing phone jolts her awake.

‘Yes?’

‘Chloe?’

‘Yes.’

‘PC Bains here from Acton police station.’

She tries to stem her fear of what they might say. ‘Acton?’

‘Yes, in west London. The reason I’m calling is because I have a Mrs Grace Hudson here at the station and . . .’

Chloe sits up quickly, on the edge of the sofa cushion.

‘. . . she’s a little disorientated and dehydrated, but otherwise well.’

‘Oh, thank God.’

She presses the phone to her chest because it feels like the right thing to do. She composes herself and takes instructions from the police officer, promising her she’s already on her way.

Nan is OK. Disorientated, but OK.

She’s home. Or not quite. She’s in Acton. Chloe sieves back through the photo albums in her mind. Nan and Granddad’s first home was in west London; they’d both been born there and had only moved up here when Grandad got a job at the brick factory. Nan had gone home.

Chloe takes the fast train to London even though it’s more expensive – she refuses to be slowed by twice as many stops. It is still early morning and the train is filled with commuters, and the scent of pressed shirts, fresh aftershave and plastic cups of hot tea. She calls her own office and leaves a garbled message for Alec. She knows it will be greeted with more eye-rolling, but right now – this minute – she needs to get Nan back.

She texts Hollie too: Nan ok, in Acton. Not sure why. On train to get her. So relieved. xx

Chloe sits upright in her seat, willing the scenery to flash past faster at the windows. Even two inches closer to the edge of her seat will mean she pulls in to London quicker. When the trolley comes around she buys a KitKat and a Diet Coke. It fizzes as she pours it into a beige plastic cup.

The train heads out to the edges of Fenland. There is still frost on the ground and birds stand on the woolly backs of sheep to keep their feet warm. Everyone is useful to someone.

Takeaways and betting shops lead Chloe to Acton police station from the tube, and like a trail of breadcrumbs these garish signs will lead her back the way she came. When she reaches the counter she’s panting, as if she had been holding her breath all the way from Peterborough.

‘My nan . . . Grace Hudson . . . she’s h— I mean, she’s been found. She’s here.’

The officer behind the counter gestures for her to slow down.

‘OK, let’s start at the beginni—’

‘It was PC Bains who called me, she . . . she said Nan was here, that she was fine. Dehydrated. Please, I just need to see her.’

‘OK, OK . . .’ the officer says, more sympathetic than impatient. He taps something into his computer. ‘Can you tell me your grandmother’s name?’

‘Grace. Grace Hudson.’

Chloe scans his face for recognition while he studies his computer screen. She learnt a long time ago to read faces for the bits people don’t tell you.

‘Would you like to take a seat and I’ll let PC Bains know you’re here.’

‘Is she here? Nan, I mean.’

‘If you could just take a seat,’ he says. He indicates towards the bench behind her, blue and shiny, matching the Met Police logo.

Chloe waits in reception – just like on the train – on the very edge of her seat. She scans each person in uniform who walks by in case she can identify PC Bains. She distracts herself by picking the dry skin around her nails until red bleeds into her cuticles.

She hears a voice down the corridor. Nan’s voice. She looks up. PC Bains is walking along the corridor towards her, her arm hooked around Nan’s elbow, talking to her as if they’re old friends. Chloe stands up and rushes towards them like she knows for sure they’d do in films.

‘Nan,’ she says.

Nan looks at her like they saw each other just five minutes before.

‘Chloe, whatever’s happened, dear? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

PC Bains pats her arm. She has a Brummie accent when she speaks. ‘She’s been worried about you, Grace. You went wandering, didn’t you? You’ve caused your poor granddaughter all sorts of worry.’

‘I don’t have a granddaughter.’

PC Bains gives Chloe a sympathetic look.

‘Yes, you do, Grace. She’s here to take you home. You’ve been missing for two days.’

Nan looks at her. ‘Have I?’

Chloe puts an arm around Nan. ‘Why did you come to Acton, Nan?’

‘I was lost,’ she says. ‘I wanted to come home.’

‘But you don’t live here, Nan.’

‘Well, that’s what they keep saying. But my house is there. I tried telling them it was my house.’

Chloe glances at PC Bains for some kind of explanation.

‘It turns out it’s where she lived when she was a little girl,’ she says. ‘She stowed away on a train from Peterborough apparently, managed to slip through the barriers, even onto the tube, didn’t you, Grace? The owners of the house found her inside their shed this