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

wants to see you in his office,’ she says, and then, looking directly at Chloe, ‘Both of you.’

Chloe and Alec glance at each other, then shuffle back to their desks to collect notepads and pens. Perhaps Malc has a special project he needs them to work on, a nostalgia spread of city photographs for the centrefold, that sort of thing.

Only when they step into his office, Sandra closes the door behind them. Chloe and Alec watch it shut, then turn to Malc. He’s leaning back on his executive chair, feet up on the desk. Nobody speaks at first, until Alec coughs.

‘You wanted to see us?’

‘Yes,’ he says. His voice has a hard edge. ‘There’s a file missing from the archive – Angela Kyle. I want to know where it is.’

Chloe swallows hard. Angela Kyle. She grips her notepad and waits for Alec to speak.

He taps his chin with his pen and mutters, ‘Angela Kyle,’ to the ceiling.

‘You might have seen we were in dire straits this morning?’ Malc says.

They both nod.

‘Well, that’s because our splash fell through. That was meant to be it, an update from the parents about this missing kid.’ Chloe tightens her grip on her pen. ‘But the Sunday reporter – he’s new – he couldn’t find the file in the archive and so he cancelled the bloody interview.’

Malc leans forward on the chair, resting his hands on the desk and lowering his voice. ‘So I’d like to know where the fuck it is.’

He stares at them, and in the space it takes for his eyes to flicker from Alec to Chloe, the heat burns inside her cheeks.

‘Chloe?’ Alec says. ‘Didn’t I see you scanning that file in on Friday?’

She pauses for a second, glancing between their faces, trying to weigh up the best way out of this. She’s usually good at this, but the words she needs aren’t coming today, instead – just like Nan’s – they’re stuck inside some roadblock in her brain. She stumbles, not knowing what to say. And she knows what’s coming, the panic, and then anything could happen. She wants to keep silent, but both men are looking at her.

‘It’s just the file . . . well, it broke, and I took it home to fix—’

But she doesn’t make it to the end of her sentence. Malc stands up behind his desk, taking a deep breath in, and beside her she feels Alec shaking his head slowly.

‘You,’ Malc says, jabbing at the air between them, ‘you’re the reason I have some shitty story about council bins on my front page this morning.’

‘I . . .’

‘Weren’t you just in here last week? Didn’t I just give you a written warning, in fact?’ He rustles through the paperwork on his desk, finally holding up a piece of paper. ‘Yes, here it is. The ink isn’t even dry and yet you’re in here again.’

She nods, unsure if that’s the best response.

‘So no more warnings, that’s it. Taking files off company property, that’s an instantly sackable offence, isn’t it, Alec?’

Alec suddenly looks startled. ‘Well, I—’

‘Alec, see her out of this building this second.’ He pauses to jab the air towards her again. ‘And make sure you get that file first.’

Malc steps out from behind his desk then, and Chloe jumps back as he storms out the office, the cool air he leaves behind him changing everything.

She and Alec stand there, side by side. It’s a moment before he speaks.

‘Chloe,’ he says sadly, ‘you know so much better than this.’

Alec had been kinder than she’d imagined, promising her he’d speak to Malc again and make an appeal on her behalf. But the word ‘sacked’ is zigzagging around inside her head as she pushes out of the glass doors of the building. She stands on the pavement alone now, watching traffic rush past, people filled with purpose, a box in her arms, a hard lump inside her throat.

She looks up at the third floor of the building, barely able to take in what has just happened. Was she really up there just a few moments ago? And ten minutes before that, wasn’t she in her beloved archive, filing away envelopes like she’s done every day since she left school? She stands for longer, the white noise of the traffic rushing by hardly registering. It’s only the feel of her phone vibrating from inside the box, inside her handbag, that snaps her back into full consciousness. Could it be Alec? Has Malc admitted he acted too hastily?

She answers it quickly. ‘Hello?’

‘Chloe, hi, Claire Sanders here. How are you? It’s not a bad time, is it?’

She glances inside the box. She’d told Alec there was nothing she needed. But by the time he’d found a box, emptied it, tested its endurance, she felt she needed to find things to put in it. She looks down at the pathetic contents that sum up thirteen years at the newspaper: a few pens, an old diary she hadn’t even filled in, a calendar from two years ago, small change she’d found in her drawer and a tampon. As she gathered up her things she was already calculating how long she could afford to live without a job. With no social life, she’d accumulated decent savings, and at least she had a roof over her head.

‘I’m fine. No, not a bad time at all.’ Chloe tries to keep the emotion from her voice.

She balances the phone and the box as she listens, the phone slipping from under her ear every now and then, the traffic whizzing past, but she picks up the gist of the conversation.

‘. . . so to fund your grandmother’s care, we’re going to have to sell the house . . . Chloe? Chloe, are you still there?’

TWELVE

Chloe doesn’t go back to Park House the next day. Or the next. Instead she phones them to see how Nan is and a cheery nurse tells her she’d enjoyed bingo that morning. Nan hates bingo, not that she tells him that. In Park House Nan is different; she’s reinvented into someone who wears coral