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

over the money to pay and leaves the shop transformed.

As she comes out of the newsagent’s, a couple of teenage boys move their bikes from the pavement outside the doorway. She catches her reflection in the window as she walks away: notebook and pen in one hand, blazer, smart trousers. She even feels like a reporter. She pictures herself then, thirty minutes from now, perhaps Maureen making her a cup of tea while she sits on the sofa opposite Patrick, taking notes in her pad. She’ll glance around the room, jotting down detail to colour in the story; nothing will go undiscovered, no stone unturned. The cashier in the shop hadn’t even questioned her buying a shorthand pad. She stops still on the pavement – she doesn’t know shorthand. Can she fake it? After all, she’s seen what reporters scrawl in their notepads. Would the Kyles know the difference? But she doesn’t like the thought of deceiving them. She checks her watch, there isn’t time to buy a dictaphone. Yet the thought of abandoning her plan now when she is already so close, so prepared, is impossible.

‘Too late now,’ she whispers under her breath.

She carries on walking. Nerves collecting inside each step. For the first time ever she has sympathy for reporters sent out on door knocks. Is this how they feel? She’s never thought about their job outside of the office, just complained if they didn’t return files back to the archive. She puts her nerves aside. She’s doing this for Angie, for the Kyles, so they might finally get some peace, some answers. After all, someone needs to keep hope for the missing. She remembers her own visits to the police station. They were hardly dynamic in their approach; twenty-five years ago they were probably even worse. She’s got to remember to stay focused.

She arrives at the house and watches for a while from the other side of the road. She pictures Maureen and Patrick pottering behind the walls, busy in their permanent state of pretence and waiting. She imagines Angie’s absence as something they pull on each morning as routinely as their clothes.

Unlike some of the other houses in this street, this one hasn’t sprouted an extension from its side. The old wooden gate hasn’t been swapped for a wrought-iron one either. The only update appears to be the double glazing and the new front door, brown uPVC to match the colour of the brick. Chloe looks up at the bedroom window she’d glanced into two weeks before, but for some reason she can’t see the same light shade, and the curtains seem different too. She squints harder, makes a sun visor with her hand to see more clearly. She checks the number – 48. It’s definitely the right place and yet somehow it feels different. She puts that down to nerves too.

She heads towards the short gate. As she pushes it open she notices tiny flecks of blue paint flake off on her palm. She slips her hands into her coat pocket, enjoying the thought of them collecting inside. She’s surprised that Patrick hasn’t sanded this down and repainted it, but perhaps the Kyles prefer to keep everything as it was then – a blue that Angie would recognize if she came home. She pictures Angie as a tiny girl, racing ahead of her mum, pushing at the same paintwork that is now scattered over her hand. For a second, excitement replaces the nerves. Respectfully, she closes the gate back onto the latch.

At the door, her hand hovers over the knocker. A white rose is etched into the stained glass above it – perhaps this is some tribute to Angie? She remembers the type of detail included in the colour pieces she’s read on her wall and gets out her notepad and pen – this will all be useful. Then, before there’s time for the doubt to creep in, she knocks and stands back from the front step. This is it. She clutches her reporter’s notebook to her chest as she hears footsteps beyond the door frame. She clears her throat. Shuffles from foot to foot. This is it. A figure appears behind the mottled glass, the blurry outline of a hand reaching for the door handle. This is it.

There’s the crunch of draught excluders as the door opens. Chloe takes a breath, shapes her face into a smile.

‘Can I help you?’

A woman stands there, but it’s not Maureen. Chloe feels her face fall. This woman is young, even younger than her. Her hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, she wears dangly gold hoop earrings and grey jogging bottoms with fluffy pink slippers poking out the end.

‘Maureen?’ she says. She doesn’t know why because this woman looks nothing like her.

The woman stands, one hand keeping the door pulled closed behind her, to stop the cold running amok down her hallway.

‘Maureen?’ the woman replies. ‘Is that what you said? She don’t live ’ere no more. It’s our place now.’

With that, the woman is nudged to one side as two small children wriggle into the space beside her legs. One of them, a girl with mousy hair, about six, looks from Chloe to her mother.

‘Who’s she?’ she asks her mother.

As she does, two more faces appear: toddlers, a boy and a girl, not twins but close in age; they have grubby food-stained mouths and are both wearing romper suits that are unbuttoned at the bottom, the fabric swinging between their chubby scuffed knees.

‘No one,’ their mum replies. ‘She’s after the old lady who used to live here. Now get in, it’s freezing out ’ere.’

The door is pushed shut, another crunch from the draught excluders and then, outside, everything is still. Chloe stands there for a moment. On the other side of the glass she hears the woman’s agitation at her kids; one starts to cry. No Maureen. No Patrick. No Angie. They’ve gone.

Chloe grips the reporter’s notebook as if it might steady her. She takes a