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

Chloe is already pushing past the table. She knocks the one opposite as she goes; a chair that had been balancing on it clatters to the floor. She doesn’t stop, not until she’s out of the door, not until she reaches her bus stop, not until she’s on the bus and she’s leaving the orange lights of the city and she’s heading out on the A47 into the blackness of the Fens, where she will be safe at last.

THIRTY-THREE

The moon shines brighter out here in this flat land. Chloe walks back towards Elm House under its glare. Tonight it feels like a lamp tilted directly at her, nature’s own interrogation.

Maureen told her a Fenland folklore story about the moon a few nights ago, as they both stood out in the garden in their dressing gowns, hugging mugs of warm tea and staring up at the stars before bed.

‘They say the moon couldn’t believe how wicked humans are to each other,’ Maureen had told her. ‘So one night, she came down to earth in disguise to witness all the bad that humans can do to one another. She became stuck in the marshy bog and was caught by witches, who trapped her under a huge stone. When the moon disappeared from the sky, the Fens really were filled with ghouls and ghosts and, so the story goes, it was the locals who eventually found the moon and helped her return to the sky. That’s why she shines brighter out here.’

Mostly the moon feels more like a guiding light leading Chloe home to Elm House. She feels bad about what happened with Hollie. But then why did she have to bring up all that old stuff? Why are people so determined to cling on to the past? And then she thinks of Maureen, who has no choice.

When Chloe sees the warm yellow glow of Elm House leaking out of the inky blackness, she puts the rest of the day away somewhere. Nan is back in a box, along with the woman on the bus, even Hollie. They feel somehow like another lifetime. And in some way they are, once Chloe has walked back through that willow curtain.

Chloe steps through the back door and Maureen calls to her from the lounge. She pops her head around the door. Patrick sits in his chair, his feet up on the pouffe. He doesn’t turn around.

‘Good day at work, Chloe, love?’ Maureen asks.

Chloe senses something in the air. She looks between Maureen and Patrick, his expression set, her smile that bit too wide. Somehow they appear further apart in here than usual, though they’re sitting in the same seats they always do.

‘Busy,’ Chloe says, faking a yawn.

Maureen makes to get up, and Chloe notices Patrick looking over for a split second from his chair before he returns his gaze to the TV.

‘Sit yourself down and I’ll—’ Maureen starts.

‘No, it’s OK,’ Chloe says, putting her hand up before Maureen can offer to make tea. ‘I think I’ll go upstairs and have a shower.’

Patrick turns back to the TV and increases the volume.

‘That’s it,’ Maureen says, ‘scrub the day off.’

Upstairs, Chloe tiptoes across the landing, pausing to cock her head over the bannister. She can’t hear voices, only the low hum of the evening news downstairs. The atmosphere feels the same as it did after Maureen and Patrick’s fight. Every couple argues, she thinks, before looking again at the padlock on the spare room door. She knows so much more now about how they live, though. How controlling Patrick is. At least, that’s how she sees it.

In her room she strips off her clothes and wraps a bath sheet around her naked body. She closes her door and steps out onto the landing towards the bathroom, and finds herself pausing outside Maureen and Patrick’s bedroom. Might more answers lie in there? She had always thought that it was the spare room that would hold the clues to Angie’s disappearance. But wouldn’t the real clues be found somewhere altogether more private? In any ordinary circumstance, she might feel bad for snooping around, but what if she found some clue that has been overlooked? What if her new eye on this story could actually help find Angie?

She looks behind her, backing up a few steps and leaning over the top of the stairs. She hears Maureen say something to Patrick about the programme they’re watching, him grunt a reply, then Chloe looks back at their bedroom door. She tiptoes towards it, puts her palm on the handle, feels it turn and release before she can stop herself. Inside the bedroom, cool air hits her. One of the windows in the bay is open and deep salmon-pink curtains and nets billow at it, beckoning her inside. She obeys them and steps through the boundary, closing the door behind her. She stands there, her heart banging against the towel she holds in place with her hand. The room is painted white, but the pink of the curtains bleeds colour into the walls. Now she’s in here, the curtains are still as if they’d never invited her in in the first place. She looks back at the door, wondering why she hadn’t left it open. But then she’d only ever known this door closed, and it would raise suspicions if someone came upstairs and saw it ajar, she supposed. Anyway, she was in here now, it made sense to have a look.

Along one long wall facing the bed are fitted wardrobes, not too dissimilar to the ones in Nan’s bedroom. The bed is made neatly with a frilly valance and a quilted eiderdown. There are two bedside tables that match the wardrobes, and on the side that she presumes is Maureen’s there is a slim vase with a short fake white rose inside. Chloe thinks of the white rose etched into the front door at Chestnut Avenue – perhaps it had pained Maureen to leave it behind? Beside the rose is