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

I knew I was risking everything,’ he says. ‘That’s why I took Angie with me on that day. I took her with me to break it off, to end it. She was the best reminder of all I had to lose – I knew if I took Angie I would go through with it. We met not far from the park, but not in the park itself – a copse nearby. I couldn’t risk . . . I couldn’t risk anyone seeing . . . ah, it was a stupid thing, a stupid secret, and it cost me my daughter. It cost me everything.’

Chloe’s brain scrambles. An affair. With who? What is he saying, that he lost Angie? But why not just confess? And why would he have taken Angie? Wouldn’t she have told Maureen when they got back? So much isn’t making sense.

Patrick continues: ‘Angie, she played just beside us . . . unaware of anything her stupid eejit father was doing. And perhaps I thought if Angie said anything, I could just tell her we bumped into someone at the park, that kind of thing. Jesus, I don’t know.’ He turns to Chloe quickly. ‘I swear I only took my eyes off her for a minute but . . . that was all it took. It’s all it ever takes.’

Chloe is silent. She thinks of losing Nan in the cemetery. But that was not the same. Nan didn’t die. But maybe neither did Angie. Why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he just tell Maureen he wasn’t at the park?

‘I’d told Maureen that I was taking her to the park and, you’ve got to believe me, I wanted to tell her, I did, but . . . how could I break that woman’s heart twice over? She’d already lost her daughter . . . I’d already lost my daughter, I couldn’t lose my wife too.’

He breaks down again, great big wracking sobs as Chloe sits beside him.

‘So I told them I was in the park with her. It was near enough, a stone’s throw away, and I was sure – I was so sure – they’d search a bit further, a bit wider. But Maureen’s probably told you about how the police cocked everything up? How they stopped searching when night started to fall. Ridiculous, right? But they were worried about trampling over evidence. So they searched for a few hours and then they gave up. You’ve got to remember this is more than twenty-five years ago. If it had happened today . . .’ He holds his head in his hands. ‘If it had happened today . . . I remember, there was a building site nearby, a waste area; I even pointed it out to them, I showed them myself, and they said they’d searched but . . . ah, how do you know? How do you know unless you get down on your hands and knees and . . . but I had Maureen, Chloe. And she could hardly function. She’d lost her daughter and I was the only thing she had to cling to and if I’d . . . if I’d told her . . .’ He turns to Chloe, pleading. ‘It would have destroyed her, Chloe. You’ve got to believe me.’

‘But . . . but how could you have let them look . . .?’ She’s still trying to piece it all together in her head.

‘I know . . .’ He rakes his hands through his hair, then bangs his fist on the steering wheel again. ‘I know, and don’t you think I’ve lived with it all of these years? Eh?’

Chloe isn’t sure whether to answer.

‘At first I was so sure, so sure she would come back. You picture it, your girl found, you wrapping her in your arms, kissing her, snuggling into her neck and promising yourself you will never let her out of your sight for even a split second, ever again. Because you hear about people – you see it even – they lose their kids in the supermarket and you can hear the desperation in their voice and the absolute relief when . . . well, the relief when they get them back and they squeeze them . . .’ He makes as if he is squeezing a daughter that never returned. ‘I never thought she wouldn’t come back. Never. All these years, living like this. I never . . .’ His voice trails off. He stops and shakes his head, putting forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose.

‘In the end, it got so that I wanted them to find her dead. Can you believe that? I can’t stand to say it but I did. A dad who wanted the police to knock on his door and tell him that his daughter was found in a ditch somewhere. I wanted the nightmare to end for Maureen because she wasn’t good . . . she was hardly . . . I kept her alive, Chloe, in those early days. I was the only thing that Maureen had and I promised her that Angie would come back, day after day, then week after week, month after month, and then it was years and decades . . . and then you . . .’ His voice trails off. ‘It was a split-second mistake, one look away and she was gone. And I lied, I lied to the police, I lied to my wife, and I’ve lived with that little white lie ever since. It has killed me, Chloe, you’ve got to believe me.’

But Chloe is only thinking of Angie. She doesn’t care what happened to Patrick. Does she believe him? She’s not sure. But this story, it’s too elaborate to be made up. And she thinks of Maureen, how broken she’s been by the whole thing, how she herself protected her. Is it possible he’s telling the truth?

‘In the end I realized that my punishment for what I’d done was this nothingness, this limbo, this bit trapped between living and dead, without answers. That was my punishment for my little white lie, and the only thing I could do to make anything right again was to devote myself absolutely to Maureen. To love her and keep on loving her, and try somehow to make up for what I had done.’

He sighs. ‘So I went along with it all, I went along with the appeals in the newspaper, the certainty that