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

coming home soon, or was just out shopping. Was it so different to let Maureen live with that little bit of hope if it made it easier for her to get through each day? Why should we keep forcing those who have lost to accept it and move on? Maybe there is no moving on when you have lost a child. Who knows if the decision she and Patrick have made will be the right one? We can only live the best way we know how, and that’s what Patrick has done all of these years. But he has suffered for it. Maybe even no one more than him.

They arrive into Low Drove through the back way, down the lane that Chloe and Maureen had walked the day that she had broken down talking about her missing daughter. She remembers that day, how it had been so painful to watch, and as they drive closer to Elm House, Chloe feels sure she can’t bear witness to any more of Maureen’s pain.

The road they take, unusually for the Fens, has a slight curve in it that hides Elm House from view from this direction, so they don’t see the police car on the drive until they are almost there and the car’s headlights reflect back the blue and yellow chequered pattern.

‘What the . . .’ Patrick says as he pulls up outside on the road, already tugging at his seatbelt.

They are out of the car quickly, forgetting in an instant everything that has occurred in the last hour. As they hurry down the drive, Maureen must hear their footsteps on the pebbles because she comes flying out of the back door and straight into Patrick’s arms, followed quickly by two stony-faced uniformed police officers.

‘Maureen, thank God . . .’ Patrick says, wrapping her up inside his arms. ‘What on earth’s going on?’

He holds her face in the same hands that had ended the life of that hare. Though it is not with tears of distress that she looks back at him, but relief.

‘It’s Angie, Pat,’ she says. ‘They’ve found our Angie.’

FORTY-EIGHT

It had taken a while for the driveway to empty. Maureen’s legs had gone from underneath her just moments after she had given Patrick the news, which had meant that everyone’s attention had been directed towards getting Maureen back inside and onto the sofa. She sits there now alongside her husband, whispering something over and over into a scrunched-up tissue in her hand. Chloe can’t quite make out what.

The living room is more cramped than Chloe has ever known it. There are two detectives here – one who sits in Patrick’s chair, the other standing – and two uniformed officers. They are here only to keep the press away, and when they’d said this, Chloe’s stomach had turned underneath her clothes. But no journalists have turned up yet at Elm House.

The uniformed officers turn down the volume on their radios, and Chloe sees one of the detectives nod at them. They leave the living room and go into the kitchen, offering to make tea.

When they’ve left, the standing detective pulls up a pouffe in front of the sofa and sits down with Maureen and Patrick. She’s young, not much older than Chloe, she reckons. Her knees are almost touching Maureen’s as she sits on the pouffe. Her voice is gentle when she speaks.

‘Mr Kyle, I know this must be a huge shock—’

‘Wait, let me just stop you there,’ Patrick says. Since Maureen collapsed in his arms on the drive, he hasn’t taken a hand off her, he hasn’t said a word. Now he holds her, as if propping her up under his right arm, his left hand holding hers in his. Maureen leans into his chest – just like she did in those photographs in 1979 – the two of them immediately resuming the poses they’d assumed for the cameras back when Angie disappeared, some instinct to get through this the only way they know how, a muscle memory instantly flexed. Patrick drops Maureen’s hand for a second, though he keeps his other arm tight around her waist. He wipes his face and then, taking a deep breath, says to the detective, ‘What do you mean, Angela’s been found?’

The detective moves an inch closer. When she speaks, her voice is almost a whisper.

‘We’re sorry to inform you that a body believed to be that of a four-year-old girl was discovered in some undergrowth this morning.’

A body? Chloe leans against the sideboard to steady herself. She feels Angie looking down from the shelf, witnessing this whole scene unfold, but she can’t turn around and face her. She can’t bear to meet her eyes. A body means Angie is dead.

Inside Patrick’s arms, Maureen makes a wounded crying sound, almost animal-like, and her husband dips his head to meet hers. They sit like that for a while, the other people in the living room fading away. They are back where they started, just the two of them. When Patrick looks up, Chloe sees that his eyes are filled with tears. He looks at the detective.

‘Are you sure? I mean, is it definitely her?’

‘Obviously, due to the length of time and . . . well, and decay’ – the detective speaks slowly – ‘there will need to be a formal identification, but from initial records it does seem that . . . that yes, it is the body of your daughter, Angela Kyle. I’m so sorry, Mr Kyle.’

The detective reaches out and touches a hand to his shoulder, just for a second. Patrick glances at it, unsure how to respond. Instead his attention falls again to his wife under his arm. He wraps her up tighter as she sobs quietly into his chest. Her right hand clutches the wool of his jumper. It’s only then that Chloe makes out what Maureen has been whispering on repeat.

‘It’s over, Patrick,’ Maureen cries softly. ‘Angie’s come home.’

Chloe stands in the kitchen now, stirring milk into seven cups of sweet tea. She’d gone out there to help the uniformed officers find