Chapters (55)
- Cover
- ANNA WHARTON
- Dedication page
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Praise
- THE IMPOSTER
‘You want to?’
‘Of course.’
‘Yes,’ Maureen says. ‘Yes, they’re all here.’
Maureen keeps them in the same cupboard at the bottom of the sideboard where Nan keeps hers – like so many homes she’s been in do. Maureen carries the albums over to the sofa, places them down one on top of the other on the seat cushion between them. Chloe picks up a brown leather-bound one first, starts flicking through the pages, cellophane and static sticking them together. Maureen points out Angie’s baby photos as Chloe flicks slowly through: the ones of Angie lying naked on a sheepskin rug; sitting upright in the pram; holding up her cloth cat to the camera – the toy plumper then than the saggier version she’d come to know in the newspapers. Some of the photographs Chloe recognizes from the cuttings in the archive, not that she says anything. She can’t, not yet. Not until she has something more solid. She’s doing it for them really.
Chloe makes the mistake of saying, ‘Look,’ once or twice when she turns a page and finds a photograph she knows, but Maureen just smiles and says, ‘Yes, Angie loved that little scooter,’ or, ‘Yes, that’s Puss,’ but of course Chloe already knew that.
Patrick looks across at them from the TV every now and then, although Chloe noticed a while ago – even if Maureen didn’t – that he’d turned the volume up a couple of notches.
‘Don’t the police have any leads?’ Chloe asks.
Maureen rolls her eyes, then shakes her head. ‘Don’t get me started on them.’
‘Oh?’ Chloe says. But she doesn’t elaborate.
Maureen sits quietly for a moment, holding one particular photograph in her hand. It’s a faded polaroid; in it, Angie stands next to a Christmas tree, her face covered in chocolate.
‘What do they think happened to her?’ Chloe asks.
Maureen puts the photo back in the album and fiddles with the cuffs of her jumper. ‘They don’t know, they . . . they say they’ll never close the case completely, you know, without a . . . without . . .’
Chloe nods so she doesn’t have to say it.
‘But we don’t know, do we, Pat?’ Maureen says that last bit a little louder. ‘I say, do we, Patrick?’
‘Huh? What?’ He springs round in his armchair, muting the television.
‘Chloe was just asking what the police think might have happened to our Angie.’
He looks at Chloe, then back at the TV. ‘If only we knew, eh, love . . .’ he says quietly to Maureen.
He doesn’t put the sound on again for a minute or two; instead he just stares at the screen, while Maureen picks up a couple of loose photographs and turns them over in her hand. Chloe decides not to ask too many questions tonight, reminding herself that there’s plenty of time for that. She looks around the living room, still hardly believing this is her home now.