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Back The Imposter Save as PDF
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. ANNA WHARTON
  3. Dedication page
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  54. Praise
  55. THE IMPOSTER

She presses the bell on the bus. She stands up. Presses again. Again and again. The Bus Stopping sign flashes, but the driver continues. He looks up in the mirror as she makes her way to the front of the bus.

‘Ent no stop now til West Fen,’ he says into the rear-view mirror.

Chloe clutches her stomach and heaves.

‘Stop the bus,’ she says.

‘Ent no stop—’

‘Stop the bus.’

Finally, it slows. She feels the other passengers’ eyes on her as she makes for the front door. Her head is spinning. The doors open. Long grass disguises the step as the doors open. Chloe almost falls off the bus. She rights her balance as she lands in the soft mud. The doors close. The bus pulls away.

The thought rises along with the bile. There is a reason that Patrick is allowing Maureen to think that she is Angie. Because if she does, it’ll mean keeping his own murderous secret.

She stumbles forward a few feet, and then, alone, at the side of the road, she vomits.

FORTY-FOUR

Low Drove looks like a film set as she approaches. An unsuspecting, end-of-the-road village. Its isolation haunting. The sky presses down today, dark heavy clouds thick with rain. At the other end of the village, the red Wall’s ice cream sign flaps wildly in the wind.

Chloe had to wait almost another hour for a bus. She started walking but then pictured Patrick’s blue car driving along the road and finding her. Instead, she sat on the banks of the dyke, among the long grass, her back to the road, listening out for the heavy hum of the bus as it approached.

Now in Low Drove, she walks across the road and passes through the fronds of the willow tree. She spins around as they close behind her, stopping for a moment as the leaf curtain flickers this way and that, obscuring her view back to the main road.

She turns and continues towards Elm House. She’s relieved to see no car on the drive, and her gait quickens for a second as pictures flash into her mind: Maureen sitting at the kitchen table, a hurried explanation from Chloe, the two of them gathering their things. But she slows again as she remembers: to expose Patrick is to expose herself. She can only convince Maureen that he killed her daughter if she confesses that she can’t possibly be the missing girl herself. She can’t do that.