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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

With that thought, she looks around, across the fields that surround them. She hasn’t thought this through. Just what is she going to do now? There is a house, across two fields, where smoke files from its short chimney stack, a warm glow from one downstairs window. Could she make it there? Could she get there before him? She turns back to Patrick. He’s standing, wide-legged, wide-eyed on the tarmac. She weighs up whether she could run, but she has no chance. She knows that. If he has that gun in the boot of the car, her chances of making it even fifty yards are slim. She hadn’t expected it to happen like this. It wasn’t meant to. But there was the car journey, the hare, his hands. His hands.

Patrick is cradling his head in them now. Pacing up and down, talking to himself – not that Chloe can hear what he’s saying.

He goes to speak, but he can’t find the words. Instead he sinks down onto his haunches in the middle of the road. He wipes his hands across his face, and sighs, defeated. Chloe is surprised to feel her back relaxing into the boot of the car. By instinct she knows she’s got him, that a confession will follow. He is so obviously undone by her accusation that this is surely over. She’s won. And now what? What does she do with him out here? In that moment she isn’t sure. All she does know is that the mystery is over. It has ended. She pictures Maureen at home, waiting innocently for fish and chips, naive to the fact that what will return home to her will blow her world apart. But what choice has Chloe had? She is not Angie. She never was, and once she knew Patrick only allowed Maureen to believe she was to hide his own crimes, how could she keep up the facade? There was no more fantasy, only the truth.

She stares at Patrick, almost as broken on the road as the hare he discarded. She has done this – Chloe has done this. It had taken her appearance in their home to show Patrick Kyle for who he was. Hadn’t she always vowed to find out the truth about Angie? Perhaps now, she was one step closer to that.

It seems to be a long time before either of them move. When Chloe looks up again, the sky has darkened and the pair of them are little more than shadows. Finally, Patrick gets up from the road. He holds up his arms as if in surrender.