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Back The Imposter
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

Chloe shakes her head under the glow of the car’s interior light.

‘I don’t know why, why I chose to confess that to you, a perfect stranger, when I had carried that secret all that time.’

He stops talking to shake his head in disbelief.

‘Perhaps I felt so out of control,’ he says. ‘Maureen, she’s so convinced you . . . well, you know. And I’ve tried, all these years I’ve tried to make her . . .’

He drops his head down again and sobs.

Chloe waits. Her mind is ablaze with questions. But she has to let him tell her himself. She has, after all, waited this long.

‘OK . . . all right.’ He turns to her in his seat. ‘The truth is, I was having an affair. Can you believe it? I was the man who had everything. I had Maureen, I had my little girl, but like a lot of young men, it just wasn’t enough.’

Chloe tips her head back against the headrest. An affair? She hadn’t seen this coming. What? What is he saying?

He runs his hands through his hair, and bangs the steering wheel with both hands. Chloe jumps in her seat, and Patrick turns to her quickly, his hands out to calm her.

‘But it doesn’t make me a killer, Chloe. A fecking eejit, yes, but not a killer.’ He shakes his head. ‘Not a killer.’

Chloe moves a little towards the door, still nervous of being so close to him. Her mind was racing to join the dots, to understand what he was trying to tell her. What exactly had Patrick Kyle done if he had not murdered his daughter?

‘But I knew, though, 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.