The Imposter Read online

  ‘It’s a written warning this time, Chloe,’ Malc says, and then as if to underline the point, ‘Your last warning.’

  She swallows the rest of her sentence, and nods quickly before he changes his mind. Just another warning. She can deal with that.

  Alec thanks Malc and they leave the office, shuffling awkwardly in their haste to get back to the safety of the archive.

  She speeds through the rest of the Angela Kyle file – she can’t afford to have Alec commenting on her work again today – but she doesn’t put it back in the archive. Instead, when Alec isn’t looking, she slips it into the top drawer of her desk. She’ll wait until he leaves to put it in her bag. Chloe is taking Angela Kyle home.

  At Park House that evening, one of the care assistants shows Chloe where Nan is sitting in the recreation room. Chloe doesn’t recognize her at first; she looks smaller here somehow, like she’s shrunken, and takes up less room than she had in her living room with its fake mahogany dado rail. Like the wood moulding stitching together two parts of the wall, Nan held herself and Chloe together too. She was the lynchpin of their family life. Here she appears as anonymous, as tiny, as any other resident. Seeing Nan like that, across the room, unsettles her for a moment.

  Chloe takes a few steps towards her, but Nan doesn’t turn around. She watches her silently, this small woman with her delicate frame, her fragile shoulders barely filling her mauve cardigan.

  ‘Nan?’ she says, more quietly than she might usually. For some reason, this alien environment is making a mockery of them. And as if she feels it too, Nan doesn’t turn around.

  Chloe stops then. Which world is she inhabiting in this moment? Is it one where she’s brought Stella back from the dead, or is Granddad off fighting in the war? She never knows what she will face. It used to be day to day, then hour to hour, now it is more likely minute to minute. Faced with such shifting sands, is it any wonder they both let her disease win from time to time? There is another way of dealing with this illness after all: the days when it unwittingly swells their family from two to four could be seen as a gift. A chance for them both to pretend. As if this thief of time that creeps into her brain is letting them both live a fantasy.

  As Chloe gets closer she sees that Nan is smiling.

  ‘Nan?’

  She doesn’t respond.

  Her hair has been shampooed and set, a brooch she hasn’t seen except in photographs is pinned to her jumper. Her smile is slicked in coral lipstick too. She’s never seen Nan wearing lipstick before.

  ‘Nan?’

  She turns around.

  ‘Who are you?’ she says.

  ‘It’s me, Chloe?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Chloe.’

  ‘I’m Stella’s daughter,’ she says, ‘your granddaughter.’

  Nan laughs then, really laughs. Her coral lipstick makes a giant ‘O’ on her face. ‘Stella’s only a baby herself, she doesn’t have any children.’ She turns back to looking out of the window then, still chuckling to herself. ‘I’m just waiting for her to come home from school.’

  Chloe leaves her there – in, when, the late fifties? – while she stands beside her in 2004. Instead she sits down in an armchair and waits in case the years catch up with her. They both look out of the window that overlooks the gardens. Just a few feet away, on the other side of the glass, a thrush pulls a worm from the lawn and above it, a blue tit clings to a bird feeder. The two women sit in silence for a while and that feels like enough to Chloe, enough just to be next to her. To imagine their hearts beating in time.

  There is no way of telling how much time passes like that before Nan turns to her.

  ‘Chloe, dear,’ she says, ‘how long have you been sitting there?’

  ‘Not long,’ she replies.

  ‘Have you had a cup of tea yet? I’d love a cup of tea.’

  Chloe glances at the full cup beside her, cold now, of course, tan already staining the porcelain.

  ‘Shall we go and have one in my room? I’d love to show you all my pictures.’

  Chloe is happy to have her back. She helps her out of the armchair and they shuffle slowly together to her room. Chloe forgets how much she slows down when she’s around Nan and suddenly feels sad that even these last few days have stripped some memories from her. Goodness knows what they’ve stolen from Nan.

  Inside her room, Nan sits down on the bed. She picks up the photograph of Grandad taken just before he died. He’s sitting on the beach at Sheringham eating chips with a wooden fork.

  ‘Do you remember that day?’ Chloe asks her.

  She nods. ‘Is that Hughie?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. We all went to the seaside together, do you remember?’

  ‘Were you there too?’ Nan asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you say your name was again?’

  ‘Chloe.’

  ‘Chloe. I don’t know a Chloe.’

  ‘Nan, you . . .’ She sighs. ‘Don’t worry, let me go and get that cup of tea.’

  ‘Lovely,’ Nan says as she leaves. ‘I just fancy a cuppa.’

  Chloe leaves the room for the kitchen a few doors down. She doesn’t have the energy today to go over the same story she has told a dozen times or more before: the day they went to Sheringham, the seagulls that swooped down and pinched chips right out of their hands. She’d been careful every time to patiently colour in as much detail as she could think of. It’s frustrating always having to start at day zero. She boils the kettle and pours water over two teabags. Some days she wishes Stella was still there, to back her up, to persuade Nan too. But it would be different then, it wouldn’t be just the two of them. Nan would have to share the love, and although there are days when Chloe misses a mother’s touch, at least she has Nan all to herself.

  She heads back a few moments later with two cups of hot tea.

  ‘There you go, Nan.’

  She smiles at her – that flicker of recognition; Chloe captures and pockets it. That’ll have to do today. She takes a sip.

  ‘I’m waiting for my daughter Stella to come home from school,’ Nan says. ‘It’s nice to have a cuppa – a bit of a breather – before they’re home, isn’t it?’ She laughs.

  Chloe nods, drinking from her cup. She tastes the resentment in her mouth. Stella never erased from Nan’s mind, and yet Chloe instantly forgotten while she makes a cup of tea.

  ‘How old is your daughter?’ she asks.

  ‘Six,’ Nan says, ‘little terror. Good job I’ve only got the one.’

  Chloe nods again. She’s not tempted to explain any more, she’s happy to leave Nan back in 1956. Because if Stella is six, then Chloe doesn’t even exist.

  TEN

  7 November 1979

  PETERBOROUGH ADVERTISER

  MOTHER’S PLEA: ‘GIVE BACK OUR ANGIE’

  THE mother of missing city girl Angela Rose Kyle has made an emotional plea for her daughter to be returned and told for the first time of the last few hours she spent with her.

  Four-year-old Angela – or Angie, as her parents call her – disappeared from a play park in Ferry Meadows a week ago.

  Her devastated mother, Maureen Kyle, made the appeal through this newspaper for her safe return: ‘I’m begging, if there’s anyone out there who has our little girl, please, please give her back. We just want her home where she belongs.’

  Mrs Kyle, supported by her husband, Patrick, spoke to this newspaper from the family home at 48 Chestnut Avenue.

  ‘It’s the details you worry about as a mother. If someone has taken her, I wonder if they are doing the little things, the tiny things you do on automatic as a mum: brushing her teeth at night; tucking her in with a blanket; rubbing her tummy when she’s not feeling very well; stroking her head if she has a nightmare and can’t get to sleep. Angie has nightmares sometimes about wolves in her bedroom – do they know that? Does whoever have her know that she wakes in the night sometimes seeing wolves in her dreams? Will they know what to do when she c
ries, and what if she cries for me? Did she call for me when they took her?’

  Chloe looks up from the floor of Nan’s front room. She’s been reading for the last hour, cross-legged on Nan’s Axminster, the cuttings spread out around her. Many are still folded; some are opened, scattered headlines making a path between the sofa and the carpet-covered pouffe. She reads on:

  ‘That last morning was so mundane, just like any other day, and yet it’s still so vivid and I don’t want to forget a single moment of it. Angie had a bath with her favourite Mr Men bubbles. I washed her hair and made it stick up on her head with the foam, just like I always do. I can still hear her giggling. I wish more than ever I could still smell those bubbles on her skin . . .’

  Chloe pauses to look at the photograph of Maureen. She must be about thirty years old, but the prettiness of her has been swallowed by grief. In the photograph she clutches a screwed-up tissue in one hand, Patrick’s fingers wrapped around her other one, his head leaning on her shoulders, although it’s unclear who is propping up who. She pulls the cutting closer to her nose, to get a better look at these two. At these perfect parents. Finally, she discards that cutting for the next.

  ANGIE’S DAD: ‘I’LL NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF’

  ONE hundred days after the disappearance of four-year-old city girl Angela Kyle, her father has given a heartbreaking interview to this newspaper.

  Reliving the nightmare of that day on 27 October 1979, Patrick Kyle recalled the last moments at the play park with his little girl before she went missing: ‘I still remember her face every time I pushed her on the swings. “Higher, Daddy!” she said – she was fearless that girl. She was sweet, funny, bright, happy, caring. She laughed and laughed as I pushed her higher.’

  Mr Kyle had taken his daughter for a play at the park in Ferry Meadows. The pair had only been there around ten minutes when he realized he’d left his blue Ford Escort unlocked. He turned his back to walk the fifty yards to the car park to lock it and when he returned, Angie had vanished.

  ‘As her father, of course I blame myself. I was meant to be her protector. I held her in my arms when she was just a few minutes old, I rubbed her tiny nose against mine, I promised her then that I would look after her, that she had nothing to fear, that I would always be there and . . . I wasn’t, was I? I’ll never, ever forgive myself for turning away for those few seconds.’

  But that was all it took. Chloe knows how it feels – after all, isn’t that how she’d lost Nan?

  Except her story had a happy ending. This cutting is from February 1980, and it is now 2004 and there is still no news. How does anyone go on like that? Left suspended between hope and grief. Life and death. Yet knowing every day that a call could come or she could walk through the front door.

  She unfolds another cutting, careful not to pull too hard on the newsprint as she feels its resistance. Chloe shakes her head, doubting reporters ever treat the cuttings with the same respect. But she is in the business of preservation. Lives, stories, they’re one and the same.

  She rearranges herself on the floor, lying now on her front as she opens up another half a dozen cuttings and lays them out, one on top of another, a run-through of all the ups and downs of the case. One cutting includes a reception class photograph; Chloe scans it for Angie. She finds her, as easily now as if she’d attended the very same class. They were the same age, Chloe reasons, she might well have.

  SCHOOL FRIENDS’ VIGIL FOR ANGIE

  CHILDREN at the school attended by missing city girl Angela Kyle have held a private assembly to pray together for her safe return.

  Students and parents at Dogsthorpe Primary School filled a packed hall on Friday and remembered Angie with songs, pictures and performances. Maureen and Patrick Kyle were also present for what the headteacher described as a ‘celebration’ of Angie’s life.

  Headteacher Vanessa Cooper said, ‘Angela is one of our reception class pupils and is a very popular little girl with lots of friends who miss her dearly. Many of the students’ parents and teachers have been aiding in the search for Angie and we realized the children wanted to do their bit too. The children were very clear they wanted to hold a “celebration” of her life.’

  In the days leading up to the assembly, the children made colourful posters and chose some of Angela’s favourite songs to sing, including ‘I Can Sing a Rainbow’.

  One of her friends, Rachel Barker, five, told this newspaper: ‘Angie is my best friend and I miss playing hopscotch with her.’

  She picks up another cutting, pulling her pale blue notebook alongside it and writing down Rachel’s name. She’s not sure why, but it feels like something that would be useful to remember.

  PARENTS PRAY FOR ANGIE’S RETURN

  THE parents of missing city girl Angela Kyle made a late-night visit to their local church to pray for their daughter’s safe return.

  Maureen and Patrick Kyle are said to be ‘devastated’ at the disappearance of their daughter five days ago from a play park in Ferry Meadows.

  Desperate for any information, they turned to their local congregation, who arranged a special mass to pray for news of little Angie.

  Father Martin Cunningham, priest at St Gregory’s Church, conducted the service. He told this newspaper, ‘I’ve known Maureen and Patrick and their families for more than a decade. In fact, I married them just six years ago. I also baptized little Angie. They are both devoted to their daughter and, as you can imagine, this last week has been agony for them. But their faith is strong and that’s what is giving them the strength to face every day at the moment – that and the hope each new day brings that Angie will be found.’

  More than a hundred worshippers packed the church last night to pray for the family.

  ‘The power of prayer can be an incredible thing,’ Father Cunningham added. ‘And right now it’s fair to say that we are praying for a miracle.’

  She writes down Father Martin Cunningham. Underlining it. Twice. On and on she goes through the cuttings, searching for more details, names, dates, places that might be worth revisiting. One cutting mentions a sighting in Highbury, north London. She writes it down, then scribbles it out when it’s later revealed as a hoax. Then writes it again, this time with a question mark on the end.

  She searches for more tiny details about Angie, finding the name of her cloth cat and writing Puss in her book. In one article, Patrick Kyle mentions she was wearing shiny new red shoes the day she went missing. That goes into her notebook too. Each little detail she writes, feeding this ridiculous fantasy at the back of her head that maybe she could find some missing detail that the police overlooked.

  Chloe looks up at the street lamps peering in from between the heavy curtains. Were the detectives this vigilant? She doubts it. To them, Angela would have been just a job. But it already feels much more than that to Chloe. After everything she’s been through, she – more than anyone – understands. She just wishes she could help.

  Chloe reads on until the inky words swim in front of her eyes and her back aches from lying on the carpet. She flicks back through her notebook; five filled pages, not bad. For now.

  She folds all the cuttings away carefully, putting them back inside the brown envelope and tucking it into Nan’s sideboard alongside the photo albums overnight. She makes a vow to reopen the case in the morning.

  Chloe and Nan have been visiting the cemetery every weekend for as long as she can remember, but dementia has changed everything. With a disease like that, old routines must give way to new ones. Except, Chloe doesn’t like change. She scratches at her arm as she squeezes the last of the toothpaste from the tube, an itch inside she can’t reach. Toothpaste is another thing to add to the shopping list, and, she decides, another reason she can’t go to the cemetery this morning.

  She takes the Angela Kyle file with her when she leaves home, company for the bus journey to the supermarket. When she arrives she wanders aimlessly between parents pushing screaming toddlers in trolleys or scolding older c
hildren taking a ride on the end of them. Those are the types of families she can stomach; the ones who walk together in neat little sets, pushing the trolley in sync, make her aware of even the skin that covers her. She wriggles uncomfortably within it. Every time.

  In the cereal aisle, a little girl in stripy dungarees is trying to persuade her mum to buy a brightly coloured packet of princess cereal. Chloe stands, her basket suspended on her arm, as she watches them. She thinks of Maureen Kyle. What she would give to have a similar argument with her daughter given her time again? Surely she’d let her have her way. As the little girl pleads with her mother, Chloe is tempted to remind the woman that life is short – what does a box of cereal matter? But the woman has now answered her phone, tucking it between her neck and her ear, and she’s turned her back on her daughter. Chloe shakes her head and thinks of the split second Patrick turned around. The girl starts to wander as her mother runs through her shopping list with the person on the end of the line. Chloe follows her. The little girl picks up more colourful boxes of cereal. She calls to her mother to show her, but her mother barely notices. Chloe steps forward, just an inch or so. She looks around her. If only someone had intervened when they saw Angela on her own, might the Kyles’ story have ended differently? The little girl wanders further from her mother, towards packets of multi-coloured corn loops. Chloe traces her footsteps, looking back at the mother every few seconds. Under her arm she feels the weight of the Kyle file in her bag. For all this mother knows, somebody could be watching this little girl now. They could be stalking her, ready to pounce when they’re sure her mother is distracted enough not to notice.

  ‘Mamma,’ the little girl calls. She picks up a box of cereal, turning it upside down and shaking it, delighting at the sound.

  Chloe quickly takes a step back from the girl as her mother turns around in time to see the mess she makes as it pours out of the box. The woman sighs into her phone, exasperated, and hangs up. Then strides over to her daughter and chastises her. Chloe takes some Weetabix from the shelf and moves on with her basket. Another parent who doesn’t realize how lucky she is.