The Imposter

Seven Years Earlier Tom scoured the streets for weeks, months even, and there was no sign of Katie anywhere. No one recognised her photo, nor her name. He stayed in the country for as long as he could before he was urged by the police and his family to go home and try to attain some normality.                What was normal though? In life after Katie, nothing felt normal. His job, he just went through the motions, he doesn’t know how he’s been kept on. He kept her clothes, her makeup, her perfume. Everything she owned went untouched. The bedroom had become a shrine to Katie; he hadn’t moved a single thing since the day he came home, wouldn’t even sleep in there; he had taken to sleeping on the sofa. The press tore him to shreds as well, constantly citing that in cases such as these, it was almost always the husband. It took a lot of willpower for him not to read all the articles about his Katie. Documentaries were made as well. Many of those, too, laid the blame on him. Even if he didn’t do it, he must’ve known who did. There were rumours that he sold her into slavery or trafficked her. The truth was though that he had no idea what happened. One second, she was there, right next to him in the busy street, holding his hand, and the next, her fingers slipped out of his hand, and she was gone.