Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes (large ebook reader .txt) 📗

‘I didn’t say that—’

‘Then what are you saying?’

She’d failed. It was like a punch in the gut. She’d been set a test and she’d let him down.

He took her hand. ‘Frankie. Look…’ He chafed her fingers. ‘All this… this stuff we do. It’s outrageous and it’s uncomfortable. We have to push ourselves beyond our own boundaries, and that’s exactly what you’ve just done. Don’t retreat back into your old life now. You were brave, you were ballsy, you took control… Changing people’s lives takes all that. You and I are a rare breed.’ He tugged her hand a little towards the fence. ‘Please. Please come with me.’

She looked into his face: into those eyes. She found her fingers turning over and finding the warmth of his palm.

‘Yes?’

Her banging heart steadied a little. The shaking paused. She took a breath and gripped on tight. ‘Okay,’ she said.

‘Good.’

The splintered board lifted easily. Glancing round, he knelt and pushed the rucksack through before gesturing for her to follow. She immediately found herself crawling into a dark tunnel of wet weeds before she entered a bit of a clearing and managed to stand. He was right behind her.

‘This way… The old fella’s as deaf as a post. He won’t hear a thing. He’ll just have a fantastic supply of food left on his kitchen table. Look, I’m even leaving this just in case.’ He laughed and rummaged about down the side of the bag before producing a tin opener. She managed a smile.

‘See? Someone needs food, we feed them. Someone needs shelter? We find them an empty house. Someone needs money? We take from the rich and give to the poor. We don’t do things by the book. We’re the kinds of people who see injustice and fix it, yes?’

‘Yes.’

He was so sure, so impassioned; he radiated certainty. Of course, he was right, it was so obvious a child would understand the simplicity of it.

‘Then don’t let go of those ideals. They’re why we’re here, so let’s do this.’

He gestured for her to go in front. She wouldn’t disappoint him, not this time. She nodded, letting go of his arm and threading her way determinedly through the wild garden to the back door. She paused before forcing herself to reach out and turn the knob. The door shuddered open, catching on the torn linoleum floor.

Of all the places they’d been, this was the worst. It was supposed to be a kitchen, but the only indication was the chipped stone butler sink with a cold tap above it. The cooker, if you could describe it as that, was a rusted box with a filthy door. A flimsy table sat next to it with two plates on top and a knife and fork.

‘Appalling, isn’t it?’ Martin whispered. ‘A human being lives in all this… Come on, we’ll leave the stuff through here.’

He led her through a hallway that was so dark, she was only just aware of him moving in front of her. The darkness lifted, revealing a small, high-ceilinged room. It was sparsely furnished with an old dining table pushed against one wall and a couple of wooden chairs either side. There were two floral covered armchairs positioned in front of an empty grate, with a TV on a stool in the hearth. It felt as though no daylight would ever be able to force its way in there.

Martin dumped the rucksack on the floor and began pulling out the tins and packets, piling them up in the centre of the table. She stood back, watching him work, her eyes darting this way and that, ears pricked, listening for movement from above, but the house stayed quiet.

‘Won’t he wonder where this has all come from?’ she whispered.

‘When people are lonely and sad and desperate, they don’t ask too many questions,’ he said grimly. ‘They’re just grateful for a bit of kindness.’

Frankie nodded. How often she’d seen that with the girls in care, running from one lad who mistreated them to another, looking to fill some terrible dark pit of loneliness – and then the babies, born in the hope that they’d bring a tiny bit of love into their lives. She shook her head silently. Thank god for Martin.

The moonlight showed a single lightbulb hanging down from a kinked flex, and shadows of damp spreading dangerously across the ceiling and down the walls. She looked a little closer at a darkened patch by the window, and realised that what she’d thought of as a blotch of mildew, was actually a faded black and white photograph. She took a step closer. In the dim light, she could see it was a woman, a girl really, high-cheeked and pretty, the whole of her face filling the frame. There were white patches in her hair that she realised must be flowers. A wedding photograph.

‘That was his wife. She was seventeen.’ Martin put the last of the boxes on the table and came over to stand beside her. ‘Pretty, isn’t she? He got the album out one day when we were chatting. I had it framed for him as a surprise.’

‘What a lovely thing to do.’ The fact that she was the same age as this beautiful girl hadn’t escaped her.

‘Yeah, the damp’s got into the back of it and spoiled it a bit. They were married for seventy years.’

‘Wow.’ She couldn’t even imagine what that amount of time would look like.

‘That’ll be us one day.’ He paused and tickled the side of her face with one bent finger. ‘We should be going.’

Her heart began to sing. Did he really just say that? Would that be them? She followed him out of the house as though she was walking on air. She felt like laughing and shouting up into the night sky.

‘I’m in the mood to celebrate.’ He offered a hand to help her through the fence. ‘Let’s go and find some place to party.’ He dipped his head, kissing