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

she levered up onto the tiles. She hoped her face wasn’t betraying the sudden terror as her knee slithered sideways. There was Keeley’s scowling face glaring down. She’d almost smiled: in all that glowering aggression, she saw her own teenage self: ‘people hurt you,’ the expression said. That was the lesson they had both learned really well.

‘Are you seriously off your nut?’ Keeley’s scowl burst into shocked incredulity. ‘Has anyone ever told you you’re off your fucking head?’

Another gust of wind had whipped across the roofline. She did have a very valid point. ‘You lay a finger on me and I’ll do you for assault, you mad cow! My brief will get you the sack.’ But her eyes were darting uneasily. She licked her lips.

Frankie didn’t answer. She jacked one knee under her and carefully began to crab-crouch her way towards the ridge tiles.

‘You mad bitch!… You can’t do this!…’ Keeley huffed and puffed, but Frankie kept on going before she finally reached the roof edge and hauled herself up. She looked into Keeley’s outraged face, studying her for a few seconds. ‘You know, I think you’re right.’

Keeley looked back, her mouth opening and closing.

‘You really are. I think you’ve got the whole situation sewn up. I get the sack and then you can go back to sitting in one care home or another, doing what you’ve been doing for the last seven years: kicking off, smashing up, barricading yourself in bedrooms, overdosing, assaulting staff, cutting your wrists, and screaming the place down—’

‘Like you’d know!’

‘Well, actually I do.’ Frankie put her head on one side. A blast of rain buffeted her and she gripped on tighter. ‘I’ve been right where you are now. I mean, not this exact roof, you understand, but one very much like it. The only difference was, no one came up to sit with me. No one ever said: “whatever happens, I’m with you.” If they had, things might’ve turned out very differently.’ She paused. ‘So I’m giving you something that I didn’t have. I know you feel terrified and lost and you think no one is listening, but actually, I am. There’s the difference, Keeley. What I’m saying to you is: you are not alone. You hear that? You are not alone, because I’m with you.’

Keeley could only stare at her.

‘So you’ve got a couple of choices.’ Frankie jacked her knees under her into a crouch. She wobbled a little in a gust of wind and took a quick glance at the ground. ‘Are you going or are you staying?’

Keeley’s mouth was slightly open. ‘What d’you mean going? Going where?’

‘Off the edge.’

‘Eh?’

‘Sorry, I thought that was what you wanted? You’re right. What have I got to go back down for? No job? Humiliation? A whole raft of charges? You’re absolutely right.’

Keeley looked at her in horror, her cheeks quivering. Frankie instantly made her move. Quickly placing her feet under her she took her first few steps as smoothly and as gracefully as a gymnast doing floor exercises. Only she wasn’t on a floor, she was making her way along a four-inch tile, thirty feet off the ground, before calmly reaching around the chimney stack and grabbing the hand of the shocked teenager. Keeley reeled sideways teetering for a moment, but Frankie only held on tighter.

‘Let me go!’ she screamed.

Panting, Frankie regained her footing as the blare of a loudhailer from a police van down below bellowed through the air.

‘You ready?’ Frankie looked at the stunned girl. ‘We’re doing this, then? You and me? Let’s do it. One… Two… All you have to do is say “three” and we’re there. Come on Keeley! One… Two…’

Frankie pauses as she recounts the tale. There’s a silence on the end of the line for a moment.

‘I know it comes over as a little unorthodox, but what I was trying to do was—’

‘I know what you were trying to do. You’ve just told me.’ Diane cuts across sharply. ‘But it’s not like you’re some rookie, is it Frankie? You know how this looks to the powers that be.’

Maybe Alex is right. Maybe she isn’t in the right job.

‘I’ve now got to defend your actions… If I can.’

‘I’m sorry, Di.’

‘Oh please!’ Diane guffaws. ‘You’re not sorry at all!’

‘I am. I should have thought.’

‘You did think. You made a very clear decision. Own it.’

Frankie screws up her eyes but says nothing, Diane is so right.

‘You were offered this job specifically because you’re not just another pale middle-class male in a suit. Which is why…’ Diane halts, ‘… and I shall deny this part of the conversation if you repeat it… Which is why I think what you did this afternoon was extraordinary. Bloody stupid, utterly reckless, but extraordinary. Keeley believed you. You made her believe that you really cared—’

Frankie opens her eyes, feeling the tears suddenly prick. ‘I do really care.’

‘And the consequences are that Keeley Grainger, the spitting and screaming and swearing Keeley Grainger, sat herself down in Declan’s office only an hour ago and said she was sorry.’

‘She did?’ Frankie blinks the tears away.

Di chuckles. ‘Well, not exactly in those words, but near enough. Maybe it won’t last, maybe she’ll revert to her old behaviour, but all I can say is, tonight she is a changed girl and that can only be down to you.’

‘Thank you.’ Frankie can’t think of anything else to say. She glances back at Alex, aware that his back is a brick wall of unhappiness. She can see the side of his face, his jaw working steadily but she can tell there’s no pleasure in it. Diane is still talking about the possibility of a disciplinary hearing, of paperwork, of interviews and questions that have to be asked, but she’s hardly hearing any of it right now.

‘Di, I really appreciate—’ But she doesn’t have to say anything further.

‘Oh god, sorry,’ she cuts across her. ‘I’m getting carried away here, aren’t I? This is your Friday night and I’m eating into your weekend. All this work stuff