Keep My Secrets

by Elena Wilkes

  ‘You okay?’ Alex puts an arm around her waist.

  She lets it slowly out again. Her shoulders are trembling with the stress of the last hour. The rain begins to come down harder and Alex quickens his pace, ushering her along the pavement towards their car.

  ‘You got your keys? I’ll drive.’

  She delves into her bag as he hurries round to the driver’s side and blips the car immobiliser. She yanks the passenger door open and slips into the seat.

  He gets in beside her, breathlessly. ‘No. Jesus.’

  She looks over. He’s holding a folded piece of paper. Something inside her contracts.

  ‘It was under the wiper blade.’

  He opens it and holds it out for her to see.

  I’m close. You’ll just never know how close I really am.

  Frankie looks back at him in horror.

  ‘Right.’ He puts a hand on the door and goes to get out.

  ‘Alex. Don’t.’

  ‘Yes I am, Frankie. I’m taking this straight into the station. Now.’

  ‘Alex, please—’ She grabs his arm.

  He is breathing hard. The windscreen fogs.

  ‘For me. Please.’

  The rain hits the glass like thrown gravel. A mist has risen outside and in. She feels a contraction in her stomach that begins to shiver into fear. Her whole body is tense and on high alert.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t want to be left on my own… Don’t you see? This means he was right here. It means he knows our movements.’ She snatches a look behind her. ‘He must’ve followed us. He must’ve been outside the house. He’s here, Alex. Out there. He must be watching us right now.’

  She sees the look on his face: his eyes are wide and staring as he takes in the enormity of what she’s saying. A gust of wind rocks the car and she clutches his arm tighter. ‘Let’s get out of here, Alex. Please. Now.’

  She can see it’s against every instinct, but he reaches down and turns the ignition. The misted window makes it feel as though everything is closing in: there are shapes out there, piles of rubbish sacks casting weird shadows in the yellow streetlights. Alex opens both side windows; she daren’t look round.

  ‘We’ll have to wait a minute for the windscreen to clear.’ He peers out, blinking.

  Out of the corner of her eye she thinks she sees a figure. She turns her head, seeing the bulk of shadows through the fog, hearing the growl and hiss of the truck behind them. The black plastic bags flap in the wind, but something else moves. The headlights of a stationary car on the other side of the street suddenly light up, and the figure crosses the road in front of them. She stares at the shape, willing it to pause and face her. The mist bundles in waves and then clears a little. It’s him, it has to be him. He’s always been out there hovering in the periphery of her sightline, that man, just she remembers him, that twenty-one-year-old, conjured up; a man she wants to hate. It’s been a long, long time. Fifteen years gone and now he’s found her, just as she always knew he would.

  A patch on the windscreen clears a little. Alex puts the car into gear. They go to pull away just as the figure passes by her window. It turns its head and looks straight at her.

  It’s not him.

  Chapter Nine

  Then

  ‘How do you plead?’

  Frankie sat up in the public gallery, tucked away in a corner, her hands clasped between her knees, leaning anxiously forward. The whole room was designed to absorb the daylight: the dark Victorian benches, the arched, ornate ceiling, the scrolled, panelled walls closing everything in. The outside world didn’t exist. This had been life for the last few days. This was her only life.

  ‘Not guilty.’

  She stared at the shape of Martin’s head, unable to drag her gaze away. She closed her eyes for a second, remembering how, just a few months ago, the sight of him from her bedroom window sent her stomach somersaulting. All those feelings were still there, as intense as they’d ever been. How she wished they weren’t. She opened her eyes. The clusters of dusty pendant lights gave everything a muted, jaundiced haze and the room felt dry and over-heated. Her eyes kept being drawn back to him over and over, as though an invisible thread connected them that nothing, not anger, or hurt, or time could ever break.

  The judge was speaking; he was a jowly man, old and wrinkly, like the judge in a cartoon. He droned on, speaking a language she didn’t understand.

  They’d taken him away that day, questioned him and eventually charged him, gathering their evidence and their paperwork, mapping out his movements that night, weaving and knitting until it all fitted together like a jigsaw. The next day he’d rung the care home from HMP Moreton Wood where he was being held.

  ‘No, I’m very sorry, that simply isn’t possible.’

  She had been passing Jude’s office door when the call came through. She instantly knew it was Martin: Jude’s voice had that stiff, professional clip.

  ‘Please… Let me speak to him. Jude, please—’

  But Jude only carried on talking, waving her away and shaking her head.

  ‘Let me speak to him,’ Frankie insisted. ‘I need to know what he’s told the police.’

  Jude paused with her hand over the receiver and Frankie took the tack that she knew would work.

  ‘Look, you need to know what he’s told the police. I’m seventeen and I’m still in your care. It’s in all our interests. If he drops me in it, it’ll all come back on you. Think about it Jude.’

  ‘Precisely. This is for me to deal with.’

  ‘It’s my life too. I got Martin into this by going to that party, didn’t I?’ She held out her hand. ‘Come on… Please… Two minutes. Just let me speak to him.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation and then reluctantly, very reluctantly, Jude handed over the phone, but made it clear she was going nowhere.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like just to hear your voice,’ he breathed.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘They’re saying I did it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what they say, you know I didn’t. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  She closed her eyes. If she concentrated hard, she could shut out all the flashing images that came back to her: the darkness, the water, the boat, that queasy rise and fall sensation beneath her feet. By closing her mind, she could make it fade around the edges and start to go black until there was nothing there. Nothing. None of it.

  ‘So what did you tell the police about me?’ She was aware of Jude’s piercing eyes.

  ‘I didn’t tell them anything; there’s nothing for them to know. Look, all this will get sorted, but I need to ask you a qu—’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Jude stood suddenly. ‘Give the phone back to me.’ Her fingers began to wrestle the receiver from Frankie’s hand.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Is there anything else I can help you with, Martin?’ She was breathing hard and her face was set and stony. ‘No? Good. Right then. Thanks so much for getting in touch. Goodbye.’ And the phone went down. She looked up.

  ‘Sit, please.’

  Her tone said there was no choice.

  ‘I might as well be very straight with you, Frankie. You’re a bright girl and you have a chance of a proper future, but you know better than I do that someone with your sort of background is often never given a first chance, let alone a second. Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stay away from all this chaos with Martin Jarvis.’

  ‘But—’

  She held up a hand. ‘I know you feel responsible in some way because of going off to that party, but you’re not. There were clearly things going on with him that just need leaving alone. Let the court deal with him.’

  She had a frightened tight feeling in her chest.

  ‘I should never have agreed for him to work here. I did the usual: I gave him th
e benefit of the doubt and it was stupid.’

  ‘Benefit of the doubt?’

  ‘Yes, I know how he comes across – he’s a likeable, charming, intelligent young man. All that is true, but there’s another truth – the care orders, the juvenile detention, the probation monitoring, I just thought he was past all that.’

  Frankie’s head snatched round.

  Jude looked at her, surprised.

  ‘I thought you knew – the other girls were chattering on about it so I assumed everyone did. He was one of my lads from a previous life. He was on my unit. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘Unit? What kind of unit?’

  Jude took a breath and then paused as though deciding how much to say.

  ‘He used to have… well… anger management problems. Let’s call them that. But anyway, I really thought he’d turned it around. I knew he’d been sleeping rough but once he started working on that old canal boat he’d found, it really seemed to give him a focus. Then he started talking about college and working with youngsters, and I thought, “Brilliant! I’ll help him in any way I can to get on his feet.” Hence him working here.’

  Frankie shook her head slowly. She’d had no idea.

  ‘And now…’ Jude held out her hands. ‘Now look where he is. God alone knows what he’s done or what he’s got mixed up in. That poor, poor girl…’ Her thoughts seemed to drift for a moment and then snapped back. ‘And that’s the thing, Frankie. That’s how easy it is to get drawn into the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people, and suddenly your life changes forever. So don’t fall into that trap. Don’t put yourself anywhere near his world. You’re not responsible, so stay well out of it.’

  ‘But he’s innocent!’ blurted Frankie.

  ‘You have absolutely no idea whether that’s true or not.’

  Frankie felt the tears beginning to gather.

  ‘A girl has died, Frankie.’ Jude lowered her voice and her eyes narrowed. ‘Died. We don’t know how, but people are saying that she was held under the water and drowned, do you understand that? So they’re saying someone did that to her. Some animal, some monster.’

  Frankie flinched. A whole barrage of images flashed unbidden into her head. She saw black water and felt a sudden undulating judder beneath her feet.

  ‘You didn’t see or hear anything at that party, did you?’

  She could hear the veiled panic in Jude’s voice, but she could only shake her head – if only she could shake away what was in there.

  ‘And you’re sure of that? It’s as you said: you gave Martin the slip and you didn’t see him again?’

  Another grim shake. She didn’t know if Jude believed her or not, but she obviously wasn’t going to press it.

  ‘I don’t want you anywhere near this, Frankie, do you hear me? Martin has told you he’s keeping your name out of this whole thing and I want your face kept out of it too.’ Jude came and sat next to her and put her hand on her arm. ‘Look at me for a moment.’

  Frankie lifted her head.

  ‘You think I’m ancient and therefore blind and daft and stupid, but in fact, I’m only one of those things.’ She nudged her playfully. ‘And being ancient doesn’t mean I was always old. I was young, once. I know what attraction looks like and I could see you were attracted to Martin.’

  Frankie opened her mouth, but Jude quickly cut across her.

  ‘I don’t need to know, and I don’t want to know. Right now, there’s nothing to be gained from having that conversation. This is a life lesson for you: no one ever knows anyone. Not really. They think they do, but they don’t.’

  She found herself swallowing.

  ‘There’s going to be a trial, Frankie. It’s going to be in every newspaper and on every screen for a while so prepare to be shocked. I’ve been in these situations before; everyone involved will have their own spin and their own take, so you won’t know fact from hype. I can see that you care for him, my love, but they’ll open him up and peer into his innermost depths until the Martin you thought you knew will disappear. Whatever happened to that poor girl will come out. Trust me.’

  Chapter Ten

  Martin was sitting with a prison officer on either side of him. He looked lost and very alone. He wasn’t going to look at her no matter how hard she stared. She studied his shoulders, the nape of his neck, remembering the sweet scent of the skin behind his ear; the sheer heat of him against her cheek. The thoughts and sensations wouldn’t go away. She swallowed.

  The prosecution barrister was droning on, his voice whining, insect-like. He had small, thick-lensed glasses that kept flashing as though the eyes behind them were absent. The tone wavered like a dying bluebottle. The judge was staring down with his hand propped against his forehead. She wondered if he’d gone to sleep.

  The jury shifted uncomfortably, some of them glancing at their watches. The lunch break seemed a very long way away. She needed to get back to school and show her face before she could manage to sneak back into the court again, later. She shouldn’t be here at all, she knew that. She promised Jude, but then she’d promised Jude a lot of things and they weren’t happening either.

  She gazed at the other people at the far end of the gallery. There was a woman in a pink jacket sitting next to a sandy-haired man with a round, kind face. In front of them was a boy wearing a denim jacket. She had a feeling she might’ve seen him somewhere before.

  ‘May I bring the CCTV footage of the towpath to your attention.’

  There was a shift in the atmosphere and the jury suddenly sat up and took notice. Several of the large TV screens, placed strategically around the courtroom, flickered into life. A grey gauzy background told them something was about to happen. The barrister picked up a small remote control and pressed the ‘Pause’ button as a line of white numbers and letters denoted the time and the date frozen onto the screen.

  ‘This shows the early hours of Saturday the sixth of September at three thirty-seven in the morning.’ He pressed the ‘Pause’ button again and the screen formed a picture. It showed the black and white footage of the stretch of canal where Frankie had walked that night. There was the exit of the tunnel and the lock gates just up ahead. Three boats were moored on the left.

  ‘Please keep watching.’

  All eyes were on the screen as two figures appeared, staggering slightly, from the mouth of the tunnel.

  ‘The figure on the right of the screen is Charlotte Vale,’ said the barrister.

  There was a slight gasp from somewhere in the gallery, making Frankie turn her head. The woman in the pink jacket had her fist pressed to her lips.

  ‘And the figure on the left is the defendant Martin Jarvis.’

  Frankie stared and then stared again. They’d got that wrong. That wasn’t him. He’d told her, hadn’t he? He’d said that… What had he said?

  She looked at the back of Martin’s head. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t make any movement at all. A gripe of something acidic washed through her stomach. It felt like fear. Martin had his arm around Charlotte’s shoulders. She had her head bowed. Her hand kept coming up to her face and then dropping to her side again.

  ‘And here, on the next camera, we have the defendant, Martin Jarvis and Charlotte Vale boarding the narrowboat Morning Mist – the boat that is owned by Mr Jarvis.’

  Frankie watched, her horror rising as Martin and Charlotte stepped onto the side of the boat, Charlotte steadying herself as Martin opened the cabin door and they both disappeared down the steps. The footage ended and the barrister turned off the screen.

  The judge peered across his bench. ‘Ah, we have further footage from this point onwards, do we, Mr Bain?’

  Mr Bain looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Erm… No… Unfortunately, the Prosecution has been unable to secure the footage from these frames onward.’

  The judge continued to peer at him, saying nothing.

  ‘I believe it got wiped, Your Honour.’

  ‘Wiped?’

  His voice boomed a
s though he hadn’t heard the word before.

  ‘Er, yes, Your Honour. We have no further footage of the defendant or the victim from this time-point onwards. An administration error I believe, by the Canal and River Trust.’

  The judge looked at him as though he had to be personally responsible. He sat back abruptly.

  ‘Please continue.’

  A tiny trickle of sweat ran down between Frankie’s shoulder blades. Martin looked across to his left so that she was able to see the side of his face. His chin lifted and his eyes batted upwards as if assessing the air. He knew exactly where she was. She willed him to catch her gaze, but knowing, absolutely that he wouldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

  He’d lied.

  She needed to see his eyes.

  He’d lied.

  She’d known he was lying all along. She’d challenged him at the party and in her room, knowing, deep down he was lying to her – and she’d wanted him to lie because she couldn’t bear to know the truth.

  She was just an impressionable kid: easily duped, easily manipulated. A mug.

  And then suddenly he lifted his head and his eyes caught hers and her heart folded.

  Her rage and her anger went to war with the hurt and betrayal. She battled fiercely with the tears that burned and stung her eyes.

  His head shook slowly as he stared at her. What was he saying? That he was sorry? That the footage was wrong? That it wasn’t what it seemed? What?

  She looked away, concentrating on the rail in front of her. How did anyone turn off their feelings? There wasn’t a switch or a button. It was all still there: that pull, that yearning, bringing her back to him again and again.

  She would not cry… Find something. Concentrate. Close it down.

  ‘Can I refer the members of the jury to a particular point to your evidence bundle.’

  She lifted her head, blinking. Mr Bain flipped over several papers on the table in front of him and there was a tidal wave of rustling as the jury did the same.