Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes (management books to read .txt) 📕

made him a total plum when it came to wanting a favour. Gavin was ripe for the picking.

‘I need you to come with me into a prison.’

She could’ve probably asked him for two bottles of voddie right that minute and he would have obliged.

‘Say that again?’

‘I’m not eighteen yet. I need an escort, and someone who’s not going to blab. I know you won’t blab, will you Gavin?’

He stalled. ‘Well… Er… I don’t know… What’s making you want to go into a prison Frankie?’

Gavin always had to pretend he was following some kind of protocol. They both knew where this was going.

‘There’s someone I really want to see.’

‘Ah.’

She stayed silent.

‘Would you like to share who that someone might be?’ Gavin’s voice wavered, a little uncertain.

‘I’d like you to trust me, Gavin.’

That put his protocol to the test.

‘Oh! I see… Well… erm… When were you thinking?’

She smiled. See, Gavin? That wasn’t so difficult, was it?

‘How about this afternoon?’

She had never been inside a prison before. The noise struck her first and then the smell. The Visits Hall was a long, cavernous warehouse of a building, with no natural light. Single prisoners sat in their orange bibs at low coffee tables that were bolted to the floor. Her eyes picked out Martin as though he was sitting in a spotlight. She watched his gaze lift as he drank in the sight of her. She carried her jacket across her stomach, her shoulders straightening defiantly as she walked purposefully towards him. He looked shocked that she’d turned up and she felt stupidly pleased.

His gaze drifted over to Gavin who had been at great pains to show how much he trusted her by not asking any awkward questions. He manfully thrust out his hand, and Martin, looking unsure, took it.

‘I’m Gavin,’ he said, smiling. ‘How about I go and get us all some drinks and cakes and give you two a chance to catch up?’

He wandered off. Frankie quietly sat and waited for Martin to speak. He looked different. His skin was grey and unhealthy. His deep-set eyes had dark purple circles under them. But he was still Martin underneath it all. She could feel her resolve faltering.

‘Thank you for coming to see me, Frankie.’

Her arms folded across her stomach, bundling up her jacket. She licked her lips.

‘You had sex with Charlotte Vale.’

He looked shocked by the blunt force of the statement.

‘I did not. I did not…’ He shook his head emphatically. ‘That did not happen.’

‘You were in a relationship with her then. You were seeing her.’

‘I was not. I swear to you.’

‘You didn’t tell me you’d gone back to the boat with her.’

‘There was nothing to tell, Frankie. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. She and I spoke at the party. I told her that you two looked alike – we joked about it. I told you this! Then she started asking me some weird questions.’

‘Like?’

‘Like if I’d ever taken roofies? Rohypnol, y’know, that stuff that really knocks you out.’

‘And?’

‘Christ, no!’

‘Why was she asking that?’

‘I don’t know. It was just like an odd, off-the-wall conversation; she didn’t seem stressed or anything. She came across as relaxed and happy. She was having a nice time, she was a bit high – she was dancing—’

‘Yes, I saw.’ Frankie’s mind immediately dragged up the image – sinuous, sexy, laughing.

‘But that wasn’t the first time you’d seen her. You’d seen her loads. You admitted it.’

She would not cry. There would be no tears.

Martin waved a hand dismissively. ‘She’d asked me a few times if I knew where she could buy a bit of dope, that’s all. People know I have bits and pieces. It’s not a huge deal. I do a little here and there. I said I had a bit stashed and she came to the boat to collect it. Nothing major, nothing big, just a bit of draw, a few pills on a couple of occasions, that’s all – Frankie, look—’

‘So why did you take her back to the boat that night?’ The tears threatened but she held tight to her anger.

‘It wasn’t like that, Frankie.’ He held out his palms towards her. ‘You ran off. You disappeared. I’d gone into the street trying to find you and suddenly there she was. I told her I was looking for you and suddenly she started crying. She asked me not to leave her on her own – I couldn’t just abandon her, could I? So she walked back to the boat with me. I thought you might have gone there. She was sobbing, but she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong – Look, Frankie, I swear to you…’ He leaned forward. ‘I did not murder that girl. Everything I said in that court was true. I didn’t touch her. I asked her onto the boat because she was upset – nothing else, I swear to you. I went to buy booze. When I came back, she’d gone.’

Pictures came to her mind in grainy flashes: the black water, the pitch and roll of the boat, the hard feel of the wooden rudder in her palm as her fingertips curled around the edge of the cabin door… the corner of the bed, the discarded covers. She hears a voice and there’s a shifting movement. The door at the far end is open. It’s dark, but in the light from the moon she sees…

It’s a blur. What did she do?

She studied Martin’s face, the impassioned, open, pure honesty of it. He looked so real, so genuine. She could look into those eyes and see the truth – but at the same time knowing that what she was seeing was only what she wanted to see.

She glanced around the room. Men with shaved heads and teardrop tattoos on their cheeks sat thin and hunched at the tables.

‘Why didn’t you answer any of my emails or letters?’

She couldn’t drag her eyes back to his face.

‘I’ve needed to see you. Do you know what it’s been like in here without you, not