Keep Him Close: a moving and suspenseful mystery for 2021 that you won't be able to put down by Emily Koch

Author:Emily Koch [Koch, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473561397
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2020-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Indigo

7th September

I have specific things I need to ask Kane about. Wilko. His boyfriend. He hasn’t called me since I last came here, so the questions have mounted up. Having this purpose makes today’s visit feel different. I lived through that first one, I can do it again. This time, I don’t skulk about, convinced that people are watching and judging me. I stride towards the prison gates. Yesterday’s drizzle has been replaced by clear skies and I lift my face to feel the sun on my skin. Why should I be ashamed?

Before I reach the gates, a man on the other side of the road sneezes loudly. I look his way as he hurries on, head bowed, clutching a small paper package in his hands. It’s only when he turns his head, looking each way before he crosses to my side of the road, that I recognise him.

The short dark hair. Tall frame, strong build. The skateboard strapped on to the back of his rucksack. It’s Benny Durand.

He’s walking alongside the wall of the prison. I look at the gates, which he has just walked past, and the relatives filing in. I check the time – I have thirty minutes before my visit officially starts at eleven. I follow him.

Where’s he going? Should I talk to him?

He’s sticking with the prison’s perimeter wall on his right, occasionally looking up at it. I look up, too, and see plants growing in cracks in the red brick – even large, purple-flowered buddleia springing out near the top. I think of my Kane, like these shoots of green: somewhere he shouldn’t be, somewhere you wouldn’t expect to find him. A sliver of beauty amongst a swathe of ugliness.

Ahead of us it looks like there is a dead end. My heart races. Do I want to be in a dead-end road with this boy? I slow my pace. If Kane didn’t kill Lou Durand, someone else did. The only other person I know for sure was with them is Benny. I look over my shoulder. There’s nobody behind me – we are alone. I should go back.

When I look back towards Benny, he’s turning the corner, taking a track I hadn’t seen that bends round to the right. Keeping a few metres between us I follow him, half jogging, half walking, as the track narrows into an alleyway leading to a residential road.

I’ve never been here before. The houses ahead of me seem to have their gardens backing on to the prison, whose wall I still have within touching distance of my right hand. I never realised how ensconced the prison was in the area. From the main road you’d barely know it was here, and I had never really noticed it until it bullied its way into my life just over a week ago.

Benny turns at the end of the alleyway, and I do the same, slowing to a walk as I do so, glad for the chance to catch my breath.

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