the flat roof of the block. The sun was right in his eyes, but he recognised Hannah’s silhouette coming over the asphalt towards him.
‘Jailbreak,’ Hannah grinned as she wrapped her arms around James. ‘There’s another hatch in my flat. It’s outside my room and my old man’s downstairs watching TV.’
She’d changed out of school uniform into a T-shirt and leggings.
‘You look great,’ James said, suddenly conscious that his hair was everywhere and he smelled sweaty from playing football.
‘Thanks,’ Hannah said. ‘Did you ever hear about Will?’
James felt a little awkward. ‘Max mentioned it. He was your cousin or something, wasn’t he?’
‘The silly fool,’ Hannah said sadly. ‘Come here, I’ll show you.’
Hannah took James’ hand and led him to the edge of the roof. She stood with the toes of her Nikes poking over the edge.
‘Careful,’ James said, stopping a shoe-length further back. ‘It’s a good view over central London; we must be quite high up here.’
Hannah gave a half-smile, ‘Well it is called Palm Hill.’
James felt stupid. ‘Yeah, I suppose it is.’
‘But you’ve got to look down,’ Hannah said. ‘And you’ve got to be right on the edge to get a buzz out of it.’
James shuffled half a step forwards and looked down the face of the building. Compared to the highest part of the assault course on campus, it didn’t seem that scary. At least, it didn’t until James noticed the hopelessly mangled banister down at ground level.
‘This is the exact spot,’ James said.
‘They haven’t even had the decency to repair the railing,’ Hannah said, backing away from the edge and looking sad. ‘Every time I walk past there, I can see Will with his back broken and the blood pouring out of his ear.’
‘Were you two good friends?’
‘I used to like playing with him when I was little,’ Hannah said. ‘But not so much later on. Will was a geek; into computers and stuff. He didn’t have any mates, but he was funny and really, really clever. Towards the end he started getting wasted all the time. I think he was depressed.’
James wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Did he kill himself?’
‘He might have done,’ Hannah shrugged. ‘But he didn’t leave a note or anything. Most people reckon he just got so wasted that he forgot where he was and fell off.’
‘Poor guy,’ James said solemnly, taking a final glance down the face of the building, before stepping away from the edge.
Hannah rested her head on James’ shoulder and giggled nervously. ‘You must think I’m a right nutter asking you up here. I spent all day thinking up a way to meet you while I was grounded and … Well, this must be your worst date ever.’
James put his arm around Hannah’s back. ‘Nah, it’s cool,’ he smiled reassuringly. ‘The view up here is great. I bet all the lights in the city look beautiful when it gets dark.’
James kissed Hannah briefly on the lips, but she still looked sad and James realised it wasn’t the right moment for a snog. He ended up sitting on the warm asphalt with his back resting against a metal vent and Hannah’s head in his lap. They talked about all kinds of stuff as the sun dropped.
James really liked Hannah. She had a laid-back air and a cruel sense of humour. He wished they’d met under different circumstances. Then he could have told her about Lauren and his mum and who he really was, instead of having to stick to his stupid back story.
21. CAYENNE
Dave was at the dining table reading the Daily Star. James strolled in and waggled a mass of crumpled exercise paper under his nose.
‘Ta-da,’ James announced. ‘Not a bad morning’s work. One thousand, five hundred and eleven words on Victorian sanitation. Three colour diagrams and all in my best handwriting.’
Dave looked up and grinned. ‘You really pushed the boat out with the extra eleven words, eh? What’s with the big stain?’
‘I knocked a can of Coke over it, but luckily the ink didn’t run.’
‘Maybe you should rewrite that page, James. You know how fussy Mr Brennan is. Turning in Coke stains is just begging for him make you do a total rewrite.’
James realised Dave was right, but the prospect of doing more work knocked the edge off his good mood. ‘Damn … Oh well, I’ll redo it tomorrow, it’s only copying out one page. So how come you didn’t get any schoolwork?’
‘I’m waiting for my A-level results,’ Dave explained. ‘My handler says I still look young enough to