‘The roof?’ I repeated. My last shred of bravado vanished and nerves set in. ‘You want me to go into an abandoned building and climb up on to the roof in the middle of the night?’
‘Yeah!’ she said again.
‘Hi, I’m Caddy,’ I said, stretching out my hand. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
She laughed. ‘Don’t be like that. You said you wanted to do something fun. We can go to the beach if you want, but there’s nothing to do there. Plus, no sunrise.’
‘What part of this is fun?’ I asked.
‘Oh.’ Suzanne’s face fell. ‘I didn’t think you’d be this against it. I’m sorry.’ She took a step back towards the road. ‘Let’s just go to the beach.’
It was the immediacy and sincerity of her acquiescence that made all the difference. If she’d tried to convince me or guilt-trip me I’d have carried on disagreeing.
‘No, you’re right,’ I heard myself say. ‘The beach will be boring. And wet.’
She looked thrilled. ‘Really? Great! If you don’t like it, we’ll leave.’
‘What’s to like?’ I asked, but still I followed her around the corner of the building. ‘What is this place anyway?’
‘I think it used to be a factory?’ She didn’t sound sure. ‘Or maybe something to do with the railway? I don’t know. It’s been abandoned for years though, apparently.’ She twisted her lip thoughtfully. ‘On the Internet it said one of the fence panels is loose, so we just need to find it . . .’
‘What if we can’t actually get on to the roof?’ I followed her as she ran her hand along the fencing, pushing slightly on each panel.
‘You must be able to, because there were skylights up there in the pictures,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have skylights if you can’t access them.’
‘When did you see pictures?’ I asked, confused.
‘This is it!’ The panel had moved against her hand and she eased it forward, creating enough space for us both. She turned her head to grin at me. ‘Come on.’
It was completely dark inside the building, and the dusty air tasted and smelled like something left to decay. I stopped by the doorway, ready to let my eyes adjust, when a stupidly bright light lit up right beside me.
‘Fuck!’ I closed my eyes instinctively, turning my head. ‘Thanks for the warning!’
‘Sorry,’ Suzanne said, not sounding very sorry. ‘Better than the dark though, right?’
I opened my eyes, still shielding them with one hand, and looked over at her. ‘Is that your phone?’
‘Nope. This is a silly little torch thing I have on my keys. Useful, right?’ She sounded pleased with herself. ‘Ooh, stairs!’
‘Do they look like the kind that will collapse when you’re halfway up them?’ I asked, my heart clenched tight by anxiety.
‘I don’t know. I can’t tell from here.’
How could she be so blasé about this? Didn’t she get a little nervous?
‘This is starting to feel like an episode of 24 Hours in A&E,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry.’ She managed to sound both sympathetic and amused. ‘People come to this building all the time.’
‘Definitionally untrue,’ I said.
‘Trust me.’ She turned away from me, along with the light, and I watched her shadow rise up along the wall. ‘Come on. We’ll take it really slow.’
There was a little more natural light once we got to the roof, which was surprisingly (worryingly?) easy to access through an extra set of stairs and a door. The rain was starting to ease off and the clouds had mostly cleared, leaving the stars and a crescent moon in full view. The roof was almost completely flat, with surprisingly low rails around the edge. In the dark I couldn’t make out much of the surface, but I could feel something like gravel, crunching but squelchy with mud.
‘Now what?’ I asked, imagining the mulch soaking into my shoes. That would be interesting to explain to my mother.
Suzanne darted away from me, skipping over the roof as lightly as if it was solid ground, and peered over the edge. My stomach lurched.
‘It doesn’t seem as high as I expected,’ she said cheerfully, her voice carrying easily with the wind. ‘But a good view, right? You can see most of Brighton. Do you know which way the sun will come up?’
I took a cautious step, trying not to think about the emptiness beneath my feet. The beams and floorboards left to rot. Stop it, Caddy.
‘East,’ I said. Another step.
‘So . . . that way?’ She pointed first towards the sea, then turned herself left so she was pointing east.
I smiled at her back. ‘Yep, that’s east.’
‘Cool.’ Suzanne put her arm back to her side. ‘So I guess we just wait.’ She leaned forward again and I resisted the urge to grab her arm. ‘Do you think you’d die if you fell?’ she asked conversationally.
‘OK, time to move away from the edge,’ I said. My voice sounded a little shrill and she glanced over her shoulder at me, flashing a grin.