The Memory Collector

by Fiona Harper

  Fabulous.

  She’s running late already, thanks to a collision just outside Orpington, and now she’ll be lucky if she’s at work by lunchtime. Thankfully, it’s not raining as the weather forecast had hinted. She’s also grateful it’s not blazingly sunny as she gets out of the car, pulls her handbag out of the passenger seat, and climbs over the barrier to stand on the verge. At least she’s not going to bake like an egg on a hot rock while she waits for roadside assistance.

  After calling them, she settles down to wait. The long grass is dry and it tickles the backs of her knees under her navy dress. To pass the time, she opens Google Maps on her phone and types in the name of the town the recovery guy said he was coming from. In the present traffic conditions, it should take half an hour.

  Watching cars is boring, so after a while she pulls her phone out again. She stares at Google Maps for a second, then types in a destination. It is exactly forty-seven miles to Hastings from here, straight down the A21 until you reach the sea.

  She tries to picture the town again, a favourite haunt of her mum and dad’s on a bank-holiday weekend before the divorce. She tries to remember the fish and chips she knows they ate on the promenade as the sun went down, the inevitable weeks of pocket money lost in the penny arcades. Snatches of recollections come, but they’re all mixed up with memories of so many other towns like it on the Kent and Sussex coast. Is she really remembering it right, or are images of Eastbourne, Margate and Brighton slipping in there, blurring the truth? It’s hard to tell. Even the memories she can pinpoint of the other places are frighteningly similar – wide beaches made up of large, flinty pebbles, weathered groynes and Victorian piers. How is she supposed to know which is which?

  She realizes she should have paid more attention to her childhood, that maybe she should have hoarded memories the way her mother hoarded objects. But collecting anything had seemed dangerous and at the time she hadn’t known she’d need them. Why would she? Her mother had a million items in her home, each one attached to a bit of family history. She’d kept the memories for them.

  Besides, it had been nice to let it all go, let it all fly out of her head. That way she didn’t have to think of how pathetic her life had been and how much she’d hated it.

  Over the last few days she’s been tempted to drop this whole abduction thing and move on, but now a familiar ache begins to throb in her chest. All the things she lost. All the things she never had because of her mother’s hoarding. The ache becomes an ember and the ember begins to smoulder. Heather stands up abruptly, even though there’s no sign yet of the recovery truck.

  That woman shouldn’t get away with it.

  Okay, on one level Heather knows she didn’t. Maybe she paid her debt to society, in whatever way the courts saw fit, but what about the Lucas family? Had that debt been settled? The growing warmth in her belly, the feeling of being too jittery to fit inside her own skin, suggests not. She wants to walk up to Patricia Waites and look her in the eye, to see if she knows what she did. To see if she even cares. For some reason, that’s important.

  By the time the man in the truck has arrived, declared the noise was indeed something stuck in her ventilation but confirmed her battery is on its last legs, Heather has hatched a plan. She thanks the recovery driver for jump-starting the car and heads for the retail park just outside of Swanham on the way to work. There’s one of those places there, the kind that does tyres and exhausts and such like. They should be able to sort her car out.

  She hopes so because she’s going to need it this weekend. She knows it’s probably hopeless, but she’s going to go to that address in Hastings and she’s going to knock on the door.

  Could it have been where Waites took her for those sixteen days?

  No, that’s not right. The paper had said they were found at a B&B – not one of the ones on the seafront, but one down a back street with no sea view. But still…

  Maybe if she sees Hastings again, she’ll remember something important.

  * * *

  At seven o’clock on Saturday morning, she loads up her car with a few essentials – sunblock, a couple of bottles of water – and makes sure her screen wash is topped up. She imagines if she had a significant other, he’d be gently teasing her about this being a trip to Hastings not Outer Mongolia, and it makes her smile. She knows she’s making a big thing of this, but it feels like a big thing. A scary thing. These small preparations give her a sense of control.

  By 7.18 a.m. she’s ready. She checks her handbag is on the passenger seat, takes a deep breath, and closes the car door. When she twists the key in the ignition, it turns over but doesn’t start. What the heck? It’s a brand-new battery! This isn’t supposed to happen. She gets out, lifts the bonnet and stares at the silent innards of her hatchback.

  ‘Problems?’

  She jumps up, almost banging her head on the underside of the bonnet, to find Jason standing beside her. He’s in a T-shirt, shorts and running shoes. Earphones, recently plucked from his ears, are dangling round his neck.

  ‘It won’t start.’

  He nods, and squints under the bonnet. ‘Turn it over?’

  Heather obligingly jumps back in the driving seat and turns the key in the ignition, with much the same effect as the last attempt.

  ‘How old’s your battery?’

  Heather lets out a frustrated groan. ‘Four days! I just had it replaced, so I don’t think it’s that.’ She removes the rod holding the bonnet up and lets it slam down. The loud clang is rather satisfying. ‘Brilliant. More inconvenience. More expense.’

  Jason puts his hands on his hips and stares at the closed bonnet as if he has X-ray vision and can see exactly what’s going on inside. ‘It could be the starter motor, or even the alternator, but you’re going to have to get someone to look at it. I could give you a jump-start, but that will only help for the outward journey.’

  He spots the large bag on the back seat. ‘Planning on running away?’ he asks.

  ‘No.’ She’s slightly disturbed that he’s already pegged her as a bolter. ‘Actually, I’m taking a trip to the seaside.’

  He smiles at first, taking her words at face value, but then the penny drops. ‘Hastings?’

  She nods.

  ‘You’re going on your own?’

  ‘Yes.’ She’s so used to doing most things on her own that she hasn’t even thought of asking anyone to go with her.

  ‘And you say you’re not brave…’

  ‘I don’t think I am brave,’ Heather says. ‘I think I’m just really, really desperate to know the truth.’ She looks at the car and sighs. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to go next weekend.’

  ‘Waiting another seven days would drive me crazy,’ he says.

  All Heather can do is give him a weak smile and a shrug in return. ‘Tell me about it. But what can I do? Like you say, I might not be able to start the car again for the return journey if I risk it, and I don’t want to have to pay yet another mechanic to sort me out so I can get back home.’

  Jason nods then goes quiet. From the look on his face, he’s weighing something up. Finally, he drags a hand through his already-messy hair and says, ‘I’ll run you down to Hastings if you want. I haven’t got anything better to do today – apart from grocery shopping with half the rest of Bromley – and a trip to the seaside sounds like the perfect way to avoid it.’

  Heather takes a step back. ‘I can’t ask you to do that!’

  ‘You’re not asking – I’m offering. Besides, I feel a bit responsible. If I hadn’t given you that address, you wouldn’t be doing this.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘And if I were in your shoes, I’d want someone with me. I mean, the chances are that it’ll be a wild-goose chase, but what if it isn’t? This is huge, Heather.’

  She swallows. She knows it is.

  ‘Besides, who doesn’t want to go to the beach on a day like this?’

  There is that, Heather thinks. She tries desperately to conjure up more
good reasons why she should say no. The only problem is that all the little speech bubbles that pop up inside her head are empty. The truth is, she would like someone with her, and if she had to pick, she’d pick Jason. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘That would be very nice. Thank you.’

  He grins at her. ‘Great! Do you mind if we set off in about half an hour? I could really do with a shower first. Shall I come and knock for you about quarter to eight?’

  * * *

  Twenty-five minutes later, Jason wanders out of the house looking fresh and clean and carrying a crash helmet. Heather stares at it as he walks towards her and hands it to her. ‘Here you go.’

  ‘B-but I thought we were going in your car!’ is all she can say.

  He just smiles at her and dumps something heavy in her arms. ‘You can’t go to Hastings in a car on a day like this!’ he says. ‘It’d be positively criminal!’

  She looks down and sees that he’s wearing the kind of ribbed black leather trousers bikers do, and that the heavy stuff in her arms looks suspiciously similar – a jacket and trousers, she’d guess if she took a closer look.

  ‘They should be okay,’ he tells her. ‘She was a bit taller than you, but I reckon they’re the right size.’

  ‘She?’ croaks Heather.

  ‘Long gone,’ is all he says. Heather thinks about the woman he mentioned the other day and realizes that, if he’d gone to the trouble of getting her the right gear to join him on his bike, it must have been serious. ‘Let’s just say she’s not likely to be using these again, nor would she want to.’

  ‘What do I, you know, wear…’ Heather swallows, ‘underneath?’

  ‘What you’ve got on is fine,’ he says, looking her up and down. Heather suddenly feels very self-conscious in her jeans and T-shirt. He motions towards the house, shooing her back inside. ‘It’ll only take a few minutes to put them on. While you’re doing that, I’ll get the bike ready.’ And he heads towards the garage nestling up against the side of the house.

  When she comes back outside she feels a bit weird, as if another person has been painted on top of boring old Heather. Noticing the creak of the leather as she moves, she pauses and looks at the bags dumped on the driveway. Jason is revving up the motorbike. He has a helmet on now too, a black one with a visor, which is presently tipped up, and he’s wearing a leather jacket zipped up to his chin, despite the promise of heat this day is bringing. ‘What about my stuff?’ she yells above the noise of the engine.

  Jason pauses and the noise dies away. He glances at the overstuffed beach bag and handbag. ‘What do you actually need?’

  Her purse. Her phone. Not much else, really. All the details and directions – even the last known address for Patricia Waites – are stored inside her head. She pulls her purse and phone from her handbag and stows them in the inside pockets of the jacket.

  Jason was right. It is a pretty good fit. A little long in the arms, maybe, but otherwise snug without being too tight. Then she shoves the bags in the boot of her car, locking it securely behind her.

  ‘Right,’ she says. ‘What next?’

  His smile is hidden by the chin guard of his helmet, but she can see it in his eyes. ‘Now we go. Climb on.’ And he snaps the visor down into place.

  She hesitates for a moment, then swings one leg over the bike and climbs on behind him. ‘You’re not going to go too fast, are you?’ she asks, wondering what to do with her arms and hands.

  He twists round to look at her over his shoulder. ‘Nah. This is a Harley. Think of it more like a Rolls Royce than a Ferrari. Is this your first time on a bike?’ Heather nods. ‘Then I’ll be gentle with you,’ he adds with a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.

  Heather doesn’t have to ask what to do with her arms when he turns the throttle and the bike begins to move, because she grabs on tight round his middle, closes her eyes and presses herself against his back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  BAG

  It’s a pretty ordinary handbag. It’s black, and not even real leather. It has three flashy gold zips on the front (mostly for decoration, it has to be said) and no discernibly useful pockets. Even though I’ve seen at least three other girls at my school with one exactly like it, I love it to bits.

  THEN

  Heather hitches her bag onto her shoulder and walks purposefully across the playground towards the school gates. When she first started at Highstead Grammar, she had a massive backpack, one her mum had actually gone out and bought for her, saying she was so proud she’d got into Highstead. Heather was pleased too, but not for the same reason as her mother.

  Most of the kids from Heather’s primary school have moved on to secondary schools in the Bromley area, but grammar schools have a wider catchment area and Highstead is just outside Sidcup town centre. It’s even under a different local education authority from her last school. Nobody here knows her.

  It doesn’t make the kids any less vile if they decide you don’t fit in, though. It didn’t take Heather long to work out the backpack was a huge mistake, even though it was on the uniform list. The older kids – especially the Year Eights, seeking to establish their dominance – pick on the Year Sevens for having them. Heather has started to get nervous every time she nears a group of older girls because she’s seen them hook someone by that little carrying strap at the top of their backpack when they walk past, yanking them backwards and wrenching their shoulders. Then they laugh and say ‘sorry’ with their eyes narrowed, daring their target to retaliate. It only had to happen to her twice before she told her mum that she’d lost her backpack in the house somewhere. Not a complete lie, because it is in the house – Heather buried it very carefully in what used to be the spare bedroom.

  Her dad asks her about the state of the house every weekend when she goes to visit him at his flat, and she just shrugs and says it’s pretty much the same. This is also not a lie – she’s getting rather good at fudging the truth these days – because if she took a picture of the house in Hawksbury Road each Saturday, it would look pretty much the same as it had the previous week. What she doesn’t tell her father is that it’s almost as bad as it was before he left.

  Two years is all it’s taken for it to get that way. Two years! Doing that huge clear-out accomplished nothing. If anything, her mother’s problem has escalated.

  Her mum made her promise not to tell and at the time Heather agreed, but that was more than a year ago, when it was only the dining room and a couple of the bedrooms that had filled up. She wishes she hadn’t said it now but a promise is a promise, isn’t it? And if she tells, her father will make her go and live with him. She kind of wants to do that, but how can she leave her mother in that house all by herself? She has nightmares about her mum being buried alive as it is. If Heather wasn’t around to secretly tidy up now and then, those dreams might come true and it’d be her fault.

  ‘I can’t afford to buy you a new backpack,’ her mother had said with no trace of condemnation or, it has to be said, guilt. Heather just shrugged, trying not to let on that she was elated. That had been her plan from the very start. However, it didn’t escape Heather that her mother had enough money to buy two crates of celebrity-hairdresser styling products on QVC the very same afternoon.

  ‘Can I use this one?’ Heather said, producing a faux-leather handbag with the tags still on that she’d found earlier that morning in the downstairs toilet. She’d deliberately waited to break the sad news about the ‘lost’ backpack until she’d scoured the house for a suitable replacement.

  ‘Hmm,’ her mum had said. She took it from Heather and turned it over, opened the flap and peered inside. ‘Are you sure this is suitable?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Heather said, quickly taking it back before her mum decided to keep it for herself (although it would probably end up back in the downstairs loo and never get used). ‘Lots of the girls have bags like this.’ And they did. The popular ones, anyway.

  So now Heather is walking out of the main school building towards the ga
te, feeling just that little bit superior to the girls with the sports-shop messenger bags and backpacks, knowing that her oversized handbag with the gold zips looks good. It might even look a little bit cool.

  ‘Hey.’ A girl falls into step beside her.

  ‘Hey,’ Heather says back, feigning nonchalance when everything inside her is singing. This is Claudia Morris. She’s in Heather’s English class. Heather has been at Highstead for a month now, and this is the first time someone has willingly started walking with her unless they have been told to pair up by their dictator of a PE teacher.

  ‘Oh, my God, that doodle you did of Miss Adams in English was hilarious!’ Claudia says.

  Heather smiles. They sit next to each other in that class, and today while their teacher was droning on about Dickens, she’d done a sketch of the headmistress. Miss Adams is tall and thin and she has this funny way of leaning back then sticking her head forward to balance herself out, so Heather just exaggerated it and made it all cartoony. Claudia glanced across just as she was finishing it.

  ‘Can I show it to a friend?’ she asks. ‘Come on!’ And the other girl drags her off towards the edge of the playground. Heather can hardly believe who’s standing under the lone tree poking up from the sea of concrete. Tia Paine. She’s officially the coolest girl in their year, on account of her uncle being one of the doctors on Casualty. She’s always talking about the famous people who went round to her house in Blackheath for barbecues over the summer.

  Claudia nudges Heather. ‘Go on. You’ve still got it, haven’t you?’

  Heather nods and digs around in her handbag, thanking someone upstairs that she ditched the backpack yesterday.

  ‘Hey, Tia!’ Claudia calls, and Heather remembers that, while not part of the same clique now, they both went to the same private primary school together. ‘Look at this.’

  Tia turns from her ever-present posse of Charlotte, Summer and Henri – the ‘backing singers’, as Heather mentally calls them – and arches an eyebrow in their direction.