The Memory Collector: The emotional and uplifting new novel from the bestselling author of The Other Us

She’s so still, her eyes so empty, that for a moment the little girl is reminded of the dummies in the window of C&A.

‘What’s the matter, Aunty?’ the little girl asks. ‘Are you sad?’

For a long time the lady doesn’t move, but then she turns to look at the girl. Her mouth bends upwards but her eyes still have the same faraway look they did when she was staring out across the grey, choppy waves.

‘A little,’ she says and her eyeballs get all shiny.

The girl takes an extra-big slurp of her ice cream and then she reaches out for the woman’s free hand. They’re very pretty hands. They’re clean and she always has such shiny nail polish. Today, it’s red to match her coat. ‘Why are you sad?’

The woman kneels down so she’s at eye level with the girl. ‘Only because I know this lovely holiday will have to end soon,’ she says, ‘but I’m having so much fun with you I don’t want it to.’

The girl grins. ‘Me neither! Can we just stay here forever, Aunty? Please, please, please?’

The seaside is much, much better than home. There’s no shouting or shut doors and there’s room. Room to run. Room to breathe. Sometimes, when she and Aunty are out together the little girl just spends ages making her chest puff in and out, feeling the salt at the back of her tongue and the clean coldness in her chest.

Before the woman can answer the girl, her scoop of ice cream slides off her cornet and onto the rough planks of the pier. ‘Silly me!’ she says as she looks at it. ‘Raspberry ripple is my favourite, too!’ She delves into her shiny black handbag, picks out a tissue and mops the sticky mess from her fingers.

‘Don’t cry!’ the girl says as a tear slides down the woman’s face. She holds her cornet out. ‘I know it’s only mint choc chip, but you can share mine.’

That makes the woman smile properly, but for some reason the tears fall even harder. She takes a tiny lick and then hands the cone back to the girl. ‘Thank you, Heather,’ she says, and the girl thinks nobody has ever said her name in such a lovely way before, all soft and husky with their eyes full of sunshine.

The little girl hugs the woman, holding her arm out so she doesn’t get pale-green ice cream on the smart red coat. ‘I love you, Aunty,’ she says as she presses her face against the scratchy sleeve.

‘I love you too.’

They hold each other for a long time and then they walk back down the pier hand in hand. When they reach the end, the girl starts to turn right, towards the crazy golf. The woman starts to go that way too, but then she stops. The girl tugs her hand but she doesn’t move. She’s staring at something across the road. The girl can’t see what, because a fat man eating a warm doughnut is in her way, but then his friend calls him and he hurries off. Aunty starts walking briskly.

‘We’re going the wrong way!’ the girl says as they trot along. ‘We’re supposed to be going to the crazy golf!’

‘Not this afternoon,’ the woman replies. She’s looking straight ahead and her voice is all tight. ‘We’ll go back to the B&B and play cards and eat cheese-and-onion crisps, your favourite. How about that?’

The girl nods, even though that’s not what she wants to do. The woman has been very kind bringing her on this holiday and she doesn’t want to be ungrateful, but she also doesn’t understand. Aunty looks worried, and crazy golf has never made her worried before. The only time she has looked scared on their holiday so far was the moment when the special train that climbs up the cliff lurched as it started its journey. She held tight onto the railing and wouldn’t look down when the girl tried to show her how small the people were getting.

The girl has to run a little bit to keep up with the woman as they head back to the B&B. Her head is bobbing up and down, which makes looking over her shoulder difficult, but she eventually manages to do it. There’s nothing there to be worried about behind them, though. Only a policeman, and he’s giving directions to an old couple with white hair. He’s not even looking their way.

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_d2e33d96-0c55-5765-9c9c-bfd7aabb6b5c)

DAISY CHAIN

I pick up a yellowing atlas with a musty-smelling cover. There’s something inside, something that pushes the pages apart, inviting investigation. A bookmark, I suppose. I could be contrary and choose a different place to open the book but I let the pages fall where they want to. There’s no bookmark, just a circle of crushed flowers, pressed flat and paper thin. Daisies. If I touch them, the petals might crumble. I don’t have many memories of my childhood, but I remember putting this here. This is my first daisy chain, the one my sister, Faith, showed me how to make. She taught me to choose the ones with the fattest, hairiest stems, and how to use my fingernail to make a half-moon in the plump green flesh so they didn’t break. Yet they were still so fragile, so easy to crush without meaning to.

NOW

Heather shouldn’t be there. Everything inside her tells her to turn around, walk briskly out of the shop and run back to her car, but she doesn’t. Instead, she stops in front of a display rack of shoes. She imagines the feet that will go inside them – pink and pudgy, with unbelievably small toes that beg to be kissed.

How can something so innocent be so dangerous?

A pair catches her eye. They aren’t bright and gaudy like many of the others, shouting their cheerfulness. They are tiny. Delicate. Made of cream corduroy with yellow and white daisies embroidered over the toes and a mother-of-pearl button instead of a buckle. Maybe that’s why she reaches out and touches them, even though she knows she shouldn’t. Maybe that’s why she lets her fingers run over the tiny, furry ridges of the fabric.

As soon as she makes contact, she knows she’s crossed a threshold. That’s it now. Even though she’s telling herself inside her head that she can stop herself this time, she knows she’s going to do it. She knows these are the ones.

She pulls her hand back and shoves it in her jacket pocket, anchors it there by making a fist, then browses the adjacent stand: floppy sun hats for doll-sized heads, pastel socks all lined up in pleasing pairs. She tries to forget about the shoes.

She wanders round the ground floor of the Bromley branch of Mothercare, a path she’s taken so many times now that she does it automatically. She’s been coming here for years, just browsing, just looking at the miniature clothes, all clean and bright and smelling of hope, even though she has no child at home. But it’s changed from how it used to be. It’s no longer a leisure activity; it’s a compulsion.

As she walks she notices the blonde sales assistant – the bossy one with the sharp eyes – is busy serving a small queue at the till. The other one, the new one, is attempting to show a heavily pregnant woman how to collapse one of the prams on display, but she can’t work out how to do it. Both sales assistant and customer are totally absorbed in the search for the right button or catch. Heather can’t see anyone else on duty.

That’s when she does it.

That’s when she turns swiftly and walks back to the rack of shoes, her feet making hardly any sound on the vinyl floor. That’s when her hands become someone else’s, when she slides the plastic hanger holding the daisy shoes off the pole and into her handbag.

She looks around. The sales assistants are still occupied, neither looking her way. No one shouts. No one comes running. So with her heart punching against her ribcage, she heads for the exit, doing her best to pretend this is a normal Saturday afternoon.

When she finally makes it through the doors and the warm spring air hits her, she has to hold back the urge to vomit. She walks down the pedestrianized section of the High Street, blinking furiously, not really caring where she’s going.

A little voice in her head tells her to go back, to reverse what she’s just done, to slide the shoes back where they belong – no one will ever know! – or even better, she should just surreptitiously pull them out of her bag once she’s back inside the shop, go up to the till and hand the cash over.

Heather starts running then, shame, regret and disgust with herself powering her strides, and she doesn’t stop until she’s at the top of the multi-storey car park, standing outside her car. She doesn’t remember pressing the button for the lift, or pushing her ticket into the parking machine and pulling it out again while it spat out her change. She doesn’t care, though. She just dives inside her car and yanks the door closed, shutting the world outside, insulating herself from what she’s just done.

She throws her handbag onto the passenger seat and braces her hands on the steering wheel. It’s the only way she can get them to stop shaking.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_eb176efc-43c3-5cd6-baa7-0b0a0325667b)

NOW

Heather is tempted to park around the corner from her flat, even though she knows it’s a stupid idea. It won’t stop the police finding her. They might have tailed her all the way from Bromley High Street and down the hill into the depths of Shortlands. Or they could just look up her registration with the DVLA and find out where her flat is. They have computers in their cars that do that now. She’s seen them on TV.

She parks on the drive, as close to the front door as possible, then grabs her handbag and scurries into the large Victorian house. It was probably once the dwelling of a well-to-do middle-class family, but now it has been carved into three flats, nice but not particularly upmarket. Heather has her head down when she arrives in the hallway, her legs working hard to carry her to her front door as fast as possible. It’s only when she spots a pair of soft, brown desert boots in her field of vision that she stops and looks up.

‘Great,’ the owner of the boots says. ‘I was hoping I’d run into you.’

Heather tries to say something but her mouth has gone dry. ‘R-really?’ she stammers.

He smiles and nods. Even that small gesture has the power to cause her stomach to produce an Olympic-worthy somersault. Perfect tens from all the judges.

He runs his hand through hair that probably needs a cut. ‘Yeah… I’m having plumbing issues. A guy has been round to take a look, and it’s sorted for now, but he told Carlton the whole house might need seeing to, so don’t be surprised if he gets in contact.’

Heather nods. She doesn’t like Carlton, their landlord, much – he’s nosy, always wanting an excuse to get inside her flat and poke around – but she hasn’t had any issues with her water supply, so she reckons she’s probably safe for now. ‘Thanks for letting me know,’ she says quietly.

Jason puts a foot on the bottom stair, preparing to return to his first-floor flat. As he does, it breaks Heather’s trance and she remembers why she’s hurrying towards her front door, why her handbag is burning underneath her arm. She starts to move but he turns and smiles that smile again. She has to try very hard not to reach out for the cool, solid wall for support.

‘We never did get a raincheck on that coffee,’ he says, looking straight into her eyes. Usually, she finds it hard to maintain eye contact with other people, but with Jason it’s not as difficult. ‘My sisters clubbed together and bought me one of those fancy pod machines for my birthday. Don’t suppose you want to help me christen it?’

She feels as if everything inside her is straining towards him, even as she grips her handbag tighter against her body with her elbow. He must see her hesitation, because then he adds, ‘Or there’s always good old instant. I make a mean cup of instant, even if I do say so myself.’

The contents of the handbag burn hotter against her torso and she looks helplessly at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, ‘I can’t today…’ and then, before he can begin to unpick her shabby excuse, she turns and heads for her door. It’s only when it’s closed safely again and she’s leaning against it that she feels her pulse start to slow.

She exhales loudly. Jason Blake. He’s been living here for a few months now, and every time she bumps into him she feels like this. She thought it would wear off after a while, but if anything it’s getting worse.