The Memory Keepers (3 page)

3

‘What an effing waste of time that was,’ Seven grumbled to himself as he pulled off the metal cap and let it drop on its cables to the side of the memory-machine. He rubbed his temples where the pincers had dug. ‘That’s eight minutes and thirty-one seconds of my life I’m never getting back. You’re going in the bin, R.L.S. And you!’ He detached the wristbands from his arms and waggled a finger at the room. ‘You better get your act together. Dunno why that skid was in that cabinet. It should’ve been filed under
So Boring Your Eyes Will Fall Out.
’

Grinning at his own joke, he glanced round the room, half-waiting for a laugh he knew wouldn’t come. There was no cabinet under that name. Instead, he’d stuck the label to the bin behind the door.

Seven pushed the machine to the corner of the room, distracted now. How did that skid end up in the
Fear, Desperation and General Wetting-your-pants Kind of Stuff
cabinet? Every new memory he thieved was filed away after its first surf. There was no way he’d have ever considered that one as anywhere near pant-wetting stuff. It was just a vast, empty space of blackness that seemed to have no end, and the low buzz of voices whose words he couldn’t make out. He must have made a mistake when sorting it.

But as Seven slipped out of the room, locking the door quickly behind him, an unbidden thought fluttered at the corner of his mind:
I’m a skid-thief. I don’t make mistakes.

I can’t afford to.

Seven had a few hours to kill before going to the skid-market that night, so he spent the rest of the afternoon on the roof of the flats where he lived. Because Butler often overheated, he was limited to just one or two surfs a day. If he didn’t have to worry about breaking his memory-machine for good, Seven knew he’d be on it all the time. There wasn’t much else to do around South.

The roof had become his private hang-out place. He told himself it was because he liked the view – which was true – but he ignored the other truth. That the group of big boys who hung in the courtyard, smoking and drinking cheap beer and vandalising every inanimate object in sight, saw Seven as an experiment to find the limits of how many punches a teenage boy can take and still stand (hint – not that many). So he’d learnt to stay well away whenever their voices echoed up from the courtyard.

Seven could hear them now from where he sat on the edge of the rooftop, thirty floors up. He was positioned facing the city towards North: the beautiful half of London, all glittering glass towers, green parks and immaculate homes. This view was one of the reasons he’d moved into this particular block of flats. The building was right on the upper edge of Vauxhall, next to the broad band of the River Thames, silver now under the blaze of the sun.

Watching North from high up here, Seven could pretend he was a part of its world. That he wasn’t stuck on a pigeon-dirtied rooftop in South. That there weren’t grimy, smog-choked streets stretching out behind his back like an ugly grey blanket. That all he had to do was open his arms and he’d fly out over the swollen curve of the river, and South would be a thing of the past.

(Seven would never admit it to anyone, not even himself – but once, a couple of years ago on his fifteenth birthday, after a particularly bad run-in with the courtyard boys, he had seriously considered opening his arms and jumping from the edge of the rooftop, knowing full well he wouldn’t fly.)

Closing his eyes, Seven leant back on his arms, legs stretched out in front of him. Even though it was late afternoon the sun was still strong. A heavy, pressing tongue of heat. Sweat prickled his skin, sticking his thin shirt and slim blue trousers to his skin.

He tried not to think about what he’d be doing that night. Seven always felt nervous the day before a job. Excitement came when darkness fell, the whole city seeming to take on a different identity in the night, transforming into a world where anything was possible.

But this was no ordinary job. This was the White family’s house. It was like looping a noose round your own effing neck and handing the rope to the devil.

‘Hey, man.’

Seven jumped at the voice. Thinking it was the boys from the courtyard, he scrambled to his feet and spun round, but it was just one of his flatmates, Kola.

Kola was a tall, wiry Malaysian boy with handsome features and deep mahogany skin. He’d come to London when he was ten to escape the ethnic riots that had claimed the lives of his family. Though they got on OK, there was something about Kola that unsettled Seven. Maybe it was how quiet he was, sombre even, or the fact that Kola’s eyes were so dark you felt as though you were falling into them when you looked straight at him.

The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds. Then, breaking his gaze, Kola strolled over and sat down beside Seven. He looked out at the city.

‘So this is where you go every day.’ He spoke slowly, every word turned in his thick Malaysian accent.

Seven shrugged. ‘Nowhere else to go, really.’

‘True.’

‘And the view  … ’

‘It
is
good,’ said Kola, nodding. ‘I come here too sometimes, though I don’t often get to see it in the daylight.’

They fell silent. Seven thought this was probably the longest conversation they’d had since Kola answered his ad for a flatmate four years ago. Kola worked at the docks during the day and Seven was out thieving at night (not that Kola knew that – Seven told him he did night shifts at a construction site), so their paths rarely crossed.

‘I thought I should warn you,’ Kola said suddenly. ‘The boys who hang out in the courtyard. One of them said he saw you come up here. They were thinking about coming to look for you.’

Instinctively, Seven’s body tensed. It was as though every inch of him remembered the feeling of the boys’ knuckles, their heavy boots, and was trying to shrink away, hide from the memory of the pain.

The possibility of more.

He swallowed hard.

‘Do you want to fight them?’

Seven snapped his head round. Kola was staring ahead, gaze still trained on North. His face was expressionless. Sunlight turned his dark eyes amber.

‘Do I  … 
what
?’ Seven spluttered.

Kola didn’t turn. ‘Do you want to fight them?’ he repeated, voice flat. ‘It’s just that we’re a bit outnumbered.’

A strangled laugh caught in Seven’s throat.
Understatement of the effing century
, he thought. It took him a few seconds more to realise Kola had said
we
.

‘Er, maybe next time.’

Kola nodded. He stood up, patting down his trousers. ‘Well, they’ll be here in a few minutes.’ Before Seven could reply, he turned and walked back to the stairs leading down from the roof.

Seven waited a couple of minutes before hurrying down after him. By the time he got back to their flat on the twenty-third floor, the door to Kola’s room was shut, the silence behind it sounding louder than it ever had before.

4

The house was quiet when Alba and Dolly arrived home. They’d taken their time, going on a detour through the grounds of the estate, Alba telling Dolly all about stuck-up Rosemary Dalton and the two of them laughing as they planned increasingly outrageous ways to get revenge. But as soon as they walked through the tall front doors of the house, they fell silent.

Something was wrong.

Alba knew the rhythms of the house inside out. Late in the afternoon on a school day it should be filled with noises: voices drifting from the kitchens as the maids prepared dinner; cutlery clinking as the butlers set the dining table. Her mother would be in her parents’ private quarters in the east wing, reading or listening to music, or talking on a tablet with another society wife.

But today the house was silent. Alba’s heart began to flutter. Her mother must be having one of her bad turns.

She hadn’t had one in a long while. She’d been kind, happy, on the sunlit side of her coin. It was only a matter of time before she fell back into the darkness.

Dolly squeezed Alba’s shoulder reassuringly. ‘I’ll find out what it is,’ she whispered, before heading off towards the kitchens.

Alba waited. The silence was heavy, pressing in on her like a weight.
It’ll pass, it’ll pass
,
she thought over and over, something she’d done since young to calm herself when bad things were about to happen.

It’ll pass.

It’ll pass.

When Dolly returned a few minutes later, Alba could tell straight away by the look on her face that things were
not
going to pass this time. Not for a long time.

And not without trouble.

‘Straight to your room,’ Dolly said quietly, clutching Alba’s hand and leading her across the hall. It would have been quicker going up the curving flight of stairs that swept up one side, but that brought them too close to her parents’ quarters. Too close to her mother. They went instead to the servants’ staircase at the back of the house.

‘What happened this time?’ Alba murmured when they were inside the hidden passageway, the marble walls close around them as they started the tight circle upwards. Tiny lights like stars winked out of the walls. She could feel Dolly’s heartbeat against her palm, smell the warm, woody scent of her handmaid’s skin.

‘A rumour about your mother has been going round. Something particularly nasty, by the sounds of it. Some of the women at a lunch she attended today snubbed her because of it.’

Of course
, Alba thought. It was always to do with North society. As Alastair White’s wife, her mother was one of the most powerful women in North, and therefore one of the most envied. Other women in North would kill for the privilege of being married to the city’s lead criminal prosecutor (perhaps they had already tried. Alba wouldn’t put it past them).

‘Into your room and straight to bed,’ Dolly said when they reached the second floor. She put a light kiss on Alba’s forehead before turning to leave. ‘I’ll sneak you some food as soon as I can.’

Alba waited until she was alone in the quiet back-passage before drawing a deep breath. She stood tall, gathering her courage before opening the door and stepping out into the hall.

The walk round the corner to her bedroom felt as though it was miles and miles long, even though it only took a few seconds. Alba slipped inside and shut the door silently behind her. She didn’t let out her puff of held breath until she was safely laid down on her large, wrought-iron bed, painted white with decorative flowers worked into the metal and purple silk sheets draped across the mattress. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed her face into the duvet.

It took a while for her heartbeats to slow.

Sometime later, Alba woke to a darkened room. She hadn’t meant to doze off. Her mouth felt dry. Grey shadows stretched across the bleached floorboards, the barest hint of silver touching the edges of the furniture that filled the room.

She noticed straight away there was noise in the house now; metallic clattering and footsteps, orchestral music floating beneath it all, the swell and fall of strings filling the air like spun threads of gold. Cooking smells rose from the kitchens below.

Alba pushed herself up, swinging her legs off the bed just as the door to her room opened.

Dolly smiled as she entered, though her face was tight. ‘Oh good. You’re awake. Your mother’s mood has improved. She’s decided she wants a big dinner ready by the time your father gets home.’

Alba rubbed her eyes. ‘What time is it?’

‘Just after eight.’ Dolly sat at Alba’s side and begun fussing with her hair, which was mussed from sleep. ‘And we’ve only got fifteen minutes until dinner  …  so we’re lucky you got a little extra beauty sleep.’

‘Hey!’ Laughing, Alba poked Dolly in the ribs.

Dolly worked fast. In just ten minutes, she’d transformed Alba’s messy, after-school hair into an elegant bun at the nape of her neck – little flowers plucked from the gardens threaded through her curls – and dressed her in a pretty dress made of a shimmering, pearl-coloured silk. She had also washed Alba’s face and dabbed a swirl of cream blusher on her cheeks and a pink tint for her lips.

Alba watched Dolly in the dressing-table mirror as her handmaid fastened a set of heavy gold necklaces round her neck.

‘When will you show me how to dye my hair like yours?’ she asked, eyeing the glossy swirls of Dolly’s purple hair, still in their usual buns.

‘You know how much your mother would hate that.’

‘That’s
exactly
why I want to do it.’

Dolly’s lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything. That was one of the (many) reasons Alba loved her. Dolly didn’t patronise her with empty words about how dearly her mother cared for her, how cherished she was as a daughter even if she didn’t always feel it.

Because, of course, she wasn’t cherished. Any idiot could see that. Alba just wished that any idiot also knew not to try and convince her she was.

The worst part of it was, Alba wanted to believe them. When her mother was in one of her good moods, like she had been for the last few weeks, she could almost see it. Her mother’s affection came out slowly, unfurling like a veil of gold smoke that turned her world glittery and beautiful. And then she’d snap, just like that, and the fall was all the worse because Alba had allowed herself to think once again that her mother really did care, that she
was
cherished above all else.

Dolly curled a hand round Alba’s shoulder. ‘Two more years and then you’ll be studying English Literature at one of the world’s top universities,’ she said, smiling. ‘Somewhere far away from here. What do you fancy? India? Switzerland? Or how about America? I’ve heard our relations with them are finally improving.’

‘I want to go anywhere Professor Nightingale isn’t,’ replied Alba, and this got an immediate laugh from Dolly, though she fell silent just as quickly.

From downstairs, the dinner bell had rung.

5

He arrived at the ruins of Battersea Power Station just past eight. In October the sun set fast, and the huge building was pitch-black against the glittering riverside streets and promenades of North across the river. The only lights were the reflections licking the water, the headlights of river-taxis and container ships making their way along the Thames.

Seven always found it eerie here in the darkness, the sounds of water slapping against the walls of the flooded building and low groans as wind found its way in through the station’s crumbling bricks and partially collapsed roof. Broken concrete slabs and discarded shells of old boats littered the muddy floor. The scurrying noises of rats, invisible in the dark, set him on edge.

Picking his way carefully over the uneven ground, Seven made his way to a hidden entrance round the north side of the building. Anyone who didn’t know better would walk straight past its shadowy opening (not that they’d even be here in the first place, of course) without noticing what years of attending the skid-market here had taught him to look out for.

A light in the darkness of the tunnel.

Its flicker illuminated a sliver of the arched walls of the tunnel, moss glistening on the wet bricks. Seven stepped inside. The light danced back. He heard quick breaths in the shadows.

‘I’m one of Carpenter’s,’ Seven announced, voice echoing off the dripping walls.

The light edged closer. A young boy emerged, outlined in the glow of the lamp he was carrying. Tattered clothes hung off his small frame.

‘Let’s see yer ID,’ he growled, raising a gun.

Quickly, Seven yanked down the collar of his top, revealing the tattoo inked in black in the middle of his chest. It was the outline of a saw, pointing downwards: the sign of Carpenter’s skid-thief crew. Each crew had its own mark designed around its leader’s name. Carpenter was one of the most well-respected crew leaders, despite his relatively young age.

The boy nodded. ‘Get in, then,’ he said, stepping aside.

Shadows swallowed Seven as he headed deeper into the tunnel, the light from the boy’s lamp quickly fading. The whole place stank of moss and stagnant water. For a while there was nothing apart from darkness and his own breaths; the soggy sound of his footsteps on the mud-slicked floor. Then a light appeared at the end of the tunnel. As he approached, walking faster in excitement, it expanded and swelled, bright, brighter, brighter, rushing him at once in a fireball burst of colour and sound and activity.

Squinting and shading his eyes, heart drumming with energy, Seven stepped out into the enormous turbine hall of Battersea’s B Station.

The place was crawling with people. Their elongated shadows licked across the towering steel frames of the hall as they moved. The size of the hall was overwhelming; walls stretched up to a shadowy roof. In the ceiling, the long, rectangular strip of glass was blacked out with paint and wooden boards. Scaffolding crisscrossed the interior of the hall like a metallic spider’s web, and open balcony ledges ran round all four walls, remnants of the abandoned renovation work.

Seven knew London’s black market had been lucky to get such a perfect venue for its biggest skid-market practically handed to it (before this, they’d used the sewers. He was pretty glad that’d been before his time). The power station had been badly damaged in the 2089 Thames flooding. Renovation works had been forced to a halt, and after years of subsequent floods the project was finally abandoned.

Voices echoed in the vast space. Lights were strung along the railings lining the balcony edges and hung from scaffolding, bathing everything in a yellow glow. Cooking smells drifted over from one side of the hall, where steam was rising from the portable cookers the hawker stalls had set up on the first floor, taking advantage of the busy trade.

‘First things first,’ Seven said, looking towards the unfurling clouds of steam. He patted his stomach, and it responded with a loud, rumbling growl. He grinned. ‘Exactly what I was thinking.’

Seven’s boots made soft sucking noises as he headed across the water-logged floor before climbing up the scaffolding to the first-level balcony ringing the hall. He was just stepping off, still clinging to the metal frame, when a blur at the corner of his vision made him flinch.

Whoosh.

Something small and round flew by, grazing the hairs on his cheek. It smacked into the scaffolding with a crunch.

‘YOU!’

Seven spun round at the shout. He dropped to the floor just in time to duck as another apple (OK, so it wasn’t a rock like he’d first thought, but apples are pretty hard things too) whizzed past him. Ahead, a girl was striding towards him between the plastic table and chairs surrounding the food stalls. Every inch of her face was etched with anger. Her mouth – a silver hoop looped through the bottom lip – was a taut line. Sharp, slanted eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

Loe.

‘Effing hell,’ Seven muttered. ‘What’ve I done
now
?’

Loe was dressed in a grey top and skinny black trousers, ripped at the knees, a skid-thief belt slung low on her bony hips. Below the tanned skin of her collarbones was the tattoo of a saw; the same one Seven had inked on his own chest. The tattoos were always covered in public, but here the marks were almost a badge of honour.

‘
You!’ the girl snarled again. She whipped her arm back and threw another apple.

Seven only just managed to duck. ‘Loe! What the hell?’

Luckily, he noticed with a sigh of relief, she finally seemed to be out of apples.

Loe crossed her arms, her scowl deepening. ‘Oh, don’t act like you don’t know.’ Her cropped hair was messy around her face, dark strands sticking to her skin in the heat. She flicked her head to get her fringe out of her eyes. ‘Carpenter just told me about the big job the two of you have been working on for weeks. Congrats, Seven. You must be honoured. Carpenter finally chose
you
for an important job over me. What d’you have to do for it?’ She tilted her head, eyes as cutting as knife-blades. ‘Promise to do all his dirty laundry, huh?’ she said, smirking. ‘Lick the mud off his boots?’

‘Shut it, Loe,’ Seven snapped.

His cheeks were burning. He wanted to throw a punch to wipe that smirk off her face, but of course he couldn’t hit a girl (not that he could hit a boy, either – not before they got him first). Seven knew Loe was just jealous about Carpenter choosing him for the White family job. Loe and Seven had joined Carpenter’s skid-stealing crew within a month of each other. They fought hard over every job.

Just as Seven was about to tell Loe just
where
she could stick her apples, a bright voice rang out over the noise of the hall.

‘Loe! Loe! Loe!’

A girl in a red dress ran out from the crowd of food stalls. She was young, only five or six, with dark, burnt-almond skin. Her frizzy cloud of black hair was tied into a bun on the top of her head, sticking out like a bushy antenna. Reaching Loe, the girl started looping round her legs, her face glowing with delight.

‘Look what I stole from the fat old Chinese lady’s stall!’ Her voice bubbled with glee. She thrust out her hands to show off a big steamed dumpling.

Loe sighed heavily. ‘Mika,’ she groaned, crouching down. ‘What’ve I said a million times? When you steal something, you don’t go shouting about it, ’cause then what happens is –’

‘
There
she is!’

They all looked up to see a big Chinese woman in a dirty apron marching towards them, pointing a fat finger in their direction. Luckily, her size was impeding her process; her belly kept getting stuck in the tight clusters of tables and chairs.

Seven snorted. ‘Who’s the one in trouble now?’ he said, smirking.

Loe glared at him. ‘Oh, don’t think I’m finished with you. We’ll talk about this later.’ Then, scooping Mika up into her arms, she hurried past him in the opposite direction of the stall-owner, towards the scaffolding.

Mika’s large brown eyes turned to Seven as they passed. She waved a pudgy hand, the offending dumpling still clasped tightly in her fingers.

‘Seven!’ she cried, beaming. She waggled the dumpling, some of the filling spilling out. ‘Look what I stole from the fat Chinese lady!’

He grinned. ‘Nice one, Mika.’

As they disappeared down into the shadows below the scaffolding, Seven heard Loe’s exasperated sigh.

‘Mika! What did I
just
tell you?’