The Book of You: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

thank her for being so kind.
    Before I get out of the taxi, I take her card: she is a potential witness against you.
    Despite the film of sweat on my back and brow even in the cold of the morning, it has been a fairly successful start to the day in terms of managing you.
    As I move in a daze through the station, my new phone bleeps, announcing that I have an email. I look at the screen like a little girl daring herself to stare into a mirror in the dark, frightened that the face of a monster will appear. To my astonishment, the email is from the long-silent Rowena. She’s visiting Bath tonight, and she’s commanding my presence at a French restaurant I’ve never been to but Henry once said was gruesome. I email back, I’ll be there, and two kisses. Then I switch off my phone and step onto the train to Bristol.
     
    C LEARLY, THE WITNESS box was placed so its occupant would directly face the jury. But still the woman seemed so far away. In front of the jurors was an orchestra pit of twelve barristers in their wigs and black robes. Clarissa had to look over them all to get the witness in view.
    She was extremely thin, almost worryingly frail. High cheekbones. Small straight nose. Rosebud lips. Delicate chin. Softly arched brows. Tiny seashell ears that belonged on a fairy. Her dark-blond hair was in a short ponytail.
    But the closer Clarissa looked, the more she saw that the woman’s ethereal beauty was damaged. Her skin was too thin, too transparent. The firm set to her mouth and the lines etched around her huge green eyes were at odds with Clarissa’s guess that she was in her late twenties. Something had taken an unnatural toll on her.
    “She looks like you,” Annie whispered. “She just needs to grow her hair longer and you’d pass for twins. But she’s the mean version. She’s hard.”
    And probably ten years younger than I am, Clarissa thought.
    The woman sipped from the glass of water that the usher poured for her, giving him a weak nod of thanks. Her skin was so drained of blood it was hardly darker than the white gauze of the top she was wearing. The top wasn’t warm enough; she probably had goose bumps. Her hands were shaking as she held the Bible. Her voice was trembling as she took the oath.
    The judge spoke. “You are not to infer anything about the defendants from the presence of the blue screen blocking Miss Lockyer from their view. That is a very usual sight in court, simply to make witnesses feel more comfortable. That is all it means.”
    Clarissa nodded agreement up at his high bench. She could see that the others had turned their heads to the left to do the same. She wasn’t sure she believed him, though.
    “This witness will need a break every forty-five minutes,” the judge said.
    The woman nodded gratefully at him, and then it really began. Carlotta Lockyer seemed to be the only person in the room. And though Mr. Morden was speaking, too, and asking questions, he and everyone else seemed to disappear. There was only Miss Lockyer’s voice.
    I started dealing for Isaac Sparkle the summer before last, to fund my habit. Within a week I’d smoked it all myself and was money down. I thought if I ignored it, tried to avoid him, it would disappear.
    On Saturday, July twenty-eighth, I was walking home. I’d gone out to shoplift, but hadn’t managed to get anything. There was a white van on my street, partly on the pavement. When I was level with it, one of Sparkle’s couriers, Antony Tomlinson, got out the front. Sparkle got out the back with one of his dealers, Thomas Godfrey.
    Sparkle said, “Get her in the fucking van.” They picked me up and forced me in.
    Sally was in the backseat. She’s a working girl, another user. The van stopped after about five minutes. Godfrey said to Sally, “Get the fuck out.” There weren’t no door handles in back. Sally had to climb between the front seats, over Tomlinson, then out the front passenger door. I was screaming, begging them to let me out,