The Book of You: A Novel

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The Book of You: A Novel Page 25

by Claire Kendal


  The snowdrops reminded her of how quickly winter was dissolving into spring, and that in days the trial would be over. She loved being able to see him each day; she didn’t want that ever to end. The scent of wild garlic was in the air as they climbed the hill. It seemed only a few minutes before they were in her flat, and she noticed for the first time that the top of his head was only inches from the low ceiling. She stood before him, surprised by her own shyness.

  “Do you want coffee, Robert?”

  “Ah—no.” He took a long time to say “Ah,” then shot out the “no” with wry decisiveness.

  “Do you want tea?”

  There it was again. Smile, quick negative shake of the head, brief pause before an amused and definite “No.”

  She stood on her toes and kissed him, feeling his arms go around her. “Is there anything you want?”

  His hands were sliding down her back. He was unzipping her dress. “I just want you.”

  He didn’t finish taking the dress off, though it had fallen from one of her shoulders, leaving it bare. She was leading him into the living room, toward the sofa, sitting him down, unzipping his trousers but not taking them off, either, slipping off her underwear and moving onto his lap so that he was inside her, his mouth against hers as she wrapped herself around him and felt him whisper her name against her lips and she whispered back his own name and that she just wanted him, too.

  Friday

  SHE TURNED HER head to the side so her chin rested on her shoulder and her nose was close to her hair. She hadn’t washed it that morning. She’d wanted to keep the scent of his soap and his body in it, which she’d caught from brushing against him and sleeping with her head on his chest.

  She breathed in once more, then straightened and looked forward as Mr. Harker called his one witness on behalf of Godfrey.

  Joanna Sinclair was short and solid with black-and-blond-streaked hair that made Clarissa think of a zebra. She tottered awkwardly toward the witness box in high-heeled red shoes. Godfrey grudged her a cool nod and sat forward.

  Mr. Harker began his questions, Annie huffed, and Clarissa studied Robert’s shoulders, remembering what his muscles felt like beneath her hands.

  SHE MADE A supreme effort to surface from her daydream of Robert when Mr. Morden rose to cross-examine. “I know your first name is Joanna. Does Mr. Godfrey ever call you Jo?”

  Godfrey gave his head a quick negative shake, coaching her.

  “No,” Miss Sinclair said. “Nobody calls me Jo.”

  “Mr. Godfrey says the phone the police seized from him on his arrest wasn’t his. That phone was used in the van that carried Miss Lockyer to London, and in the flat where she was held. Your number was saved in that phone under the name of Jo.”

  “So?”

  “So Mr. Godfrey sent two texts the day before his arrest. Both to ‘Jo.’ Both found in your own seized mobile. This was the first: ‘I’m on my way. I want you waiting for me naked.’ ”

  Miss Sinclair’s pale face flashed red beneath her caked-on makeup. “I don’t recall receiving that text,” she said. “He could have been sending it to any number of girls called Jo.”

  “Let’s try the second one. ‘Talk to you in the park ’cause this phone is gonna die.’ Can you think of any reasons why Mr. Godfrey would want to kill that phone?”

  ANNIE WAS TALKING in a low voice in the cloakroom again. “Those two have a little boy together.” She sighed. “Hardly Romeo and Juliet, are they? Though their future’s about as bright.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, Annie.”

  Very lightly, Annie reached out and smoothed a stray hair from Clarissa’s eyes. “You poor sweet thing,” she said, shaking her head in affectionate wonder. “I hope so, too.”

  ON THE WAY back to Bath that night, Clarissa sat alone, just as she’d walked to the station alone that morning. Robert had left her flat very early, kissing her good-bye when she was still half asleep and whispering that he needed to stop by his house before court.

  As she stepped off the train, walked down the stairs, exited the station, she watched Robert, ten steps ahead of her. She nearly called out to him but stopped herself; it was her intractable reluctance to impose herself on anyone. The distance between them increased as he hurriedly crossed the road and walked on without turning back for even a second. Then he disappeared from her sight altogether.

  WEEK SEVEN

  The Drying Room

  Monday and Wednesday

  THEY SPENT MONDAY morning waiting around for the boy with the purple-tipped hair.

  It didn’t take long for the poker game to get into full swing. Clarissa hovered on the edges, hand-sewing the last touches of a bag for her mother’s birthday, knocking off the classic Chanel flap style in dark-blue silk that made her think of a midnight storm.

  “I want one,” Annie said. “Are you taking orders?”

  “And me,” said Wendy.

  Clarissa smiled but only briefly lifted her eyes. “You’re both too nice.”

  “The usher should take away your needle and scissors.” Sophie was arranging her cards and looking cross. “The security guards should have stopped you.”

  “Yeah. Think of the damage she could do to Sparkle with those little things,” Annie said. “Are you going to tell on her?”

  “The usher can see what she’s doing,” Wendy said. “He isn’t bothered. He already knew she had them anyway. From when she mended my skirt.”

  Clarissa’s chair was just behind Robert’s. He couldn’t have failed to hear this exchange. His back remained straight as he concentrated on his hand. The men laughed loudly at his jokes, nodding in agreement with everything he said. She wondered if firemen were all automatically popular.

  She tried to tell herself that she was wrong in thinking he hadn’t met her eye all morning, that he hadn’t looked at her or even spoken to her since he’d left her flat so early on Friday. But she hadn’t caught even a flash of the blue of his eyes.

  Robert was talking about an actor in a spy film he’d just seen. “He’s a hunk.” There was more riotous laughter at one of his jokes. Clarissa didn’t laugh. She didn’t think it was funny.

  She pricked herself with the needle. A drop of blood fell from her finger and onto the fabric.

  “I wonder where he is?” she said softly, thinking of their missing fellow juror. “It’s not like him not to turn up. There must be something wrong.”

  “Clarissa’s right,” Robert said, making her heart clutch.

  Grant guffawed. “Put him in the cells overnight with the boys. He’ll be Sparkle’s new bitch. But first the judge is gonna call him into his chambers and spank him.”

  The others laughed—Robert, too—but Clarissa did not.

  THEY DIDN’T TAKE their seats in the jury box until noon. The judge looked solemn. “I am sorry to say that Mr. McElwee is unwell. It is permissible to drop down to a jury of eleven, or even to the legal minimum of nine. But my preference—as long as it does not result in too long a delay—is not to lose any jurors at this late stage. I am therefore dismissing you until Wednesday morning, when the doctor hopes Mr. McElwee will be able to return. If he is not, then I will discharge him from this jury and we will resume without him.”

  ON WEDNESDAY MORNING all twelve of them filed into Court 12 as usual.

  The trial was almost over, Clarissa thought. The room seemed to be spinning. She studied the soft brown hairs on the back of Robert’s neck, and the faint snail trail of clean sweat behind his right ear. She wanted to smell him, to nestle her face between his shoulders. She’d have to go away from here, out of this building, back into a world where she would no longer see him every day, the world where he wasn’t. Though she wasn’t sure how much she liked this new version of the world she was about to lose, where he no longer seemed to want to look at her.

  She fantasized a blizzard. Anything to shut the court down, to delay the end, to give herself more time with him. She’d counted on days and days of defendant te
stimony and counter testimony, but they’d blown away without even beginning as Doleman, Sparkle, and Godfrey all declined to go into the witness box.

  She felt a funny quiver, low down and in the center of her belly. Then it was gone.

  Mr. Morden scanned the jurors, meeting each of their eyes as he began his summing up.

  Her head was so foggy and tired she couldn’t pay attention. Besides, she’d listened carefully enough when he first said it all. By the time she tuned in again, he was finishing. She was so confused by how many minutes had passed since he started, she wondered if she was getting ill.

  She was the worst juror ever. Mr. Williams was sitting down before she even realized he’d ever stood up. Then Mr. Belford was on his feet, and once more her mind wandered. Had her brain, after seven weeks, reached true saturation point?

  Mr. Tourville was the only one who didn’t cast a sleeping spell upon her. “Mr. Doleman is no rapist. He is no kidnapper. He is no drug dealer. He is a hardworking family man who was in gainful employment until his arrest. He is the long-term partner of a beautiful young woman. He is the loving father of their young son. Mr. Doleman is guilty of only one thing. He made some very bad choices in his friends. You cannot send him to jail for that. Oh, no. You cannot.”

  CLARISSA WAS SHIVERING on the platform, waiting for them to unlock the train doors so she could board. Only Sparkle’s barrister and Mr. Harker still had to do their closing speeches. Then there’d be the judge’s instructions. She’d need to be more alert.

  A hand brushed her shoulder. She wheeled around, surprised to find that the hand belonged to Robert, who was apologizing for startling her.

  Her own words were out before she could stop herself. “Come back with me.” She tried to smile. “You’re an addiction.”

  “So are you.” His voice was low, as if he were whispering to her in bed. “But I can’t tonight. You see that, don’t you? We’re about to go into deliberation. Last week . . . we should have waited. I’m glad we didn’t, but we should have. I’m cautious. I know I haven’t behaved as if I am, but I am. I should have explained. Once this is over . . .” he said. “It won’t be long . . .” he said.

  He was practiced at breaking bad news; he did it every day at work, much worse news than this. She could feel her face growing warm. Still, she couldn’t keep herself from saying what she did: “If you change your mind . . . I mean, even if it’s late . . .” But she saw he was a man who never changed his mind about anything, big or small, once he’d made it up. She’d known that from the start, really. She hated begging him; she didn’t want him at any cost.

  There was a click of the lock release as the lights on the train doors switched from amber to green. Robert swung a door open for her, and she stepped carefully over the gap.

  She made herself turn to half look at him, standing on the platform, just a few feet away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Robert.” She tried again to smile, but something weak and weird took over her face instead. “I need to . . . do some things,” she said feebly.

  “I understand,” he said. “Clarissa,” he said. “I might . . .”

  “Good night,” she said, and she walked quickly through the carriage. It was her turn not to look back.

  Wednesday and Thursday

  SHE THOUGHT SHE’D never sleep, lying in her old bed, the bed that was no longer the bed where the awful things had happened, no longer the bed where those photos were taken. It was now the bed that Robert had been in. She was beneath the quilt cover she hadn’t washed because she didn’t want to wash away any part of him. But she did fall into sleep.

  She was in the drying room, his favorite part of the fire station, a place she’d never actually seen, a forbidden realm not meant for her, but he was with her, kissing her, lifting her up, running his hands down her arms, holding them above her head, and standing back to look at her. “Robert,” she tried to say, but the word wouldn’t come out and he wasn’t there anymore.

  The drying room wasn’t the drying room anymore. It was Bluebeard’s chamber, and the dummies were no longer dummies. They were dead women with sheeted faces and blood on their mouths that seeped through their shrouds like garish kisses. They swayed from the nooses they hung from, as if blown gently by a quiet wind. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get air. She tried to raise an arm to the doorknob, to turn it, but her arm wouldn’t move. She tried to scream, but her lips wouldn’t move. There was a weight over the entire length of her body. Bile was rising from her stomach, and it hurt her throat to try to gulp it back. Her arms were above her head. She tugged, but something cut into her wrists.

  She opened her eyes to the face she least wanted to see.

  It wasn’t possible, she thought. He couldn’t really be here. He was supposed to be in jail. DC Hughes had said he was in jail. This was only a nightmare. She told herself to wake up.

  She tried to twist, to throw him off her, tried to kick at him, but he only pressed his body into hers harder, panicking her that she couldn’t move at all. There was an inhuman muffled noise, and she saw that she was making those animal noises, not making words.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against him, trying again to force herself back into sleep, telling herself again that it was only a nightmare, he had to be in jail. Had to be. They wouldn’t let him out and not tell her.

  “Open your eyes.” He grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her head back; something dug into her neck. “Open your eyes if you don’t want to choke, Clarissa.” She opened her eyes. He released the pressure on her neck. “You were waiting for me, weren’t you? You wanted me to come. You just couldn’t let yourself say it.”

  Her heart was pounding so fiercely she thought it would burst. She thought it was beating too much to keep going, that it would give one last squeeze and then stop. She tried again to push him away, but the skin of her wrists felt as if it were being flayed and her shoulders strained so badly she thought her arms would fall off.

  He buried his face in her stomach, put his hands beneath her hips, kneading through the silk of her nightdress and pulling her up against him. “You smell so good. It’s all for me, isn’t it? You’ve been thinking about me, haven’t you? And my plans for you. Can you imagine what they are?”

  He scoured her cheeks with the quilt. “Are you crying because you’re sorry?” She tried to nod yes, but only moved her head a little, scared that she would strangle otherwise.

  He reached down the side of the bed. When he brought his hand back up, there was a knife in it, the blade tapered into a spear point, and she heard herself moan. “Shall we talk about how you’ve been treating me? I promised I’d punish you, didn’t I?” He put the knife down, the end of its tortoiseshell handle touching her waist.

  “Pretty nightdress.” It was bunched up, high on her thighs. She was jerking her arms, wanting to tug it down. He smoothed a hand over the smoky purple silk. He grabbed her shoulders. “Did you make it for the fireman?” She started to move her head, no, but again felt the ring around her throat tighten. He ran a finger along it, testing it, then loosening it. “Throttling’s too easy, Clarissa. You’re not getting out of this that simply and quickly.”

  He picked up the knife. “This is very sharp.” He lifted the hem and held it taut, then split the nightdress all the way up through the center, sliding the blade slowly forward. “Are you frightened?” She was trying to squash her back into the mattress and away from the knife, sobbing noiselessly. “You should be. I can see you are. I like that.”

  The knife was resting between her breasts, pointed toward her chin. She was holding her breath, afraid that even the smallest movement of her chest would make him draw blood.

  “I’d thought you were a true princess, but you’re not. You’re like the others. You don’t look like a princess now.” He jerked the knife straight upward, abruptly, and she screamed, but the only sound was a sickening squeak that didn’t stop until she realized the knife hadn’t touched her. “I could have undressed you while you were st
ill chloroformed, but I wanted you awake for this. I’ve been dreaming about this.” He sliced through one of the spaghetti straps, then the other.

  He put the knife down near her head, parted the shorn fabric, and twisted one of her nipples, making her cry out another muffled cry. “How do you think I felt, seeing you with him? You didn’t care, did you? You’ve been provoking me, Clarissa. Deliberately.” He shook her so hard she thought he’d given her whiplash, thought her brain was smashing inside her skull.

  “You’re worse than my previous girlfriend. No matter how much I do for you, it’s never enough. You tell me to go away, and you find someone else. Another married man, no less. Not that you’d spare a thought for poor Mrs. Fireman.” Spit was foaming in the corners of his mouth. “You fucked him when I was in jail, didn’t you? But he got bored of you, once he’d fucked you.”

  He was pressing a hand between her legs. “He doesn’t know what you need.” He was creeping his fingers beneath the underwear she’d made from the same silk as the nightdress. He was pulling off his shirt, unbuckling his belt. She was squeezing her thighs together, but he was cutting her underwear at the hips with the knife and ripping it away. He was jerking her legs apart. “You don’t make it easy for me to control myself.”

  She tried to kick him. He punched her, hard, in the stomach, leaving her floppy, making her retch so that she thought she would die by choking on her own vomit. She could taste salt and metal. He wrapped something around each of her ankles, lashing them to the bedposts. She was trying to pull her legs free, trying to say the word no, again and again, no, but she couldn’t make even that one syllable sound like a word.

  Then he was taking photographs. Each time the flash went off, it stabbed through her eyes and he shook her until she obeyed his command to open them again and look at him. At last, he put his camera down and lay on top of her. She was squirming, thrashing, trying to roll herself away.

 

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