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

have no evidence. And as much as I’d like to help, you are not in mortal danger, so I can’t send anyone out to you in these circumstances.”
    George III looks off to the side. “Are you saying he has to hurt me before you’ll help?”
    “I’m saying that nothing can be done at this stage. There are specialist organizations and helplines that can advise you on how to document persistent harassment from a stalker. You’re going to need to be proactive about gathering evidence if you want to put a stop to what he’s doing. Get in touch with them. That’s the best course of action you can take right now.”
    I press end on the call and sit for a few minutes in the middle of the scuffed wood floor. Above me is the huge crystal chandelier. I think it might just fall on my head. I get to my feet, my knees stiff and sore, and hurry from the Great Octagon, casting one last look at Queen Charlotte before they find me and throw me out.
    S HE WAS RELIEVED to be torn from these recollections by the sight of the court building. Somehow she’d made it, despite being so distracted by bad memories she’d missed the left turn and walked on for twenty minutes before seeing she’d have to backtrack. It was only day two, but she worried that the judge might be so strict about lateness that he’d kick her off before the trial had even begun. Again she practically stumbled into the jury box.
    A ring binder lay on the desk she shared with Annie. Together, they opened it and read the charge sheets. Kidnapping. False imprisonment. Rape. Conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. Shocking, dramatic words. Words that made her wonder how she’d ended up in such a place.
    The prosecuting barrister couldn’t have been more than fifty. The lines beneath his eyes had the slant of a good-humored man, but Mr. Morden looked deadly serious as he turned to the jury box. “I’m going to tell you a story,” he began. “A true story. And not a pretty one. It’s the story of Carlotta Lockyer, and what happened to her was no fairy tale.”
    Four of the five defendants were studiously looking down, as if trying, politely, not to eavesdrop on a conversation that had nothing to do with them.
    “A year and a half ago, on the last Saturday of July, Samuel Doleman took a ride with some friends.”
    Doleman’s gray eyes were military-straight before him, though his face turned pale. His red hair was cut so close Clarissa could see his scalp. It made him look vulnerable. So did his freckles.
    “He drove them from London to Bath in a van. They were on a hunt. Their prey was Carlotta Lockyer.”
    Clarissa remembered exactly what she was doing then. She wondered if anybody else in the courtroom, other than the defendants, could. She had just finished her fourth attempt at IVF. July 28 was the date of the last pregnancy test she’d failed. She replayed the tense drive to London early on the Saturday morning to get to the lab for her blood draw. Perhaps she and Henry had even followed the van along the motorway as they returned to Bath that afternoon, Clarissa sobbing wretchedly after the clinic’s call to her mobile, Henry brooding and silent.
    “If you turn to the screens, you will see CCTV images of the defendants taken outside the entrance to Miss Lockyer’s flat.”
    Clarissa tried to shake herself back into concentration, willing her heart to slow down. She knew that flat. The building was a ten-minute walk from her own. If Rafe had caught her a few minutes later the previous morning, they’d have been standing in front of it.
    Despite the jerky, grainy footage, she could see the men moving about, fidgety and circling, peering through the glass door, banging on it with their fists, shaking the handle.
    She imagined Rafe doing that to her door. Miss Norton would have something to say about it if he dared. Miss Norton was the little old lady who lived in the ground-floor flat. Only Clarissa and Miss Norton occupied the building: the first-floor flat was