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PROLOGUE

Crazy

‘NOOOOOOO,’ I HOWL, but there is gravel or grave soil in ly, dried-up rasp travels out of my mouth My head shakes back and forth like athe horror beforemy knees buckle under me, and I find myself in a heap at the doorway of his flat Frantically, I begin to craard hi

I can’t lose him! Not him! Oh God, not him Please Not him

Two feet away frohtmare Of course it is It has to be AnyI’ll do? Call him and tell him how much I have missed him, how much I love him

I feel the floor scrape against htmare It is real

We haven’t spoken for teeks I had exaht to voiceain, I should have emailed Why hadn’t I? I should have known

I hunker down over his body,beast My buttocks hit the floor and ainst ers are blue and the rest of him is ashen and still He can’t be dead

It can’t be real!

The stillness of a dead body is impossible to describe And yet when you see it you refuse to believe it You always think it is a trick A mistake A ploy… But a needle is embedded in his arm, which is blackened with the skin stretched and unreal It looks as if it belongs elsewhere That is not my brother’s arm I know my brother’s arm as intimately as I know my own

My breathing is shallow and tres and pull the offending needle out My stomach twists It should never have entered his body in the first place I throw the syringe away It hits so and rolls on the wooden floor It also leaves a tiny hole in my brother’s flesh that does not bleed I s hard My hands are shaking badly

That means he didn’t suffer, a voice whispers in my head He did not even have tione to wherever it is he went to

Oh God! He is nineteen He can’t be gone

CPR I should give hirab his shoulders and try to drag hihs, but his body is so heavy, so cold, and so stiff and foreign that my shocked hands fly away froaze at hi his short life has stilled within his veins Everything has cooled and hardened He is like a piece of wood

With a sob of intolerable, indescribable anguish I reach for hiht toward me and lift it onto my lap I touch the soft brown hair that flops across his forehead and it feels different His scalp has hardened and changed the lie of his hair I caress his hair, his face, his hands Holding his head pressed against in to rock him the way a mother would comfort her distressed baby

But there is no coht and the action produces an odd thudthe floor I stop In a daze I look down on his face

His ainst his teeth Without the healthy sheen of saliva it looks gross I try to close his mouth, but it is locked open His eyes are not fully shut and through the slits I see the whites I try to lift a lid

to see once more the beautiful blue eyes I have known all my life

If I could at least see that

But his eyelids are glued shut They will not budge Trerueso we used to lick the salt froe desire to lick his skin

I put one hand under his head and the other under his neck and I put his head on the floor Then I scoot backwards until I a inches away froue coently cries, ‘No’

I stop and listen to peculiar silence around us It is quieter than falling snow On the tabletop I notice his fingerprints in the light layer of dust, and then so weird happens For a second I clearly perceive myself not from inside my body but from outside, crouched over ht And then the one and I lower my head and lick the last salt on the corpse’s skin

It is the beginning of ht call madness

I’

Can’t read my, can’t read my,

No, he can’t read my poker face

—Poker Face, Lady Gaga

ONE

Lily

‘FIRST STOP, EDEN,’ says Patrick, with a quick backward glance, as he pulls the eight-seater ive it your best et picked because we still have Spearmint Rhino and Diamonds after that,’ he adds cheerfully

He has a boyish face, full of charuile, but one look at him and you know Weasel And he drives like aonto our battered seats and smile distantly at each other We are conated pick-up point outside South Kensington Tube station and are on our way to an audition Surreptitiously, I watch them

Traveling with ht body, a life-size human Barbie doll with masses of blonde hair, a beyond believable tiny waist and enorirl Each one of us has a large shoulder bag No doubt their bags hold the sas mine does

A sexy costue make-up

I gaze out of theand digest the information that Club Eden is to be our first stop Shae in one of the other clubs and see all the other girls’ routines before we got to Eden, but still, it is interesting to know that Eden has to be paying Patrick the highest commission to have first refusal No wonder it has overtaken all the other strip clubs and becoh it does not offer full nudity

In silence we head northwards to the infa’s Cross area of London Once it was synony with prostitutes, and rave parties in disused warehouses, but King’s Cross has cleaned up its act and fast beco even Google to set up its European headquarters there

Club Eden stands sandwiched between two tall glass office towers

Patrick drives past the large neon-lit bitten red apple logo and, turning at the next side street, enters the rear car park He parks close to the back doors where a guy in a chef’s whites is sitting on the steps sh the smoke with uncurious eyes

‘Here we are,’ Patrick announces, and switches off the engine

We climb out, adjust our clothes, and follow hi to the front entrance As soon as we enter the glossy black, double doors and my stiletto heels leave their indent on the carpet, I feel a prickling sensation go upit feels as if a spider is actually walking on my skin Unable to stop myself I snap my head around