PROLOGUE

       London 1995

      THE MODEL

      Even when she was dying she was still counting the calories: none in the hot water toddy at breakfast, ten in the Extra Strong mint on the way to the shoot. She licked the insides of her teeth, savouring everything.

      The model’s changing room was shared. Two males and herself. The sour but tasty stench of quick-tan and the sick-sweet perfume of hashish. She watched them push tissues down the front of their trunks while her stomach gnawed painfully. Too much padding? One less? Why not go for it? They laughed easily. Their pubic hair had been waxed. They looked gleamily good. She weighed less than seven stone but she still looked crap. Too fat – too much around the hips.

      She listened to the male models laughing and thought they were making fun of her. Paranoia. She knew she was right, though. She gave her grave face a few little smacks to raise some colour onto it. It was six a.m. She sighed and lit her fourth cigarette of the day.

      The litany continued in her head. Two dry biscuits for dinner. Three Strawberry Pop Tarts yesterday, even if she did throw them up later. Her last binge had been over a week ago: chocolate spread sandwiches on thick white bread with butter, yellow-cream rice puddings, Alpen, pink-iced cakes, and cheese triangles on warmed rolls. It had taken her an hour to be sick afterwards and she’d lain exhausted on the bathroom floor feeling the linoleum tiles cool against her cheek.