No Escape: The most addictive, gripping thriller with a shocking twist. Lucy Clarke

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СКАЧАТЬ is incredible,’ Kitty said, reaching out a hand and finding Lana’s. They drifted on their backs, hands held, hair swirling around their faces. There was the light sound of splashing as the rest of the crew swam towards them, their voices carrying across the water.

      ‘Did someone check the steps?’ Heinrich said.

      ‘Nope,’ Shell said.

      ‘Me neither,’ Denny added.

      ‘No,’ Joseph responded.

      Aaron spoke then. ‘Are you serious? No one put them down?’

      ‘What?’ Kitty asked, treading water now. ‘What is it?’

      ‘You must’ve heard about that couple in the doldrums?’ Heinrich said.

      Kitty shook her head. ‘What couple?’

      ‘They decided to go swimming off their yacht. It was still – like this – and they both dived in. They were messing around in the water, enjoying themselves, cooling off. After a while, they started to get tired, so they swam back to the yacht – only they realized that neither of them had thought to put down the ladder. They couldn’t get back on the boat.’

      ‘There must’ve been some way,’ Kitty said.

      ‘No ladder, no footholds, nothing to grab onto except the smooth shining surface of the hull.’

      ‘But they got back on eventually, though?’ Kitty asked.

      In the darkness Aaron shook his head. ‘The empty yacht was found six weeks later – with their fingernail marks scarred into the hull.’

      ‘But … what … are the steps down now? Someone must’ve put them down.’ Kitty’s voice was cut with panic.

      ‘Kit,’ Lana said gently, ‘remember you jumped off the swim platform. It’s low enough to pull ourselves back on. They’re winding us up.’

      Heinrich and Aaron laughed.

      Kitty splashed them both. ‘Arseholes!’

      ‘Just trying to distract you from the sharks and sea snakes,’ Aaron said, deadpan.

      She snorted. ‘I’m swimming back.’

      The others joined Kitty, but Lana said she’d catch up, wanting a few moments alone. She floated on her back, letting the dark sea bear her weight. She felt a surge of freedom, a sense of possibility, a feeling that she and Kitty were part of something bold and wonderful that was so much more than the life they’d left in England. She wanted to seal this feeling in her heart. She closed her eyes, suspended in the sea, the voices of her friends slipping further away.

      She became aware of a shift in the water, a new vibration in the liquid stillness. There was the brush of something against her skin, as if a hand was sliding down the length of her back and over the rise of her buttocks. She kicked out in surprise, waiting for whoever it was to surface laughing. After a while … thirty seconds, then a minute … there was no one.

      She turned in the water, glancing about her, a trail of goosebumps spreading down her neck. It looked as though the rest of the crew had reached the stern and were pulling themselves out of the sea, although she couldn’t clearly make out if they were all there.

      Had she imagined it? If one of the others had been fooling around, surely they would have grabbed her ankle or leg, pretending to be a shark – whereas this was insidious, just the breath of a touch, like a dark eel slithering against her skin.

      Lana shivered. She swam hard towards the yacht, and scrambled up onto the stern, scraping her shin on the metal edge in her hurry.

      Kitty had fetched a towel and, when she saw Lana, she wrapped it around them both so their cool bodies were pressed together.

      ‘Kit,’ she whispered, ‘did you see anyone just swim over to me?’

      ‘No. Why?’

      ‘Just now it felt like … like someone ran a hand along my back underwater.’

      ‘You sure?’ Kitty said, looking bemused.

      Glancing about her, Lana could see all of the crew – Shell, Heinrich, Denny, Aaron and Joseph – drying off on deck. Had one of them managed to swim back here before her?

      She looked out across the dark water. But the sea was eerily still, not a ripple in its surface.

       6

       THEN

      ‘Some of us don’t have legs that can stretch that far!’ Kitty yelled.

      Lana paused, glancing over her shoulder at Kitty, who was standing barefoot on a boulder, arms folded over her chest. Her cheeks had pinkened and there was a gleam of sweat across her forehead. ‘Want a leg up?’

      ‘No, I bloody don’t!’

      Lana grinned. Then she watched as Kitty hauled herself up the rock, puffing and cursing.

      They climbed the last part together, finally reaching the others who were at the top of the rocky cliff face, standing on a wide ledge that jutted out above the water. A warm breeze stirred the air, carrying the chalky scent of the rocks.

      ‘Guess I’d better test out this dive board,’ Denny said, moving to the edge of the cliff face and peering down. A 40-foot drop ended in a still blue lagoon, where he’d been snorkelling earlier to check the depth.

      Denny removed his T-shirt and knotted the string on his board shorts. His body was lean and tanned and Lana’s gaze followed the contours of his wiry muscles, imagining how she’d sketch him, where she’d shade, and which lines she’d follow. He was fit and seemed to have boundless energy; every morning he swam before breakfast, and if Lana sloped into the saloon before dawn for a glass of water, she’d find Denny awake, a coffee and his laptop in front of him as he worked on a translation.

      Denny turned his neck from side to side, then performed a series of elaborate leg stretches.

      ‘Get on with it!’ Aaron called.

      Denny took a few steps back from the cliff edge and then ran forwards, launching himself into the air. Lana was expecting something impressive, but he bunched his knees up towards his chest and bombed downwards, a boulder of limbs. There was a thunderous white splash as he hit the water. A moment or two later, he erupted through the surface to whoops and cheers.

      Lana heard the flick of a lighter and turned to see Joseph smiling in the shade, lighting a roll-up.

      ‘Do me one, Joe-Joe?’ Kitty asked.

      ‘Thought you only smoked when you were drinking?’ Lana said.

      ‘How СКАЧАТЬ