No Escape. Lucy Clarke

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      A body floats, unseeing eyes fixed on the brooding sky. A pair of cotton shorts has darkened, pockets gulping with water. A shirt billows, then clings to the unmoving chest. The streak of blood across the right temple has washed away now, leaving the skin clear and greying.

      Below, the sea teems with darting fish carving through the water in great shoals, while tiny flecks of nutrient-rich plankton spin in the light. Deeper still, milky-eyed predators patrol the sunless depths where the seabed is scarred with the markings of currents, and broken coral lies as hard as bone.

      But above there is only a body.

      And a yacht.

      On board, as bare feet move across the sun-bleached deck, a thread of fear begins to weave amongst the crew. Within minutes the pitch of voices becomes raised; footsteps turn hurried; eyes narrow as they press against the dark rings of binoculars scanning the horizon.

      It doesn’t take long for the fragile film of order to begin to tear, slowly working itself loose in the breeze. As a pair of hands reaches for the wheel, turning the yacht into the wind, the sail flapping loose, the truth is already drifting out of reach.