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

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

The News Building

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published as The Blue by HarperCollins Publishers 2015

Copyright © Lucy Clarke 2015

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Lucy Clarke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007563364

Ebook Edition ©JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780007563371

Version: 2018-06-20

For Thomas Oak, who was growing inside me during much of the writing of this novel. My world is so much richer because of you.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1: Now

Chapter 2: Then

Chapter 3: Then

Chapter 4: Now

Chapter 5: Then

Chapter 6: Then

Chapter 7: Now

Chapter 8: Then

Chapter 9: Now

Chapter 10: Then

Chapter 11: Now

Chapter 12: Then

Chapter 13: Now

Chapter 14: Then

Chapter 15: Then

Chapter 16: Now

Chapter 17: Then

Chapter 18: Then

Chapter 19: Then

Chapter 20: Now

Chapter 21: Then

Chapter 22: Then

Chapter 23: Now

Chapter 24: Then

Chapter 25: Then

Chapter 26: Now

Chapter 27: Then

Chapter 28: Then

Chapter 29: Now

Chapter 30: Then

Chapter 31: Now

Chapter 32: Then

Chapter 33: Now

Chapter 34: Then

Chapter 35: Then

Chapter 36: Now

Chapter 37: Now

Chapter 38: Now

Chapter 39: Now

Chapter 40: Now

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

Discover More From Lucy Clarke

Reading Group Questions

About the Author

Also by Lucy Clarke

About the Publisher

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.

The paintbrush slips from Lana’s fingers, turning through the air as it falls. It clatters to the floor at the foot of the easel, splattering tiny flecks of blue acrylic paint against her ankle.

Lana doesn’t glance down, doesn’t notice the spots of paint that decorate the small tattoo of a wing inked on her ankle. Her gaze remains fixed on the radio that sits on the windowsill, her fingers raised as if still holding the brush to the canvas. That silver box of metal and wires holds the entire sum of her concentration as she focuses on the voice of a news presenter.

‘… has sunk a hundred nautical miles off the north coast of New Zealand. The yacht – The Blue – was believed to have left Fiji eight days ago with a crew of five on board, including two New Zealanders. A search-and-rescue operation has been launched from the Maritime Rescue Centre at the Bay of Islands. The coastguard has described the sea state as moderate with wind speeds of up to twenty knots.’

Lana blinks, struggling to absorb the information, as if it’s rain running off hard, scorched earth. Her gaze bores into the radio, willing it to disclose something more, but the newscaster has already moved on to the next story.

She turns on the spot, lifting a hand to her head. She feels the cool silk of her headscarf keeping her hair off her face. It has been eight months since she stepped from that yacht, her skin tanned, her feet bare, a backpack heaved on her shoulders. She’d walked along the shoreline with dark hollows beneath her eyes, and hadn’t looked back. She couldn’t.

As she turns, she catches sight of herself in the long mirror that leans against her apartment wall. She stares: her face has paled and large green eyes glare back at her, wide with questions. Was Kitty still on board after all this time? Had she stayed even after Lana left? It’s possible that Kitty could have returned to England. Lana tries to picture her riding the Tube with a script in her hand, glossy dark hair loose over her shoulders, her lips painted red. But the image won’t form, not clearly. She knows that Kitty wouldn’t have left the yacht, because how could either of them go home after what’d happened?

It has been eight months since they’ve last seen each other – the longest time in their friendship they’ve ever spent apart. She thinks about Kitty’s emails still sitting unread in her inbox. At first, they came in thick and fast; then there were gaps – a few days, sometimes a week. Lana began imagining the patterns of the yacht as it sailed through remote island chains, wondering what was happening on board, who Kitty was spending her time with. Eventually, with her head too full of images, she stopped reading the emails. Stopped thinking about Kitty.

Now a beautiful memory gusts into her thoughts, bright as a kite. She and Kitty, eleven years old, sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor plaiting friendship bracelets. ‘This is yours,’ Kitty had said, holding up a slim cotton bracelet woven with turquoise and yellow threads – Lana’s favourite colours. Kitty tied it firmly over Lana’s wrist, using her teeth to get the knot in exactly the right position. When Kitty pulled away, there was a small smear of strawberry lipgloss on the back of Lana’s wrist.