Buch lesen: «The Island»

To my niece Rose Taylor

Contents

Cover

What readers are saying about The Island

About the Author

Also by C. L. Taylor

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Acknowledgements

Extract

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

About the Publisher

Prologue

She’s dead. She said she’d never leave me but she did. She said she’d never love anyone as much as she loved me. She said I was her everything. She said a lot of things and none of them were true.

She’s dead.

And she’s a liar.

Chapter 1

JESSIE

Life would be so much easier if I were a psychopath. I’d be charming, manipulative and a pathological liar. I also wouldn’t be wondering what Danny, Honor, Jeffers, Meg and Milo are talking about on the other side of the pool, their faces cast in shadow, the Thai night sky a black blanket above them. And I definitely wouldn’t be convincing myself that they’re talking about me. Even if they were, I wouldn’t care. But the biggest advantage of being a psychopath, by a mile, would be lack of empathy. Life doesn’t hurt as much if you stop caring.

‘Who’s up for a swim?’ Honor, who’s been intertwined with Danny on a sun lounger for the last hour, wriggles out of his grasp and stands up. She slips off her flip-flops, strips off her T-shirt and wriggles out of her shorts. It’s dark and the surface of the pool is still and calm, striped with the reflected glow of the hotel and dotted with candlelight. Honor dives in, barely making a splash. She pulls her arms through the water, blonde hair streaming behind her.

Seconds later Danny’s in too. He tries to grab Honor around the waist but she slips away like a fish and swims almost a whole length underwater.

‘Meg?’ Honor’s voice echoes off the walls of the hotel complex as she breaks through the water, just a few feet away from me. It’s after eleven and an older couple to my right, talking quietly on their sun loungers, sigh loudly. ‘Milo? Jeffers? You coming in? We could play water polo?’ She glances at me and the expression on her face changes: uncertainty replaces excitement. She doesn’t know whether to invite me to join them or not. I pull the sleeves of my top down over my hands and shift in my seat. Swimming’s one of my favourite things in the world and I’m good at it – I’ve swum for the county – but I haven’t been in the pool since we got here and I’m not about to start now.

‘You guys go ahead,’ I shout. ‘I’ll watch.’

As holidays go this is right up there with the time we went to Center Parcs and Danny did a poo in the corner of the ball pit at soft play. OK, so we were all three at the time, but the memory of the warm squelch as I put my hand in it is indelibly burnt into my brain. The walking tour of the Scottish Isles when we were all twelve was pretty grim too. It never stopped raining and I slipped and twisted my ankle when we were still an hour away from the car. Almost every year since we were born there’s been an enforced group holiday and now here we are, in Thailand, a disparate group of teenagers forced to socialize with each other because our parents happened to go to the same antenatal group over seventeen years ago. Our friendships have changed over the years. As five- and six-year-olds Honor and I were about as close as two little kids could be. We tried to include Meg in our games but she was more interested in trying to muscle in on the games Milo, her twin brother, was playing with Jeffers and Danny. As pre-teens Meg gravitated back to me and Honor and there was a distinct girls versus boys dynamic. That all changed when hormones kicked in and Honor and Danny got together and me and Milo… well, I’m not sure how to describe that. We danced around each other, I guess. Sometimes I fancied him and he didn’t fancy me. Sometimes it was the other way round. It’s not that we’ve got a ‘thing’. It’s more of a ‘non-thing’. But it’s not just friendship, not like me and Danny or Jeffers.

Don’t get me wrong, Thailand is amazing. The people are so smiley and friendly, the food is delicious, the streets are buzzing and vibrant and the scenery is breathtaking. Yes, it’s hot and humid but, hello, I’d rather be dripping with sweat over here than dripping with rain in England. No, Thailand’s not the problem, nor is the amazing complex we’re staying in. The fact is I can’t do holidays like this anymore. The others don’t know how to act around me and I’ve forgotten who I used to be. I can’t relax. I’ve forgotten how to banter, and if I catch myself laughing, I immediately feel guilty. I might be seventeen but I feel like I’m a hundred years old.

‘Miss Harper?’ I jolt as Milo appears behind me. I was so caught up in watching Danny trying, and failing, to lift Honor above his head that I didn’t notice him slip away from the table he was sitting at with Meg. She’s changed since we hit our teens. She used to be competitive, loud and outspoken. These days, if she does speak, it’s usually to say something snarky.

‘Mr Katsaro?’ I shove my hands beneath the table and smile, tightly, up at Milo as my heart hammers in my chest. Like his sister he’s got jet black hair but, while Meg’s tumbles over her shoulders in dark corkscrews, Milo’s is shaved around the sides and wavy on top. Their surname means ‘curly’ in Greek and their whole family has gorgeous hair.

‘I’m going to the bar.’ He reaches a hand towards me and, for one heart-stopping second, I think he’s going to touch me. Instead he places his hand on the back of my chair and rests his weight against it. He glances towards my glass, most of my mojito mocktail long gone. ‘Do you need a top-up?’

I glance across the pool, to Meg, sitting in her seat, hunched forward, her elbows on her knees, watching us. If Milo was interested in me, which these days he’s not, she wouldn’t approve and who could blame her? Who needs my kind of screw-up in their life? If you need me, I’ll turn my back. If you want to talk, I’ll run. And if you love me…

Something lurches inside me – like a bruise being pressed – and I twist the tender skin on the underside of my forearm until the feeling fades. I might not be a psychopath but I’ve got my own ways of switching off negative thoughts. My aim is to be in complete control of my emotions. I’m not there yet but one day I will be.

‘No thanks.’ I look back at Milo. ‘I’m going to bed in a bit.’

Something in his gaze shifts. Did he just look disappointed or did I completely imagine that?

‘Are you going to the bar?’ Danny shouts to Milo from the pool as he launches Honor into the air. She shrieks for all of two seconds then plops back into the water with a splash. ‘I’ll come with you. I want a snack.’ He pauses, waiting for Honor to resurface. ‘Want anything to drink?’ he asks her.

She runs her hands through her hair, slicking it back from her face. ‘Lemonade, please.’

‘You don’t want a cocktail? This barman’s not fussed about ID.’

‘Nah. I’m good.’

As Danny swims to the side and heaves himself out of the water Milo drifts over to him. I watch as they saunter over to the bamboo bar that’s surrounded by palm trees. When I look back at the pool, Honor has swum to the side nearest me. The top half of her body is out of the water, her blonde hair slicked back and her arms folded on the tiles.

‘Are you OK?’ she asks.

I stiffen. I can deal with people being kind on WhatsApp and social media but, in person, any kind of sympathy makes me want to cry. Thankfully no one’s pushed me to open up. Other than a few awkward ‘I’m really sorry, Jessie’ comments on the day we arrived, no one’s mentioned the reason my family didn’t go on the group holiday to Norfolk last year. And I’d rather it stayed that way.

‘Fine. Hot, isn’t it?’

Honor takes the hint and changes the subject. ‘Is Milo getting you a drink?’

‘No. I said I didn’t want one.’

‘Oh right.’ She shrugs lightly. ‘I’m not sure why I asked Danny to get me one. I’m not even thirsty.’

Danny’s always doing nice things for her. In the three days we’ve been here he’s rushed up to their room to get things for her at least half a dozen times, given her countless shoulder rubs and, when she didn’t like her fried snapper at lunch, he swapped with his own meal, even though he’s not keen on fish.

Honor sighs loudly, prompting me to ask her what’s up. She ignores the question and eases herself effortlessly out of the water and sits on the edge. ‘Are you looking forward to going to the island tomorrow?’

I shudder, despite the heat. ‘Not really, are you?’

She shrugs. ‘Seven days with no 4G, no WiFi, no clean clothes and no soft beds. It’s either going to be hell, or the best thing we’ve ever done.’ She gestures across the pool to Jefferson whose got his face buried in a book. ‘Bear Grylls over there is crapping himself with excitement.’

I can’t help but laugh. Jefferson Payne, the youngest of the group by nine days, has been obsessed with camping, hunting and foraging for the last few years. He’s small and wiry with oversized glasses but, in his head, he’s some kind of action hero. If the WhatsApp group chats are anything to go by he spends every night after school whittling knife handles out of bits of wood and plaiting huge lengths of cord into bracelets. I’m not judging – how he spends his time is his own business – but it is a bit weird that a kid who lives in a three-bedroom house in north London and goes to private school is so obsessed with prepping for the end of the world.

I’m not sure if it’s the prepper stuff or something else but he’s changed since the last time I saw him. He was always the most reserved kid in our group, but he’s got a real loner vibe going on now. We’ve chatted a couple of times since we arrived – small talk mostly – and I got the distinct vibe that he’d rather be anywhere than hanging out with us.

If our parents have noticed that we’ve all outgrown these group holidays, they’ve chosen to ignore it. They all seem as chilled and relaxed as they normally are. Well, maybe not my parents, not this year.

‘I mean, it’s only a week,’ Honor says, ‘and the guide will be doing all the hard work building us a shelter and stuff. It’s not like we need to be fashioning spears out of bits of wood and killing fish for dinner.’

‘I’m packing Pringles,’ I say. ‘Seriously, sod all the sensible stuff we’re supposed to take with us. I’m filling my bag with—’

I’m interrupted by the slap, slap, slap of flip-flops as two lads – one about our age with a nose ring and the other a couple of years older with closely cropped hair – appear from between the palm trees and saunter towards us. Honor turns to look, flipping her wet hair over her shoulder. Inwardly I groan. I’m paranoid and self-conscious enough with people I know, never mind people I don’t. I should have gone to bed while I still had the chance.

‘All right, girls?’ The shorter of the two boys looks me up and down dismissively before his gaze rests on Honor. Behind him, the older boy smirks. With their blue eyes, fair hair and long, angular faces they’re almost certainly brothers.

‘How you doing?’ The shorter boy with the nose ring plops himself down next to Honor, who immediately angles herself away from him. Her eyes dart towards the palm trees, anxiety written all over her face.

‘Jesus,’ the older one says, taking a seat next to me. ‘Aren’t you hot wearing that?’

Unlike me, in a long-sleeved top, linen trousers and flip-flops, he’s barefoot and naked from the waist up.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, ignoring the fact my top is glued to my back with sweat.

‘Each to their own.’ He grins widely and sits back in the chair, blocking my view of Honor and his brother. ‘I’m Jack by the way, and that’s Josh, my brother.’

‘Great.’

He laughs. ‘Chatty, aren’t you? How long have you been here?’

‘Too long.’ I give him a pointed look. I know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to keep me distracted so his brother can crack on with Honor. I shift my chair to one side so I can see round him. Short-arse now has his arm around Honor’s shoulders, his fingers denting the skin at the top of her arm. She’s smiling at him but it’s a fixed grin – the kind you use when someone’s overstepping the line but you don’t want to cause a scene. She’s doing her best to wriggle away but he’s tightened his grip, pulling her into his body. Over on the other side of the pool Jeffers still has his nose in his book and Meg has disappeared.

‘Hey!’ Honor says, whipping her face away as Josh dips his head to kiss her. ‘Leave it out, I’ve got a boyfriend.’

‘I heard you guys talking,’ Jack says, shifting his chair towards me. ‘You off on some kind of survival experience tomorrow or something?’

I ignore him. His brother has one hand on Honor’s face now and he’s angling her towards him, forcing her to look at him. The hand around her shoulders has slid under her arm and his fingers are plucking at the thin material of her bikini top.

Beneath the table I pinch at the only patch of skin on my forearm that’s smooth and soft but the tight feeling in my chest remains. I don’t want to get involved but someone has to. This has to stop.

‘Hey,’ Jack says as I stand up, still gripping the arms of my metal chair and carrying it behind me like a turtle shell as I walk to the edge of the pool. ‘What the hell happened to your hands? Jesus, they look really—’

‘Hi.’ As I draw closer Josh releases his grip on Honor’s face and rests his hand on the tiles. He feigns nonchalance, all cocky and chilled. ‘Look at me just chilling by the pool late at night’ – but he’s moved his wandering hand back to Honor’s arm and he’s pinning her to his side.

‘Where are you going with that chair?’ he asks. ‘Going to take it for a swim?’

Behind me his brother laughs.

‘No.’ I smile down at him. ‘I thought I’d join you. Apparently you don’t have a problem with personal space.’

He looks up at me in confusion but, before he can reply, I lower the chair so one of the metal legs is directly above his hand, then I sit down. His shout fills the air – a howl of surprise morphing into a scream of pain. He pushes Honor away from him and grabs at the chair leg but it doesn’t move an inch. I’m too heavy for him to shift. He looks up at me and I feel a stab of satisfaction at seeing Honor’s fear in his eyes. Nothing happens for what feels like for ever, then I hear Jack’s chair scraping on the tiles and his roar of anger. A split second later I’m shoved so hard in the back that I tip forwards. There’s no time to react. All I can do is hold my breath as I fall out of the chair and the lights of the pool rush to meet me. The last thing I hear before my ears fill with water is a single word.

It sounds a lot like ‘psycho’.

Chapter 2

DANNY

Day one on the island

Danny Armstrong isn’t sure what to make of Jessie Harper. There’s a part of him that’s grateful that she stopped that little creep Josh from manhandling Honor the night before, but there’s another, bigger, part that feels awkward about spending a week alone on an island with her. The first few days of the NCT holidays are always a bit weird; these guys might be his oldest friends but, apart from Honor who lives a short train-ride away, the others are all spread around the country. They don’t get to see each other much between holidays, and everyone’s always a bit wary and awkward initially. But then the banter starts up and the group relaxes. It’s like they haven’t spent a day apart.

Only Jessie hasn’t loosened up yet. She’s so tense, so tightly coiled that it makes Danny nervous. That thing with the chair leg last night? There’s no way she would have done something like that before. It’s like there’s an emotional bomb ticking away in her chest – at any moment she might go off – and that scares him. Scares the others too from the way they all seem to be tiptoeing around her, none of them daring to mention why her hands and arms are all scarred up. OK, so he won’t be alone on the island with Jessie, strictly speaking. Honor, Meg, Milo and Jeffers will be there too, along with Anuman, their Thai survival guide who’s currently sitting at the far end of the small motorized boat, guiding it through the crystal-clear water. But they’re a hell of a long way from the mainland already. They’ve been on the boat for over an hour.

Danny tightens his grip on Honor’s shoulder, pulling her into his body, and kisses her on the top of her head. Jessie, sitting nearest Anuman with Jeffers beside her, is staring out to sea, her long brown hair streaming behind her. Danny didn’t expect her to show up for the trip. She wasn’t waiting in the lobby of the hotel with the others when he traipsed down the stairs with his backpack at 6 a.m. She was too embarrassed, he assumed, about what had happened the night before. Or maybe her parents had been told about what she’d done and had banned her from the trip.

When it all kicked off the night before, he was at the bar with Milo – eating peanuts and talking crap. There was an anguished shout from the pool then Honor screamed his name. He knocked over his drink in his haste to get back to her and his blood ran cold as he rounded the palm trees and spotted her hugging her knees to her chest by the side of the pool. There were two lads crouched together a couple of feet away – one of them screaming and nursing his hand to his chest – and Jessie, sopping wet and fully clothed, climbing the ladder at the far end of the pool. She didn’t seem to be the slightest bit bothered by the commotion behind her. Instead she nonchalantly headed for the entrance to the hotel. As Danny gathered Honor in his arms one of the lads pointed over at Jessie and shouted something about payback, while the other lad, the smaller one, groaned about needing a doctor. As they headed off towards reception Danny asked Honor over and over again what the matter was. She was crying so much she couldn’t speak, and it wasn’t until he got her back into her apartment, after her mum had wrapped her in a blanket and given her a long hard hug, that she finally opened up. Danny was off like a shot then, speeding back down the stairs to reception, but it was deserted. The lads, whoever they were, were long gone.

Now, he stifles a yawn. He barely slept last night he was so angry. How dare that arsehole put his hands all over his girlfriend? He’ll kill him if he ever sees him again.

A sudden squeal from Meg wipes the thought from his mind.

‘Oh my God! Is that a squid?’ She points over the side of the boat. ‘It’s enormous.’

‘Don’t touch it!’ Milo shouts as Meg puts a hand in the water. ‘It’s a jellyfish. Remember when Tom stood on one on the beach in Cornwall and his foot swelled up so much he had to go to hospital?’

At the mention of Tom’s name Danny inhales sharply and a strange expectant silence fills the boat. Everyone stares at Jessie, waiting for a reaction. She doesn’t say a word. Instead she continues to gaze out to sea, a muscle pulsing in her cheek, as though she’s repeatedly clenching and unclenching her jaw. The tension is more than Danny can bear and he searches his brain for something, anything, he can say to lighten the mood but the best he can manage is:

‘Aren’t you hot wearing all that, Jeffers?’

Unlike the others, dressed in vests or T-shirts or light summery clothes, Jeffers looks kitted out to go to war in the desert in his black sunglasses, hat, sandy-coloured long trousers, bulky waistcoat and boots and a huge great rucksack propped up beside him.

He shakes his head. ‘Not at all. Everything I’m wearing is either lightweight or breathable, or it wicks the sweat away.’

Danny shakes his head. How can one of his friends be seventeen years old and sound like a fifty-year-old man? Jefferson wasn’t always so weird – tactless and insensitive definitely – but not weird. He was perfectly normal until two summers ago when he turned up to their holiday in Norfolk wittering away about a new group of friends he’d met on the internet who’d opened his eyes to how screwed-up we’d be in the event of natural disasters, petrol shortages, war or acts of terrorism and how important it is to prepare for such an event. Danny mostly uses the internet to access PornHub, not that he’d ever admit that with Honor in the same room.

‘We are here!’ Anuman announces as the boat creaks and putts as it slows down and Danny looks around in surprise. They’re in the shallows and stretched before him is a long, white beach framed with palm trees; beyond them, dense jungle and huge, jagged cliffs. They’ve arrived on the only privately owned island off the coast of Thailand – Ko Kār p̄hcỵ phạy. His breath catches in his throat as he spots a couple of macaque monkeys jumping and playing at the edge of the forest. It’s like they’ve just arrived in paradise.

‘The island of adventure,’ Anuman had told them as he’d shepherded them out of the hotel when Jessie finally rocked up, hiding her face behind sunglasses and an oversized hat. ‘Not many people get to go, and not alone. You very lucky.’

Lucky, Danny thinks cynically as Anuman jumps out of the boat and into the sparkling, clear sea – or stinking rich. Thailand is by far and away the most exotic – and expensive – holiday they’ve had as a group since Milo and Meg’s parents first mooted the idea that they should have an antenatal group getaway when they were all little more than a year old. They spent a week in a shared house on the Cornish coast. He’s not entirely sure what Jefferson’s dad does for a living but it’s something to do with banking and investments. Enough, anyway, that he’s rented Ko Kār p̄hcỵ phạy, and a survival expert, for a week to celebrate Jefferson’s seventeenth birthday. When Danny’s dad heard where they’d be holidaying this year he went pale. Unlike some of the other parents, his dad isn’t loaded. He’s a freelance sound engineer and work is sporadic – a three-month tour here and there and then nothing for months on end. Danny hates the way his dad is always so stressed about money, and when the Thailand trip was mentioned he told him that he wasn’t fussed about going. But then Honor voice-messaged him, squeaky with excitement, and his stomach twisted into a tight knot. He hadn’t been apart from her for more than a week since they got together on the day of his fifteenth birthday and he couldn’t bear the thought of being without her for a whole fortnight. He’d help pay for the holiday, he told his dad; get a job washing pots in a local restaurant after school, or working in a café at the weekend. He didn’t have to do any of those things in the end; his dad was offered a gig and couldn’t make the holiday and Honor’s mum, Thea, stepped in to say she was happy for Danny to share their apartment. He’d be on the sofa, of course, but the offer was a godsend. It meant they only had to stump up enough money for one return flight.

Danny’s grip on Honor’s shoulder tightens as the boat rocks and Jeffers leaps into the water, holding his rucksack above his head.

Meg stands up next, clutching her belongings to her chest, and nervously stares down into the sea.

‘Hold your backpack up in the air as you jump!’ Jeffers shouts. ‘You don’t want to get your stuff wet.’

‘Duh,’ Danny says. He looks at Honor, expecting to see her smile, but there’s the weirdest look on her face – it’s like she’s gone completely blank behind the eyes.

‘Hey.’ He nudges her. ‘You OK? I thought you were looking forward to this.’

She shoots him a smile but it looks fake. ‘Yeah, I am.’

‘You thinking about what happened last night?’ he asks. It’s his fault that lad hit on her. He never should have left her alone in the pool, but nothing’s going to happen to her on the island. He’ll make sure of that.

Before Honor can answer, Meg jumps into the sea with a gasp and a splash, swiftly followed by Milo, who turns and offers a helping hand to Jessie. She shakes her head and, instead, hands him her bag then clambers over the side of the boat.

‘Oi, Jeffers,’ Danny shouts, waving at the diminutive figure trying, and failing, to relieve Anuman of the rope that’s attached to the front of the boat. ‘How about you help the girls with their bags instead of playing the big man. I think you’ve got your priorities a bit screwed up there, mate.’

He snaps back round as Honor mutters something and wriggles out of his grasp.

‘What was that?’

She looks at him defiantly. ‘Just leave him alone.’

Danny raises his eyebrows. He can never be sure when Honor’s genuinely annoyed with him or when she’s messing around. She’s good at switching her emotions on and off, it’s what makes her such a good actress. He went to see her in her school play in Brighton and couldn’t believe how easily she was able to transform herself into someone else. She wants to go to uni to study drama after school but she’s worried she’s not good enough. Danny’s pretty sure she is.