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Back The Lucky Eight Save as PDF
Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Five Years Later
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. Forty-seven
  52. Forty-eight
  53. Forty-nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-one
  56. Fifty-two
  57. Fifty-three
  58. Fifty-four
  59. Fifty-five
  60. Epilogue
  61. Acknowledgements
  62. Canelo Crime
  63. About the Author
  64. Also by Sheila Bugler

‘It’s okay,’ she whispered.

But it wasn’t okay. Because when she opened her eyes, the body was still there. Exactly where it had been when she first saw it. His head twisted sideways, at an odd angle from the rest of his body. Black blood pooled beneath his crushed skull. More blood splattered over the shingle beach. Too much blood.

A sound came out of her mouth, somewhere between a moan and a wail as it hit her, finally, that he was dead.

‘No. No, no, no.’

She ran towards him, then stopped. She remembered enough from crime novels and TV programmes to know she shouldn’t touch a dead body. She scanned the beach, desperate to see another person out here. Someone strong and reliable, like Clodagh herself had once been, who would take over and make cups of tea and tell her that everything was going to be all right. But apart from Clodagh, the dead man and a squalling squabble of seagulls skimming the surface of the water, the beach was empty. So still and silent it was easy to believe no one else would ever come here and disrupt the quiet of this lonely place.

A pink line on the horizon, where the sky met the water, announced the start of a new day. This was the reason she’d come onto the beach: to watch the sunrise. Now, she barely noticed it as her mind went back over the previous day and evening. They’d had the memorial service in the afternoon. Sad and moving, but uplifting too. The feeling of community she only felt when they came together as a group. The sharp reminder of the fragility of life. Knowing how lucky they were to be here. The pain and guilt, as they remembered the 160 people who had died.

Then later, dinner and drinks and more drinks. A single memory standing out from the blur of the others. The dizzying lurch of fear when she’d read his text message:

Meet me outside now. We need to talk.

Was that why he’d died? Because he’d been out here, waiting for her?

He’d been drunk. Falling over drunk. She tried to picture him, coming out here in the dark, stumbling over the stones and falling backwards. Except there was something about that image that didn’t work. In her mind, every time he stumbled, he fell forward. But he was lying on his back, his dead eyes staring up at her. The scar on his left cheek, pale and silver in the early morning light.

It didn’t seem right, after everything he’d been through, that he was dead. He was a survivor. Like her. Eight of them, in total. Everyone else on the plane that day had died.