Read on for an extract
from Claire Douglas’s new novel …

JUST LIKE
THE OTHER GIRLS

Coming 2020

@DougieClaire

@ClaireDouglasAuthor

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Claire Douglas

JUST LIKE THE OTHER GIRLS

The rising fog mingles with the dark night, turning everything opaque. I can barely see yet I know someone else is on the suspension bridge with me.

I can hear them breathing.

How foolish I’ve been. I should never have trusted either of them.

Nobody will come to my rescue. It’s too late at night; even vehicles have stopped driving across the bridge due to the weather. I clutch the railings tightly with gloved hands to anchor myself. One false move and I’ll end up toppling over the side and into the Avon Gorge.

Someone calls my name. I turn, but I’m disorientated and I can’t tell which direction the voice is coming from. I just know I’ve been lured here. I need to find a way off this bridge. I let go of the railings, stumbling in panic, my breath quickening.

Don’t lose it. I must stay calm. I need to get out of this situation alive.

Suicide. That’s what they’ll say it was. Just like the other girls.

I hear a laugh. It sounds manic. Taunting.

And then a figure steps out of the fog, clamping a hand across my mouth before I’ve had the chance to scream.

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October 2018

It’s even more stunning, more perfect than I remember from my interview. I stand and stare for a while, at the place I will soon call home. The scene before me is like a photograph in a glossy magazine, or the opening shot of a romantic film. I can almost hear the swell of background music as I take in the row of Georgian townhouses painted in different pastel shades, with their mint-hum-bug-striped canopies, delicate wrought-iron balconies and rooftops that reach up towards a cloudless blue sky. Trees with leaves that are turning red, brown and orange line the pavement and a stretch of grass divides the street from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. A handful of people sit, chatting and laughing, basking in this rare mid-October sunshine. To the side of me an older couple are huddled on a wooden bench overlooking the bridge and the Avon Gorge while sharing a drink from a flask. Beyond them, a young father helps his son with an oversized kite.