ALI LOWE is the author of three bestselling novels: The Trivia Night, The Running Club and The School Run.

Read on for an extract of her latest thriller, The Private Island.

ABOUT THE BOOK

New Year’s Eve, Loloma Island, Fiji. At one of the most exclusive island resorts in the Pacific ocean, the champagne is poured, the fireworks are ready, and the countdown to new year is just beginning. It’s set to be a night that no one will forget.

Especially when a body washes up on the shore…

But it’s impossible to find answers when everyone here has a motive.

The billionaire’s daughter, glamorous, untouchable, hungry for her inheritance.
The start-up founder, out of money, and out of time.
The young dive instructor, in way over his head and struggling to stay afloat.
The husband, blinded by desire, in all the wrong ways.
And the lover, hidden in the shadows, where no one can see them….

One person’s holiday of a lifetime is about to be the last they’ll ever have.

**********

Kitty

‘It’s “bure”,’ Kitty tells them. ‘It’s actually “if the bure is rocking”. That’s what they’re called here in Fiji, the hotel rooms. The word “bure” actually means “traditional Fijian cottage or bungalow”. It says so in my guidebook.’ Kitty rummages in her basket bag and pulls out a book entitled Lonely Planet Fiji. ‘They’re traditionally made of straw and thatched with bamboo, and you pronounce it boor-ray. There are ten boor-rays at Loloma, and . . .’

Fergus holds up his hand. ‘Thank you, Kitty,’ he says, and Kitty feels the smart of embarrassment. She was going to tell everyone about the custom of making floor mats from pandanus leaves! She closes her guidebook discreetly and slides it back inside her bag. Fergus turns to Benedict. ‘A drink, then! We’ll hold you to it.

You can hardly stand us up – the place is only a few hundred square feet.’ He winks at his old friend. ‘We’ll find you! Eh?’

Kitty smiles politely. She has a brain full of facts about Fiji to share, but she will save them for over drinks later. She loves nothing more than a hearty chinwag – you can find out so much about other people through a good natter. She is sure Luella has some exciting stories to tell, too – she certainly looks well-travelled.

‘I hear the resort makes a great cocktail,’ says Benedict. Fergus grins. ‘Are you a Sex on the Beach man, or do you pre-

fer a Slow Comfortable Screw?’

Kitty glances over at Luella and notices that the woman is at the tail end of an eye-roll, which Kitty considers to be rather rude. Fergus was only making a joke. And it was actually a rather good one, Kitty thinks, the way he played with the names of the cocktails.

‘Neither.’ Benedict laughs. ‘Luella likes to mix it up. Try them all.’

‘Kitty likes an Old Fashioned,’ says Fergus, nudging her so hard she has to move her right foot to steady herself. ‘Just a couple though, or she’s anyone’s! She’s a delightfully cheap date, aren’t you, darling? Not like some of the women Benedict here used to . . .’

Kitty sees Luella’s eyes snap up, and she casts a nervous glance at Benedict.

‘Now, now, Miller, none of that chatter,’ Benedict says. He turns to his wife. ‘I’m a one-woman man these days, and this woman right here’ – he reaches out and pulls Luella in close – ‘is the only one in the world for me. She’s perfection.’

‘Damn right she is!’ Fergus looks Luella up and down again, only this time he is biting his lip and nodding, like he wants to warm apple pie her.

Kitty looks down at her sandals. Fergus never treats her like that, enthusing about her beauty or looking at her like he could devour her whole. Unfortunately, Kitty married a man’s man, one with a hairy chest and a deep voice, a tad more testosterone than others – a man who is rather more neanderthal than he is metrosexual, which Kitty supposes she must prefer. She can’t really remember.

She watches as Luella folds her arms across her chest and hisses, ‘Shall we go?’ at Benedict through pursed lips.

Kitty understands this is a rhetorical question, because Luella is already leading the charge down the jetty at a million miles an hour, towards a man who holds a wooden sign that reads Loloma Island Resort transfer. Benedict scoops up his and Luella’s match- ing hand luggage – dotted with Ls and Vs and gold monogrammed initials – and Fergus follows close behind.

Kitty notices that her own husband does not offer to wheel her John Lewis carry-on case but instead uses his spare hand to pat Benedict’s shoulder, so that Kitty is forced to yank up the handle and pull it along the bumpy, slatted jetty herself. The wheels keep getting stuck in the space between the slats. She uses her other hand to stop her sunglasses sliding down her nose, which is shiny with oil after twenty-six hours in the air.

‘Isn’t this utter class?’ Fergus grins as they reach the boat. ‘Look at the size of it!’

‘The size of it?’ Luella guffaws. ‘It’s a bee’s dick wider than the dinghies you see on the news bobbing towards Dover.’

Kitty thinks the comment is rather inappropriate, given the large number of displaced men, women and children seeking asy- lum on UK shores, but Fergus laughs and says, ‘She’s a live wire, eh, Benny?’

Kitty fakes a smile and swallows down her own unease about the boat. Luella is right about one thing: it doesn’t look too sturdy. Kitty is not worried about it falling apart, per se, but rather the way it will dance on the waves as they enter the open sea – a tiny vessel in a vast ocean. She suddenly regrets eating that vegetarian frittata on the plane. The thought of it makes her nose sweat even more. But the fact is, she had to eat it. Fergus used the only entrance ticket to the business class lounge at LAX on their lay- over from the UK, so by the time they boarded the plane, he’d already had breakfast and Kitty had not. It was a case of vegetarian frittata or bust. So yes, the waves may be problematic (Oh Lord, did the frittata have carrot?) but nonetheless, they all climb on board: Luella, Benedict, Fergus and lastly Kitty, and Kitty feels an unholy lurch of her stomach as the boat sways underfoot.

‘The size of it?’ Luella guffaws. ‘It’s a bee’s dick wider than the dinghies you see on the news bobbing towards Dover.’

Fergus looks at her and sighs. He produces a duty-free carrier bag from his leather bum bag – which also contains their pass- ports and credit cards – and shakes it out.

‘Apologies, but my wife is a puker,’ he announces, as if it isn’t already obvious by the Nadi Airport plastic bag he is waving about in front of her face. Kitty would like to disappear over the side of the boat right about now. ‘Ironically, her middle name is Marina, which means “in the sea” in Latin,’ he quips.

‘It’s “of the sea”.’ Kitty grimaces as the boat pulls away from the mooring. ‘Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’ll be absolutely fine!’ Thirty seconds later, she leans forward in a dramatic heave and empties her stomach, its surprisingly sizeable contents missing the bag entirely and splashing keenly across the open section of Luella’s Hermès sandals, which Kitty assumes to be the genuine article and not the Primark rip-offs she has in her own ward- robe. She watches, mortified, as Benedict twists the pink cap of a chilled Evian bottle and empty the contents over his wife’s frittata- splattered toes.

Kitty stammers an apology and turns away.

She sits with her head pretty much inside the bag for the best part of an hour and feels utterly wretched. It smells of the sickly floral perfume she sprayed on one of those pointless blotting sticks at LAX. They’re not even at the resort yet, and she has already messed up in a rather gargantuan fashion. She promised Fergus she would get it right, for both their sakes, and now she has gone and vomited, of all things. In fact, she messed up right from the get-go, blurting out that they’d been sitting on the plane right by the loos and laughing like a lunatic when Luella told them she could buy the whole of Port Denarau Marina!

Kitty gives herself a mental kick. She assured Fergus she would not put a foot wrong; she swore she could be relied on. Because the fact is: they have both vowed to be very different people on this holiday, to come out of themselves, to become actors. And now Kitty needs to step up and play her part.

Read a book review of
The Running Club

Read an extract of
The School Run