Cold Fusion Read Online Free Page B

village, I could barely set one foot in front of the other. I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten or slept. The terraces rose up on either side of me, channelling me helplessly back to my roots the way they’d always done. Sucking me in. I’d heard the place once described as an arsehole’s armpit, and had thought that harsh, but tonight, with grey dusk coming down and salt wind bleaching out the last of the colour from dying geraniums in grim little dead front yards, I couldn’t disagree. Mackie’s frosted windows were the only ones alight.
    I was soaked to the skin, my feet scraping on the cobbles. I gave serious thought to walking straight into the pub. A shot or two of the local distillery’s best, and I’d feel more equipped to deal with my starring role in whatever fucking footage had made its way to the last bloody outpost of humanity before you fell into the Atlantic.
    Who the hell had been filming? I could understand if one of the kids in the crew, overexcited and wanting something for Facebook, had pulled out a mobile and started, but when the second RIB got into trouble—no, at that point everyone would have scrambled to the rescue. We weren’t a professional crew, but that rule had been drilled into all of us. Had it been Alan? I dismissed the thought with a mix of nausea and rage.
    And, when it came down to it, was I angry because the film had been made, or because it had been broadcast, and everyone here—including, I had to assume, Alice’s parents—had seen it? Why should that bother me? I’d been coming home to tell the truth, condemn myself far more thoroughly with words than any images could do.
    I slid to a halt by the pub door. The sleet had changed to hail, making the cobbles treacherous. Above my head the village’s sole phone wire began to cut the wind. My childhood bedroom in the house down the street had opened right onto the telegraph pole, and I’d grown up with that low, forlorn wail. Kerra didn’t run to cable, so all our shaky Internet access came down that frail wire. No doubt the video was online too.
    Shit. Was it too late for me to run? Maybe if I burst my heart slogging back the way I’d come, I’d catch the return bus bound for Wick.
    A door across the road flew open. I glanced at the pub steps, but I’d missed my chance to duck in there. “Kier! Kier Mallory!”
    Not a loud voice. She could throw it like a grappling hook, though, and I stood at bay while my ma, the last woman in the north Highlands to wear carpet slippers and a flowered overall in the street, shot out through our garden gate. We weren’t much of a family for hugging at the best of times. She crossed the road, tugged her hair back in its ponytail as if about to handle a messy job, and fastened a kind of wrestling hold on me. Her cheek bumped bonily off mine. “Kier! Come in the house, quick.”
    “Nice to see you too, Ma.”
    “Aye, in a minute, in a minute. Come indoors.”
    Before anyone sees you. That was the message loud and clear. In the past it had sparked me to angry rebellion, made me clutch my boyfriend’s hand tighter or whip off my hat to reveal that I’d been all the way into town for a decent haircut instead of letting the local barber lawnmower me. Now the narrow hallway with its bare yellow bulb seemed like a refuge even to me, and I allowed her to tow me off the street.
    She closed the door behind us and barely stopped short of leaning her back on it. I wondered what kind of time she’d had of it since the news broke about Alice Maguire. Strands of hair were escaping from her ponytail, and she had the air of a woman besieged. “I didn’t think you’d come home just now, Kier.”
    “Why wouldn’t I come home after something like this?” From years of habit I glanced down to check I was properly positioned on the plastic runner that protected our godawful swirly hall carpet. She hadn’t snapped at me to take my boots off. Nor had she relieved me of my rucksack or wet