Read Online The Ice Twins by S. K. Tremayne - Free Book Online Page A

boot, Angus hauled out his rucksack. He’d packed the rucksack, very carefully, this morning, at his cheap Inverness hotel, so he had everything he needed for one night on the island. Tomorrow he could buy stuff. Tonight he just had to get there.
    Across the mudflats.
    Angus felt a pang of self-consciousness: as if someone was watching him, mockingly, as he adjusted the straps of his rucksack, distributing the weight. Reflexively he glanced around – looking for faces in windows, kids pointing and laughing. The leafless trees and silent houses gazed back. He was the only human visible. And he needed to be on his way.
    The path led directly from the Selkie car park, down to some mossed and very weathered stone steps. Angus followed the route. At the bottom of the steps the path curved past a row of wooden boats – their keels lifted high onto the shingle, safe from approaching winter storms. Then the path disappeared completely, into a low maze of seaweedy rocks, and grey acres of reeking mud. It was going to take him half an hour, at least.
    And his phone was ringing.
    Marvelling at the fact he could get a signal – hoping faintly, futilely, that there might also be a signal on Torran – Angus dropped his rucksack on to the pebbles, and plucked his mobile from his jeans pocket.
    The screen said Sarah .
    He took the call. The fourth, from his wife, of the day.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘Are you there yet?’

    ‘I’m trying. I was about to cross. I’m at Ornsay. Just seen Josh.’
    ‘OK, so, what’s it like?’
    ‘I don’t know, babe.’ He tutted. ‘Told you: I’m not there yet. Why don’t you let me get there, first, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.’
    ‘OK, yes, sorry. Hah.’ Her laughter was false. He could tell this even on a cell phone, from six hundred miles away.
    ‘Sarah. Are you all right?’
    A hesitation. A distinct, definite pause.
    ‘Yes, Gus. I’m a bit nervous. You know? That’s all …’
    She paused. He frowned. Where was this going? He needed to distract his wife, get her focused on the future. He spoke very carefully.
    ‘The island looks lovely, Sarah. Beautiful as I remember it. More beautiful. We haven’t made a mistake. We were right to move here.’
    ‘OK. Good. Sorry. I’m just jangling. All this packing!’
    Sarah’s anxiety was still there, lurking. He could tell. Which meant he had to ask; even though he didn’t want to know any answers. But he had to ask: ‘How’s Kirstie?’
    ‘She’s OK, she’s …’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Oh. It’s nothing.’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘It’s nothing. Nothing.’
    ‘No, it’s not, Sarah, it’s clearly not. What is it?’ He gripped his frustration. This was another of his silent wife’s conversational stratagems: drop a tiny unsettling hint, then say ‘it’s nothing’. Forcing him to gouge the information out of her; so he felt guilty and bad – even when he didn’t want the information. Like now.

    The tactic drove him crazy, these days. Made him feel actually, physically angry.
    ‘Sarah. What’s up? Tell me?’
    ‘Well, she …’ Another long, infuriating pause stopped the dialogue. Angus resisted the temptation to shout What the fuck is it?
    At last Sarah coughed it up: ‘Last night. She had another nightmare.’
    This was, if anything, a relief to Angus. Only a nightmare? That’s all this was about?
    ‘OK. Another bad dream.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘The same one?’
    ‘Yes.’ A further wifely silence. ‘The one with the room; she is stuck in that white room, with the faces staring at her, staring down. It’s nearly always the same nightmare. She gets that one, always – why is that?’
    ‘I don’t know, Sarah, but I know it will stop. And soon. Remember what they said at the Anna Freud Centre? That’s one reason we’re moving. New place, new dreams. New beginning. No memories.’
    ‘All right, yes, of course. Let’s talk tomorrow?’
    ‘Yes. Love you.’
    ‘Love you.’
    Angus frowned, at his own words, and ended