Free Bad Blood by Aline Templeton Page B

wee Tommy hadn’t had the chance to do that. She felt a pang of conscience that she hadn’t remembered.
    She should really phone round and get a few people together for Shelley’s sake. To start with there had been quite a crowd at the site each year, feeling a sort of collective guilt that this could happen here, with their own bairns. As time passed, though, the crowd had dwindled and for years now it had only been Janette and Shelley, withany of the older locals who happened to pass the play park at the time looking uncomfortable and pretending not to notice.
    There was even a sort of unspoken irritation about what it had done to the reputation of the village. ‘Cradle of Evil’, one of the newspapers had called it, and the name had stuck.
    Maybe some bad things had gone on, unnoticed or perhaps just ignored, but till the tragedy Dunmore had mostly been a quiet, respectable, inward-looking community, minding its own business – perhaps too much so.
    It certainly hadn’t been the sort of place that featured in the media, except maybe a photo in the
Galloway Globe
when someone had raised money to present to a charity. What happened had put a strain on everyone, with the film crews fighting for space in the narrow streets and reporters pushing microphones under your nose and the flashes and machine-gun fire of cameras when all you were doing was going out to the shop. It had been horrible, frightening, really, and the resentment grew every time something prompted another media influx.
    What if they turned up today, because of the anniversary? It wasn’t very likely; the road from Glasgow to Dunmore was fortunately long and slow, but just in case, she’d have to make sure there wouldn’t be a ‘Cradle of Evil Village Forgets’ story in some rag tomorrow.
    Janette picked up the phone again. ‘Sheila? Can you spare five minutes this morning?’

    The address for the Michael Morrison who lived in Dunmore was a very smart-looking farmhouse surrounded by fields. It was on a slope above the village looking out across Loch Ryan towards the Cairnryan ferry terminal.
    As Marnie walked up the steep rise towards it, she could see that the farmhouse wasn’t attached to a working farm; the only building beside it was a large garage. The small, ugly, modern box a couple offields over, with a huddle of dilapidated sheds and a barn beside it, was presumably where the farmer lived now.
    She was prepared for disappointment and another wasted day, but when she walked up the long drive and rang the bell it was, to her surprise, Gemma herself who appeared. She’d have recognised her anywhere, though her mousy fair hair was blonde now and she’d grown up rather glamorous, with the sort of gleaming look that only a lot of money gives you. She had a toddler clamped to her hip, a rosy-cheeked little boy who gave the stranger a shy smile and then buried his face in his mother’s neck.
    ‘Gemma, I don’t know if you remember me—’ she began, but after a puzzled moment recognition had shown on Gemma’s face.
    ‘Oh my God! You’re Marnie Bruce! I don’t believe it! Goodness, you haven’t changed a bit!’
    Marnie was struggling with the flashbacks the sight of her friend had prompted. ‘Well …’ was all she managed, but it didn’t matter. Gemma was talking enough for both of them.
    ‘Don’t just stand there – come on in! It’s wonderful to see you. Where have you been all these years? You just disappeared so suddenly, and no one seemed to know where you’d gone. I made Mum drive me out to the house, you know, but it was all shut up. What happened?’
    Without giving her time for a reply, she led her across the hall. A small, dark-haired woman – Asian, Marnie thought – appeared on the stairs behind her carrying a vacuum cleaner, but as Marnie looked up she shrank back into the shadows at the top as if she were startled, or even afraid.
    Gemma opened a door into a huge farmhouse kitchen, all glossy surfaces and