Read Online Elysium. Part One. by Kelvin James Roper - Free Book Online Page B

and a long bruise across his hip. She’d received a similar bruise from her father some years previously, but never had he left her body scarred.
      ‘Well what do you want?’ He said moodily. ‘Do you know who those women are?’
      She was distracted by the sight of his wounds. For the first time she considered Boen was the way he was as a result of them.
      ‘Well?’
      ‘No… No I don’t, I wish people would stop asking me. I did try, but pa shouted at me to get to bed.’
      ‘Well why are you here?’
      ‘I just wondered what you thought about it… I mean, it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Three strangers coming to the village in the space of a week? I’ve hardly had a wink of sleep all night.’
      ‘You think it’s connected?’
     ‘I don’t know,’
     ‘Well…’ He sat on his bed and gathered some dirty socks from the floor. ‘Why would one stranger murder and run away, and the other two come directly to the Smuggler’s?’
     ‘I think we should go to Lundy.’ She said directly.
      ‘How would we do that?’
       Eryn picked at the grain of the doorframe innocently, ‘One of your pa’s boats?’
     Boen left one sock dangling from his foot and stared up at her. ‘You’ve got to be joking! If pa caught me stealing one of his boats he’d gut me!’
     ‘Yeah? What d’you think my pa would do? Congratulate me? We’ve got to go; you said yourself that they wear galoshes on Lundy. If what you’ve told me so far is true then someone on that Island had a reason to murder Kelly and I want to know what that reason was.’
     He stared at her for a moment, and noticed her grey eyes catching the light. They sparkled like the morning surf and he supposed she was making them do it on purpose to dazzle him. How was it possible for grey eyes to sparkle with flecks of yellow and pink?
     He looked away darkly, and let out a deep sigh.
     ‘Is that a ‘yes’?’ She said apprehensively.
     ‘Not yet it isn’t.’
     ‘Oh come on, Boen… You want to get to the bottom of this don’t you? Just think of the esteem you’ll be held in.’
     ‘I don’t know that I care as much about esteem as I do about not being gutted!’
     ‘If the murderer knows what you look like…’
     ‘That’s the main reason I don’t want to go. If I take the boat I’ll run the risk of being murdered there and here!’
     She rolled her eyes and waited in silence for a while before tilting her head seductively. ‘So what do you say?’
     ‘Can you just go away… Please?’
      She felt his earnestness, and wasn’t quite certain how to react. She knew Guliven wouldn’t literally gut him, of course he wouldn’t, but the thought of his wounded back made her realise she shouldn’t pursue the matter any further. She nodded without saying a word, and turned to go.
     ‘You working tonight?’ He said, his back hunched as he looked at the floor between his legs.
     ‘I don’t know, what with these women… If the pubs open then yeah.’
     ‘Then if the pubs open tonight I’ll come and give you my answer.’
     She turned to leave again.
     ‘Eryn?’
     ‘Hmm?’
     ‘Why are you even asking me?’
     She didn’t say anything.
     ‘I mean: I’ve never seen you back away from doing something just because someone said ‘no’ to you. If you wanted one of the boats you’d get George to steal one and go with you.’
     Eryn was taken aback by the question. She hadn’t realised that her persuading others to do her bidding was so blatant. She’d always considered herself to be rather subtle. She ran her fingers through her hair and twisted her mouth. ‘I just thought we could do this… you know, together.’
     He didn’t say anything to this, and after a few seconds of silence, she turned and made her way from the house.
    *
      Selina woke slowly, the darkness in her dreamless mind matching that of the quiet black room. It was the monotonous sound of the ticking clock that