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

me !’
     ‘He saw you?’
     ‘I was at the junction as he came round the bend and I stopped in surprise. From the moment he rounded the corner he clapped eyes on me.’
     Eryn wasn’t sure how much of his account was dramatized, though she resolved to give him the benefit of the doubt.
     She picked at some grass and looked at him. ‘You definitely think he was from outside?’
     ‘I don’t know anyone who owns a coat like that. And get this: I remember pa once said that they favour galoshes on Lundy rather than the boots we get here.’
     Eryn looked across the glittering sea to the dark smudge of Lundy Island on the horizon. ‘So you think they were from Lundy?’
     ‘Could be, though I don’t know why they’d want to kill him, he was a good old boy, was Kelly.’
     Eryn sighed in agreement and thought about the man she had loved with so much childish passion. In her early teens she deluded herself that he was in love with her also, that’s why he had remained a bachelor when he had so many admirers. As she grew older, however, she learnt of the informal nature of his relationships and decided that he was incapable of loving anyone other than himself, and certainly couldn’t bear the thought of marriage.  
        ‘I don’t believe anyone around here would have killed him, everyone liked Kelly.’ She found herself whispering.
     ‘Some more than others, eh?’ He said.
      She took it as an insult. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    ‘Come off it… It didn’t take Max Carrodos to figure you were in love with him. Remember when we stole that barrel of ale? We must have been, what, thirteen?’
     Eryn couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’ve never been so sick in my life…’
     ‘You were wrecked! We all were… But I’ll never forget it. You kept on saying you were ‘drowning your sorrows’ like some heartbroken cowboy…’ He considered that the reason was the same then as it was now and cleared his throat, ‘I think you’d had another argument with your pa, you were pretty beaten about in those days. You never talked about it though, you just poured more ale and talked about Kelly. You were furious with him because he was sleeping with Lucia.’ He smirked at the memory.
     Eryn thought about denying it for a moment, and then turned to the sun. She continued smirking, her head tilted so the warmth was on her cheek. ‘…Bitch.’ She said idly, and snuffed a dry laugh.
    *
      They returned to the Smuggler’s close to nine o’clock. The bar was as busy as usual, though people were beginning to filter home early; they had spent the whole day fixing whatever the storm had thrown at their property, and had only ventured to the pub to out-awe their fellows with reports of their battered estates.
      Boen and Eryn served themselves and sat alone, away from the exaggerated storytelling.
      Mrs. Sayer, the ‘buck-toothed widow of the Combe’, as Eryn called her, looked over to the two of them. She beamed a rabbity smile at Boen, scowled at Eryn, and then turned back to her writhing children who, to the consternation of everyone, were as boisterous as rutting fox. Eryn rolled her eyes and turned to her pint.
      ‘Why does she hate you so much?’ Boen said, indicating at Mrs. Sayer.
      ‘Oh, I said something to her a while back that she didn’t agree with.’
      ‘What?’ He leaned closer.
      Eryn shook her head. ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’
      He let it go. An awkward silence lingered between them; he wanted to say something though nothing in his mind seemed important enough to interest her – apart, of course, from the murderer.
      ‘The man that ran from Kelly’s? I didn’t say before but he mentioned my name.’ He said, staring into his pint.
      ‘No he didn’t, Boen.’ She sighed, and looked around the pub as though to find somebody else to talk to.
     ‘Ok, he didn’t, but… Look, it’s not as easy for me to talk to people as it is for