Razorhurst by Justine Larbalestier Read Free Book Online Page A

had to steady herself. If she wasn’t calm, she couldn’t plan her way out of this imbroglio.
    “Why are you so pretty?” one of the little Darcys asked.
    Dymphna smiled. “Thank you.”
    The littlie goggled at her.
    “’Cause she’s got money, silly,” an older one replied.
    “Money don’t make you pretty,” the younger one protested. “You is or you ain’t.”
    “It helps,” Dymphna could not resist replying. Money kept you clean and housed and eating well and wearing beautiful clothes and having your hair styled and your nails done by other people. She was quite sure she spent more on a jar of face cream than the Darcys spent on food in a month.
    “How much did your hat cost?” another of the little Darcys asked.
    Dymphna laughed, though her leg did not stop shaking.
    “Mary!” Mrs. Darcy glared at the girl. “Ain’t polite to ask about money. Finish your breakfast, the lot of youse. Now.”
    The police hadn’t asked after Dymphna by name. She could take comfort in that, couldn’t she? But their description fitted her. Well-dressed, blonde. Surely she wasn’t the only one in Surry Hills. There was that girl who worked at the florist’s on Taylor Square. Very pretty she was, blonde like Dymphna, and always smartly dressed.
    What did the police know? She was sure she and Kelpie hadn’t been seen. If they had, surely they would already have been dragged from the Darcys’ yard and thrown in the lock-up. Or Dymphnawould be. They would hand Kelpie over to Child Welfare. Dymphna didn’t know which was worse.
    Even if they knew nothing about what had happened last night, everyone knew Jimmy was her man. They would be coming by to question her. They always did.
    Snowy Fullerton had killed Jimmy.
    What if she’d arrived when Snowy was still there? Would he have killed her too? She didn’t think so. Snowy and she, they were friends. She could make a sly comment and he’d understand. Make a similar observation of his own. She liked Snowy.
    Snowy did not pick fights, and he didn’t kill unless his boss told him to. Had his boss told him to kill Dymphna too? Was he looking for her now? If Snowy had to kill her, he would be sorry about it. She wasn’t sure what difference that made. She didn’t doubt he’d been sorry to kill Jimmy. That didn’t make Jimmy any less dead.
    Or any less of a ghost railing at being dead.
    His face was getting darker because Kelpie wasn’t answering any of his questions. When he was alive, his face would turn bright red when he was angry, when he laughed too hard, when they had sex.
    Dymphna had thought Jimmy was smart enough to realise why Kelpie was ignoring him in a room full of the living. His adjustment to being dead was going to be slow. From what she’d seen, it was slow for most people. No one believed they were going to die, and once dead it was hard to let go of that disbelief.
    At least Jimmy wasn’t trying to touch her or talk at her now.
    He was focused on Kelpie. Poor Kelpie.
    If Dymphna’s leg hadn’t been shaking, if her man weren’t dead, if she weren’t afraid that Mr. Davidson or Glory would find and kill her, she would have laughed. She was in a none-too-clean room full of Irish tykes, their overworked mother, handsome eldest brother, Kelpie, and the ghost of her dead man.
    Kelpie and Jimmy Palmer in the same room.
    Chance had thrown Dymphna and Kelpie together. Left to herself, she would have gone on waiting for the perfect moment to introduce herself to the girl. She was too nervous about frightening her off. Dymphna’s desire to win Kelpie over was too intense.
    But here Kelpie was, and for the first time in Dymphna’s life, she was with someone who could hear every word the dead said.
    It made Jimmy harder to ignore because she couldn’t help butwatch Kelpie interact with him, which led her gaze back to Jimmy, whom she could not look at without giving herself away.
    Jimmy had been alive yesterday; Jimmy had been alive mere hours ago. Her leg