Razorhurst Read Online Free PDF Page B

was a littlie. She might be small, but she wasn’t a child.
    Mrs. Darcy’s gaze hardened when she turned to Dymphna. Kelpie could tell she knew who she was and how she made her money. Kelpie could almost see the word
chromo
balanced on her lips.
    “They’re in a spot of bother, Ma. We can give them breakfast, can’t we?”
    “Kelpie’s welcome,” Mrs. Darcy began, “but—”
    “There’s not enough time,” Dymphna said. “We have to be going.”
    Jimmy Palmer looked agitated.
    Outside the siren from a police motor-car sounded. Neal Darcy looked at Dymphna. “You won’t get far.”
    More footsteps on the stairs.
    “Who’s that then?” one of Darcy’s brothers asked. A little one. Snot dribbled from his left nostril to his mouth.
    “Our guests,” Mrs. Darcy said, shooting her eldest son a dark look.
    Darcy carefully wrapped the typewriter in towels and put it under one of the crates they used as chairs. All six Darcy kids and the lodger, a tall thin woman wearing a worn suit and a hat, crammed around the kitchen table. Mrs. Darcy moved to the stove to warm the porridge.
    The ghost belligerently pushed his way through them, and not a one noticed. Palmer looked like he was ready to explode.
    “We should leave,” Dymphna said, sounding even posher than Miss Lee.
    The youngest Darcy girl was staring at her and making faces. Kelpie averted her eyes.
    Someone banged so loud on the front door it rattled.
    Kelpie and Dymphna looked at each other. Kelpie began to ease the back door open, readying herself to slide through and away.
    “Cops, Ma,” Darcy said as the pounding on the door continued.
    “Upstairs, you two,” Mrs. Darcy said. “Not a sound.”

Kelpie’s Theories of Ghosts
    The dead weren’t forthcoming about their lives as ghosts. No more than the living were about their strange rituals and customs. When drinking with your mates, you clink glasses. When you meet a man, you shake his hand. Very few could say how those customs began or what they mean. Or explain why they close their eyes when they sneeze. Or why so many living presume they are the centre of the universe.
    Kelpie had no idea why only some dead stayed with the living. She had no idea where the rest of the dead went. Was it the same place ghosts went when they disappeared quick as a pickpocket, only to pop back just as sudden? Was it the same place they went when they faded away forever?
    She had asked Miss Lee where she went.
    “Not here.”
    “Not here as in somewhere else in the Hills or …?”
    “Not here. I can’t explain more than that.”
    Kelpie asked other ghosts. Most didn’t answer. She asked the cauliflower-eared boxer, Stuart O’Sullivan, where he went, and Stuart said, “Why don’t you go tell off some hard man? You’ll be killed dead, and
then
you’ll know where we go.”
    She didn’t ask Stuart anything like that again. Only questions about boxing and how to defend herself against the likes of Bluey Denham.
    His main answer was,
Run
. But he also gave her useful tips on how to roll and duck, and tricksy ways to move from one spot to another slick fast, and which parts were most vulnerable: knees, between the legs, throat, eyes.
Not that you’ll be able to reach the last two. Not unless he’s already down. Hit ’em hard in one of them, then RUN!
    She didn’t know why ghosts were grey. Though grey wasn’t exactly right because they weren’t like the colour grey of the living. It was more that all their colour was gone. Maybe it was life that gave the living colour, and when a person died, their colour died too.
    She didn’t know why some ghosts haunted people and others haunted places, or why Miss Lee could go wherever she wanted.Tommy had been in Belmore Lane always. She’d never seen him anywhere else because he couldn’t go anywhere else. Tommy was always complaining he was gunna be stuck on the lane until the end of time.
    She didn’t know why Miss Lee was free to roam. Miss Lee didn’t