Free The Dead Travel Fast by Nick Brown Page A

asked the waitress to sit down and help with the wine. She agreed to sit, as he was by now the only customer, but declined his offer of the wine, preferring a coke.
    Her name was Hippolyta. She’d not managed to find a suitable job after university so had borrowed money to open a shop for tourists; after a year the economic crash scuppered tourism and the shop went bust. Now she was in debt and a waitress. They talked until the place closed and when he asked if she worked here every night, she said no but told him she’d be there tomorrow.
    Later, as he sat on his balcony looking at the stars, he tried to imagine somewhere else out there in the multiverse where one of the infinite versions of himself had had the courage to ask her out.

Chapter 6:
Slow Turn
    Steve heard her before he saw her: the siren blasts from the car horn not only startled him but everyone else in the village. He looked out of the window to see the silver sports car, roof down, with Alekka at the wheel.
    “Kirios Steve, you must be quick, Saturday morning is almost gone and you have a match of cricket to play.”
    He was both alarmed and pleased; no formal arrangement had been made for this weekend and he hadn’t been sure if anyone would collect him. He was not sure about the cricket though.
    “I don’t have anything to play in.”
    “Do not worry, we have all the cricket costumes and protectors that you could need.”
    He quickly swilled and spat out a shot of mouthwash and ran downstairs. As he closed the door behind him he remembered he’d left his phone on charge in the flat, but the proximity of Alekka drove the thought from his mind. He climbed into the passenger seat and she leant across and lightly kissed him on the mouth.
    “Why I let you kiss me, Steve, I do not know after you make no attempt to call me since you leave my father’s house last Sunday.”
    He recognised this as a tease but was pleased by its implications so he said nothing, just sat back in his seat and stared at her bare brown legs as the car accelerated away from the curb and sped through the narrow twisting back lanes of the village towards the main road. Had he bothered to look, he would have seen two old village women swathed in traditional black make agesture with their first and fourth fingers then spit into the road. The car shot straight over the cross roads without pausing and up the hill, screaming round each bend. Exhilarated by speed, danger and the beautiful driver, Steve luxuriated in the rush of hot air and sunlight. When they came to the roundabout where a right turn bypassed the small hilltop town, Alekka, instead of turning, carried straight on, and noticing that Steve was going to ask her why, she braked abruptly.
    “If you want to see why we are taking the slow way, look over there.”
    He turned his head towards the bypass and saw about fifty metres from the exit there was a police barrier.
    “Death has been discovered there, Steve, and they are very frightened because it’s one of their own. They only knew about it early this morning - a shepherd found the body.”
    “What? You mean a cop’s been killed?”
    “Yes, either that or suicide, they are not sure, they say the body is one of those who are investigating the demonic killings.”
    To most people, the word demonic would have seemed either quaint or just the mistranslation of a more ordinary word; but not to him after Skendleby. He privately hoped it was suicide brought on by personal problems but asked,
    “How can you say that if they’ve only just found the body?”
    “Because we know everything, Steve. My family knows everything that happens on this island, sometimes before it happens; I thought you already understood that.”
    She laughed and gently put her hand on the back of his neck just below the hairline and spoke while looking tenderly into his eyes.
    “Oh, Steveymou, you look as if you are afraid of me now, it was a little joke, I thought you English loved to make a joke