The Sleeping Dead Read Online Free Page A

The Sleeping Dead
Book: The Sleeping Dead Read Online Free
Author: Richard Farren Barber
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look at the man who had seen it happen.
    But this time the figure didn’t pass by. The door opened and Fairls came in.
    “How are you feeling?”
    Jackson shrugged. He didn’t have any words to explain what emotions were running through him. He didn’t know Laine, not really. His overall feeling toward him had been annoyance that his antics had been screwing up his interview, but that was replaced by…shock? Horror?
    “I couldn’t stop him,” Jackson said, aware that he had said the same thing to everyone who entered the room.
    “I know.”
    “He was so determined .” He stared at Fairls. It was strange to see the face that had seemed so hard on the other side of the interview table, now appear so brittle.
    “The police will be here shortly. To interview you, I assume. But they say they’re held up with other incidents. Although I don’t know what’s more important than a man throwing himself off the eighth floor of an office block.”
    Well, he can’t hurt anyone else , Jackson thought, and tried to bat away the idea.
    “And we’ve spoken to…Donna.” Fairls hesitated over the name, as if he was checking to make sure he had got it right. “She said she’ll be over as quickly as she can.” Fairls smiled. “She asked how you were doing.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “That you were shaken up, probably in shock. I suspect that when the paramedics have finished with Laine’s body, they’ll want to come and check you out. I’ll want them to come and check you out.”
    “Thanks,” Jackson said. He took another sip of the tea and grimaced. Fairls peered at him and it occurred to Jackson that this would have been a good place to work. He kept the thought to himself—it felt a little like dancing on Laine’s grave to be thinking about the interview at the moment.
    “I need to go and sort out some things,” Fairls said. “We’re going to send everyone home and I need to get in contact with Malcolm’s wife.”
    “He was married?” Jackson asked, not sure why he was so surprised.
    “And they had a ten-year-old girl.” Fairls’s voice broke.
    Jackson nodded, although the idea of ringing up Mrs. Laine and telling her that her husband had thrown himself out of a window was too terrible to consider.
    “I thought he was happy,” Fairls said.
    Jackson didn’t answer, there was nothing he could say.
    Fairls shuddered, and as Jackson watched him he seemed to draw himself together, to stand straighter and become stronger. The transformation was incredible to watch. He put a hand on Jackson’s shoulder and the contact felt reassuring.
    “Hang in there.”
    Jackson nodded, not sure he had any alternative unless he planned to follow Laine’s example.
    Fairls closed the door behind him and Jackson was left alone with the syrupy cup of tea and the image replayed in his mind of Laine battering his forehead against the glass. What could have been so terrible about his life that he felt suicide was the only way to escape?
    Jackson forced himself to drink all of the tea, persuading himself that it had to have some medicinal qualities. He put the empty mug down on the table and glanced around. They had put him in a room away from any windows. He wondered if that had been intentional.
    He inspected the pictures on the wall—prints of advertisements he assumed MedWay had produced. He stood up and walked the small cell before returning to his chair. For one horrible moment he thought they’d put him in Laine’s office; he imagined opening the drawers to find the dead man’s car keys and wallet, and maybe a photograph of his wife and their ten-year-old daughter. He shook the macabre suggestion away. The office was bare—maybe it was where he would have sat if they had given him the job.
    If. There was no chance of that happening now. What company would want to employ the man who drove one of his interviewers to throw themselves out of a window? Jackson knew it wasn’t his fault, and knew that Fairls
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