The Sleeping Dead Read Online Free Page B

believed that too, but he understood that whenever anyone from MedWay saw him, they would be reminded of Malcolm Laine.
    On the other side of the glass door, a steady stream of shapes hurried past as the offices emptied. Jackson sensed a few of them pausing as they reached his door, but no one interrupted him. The stream became a trickle, until five minutes passed and he was confident the offices of MedWay Associates were empty.
    Except for Fairls. He popped in to check on Jackson every five or ten minutes and provide brief updates. “No sign of the police yet,” or “The paramedics have finished with Malcolm’s body, but they can’t come up and see you just yet as they have to deal with an incident on Loughborough Road.” It occurred to Jackson that the updates were really for Fairls’s benefit rather than his own—an excuse to come into the room and check that he was still okay. It made him think of the flaps in the steel doors of a prison cell with the warder peering through them on suicide watch.
    The next time Fairls leaned around the door, Jackson asked, “Have they all gone?”
    Fairls nodded. “Pretty much. A couple of the partners are hanging around to tidy up some things and cancel meetings for the rest of the day, but almost everyone’s left now.” He paused, as if deciding what to say next, before continuing. “Did he say anything? Anything at all?”
    “I couldn’t hear him properly.”
    “I don’t understand,” Fairls said. “We went out for drinks together last week—all of the partners. Malcolm was talking about tickets he had for a cricket match at the end of the month. Why would you buy tickets for a match if you weren’t going to be there?”
    Jackson shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t know, not until he did it.”
    “I’ll send Donna in as soon as she gets here.”
    Jackson nodded, noting the abrupt change in subject, the need to drag the conversation away from Malcolm Laine.
    “She sent me a text, she should be here soon.”
    “Traffic’s snarled up, it might take a little longer than normal.”
    Jackson thought about the queue of cars and buses on the bridge, and wondered whether that had anything to do with the congestion. Maybe they’d had to cordon off the area for the forensics team. He wanted to text Donna and ask her to hurry up, he needed to get out of this place with its eerie stillness and the presence of death hanging over every conversation, but he understood that texting Donna wouldn’t get her through the traffic any quicker.
    “Can I get you another tea?” Fairls offered.
    Jackson shook his head.
    “I’ll be in my office. Just down the corridor. If you need me.”
    Fairls closed the door behind him and once more Jackson was alone with the gallery of prints on the walls and the recurring image of Malcolm Laine smashing his head against the thick glass until he was able to claw his way out the window. The scene ran on a loop so that every time he closed his eyes he saw it again. It churned up a sickness in his stomach that he wanted to vomit up like a piece of sour fish.
    He stared at his watch and the second hand seemed to crawl around the clock face. How long would it take Donna to get here? Even with the traffic? Twenty minutes? Half an hour? He didn’t know how long it had been since he had been sequestered in the room, since Donna had received the call to come and fetch him.
    He sat down on the chair and then pushed it back from the desk so his knees did not knock against the underside of the writing surface. The springs in the chair creaked each time he moved and there was something comforting and habitual about the motion. He fell into a rhythm, moving in time to the second hand on his watch.
    The motion helped. It seemed to banish the images of Malcolm Laine’s last moments. It seemed to stop the clamor of thoughts bombarding his mind; he could almost forget why he was sitting there.
    He stopped rocking and the metal squeal of the springs halted, allowing