The Sleeping Dead (2 page)

He looked back over the side of the bridge to the water, but the connection he had felt before was lost.

He checked behind him; the bus had not moved. Jackson started to shuffle forward in a gait that was not quite running, not yet, but had more urgency than a Sunday stroll around the park. He looked up at the tower on the other side of the bridge and calculated it would take no more than a couple of minutes to reach it.

The crowd was closer, almost within arm’s reach. The people were all looking at something in the middle of the throng, hidden from Jackson’s view. Not that he had time to find out what it was.

There was a second police car already on the bridge, light bar flashing red and blue. It was parked slantways across the road.
Well that explains the stalled traffic
, Jackson thought. As he got level with the crowd, he saw that it was being held back by a length of flimsy blue and white police tape strung from the handrail of the bridge, across the pavement, and tied around the wing mirror of the patrol car.

And as he got closer, up to the back of the crowd, Jackson realized—no one was talking.

2

He tried to push his way through the crowd. They stood in silence and it didn’t matter how much Jackson tried to weave a path through the bodies, it seemed that he couldn’t make any headway. Even when he used his shoulder, the people stood there without reacting, as if he didn’t exist. After a few minutes, he moved backward and stepped onto the road and curved around the police car.

The crowd was thinner here. Jackson could see over the roof of the car and all the way to the edge of the bridge.

A man sat on the balustrade, his hands stretched behind him, anchoring him to the bridge. His head was dropped, looking down into the swirling waters of the river. There was a plastic bag on the ground behind him and Jackson had the impression that the man had been carrying his shopping back from the supermarket and, for whatever reason, had simply decided that now was the right moment to throw himself from the bridge.

Two police officers flanked the man. Not quite close enough to grab him if he made to jump.

The jumper. The police officers. The crowd. All were silent; frozen in a tableau as if posing for a scene. It was wrong, Jackson understood that. The police officers should be talking to the jumper. The crowd should be whispering and chatting and murmuring.

Jackson watched the man’s fingers slowly peel away from the handrail. One by one they broke contact. And then the man fell, gracefully, almost casually, over the side of the bridge.

The first sound Jackson heard was the thump of the man’s body against the water. Not a splash, but a heavy thud of one solid body hitting another.

The crowd shuffled forward, straining against the thin blue and white police tape. The two officers looked over the side of the bridge.

And still no one spoke. The only sound came from the engines of the cars and trucks waiting behind the parked police cruiser.

The lack of emotion made Jackson feel nervous. There was something wrong about all these people standing and watching a man fall to his death and the silence that hung over them like a conspiracy.

Jackson shuddered—a tremor that rifled through his body—and turned away from the scene. The people hurrying to join the crowd reminded him of ants scurrying toward a lump of sugar.

He crossed the bridge to find a line of traffic on the other side—a collection of buses and cars and taxis just like the one he had left, as if someone had cut the bridge in half and placed a large mirror in the middle. As he passed the first bus, he looked through the window, almost expecting to find the driver working on his Sudoku puzzle. He was relieved to find a woman slumped over the steering wheel, resting.

On this side of the river, the buildings clustered together like a child’s toy box, each competing to be the tallest or the strangest shape. The Pinnacle was a simple rectangular tower—tall but nothing special. Jackson stood in front of the door and looked up, cricking his neck to see to the top. He tried to imagine working up there, watching over the city from his office. The commotion on the bridge would seem insignificant from the eighth floor.

Of course, he wouldn’t get an office with a window—he wouldn’t even get an office. If he got the job, he’d be lucky to get a desk, tucked somewhere in the bowels of the building. But it would be a start, getting the job would be the start of something new.

He stepped into the foyer—an obscene expanse of emptiness in the crowded footprint of downtown. Just inside the doorway a square man in a uniform glared at Jackson.

A woman sat behind a large desk and behind her the list of the building’s tenants ran on a chalkboard, each name carefully scribed but giving the impression that The Pinnacle was so new and fast-moving that with a wipe of a damp cloth they could turn over a new client list of bigger and better companies. Jackson was almost relieved to see that MedWay was still listed.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked. Her hair was bottle-red and her eyebrows had been plucked into a thin line, one hair wide, arching over chestnut eyes. There was something false about her—something Jackson knew Donna would be able to identify immediately.

“I have an interview at MedWay Associates.”

There was a clock behind the woman—a trendy modern thing with all the numbers in a heap in the bottom corner as if someone had taken it from the wall and shaken it. The hands were stranded in empty space, but Jackson guessed he had at least ten minutes before he was due upstairs.

“Lifts are over there,” the receptionist said. She pointed behind her. “Eighth floor.”

Jackson nodded, although it was nothing he could not have worked out for himself. His shoes squeaked on the marble floor as he crossed over to the elevators, and he was conscious of the woman and security guard watching him, and making a judgment on whether he was the sort of person they wanted in their building.

He pressed the button to call the elevator and waited, wiping his clammy hands against the leg of his trousers. Part of him regretted not bringing something to hold—an umbrella or a briefcase. He felt he was arriving to the battle empty-handed, but it was too late to worry about that now. The elevator pinged to announce its arrival and Jackson stepped inside and pressed the button for the eighth floor.

Inside the elevator, sepia lights pressed down upon him. When he checked his appearance in the mirror, he looked like a 1940s photo. He stared at the digital readout as it counted up from 0 to 8.

He stepped out into a hallway where a large directory listed the companies on that floor. Chalkboard again. MedWay was near the top of the list and it took Jackson only a moment to work out where he needed to be. He walked down the corridor, past translucent doors with company names etched into the glass, until he reached MedWay. Shapes flitted behind the glass and as he put his hand out to push open the door his phone rang.

He let go of the door as if it had burned him. Walking into the office while answering a call would not mark him out as employee-of-the-month material. He plucked the phone from his pocket and hurried to the end of the corridor where a huge window looked down on the far side of the town center—away from the bridge and out to the housing estates.

“I just wanted to wish you good luck in person, so to speak,” Donna said.

“Thanks.”

“Are you nervous?”

Jackson shrugged, and then realized she wouldn’t be able to see him. “A little,” he confessed.

“You’ll be fine. They’d be mad not to hire you.”

“That’s going to be my opening gambit,” Jackson said and smiled at the bravado. “I’ll explain to them that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them to acquire a staff member that can make a difference to their company. A chance for them to get in on the ground floor of something new and exciting.”

Donna laughed. “Good luck,” she whispered, soft and slow.

“Thanks.” He smiled as he spoke.

“Café Reynauld?” Donna asked. “As soon as you get out.”

“Okay,” Jackson agreed, and even after he hung up he could feel the smile stretching his cheeks. Donna had that effect on him. Hell, she had that effect on everyone she met.

He knocked lightly on the door and pushed it open without waiting for an answer. Inside, the small reception was crowded with a desk and a line of chairs. There was a magazine rack hanging from the wall behind the chairs, stuffed with newspapers and glossies.

“Can I help you?” The boy behind the counter grinned at Jackson. He seemed genuinely happy to see him, as if he had been waiting all day for him to walk through the door.

I want to work here
, Jackson thought, the idea hard and urgent.
I want to work for a company where even the guy on reception looks like he’s having a good time.

“I’m Jackson Smith, I’m—”

“Here for the interviews,” the boy finished for him. He looked down at something on his desk and made a mark that Jackson thought was probably a tick upon a list. Jackson felt a flare of panic—
How many other names are on that list? How many am I up against for the job?
—and willed himself to remain calm.

“If you’d like to take a seat, someone will be out to collect you in a little while.”

Jackson settled himself on one of the plastic chairs and plucked a magazine from the rack. He’d heard that some companies started their assessment as soon as the candidate walked through the door—they would take into account everything you said and did from the moment you turned up at their desk.

He wiped his hands dry against his trouser leg again and stared at the magazine. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this nervous. He turned a page, but even if someone had held a gun to his head, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them what the article was about.

“Mr. Smith, if you’d like to follow me?”

Jackson jerked his head up. He hadn’t heard anyone enter. The man was standing in front of him, smiling. He wore a light gray suit and a deep blue tie. There was a small golden pin on his lapel. Jackson stared at it for a moment but couldn’t decide what it might represent.

Smiling is good
, Jackson thought to himself. He stood quickly, still holding the magazine. He turned to drop it onto the chair and then changed his mind and wedged it back into the magazine rack.

They passed a series of open offices sectioned off by glass walls. Jackson followed until they came to a large room. Four men sat in a row on the other side of a polished oak desk. As Jackson entered, they stood in a single fluid movement.

“Mr. Smith, thank you for joining us,” the man on the far right of the group said. He held out his hand and Jackson shook it briskly.

“John Fairls, chief exec of MedWay.”

The next man held out his hand. “Peter Walker.”

Jackson shook his hand and moved on to be introduced to Michael Handford and Malcolm Laine. The last man was a small, nervous type. When he shook Jackson’s hand, he looked away, as if afraid to make eye contact.

Jackson sat in the chair. There was a glass of water on the table in front of him, beads of condensation forming on the outside.

“So, Mr. Smith, I wonder if you could start by telling us what inspired you to apply for a job at MedWay?”

Jackson nodded and tried to avoid smiling too widely. He’d been over the question with Donna. Together they had covered every question he could imagine about the job.

It was ten minutes into the interview before he noticed there was something wrong with the man seated at the far left of the table—Malcolm Laine. Jackson was answering a question on teamwork and looking at Peter Walker at the time, but from the edge of his vision he saw the steady rhythmic movement of Malcolm Laine moving back and forth. Jackson stared at the top of Walker’s glasses and focused his attention on discussing the attributes he brought to a team dynamic.

“I’m, err, I work well in a team, but I can also use my own initiative when a problem arises that, err…”

It was impossible to concentrate. He could hear the gentle creaking of the chair beneath Laine. Jackson wanted to ask him to stop but it occurred to him that Laine’s behavior might be part of the interview.

“I think it depends on the situation. There will be some tasks where my skills and previous experience mean that I would be able to perform as the leader of a team and others…”

Laine was still rocking back and forth. Jackson stared at Walker and tried to remember the question he was answering. A moment later, Fairls leaned forward and glared down the table.

“Malcolm, do you need to take a moment?”

Malcolm Laine shook his head. He sat at the far end of the table with his hands tucked into his armpits. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and his face wore a red sheen, as if the room was twenty degrees hotter than it was.

“Malcolm, I think you need to step out.”

Malcolm Laine brought the two front legs of his chair back down to the floor with a loud thump. He sat still, but somehow that was even worse, as if, even though he was no longer moving, the motion within him had not stopped. He rammed his hands even tighter into his own armpits. His body trembled with the effort to sit still, like a length of wire carrying a high electrical load.