Read Online The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner - Free Book Online

pulled up, panting, in the bright sunshine just outside the front door. John Barton appeared two seconds later.
    He grabbed my shoulder. ‘Aaron? You okay?’
    I nodded quickly.
    He seemed unconvinced. ‘Here,’ he said, and patted the edge of the concrete urn. ‘Sit for a bit.’
    I did as I was told and eventually found a rhythm to breathe by.
    John Barton stared. ‘What happened?’
    ‘I . . . I . . .’
    ‘Yes? Take your time.’
    ‘I . . . It was nothing. Just my imagination running wild.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘I thought I saw her toe move.’
    John Barton nodded thoughtfully. He propped his buttocks on the urn opposite. He pointed towards the coolroom. ‘That’s the other ten per cent. The dark side of what we do. It can be a little . . . unhinging. Mess with your head. The suicides, the murders, the babies and the car crashes. Some of the things we see are truly horrible. There’s nothing —’
    ‘It wasn’t that,’ I interrupted.
    John Barton blinked.
    ‘I didn’t sleep very well last night.’
    ‘I hope it’s not the work that—’
    ‘No. No, I . . . the work is satisfying. More than that. It’s what I want to do.’
    John Barton exhaled. ‘If that’s the way you feel, thenwe’ll nut it out. We’ll do what we need to do until you find your feet. It may take a while.’
    I nodded, thankful.
    He guided the conversation back to practical things. ‘After an autopsy, bodies tend to decompose very quickly. If we were to open her up we’d find her guts in a plastic bag. They take a slice from the major organs for pathology and stuff the rest back in no particular order. Short of pickling her in embalming fluid there’s not much we can do to stem the natural breakdown going on.’
    When I looked up, he was watching me again.
    ‘You okay?’ he asked.
    I gave him my most convincing nod. Short of pickling my head in embalming fluid, there didn’t seem to be much we could do with the natural breakdown going on in there, either.
    ‘Now, I have to go and ring the Creens. Somebody has to try and convince them they don’t want to see their beautiful daughter one last time.’
    Before he left, he drove the hearse onto the grass and left me with the hose and bucket of cleaning gear. It was exactly the mindless job I needed. It gave the day some sunshine and purpose. I entertained myself with the notion that I was scrubbing and polishing the shadows from my own mind. The dream couldn’t reach me in that sunshine. Mam was fending for herself and I’d pick up the pieces when I got home if I had to. What I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.
    ‘Aaron?’
    I didn’t recognize the businessman until he removed his hat. It was the man from the beach.
    ‘It is you!’ he said.
    I nodded. My defensive shields were down. This total stranger had seen me at my weakest. He’d also rescued me from my dream.
    ‘Twice in one day,’ he said, to fill the awkward gap. ‘How . . . extraordinary.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said.
    ‘Your hearse?’
    ‘No, my boss’s.John Barton.’
    ‘Ah. Good man, John Barton. He’s lain to rest quite a few of our nearest and dearest. You’re a funeral director?’
    ‘In training.’
    ‘How . . . extraordinary.’
    There were seagulls cawing overhead but they didn’t fill the hole I’d left in the conversation. I took words with my tongue and forced them out. ‘Thank you.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘Your help this morning.’
    ‘It was nothing,’ he said dismissively.
    ‘No, it was something. It was very kind.’
    He shrugged.
    ‘I could have been anybody . . . a drug user, violent criminal. Anybody.’
    He chuckled.
    Blood stampeded to my cheeks. I bent to polish the wheel rim.
    ‘In one of my previous lives I was a paramedic,’ he said quietly. ‘You develop a capacity to read situations like the body on the beach. And I told you, my son was a sleepwalker too.’
    Thinking about it drew me right back to the breathless edge of the dream.
    ‘You’re not a paramedic any