Read Online Where the Bodies are Buried by Christopher Brookmyre, Brookmyre - Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Brookmyre, Brookmyre
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quite startling feeling of certainty that something was very wrong.
It wasn’t transient or merely some disturbing passing thought: it had physical symptoms, like she’d just received an injection
or eaten something to which she was allergic. She felt a twisting, hollow sensation in her stomach like she was inside a falling
elevator, all her hairs prickling on her skin and a frightening awareness of being fragile and vulnerable. She had an urge
to lock the door, offset by an equally unfocused concern that whatever was scaring her might be inside the office.
She immediately began trying to rationalise and deconstruct it, knowing from experience that finding sources for this sudden
onset of fear would help it to dissipate. The first, albeit the least specific, explanation was simply recurrence. Since Mum
had died, she had been prone to these sudden feelings of the floor having dropped from under her, accompanied by an acute,
vertiginous insecurity deriving from having nobody left to turn to. Once in a while, some part of her remembered that she
was all alone, that the person she had always been able to rely upon in times of anxiety, of trouble, of precisely this kind
of scared vulnerability, was no longer there. It was as though the sense of devastation had been so large that her mind would
only admit a little of it at a time. One of the things it had deferred was the fear, but the valve was loose from pressure,
and every so often there was a leak that left her feeling this way.
On this occasion, it was more than mere insecurity. She was rattled by a profound fear that something had happened to Jim.
It was absurd, she knew: totally unsubstantiated. In fact, it was probably just what her greater fear had latched on to: with
Mum gone, he was the personshe could least do without. The fact that he wasn’t in yet this morning had sparked off a paranoid dread of losing him too.
He was usually here by this time, which must have piqued her sense of something being askew. Jasmine had keys to the office,
but she had never had to open the place first thing in the morning. Jim was always there before her, even though he lived
on the other side of the river. He usually closed the place too, returning to write up all the paperwork no matter how late
or how far the field work had stretched. Perhaps there was heavy traffic; there was work starting at the Kingston Bridge to
do with the M74 extension, so maybe that had led to increased volume through the tunnel, which was Jim’s preferred route across
the river from Hyndland.
No,
that
was it, she thought. Not traffic: Jim’s flat. He wasn’t coming into the office this morning because he was waiting in to
film the not-so-disabled Robert Croft showing up with all his gear in expectation of carrying out a plastering job.
She worried for a moment that she was supposed to be there too, but then remembered Jim telling her it was safest she stay
at the office in case Croft got nasty. Despite her excitement at successfully drawing their subject into a sting, she had
all but forgotten about the subsequent arrangements, because it had been several days ago and she hadn’t spoken to Jim since
Thursday. He had told her he didn’t need her to come in on Friday as he was working on something ‘a wee bit sensitive’ that
for reasons of discretion he had to handle alone. Jasmine had tried not to interpret this as actually meaning that it was
something he couldn’t afford to have her ballsing up, and gratefully welcomed the prospect of an extra day of doing anything
other than blundering around feeling hopelessly out of her depth.
She felt a vibration through the handles of her bag a moment before her ringtone began to play, and reached in to retrieve
her phone, expecting to see Jim’s name on the screen. She didn’t: it was an unrecognised number.
Her voice was a little shaky and quiet as she answered, still feeling the effects of being
It wasn’t transient or merely some disturbing passing thought: it had physical symptoms, like she’d just received an injection
or eaten something to which she was allergic. She felt a twisting, hollow sensation in her stomach like she was inside a falling
elevator, all her hairs prickling on her skin and a frightening awareness of being fragile and vulnerable. She had an urge
to lock the door, offset by an equally unfocused concern that whatever was scaring her might be inside the office.
She immediately began trying to rationalise and deconstruct it, knowing from experience that finding sources for this sudden
onset of fear would help it to dissipate. The first, albeit the least specific, explanation was simply recurrence. Since Mum
had died, she had been prone to these sudden feelings of the floor having dropped from under her, accompanied by an acute,
vertiginous insecurity deriving from having nobody left to turn to. Once in a while, some part of her remembered that she
was all alone, that the person she had always been able to rely upon in times of anxiety, of trouble, of precisely this kind
of scared vulnerability, was no longer there. It was as though the sense of devastation had been so large that her mind would
only admit a little of it at a time. One of the things it had deferred was the fear, but the valve was loose from pressure,
and every so often there was a leak that left her feeling this way.
On this occasion, it was more than mere insecurity. She was rattled by a profound fear that something had happened to Jim.
It was absurd, she knew: totally unsubstantiated. In fact, it was probably just what her greater fear had latched on to: with
Mum gone, he was the personshe could least do without. The fact that he wasn’t in yet this morning had sparked off a paranoid dread of losing him too.
He was usually here by this time, which must have piqued her sense of something being askew. Jasmine had keys to the office,
but she had never had to open the place first thing in the morning. Jim was always there before her, even though he lived
on the other side of the river. He usually closed the place too, returning to write up all the paperwork no matter how late
or how far the field work had stretched. Perhaps there was heavy traffic; there was work starting at the Kingston Bridge to
do with the M74 extension, so maybe that had led to increased volume through the tunnel, which was Jim’s preferred route across
the river from Hyndland.
No,
that
was it, she thought. Not traffic: Jim’s flat. He wasn’t coming into the office this morning because he was waiting in to
film the not-so-disabled Robert Croft showing up with all his gear in expectation of carrying out a plastering job.
She worried for a moment that she was supposed to be there too, but then remembered Jim telling her it was safest she stay
at the office in case Croft got nasty. Despite her excitement at successfully drawing their subject into a sting, she had
all but forgotten about the subsequent arrangements, because it had been several days ago and she hadn’t spoken to Jim since
Thursday. He had told her he didn’t need her to come in on Friday as he was working on something ‘a wee bit sensitive’ that
for reasons of discretion he had to handle alone. Jasmine had tried not to interpret this as actually meaning that it was
something he couldn’t afford to have her ballsing up, and gratefully welcomed the prospect of an extra day of doing anything
other than blundering around feeling hopelessly out of her depth.
She felt a vibration through the handles of her bag a moment before her ringtone began to play, and reached in to retrieve
her phone, expecting to see Jim’s name on the screen. She didn’t: it was an unrecognised number.
Her voice was a little shaky and quiet as she answered, still feeling the effects of being
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