Here Comes the Sun Read Online Free PDF

I?’
    â€˜What you’re sitting on proves it,’ replied the voice, smugly. ‘Go on, I said, be a devil. I didn’t actually mean it like that, of course, but you seem to have got the message.’
    â€˜That makes sense,’ Jane replied thoughtfully. ‘As a rule, I don’t even like cream cakes. What are you doing here, anyway? Do you want me to sell you my soul or something? ’
    The voice laughed, making her hair shake slightly. ‘My dear girl,’ said the voice, with genuine amusement, ‘why on earth should I want to do that? I can get souls any time I want, trade. The public,’ it continued, ‘have this peculiar idea that all we care about is souls. Me, I can take them or leave them.’
    â€˜So what do you want?’ Jane demanded.
    â€˜I want,’ said the voice, ‘to offer you a job.’
    Jane caught her breath in amazement. Unfortunately, in doing so she inhaled the last of the cream, huffed for about a tenth of a second, and then sneezed mightily. When she’d recovered from the shock, the voice had gone.

    Staff looked at his watch.
    â€˜Well?’ he said.
    There was a squelching noise, and Ganger materialised on the other side of the desk. Staff was amused and pleased that, for once, Ganger wasn’t looking like a designer-shirt advertisement. He was wet and shaking slightly, and his stiffed-up haircut had been blasted down over his forehead.
    â€˜Sorry I’m late,’ Ganger said. ‘I got sneezed.’
    â€˜That’s all right,’ Staff replied equably. ‘How did you get on?’
    â€˜I’d say,’ Ganger replied, mopping himself with a handkerchief, ‘that she’s thinking about it. Either that, or she’s booking in at one of those places where they don’t mind if you think you’re a tree just so long as you don’t drop leaves on the stairs.’
    Staff tapped his teeth with his pencil. ‘But she didn’t give you a decision?’
    â€˜Lord, no,’ Ganger replied. ‘Wouldn’t have expected her to. In fact,’ he admitted, ‘I’d only just introduced the subject when I had to split. It’s typical of the problems I have with women,’ he added. ‘I just get right up their noses, you know?’
    Fine, said Staff to himself, I’d always wondered who writes the script for Spitting Image , and now I know. ‘But you did tell her about the job?’ he said. ‘I mean . . .’
    â€˜Well, I mentioned it.’ Ganger shrugged. ‘You can’t rush these things. It’s one of the lessons we’ve learned in our own mortal recruitment programme. Anyone who wants the job really isn’t going to be suitable.’
    Staff nodded. ‘So?’ he said.
    â€˜So,’ Ganger replied, reaching in his pocket for a comb.
    â€˜The next stage is, we scare the poor kid absolutely shit-less. You can leave that bit to me if you like.’
    Staff pursed his lips. ‘Is that going to be, you know,
absolutely essential?’ he asked. ‘I know you lot are allowed a certain latitude in the way you do things, but over here we’ve got to watch ourselves.’
    Ganger nodded briskly. ‘Absolutely essential,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to do that to induce the right ambience of mild paranoia. Like they say, nobody in their right mind would do this job anyway.’
    â€˜Well.’ Staff opened the top left-hand drawer of his desk and found a peppermint. ‘Let me know how you get on.’
    â€˜Will do.’ The chair emptied itself. Staff sat for maybe thirty seconds, looking at it. Then, with one smooth easy movement, he reached into the open drawer, grabbed an inhaler and sniffed ferociously. There was a sort of peculiar popping noise, and Ganger was lying on his face on the floor beside him. Staff put the inhaler back in the drawer and closed it.
    â€˜Serves you right,’ he said. ‘I