Deadlock

60

‘What’s the matter, man?’

Glenn stared at his supervisor, jolted by the question. ‘What?’

‘You’re an hour early.’

His supervisor seemed to study him for a moment.

‘I had some paperwork to catch up on.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said his supervisor, clearly not buying it. Which was bad news because the kidnappers had been as good as their word, ensuring he would do what he was told by wiring him with a tiny microphone.

Glenn searched for a more plausible excuse for showing up early. ‘Listen, don’t say anything to anyone, but I needed to get out of the house. Me and the wife have been going through a rough patch recently.’

The supervisor, who’d only been in the job a few months, having transferred from a different city department, wiped at a dried mustard stain on his tie. ‘Been there.’ Then he wandered back to his office, leaving Glenn on his own.

Glenn quickly grabbed his list of jobs and set to work. He’d have to fill in the repair request form himself, so he pulled one out and set to work. He inserted the address, the nature of the repair. In the section where the name of the person who’d requested the repair went, Glenn wrote what they’d told him to write — with one slight adjustment.

Once the form was completed, he lowered his head so that his chin was on his chest and his mouth was close to the microphone. ‘OK, the paperwork’s all done.’

He tore off his copy and took the original back to his supervisor. The supervisor took it without a word, then looked at it.

Glenn’s heart jumped. ‘Problem?’ he asked.

‘Nah. It’s just with it being outside Grace Cathedral.’

‘What about it?’ Glenn’s heart was racing.

‘Well, they got that big funeral there on Tuesday.’

‘They’ve always got funerals, ain’t they?’ Glenn said, knowing this wasn’t true. Funerals at the cathedral were a rare event, reserved only for the great and the good.

‘It’s the one for that judge — you know, Junius Holmes?’ said the supervisor. ‘So just make sure you get to this today.’

Glenn exhaled with relief. ‘Don’t worry. I will.’

An hour later, Glenn and his crew had signs set up, traffic diverted, and were busy at work excavating the road outside Grace Cathedral. He took comfort in the familiar routine although his mind kept slipping back to his home and his wife and children, and what might happen to them if something went wrong.

There had been a couple of questions from one of the guys in the crew when they set to work but Glenn passed it off easily enough. Yes, the cracks didn’t look too bad, but their job was to repair what they were asked to repair. The guys on the crew had shrugged and got on with it, using a mini excavator to tear up the existing road surface and deposit the contents into the back of a dumper truck.

Glenn’s heart leapt when a couple of cops on mountain bikes cruised to a stop next to him. He knew them both — not well, but in his job it was impossible not to get to know at least some of the cops. The older of them, a guy in his late fifties with greying hair, propped his bike against the truck and sauntered over.

‘Didn’t know you guys were working here today,’ he said.

Glenn could feel his face flush. ‘Kind of a last-minute thing.’

‘No surprise,’ said the cop, hands on hips. ‘Lot of bigwigs’ll be here for the funeral. Guess they’ll want everything looking good.’

‘That must be it,’ said Glenn.

‘OK, man, see you later.’

The cop took his leave and Glenn got back to work.

About two hours later, all the prep work having been completed, Glenn looked up to see a man striding towards him wearing jeans, a sweatshirt and a hi-visibility vest. A construction worker’s hard hat rested on the man’s head and a red bandana shielded his mouth and nose from the dust. When the man pulled the bandana down, Glenn saw that it was Reaper.

He headed him off, worried that one of the guys on his crew might see him, but none of them even looked up. Nor did any of the hundred or so passers-by in the immediate area around the cathedral. But then, he reflected, guys doing their kind of jobs were pretty much invisible to the rest of the population.

‘Tell your guys to move on to the job you were supposed to be doing today,’ Reaper told him.

‘What?’

‘Just do it.’

Reaper stood in close to Glenn, who suddenly remembered the knife at Amy’s throat and her look of horror. ‘We’ll start work again at midnight.’

‘But the guys go home at six.’

‘You and me are going to finish up this job together,’ Reaper said. ‘You don’t mind doing some overtime, do you?’