Jason turned back to the painting of the two labradoodles. But as he tried to focus, he was distracted by the noise from the construction site to the west. His tiredness from his disturbed night seemingly accentuating every sound.
As he worked, he could not shut out the endless roaring and grinding, the jangling clatter of metal chains and tumbling rubble. He hadn’t really noticed the noise from the site when they’d originally viewed the house – probably because they were focused on the house and excited. Nor had he really been aware of it on Friday, distracted by the task of moving in.
Was this going to be the reality for months to come, now? At least the workers would be knocking off for Christmas sometime soon – in the next few days – and with luck they’d not be returning until the New Year. That would give him nearly a couple of weeks of peace and quiet, after finishing his two commissions, to concentrate on his portfolio of work for his show in February. Maybe he should get a pair of ear defenders, like many of the workers on the site were wearing, to cut out the din?
An orange crane with a grab-bucket had appeared on the site during the morning, moving slowly across on caterpillar tracks like some giant scaly creature from the Jurassic age. The driver was currently swinging the bucket into a diminishing mountain of rubble – one of a line of them – scooping it up and depositing it into the deep rectangle, a good fifty feet wide and three hundred long, that had been excavated – presumably the foundations for a number of houses.
From time to time, with the light outside changing from bright sunshine to darkly overcast, Jason stepped away from finishing the portrait of the two dogs, opened the window and zoomed in through his camera lens on different workmen. He was collecting dozens of photographs. He loved the starkly contrasting image of the yellow jackets and hats against the dark brown mud of the landscape. Part of his exhibition, he had decided, would definitely be images of these men. It would be different from anything else out there; Lowry-inspired, sure, but very different from that great artist’s images.
One worker caught his eye now, spotlighted by the sun in another break in the clouds. An olive-skinned man in a white hard hat, ear defenders and a yellow hi-viz jacket, standing facing the deep rectangle and rummaging in his pocket. The labourer leaned against another mountain of rubble and began rolling a cigarette. The man’s body language was such a giveaway; his head was just below the top of the rubble and he was peering around, furtively checking that no one could see him. He’d chosen his position well, invisible to the Portakabin where no doubt the site manager and foreman were working, and to his fellow workers.
Jason snapped away, zooming in even tighter. He already had the name for this painting in his mind. The Skiver!
Suddenly, a shadow fell across the pile of rubble, moving steadily, rapidly darkening it.
Jason took his eye away from the viewfinder and looked up, puzzled for a second; the sky was still a brilliant blue.
Then he saw the cause of the shadow. The orange crane had turned away from the stack it had just finished emptying into the pit, to this new one. It was moving steadily towards it. He saw the driver busy in the cab with his controls, unaware of the man lighting his cigarette on the far side of it, craftily out of sight.
The skiver, wearing his ear defenders, wouldn’t hear it.
Jason stared, transfixed, wanting to shout out a warning, but he was far too far away. He emitted only a quiet, lame croak.
No!
He watched the two halves of the clamshell bucket of the crane open. Swinging from its cables. Dropping jerkily. Hovering over the top of the stack.
Two huge jaws.
Over the man.
Then, like a bird of prey, it dropped, pouncing, momentarily blocking him from Jason’s view.
The two halves closed together, scooping up rubble, then rose sharply again.
With something dangling from them.
Oh Jesus, no.
It was the skiver, being hoisted in the air, his head invisible inside the jaws. All Jason could see of him was from the neck down, body twitching, his legs kicking, work boots flailing.
Abruptly the grab bucket stopped with a jerk in mid-air, and opened.
The skiver’s torso plummeted like a rag doll, twenty feet to the ground, toppled sideways and lay still. Blood spewed from his neck.
A second later, something white fell from the bucket, bounced on the ground near the motionless body and rolled. As it did so, something tipped out of it.
Jason stared in utter horror as he realized what it was.
Oh Jesus.
He turned, his stomach heaving, and threw up on the studio floor.