Page 18 of Final Betrayal

‘One and the same. And trouble is never too far behind him.’

‘He was involved in some planning scandal years ago.’

‘So the story goes.’ Lottie waited for Boyd to start the car. ‘Nothing was ever proved, if I remember correctly. As usual in this country.’

‘Never liked him. Who can look so fresh at seventy?’

‘I don’t think he’s seventy. More like fifty-one or two.’

‘Whatever.’

‘That’s Chloe’s favourite word.’

‘Whatever.’ He grinned. ‘Where to next, then?’

‘Penny Brogan’s family. And let’s hope Amy Whyte is there with her.’

Cyril Gill parked in his private space, the only place without sludge running over it. He got out of the car and stared at the sky. Black and purple clouds chased each other across a grey blanket, and the rain continued to slap against his face.

‘Three months behind, and now this,’ he muttered as he headed to the Portakabins. The job was proving more difficult than he’d imagined at the tender process. Because the courthouse was a listed building, the exterior had to be maintained in its original form. And that hindered the total renovation required to modernise the place into a functioning twenty-first-century courthouse.

A blast of heat thrust its way outside as he entered.

‘What did the guards want?’ he called over to the foreman, Bob Cleary. ‘And why are you in here and not out there cracking the whip on the arses of those lazy fuckers?’

‘Came in for a cuppa. It’s my break. I am entitled, you know.’ Bob put the mug to his lips and slowly sipped the steaming liquid.

Cyril poured himself a coffee from the dispenser and wiped crumbs off his chair before sitting down.

‘What guards?’ Bob said.

‘They were at the gate as I drove in.’

‘Didn’t see them. Ducky must have stopped them.’

Cyril lifted the phone. ‘Ducky, what did the guards want?’

‘Nothing to do with work. Just enquiring about some girl I know.’

Hanging up, Cyril stared at Bob. ‘Three months behind? Is that right?’

‘More like five or six if this weather doesn’t improve. There’s a storm warning for the weekend.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake.’ Gill slapped the desk and a file slid to the floor.

Bob picked it up and handed it back. ‘I’ll get back to work.’

‘Do. And I don’t want to hear anything about five or six months. Ever. You need to catch up on lost time.’

‘It’s the tunnels, Mr Gill. They need shoring up. The crane wobbled last week.’

‘Cranes don’t wobble. And those tunnels have been there for five hundred years, so they’re not going to shift any time soon.’

‘But once the lift shaft?—’

‘I thought you were getting back to work?’

Once he was alone, Cyril pulled off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The fumes from the gas heater were giving him a headache, but he had work to do. He opened the daily work schedule spreadsheet and tried to figure out where he could make up the lost time. Otherwise, he would be in worse trouble than he had been last time. And Cyril Gill did not want to revisit that annus horribilis ever again.

---