The next day, Mitchell had picked a postcard up from the mosaic of correspondence on his floor and read it after his breakfast. It had a baboon on the front. Poppy tried to take it from him to read, but he folded it in half and stuffed it into his pocket before she could see it.
He dropped her off at the school activity club and walked across the city to return to work. The thought of being back on the bridges cutting off the padlocks made him feel like he was wading through tar. Victor’s ominous words swarmed in his head.
Liza had texted him that morning to say she was going to the police station and to call into Yvette’s workplace, and he wished he could be there to support her.
The only contribution he felt he could make today was finding Yvette’s padlock again, and retrieving it for Sheila, especially if it might prevent another of her panic attacks.
As he walked, the air felt hot and heavy with a closeness that made it difficult to breathe. He couldn’t spot Barry on Archie, the Slab or Vicky, so he walked along the street at the side of the river toward Redford.
A juddering noise came, like a pneumatic drill digging up the road, and a flock of birds bolted from a tree into the sky. Mitchell walked on and found red stop signs had been positioned across the mouth of the bridge. A yellow sign said Road Ahead Closed. Follow Diversion Signs. His mouth slackened as a truck with a winch on the back thundered past him onto the bridge, bashing against one of the signs and toppling it over. He followed it through the gap and saw that a tall wire fence had been erected around a section of the railings, the twenty-meter-long rectangular zone looking like a cage. The truck billowed out thick gray smoke as it pulled up on the pavement, and two men wearing neon yellow bibs and orange hard hats climbed out of the cab. Another man already stood behind the fence, and the three men proceeded to open up two sections of the fence outward, into the road, like the gates of a stately home.
Mitchell’s legs felt shaky as he walked closer to this unsettling scene. Yvette’s lock was totally out of reach. A young couple joined him, and the three of them stared through the fence together at the padlocks, as if they were observing poorly animals at the zoo.
“What are they doing?” the woman asked. She stared at the council logo on Mitchell’s chest, as if he was responsible for the situation. “We only hung a lock here yesterday.”
Besides them, the truck choked out a plume of smoke and one of the hard-hatted men headed their way, a clipboard in his hand.
“Stand back,” he bellowed. “Use the other pavement.”
The couple muttered to each other and reluctantly walked away, but Mitchell stayed put. He looked up at the metal bar and chunky chains that hung down from the truck’s winch. The chains were fastened to one of the bridge’s panels, and the bolts that originally held it in place lay loose on the pavement.
Mitchell jumped as the winch suddenly turned and screeched. The chains tightened and the panel groaned and jerked upward. The padlocks hanging from it clanked and creaked as they swung. The panel levitated higher until two of the hard-hatted men grabbed hold of it to stop it swaying around in the air.
Mitchell hooked his fingers around the wire of the fence and watched helplessly. When he felt a tap on his shoulder, he spun around expecting someone wearing a yellow bib to order him to move away.
Instead, Barry grinned and stuck two thumbs up. “Bloody brilliant, isn’t it?” he said above the crunch of the winch as it lowered the padlock-laden panel onto a large blue trolley.
“What’s going on?”
Barry indicated they should move away to talk, and they found a spot at the end of the bridge. “Russ called the contractors in,” he said excitedly. “A panel on the bridge has cracked, and he’s worried someone else might fall into the river. The council media team says the padlocks are making the city look a mess. They want something done before the new white bridge opens. It’ll send out a clear message to anyone thinking about hanging a lock before or during the ceremony.”
Mitchell’s throat felt tight. “Are they going to remove the locks?”
“Yeah, they’re starting to. Russ found the budget to bring in the big guys. That’s temporary fencing they’re setting up, then they’ll replace the railings with lock-proof ones.”
“But they’re part of the bridges, their design and heritage,” Mitchell said. His gut cramped as he thought about Yvette’s heart-shaped lock being torn away. He had made his promise to Sheila and Liza. “It’s our job to remove them, not theirs.”
“It’s out of our control, mate. If the contractors step in, it’s less work from us. There’s going to be bigger fines, too.”
Mitchell thought about the messages and names on the locks being taken away and destroyed. The padlocks weren’t just pieces of metal. They were parts of people’s lives and love letters to each other, and to the city. They were a modern-day method of self-expression, and they were probably all going to be mangled or smelted.
He’d made a promise to Sheila that he’d retrieve Yvette’s lock and he couldn’t renege on that, especially when her health was at risk. Mitchell curled his hands into fists.
“Um, you don’t look very pleased,” Barry said. “Rules are usually right up your street.”
Mitchell grunted. There was no worth in telling Barry about his true feelings, only to be scoffed at. “What about our jobs?” he said.
“Don’t think about that now, mate.” Barry patted him hard on the back. “Let’s see what happens when they’ve stripped the first two bridges. Now, do you want to hear how my first date with Trisha went?”
Mitchell clenched his teeth. “Sorry, Barry, but I’ve got to do something.”
Mitchell strode over to a man with a tufty black beard. He jutted out his chest and made sure the council logo on his T-shirt was on display. “Excuse me, mate. I need to get to one of those locks.” He jabbed a finger toward the panel where Yvette’s lock hung.
The man smirked at him. “Me, too. I just want to be rid of them.”
“I need to remove one of them, intact if possible.”
The man scratched under his hard hat with the end of his pen. “They’re all being taken away.”
“What will happen to them?”
“Who cares?” The man glanced at Mitchell’s T-shirt logo but turned away.
Mitchell shot out his hand and gripped the man’s arm. When the man glared at him, he awkwardly let go. “Sorry, I need to retrieve one of them. Just one.”
The man slouched wearily. “Look. Those locks are a blight on this city. I don’t know if they’re going to be crushed, buried or blasted to high heaven, and I don’t care. These manky chunks of metal will be history. Wiped out, like the dinosaurs.”