Chapter 46
Brenton Walker was looking at Kevin Patterson’s back as he stood by the opening of the curtain, ready to mount the podium and be greeted by the cheers and the sunshine.
He was going to be introduced over the loudspeaker as soon as the next musical act finished.
Patterson raised and lowered his shoulders, he rolled his neck like a boxer getting ready for a fight, fastened a button on his suit jacket, unfastened it, fastened it again.
Walker’s seething sense of disquiet had started to abate, perhaps because there was no way back now and it was too late to do anything about anything they might have overlooked.
That was a lesson Brenton’s father had taught him: the need to accept things you cannot change.
It was advice his father himself never followed, and that caused his downfall as a local politician.
The band was still playing out there, the crowd singing along.
“Ten seconds please,” said a man wearing a headset. “Break a leg, Mr. Mayor.”
Springer was standing next to Walker. His walkie-talkie crackled to life and a grating voice spoke: “Foxtrot, I see a male, white, age around fifty, about five foot nine, entering one of the private boxes.”
Walker saw Springer’s face turn pale as he picked up the walkie-talkie and spoke quietly into it: “Do you have a sighting on him, Foxtrot?”
“No, he disappeared into the back of the box, into the darkness.”
“Listen up!” Springer shouted into the room. “There is someone up in one of the boxes. Does anyone know how this happened or who this person is?”
There was silence all around Walker. All that could be heard was the sound of the band and the crowd singing. And the man in the headset who was talking into his microphone:
“Norma? Be a sweetie and see if you can get the band to do one more number. Something has, er…come up back here.”