The Locksmith

        Jane paused, considering the two signs on the gate. One warned of large dogs who will bite. The other informed her she was under surveillance, which was quickly confirmed when she spotted a camera on a pole.  She had set off in daylight along a main road, turned onto a more minor thoroughfare then onto a dirt road which aptly wore the title of lane. Now the sun had set and darkness was settling. Thinking about the alternative, which was sleeping in her car with only an old blanket to keep her warm, she took a deep breath and entered the property. 

On the phone he had warned the drive was a kilometre long. He had not said it consisted of two wheel tracks through grass, or that it wound down the hill, or that there were speed humps created where he had dug some ditches for run off. Jane could hear the grass hitting against the car’s underbelly. The headlights lit a sign on a tree. It was like a no smoking sign but in place of the cigarette was a person. She realised that she couldn’t turn around and, with her little caravan at the rear, she had no chance of reversing out, so she continued…more slowly. She could hear her sister in her head admonishing her.

Another sign on another tree; Only stupid people will continue. Then two more, Live bombs and lasers in use. Jane laughed at herself for humming Duelling Banjos. By this time she had come to a complete stop. She rang him.

‘Hi, it’s Jane here. Um, are you safe? I mean, I don't much like the sound of live bombs and lasers,’ she said with a nervous laugh. 

‘Listen,’ he said, without a hint of kindness or humour, ‘Either you want it done or you don’t. Make up your mind, I’m going out soon”.  

Jane wasn’t reassured by his words, or his tone, but she had come this far and she couldn't see any way out except forward. She remembered, when she had been searching for the keys to the van in her car, she had noticed a hammer under the front seat. Before she continued, she located this and put it in the pocket of her pants. Images from the movie, Wolf Creek  flitted through her mind. She adjusted the hammer in her pocket and resolved not to go down without a fight.

At the end of the seemingly endless drive there was a large space for turning. Jane did the turn and pointed the car towards the exit. As the sign had promised, three huge, angry dogs jumped at a gate, snarling and barking. The surge of adrenalin hit as she read the personalised numberplate on one of the two cars behind the gate…KILLER, it read. 

He was a large man with a thick neck and short red hair. He leaned slightly forward from the hips and his arms hung loosely at his sides. His face held no expression. Jane opened the car door and, with her hand in her pocket, clasping the hammer, she stepped out of the car. She planned to stay out of reach. Smiling, she explained she had lost the keys to her van and needed the locks picked. He grunted and turned back to the car with the ominous number plate, returning with a small, grubby canvas bag. Jane thought, he could well be the locksmith, SIRI and Google Maps had led her to, …or not.

He set to picking the lock on the passenger side door of the little teardrop van. Jane stood behind him, and at some distance, her hand in her pocket, holding her hammer.  The man straightened from his task and opened the first door. Jane indicated that she needed the other door unlocked as well as the toolbox on the drawbar. He dealt quickly with the two other locks.  She stood on the other side of the drawbar to him. 

“What’s the damage,” she asked. (The irony was not lost on her). 

“Ten bucks a lock, so that’s thirty.” Throughout, he remained stoney faced.

“Here’s fifty,” she said. “I’m just so grateful”. 

“No, I’ll get change,” he said, as he went to his car. While he was doing this, Jane quickly got in the car, and hoped he didn’t hear the central locking click.

He passed the change through the window. “I don’t rip people off,” he said with just the tiniest hint of a smile.

“Thank goodness, you don’t appear to rip people’s heads off, either”, Jane thought to herself as she started the car and escaped.