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.