Ten O’Clock

Text 1: The Third Floor, by Imogen Strachan

An original novel extract.

The email had said ten o’clock, and at nine fifty-eight the whole of the third floor was pretending to work. Keyboards clicked in short, nervous bursts and then stopped. Someone’s phone buzzed and they snatched it up as if it were a grenade. Helen read the same paragraph of the same spreadsheet four times and understood none of it.

At ten, the glass door of the meeting room opened and Mr Cardew stepped out. He had a list. He did not look at the list. He did not look at anyone. He said, very pleasantly, ‘Martin, would you mind?’ and Martin stood up and walked across the carpet, and the carpet seemed very long.

The door closed. Through the frosted glass they could see shapes, two shapes, then one shape bending. Nobody said anything. The air conditioning hummed. On the desk next to Helen’s, Martin’s coffee went on steaming into the silence, and beside it lay a photograph of his children, face up, smiling, and a half-eaten biscuit he had meant to finish. Seven minutes later the door opened again, and Mr Cardew stepped out, and smiled, and looked down at his list.

How does Imogen Strachan use language and structure to show the dread in the office?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.