Old expression taken from the latin in pace (in pake, "in peace") that was used during the Inquisition to name the condemned religious cloister; It was also a phrase to bid farewell to the deceased. I can believe it's a mistake for impasse or impasse because you have to pifiar him twice ("np" and "c"), while the lack of space would only be a mistake. See requiescat in pace.
The correct term is deadlock. It means obstacle, inconvenience, discomfort, distress, prejudice, problem. Binding, dead-end, stalemate. It is a gallicism, comes from the word impasse, in French.