by Natasha West
Gina didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Why wouldn’t we be fine?’
‘We will be fine, that’s what I’m saying. It’s right at the lights.’
Gina took the turn. But she wasn’t at all sure she should. None of this seemed right. She wondered what Bernie would say. Gina wasn’t much for narcing, but she had this feeling that at the end of this day, she was going to end up in Bernie’s office, her and Ashley like naughty schoolgirls called up to the head’s office for an uncomfortable conversation about professional protocol. Gina wasn’t really worried about her own arse, though. After all, she hadn’t had this job this morning, so she wouldn’t really lose much if she got sacked. By that logic, if she went along with Ashley’s instructions, what was the worst that could possibly happen?
The answer to that question came some hours later, and it was worse than an arse smacking from the boss. Quite a bit worse.
Five
Ashley couldn’t believe it. Things like this never happened.
When she’d bought the scanner, she’d never really believed she’d ever get to use it. It was pure fantasy, something she’d seen in movies. A spunky young journalist hungry for a story, chasing it down by hook or by crook. But real life? Real life was the crowded train to work, a lukewarm latte, a supermarket sandwich, talking to dull civil servants, sitting in a drafty van. It wasn’t big, exciting crime.
Until today.
When Gina had told her there had been three sirens, she’d gotten this tingly feeling. She’d had it before, when she knew she was onto something, like the school break-in. But this tingle put that one to shame. It started at the nape of her neck and travelled all the way to her coccyx, shooting down her like lightening.
She knew that this feeling was telling her something. And even though yesterday she’d gotten into trouble for letting her instincts guide her, today she wasn’t doubting herself. She didn’t care if Gina saw her scanner and dobbed her in. She didn’t care if Bernie lost his marbles and put her on probation, maybe even fired her. All of that seemed like background to the tingle.
Then, things got even more exciting. When she tuned into the police frequency, she heard the police officers on the line saying a lot of codes that she didn’t know. She’d have been completely in the dark if the male officer hadn’t stopped talking in code. ‘Oh, shit, Debby! Get everyone down here, now!’ the man yelled. Ashley was electrified.
After she’d managed to wrangle Gina and her crap back into the van, she was pleased to find she wasn’t asking too many questions. Or rather, she was asking nowhere near the amount that Ashley would have asked if the situation was reversed. That was good because she didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with someone telling her that she shouldn’t be doing this. She already knew that, anyway. It didn’t matter to Ashley, not if she was right. Not if she was on her way to something big, something no one knew about yet, certainly not the nationals. Ashley was going to scoop them all, and when she did, oh when she did…
When they arrived at Jimmy’s Pizza - a big, tacky place with a gargantuan neon sign on its roof, the jewel of a cheap-looking precinct full of old, mostly closed down eateries off a B road - there were indeed three police cars sat in the car park. The police officers were all sat quietly inside of them, which was a bit of a disappointing start. Ashley had sort of hoped for a scene, something kicking off. But maybe it would soon?
‘Right,’ Ashley said, turning to Gina. ‘I’m gonna go and chat up the cops, I want you to be ready with your cam at a moment’s notice.’
Gina peered out of the van. ‘I still don’t know what’s going on.’
‘Neither do I, that’s what I’m going to find out,’ Ashley explained.
‘Yeah, but my point is, I don’t know if this is… You know…’
‘What?’ Ashley asked impatiently.
‘Dangerous,’ Gina finished. ‘I’m not sure either of us should be getting out of the van right now. Not until we know more.’
‘Oh.’ That threw Ashley slightly. Danger, right. That might be part of this. Funny how that hadn’t crossed her mind until now. But she had to find an answer to Gina’s question quickly if she wanted to stop her screeching out of this car park the second Ashley stepped out of the van. ‘If you’re worried, just climb through seats and do your equipment check in the back, there should be enough space for you back there. The sides are windowless. You’ll be safe.’
Gina raised an eyebrow. ‘And what are you going to do?’
Ashley shrugged. ‘Like I said, I’m going to talk to the police.’
Gina frowned. ‘You can’t just walk out there. What if something happens?’
‘Look, if you don’t want to risk your arse, that’s fine. I don’t expect you to, not without some info. Which is exactly what I’m going out there to get.’
Before Gina could argue further, Ashley jumped out of the van, running through the car park and straight up to the first car she saw. She rapped on the window, and a middle-aged officer in plain clothes jumped in surprise and spun around to the noise. Ashley flashed her gnashers. ‘Hello. I’m Ashley Quick, I work for KTN.’
‘Madam, can you please go back to your vehicle?’ the woman said through gritted teeth.
‘Yes, of course. In just a sec. First, can I just ask what’s…’
‘MADAM. GO BACK TO YOUR VEHICLE!’ the woman shouted.
Most people might have been a bit unnerved to be yelled at by a policewoman. But Ashley barely cared. The cop was bloody jumpy about something. Which meant trouble. Big news. But this tap was refusing to flow, so she nodded and said, ‘OK, then.’ She went back to the van.
In the van, Ashley glanced over her shoulder to the back, where Gina was getting her camera ready. ‘You sorted?’
‘Pretty much,’ Gina said, uncapping the lens and flicking a switch. ‘So, what did they say?’ she asked, peering through the viewfinder.
‘They said to go back to the van,’ Ashley admitted.
‘OK. So should we just… I mean, are we going to go back to the church?’
Ashley sputtered a laugh. ‘Are you joking?’
‘But we can’t do much here, sitting in this van.’
‘You can shoot through this window,’ Ashley said, thumbing the passenger side window in the front, the one with the best view of the car park.
Gina was bemused. ‘I don’t think the cops are gonna like that.’
‘I don’t really care what they like. I’m not breaking any laws. This is a public street. They don’t even have a cordon up. I can still shoot.’
‘Shoot what, though?’ Gina said, shoving her camera through the gap in the front seats, pushing her body through next and plopping down with the equipment on her lap. ‘There’s nothing going on,’ she said, pointing through the window at what was admittedly a quiet scene. The restaurant was still, shutters down, no lights on. The rest of the precinct was equally dead. ‘Look, the restaurant isn’t even open. Maybe the coppers are just waiting for it to open up so they can get their lunch or something,’ Gina theorised.
‘Isn’t that even weirder to you? It’s two in the afternoon. Lunch started two hours ago.’
Gina’s brow furrowed. ‘I guess.’
‘Anyway, I heard one of the cops on the scanner. He was freaking out.’
‘Well, no one’s freaking out now,’ Gina said.
Just then, a huge police van whizzed past them, speeding into the car park. It was followed quickly by two more squad cars. They all pulled up alongside the original police cars, creating a line right across. There were now seven police vehicles in the car park of Jimmy’s Pizza. ‘You were saying,’ Ashley said smugly.
‘OK, yeah, this is weird with a beard,’ Gina admitted.
A sound suddenly reverberated throughout the silent car park. It was the sound of a phone ringing, a landline. Ashley thought it was coming from inside the restaurant. It went on for a long time. Ashley peeked out at the cars until she spotted one of the officers on their phone, the sam
e one she’d tried to speak to. She had to be ringing the restaurant. But no one was answering. ‘Put your camera on. Start shooting.’
‘There’s still nothing to shoot,’ Gina insisted.
Ashley turned angrily to Gina. ‘Look, this isn’t a movie. No one’s gonna call action. If something happens, it will happen when it wants to, and you’re going to miss it if you’re still messing around trying to point your camera in the right direction.’
Gina sighed. ‘Fine.’ She put her camera on her shoulder and began to shoot through the passenger side window.
‘Make sure you get all the police vehicles,’ Ashley told her.
‘I know,’ Gina said.
A couple of minutes passed, Ashley on tenterhooks the whole time. But nothing was happening. She could see people speaking into their radios in the police cars, though. She got her scanner out.
Gina glanced away from her viewfinder for a second and saw Ashley fiddling with the scanner. ‘If the police see that thing, you know you’re going to get in shit, don’t you?’
‘I’m thinking they’ve got bigger fish to fry,’ Ashley said, as a crackly female voice came out of the scanner. ‘Communication’s refused. Advise next stage, over.’
A voice answered, ‘Advise second attempt to call landline, over.’
‘Affirmative, over.’
The phone began to ring from the restaurant. But it didn’t ring endlessly this time. After about ten rings, it stopped.
‘They picked up the phone and hung up. Line is now dead. I think they’ve unplugged. Over.’
‘Jesus, what the fuck is going on?’ Gina muttered. She didn’t sound so blasé about this anymore; she sounded a bit nervous. But also, intrigued. Ashley decided maybe it wasn’t so bad to have Gina with her. She knew what would have happened if Mac had been in the van with her. He’d have crapped himself and driven away by now, Ashley screaming at him vainly to turn back around.
Finally, something happened, something they could see. The same cop with the mobile got out of the car with something in her hand—a megaphone.
‘Oh, bloody brilliant,’ Ashley exclaimed. ‘Are you getting this?’
‘Yes, shut up so I can get what she’s gonna say,’ Gina urged. ‘And turn that scanner off, I’m picking up the white noise.’
Ashley turned it off as the copper stood behind her car - only her back visible to Ashley and Gina - and switched on the megaphone. There was a burst of feedback that set Ashley’s teeth on edge before the officer began to speak. ‘Sir? Can you hear me?’ she asked, which was a silly question. You couldn’t miss a word, the megaphone was horribly loud.
But there was no answer from the restaurant.
‘My name Is Detective Inspector Conway. I’d like to talk to you. But I’d rather not do it like this. Can you please plug the landline back in and we can have a chat?’
One of the blinds flickered on the door of the restaurant, and a male voice, muffled through the glass, yelled, ‘FUCK OFF!’
DI Conway lowered her megaphone and turned to her colleague, muttering something. She put the megaphone back to her mouth. ‘OK, sir, I guess we’ll have to talk like this then, if you don’t mind. Before we go forward, I’d really like it if you could let me know if anyone in there with you needs medical help?’
There was no answer.
‘Sir, it’s really important that you answer that question. Because if we don’t know if people are hurt, we might decide we have to come in there before you’re ready to come out. I know you don’t want that. I don’t want that either.’
There was a pause, and then the guy yelled resentfully, ‘Everyone’s fine.’
‘I’m really happy to hear that,’ DI Conway said. ‘Do you think you might want to let some people out now?’
A humourless laugh issued through the window. ‘You must think I’m fuckin’ thick!’
‘I don’t think you’re thick at all,’ DI Conway assured him. ‘But we’d consider it an act of good faith if you start sending people out now. Even just a couple.’
There was no response.
‘Sir? Sir, are you still there?’
Nothing.
Once Ashley was sure the action was over, she turned to Gina. ‘You get all that?’
Gina nodded from behind the camera.
‘How much battery you got?’
‘The one in here’s got half charge, and I’ve got a fully charged one in the bag.’
‘How much can you shoot in terms of storage?’
‘Several terabytes.’
Ashley paused. She’d never really paid much attention to the technical side of the job. ‘Is that a lot?’
‘Translated: hours and hours. Long as you don’t need it in 4K.’
‘And you can send footage from that thing, right? Wirelessly?’
‘Yes. I mean, I’ve never had to use that function because it’s not really useful for shooting movies. It’d take too long to transfer the footage that way. But my baby can do it.’ She gave the camera an affectionate pat. Ashley wanted to hate it, but she found it slightly endearing.
‘Great,’ Ashley said. Probably silly to be asking these questions. The situation might be over in two minutes. But if it wasn’t, if things kept developing, she needed to know she could get it all. ‘So-’
‘Are you going to call the station?’ Gina asked.
Ashley frowned. ‘No.’
‘You’re not going to update them?’
‘Not… right… now,’ Ashley said, watching out of her window.
‘You’re not supposed to do stuff like this, are you?’ Gina sighed.
‘Stuff like this has never happened,’ Ashley sputtered. ‘So technically, I don’t know if I’m supposed to do it or not.’ She gave a semi-hysterical laugh. ‘I might get in trouble if I don’t keep following this story.’
‘If you even slightly believed that, you’d call to check in,’ Gina said nonchalantly.
Ashley sighed. They were potentially teetering on the edge of something quite special. But she needed a real op to do it right. If push came to shove, Ashley could shoot stuff on her iPhone. But she’d much rather have everything captured by a professional, in a decent format. This needed to look good on TV. ‘Gina, can I count on you?’
‘How do you mean?’ Gina asked with a small eyebrow raise.
‘I mean, are you gonna stick with me here? Can I rely on you not to run off if things get a bit… tricky?’
‘Tricky? Whatever’s going on here is way beyond tricky. That guy has hostages from the sounds of it. Which means he’s armed because if he was just a really angry bloke whose only weapon was his fists, it wouldn’t have brought out this response.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Ashley agreed, before arguing, ‘But we’re out on the street, so we’re not in the line of fire. If there are going to be bullets flying.’
‘Bullets go quite far though, from what I gather,’ Gina said easily.
Ashley nodded. ‘Fair point. But I really… I need you here,’ she admitted. ‘If I’m gonna get everything. The potential rewards here, I think they could be big.’
‘You know I don’t really do this sort of thing, don’t you? I don’t care about getting some big story,’ Gina told her plainly.
Ashley considered that. ‘Look. You work in movies, right?’
Gina nodded.
‘Well, let me tell you something. If we get real action here, it will be the most exciting thing you’ve ever committed to tape,’ Ashley told Gina.
‘I don’t know about that. Last project I did, I shot a guy wrestling with a crocodile,’ Gina told her.
Ashley shook her head. ‘But it was fake. What we might get today will be the real deal. If some guy comes out of that restaurant with a gun to, I don’t know, a pregnant woman’s head…’
‘Jesus, could you have painted a slightly less dramatic picture?’ Gina muttered.
Ashley paid her no heed, continuing her argument. ‘…There won’t be any rehearsals, no
script. It’s real life, and you’ll get one chance to shoot it right. I can’t think of any movie take that could possibly compare.’
Gina went quiet. Ashley watched her, not knowing which way she was going to go. Gina was an utterly unknown quantity.
Eventually, her verdict came. ‘OK, that does sound slightly interesting,’ Gina said. ‘Maybe we could stick around for a bit. See what happens. One proviso, though.’
Six
Yes, Gina had kind of, maybe, sort of decided to hang about on this unsanctioned job, shooting a potentially dangerous hostage situation. But she had a caveat. ‘I’m not getting into any of this with the big boss man. You have the argument with Bernie about this, if there’s shit to get into.’
