by Natasha West
So, that was the real problem. Rick wasn’t just trying to save his own life. It was so much dumber than that. ‘Are you saying you want to escape?’ Ashley asked incredulously.
‘Why not?’ Rick said. ‘I’ve got a gun, a camera crew, hostages. And that car park would fit a private plane. I’ve googled the countries they can’t get you back from, what you call it, non-extra-whatever. I might go to Azerbaijan,’ he said, pronouncing it with no accuracy whatsoever, but with enough confidence that Ashley briefly wondered if she was the one who had it wrong. ‘Sounds exotic,’ Rick smiled.
Ashley tried to look as though she didn’t think Rick was completely stupid. ‘Rick, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. In fact, if you try to get away, that’s a lot riskier for you.’
Rick gave her a look that said he definitely thought Ashley was completely stupid and he didn’t mind letting her know it. ‘Look, either way, I’m fucked. I die, or I go to prison. So I might as well go for the gold here, you get what I’m saying?’
Ashley had no further case to plead. Because Rick cared about his own life so much that he was willing to risk the lives of strangers to keep it, yet not enough to do the simplest, safest thing and hand himself over. He was a dreadful mix of stupidity, selfishness, bravado, and pig-headedness. Ashley couldn’t begin to counter it.
Her phone rang. She gasped, grabbing it from her pocket. ‘Sorry, sorry.’
‘Who is it?’ Rick snapped. ‘You can switch the camera off now, by the way,’ he said to Gina. The recording light went off, and Gina dropped the camera down by her side. Ashley, meanwhile, had finally gotten the bloody phone out of her pocket to see a work number. ‘It’s the station.’
Rick’s irritation gave way to delight. ‘Answer ‘em! They need to know they’ve got tonight’s big story, don’t they?! Put ‘em on speaker.’
Ashley swallowed a big lump in her throat and took the call she’d been avoiding all afternoon, switching it to speaker. ‘Hello?’
‘Ashley!’ Bernie’s voice exploded from the tinny speaker. ‘Where in the purple fuck have you been? You’re hours late, I’ve had that vicar on the phone tearing me a new arsehole, and we’ve got a gap in tonight’s show!’ screamed Bernie.
‘Bernie, just give me a second, and I’ll explain-’ Ashley began, trying to remain cool.
‘Explain what? I’ve been trying to ring you and Gina all afternoon with no answer. I thought maybe Gina might have come out of left field and been the one to snap and push you off a tall building-’
Ashley gave Gina a quick look. She could have sworn there was the ghost of a smile on her lips. ‘Bernie… I’m in a hostage situation.’
That only made Bernie angrier. ‘Oh, for the love of Christ! I don’t care if you and Gina aren’t getting on, don’t be so bloody hyperbolic as to call it a-’
‘Bernie, please, would you just listen a second?’ Ashley interrupted tiredly. But Bernie was still going, saying something about the vicar threatening to sue him. Ashley wondered if she should just let him rant for a bit, tire himself out. She could have another go when he was hoarse.
But then Rick snatched the phone out of her hand. Ashley was sort of relieved. ‘Hello? Is this Ashley’s boss?’ Rick asked.
Bernie paused. ‘Yeah. Who’s this?’
‘I’m the gunman. From the hostage situation. She wasn’t kidding. Got her and the camerawoman with me now, at Jimmy’s pizza.’
‘Jimmy’s… What?’ Bernie said, his rage pivoting to bewilderment.
‘Fuck me, you don’t listen, do you? Typical fucking boss. She’s in a HOST-AGE SIT-U-AT-ION, mate,’ he said slowly, rolling his eyes at Ashley.
Bernie went quiet. ‘Could you put her back on?’
Rick nodded his permission at Ashley, but he kept hold of the phone, holding it out for her to speak. ‘Bernie?’
‘This isn’t a joke, is it? Because you know I’ve got absolutely no sense of humour about work.’
‘It’s real,’ Ashley told him.
‘Are… are you OK?’ Bernie asked.
‘Yes, I’m alright,’ Ashley said with all the reassuring calm she could generate under the circumstances.
‘And Gina?’
‘I’m OK, too,’ Gina answered.
‘Should I call the police?’ Bernie asked.
‘They’re already here, outside,’ Ashley told him.
‘OK… Err, I don’t actually know what to do,’ Bernie said, panic trembling through his voice.
‘I can help you there,’ Rick interjected. ‘What you’re gonna do is put this on the news tonight. Six o’clock headlines. You got it?’
Bernie paused. ‘Well, I guess I could send someone down now to cover it.’
‘Nah, we’ve got that in hand. Ashley’s doing it,’ Rick explained.
‘Oh,’ Bernie said. And then, ‘Hang about, what?’
Ashley jumped in. ‘I was… I happened upon the story, and I decided to cover it, and then things… took a turn. But we’ve got plenty of footage for you to use. I mean, you’ll be cutting it fine with the edit, but you might be alright. Gina will send it shortly.’
‘Right, right, right, OK, right, I’ll just, yeah…’ Bernie took a breath and gathered himself. ‘I can do that. It’ll go out at six.’
Rick cancelled the call with a delighted smile. ‘Right. Let’s get on that, shall we? Send them the stuff.’
‘You know we could have done it live, they’d have let it go out in real time, no delay,’ Ashley said.
‘I know, I’m not stupid,’ Rick said defensively. ‘But you can’t… If things go out live, if something happened… I just wanna make sure people see exactly what they need to, OK?’
Gina nodded. She knew precisely what he meant. But no point saying it. ‘Before we send it, I gotta shoot a sign off,’ Ashley said. ‘If you want it to look professional.’
Rick shrugged. ‘Crack on, then.’
Ashley turned to Gina. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked. Gina nodded and raised the camera. The red light appeared. Ashley saw Rick slide himself into the background of the shot, holding the gun, puffing his chest out. She ignored him as best she could, saying into the camera, ‘Things here at Jimmy’s Pizza are tense but stable. No one has been hurt, and we’re hoping to keep it that way. But whatever happens, I’ll be covering the situation until we can reach a hopefully peaceful resolution. This is Ashley Quick for KTN. And cut.’
The red light went off, and Gina took the camera off her shoulder, setting straight to work, getting the footage sent over to KTN. Ashley watched her tensely while Rick watched Ashley, and the hostages watched all of them. As Gina tapped buttons on the camera, Ashley wondered if this might be her final broadcast.
Twelve
After Gina had sent everything she’d shot today over to KTN, her main method of distraction was gone, and she was forced to think about where she was. She couldn’t believe what she’d just witnessed. Ashley Quick, doing an interview with a gun pointed at her by the sociopath she happened to be interviewing. If Ashley had been scared, the fear had stayed out of her voice. She sounded as cool as ever, downright breezy. Gina wondered if maybe she was missing that part of the brain that tells you to leg it when danger is coming.
But then she saw Ashley’s hands trembling all over the place as she was trying to get her phone out of her pocket and the ruse was up. Ashley was freaked. Gina should have known. As tough as Ashley could be, there was a person underneath there somewhere. She’d seen it.
‘Right, that was great, now I want you two to get in a cupboard, if you don’t mind,’ Rick said, checking his watch.
‘What? Why?’ Gina asked, swapping a confused look with Ashley.
Rick gave her a hard stare. ‘The man with the gun doesn’t have to explain anything, yeah?’
Gina nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
He gestured at the end of the kitchen, past the hostages - other hostages, Gina reminded herself. She was an initiate in this dreadful club now - toward a battered door. ‘G
o on. In you get,’ he said.
Gina glanced at Ashley to see if she might argue, but she was already walking, headed straight for the cupboard. Gina followed her.
Ashley gripped the door handle to open it, and Rick said, ‘Oh, hang about, I want your phones and the camera.’
Gina put down the camera on a prep station and placed her phone next to it. Ashley’s joined it.
‘Right. Good. Can’t have you two shooting what you like, can we?’ Rick said. ‘I mean, I’ve got to look good. If I’ve got to slap a hostage - I mean if I absolutely have to - I can’t have that on tape.’
Gina didn’t like the sound of that. Especially if she was the one that got the slap.
‘Go on then, get in now,’ Rick said sharply.
Ashley pushed through the door, Gina behind her. The door swung shut behind them, and they were in pitch blackness. ‘Is there a light in here?’ Gina asked.
‘I’m just trying to find the switch,’ Ashley said, rustling about on the wall. ‘You check the other wall.’
Gina didn’t actually know which side was the other wall from Ashley, so she took a punt and put her hands out. But what she found wasn’t a light switch. ‘What’s this?’ she asked as the light came on, courtesy of Ashley. In the harsh light of the bare bulb, Gina realised what she had hold of. Ashley’s breasts. ‘Jesus, sorry!’ she yelled, ripping her hands from Ashley’s body.
Ashley, pink-cheeked and equally shocked, shook her head. ‘It’s… it’s fine.’
Gina wasn’t sure what to say now. She’d just molested her co-worker’s person. ‘I, I… Christ, seriously, I really didn’t mean to do that.’
Ashley shook her head again. ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.’
‘I know,’ Gina said. But then she added, ‘But seriously, you do know it was an accident?’
Ashley rolled her eyes. ‘Of course I do. Good god, do you think I’m imagining that you’ve been waiting for a good opportunity to grab my tits throughout a bloody hostage situation?’
Gina pursed her lips, trying not to laugh. But then she caught Ashley’s eye, and Ashley was the one to break, giggling into her hand. Gina let loose and joined her in the laugh. Gina was pretty sure they were hysterical.
When they’d gotten ahold of themselves, they straightened up and looked around at where they were. Up to their eyes in large catering tins of tomatoes, olives, and herbs. ‘Why do you think he stuck us in here?’ Gina asked.
Ashley considered. ‘Same reason he doesn’t want the camera on all the time, I expect. He doesn’t want us to see him negatively. We’re the press. What he said about the cops not doing anything while anyone’s watching, I expect that goes for him too. That’s why he’s not going out live, either. Can’t control what happens.’
‘You’ve got him pegged, I see,’ Gina said.
‘He’s not that complicated,’ Ashley assured her. ‘He’s just a selfish kid that never grew up.’
Gina nodded. ‘He really came here thinking he was owed.’
‘Most likely, he just wanted a good excuse to do something horrible,’ Ashley said with a sigh, putting her hands on her hips, looking around. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘Me too,’ Gina said quickly.
‘There’s got to be something in here,’ Ashley said, rifling along the shelves, past jars of herbs. ‘Ahh, that’s more like it,’ she said, pulling out a giant catering bag of chocolate chips. She tore it open. ‘I’ll have to make sure to pay for this later,’ she said, shoving a handful of chocolate chips into her mouth and offering the bag to Gina. Gina took a small handful. Grabbing a large handful had gotten her into a lot of trouble a minute ago.
They chewed in silence for a minute. Or that’s all Gina thought they were doing. Until she noticed Ashley’s head cocked toward the door. ‘Are you listening?’
Ashley nodded, still working on a mouthful of chocolate. ‘I can’t hear much though. I think he’s talking but…’ She walked over to the door and pressed her ear against it. She frowned, putting the chocolate on a shelf.
‘Can you make anything out?’ Gina asked.
‘I don’t know, he seems to be… He’s just talking. Ranting.’
‘What about?’
‘I can’t hear every word, but it seems to be something about… Back pay? One of the hostages, he’s saying… He’s telling him again that none of them worked here twenty years ago. God’s sake, he’s like a stuck record.’ Ashley took her ear away from the door. She sighed and took her blazer off, now down to a silken dark blue shirt. She dumped the blazer on the floor and grabbed the chocolate again, shoving another handful into her mouth.
Gina watched her. ‘Are you alright?’
Ashley looked at her, surprised, swallowing her mouthful. ‘You want to know if I’m alright?’
Gina frowned. ‘That’s usually what’s meant by that question, yeah.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be? I mean, I’m trapped in a cupboard by a sociopath with a gun. I’m golden.’ She popped another chip in her mouth.
Gina folded her arms and leaned against a wall, tired. ‘My god, you’re hard work.’
Ashley nodded, unsurprised. ‘It’s been said.’
‘I don’t understand what your problem is,’ Gina said.
Ashley’s nostrils flared. ‘I can’t think why you’d care.’
‘I’ll do my best not to in the future,’ Gina said. She started rooting around the shelves for something salty, finding some black olives in a tin. She searched around her. ‘Oh, for a tin opener,’ she complained.
Ashley put down her chips. ‘Hang on.’ She pulled a bunch of keys out of her pocket and flicked open a small knife on the chain. ‘Give me the tin.’ Gina handed it over, and Ashley pushed her little knife into the lid with a light grunt. Once it was in, she began jimmying it around the edge until she’d gone halfway around. She took the knife and levered the half-open lid up.
‘Jesus, don’t let Rick see that knife,’ Gina said.
‘God, I hadn’t thought of that.’ She took the knife off the chain and shoved it behind a tin of tomatoes.
‘Not tempted to keep it?’ Gina asked. ‘Just in case?’
Ashley raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you never heard the expression about taking knives to gunfights?’
‘No. How does it go?’ Gina asked.
‘In brief, don’t,’ Ashley said. She handed her the open tin of olives.
‘Where did you learn to do that, anyway? The trick with the tin?’ Gina asked.
‘Camping with my dad.’
‘You do that a lot?’
‘A fair bit when I was young.’
‘Sounds nice,’ Gina said.
‘It wasn’t. Useful though,’ Ashley said.
Gina raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Useful?’
‘Yeah, he used to do this thing where he’d… He’d take me to the woods and drive off, and I’d have to make it back to civilisation by myself,’ Ashley said distractedly.
The olive Gina had just started eating rolled out of her gaping mouth. ‘He what?’
‘He was just trying to teach me self-sufficiency,’ Ashley said dismissively.
Gina had just about managed to close her mouth, but she was still fairly bug-eyed. ‘That’s awful.’
‘It really wasn’t that bad,’ Ashley assured her, irritated.
‘What did your mum say about it?’ Gina asked.
‘Not a lot. She died when I was…’ Ashley stopped. ‘How the hell did we get on to this subject?’
‘You really don’t like talking about anything personal, do you?’ Gina asked.
Ashley breathed through her nose. ‘I don’t care either way. It’s just not that interesting.’
Gina frowned. ‘I think it’s very interesting that your dad ditched you in the forest, actually.’
Ashley rolled her eyes. ‘It’s really not that big a deal. The Dutch do it all the time, it’s a tradition.’
‘That’s the first thing I’m gonna google
if I ever get out of here, to see if it’s true,’ Gina said.
‘It is,’ Ashley insisted fiercely. ‘I mean, they do it a bit differently, leaving clues and dropping the kids off in groups, but my dad always said that was the soft way to do it, doesn’t teach the kids true self-reliance.’
‘You’re lucky you didn’t die!’ Gina exclaimed.
‘I only nearly died the one time,’ Ashley said defensively. ‘I wasn’t careful enough about picking which mushrooms to eat.’