Captive Hearts - Natasha West Page 0,1

was wondering why the hell she was pushing. This was a nothing story, and she wasn’t Woodward, nor Bernstein. But she was going somewhere with this, and she needed a minute.

‘If they did it late, like three in the morning, I’m sure no one would have heard,’ the man said.

Ashley leaned into the caretaker and the headmistress; her tone conversational. ‘Yeah, the thing is though…. I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know what?’ the headmistress asked.

‘Yeah, what don’t you know?’ the caretaker repeated.

Ashley was happy to explain. ‘Well, I mean, I’ve lived on a street like this. Nothing ever goes truly unnoticed, not by suburbanites. Especially the older ones. They don’t sleep so well and the sound of someone propping a twelve-foot ladder up against a railing? I think that would be heard, personally.’

The caretaker started grinding his teeth. The headmistress was frowning. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘What I’m getting at is that no one had to actually break in.’ She fixed the caretaker with a hard stare. ‘You left the gate open, didn’t you?’

The caretaker was stone-faced, mute. Seconds passed.

‘I’m not saying you were involved in the theft,’ Ashley went on. ‘More likely, you just left it open by accident. Maybe you were tired at the end of a long day and eager to go home? Is that what happened?’

‘No,’ the caretaker growled. ‘I told you, they brought a ladder, came up the front.’

‘Did they?’ Ashley asked.

‘Yes.’

‘A minute ago, it was just a theory. Now you’re sure about the point and the method of entry?’ Ashley asked the man.

‘No, I mean, I don’t know, I didn’t… I wasn’t….’ the man stuttered. Ashley let him sputter. She knew she was right. The theft had been this man’s fault.

The headmistress sighed. ‘Oh, Barry. You didn’t.’

The caretaker looked at his boss. ‘I didn’t leave it open, I can’t have! I didn’t even lock up, the other caretaker was supposed to!’

It didn’t take long for Ashley to put two and two together. ‘Oh, so you thought he was doing it, and he thought you were doing it?’

The man opened his mouth to explain more. But what was there to say? He began to blub. ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’

The headmistress was beside herself. ‘Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she muttered to herself, the camera now forgotten. ‘You know what this means, don’t you, Barry? We’re at fault. Which means the insurance won’t pay up. How the hell are we going to pay for this ourselves? I’m budgeted down to the penny!’ the headmistress cried.

Ashley sensed it wasn’t going to get any better than that, and she turned around to face the camera. ‘This is Ashley Quick reporting for KTN,’ she said, the sound of the man’s tears in the background. ‘Right, cut,’ she added for Mac.

Mac put the camera down. He was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Unbelievable,’ he muttered to himself.

Ashley ignored him, turning back to the headmistress. ‘Thanks very much for that, it’ll be on at six tonight.’

The headmistress, her face as pale as the moon, a thousand-yard stare in her eyes, replied, ‘I’ll be sure to tune in.’

Ashley nodded. She walked out.

***

‘We’re not putting it out,’ Bernie, the station manager, said firmly. This was after a lot of back and forth between Ashley and the editor, Nicole, about what would be included in the package. Nicole was of the opinion that Ashley had been a vicious pit bull who’d gone too far, and Ashley was of the equally strong opinion that Nicole could shove it up her arse. Finally, they’d had to take it to the boss. He was on Nicole’s side. ‘We’re going to take a soundbite from the beginning before you started applying the thumbscrews to that poor old guy. But that’s all. We can’t air the full interview.’

‘What?’ Ashley said. ‘Why not? It’s news, isn’t it?’

‘Ashley, for the love of god. We’re local news, we don’t do things like this,’ he told her. ‘We don’t do “gotchas.”’

‘I know it’s not usual to get a confession during an interview, Bernie, but this is good stuff, you’ve got to see that,’ Ashley exclaimed. ‘I got the truth.’

‘You got an old man to cry, and you got a school in financial trouble. No one would want to see this,’ Bernie told her sharply.

Ashley was ready to explode. ‘This isn’t right. And I think if I talked to the station owner-’

Bernie shook his head. ‘I’ve already done that. Everyone upstairs has seen this. They think the same as me. It’s not appropriate for