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