Page 52 of Captive Hearts
‘Are you alright?’ she asked. Gina was astonished. She wouldn’t have dared to speak to him in this state. He’d been pissed a few minutes ago, sure, but his mood was now at eleven.
Pete shook his head. ‘No, I’m not! Where the bastardfuckdid they find him?’
‘I’m not sure. I guess it’s possible your son called them?’
‘Why would he do that? Just to narc me out?’ Pete asked.
‘He’s still on TV, maybe we could find out?’ Ashley suggested, nodding at the TV brusquely.
Pete took the hint to shut his mouth and spun back to the TV. Everyone else in the room did the same. Kara Malone was mid-sentence. ‘…seen him recently?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Liam said nervously. He didn’t look like he was enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame very much. ‘I went to see him about a year ago, in prison. I didn’t know he’d gotten out until I saw him on the news, talking about... everything.’
‘Have you spoken to the police?’
‘No, I came straight to you instead,’ Liam said. ‘Because I can’t call my dad, I don’t know his number, but he might be watching this.’
‘So you’d like to give your dad a message? Is that correct?’ Kara prompted.
Liam nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘You can talk to the camera directly, if you’d like?’ Kara suggested.
Liam didn’t exactly look thrilled at the prospect, but he pointed his little face at the camera and took a deep breath. ‘Dad-’
Before he could get his next word out, two police officers ran into frame. ‘Sorry, we’ve got to stop this interview!’ one of them shouted. Ashley recognised him as the officious arsehole that had kicked her off the street earlier in the day. ‘This is a witness, we’ve got to… commandeer him,’ he said, turning to the camera with his most serious and imposing face on.
‘Commandeer?’ Kara repeated with the slightest tinge of mockery in her voice.
The officer looked thrown. ‘I mean, he’s going to go… I mean, he’s got to speak to the… we can’t have him on telly, alright?’ he garbled, grabbing a slightly scared Liam Ennis and dragging him off up the street while the camera stayed on him until the moment he was yanked into a big police van.
The camera switched back to an excited Kara Malone. ‘Well, you saw it live. The gunman’s son, Peter Ennis - that’s the gunman, not the son, the son is called Liam…’
‘Jesus, get it together,’ Ashley muttered. ‘I could speak better than that with a gun in my face.’
‘…Liam Ennis, the gunman’s son, has been seized by officers and taken for what I can only assume is an urgent debriefing on the subject of his father, currently holding people hostage in a pizza restaurant, the hostage situation now in its ninth hour.’
‘Wow, super cool run-on sentence,’ Ashley said with an ironic thumbs-up at Kara as she signed off. Gina gave her a little nudge in the ribs, drawing her attention to Pete, sitting on the literal edge of his seat, gripping the gun in both hands as though it were a stress ball that could massage his cares away. He looked more wound up than he had all day. Gina’s stomach was knotting itself up just watching him.
‘Pete?’ Ashley asked.
Pete turned to her. ‘What was he gonna say?’
Ashley shook her head. ‘He’s your son. What doyouthink he was gonna say?’
Pete tutted. ‘I’m not a mind reader!’ He turned to the group, to Lily. ‘Oi.’ Lily’s eyes widened at the abrupt spotlight. ‘You’re a teenager. What do you think he was gonna say?’
Lily arched an eyebrow. ‘Fuck should I know?’
‘Language,’ her dad said sharply.
‘Seriously?’ Lily spat at him.
‘I know you don’tknow. Just take a guess?!’ Pete told her.
Lily rolled her eyes and thought for a moment. ‘I suppose…’
‘Yeah?’ Pete said, on a knife-edge.
