Page 10 of Captive Hearts
‘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 same 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’sstillnothing 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.
‘Iknow,’ 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, bloodybrilliant,’ 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.
