Night of the Animals(102)
Throughout, an out-and-out swarm of news fotolivers and videographers poured forth from every direction like some massive, imploding galaxy sucking itself into the darkened hole of the zoo. Two of the news crews came in white transit-gliders with their round satellite discs starting to flip upright even as they came to a stop; the words SPOTLIGHT—LIVE AUTONEWS BY SATELLITE was emblazoned on the van from the BBC.
ASTRID DECIDED TO MARCH to the tightest cluster of reporters, where she expected to find Beauchamp jabbering at its sticky center to anyone who cared. The new command structure meant she would have to withdraw her casual offer to be at Beauchamp’s service—the old principle of police primacy would obtain from here on out, no more casual “arrangements” with the old, compliant, incompetent parks police pals.
She suspected that the whole Royal Parks Constabulary that could be rousted at this hour, a corps numbering close to 150 officers, would be assigned to the traditional supporting role of creating a filtered cordon around the “incident area,” which would be no easy task at this point.
Meanwhile all looked pure chaos. Astrid knew about how the Gold-Silver-Bronze system worked, but only in the abstract. Like nearly all her colleagues on the parks force, she was right out of her depth when it came to the intricacies of the king’s new Royal Emergency Services Liaison Panel, or RESLP, plan for major incidents. Gold was strategic, Silver tactical, and Bronze ground operational level. But until a commanding officer appeared and made himself or herself known, there was little to do but, as Omotoso put it, “hold the position” and get people to safety.
“Sorry, sorry,” said Astrid, gently trying to nudge reporters aside and feeling mortified in doing so.
When she finally got to Beauchamp, she found him holding court within a scalding panopticon of direct-to-WikiNous camera lights. She felt oddly comforted to see him; Beauchamp at least was acting true to form, if nothing else in the world was tonight.
“Heya,” Astrid said, jostling beside him. She inadvertently pushed him off-center. He slipped down to his knees; he rested there for a moment like a churchgoer, blinking in surprise until she helped him up. The accident earned Astrid a prize frown.
“So, so sorry,” she whispered. Then, turning to the throng, she said: “Listen, people. Everything’s changed. A major incident has been declared.”
Not a soul seemed to have heard her. Beauchamp started smirking, and said, “What? A major what?” He was nodding his head. He leaned in close to Astrid and said in her ear. “I see your ‘support’ is here, although I should think you had nothing to do with that, did you? And now I can’t even find my squad. God bloody knows how they’ll find me in this mess.”
“Just shut it,” Astrid said in a stage whisper. Beauchamp’s expression didn’t change. He seemed content to be spoken to in this way—as if used to it.
“The public’s safety is the priority here,” she said, “followed closely by the welfare of your animals. Isn’t that what you would expect, or is there something else you’re after?”
Turning toward the reporters, Astrid cleared her throat. “Listen!” she shouted. “Right!” There was, at least, a modicum of quiet. A great array of lights immediately turned upon Astrid, making her squint. “People, I need you to please get into your gliders and other vehicles. And I would appreciate it if you didn’t quote me. The Met’s public affairs department will be handling questions from here on out.”
There was another pause, then a gruff voice, a journalist’s, called out, “On your bike, Mrs. Plods!”
Several reporters guffawed, but one of them responded to the first, saying, “Why? Why insult the officer, you lot of shite-for-brains? You’ll ruin it for all of us.” But his tone was ambiguous, even sardonic.
“Hang on,” said another. “This isn’t a restricted area, is it? I’m my own gaffer, and I’ve got a bloody press card—we all do, I should think. Not even the king can stop us.”
“Careful!” someone with a gulping, frog-like voice warned. “Sedition!” he stammered. “You’re up . . . you’re up . . . you’re up to your ears in it.”
“Shut it, you fecking royal tool,” another responded.
“Harry9 can suck my eyes!”
Astrid felt panicked by the open defiance in the air. She didn’t grasp the sense of bitter irony the reporters all seemed to possess.
“I,” she started to say. She felt her heart skip and then flutter and jerk into an awkward gallop. For a moment, the edges of her vision grew cottony and white, and she thought she was going to faint.
“God damn it,” she seethed, not quite inaudibly. She was furious at her weakness, her wilting under pressure, but unable to summon that anger and bring it out where it might have been useful to her. The rage seemed to knock her heart back into a normal if fast cadence, but she still felt overwhelmed. She could not think of a time when she felt more scrutinized.
“There are bloody animals out!” she spluttered. “Are you half soaked?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Animals shanimals. We ’eard that one already.”
“The major incident alarm’s on,” she said. She tried hard to soften her tone but felt beyond control, too, as if steering an air-bike with its handlebars abruptly pulled off. “You—you lot need to protect yourselves. There’s a mobile control room will be arriving here presently. Do you understand, people? You’re standing in the hot zone. We’re all in danger. You’ve got your press freedoms, but you’re at your own risk.”