Burning Bright

Chapter 26

It was the letter with the details of my disciplinary interview which would be conducted the following week by the Colonel and the regional manager, Mr Ericson, who I’d met once. I showed it to Eoin.

‘It’ll be OK, sweetie,’ he said. ‘Is there anything you need to do?’

I contacted my Union rep who confirmed that she would be available and would fly down from Delhi the day before so that we could go through my defence. Defence. I felt as much on trial as Eoin had been, although the outcome might not be so physically drastic, if I got sacked, it could certainly be life-changing.

Eoin hugged me after I’d made those arrangements. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Honestly you will.’

I wasn’t reassured. ‘I have no idea what I’ll do if they sack me.’

‘I have no idea what I’ll do if they don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. But if you weren’t working here, we could do all sorts of things together.’

‘Like what?’

‘Moira’s lined me up a virtually guaranteed interview for presenting and directing a documentary series next year and I need a researcher and someone to make all the arrangements for location shooting. You’d be fabulous at that. And I have a script idea for a brilliant film and need someone to help me get it into production. And there’s this documentary to put together and manage the release of. I can’t do that. You could, I know you could.’ I said nothing. ‘Kate?’

‘You’ve seriously thought about this, haven’t you?’

‘Ever since you got suspended. Because of me.’

‘Wow.’ 

‘And Moira thinks it’s a great idea.’

‘You’ve spoken to her about me?’

‘Well, she spoke to me about you. And it got me thinking. Hard.’

‘Oh.’

‘Hey, come here. Whatever happens, it’ll be fine.’ He hugged me close against him and suddenly the future didn’t seem that bleak.

‘Let’s look at this film of yours then,’ I said, wanting to distract myself from my impending doom.

‘Don’t forget, this hasn’t been edited in any way, so it’s completely random shots.’

‘It’s not all wobbly camera stuff is it? That makes me feel travel sick.’

‘Not a fan of Cinéma Vérité then?’

‘Is that what it’s called?’

‘Well, that or Shaky Cam.’

‘Erm, well, no, I’m not a fan. It’s not like that, is it?’

‘There’s a time and a place for that technique, and shooting tigers is neither. But I’d be interested to see what you think.’

I was no expert on photography and/or how to film a documentary, but even I could see it was compelling footage. The angles used, the subtle focusing, the tracking of individual animals, just lingering on them so they told their own story, although Eoin’s commentary was minimal but informed when he did the occasional piece to camera.

‘There’s a lot more talkie stuff I have to do,’ he explained. ‘But I do that separate from the footage.’

‘Talkie stuff. OK. Technical speak there, I see.’

He laid his arm around my shoulders. ‘Wouldn’t you like to work with me on projects like this?’

‘I can’t say I’m not tempted.’

‘Well, think about it.’

We were approaching the end of the footage where Eoin had been filming the mother tiger. You could see where he turned the camera towards a sound he heard, and then some wobbly footage of him trying to position himself to better see them, followed by him swearing under his breath as Mr Ahmed pointed to and took possession of a gun. There were clearly two police officers with him, but I was more interested in the person in the background that Eoin probably hadn’t even noticed.

‘Play that bit again,’ I said. ‘And can you turn the sound up?’

The camera had caught a few of Mr Ahmed’s words. ‘ . . .  just the cub . . . pass the gun . . .’ and then the camera being put down as Eoin reached for the right hand of the two guns leaning against the branch, unfortunately picking up the wrong one. This was shortly followed by a bang, a lot of noise, and the camera falling over on its side and pointing at the trunk of a tree. But not before the footage caught someone stepping out of the shadows to assist the Chief of Police.

 ‘Woah,’ I said, not entirely sure what to do with this piece of information.

‘What?’

‘There.  That man. Look who it is.’