IC - 1 - Beginnings - Jocelyn

[Mephistophilis]

7pm Thursday 11th March 2010, London, England.
It has been a bright and crisp spring day in the nation's capital. The last few brilliant rays from the setting sun colour the sky with a rosy glow.

Jocelyn,Where is Jocelyn, what is she doing right now? Currently she knows nothing about the Balfour case.

[Mr. Handy]

Jocelyn Leigh arrives at the Queen's Theatre in London's West End with her older sister Janet, who is treating her to a performance of Les Miserables after a long day's work. Jocelyn is wearing a black sequined dress with a plunging back. The play itself won't start for another half hour, but the doors are opening now.

[Mephistophilis]

Jocelyn takes her phone out of her clutch bag and switches it to silent in preparation for the show. As she is putting it back in the bag the screen lights up indicating an incoming call from a witheld number.

She groans inwardly and answers.

'Hello Giles' she says with a sigh. 'Always a pleasure'.

'Jocelyn, darling, how did you know it was me?'

The unmistakable voice of Giles Munro, her boss in the Security Service. He continued in his cut glass accent, 'got a little job for you old girl, High Wycombe I'm afraid, arse end of nowhere I know but only just outside the M25 at least, eh?

Child abduction case, snatched about thirty minutes ago. The father, one John Balfour, has come up on an extremism watchlist and that triggered our involvement. I've had a look through the file, pretty thin gruel to be honest, religious extremist for sure but any terrorist link seems pretty tenuous.

Frankly I'm not too sure what the relevance is at the moment but I need someone on the ground to sniff around. While we investigate how he got onto the watchlist in the first place I've offered your expertise to the Thames Valley Police. They are likely to value your experience in hostage negotiation but I haven't told them about the extemism angle yet, I'll leave that to your judgement.

I've taken the liberty of engaging a civilian contractor, Simon Eagleton, he was helpful during the Thorndike affair last year, nasty business, abduction and murder, frightful.

PC Plod are still onsite at the scene of the crime, the Eden Shopping Centre. I suggest you liaise with them there, they're expecting you. I will ask Dr Eagleton to meet you there as well.'

His deceptively breezy tone darkens for a moment, 'and Jocelyn, you know the statistics for these child abduction cases, about fifty-fifty they'll find her alive so do try and help out our dull friends in the constabulary.'

Jocelyn,You can ask Giles any questions you want now but he doesn't know a lot of details and bear in mind it is going to take about an hour to get from London to Wycombe by car, and that doesn't include going home or getting changed if you so choose

[Mr. Handy]

"Right," says Jocelyn, "I'm on my way. Ring me back if you learn anything more." She turns to her sister. "I'm sorry, Janet, duty calls. I'll have to take a rain check. It won't technically be my birthday anymore, but I'll still enjoy it. Les Mis can wait, this can't. I'm sure you can find someone who can use the second ticket."

Jocelyn knows that time is critical in an abduction case, and that the sooner she gets there and gets started, the better the odds of finding the child - presuming the child's still alive now, which as Giles had said was not a sure thing. She hops in her car and drives off to Wycombe immediately, using her GPS to plot the best route. There's no time to go home to change or get anything. She'll just have to show up dressed to the nines.

[Mephistophilis]

Kicking off her heels and pulling on a pair of flats from the boot, Jocelyn starts up her car and plots a route to High Wycombe, winding through the crowded streets of the West End.

She joins the A40 and drives briskly through the suburban fringes of London until she reaches the M40 motorway which threads through the greenery of the Colne Valley.

She mulls over what she knows, Giles didn't seem too convinced by the terrorism angle but it sounded like this John Balfour was some kind of religious extremist. How that could relate to his daughter being kidnapped she didn't know.

A light rain started, coating the windscreen with a diffuse spray.

It had been a while since Jocelyn had been involved in a hostage situation and she rather hoped it would be longer before she had to again, the last one hadn't gone so well.

The view of the road becoming blurred, Jocelyn squirts the screen wash. For a moment the hazy glare of the tail lights gives the liquid an unpleasant reddish hue, like a film of blood dripping down the windscreen, smeared by the wipers.

Jocelyn,We're going to have to wait for the other threads to catch up before everyone meets

[Mephistophilis]

I must be tired Jocelyn thinks to herself as she blinks her eyes clear.

Eventually Jocelyn arrives at the outskirts of High Wycombe.Even from a long way off she can see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. As she crawls closer in heavy traffic she can see that the Eden centre itself consists of several separate buildings linked together with covered walkways. The flashing police lights illuminate the transparent plastic awnings like a tacky Christmas tree.

Police cars are parked haphazardly around the centre and uniformed officers patrol a cordon marked with cones and tape. A lone ambulance sits among the police cars.

Several news vans are parked in front of the cordon, the usual outlets, the BBC, Sky, ITN, and some other local reporters. There is also a van marked 'GNS', which she does not recognise.

The approach to the Eden centre is crammed with cars and pedestrians trying to get a closer look at events beyond the police cordon. Jocelyn can see it is going to be difficult getting close to the centre.

Jocelyn,Roll Drive Auto, if there's anything you wanted to do prior to arrival just say

[Mr. Handy]

"Bloody hell!" cries Jocelyn. "And I thought London traffic was bad!" Unable to approach any closer, she parks the car and gets out, her ID card in her hand as she heads for the scene on foot.

OOC,Drive Auto roll (50% skill) to get past the traffic: [dice]0[/dice]

[Mephistophilis]

Parking her car by the roadside she feels something squish unpleasantly under the front tyre. She steps out of the car and walks around to the passenger side where there are legs poking out from under the wheel like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. It looks to be a frog or toad, the unfortunate creature's bloody viscera oozing out onto the road surface.

'Eugh'

There is a light rain so Jocelyn pulls out her jacket from the car. She starts walking through the crowds towards the flashing artificial light from the emergency vehicles.

As Jocelyn approaches the police line her path is blocked by the GNS van. She can see that GNS stands for 'Global News Service' with the trite slogan 'Bringing Your Story to the World'. A reporter emerges from behind followed by a cameraman. She has coiffured blonde hair and overdone makeup.

Looking Jocelyn up and down, clearly amused by her formal attire, she says 'Julie Thomas, GNS, can you confirm there has been a terrorist attack here in the Eden Centre? How many people were killed?'

[Mr. Handy]

"No comment," says Jocelyn automatically. The reporter probably knows more about what happened than she does anyway. She circles around the reporter and the van, continuing to the police line at a brisk pace.

[Mephistophilis]

OOC,We're moving to this thread [url]https://www.callofcthulhu.org.uk/pbp/viewtopic.php?f=469&t=7113[/url]