The Gated Trilogy

by Matt Drabble

  “Maybe in a couple of years he could be a problem, but this is way too early for him to step forward,” Woods replied dismissively. “Now remember, we use the docks as a backdrop for the economic failings of the government. High unemployment, rampant crime, blah blah blah.”

  Buttler walked up onto the stage to the thunderous applause of a largely planted audience. He looked out to the bank of cameras, both TV and newspapers. The flashes went off and he wanted to feel alive, energized and on his path to destiny and power. But in reality he was sweating through an expensive handmade silk shirt.

  He waved his hands downwards to settle the crowd. His speech was memorised as was the planted audience. They had their cues for cheers and applause and all he wanted to do now was get this thing over with and get back to the safety of the suburbs.

  The abandoned buildings with boarded up windows gave a pleasing aesthetic to his message of government failings but they also made him nervous.

  “Thank you for that warm welcome,” he bellowed out too loudly and the mic whined in protest with static feedback. He made a mental note to fire someone after this was done, anyone would do.

  “We’re here today to highlight the failings of the government. This place was once a thriving hub of jobs and prosperity and under the government’s watch it has descended into poverty and crime. I am standing here today to tell you that my slogan for this country is…” A sudden noise from the back of the crowd caught his attention as raised voices and jostling bodies interrupted him.

  From the side of the stage, Woods was winding an arm to indicate for him to continue.

  “Yes, this place is indicative of our country today,” he stammered, trying to remember his place in the speech.

  Out of the blue, a glass bottle suddenly flew overhead and smashed against the wooden podium making him jump backwards in fright. The sounds from the back of the audience grew into shouts of pain and cries of terror. People started to flee in every direction, overturning carefully aligned chairs. Catering tables were kicked over, shattering crockery, and Buttler tried to lean forwards and glean what was happening.

  He looked over towards Woods but the weasel was staying true to form and starting to slink away. The cameras were turning towards the trouble but annoyingly some had stayed on him.

  Another bottle came towards him and he ducked for cover again, cowering behind the small wooden podium.

  He looked around desperately for his security but most of them had run towards the trouble and now he could see several struggles as a group of what looked like local thugs were storming the event.

  Buttler kept his head down and prayed that security would get the matter under control quickly. He knew that it didn’t make for the best photo op to be seen cowering but even now his political mind was spinning, the shattering bottles sounding like gunfire.

  He kept his head down and decided that he would tell people afterwards that he wouldn’t abandon the stage, or the truth, that his legs had turned to jelly and he was too scared to move. His heart pounded hard in his chest as fear gripped him tightly.

  A hand suddenly tapped him on the shoulder and he screamed out in fright. He turned and fell to his knees, raising his hands high in surrender. His face turned white as he flinched away in fear, only to look up to see Christian Tolanson standing before him, offering him a helping hand. Dimly he heard the whirl of motorised cameras capturing the moment of him cowering on his knees before his opposition and he instinctively knew that there would be no way of spinning this.

  ----------

  Avery held several phone conversations at once as questions and orders were barked out in all directions.

  “No not till Thursday… 25… No comment… Focussing on the education package… Prawn cocktail.”

  The office was ablaze with activity and people were running about in all directions. The place was full of numerous faces that she didn’t recognise but she had no time for names.

  “You!” she barked at a young girl who hurried past with armfuls of paperwork. “Get me Patterson on the phone right now.”

  “Patterson?” the girl asked, confused.

  “Albert Patterson!” Avery snapped. “Now!”

  The girl scurried away, not quite quickly enough for Avery’s liking. Time was short and their window was open.

  There was a blown up copy of the Daily News’ front cover. The picture showed Tolanson standing bravely on the stage during the mini-riot. Buttler was cowering on his knees and looking up in terror as Tolanson offered his hand. The photographer had captured the moment perfectly. Tolanson was the new media darling, a politician brave and strong and fit to lead, while Buttler trembled under fire.

  Before Buttler’s staged appearance, the man had been a certainty the leadership race, but now the rats were deserting his sinking ship in a hurry. Avery had been fielding calls solidly for the last 24 hours, all pledging support and aid to his cause. Politicians always had a firm grasp of survival and they could all feel which way the wind was blowing. Tolanson had been catapulted into the nation’s consciousness, leapfrogging several prominent Progression Party members and now the public were clamouring for details.

  She swept up several pieces of paper and headed for the man’s private office at the back of the room.

  “Patterson,” the girl said, reappearing at her shoulder holding a phone out.

  Avery took the phone in her free hand. “Mr Patterson, so kind of you to make time.”

  “Not at all; anything I can do for Mr Tolanson?” the gruff voice came back.

  Avery swallowed the man’s two-faced nature. She had been trying to get a meeting with the man for weeks when Tolanson had been trailing in the internal polls for the leadership race. Patterson had dismissed her at every turn with increasing contempt, but now he was all smiles and offers of help.

  “I need a little help with Goldman,” she continued.

  “How can I help?”

  “Goldman is still hanging onto Buttler, refusing to get onboard with us. I need a unanimous victory for the leadership vote; we can’t have any dissenting voices, Mr Patterson.”

  “Please call me Albert.”

  “Certainly… Albert,” she said, almost gagging on the man’s duplicity.

  “Goldman and Buttler go back a long way, boarded at Westgate together; it won’t be easy to turn such a man from his honour.”

  “Albert, I really don’t give a shit. The party needs a unanimous selection; it’s time to show the people of Britain that the Progression Party is solidly behind Tolanson. I mean, how can we expect them to vote for our candidate in the general election if we’re going to give out the message that not all of his own party are behind him?”

  The silence at the other end was long and empty.

  “You know, I was only thinking about my own school days the other day. Did you know that I studied economics?”

  “Of course, Albert. We are all well aware of your reputation as an economist,” Avery replied, dancing the dance. “I know that Mr Tolanson has often spoken of your abilities. I believe that he’s often lamented your wasted talents as far as the position of… say chancellor.”

  “Well that really is most flattering,” Patterson preened. “Oh, and as for Goldman I’m sure that I could twist his arm, metaphorically of course.” He chuckled.

  Avery hung up and felt like she needed a shower. She had spent so much of her time thinking that there was no way that they could ever win the nomination that she had never thought about the future if they did. Any thoughts that she might have harboured about running a clean campaign were rapidly disappearing. Everyone had their hand out, even when they were supposed to be on the same side and working towards the same goal.

  She rapped gently on the office door.

  “Come,” came the voice from inside.

  She entered and found Tolanson sitting behind his desk. As always the man looked like he’d just stepped off a Paris fashion runway. No matter how crazy the office got and how lat
e they worked, he was always immaculate.

  “How are we looking?” Tolanson asked.

  “Last few bumps to iron out. Patterson is going to take care of Goldman for us.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He’s angling for chancellor, but that’s so far down the line there’s no harm in letting him dream for now.”

  “You don’t think that we’re going to win the general election?” Tolanson enquired.

  “Let’s get the nomination sewn up first, Sir.”

  “A wise girl,” Tolanson said towards McDere, who was standing motionless in the corner of the office. “No carts before the horse with her.”

  Avery was still finding herself shocked by McDere’s continued ability to disappear into any room. For such a huge man he seemed to appear and disappear at will. She still wasn’t sure what the man actually did for the campaign or, indeed, for Tolanson but they were normally together. He scared her with his broad frame and blank face. She was a people person and made a living by reading them, but McDere was still a mystery to her.

  “I’ve got you booked on ‘Woman’s Hour’ on Tuesday morning, ‘At Home with Virginia’ on Wednesday and ‘Good Morning Britain’ on Friday,” she rattled off.

  “ ‘Good Morning Britain’?”

  “I know that you’re not a fan, Sir, but their audience is large and slap-bang in the middle of our missing demographic. Their people are right-wing, strong on leadership, law and order and the military. We need you to win over the undecided before the election. This is all free campaigning before the Nationalists have even got out the gate. We get to use the leadership race to foist you onto the public while the Nationalists have to sit on their hands.”

  “I’m being foisted?” Tolanson grinned.

  “Yes, Sir. We only have a small window here. I don’t know what made you put an agreement in place for the Nationalists to stay quiet while we elect a new party leader but we couldn’t have planned it better. With Buttler’s collapse after his rally, we get to run you unopposed for party leader and at the same time run a national campaign while the Nationalists can only sit and watch your numbers soar.”

  “It’s all about faith, my dear.” Tolanson smiled broadly. “Sometimes God helps those who help themselves.

  CHAPTER 5

  MAKING NEW FRIENDS

  Debbie Barrett hurried her way through the rain along the soaked pavement. The lunchtime traffic was heavy and the bus’s heavy diesel fumes were thick enough to choke as they lumbered and wheezed their way along the street.

  Her mind was a mixture of frustration and concern. It had been some time since she’d last seen her best friend, and Avery had even missed her birthday. She loved the woman like a sister and tried hard to understand her new job and the pressure and time that it consumed, but it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t asking for a mountain of Avery’s time, just an occasional phone call would suffice.

  Avery had already cancelled three lunches in the past month and every time by text. So Debbie had figured that she’d have to make the bigger person gesture.

  She was carrying lunch in a basket; no matter how busy Avery was, she had to eat at some point, even if it was just from her desk.

  Debbie worked at a local newspaper office. It wasn’t a national media outlet, just the sort of paper that ran local stories for the local people. She had wondered if Avery’s distance had been related to her position at The Star, but quite frankly she found it a little insulting that Avery would even for a moment think that Debbie would abuse their friendship.

  The campaign office was a largish warehouse, and when Debbie reached the building, she was struck by the lack of gratuitous advertising from the outside. She knew that Tolanson was currently riding high after Buttler’s implosion at his own rally, but to look at Tolanson’s headquarters you wouldn’t know it. For the first time she wondered if Avery was backing the right horse.

  When her best friend had first explained her new job, Debbie had thought it a fool’s errand. During their infrequent communications she had noticed Avery’s increasing affection towards the politician and had worried that when the reality of Tolanson’s crashing defeat finally dawned, Avery would be crushed. But now the man was on the rise and perhaps he might even stand a chance.

  She had made the mistake of letting her relationship with Tolanson’s campaign manager slip and The Star’s editor had been hassling her for the last few days now to exploit her friendship. Debbie was sure that she would have initiated the lunch visit anyway and told herself that her editor’s suggestion hadn’t played any part in today’s trip, or at least she tried to.

  The warehouse door was locked at the front to her surprise and she stood on the street like Little Red Riding Hood with her picnic basket. She tried to peer in through the large front windows but they were too high for her to reach.

  After a while she decided to try and see if there was a back entrance. Avery would be glad to see her, of that she was sure, even more so if it was a surprise.

  She moved around the side of the building, stepping over various discarded boxes and assorted rubbish. It wasn’t easy to navigate her way around to the rear of the building but eventually she managed it.

  Large electric doors greeted her, presumably from when the warehouse operated as such. She was surprised to see that there were no cars parked around here and for the first time wondered if she had the right address. It had been a couple of weeks ago that Avery had told her where she was working and it would make sense, given the upturn in the campaign, if they’d relocated.

  She was about to leave when raised voices from inside caught her attention. She moved closer to the smaller people-sized door between the large delivery ones. The loud voices were male in origin and distinctly angry to boot.

  The small door was unlocked and she eased it open. While she might not be anything more than an administrative assistant at The Star, that didn’t mean that she didn’t have ambitions towards being a reporter one day.

  While she wasn’t overly convinced she was in the right place, a small nagging pull in her gut told her to check it out.

  She lay the picnic basket down and took a small digital recorder out. The recorder had been a last minute addition - you know, just in case.

  Debbie slipped inside the warehouse and followed the raised voices along a narrow corridor. The men grew closer and now she started to hear them more clearly and one rewarded her gut instinct by being Tolanson.

  Being a local, she had heard the man speak a few times and his impressive voice was easy to identify. She had only ever heard him in a formal setting. The man had been commanding and impressive during his speeches but now there was a slightly harder edge to his tone.

  “I thought that I had an agreement with your boss?” Tolanson said, close to the edge of anger. “Speaking of which, where is Mr Donovan?”

  “Never you mind; you’re dealing with me now, sunshine,” a younger man replied. “See, the way I figure it is that you need us now more than we need you.”

  Debbie moved along the corridor until she was on an open balcony looking down into the back of the warehouse. There were three men below: Tolanson, the gorilla that she had seen with him before, and a young man that she also recognised.

  Tommy Pryor worked for Malcolm Donovan, a well-known local face, and was a young thug who was somehow ascending the criminal tree. She knew that the crime desk at The Star was eager to get the dirt on Donovan and now here was one of his lieutenants in a clandestine meeting talking to the next leader of the Progression Party.

  “You seem to have a rather short memory, Thomas,” Tolanson warned the young man.

  “Nope, I think it’s you that has the poor memory. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us. We’ve been financing your campaign and I’m the one who helped you set up Buttler; just imagine what that knowledge would do to your plans.”

  Debbie hunkered down and prayed that she wouldn’t make a sound and be discovered. She held her breath as she s
lipped her phone from her pocket and started to film the exchange.

  There was an arrogance borne of youth that gave the young man a sense of superiority, but even from up here Debbie could have told him that it was a false sense. Tolanson still radiated a strong aura of control and she felt a powerful urge to tell Pryor to stop poking the bear.

  “Mr Pryor, is this really the course of action that you want to pursue?” Tolanson asked pleasantly but his voice had dropped several degrees. “I’m sure that if Mr Donovan was here then he might be inclined to correct your somewhat misguided attempt to alter our arrangement.”

  “You’re an arrogant prick, you know that?” Pryor spat. “You lot are always looking down on us, thinking that you can push us around just because you had a bunch of silver spoons shoved up your arses!”

  “I can assure you, Mr Pryor, that I don’t have anything shoved up my rectum, silver or otherwise.”

  “Well, here’s the deal: you work for me now,” Pryor sneered but seemingly with a little less surety than he had exhibited before as Tolanson refused to fear him.

  “Really?” Tolanson smiled.

  Pryor answered by snatching out a wicked looking silver knife from his jacket. Debbie noticed that for the first time Tolanson’s pet ape moved, but the politician held up a hand to stop him.

  “This is such a shame, Mr Pryor,” Tolanson lamented. “I did have such high hopes for you my lad, I really did.”

  “Fuck you. I’m sick of you pulling my strings. Nobody tells me what to do. You do what I say from now on, or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “You don’t want to find out, I promise you that.”

  “Really, Mr Pryor, such a disappointment,” Tolanson said, shaking his head sadly.

  Debbie was transfixed as the air was filled with anger, rage and the prospect of violence, and all of that was just coming from Pryor. Tolanson was facing a violent criminal who wouldn’t think twice about stabbing him and yet the politician seemed to be almost enjoying the confrontation. She continued to film with her phone, wondering and fearing just how this was going to end.