Gilded Hate Machine

by Robert H Wilde

  Okay then, Rupert, he thought, time to change into St. George and sell yourself to these people! He could feel the warmth in him as they cheered, the rising bloodlust as they jeered the protestors, and unmatched, the singularly unmatched glory of them cheering his name as mayor. Nothing like it. Everyone should start their own click-hate political party and be praised as saviour.

  Actually, no, he liked that all for himself. No wonder cults kept popping up, it was superb.

  DC Grayling wasn’t in DC mode. She was in daughter mode, and so Rebecca Grayling had a quick check in the mirror to make sure she looked casual but still suitably smart, and opened the front door to welcome her parents in. She should be pleased they’d had a long and happy marriage rather than divorce, but that meant they could double team her at meetings where she couldn’t ask Maruma to back her up.

  “Becky!” her mum exclaimed and gave her the sort of hug a bear might give a Russian hunter.

  “Hi Mum, Dad, do come in,” but they were past her and in the lounge.

  “This is very tidy,” Mrs Grayling said as if Rebecca hadn’t spent four hours tidying.

  “Thanks.”

  “How is work?” Dad asked.

  “Ooh, it’s very good, I caught a murderer and they’re being charged. I’ll nail him in court.”

  “Good,” said Mrs Grayling as if her daughter had just remarked on the weather. “Been on any dates lately?”

  Rebecca sighed. She had been through a rigorous recruitment process, become a detective constable in the actual fucking police, caught many killers, abusers, paedophiles and more, and all her mother ever started with was had she got married and or pregnant yet. The fact her daughter expressed so little interest in, not even romance, but in basic fertility seemed to rankle more and more every time.

  “No mother, I have not. I have,” Rebecca knew she was going to sound cliché, “been helping people and saving lives and putting people in prison.”

  “They won’t look after you when you’re old,” her mother replied, although everyone knew that actually meant ‘I want grandchildren before I die so start fucking girl.’ “What about your colleague?”

  “Soloman and I are a team, not a couple.”

  “And how does he feel about that?”

  “I…” it did occur to her she didn’t know, but never mind, “I have a career!”

  “Why don’t you put the kettle on and tell us all about it.”

  Grayling sighed again at her mother and went into the kitchen. She knew that when her parents were dead and gone, she’d value the time she spent with them and regret it if she didn’t, but she also wanted to murder them right now. She was ninety percent certain she’d get away with it, and Maruma would definitely help.

  “I have Tea Pigs,” Rebecca shouted over.

  “I’d prefer nice stuff. Pigs sound cheap.”

  “No, no these are very expensive.”

  “Then why call it pigs?” her mother sniffed.

  Rebecca looked at the box. No, she had no explanation, which would now be her fault and not whatever PR and R&D teams had come up with this. Would ‘Tea Swan’ have been that much harder? It would certainly have been more pleasing to her mother.

  “This flat would definitely fit two people,” her mother called out and Rebecca nearly smashed the cups on the table. How many times did she have to tell people she wasn’t interested in a relationship before they stopped thinking she was a failure and started listening!

  “Fuck off and make it good!”

  Susan had just entered the newsroom, and as usual several very keen members of staff had got in first. Mind you, the editor was bellowing at one of them because only doing your contracted hours didn’t mean your work was enough. Although Susan knew there was very little in the way of objective quality and more just agendas.

  “You okay,” she mouthed at the man scurrying away from the editor’s cave and to his part of the main room. He nodded and came over and sat near her desk. Susan hadn’t meant to initiate a conversation, but all the neighbouring journos turned, and a little circle chat began. Susan listened.

  “Is it me or is he grumpier than ever?” one said.

  “Grumpy? He’s like a nuclear missile whose parents didn’t love him.”

  “Yeah, grumpy cat was grumpy, he’s stopping just short of actual assault.”

  “Where is human resources when you need protection, by which I mean we need protection.”

  Everyone nodded. Susan agreed. It did feel like ever since he’d announced he was standing for mayor the editor had gone from an angry, overbearing ogre to a true psychotic. She supposed that was what pressure did to people and even though he’d never say it publicly he was genuinely stressed. Mind you, he was staking a lot on this. It wasn’t like he had a reputation, but when you were the Morthern Star’s editor you did risk becoming known as that bitter old bastard who only says stuff because you lost the election. Well, as opposed to just that bitter old bastard.

  “Anyone seen the latest opinion polls?” a staffer asked.

  “Yes, Stremp is neck and neck with the current mayor and St. George.”

  “Hang on, the last poll we published said the editor was ahead,” a poor, innocent staffer pointed out.

  “You can’t believe that,” Susan explained, “we published it!”

  “Oh. Right. Oh.”

  “Exactly,” a colleague added, “Stremp will use any part of the Star to make him look better. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sports section covers his gold handicap and batting average.”

  “You know, you have a good point.”

  For a moment Susan felt bad they were sitting round talking like this because the editor showed her an unusual level of kindness, but then remembered she was no one’s bitch. Well, unless they paid her enough to afford her rent, then her well-developed journalistic morals would bend a bit.

  “How are things going for you Susan?”

  “Everyone is dodgy as fuck,” she replied. “But we all know that. The question is, what can we get in print, and in a manner our readership might respond to the way we want?”

  Someone in the group laughed. “That’s a pretty long way of describing what we do.”

  Susan grinned and shot back, “well it’s more accurate than saying truth.”

  “She has a point.”

  “I hate this bit,” Grayling said as she sat in a chair.

  “The make up or the whole TV thing?” Maruma replied from his matching chair.

  “Oh, I’m not afraid of some makeup, what are you implying?”

  “I… don’t know if you wear it?”

  Grayling nodded, “oh, right, no, not the being made up, being pampered is good, I just meant the whole having to speak to a camera thing. Not my scene at all, yet here we are again. Remind me why we haven’t got Lindleman doing this?”

  “Because Sharma thought he was too keen.”

  “Oh yeah. Now look, you know you’re my best friend, right?”

  “Yes?” Maruma replied suspiciously.

  “But you need to leave the talking to me. You’re a great detective, but the whole public relations camera thing isn’t your best skill.”

  “Yes, I know I don’t really work in a media environment.”

  “People think you look scary.”

  “What happened to subtle phrases like ‘best skill’, now I’m scary?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You are Blake, and I am Avon, and I understand our roles.”

  Much to the annoyance of the make-up lady, Grayling turned to Maruma. “I don’t have a clue what you just said, but it’ll be right, of course.”

  Shortly after they were being ushered into a special room. A table had been set up along one wall, with a blue cloth and microphones, while rows of chairs were divided by the camera crew moving around to get the best angles.

  “How many TV channels have we got here?” Maruma asked, as someone keen on statistics.

  “Five,” a producer told
him, “although we received a note to feature the BBC team?”

  Maruma nodded. “Correct.”

  Both detectives didn’t need to be asked to make their way round to the table, where they sat in front of a room filling with journalists.

  “And why,” Grayling began, “are we favouring the Beeb?”

  “What classic sci-fi do you know from ITV or Sky?”

  “And this is why you don’t talk to people outside the Bunker.”

  The producer arrived again. “Do you know your lines?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Grayling replied. “I am to explain that Jessica Villiers was killed while parked on a road, and we are to ask anyone who drove down that road that night to report anything they heard, saw, or ideally recorded on a dashcam to us, anything at all so we can build a picture. Then I will give out the emails and the numbers.”

  The producer nodded and pointed to Maruma, “he has to say something.”

  “I can give out the emails and numbers?”

  “That would be a bit servant and white saviour,” the producer responded.

  Grayling leant over until she was inches from the producer, “a police source is dead, and I don’t give an F about your university media degree, we need to get this information across in the most effective manner. Now get this f-ing thing started, we need the audio out for drivetime.”

  “Yes Mam. Whatever I can do to help.”

  Howard Welb had a headache. Not from stress but because he was hungover from a night of home-made cocktails in which he had over-indulged as usual. Still, the website had to keep going, because it didn’t matter what subject area your social media was in, the people wanted frequent posts to stay engaged.

  One reason stress wasn’t affecting Howard was because there was none, not for him. He wasn’t out there researching breaking stories or pounding the streets and asking questions. Instead he had a series of alerts set up for all the major local sources, such as the police’s own social media, the Star etc., and he just worked his way through their news and redid it as his own.

  No pressure, but he liked to think there was talent needed. Some rivals made the mistake of just whacking up whole press releases or full on copying, and Welb didn’t do that. What he did do was rewrite the news in the manner of his populist agenda, and then craft a social media friendly headline to attract people. He was a master of clickbait. You didn’t want to tell the story in the tweet, you wanted the ad revenue after the click through or the full engagement in Facebook for the mind worm. Tease them, play on their deepest fears, make them think differently, cash in, job done.

  Welb sat down and looked through the alerts for the next hour. Plans for a new supermarket would be turned into fears of the collapse of the city centre and an immigrant take over. A robbery would cast aspersions on who was behind it and their ethnic group, and a successful youth football team would be featured because they were ninety percent white. Then there was the mayoral election, which was making his days a lot easier as there was always something going on. It was almost a shame there wasn’t an election all the time, for him at least.

  Welb slipped his mind into the guise of Monty T, the public voice of Morthern.Info, and began to write about the supermarket. Given how many shops had closed in the city centre of Morthern’s largest settlement it wasn’t overdoing it to talk about a dead high street and rows of empty shops, but when he said the streets were filled with language people didn’t understand he portrayed it negatively, and when he got to saying it would become a no go area he knew readers wouldn’t simply be thinking about boredom. By the end it was a triumph of propaganda, although such was the average attention span when consuming social media that it didn’t take him very long at all to finish. A genre of writing with no room for subtlety and which profited most from broad generalisations and shocking headlines. It was no wonder it could so easily be used to corrupt.

  Then Monty / Howard looked at the next story and wondered if he could have a cheeky drink.

  A car pulled to a halt. It looked like a normal, civilian vehicle, and the person inside was dressed in what looked like your average suit. But that didn’t stop the large man standing at the gates of the nearby house from walking straight over and banging on the window with a fist.

  There was a deliberate pause by the person in the vehicle, and then the window wound down.

  “Move on,” the security man barked, “you’re outside a private property.”

  “I’m DC Lindleman from Morthern police, and I am perfectly entitled to park here. Please tell your boss I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

  “You got ID?” the guard asked. Lindleman smiled and held it up. “Wait in the car,” he was told.

  Security turned and walked back to the gate, pulled out a phone and made a call. Rob looked out from the car and decided to wait and see, and after a small conversation the guard came back over.

  “Alright, come in. He’ll see you.”

  Lindleman nodded, got out, locked the door and followed. A large iron gate recessed slightly into the wall, letting both men pass through, and they walked up to the door of a big house. This opened, but rather than seeing Rupert Hume, Lindleman saw a second security guard. Rob was tall, but these men were higher and wider than he was.

  When Lindleman was in the middle of an open hallway filled with expensive looking ‘objet d’art’, a familiar face appeared. Rupert Hume walked out of a lounge, dressed in his new politics suit, and grinned. The security stood either side of the detective.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure?” Hume asked.

  “I’ve got a few questions for you, if you wouldn’t mind answering them.”

  “About what? And why is there just one of you? Last time two came along.”

  “Ah, we’re rather stretched, so just me today, and it’s about a young woman who was murdered.”

  Hume nodded. “I told your colleagues I won’t come in unless you arrest me and force me. I’m not answering anything without my own lawyer, and I’ve not the first idea what the fuck murder you’re talking about, so you can leave like the last lot unless you’re going to cuff me.”

  Hume grinned, a wide, confident look, and Lindleman rubbed his nose. “I suppose appealing to your sense of civic duty would…”

  “No answers.”

  Lindleman nodded, “in that case Rupert Hume, I am arresting you on suspicion of hate crime and inciting violence.”

  Hume didn’t seem surprised, or even fazed, which was the moment Lindleman realised this was a trap. But security stepped forward so these huge men were almost touching him, and as Hume said, “are you sure about that,” Lindleman’s bloody minded opposition to bullying kicked off.

  “Oh, I’m sure. Either you co-operate, and I will take you now, or uniform will come, and we will drag you out in cuffs.”

  Hume nodded. “In that case, cuff me and I’ll come with you.”

  Rob wasn’t sure how this had just gone wrong, but he was certain it had. Best stick to the script. “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Hume got out of the vehicle. “This is the best you can do?” he asked as he looked at the headquarters of Morthern’s police. “Is that brutalist architecture? Or just some cheap rubbish? I have to admit, when I’m mayor we will enforce better planning standards than this type of thing. There will be some actual style.”

  Lindleman ignored him and said, “follow me,” so Hume sped up and walked deliberately ahead. Rob noted that a car had pulled up on the public road with both security men in it. Well they could wait there then, see how long their patience lasts.

  As they entered the building DI Sharma appeared, and they moved Hume through the booking in process and put him in a cell.

  “How did it go?” Sharma asked.

  “He went straight to ‘arres
t me or I’m not talking’, and then tried to get the goons to intimidate me, so as discussed he’s here for questioning. I didn’t think they’d actually hit me given the mayoral campaign, but we’d have been better off if they did.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” the inspector told him, but then she nodded. “Let’s leave him in the cell to stew for a bit, then we’ll interview him.”

  A few minutes later, Hume’s lawyer arrived, breaking an actual record for the fastest time between someone going in a cell and their legal representative walking through the door.

  “Realistically, when did that bloke get called?” Lindleman said to Sharma as he walked down a corridor. “I mean, did he actually call him before I’d gone into the house? Cos this feels like we’re doing exactly what he wants. Something is up.”

  “Okay, let’s proceed carefully, everyone tries to catch us out, let’s not treat this any different. Question, see if he contradicts himself, see if we can pin him down.”

  When Hume sat in the interview room, he was grinning, and his lawyer didn’t look worried.

  “My client has prepared a statement,” the latter said. “My client categorically denies inciting violence or engaging in hate speech. He takes a bold, non-politically correct line on key issues facing our state, but nowhere has he urged violence or harm against people. He believes our immigration system needs refining and immigrants returned to their countries of origin, but only through careful, legal, managed methods. You will not find one quotation urging physical assaults on them, let alone murder. My client intends to let his speeches speak for themselves and believes you have no legal right to keep him here on those charges.”

  “Right, so…”

  “A question first,” Hume said.

  “And what is that?” Sharma asked him.