Gilded Hate Machine

by Robert H Wilde

  Stremp was open-mouthed. “Just stop… talking about him…” What a wonderful idea. He couldn’t, could he?

  “Yes, we want him de-platformed immediately. Everywhere. Just stop covering him.”

  I wish, I so fucking wish! I could erase him from the picture, no one would vote then, no one voted for a random name on a list. But this couple were sharply presented so, “do you have any documentation on the legal side of this? Because I must remind you, we are in a democratic election and Rupert Hume has a right to speak.” Even if I wish he’d say something that would outright bury him, and I’d stick it on every billboard in the fucking city.

  “We are going to speak to the television companies over the next few days. However, we can confirm we’ve had him pulled from four speaking engagements.”

  “Oh really,” Stremp almost leered. “You are running a brave campaign, I do hope it succeeds, but I feel this has to be an all or nothing thing. As I am running for mayor myself, the Star is under extra scrutiny. We could only ‘no-platform’ Hume if enough other media did, but I assure you, if they did… so would we.”

  Stremp managed to smile warmly at the useful idiots in front of him. “But I know what to do. I will give you the contact details of every manager at every media source in Morthern. That’ll save you a lot of research time, you can go right to the top.” He felt like the Germans letting Lenin through to Russia; only smugger. “Yes, let me just write this out for you, I’m sure you’ll find it very helpful indeed… what are your names? Actually, why don’t I get it printed off, then you don’t have to worry about my handwriting. A coffee while you wait. I still have staff who can sort that out…”

  A while later the two smartly dressed campaigners came out of the Star offices and looked around. They had their car parked around the corner, but they didn’t remember there being anywhere between it and them to get the coffee they both thirsted for at the moment. They looked at each other, able to communicate in silence, nodded and then walked off further down the road in search of somewhere both tasty and environmentally acceptable. They didn’t want to use somewhere which wouldn’t fill up their reusable cups.

  As they walked off down the road, they didn’t realise three people peeled off from where they’d been leaning around a corner and followed them.

  The couple reached a road filled with shops, and they walked down assessing all the eateries. Luckily for their throats they found the perfect venue; a small, local, coffee shop which pledged to be completely sustainable, so they brought not just two cups worth of coffees, soya flat whites, but also some lovely little muffins. Then they walked back onto the streets of Morthern and towards their car. It was a dry day. A crisp day, and they walked slowly, feeling like their mission was on the cusp. This street was busy, with people around, but soon the couple turned and walked past the Star offices, and then down the quiet backstreet where they’d parked their car. Their pride and joy, a little electric number to ferry them about.

  One sipped a coffee. “This is really nice stuff,” they noted.

  They reached the car, opened the door and bent slightly, at which point, they heard someone behind them growl, “for St. George!” As they turned, a wrench hit one in the side of the face, shattering their cheek and spinning them round. As their companion reacted by trying to run and help, they realised two other people were behind them, and they tried to duck out of the way of a punch, but it connected on their shoulder instead.

  On the other side of the car, the man with the broken cheek fell to his knees with his hands rising round his head, a wrench raining down on arms and head, while behind him the woman was punched repeatedly in the body and head.

  A police car screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, and two officers leapt out. They ran, hands reaching for pepper spray and batons, and they were joined moments later by another car braking and police leaping out.

  There wasn’t really a fight. There was a well-trained response, in which three assailants were dragged off their victims, forced to the floor and cuffed, leaving just the screams of pain of the couple who’d been attacked, the sirens of an ambulance rushing towards them, and the curses of the men on the ground who’d been stopped.

  “Yeah tell the van to take their fucking time,” a police constable said sarcastically, shaking their head as they calmed and took stock.

  Cars pulled up alongside a phalanx of police, some uniformed officers and other detectives. The attackers were taken out of the vehicles one by one and escorted into the station ready to be booked into cells. At every step of the way the attackers shouted and swore, targeting anyone non-white and telling them to ‘go back.’ Everyone on the police side kept their temper, and prepared clothes and possessions for examination (and to stop any self-harm).

  “Hey, look, a fucking Paki,” one attacker shouted as a broad Indian detective came into the room. Sharma looked at the men, shook her head pointedly and turned to the staff in the hope of some actual sensible conversation. “Okay what have we got?” she asked.

  A female constable came over and pulled out a notebook. “We got a call from a member of the public. They said they saw two smartly dressed people being followed by three thuggish types and we should come and check because they felt there was a danger. Spoiler on the next bit, there was a danger. The men fit descriptions of known troublemakers, so we sent four uniform into the area, and oh boy, when we got there these men were trying their best to turn the smart ones into pulp. So caught red-handed, this is going to take minimal effort to prosecute, we got prints, wet blood, witnesses, the full fucking works.”

  “Good job Constable,” Sharma said, “so why have you called me?” This wouldn’t be an MCU case normally, there were other members of the CID who would cover that.

  “They were shouting stuff that concerns you. Free St. George. For St. George. A look at their phones shows massive consumption of Patriot Party material, and don’t panic, we know why. The victims are trying to get St. George banned, or ‘no-platformed’ from the media, the Party website mentioned this, and I have to say they didn’t do it in an illegal way, but these thugs went and beat the shit out of them.”

  Sharma nodded. “Classic case of working towards the Fuhrer.”

  “The what?”

  “Just some history. You’ve got all this documented right?”

  “Yes, yes we have.”

  “Well get this lot charged. I need to go and have a conversation with my unit.”

  “Yes Mam.”

  DCI Wick looked out of the window and his heart sank. A familiar car had pulled up, and the driver got out, opened a door, and Theresa McGovern stepped into view.

  Trying to head off any problems, Wick left his office and went down, meeting the PCC in reception.

  “Ah, Chief Inspector!” McGovern said loudly.

  “Hello there,” he said, “to what do we owe this visit?”

  “I am checking on progress,” she said, and Wick supposed all McGovern did was get driven around to check on things. That driver must be exhausted. “I hear yours has been going well.”

  “It has? I mean it has.”

  “Yes, plenty of hate crime arrests, lots going to court, plenty of publicity, we are doing very well.”

  Wick nodded politely, amazed that the woman in charge of policing in Morthern could be so very wrong. “Yes, that’s exactly it,” he said. “Do you have any insight into the election?” he asked, because how was she not seeing it!

  “I have liaised with every candidate and I am confidant all will support the police and my initiatives.”

  Wick nodded. He was concluding that the PCC was simply lining up her own future rather than worrying about the fact someone like Hume would turn the police into his own tool. That all their work at the moment seemed to be because of him. That the PCC had met someone better used to publicity than her and fallen for it totally.

  “That’s good,” was all he said.

  “Maybe once one is elected, we could get him here
for a photoshoot, a backing by the police thing.”

  “Sorry, what, you mean they back the police.”

  “No, how we support them.” Wick felt a deep pain lance through him as he saw a possible future. “In fact, I have a lunch with the current incumbent now and a dinner with Rupert Hume scheduled. I’m sure we’ll talk policy! In between I have a youth crime initiative being launched and they said there would be a buffet to keep me going.”

  “You certainly have quite the metabolism,” Wick replied.

  “Yes, I get it from my mother. Great female genes. I better speak to the superintendent while I’m here, I wouldn’t want him getting jealous!” She laughed, and it made Wick think of the people who knitted during a guillotining.

  “He’s in his office,” Wick said, “I shall escort you up.”

  “Yes, you never know what trouble I might get into in a police station!”

  She found that funnier than literally everyone else in earshot by a considerable amount, which was not a new situation, just one she was oblivious to.

  Wick walked alongside her. His mind was working. He might need to have a chat with his team about something…

  That was when he saw Sharma walking down the corridor, who then fixed him with the look of a woman who had something to say.

  “Just give me a moment,” the DCI said to her, and nodded at the PCC.

  Sharma looked sympathetic.

  Susan was looking at some text. She assumed there was a good reason why the articles she wrote were called ‘copy’ when they entered a professional newspaper environment, she just didn’t know it and to be honest it never seemed worth googling, even though she could do it in seconds. It was odd really, you had the sum total of human knowledge, and the matching half of human bullshit, and yet people couldn’t be bothered using it. Never mind though, she had an article to finish, and she’d bailed on going all the way to the office and settled into this new coffee shop with a terrible pun as the name.

  It was a good article, she thought to herself, some top-class election coverage. Now what she had googled, and watched at length, was professional election writing from a national level in both the UK and US, so she knew what she wanted to produce, even – if she wanted to fluff herself up – what Morthern deserved to be produced.

  She looked over to her mug and found it empty. Maybe she should start ordering the large size; she got through these drinks. Yes, time for a refill. Getting out of her seat and walking to the counter, always keeping one eye on her laptop, the other eye noticed a table of journalists from a rival paper. Susan gave a friendly nod, but was shocked when they smirked at her, turned to look at each other and laughed.

  Susan’s pride alarm went off. Were they laughing at her? Well fuck that, and she went over.

  “Oi, what’s up your asses?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s the shill,” a laughing journalist replied.

  What do you mean?” Susan asked.

  “You work for the Star. You’re not a newspaper, you’re just a promotional advert for Stremp. You’re his favourite little puppet.” They all laughed.

  Susan wanted to shoot back, unload some sass and wit and have the last laugh.

  But she couldn’t, as her stomach had just dropped, as the veil had just been lifted. She knew, suddenly she knew.

  They were right.

  She’d been doing everything her (pretending not to be but still) editor had asked of her to skew this election, hadn’t she? She’d been hunting down details on the mayor and Hume as part of his attack, she was in no way a neutral journalist, she wasn’t a crusader after the truth of these secretive hypocrites, she was in every way part of the problem facing Morthern. It was all she could do to wander back to her table, sit down and look at her laptop in a terrible daze. She was a cog in the machine, and it was pushing Stremp.

  There didn’t seem to be an easy way out of that, or any way to stop the crushing sense of guilt hammering down on her. Oh god, she thought to herself and any and all passing deities, what have I gone and done!

  DCI Wick walked into the Bunker. He nodded at everyone, then went over to the coffee machine and started to make five mugs worth. He was aware the detectives were looking at him and wondering what was up, but he went through the process with precision until he had five mugs ready and waiting. Then he pulled a packet of biscuits out of a suit pocket, picked one mug up and turned. “Sharma, Lindleman, Maruma, Grayling, take one of these and follow me,” and with that he waved the biscuits and walked out of the Bunker and along and into his office. He didn’t sit but stood against the back wall.

  The four detectives filed in, all with their mugs, and stood in an arc. Each then took a biscuit which was offered to them. Bourbons, they all thought, this is going well.

  “We need to talk,” Wick began.

  “We do,” Sharma added.

  “Would you like to go first, or shall I?” Wick offered.

  “No, go on boss, you go,” Sharma replied and waited.

  “We are firefighting,” Wick began. “We are attending the scenes of a crime and we are solving it, we are arresting people and putting them away, just as a firefighter douses a fire. But what we are not doing is stopping the fires. They are being lit, regularly, increasingly. Now, a lot of crime happens in such a manner we can’t predict it. But this crime, this moment in Morthern, we all know what’s happening. Certain people, certain websites, are riling the place up, carefully, so we can’t stop them. We just deal with the mess. Would I be right in thinking this is how you are all feeling?”

  “Aye.”

  “Yes.”

  “Spot on.”

  “Accurate.”

  “Our options appear limited. We are not psychics. We are not judges of free speech. We have laws and procedures to follow. And yet Morthern is breaking up. So, we are going to refocus and do what we can with the rules allowed to us. So, you four are to work, around your ‘normal’ investigations, on finding a way to end this dog-whistling to war. Take the complaints we have been given and push them as far as you can. Ignore the Super’s request not to get involved in politics. If you can prove a crime, then we will pursue the perpetrator, whatever their status. I want you to do what you really want and stop the source of this hate speech, not just the consequences of it. Let them suffer the consequences instead.”

  The faces of the detectives lit up. “Are you actually telling us to not take a break and work all the time?” Sharma said grinning.

  “Yes, Yes I am finally telling you that.”

  “It’ll be a fucking pleasure.”

  “Okay, council of war over,” Wick took a deep out breath. “Enjoy your coffee,” and he raised his mug, “but please keep me up to date. I will keep the biscuits flowing.”

  Dan Dobbs heard his letterbox go, a strange clanking sound which meant the hinges needed oil. He was sat in his lounge watching the television, in the sense that it was on and he was in front of it rather than paying attention, although he hadn’t subscribed to that strange cliché where men were supposed to be in their pants if they were alone in a house. He was smartly dressed even though he had several hours to kill until his next appointment, and the driver would remind him he had to leave for that. So, television it was, along with a coffee and some brandy added into it for strength.

  Dobbs turned to the hall. It was later than the postman would be, earlier than any late Amazon deliveries, so what had come through? Part of him wanted to stay snuggled and just grab the ‘thing’ when he next moved, but there were quite a few unresolved issues in this election and he’d better keep on top, just in case. So, he got up, padded to the hall and found a brown envelope sat there. A4, turned over it bore just his surname in black pen.

  The current mayor went back into his lounge and sat down, took a deep breath and tore open the paper. One single sheet inside, blue for some reason, the sort of thick letter paper his mother used to use.

  A handwritten note.

  ‘I refuse your bribe. I do no
t need money, least of all yours. But I acknowledge the Cold War. We will meet our side, if you meet yours. No going to papers.’

  That was it. Dobbs breathed out long and hard. So, it wasn’t the best-case scenario, in which Hume dropped out of the mayoral race and left if to Dobbs and Stremp. But it was the second-best scenario, namely they won’t be out there grassing each other up to the newspapers, so mutually assured destruction had worked again. Both camps would move forward.

  That called for a drink. Well a stronger drink, so Dobbs leapt up, went to the cabinet and pulled out a brandy bottle. No need to worry about the coffee part now, so he poured himself a mighty swig and chugged it down, then gasped as his throat burned wonderfully. A sort of peace in the middle of war. All he needed was someone to write a poem about it.

  Of course, all good emotions come to an end, and as the brandy filled his veins he remembered once more he had to win this damned mayoral election, and all he’d really done was prevent him losing it early. It was still a three-way race, he still wasn’t any more than tied with them, he needed votes. Really, he did need one of them disgraced in some way; maybe Stremp’s voters would come to him if the editor was forced out. Maybe that was a route.

  Politics. Such a temptation to go beyond the rules, especially when everyone else was… and, really, what were the rules?

  Hume looked at his watch. Not just because it was very expensive and he took pleasure in such things, but because one of his many missions was being fulfilled. So not only was the mechanism set in a wood only available in ever limited quantities in South America, the reply to Dobbs should have been delivered. He would have read it, digested it and would even now be thinking the same as Hume.

  It was regrettable the blackmail didn’t work. Hume wasn’t sure he’d need to defeat Dobbs with anything more than his own speeches and charisma, but good leaders stacked the odds ever in their favour and Dobbs’ exit would have been good. It was also regrettable that Dobbs found information out about Hume, but now both held something on the other and they could never act, else all their futures would fail. A success of a sort, a failure of a kind.