Gilded Hate Machine
Page 23
“Yeah, you’re not getting some sort of sign in,” Sharma told him, “follow me to an interview room.”
“As you wish,” Hume said confidently.
When the required door opened Hume shook his lawyer’s hand warmly and requested a few minutes to speak. This was allowed of course, so Sharma and Lindleman got themselves coffees then came back, at which point Hume had pushed his chair back and was sat with a full manspreading pose, grinning. Clearly, he’d heard that Dave Stimpson had taken the fall.
“You didn’t get us coffees?” he said laughing.
Lindleman and Sharma sat down.
“How do you know Dave Stimpson?” Sharma started.
“Fat bloke? Balding, shaves it?”
“If we wish to begin with looks, yes,” Sharma replied.
“He’s a member of the Patriot Party. Not a central member, but he attends many of our demonstrations and I think any good leader knows everyone who follows, and I suspect your superintendent would think the same. I bet he knows every last cleaner.”
“Did you send your lawyer here to support Dave at his questioning?”
“Yes. We are three days away from an election, I will support attacks on my party any way I can.”
“And you are now familiar with the news David Stimpson has been charged with the murder of a journalist.”
“A tragic event. Fake news makes people so angry. As much as I would never threaten violence against anyone, words have consequences.”
“Have you heard of Jessica Villiers before now?”
“Yes, I am very aware of my surroundings. I daresay I could outdo you on naming left-wing attack sites.”
“That might be true, it might, so tell me Mr Hume, why did you transfer Dave Stimpson five thousand pounds in cash via a bank transfer the night Jessica Villiers was killed?”
“I…” Hume turned to his lawyer, “they have my bank details?” Now back to the police, “how do you have my bank details?”
“As part of a criminal investigation we can access those, and in terms of Dave’s motive, the transfer of such a large sum makes us wonder.”
“I wish to speak to my lawyer alone,” Hume snapped back.
“Of course.”
In a neighbouring room, Grayling and Maruma had sat down with David Stimpson.
“Would you like a coffee?” Grayling asked him.
“No comment until my lawyer is here.”
“I’m offering you a coffee. Just a coffee, until your lawyer is done with Hume and comes back in here.”
Dave twitched in panic. “Hume’s here?”
“Yes, we’re questioning him.”
“Oh my god.”
“Look, we have a legal aid chap who’d come in if you wanted to ask us questions safely?”
“Yes.”
Grayling dived out of the room and came back with the man. “I really need time to look at this case.”
Half an hour later, the lawyer and Stimpson reappeared.
“So, what’s going on with Hume?” Dave asked.
“Can we tape this? We need to if we’re answering that?”
“Yes,” said the lawyer.
They all sat down and Grayling went through the procedures.
“Mr Stimpson, Rupert Hume is here to answer the question of why he transferred you five thousand pounds in cash shortly after you killed Jessica.”
“Obj…” the lawyer stopped.
“I confessed to that,” Dave said.
“That’s not what…” the lawyer paused, “have you legally requested the bank records of Mr Stimpson and Hume?”
“Yes, we have.”
“And Hume sent a large sum shortly after the murder.”
“Yes.”
The lawyer turned back to Stimpson. “I need to speak with you privately again.”
“Why?” Dave replied.
“We’ll leave,” Grayling and Maruma said, exiting the room.
“There’s a problem, isn’t there?” Dave said.
“I assume Hume paid you to kill Jessica.”
“Yes. And if I confirm he paid me, he’ll kill me.”
“And if you deny it and take the blame, you go to prison for life. Do you want to ever get out of prison?”
“What?”
“I am saying this as your lawyer. Your best way of getting back into civilian life is being honest and putting the right amount of blame on Hume. If he’s involved, if he paid for it…”
“Cut a deal?”
“We don’t do plea deals in the UK, especially when you quite clearly killed a woman. But if you ever want to get back outside of prison you do not piss everyone in the justice system off by blatantly defending someone who organised it all. Play the idiot, get a retirement, that’s my legal advice.”
“Hume will kill me.”
The lawyer leaned forward. “Rupert Hume is a proven racist. One word from you and he’ll have all he can deal with in prison.”
“And you’re saying this as a lawyer?”
“This is the only way to see the countryside again.”
A few minutes later the lawyer opened the door and called Grayling and Maruma in. “My client has prepared a statement. In it he acknowledges that Rupert Hume paid him to kill Jessica Villiers. The text messages are on a hidden phone he will reveal.”
“Mr three phones,” Grayling said, “the same as my brother.”
Sharma opened a door and stepped inside. Hume sat there smugly, with the lawyer beside him.
“You took your time, and I prepared a special message and everything!” Hume laughed.
Sharma sat down, and then Lindleman entered and did too.
“I appreciate you have created a statement explaining what occurred with the money, would you like to read it out please?” Sharma asked.
“My client believed, in good faith, he was sending money to fund a demonstration to occur outside the offices of the Morthern Star because of their hostile attitude towards my client. He had no idea the recipient had committed an act of murder and believed solely he was a passionate Patriot Party member. What my client will say is this transfer of money wasn’t logged in accordance with the correct electoral commission requirements and that is an oversight. That is all.”
Sharma nodded. “Mr Hume, Dave Stimpson says you paid him to murder Jessica Villiers, how do you respond?”
Hume’s eyes shot from content to wild. “Preposterous!” he blurted.
“We have cell phone messages organising this...”
“Look at my phone,” Hume shouted, “it’s clean!”
“…from a phone we found hidden in your house whose messages reveal many personal details, including you arranging foreign prostitutes.”
Hume swallowed. “I… need to speak to my lawyer.”
“Rupert Hume,” Sharma said leaning forward, “I am arresting you for conspiracy to murder.”
PC Kane paused and looked inside the shop he’d just walked past. A corner shop, the sort that would be open at two am and have anything you needed, and he was looking at the television behind the counter, visible from the door.
“What are you doing?” Koralova asked as she walked up behind him.
“Nothing, nothing at all.”
“Are you looking at the football scores?”
“Sort of.”
“We’ll watch then we’ll go on.”
“It’s ok, I’ve seen all the essential stuff.”
“Did you lose?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, we go on. So, we have a call of what exactly?”
“Stolen mmm,” mumbled Kane.
“What’s mmm?”
“Police Constable Koralova we are investigating a stolen dog. A call was received that a van had driven up and two hooded men had stolen a dog from a front garden. So, we have parked, and we are now going over to this house,” he pointed, “to speak to the owner.”
“Do we know what dog?” Koralova asked.
“Probably, I didn’t p
ay attention because it was a dog.”
“What does Hefner say, ‘every little gesture tells a truth’.”
“The owner will have a picture no doubt. Pet owners have a thousand on their phones.”
“True.”
They walked to a little white front door and knocked.
“Hello,” said the old lady who answered.
“Hi, we’re Police Constables Koralova and Kane, and we’re here about your missing dog.”
There was a very long pause. “My dog isn’t missing.”
“What?”
“I have two cats called Billy and Bunty.”
“You didn’t call the police? Or any emergency services?”
“No. My cats are both watching the television with me. I haven’t had a dog since 1986 and I won’t be replacing it.”
“Oh, right, sorry to bother you.”
The old lady closed the door and Kane and Koralova were slammed forward against it. Their ears rang, their vision blurred, and slowly they realised they’d been hit by a shockwave from behind them, and what stung their ears was a loud boom.
They turned, and the smell hit them first. Burning petrol, burning rubber, and they saw that the police car they had left outside the corner shop was on fire.
“Oh fuck.”
“Oh, fuckity fuck.”
“What… what do we even do about this? Who do we call first?” Kane mumbled in shock.
“We… call… dispatch and they’ll call everyone.”
They both pulled out radios as they walked towards the car. They could feel its heat burning them, but then they saw something.
“Is that a fucking sign?”
Taking a long loop round the burning car, they found a sign stood against a wall, although in truth it was little better than a piece of spare chipboard in which someone had painted FREE ST. GEORGE.
“Well I guess that’s the motive then,” Koralova noted, “anyone want to bet something has happened at the station.”
“I do. This George guy been charged finally?”
“We can hope.”
“Hello,” they both said, “we have a fucking problem,” they exchanged looks, “our car has been torched.”
Two police cars came to a screeching halt, and then four uniformed officers climbed out.
Then one started laughing at the burned-out car which was covered in foam and surrounded by fire officers.
“Oh right, you see the Italian cops have got sports cars for traffic and you think, yeah, fuck it, we’ll have a barbecue,” he said looking at Kane and Koralova.
“Oh yes, you laugh, but this comes out of my end of year bonus,” Koralova shot back.
“We don’t have an end of year bonus.”
“Ex-fucking-actly!”
“So, have you not caught the criminals?” a newcomer asked.
“What?”
“Have you just stood there looking at it burn?”
“Yes!” Kane replied. “I mean it’s not every day you see one of these mothers toasting.”
“Good, you stick it on YouTube and viral your way into a retirement fund and we’ll go do something useful like catch the people who did it.”
Kane and Koralova closed the gap between them and one replied “how are you going to do that?”
“This shop will have CCTV.”
“Oh yeah, right, it will.”
Six police officers marched into a corner shop with the space for five.
“Hello, we’d like to see your security film please for, well, you know when.”
The man behind the counter led them to the back, and into a room which only comfortably fit four police officers.
“Do not frot me,” one warned.
“You spend far too much time finding out words,” one replied.
Koralova sat down and rewound the security tape. There they were parking, getting out and looking into the shop.
“What was the score?” one asked before he was told to shut up. Then you could see Kane and Koralova walking out of shot, at which point…
“Oh, we got them.”
Three men walked into the shot, looked around, and placed the FREE sign down. One produced a petrol cannister from his bag, flipped the petrol cap open on the police car, poured petrol all around the socket and on the ground, placed the can on the ground and then walked away.
Another then produced a bottle, lit the rag in the top and threw it at the puddle. It caught fire, and shortly after there was an explosion. The camera kept recording, and Kane and Koralova could then be seen.
Six police officers were looking at the footage.
“I know him.”
“I know that one.”
“We know all of them, right?”
“Yeah, all Patriot Party thugs.”
“Clear head shots ahoy.”
“Right then, let’s go collect these mother fuckers while they’ve still got traces of petrol on them, then it’ll be tea and medals and an easy clap.”
“Actually, Kane and Koralova, you better stay here and make sure the car gets taken away okay, we wouldn’t want anything else to happen to it. At this rate you’ll end the day abducted by aliens.”
“We will get you back for this,” Kane muttered.
“Yeah, you can try, but we’ll drive off and you’ll have to walk. Good job explaining to the Super why you just lost thousands of quid’s worth of motor.”
Grayling was typing very quickly. This was partly due to the skills developed from years of facing tight deadlines, but mostly due to the excitement of seemingly stopping St. George’s hate-train before he could be elected to mayor. Even as she typed the browser elsewhere on her screen was still showing Hume’s attack adverts, the ones designed to win him the campaign. The next major televised news wasn’t on for another few hours, and she imagined the media would be flocking to the station any time now.
When the phone rang, she almost didn’t answer, but when she did pick it up, she heard an excited voice, that of the chap who files their financial requests.
“Hi, hi, Miss Grayling?” he said. Normally he’d have said Detective Constable, but he tended to get, what was in his mind, flirty when breaking news.
“Yes?”
“I’ve found out who was paying money to the Morthern.Info account.”
Oh shit, Grayling thought, I didn’t tell this guy to stand down. Hume’s been nailed for sending money to a killer instead. “That’s good, anyone we’ve heard of?”
“Dan Dobbs. Mayor Dan Dobbs.”
Grayling literally dropped the phone, then snatched it back up. “Are you kidding?”
“No, there is a clear back channel through which Dobbs has been paying thousands to the website, needless to say, it’s not any registered spending.”
They had started an investigation into illegal election spending expecting to find Hume, and they’d found Hobbs.
“Alright, please send the files over, I, err, will get on it.”
Grayling put the phone down and rubbed her eyes, then she grabbed her bag and began to walk out of the Bunker. In the doorway she bumped into Maruma. “In the car, three minutes, we’re going on a journey, I’ll explain all.”
Two detectives stood outside a door and rang the bell. They waited, but no one came to answer, so they rang again and kept standing there until their patience ran out and Grayling walked to her left and peered into a large bay window. There was a bottle of white wine on the table, a packet of multiple chocolate bars open, next to it, and a man evidently fast asleep in a chair with a laptop on him.
He wasn’t asleep for very long, as Grayling hammered on the window as hard as she reckoned she could, without cracking it. She was gratified to see him leap up, then only just catch the laptop as it fell off him. He looked at the window in panic, and she waved her card at him. “Detective Constable Grayling, open up.”
A moment later he opened the door, smoothing his clothes and hair. “Hello detectives, I’m Monty T, how can I help you?”
“Yes, yes that’s me. Err, I guess I invite you in?” he stood back and both detectives entered. “I’ve got some wine on the go, I suppose you don’t drink on duty, what can I help you with?” He picked up the glass.
“Do you have much of a working relationship with the mayor?” Grayling asked.
“I’ve been able to get extensive interviews with him and Hume, as candidates, but not Stremp; he started resistant. Before that I certainly reported on what the council was doing, yes.”
“Ah, okay, so,” Maruma said as he took over, “I had a skim on the way over, and for a while you were positive about Dobbs, when you began the website, then there was a long critical period, and then when these elections began you seemed to suddenly favour him out of all the candidates. Would that be true?”
Welb opened his mouth, didn’t say anything and then downed the wine. He only eventually spoke to say, “don’t touch that, it’s my laptop.”
Maruma continued picking it up. “We’re seizing it as part of a criminal investigation.”
“A what? Into me?”
“Mr Welb, can you explain why Dan Dobbs has been paying you regularly during the election campaign? Large amounts of money.”
Dobbs went white, like someone had just drained his entire body of blood through his feet.
“I’ll do you a deal,” he exclaimed.
“For the second time today, this is Britain we don’t…”
“I’ll tell you all about Dobbs, but I can’t go to prison. I can’t. I won’t survive in a prison environment.”
Grayling knew he wasn’t going to go to prison for what she assumed was being paid to write things, but it wouldn’t hurt to go along with it.
“Tell us what you know, the judge will bear that in mind.”
“Okay, okay, Dobbs gave me the money to create Morthern.Info, to support him. But I found the best money came from being right-wing, and I became independent and didn’t need him. I did a good job making bank. But when the election began, Dobbs approached me with so much money, well, I’d be a fool not to take it. All I had to do was praise him. So, I did. So, is that like really illegal?”
Grayling and Maruma grinned at each other, “it’s enough to take you off the web for a while. Howard Welb, we are arresting you…”