Gilded Hate Machine Read online

  The constables went over and knocked on the window.

  “Hello there, we had a call about an injured man?”

  The back of the ambulance opened, and a second paramedic got out and closed it, as the one in the driver’s seat filled them in. Both paramedics looked sombre, and the civilian looked on the verge of crying any moment. The constables already knew this was bad, they just had to found out how.

  “We got the same call, injured man, reported by this lady here,” a paramedic explained. “We got here and found a Caucasian male, aged between forty and fifty-five, laying on the street. I’m afraid to report he died soon after we got here.”

  “Ah fu… damn,” a constable replied. “What caused it?”

  “Well, he’s got two broken legs for a start, and we suspect major damage to his pelvis. Organs are in a state. Blood loss.”

  “Oh!” said a constable. “So, he wasn’t exactly robbed and beaten up then?”

  “Well I don’t want to presume to do your job, but he wasn’t stabbed or anything, no. He’s been smashed hard by something pretty big. This wasn’t the work of one or even a few people.”

  One of the constables, who’d been listening, turned and walked off, having spotted something.

  “And you found him?” the remaining constable said to the lady who had.

  “Yes,” she replied, “but I know you’re gonna ask what happened and I don’t know, I found him lying on the ground, whatever did this, did it before I got here. Rang emergency services right away, stayed with him.”

  “You did the right thing, the perfect thing. But no noises or anything odd?”

  “Nothing.”

  “To be honest,” a paramedic began, “given how wet his clothing was I reckon he’d been laying on the ground in this rain for a while.”

  “Understood.”

  “I think I know what happened!” This was called out by the constable who’d walked off and who was now standing nearby. Not only did her colleague go over to her, but the paramedics and finder went too.

  “What have you got?”

  “Big skid marks where someone’s tried to break, going around onto the path. I reckon this guy got hit by a car and it drove off.”

  “Well fu… well damn. Big question,” the constable turned to the paramedics, “could this guy have been saved if you’d got here shortly after the accident?”

  “We’d have had a much better chance yes, but we weren’t…”

  “No, no, I know, this is a hit and run.”

  The other constable now spoke. “Failure-to-stop traffic incident, and a deceased man. That’s, Major Crimes Unit business, not transport. I better call this in. We’ll take a statement from you madam, but if you can wait, they’ll want to speak to you too.”

  A large, grey SUV pulled to a halt. It had come over to the side of the road as per the law, but the driver couldn’t see who they were after. They wound a window down and peered out as if the glass itself was the problem. But no, they still couldn’t see, and they weren’t happy at having to come out here in the first place. If this was a wasted journey her daughter would be in trouble. Reluctant to wait very long, she put her fingers down to the hand-break when she saw it.

  Three girls emerging from behind a hedge, peering at first, then nervously dashing.

  Lucy Rawal led her friends over to the family vehicle, opened a door and recoiled as her mother hissed “and why am I collecting you in the middle of the day? There’s no rain, there’s no school emergency, there’s…” she had turned and then stopped. Her daughter’s face was lined with fear, so Mrs Rawal leapt out of the car and ran around to the other side, grabbing her daughter in a big hug.

  “What’s wrong, what’s happened?”

  “Can we just get home please.”

  “Not until you tell me. What happened to all three of you?”

  “I…”

  The concerned hands of a mother gripped her daughters head and looked in her face. The fingers of that mother felt a matting at the back of her head. Dry, but still out of place, still of a consistency that made her think of just one thing…

  “Is that…blood?”

  “Boys threw stones at us; it doesn’t matter can we get home.”

  “Boys? Stones? Do you mean some little boys from the school?”

  “No. No. Not little boys.”

  Mrs Rawal’s eyes narrowed. “Big boys.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did they throw stones?”

  “They’ve been shouting at me for a bit now. Insults. Today they started throwing stones at all three of us. We’ve all got bruises.”

  “Insults… were these boys white?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It really does Lucy, were these insults because your heritage is Indian?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case we need to get you back home and speak to your father.”

  “Yes, yes we need to tell him” Lucy agreed, feeling that would make her somehow safer.

  “He can call the police.”

  “Do we have to?” Lucy pleaded, “Won’t it get worse if we report them?”

  “Lucy! You have been hit in the head! You’ve been bleeding! It can’t get any worse.”

  Which, Lucy thought but did not reply to her mother, wasn’t true, it could get much worse and this was a gamble her family would have to take as one. It sounded like her father was going to though.

  Still, all three girls were glad to be huddled up in the back seat and on their way. The question of how they’d get to school again was, as yet, unanswered. But if she’d learned one thing from school, it was that bullies couldn’t be stopped.

  “They’re not going to agree,” said Karen Edwards as she trailed a step behind her sister.

  “Of course, they’ll agree,” Susan replied.

  “I’ve seen your editor on tele, he does not look the sort to approve of charity.”

  “This isn’t charity!” Susan protested.

  “It’s certainly, pity!”

  “It isn’t. You’ll be good and it’ll help both of us.”

  “It’ll end your career!”

  Susan snorted and knocked on a door in the offices of the Morthern Star. A harassed man opened it and looked out. “Good day Susan, and… someone else with dyed hair.”

  “This is my sister, Karen,” Susan explained.

  “Good, I didn’t realise it was ‘bring your family to work day’; I could have brought my dog.”

  Susan and Karen looked at each other, pulled faces, then turned back. “I’ve come to ask you a favour,” Susan informed him.

  “Yes?”

  “I want Karen hired as my photographer.”

  “What?”

  Susan explained “We have a pool of photographers and some of them work together with regular writers. I would like you to hire Karen and pair her with me as we cover first the mayoral election and then the court reports.”

  “Sounds like nepotism.”

  “Which is rife here. Also, I am being upfront about it, not like Maria who I believe claimed for six months her son wasn’t her son without anyone noticing…”

  “Oh, you heard about that,” the HR man looked guilty, “but does our esteemed editor approve?”

  “Of course, I haven’t asked,” Susan admitted, “but let’s face it, my pages are soaring in clicks and the ad revenue is rising. I’m a star,” because I thought of reporting something important you lot had all ruled out, “so let’s sort me out with my own photographer and send me off. You’d like me to work with someone I get on with?”

  “You are an acquired taste,” the HR man replied.

  “Not the comeback I was expecting but if it’ll mean a yes, I’ll take it.”

  “Okay, we will put her on the books. Freelance, get her to invoice us every month…”

  “I am stood right here,” Karen protested.

  “Nothing too much and we’ll see how she does. I assume she is a photographer?”
/>
  “Well obviously,” Susan replied, “I’m not a complete numpty.” There was a small pause in which Susan hoped she was as good a liar as she thought and hoped that behind Karen was playing calmly along. But Karen had been in a mental ward and knew all about keeping the right face on.

  “Okay, that’s good, of course she would be. I’ll do the paperwork. So, are you ready for the mayoral campaign then?” He said this with so much excitement Susan knew something was up.

  “Yes, yes, why are you excited?” she asked.

  “Oh, err, probably can’t say until it happens.”

  “Okay. Get that paperwork done. I’ll sharpen my metaphorical pencil and be ready for ‘it’.”

  A knock at a door, and Mrs Rawal opening it to find two people stood there. Both wore the uniforms of Morthern Police; the luminous yellow, the thick stab vest bulging out, the torch and radio hanging off and boots that had walked a long way despite the car parked behind them.

  “Hello there,” said a woman, “I’m PC Koralova and my colleague here is PC Kane, and we’ve come to a report of harassment and assault?”

  Did Koralova detect a look of disappointment from Rawal that both the constables were white? A look that faded once the slight accent in Koralova’s speech was detected, a result of having been born in eastern Europe.

  “Please come in,” Mrs Rawal said, ushering them through the hallway into a lounge, both of which were explosions of colour. It seemed to the PC’s that for all Mrs Rawal’s stern looks, this was a house of happiness.

  “I shall call my daughter.”

  “Please.”

  The constables waited, then watched as a slight girl of Indian descent came in and literally sat on her hands.

  “Now you’re not in any trouble,” Koralova said, aware of her nerves, “just tell us what happened. It’s best to say in full now so we can proceed.”

  “I…” but Lucy stopped.

  “Go on,” said Mrs Rawal.

  “It’s okay, she can proceed in her own time,” Kane noted.

  “I was walking, out walking, and these lads started shouting at me. Swearing, rude stuff.”

  “Sexual stuff?” Koralova asked.

  “No, no, not that. Angry stuff. Said I should go home, called me a monkey, that sort of stuff.”

  “Ah, yes I see.”

  “That’s not the bad bit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People have said that at school before. But today, I was with my friends, and these lads threw stones at us. Hit us, they hurt, and we’re all bruised, and I got cut on my scalp and bled a bit.”

  “Can I see?” Koralova asked.

  Lucy nodded, turned, and pulled her hair away and amidst the fine threads you could see a wound.

  “Do you know the names of these boys?” Kane asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so, Lucy, what you’ve suffered here is a hate crime. Racist names, racist language, assault because of who you are. This is absolutely unacceptable behaviour, and we, the police, take it very seriously.” Koralova looked at Kane who nodded, so she continued. “A hate crime is investigated by our CID, the detectives, that’s police who wear suits. So, what we will do, PC Kane and I, is arrange for you, and your friends, to give full statements on what happened, and then a detective will work with us to solve this. How does that sound?”

  “It’s just my word against theirs.”

  “Oh Lucy, we spend our whole lives making sure that isn’t the case. Sometimes just getting a visit from the police is enough to frighten them into sense. And I can be very frightening,” Koralova winked at Lucy and made her smile a little.

  “Maybe I should get a hat?”

  On hearing this DC Soloman Maruma looked up from the asphalt. “A hat?”

  “Yes,” DC Rebecca Grayling replied, “it looks like it’s going to rain, and I could do with a hat.”

  “We have jackets. With hoods. Jackets which can stand up to mountain level winds. With hoods.”

  “Yes, but a nice hat is stylish, although I accept that’s not a concept you put much stock in.”

  “I’m stylish!” Maruma protested.

  “Yes, and your style is functional. I mean look at your hair, you picked a cut which takes minutes.”

  Maruma subconsciously ran a hand through his close-cropped black hair.

  “Alright, get a hat.” There was a long pause, so Sol spoke again. “It’s that easy, get a hat.”

  “Oh Sol, you don’t just get a hat. There’s a long game, you know that.”

  “True. So, what do we have?”

  The pair looked round them. They were stood at the scene of John’s death. Having taken statements from the finder, the paramedics and spoken to the uniformed officers, the two detectives had taken over the case and were now walking around searching.

  “Anything?” Maruma said as he peered down someone’s drive.

  “Yes, yes, there’s one there,” Grayling said, and Maruma joined her and said “yes.”

  That was why they went to the front door of this house and knocked. When it opened an elderly man peered out at them. “No cold calling!” he barked.

  “We’re both detective constables from Morthern police,” Grayling started, “and we were hoping that,” and she pointed to a black camera on the front of the house, “is functioning today.”

  “What? Oh, oh my son, he cares for me, my son put that there.”

  “Right, so you might be aware there was an accident here.”

  “No?”

  Grayling looked at Maruma, then back at the old man and continued. “There was a fatal accident here and we’d like to look at the CCTV footage you have.”

  “Yes, yes of course. Come in, my son is cooking.”

  “It smells nice,” Maruma said, realising he was hungry.

  “Joe, Joe, come here, it’s the police.”

  A door at the end of a hallway opened and a well-built man came rushing out. “I ain’t done nothing!”

  “They want to look at your camera.”

  The concern turned into a wide grin revealing a man who needed some urgent dental work. “Oh, right then, best come in. I’m just cooking though; can you give me ten minutes? Dad could get you a cup of tea?”

  “That would be great thanks.”

  Brews were soon served, and after fifteen minutes the detectives were looking at the screen of a laptop.

  “So, what are we looking for?” Joe asked.

  “A car.”

  “Lots of them,” but Joe had been rewinding the footage using a menu bar and Grayling flicked a finger out saying, “play now.”

  They watched the road and every so often a car would be captured driving past. After a while everyone got used to seeing cars going at roughly legal speeds, so Grayling asked, “can we fast forward it a little, but not with the menu?” The images now sped up, and cars got quicker, until one shot past.

  “Stop!” Grayling shouted. “Back up and show us that one.” They watched as a red hatchback moving at twice the speed of every other car shot through the zone of the camera.

  “Did that have…”

  “Play it again, slowly.”

  A red hatchback, moving along, with a large dent in the bonnet.

  There was also a visible licence plate.

  A fast, loud knocking, so much that a door was yanked open.

  “What the hell are you doing?” an aggrieved homeowner barked.

  “Your doorbell doesn’t work,” said the man who’d been knocking. He stood in a smart suit, with hair that cost a lot to style.

  “Cos, we don’t want no visitors!”

  “I’m DC Atkins from Morthern CID and…” that had an effect. The belligerence faded into fear.

  “What’s happened? Is Will okay?”

  “Will being your son?”

  “Yeah, he’s a tearaway, but he’ll grow up.”

  “I’m actually here to speak to your son.”

  “Oh, he’s ok?”
/>   “Well physically he’s fine...” Atkins left it hanging.

  “Well I dunno where he is,” said the dad.

  Sometimes, police work was long, boring periods searching and waiting. Occasionally, it was fast, the sort of fast which meant Atkins heard a sneering boy say behind him ‘we ain’t gonna buy no windows’, shove past and try to go inside.

  “Will,” the father said to his newly returned son, “this isn’t a salesman. He’s the police.”

  Once again, the belligerence faded into fear, this time on Will. The boy was wiry, only average height with close cropped hair and a set of piercings down one ear.

  “Why’s he here Dad?”

  “I’d like to ask you some questions please,” Atkins explained, “about a report we’ve had.”

  “Do I have to?” Will asked.

  “No, you don’t,” Dad confirmed, “you can refuse.”

  “In which case, given the nature of the report, I,” Atkins stressed, “can arrest you and take you to the station and question you with a lawyer.”

  “I’d answer him here,” the dad suggested.

  “Alright,” Will conceded, “what you want?”

  “Do you know Lucy Rawal?”

  “No.”

  “Indian girl. Five-foot tall, slight, liked long walks.”

  “No, there’s loads of them about, all look the same.”

  “Do you shout abuse at any of them?”

  “What?”

  “Any of them, you call them stuff?”

  “No. No!”

  “Have you ever thrown stones at Indian girls? Any of them, not just Lucy.”

  “No mate, no, I ain’t done nothing. They just mad at me, they mentioned me, did they? They mad at me cos I won’t fuck ‘em?”

  “Right, of course,” Atkins was trying to read the boy’s face. A mixture of utter contempt for the girls he was disparaging, and fear that somehow Atkins would get enough to put him on trial. The sort of fear that had a reason.

  Okay Atkins, he thought to himself, you’ve got to think quickly here. What are you missing, what can you do, where is the opening? You have a full statement from three girls and a clearly guilty man in front of you.

  “Would you mind taking your phone out?” Atkins asked.

  “What?”

  “Your phone. Can you hold it out?”