Gilded Hate Machine Read online

  “Mmmm” he said to himself, biting in and tearing a chunk right off, then turning and taking the whole thing upstairs with him, where he dropped it onto the sheets, climbed back under them, and took a sip from the jug full of cocktail he had on the side. And to think, he thought, he’d once just been a copy writer for an advertising company.

  God bless the internet.

  But mostly human nature.

  Grayling reached over and pinched a biscuit. To be fair it wasn’t really pinching when she and Maruma shared everything in a sort of communal cookie situation, but she did have to do two feet of hunting to grab one, her hand turning into a thumbs up on the way back. She was sat at her desk with a research task. While Maruma was looking into Morthern.Info, her half of the task was the Patriot Party.

  Now Grayling knew that you must proceed with an open mind and not jump to conclusions lest you cloud your vision… but she also knew almost all self-declared patriots were extremely problematic, or as the current cultural buzzword put it, toxic. Or as Green would put it, an asshat. One advantage of the self-declared patriots was they liked to shout about it, so it took a picosecond on the web to find them.

  The Patriot Party had a two-pronged web presence. They had a dedicated website, which curiously was hosted in America where you could get away with more, and this was linked to a substantial social media presence. The Patriot Party loved to publish a full article on their website, and then promote the hell out of it with slightly different clickbait headlines on Facebook et al.

  Of course, that didn’t make them any different to every other organisation. But as Grayling read, she saw how they’d defined themselves. If no one had invented the term ‘dog whistle’, the Patriot Party would have needed to, because all of Battersea was coming. The entire subject matter of the Patriot Party material was anti-immigrant, people of colour, a rich ruling elite who inevitably were claimed to be Jewish, and paedophiles. Obviously, most people were anti paedophile, but that was the open door through which the Patriot Party threw everything else. The grooming gangs were Asian, everyone in the wrong was non-white while all the victims were white.

  But it was clever, in an odd way. Grayling couldn’t find anything directly illegal; everything was couched in what had become the language of the right, everything hinted and teased and pushed rather than stating it. People could give a few thousand likes to a Patriot Party Facebook post and still think they’d contributed to a genuine social issue, not that they’d given a thumbs up to racism. No one dropped a load of ‘n-bombs’, it was more insidious than that. It wasn’t a slap in the face it was a needle in the arm spreading poison.

  And at the top of it all was one man, the leader, unelected but declared, with the dubious name St. George Stevens. Grayling leaned in and looked at him, an Arian pretty boy with a face so smug it could crack mirrors. She presumed that wasn’t his real name and started to do some serious digging. St. George indeed!

  Rupert Hume opened a drawer and looked inside. He could see eleven watches arranged neatly in three rows, and he decided he would go shopping to fill out that third row later today. Each watch cost a minimum of five hundred pounds, and he selected the one he wished to wear. A solid seven hundred and forty-five pounds of quality craftsmanship on his wrist.

  He then moved to a wardrobe and looked inside. There was a range of tailored suits, but he couldn’t wear any of those today. Rupert Hume might like the finer things in life, having grown up in a wealthy environment, been to a private school and now able to do almost anything thanks to the money his political party brought in. But Rupert Hume wouldn’t get followers. So, he put on the clothes of St. George Stevens, the everyman commoner who represented the working class against the elite and their secret pay masters.

  That meant a pair of jeans from a shop you’d find on the high street, a black t-shirt and a hoodie. No one would notice the watch because they’d be too busy frothing at his command, and he liked to wear that to keep him in touch with himself. That was where political leaders went wrong, he told himself, they forgot what was happening and believed their own press. He considered himself a political leader, with the Patriot Party formed entirely around him, and he had to keep the balancing act. Rile up the people as St. George, come home to some fine wine and slippers of real fur.

  If you’d told his father, if he himself had told his father, how much money the click-hate he generated would provide, he wouldn’t have been believed. But his father was gone, Hume had carved his own course, and if you walked the fine line between illegality and twisting, you could make a packet. Weren’t all the politicians in Westminster rich, or expanding their pockets as a result of their position? He had an eye on Westminster himself, because while he railed against the elite and the government, something that was oh so easy to do, he’d be the first to take a parliamentary seat and turn the position to his own. What a platform that would be, what a lot of kickbacks he could gather.

  All dressed, ready for battle (although of course he had minders who made sure there was never any of that near him), St. George Stevens went down into his kitchen, made himself a breakfast shake and got ready for the day ahead. A speech to give, more people to bring onside, all those foreigners to get rid of, his own ego to be rubbed to shining. What a glorious era it was to be a politician, where you could make your own luck. What a fabulous flaw in human nature that allowed him to do it. He grinned. People were so easy to play, so, so, easy. He spent literally minutes on every speech, and they all worked.

  “We’ll just stand at the back,” Grayling said to Maruma as they parked their car and checked the map again. In theory if they walked down to the end of this street and turned right, they’d be at their target. In practice, they didn’t need a map or directions, they could just follow the sound of the chanting.

  Not religious chanting, but the sound of an angry group. Some may have preferred the term ‘mob’.

  The two detectives turned the corner and saw a crowd of fifty people stood in front of an average terraced house. One or two had homemade placards with different and incorrect spellings of paedophiles, and the group couldn’t even chant the same thing in unison. As Grayling and Maruma closed, they saw the crowd were all white, but diversity had extended to an equal number of men and women.

  An extra loud cheer went up as a car door opened and St. George Stevens got out. He had medium length blonde hair, a clear complexion, and while not massively muscly clearly had a personal trainer worth the money. He walked towards the group with his fist raised, and the crowd moved to form an arc around him. Two minders followed behind him, and two people with cameras moved in front, their lenses capturing this.

  “In this house,” George began, his voice reedier than a demagogue would have wanted, “girls were kept and abused. The gang who lived in this house are paedos, terrible paedos, and they will die in prison if there is any justice. These beautiful snow-white girls were hurt by a grooming gang, a Muslim grooming gang who came here as immigrants.”

  “Typical,” Grayling whispered. “Most abused kids are the victims of family and family friends, but this guy picks the one case he can exploit. I bet he doesn’t turn up when Dr John English-cliché diddles.”

  “These people deserve the death penalty, they really do, and we need better laws to protect us from people like them.”

  “Hang the paedos!” someone called out, and a group echoed him. The banners were waved harder.

  “I did plot George’s appearances,” Maruma replied to his partner. “he’s never turned up when a white guy’s done something wrong.”

  A man at the back of the crowd turned to look at Grayling and Maruma, turned back then did a double take.

  “I think we stand out,” Grayling said.

  “Because we aren’t chanting?” Maruma asked.

  “No, because you’re the only black person here.”

  “Oh, right, that.”

  “Maybe we should back off actually,” she wondered aloud, “we want to be inv
estigating, not part of the case.”

  “Yeah, we’ve seen the act for ourselves.”

  The pair turned and walked away. “How does no one else see it?” Grayling wondered. “His watch must be worth half a grand; no one else notices!”

  “I don’t think they care to realise,” Maruma said sadly. “I don’t think any one of them care to think. They’re being seduced and like the feeling.”

  “We have cake!” Grayling exclaimed as she and Maruma came into the Bunker. That got everyone’s attention, and soon there was a small huddle. “So, Sharma, what do you want first?”

  “Why does she get to go first?” Lindleman asked.

  “She’s the senior officer.”

  “But I’m the queen,” Rob protested.

  “Let him pick,” Sharma sighed.

  “Salted caramel it is,” Rob said eagerly.

  “I knew you’d be hipster,” Sharma shot back as she picked up her first choice, a chocolate cake with additional chocolate topped with chocolate.

  “Salted caramel isn’t hipster,” Lindleman tried to protest, but it was tricky with his mouth full.

  “Maruma?” Grayling asked.

  “Ladies first.”

  “Right, I’ll have the rainbow, you can have the fruit.”

  They all heard a knock on the door, and turned to find not just DCI Wick, but Superintendent Harry Crix with him. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “Could I have a quick word please Grayling, and Maruma?”

  When they were all stood in the corridor, door closed, Wick began. “I believe you have evidence to secure a prosecution of the man who attacked our Polish hate crime victim?”

  “Yes, yes we do sir,” Grayling confirmed.

  “And this morning, you attended a Patriot Party rally?”

  “Yes, there’s a strong link between the ‘pee pee’ as we are calling them irreverently, and the attackers.”

  “Right, so,” Wick turned to the Super, then back, “the thing is… that’s not an area to research. The hate crime investigation is limited to the people who committed the attack, it is not within your remit to look into either the Patriot Party, or Morthern.Info, as I believe they were also con… you thought they were connected.”

  “But sir, there’s a clear link between their dog-whistling and they seem on the verge of slipping up and…”

  “I think,” Crix said taking over, “the DCI was not clear. You are to stop that part. No more investigation. Get the attackers charged. Move on.”

  Crix was in his late fifties and had been in the police since his late teens. Now he sported an all-white moustache and beard and a uniform carefully pressed and worn so as to always appear the height of professionalism.

  “What?”

  Wick nodded slowly, sadly. “As the superintendent said, please don’t stray off your investigation.” Before Grayling could fire back, he added “thank you for your support in this matter, please move on. Bye,” and he walked off, leading the Super with him.

  “Well F me,” Grayling exclaimed when her bosses had gone around the corner, “we just got closed down. We were actually closed down.”

  “That doesn’t sit well,” Maruma noted.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  The pair went silently into the Bunker and sat at their desks. A moment later they heard a loud and fake throat clearing behind them and discovered Lindleman and Sharma stood there.

  “Okay you two, you’ve walked in here all quiet and looking like someone stole your cat and sold it to an Instagram channel. What is going on? Tell!”

  “Oh Inspector, you are not going to believe this…”

  All four detectives sat in the Bunker and processed what had just happened until one decided a change was needed.

  Rob kicked his feet and wheeled his chair into the centre of the room. “Alright people, alright, we need to cheer ourselves up, which means we need to discuss what we’re doing for Sharma’s birthday.”

  “What?” the DI replied.

  “Your birthday.”

  “No, no, no…”

  “Are you wagging your finger at me?” Rob asked.

  “We are not using my birthday as a reason to have fun. We are not having ‘fun’. There is no fun in what we’re doing.”

  “Oh right, Inspector, you don’t want to make people happy, I see, you want us to be miserable.”

  “I didn’t say…”

  “All dress in black for your birthday and bring in flowers.”

  “Okay, okay, whatever, we can do something for my birthday. What do you want us to do?”

  “Team outing!” Rob said pumping a fist.

  “Where? Where, Robert, do you think we will all have fun?”

  Lindleman laughed at Sharma, “I’ve taken exams with less pressure.”

  “Good.”

  “Let’s all go around the room and suggest things. Only Maruma isn’t allowed to say an Escape Room.”

  “That’s not fair!” Maruma protested.

  Rob went to a white board wall. “Okay, give me suggestions.”

  Maruma tried “Crazy golf? Bowling? The VR Centre?”

  “Are you just going to suggest games?” Sharma asked.

  “All right then, Wargames Workshop’s Warhammer Wednesdays,” Maruma said noticeably in jest.

  “I don’t know if any of that is real,” Rob admitted, “but we’re not putting it on the white board.”

  “We could walk round a country house estate?” Grayling suggested.

  “Well thanks for the suggestion Miss Bronte,” Rob said writing it up.

  “There is nothing wrong with a lovely garden and some culture,” Grayling pointed out.

  “It’s November,” Rob replied, “are there even any plants out?”

  “Might be some early winter markets in them.”

  “Okay, well it’s an option,” Sharma said waving a finger.

  “Or we could go dancing?” Grayling said with a note of hope.

  “Dancing is good,” Lindleman said. “But where would we dance that suited all of us? You like beats, I like beats, Mrs Sharma…”

  “Does not like the sound of industrial machines in her ear all night,” she confirmed.

  “Ooooh,” Grayling stood upright. “There’s a seventies night! Disco! I bet you like disco, it’s musical, there’s dancing, people come in costumes…”

  “Disco…”

  “Disco…”

  Rob nodded, “D. I. S. C. O… I don’t know the rest of the lyrics; we will have to Google.”

  “Okay, disco is doable,” Sharma said. “I would agree to a disco night, but you’re buying your own drinks, I’m not making that mistake again.”

  “It was a glorious mistake.”

  “Not for my bank account Robert.”

  “When’s the next one?” Sharma asked.

  “Thursday night,” Grayling confirmed.

  “Odd night.”

  Maruma laughed, “the popular nights are on Fridays.”

  “Right then, do we need tickets, or can we just turn up?” Lindleman was clearly getting excited. “We are going to the disco on Thursday! Back to the seventies! Let’s hear a woo!”

  “Woo?”

  “Woo.”

  “Woo!”

  Sharma looked into a mirror. She felt most comfortable when dressed for her job, which meant a suit and occasional stab vest; formal and sensible, implying ‘I’m right and you’re in trouble’. But she’d been told to dress for a disco based birthday party, so had decided to get in the spirit of the night as far as she could, so wore a purple pantsuit and jewellery people had given her over the years. She felt she looked like a businesswoman cutting loose, and that was okay. Make up however… maybe put on a lot of makeup, let’s go with it.

  A car beeped, so she went to her front door to find Grayling and Maruma had just exited a taxi. They had dressed in their normal nightclub clothes, but Grayling had curled her hair into a big disco style and from somewhere had found a pa
ir of period glasses to replace her normal gold rimmed frames.

  “Hello… what did people say in the seventies?” Grayling asked.

  “I have no idea, I was a child,” Sharma replied, “but great to see you two, I wonder when Lindleman will get here?”

  As if on cue, lights appeared, and a second taxi arrived. The back door opened and…

  “What the actual fuck is this,” Sharma said.

  Lindleman had come as a cop. The cop from the Village People, complete with moustache and kinky outfit.

  “Oh, F me,” Grayling added.

  “Are we all ready for a P, R, T!” he said and did an inch perfect disco move.

  “You have not come as one of the fucking Village People!”

  “I have.”

  “You’ve had mere hours to arrange this!” Sharma said in disbelief.

  “I’ve had this in store. I also have the Native American, but you can’t wear that now due to cultural sensitivity. Which, when it comes to a queen wearing feathers, I can’t see how they’d get annoyed.”

  “Well you could have told us it was fancy dress!” Grayling complained.

  “This is not fancy dress; this is office attire. Now, who wants to see my truncheon?”

  The bouncer’s looked at Rob. Rob looked at the bouncers. With a flourish, a six-foot six man waved the foursome through and then clapped the ‘cop’ on the ass, getting finger guns back as a reply. Then they were in.

  You could hear the music from a distance away, and while first they went to a cloakroom to drop off coats, once you entered the main room you were transported to a place back in time. A huge glitter ball, flashing lights, pumping disco music and a crowd of people lost in joy.

  “Okay,” Sharma said even though no one could hear her, “this is amazing.”

  “Yes,” Lindleman said, assuming it was a question which could be answered with yes.