Secrets and Lies

 “The issue, Minister,” said Dink Lightly, “is that the diaries you’ve provided for the book—”

“My personal diaries, yes.” The Minister famously disliked listening to anyone else speak for longer than a few minutes.  Dink, his ghostwriter, was coming to terms with it but he still had to avoid sighing in frustration that the Minister was clarifying a point that was obvious to everyone in the room.

“Yes,” he said, mentally sighing instead.  “Yes, those diaries. The issue is that they contain, well, confessions.  Of crimes.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” said the Minister cheerfully.  He grinned at Dink with his best campaign smile.  “I think we used that a slogan last year, in fact.  You can put that in the book.”

Dink forced a smile onto his face and reached for his notepad.

“Ah, before you write that down, Mr. Dink,” said a nasal voice to his left.  He couldn’t help but think of a weasel trying to be human whenever he heard that voice.  “That slogan, Minister, was the one we trialled to explain the increase in the number of people being sent to prison.”

“Ah,” said the Minister in the tone of someone being reminded of something unpleasant.  “That was not our greatest success, right?”

“Far from it, Minister,” said the weasel.  Dink tried to remember that the man’s name was Jacob, just in case he had to offer an opinion.

“So probably only a third-rate success,” said the Minister sounding thoughtful and apparently having only heard what he wanted to hear.  “I think the book should—“

“Focus on the top-tier successes,” said Jacob.  The Minister glared at him for a few seconds and then nodded.  “Ok, don’t use that quote.  Or save it for the sequel maybe.”  Dink glanced surreptitiously at Jacob who shook his head fractionally but firmly.  Dink wrote down some words at random to appease the Minister and wondered how much longer this would go on for.

“Right,” said the Minister.  “That’s all then, right?”

“Ah,” said Dink, but the weasel laid a cold, clammy hand on Dink’s wrist and spoke over him.

“Not quite, Minister.  The diaries, as this young man,” and Jacob smiled at Dink in a way that made him want to vomit, “is trying to tell you, contain details that are not in the public interest, though the public would likely be very interested in them.”

“What?”  The Minister could be disarmingly blunt when he wasn’t actually interested in what was being said.

Jacob took his hand off Dink’s wrist and Dink narrowly avoided shuddering in relief.

“The diaries state that you broke the pandemic rules,” said Dink.  “Repeatedly.  And inventively, in some cases.”

“Those rules didn’t apply to me,” said the Minister.  He looked at his watch.  “I’m on the news in five minutes and I’d like to watch it.”

“They did,” said Jacob smoothly.  “And finding out that you’d broken them would put you on the news rather a lot Minister, but not in any way you’d like to watch.”

“Well change the law, then,” said the Minister.  “Have them not apply to me, since I’m the Minister and I’m running the show here.  How is this difficult?  Why am I having to listen to this?”

“Changing the law retroactively would require Parliament to be told all the details,” said Jacob.  “Which might endanger your chance of re-election.”

“Oh.”  The Minister frowned and adjusted his position on his chair in a way that suggested he had been about to stand up and leave no matter how the conversation went.  “I need to be re-elected.  At least until I can make this position hereditary.  So… just don’t put that bit in the book.”

Dink found himself writing down hereditary? and wondering what the Minister was on about.  A moment later Jacob took his pen out of his hand and carefully scribbled over hereditary until only the question mark was left.

“The problem, Minister,” said Jacob, “is that under the rules set out for the writing of these books for government officials the ghostwriter must report any evidence of criminal activity if they come across it.”

“Well done,” said the Minister, smiling warmly at Dink.  “I shall act on it at once.  Is that done now?”

“Not to you, Minister,” said Jacob.  Dink thought he sounded wheedling now.  “To the police.”

“Good Lord,” said the Minister.  “Haven’t I abolished them yet?”

“Legislation is in passage,” said the weasel with a smile that Dink felt showed far too many teeth that were far too white.  “But realistically it would be better to submit the evidence to them and then have them decide that there is no crime to investigate.  A little work with the Official Secrets Act after that and we can cover this up for a hundred and fifty years, by which time no-one will care.”

The Minister gave the weasel the side-eye.  “And how do they decide that?” he asked.  “What’s it going to cost?”

“It used to be a peerage,” said Jacob.  “In the good old days.  You’d just knight the Chief Constable or give his wife a modest title, one that comes with a small stretch of land, and be done with it.  But under the current circumstances… you’re probably going to have to give up on abolishing the police force.”

“No!”

“Hear me out, Minister, at least.  There is an alternative.”

“I won’t have these plebs trying to prosecute me!  They’re persecuting me enough already without changing the damn letters around!”

“Indeed, Minister, though can you truly say they have no cause?”  Jacob didn’t wait for his boss to answer. “Instead, let’s have the police force report into you directly.  They will be placated by the legislation to abolish them being dropped and we’ll slide their reporting lines under you as part of amendments to other bills. A little bit of PR work and we can change the M from meaning Metropolitan to Militia, I should think.”

“The M?”

“As in London Metropolitan Police: LMP, Minister.  We can make it London’s Militia Policing.  And it will your own private army.”

Dink reached for his pen to note that down but Jacob removed it and, without once looking at Dink, snapped it in half.

“Capital idea,” said the Minister.  “They’ll have a hard time arresting me if I’m giving the orders, right?”

“Precisely, Minister.”

Strike!

 The Aide looked down at her papers.  They were a mix of official documents, some stamped with ‘Confidential’, ‘Secret’ or ‘Miscellaneous’ (the classifications secretary was apparently feeling ambitious) and print-outs from various web-sites because the Minister refused to look at a screen that wasn’t showing his own image.  She shuffled them a little, pointlessly as she already had the ones she wanted on the top, and then looked up at the Minister.  His eyes were on the television mounted on the wall behind her, but they were drifting away indicating that the news report of his latest speech had ended.

“Well?” he said, as though he hadn’t been the one to stop the conversation in the middle.  “My train to the Midlands on Thursday?”

“There are none,” said the Aide.  “The unions are on strike.”

“What?  That’s ridiculous!”

“Minister, that’s the consequence of your policies on public transport.  You announced funding cuts, you’ve announced your intent to pass new laws to castrate the unions, and you’ve announced a new mandatory retirement age that is seven years higher than anything even your most cynical critic predicted.   All public transport workers have gone on strike while they still can.”

“Castrate,” murmured the Minister.

“Yes, Minister.  And, while you will probably have to mean that metaphorically and not literally in order to get the law passed, that is still quite drastic.  You are being compared with Draco in the popular press, which is quite astonishing as it means they are taking the trouble to explain to their readers who that was.  You’ve also been compared with Nero, Caligula, and at least three of the Borgias.  Whether you intended it or not, the country is getting quite an education as a result of your policies.”

The Minister smiled.  “So if they’re on strike, the trains aren’t running at all?”

“No, Minister.”

“Then just commandeer one.”

The Aide opened her mouth, and then hesitated.  This hadn’t come up in the pre-briefing meeting she’d had with the Minister’s Secretary or the saner members of the cabinet.

“I don’t think I can,” she said slowly, wondering if she could.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” said the Minister. “Official government business can’t be held hostage by the peons, and if there’s no other trains running there’s no danger of collision.  I mean, how hard can it be to drive a train?  They run on rails!”

The Aide, who had spent several hours with the Minister’s speech-writer trying to make sure he never made a statement anything like what he’d just said, stretched a smile across her face with an effort.

“It’s not just the question of speed,” she said.  “There are signals to be considered, and the state of the track — which, as you know, you’ve been cutting the maintenance budgets for in the past three years —“

“Yes well, they only spend it on alcohol, don’t they?”

“…probably not, actually Minister.  Or there would be a lot more train accidents than there already are.”

“Hmm,” said the Minister in a way that the Aide had come to dread.  “Train accidents.  If there were more, it would contribute to our populations crisis, right?  As well as lowering public confidence in public transport?  Which would boost support for the idea that we should all just use helicopters to travel around the country, right?”

The Aide, try as she might, had been unable to find out who had put the idea in the Minister’s head that only people who could afford to fly in helicopters should be able to move around the country faster than walking pace but she was persisting in her attempts as it was especially galling for her.

“Our population crisis is that it is decreasing, Minister,” she said.  “We need more people, not more accidents.”

“Not old people,” said the Minister cheerfully.  “We’ve got too many of them.  We just need young people, and young people like helicopters!  They’re exciting!  Fun!  They go fast!”

“The trains would go fast if you didn’t keep cutting the track maintenance budget,” said the Aide, knowing full well that the Minister wouldn’t listen.  “Why don’t you fly to the Midlands then?  There are airports there.  Somewhere.”

The Minister waved a hand as though swatting a fly.  “Too soon,” he said.  “Let’s thoroughly discredit public transport and the unions first.  So commandeer me a train, and let’s break this strike!”

“Very good, Minister,” said the Aide sombrely.

Ghostwritten

 The meeting room where the Cabinet traditionally met was quiet except for the Minister’s breathing, which rose and fell like the tides of the sea.  He was sitting in the central chair of the long table on the side that looked across the room to the windows, which in turn looked out onto the remains of St James’s Palace, and turning the pages of a thick book that looked, at first glance, like a novel.  Every now and then he would murmur ‘hmm’ gently and at one point he sighed and carefully tore a page from the book, discarding it into the waste-paper bin.

The silence was broken by a knock at the door; a steady rat-a-tat-tat that gave no indication of how nervous the knocker might be.  The Minister, whose favour was mercurial and ephemeral, was certain that the visitor would be nervous, however.

“Come,” he called, aiming for imperious. His voice was stentorian and resounded off the walls and a picture trembled in its frame.  The door creaked open slowly, and his Aide came in followed by the Private Secretary.  He smiled at the Aide, who name he couldn’t remember, and frowned slightly at the Private Secretary as though he couldn’t remember who this woman was either.

“Minister,” said the Aide, smiling back.  She looked moderately uncomfortable, which the Minister felt was appropriate for her station and replaceability.

“Indeed,” he said, since he really couldn’t remember her name.  He was sure he’d known it at one point.  It wasn’t terribly important, just a nuisance that he couldn’t use it to let her know her place.  “I am thinking of a biography.”

The Aide looked at the book in front of him.  “Kissinger’s?” she asked.  “Although I thought that was a two-volume affair.”

“I can have two volumes?  Or… maybe more?”

“Usually it depends on how much of one’s life one has to write about,” said the Aide.  “Though there are so-called celebrities out there who seem to manage multiple volumes based on the same three sad stories.  Do I understand you to want to write your own biography?”

“I hardly think the Minister has time for that,” said the Private Secretary.  The Minister felt she sounded a touch indignant.  The woman was in her late fifties, a career civil servant, and was dressed like his memories of the Queen.

“I don’t,” he said.  “I’m not even sure I’d know how to go about writing a book.  There are people to do that already though, aren’t there?”

The Aide and the Private Secretary exchanged a look and the Minister wondered what was contained in it.  From where he was sat they both looked confused; but he’d been pretty clear with what he’d said.  Perhaps… perhaps it was time for them both to have a mandatory mental-health checkup.

“Do you mean authors?” asked the Private Secretary after a longer pause than the Minister liked.

“Or ghostwriters?” asked the Aide.  “They do similar, but slightly different jobs.  Like… doctors and nurses, say.”

“The one that writes it for me,” said the Minister.  “Are you always both this tiresome?”  He noticed with secret joy that they both straightened up just a little at this indication that his mood might be slipping.

“Ghostwriters then,” said the Private Secretary.  Was it the Minister’s imagination or did she sound disapproving?  “Do you have anyone specific in mind, Minister?”  Before he could answer she spoke again: “You can, of course, tender to the lower bidder, but if you particularly like someone’s writing style, or feel that a particular author would reflect your world-view in their own, you might prefer to approach them directly.”

“Stephen King, perhaps,” said the Aide, who was leafing through the torn pages from the bin.  The Private Secretary coughed.

“Who?” said the Minister.  “No, actually I… well, maybe.  Maybe.  You mentioned Kissinger, before, right?”

The Aide and the Private Secretary exchanged another look and the Minister decided to add a mandatory hearing test to their mental-health checkup.

“He’s nearly dead, Minister,” said the Aide.  She said it slowly as though she were choosing her words carefully.

“And perhaps his reputation might be considered?” asked the Private Secretary.  She sounded as though that were an order.  The Minister bristled slightly.

“He is a diplomat and a statesman,” he said.  “What else is there to consider?”

“Vietnam?” murmured the Aide, but the Private Secretary was already speaking.

“His age makes him quite likely to die before completing your biography, Minister, and even if he doesn’t he has made some derogatory statements concerning policies of yours.  Would it really be a good idea to let him have free reign to criticise you in your own book?”

“I get to edit it before it gets published!”

“Yes Minister, but will you?  Or will you delegate that to someone else as well?”

The Minister started to snarl a reply, but halted, resulting in just a growl.  He didn’t want to read his biography, he just wanted it written.  And who could he trust to get it right?

“I see,” he said.  “Who was that other guy you mentioned?  King?  Isn’t he a fiction writer?”

The Aide looked modestly surprised and the Private Secretary looked despondent.  The Minister decided that was a victory on both counts.

“Well Minister,” said the Aide, “were you intending to tell the truth throughout the whole book?  Or would it be useful if the… aha, real truth were brought to the fore?  The truth that is always there but is sometimes occluded by messy reality, as it were?  The aims behind the policies so that people’s failure to implement, aha, those policies can be emphasized?  The vision for the future that cannot be seen from the valley of the present?”

“Well,” said the Minister feeling rather pleased that the Aide was so understanding.  “That would be rather good, wouldn’t it?  A book that helps people in the here and now understand why we’re doing what we’re doing for them!  Capital idea!  Get me this King person and write me an autobiography!”

Competitive housing

 “We mixed magnolia paint with crematorium ash for the walls,” said David Laburnum-Racke as he walked alongside the Minister.  He gestured casually with one hand, being careful, as the Minister noted, not to actually touch the wall.  “We found that the colour was mostly soothing, but ever so slightly upsetting.  People approve of the corridors but there is a tendency for them not to linger in them.  We reduced the amount of time people spent outside their offices by a little under 20% through this.”  They passed a man sitting on a stool holding a clipboard and a stopwatch.  He nodded to them as they passed in a friendly manner.  The Minister ignored him as he wasn’t on the list of people that he was there to visit, and David stopped only to look over the clipboard.

“Is crematorium ash easy to come by?” asked the Minister.  He was due to spend a further 13 minutes with David and he had run out of conversation two corridors back.

“Surprisingly, yes,” said David.  “While the crematoria do attempt to provide people with all the ashes of their relatives the oven do still need sweeping out at the end of the day.  And then there are the unclaimed; we can get all of their ash.  We’ve been considering charging the crematoria for the service of removing it for them.”

The Minister nodded and then halted.  Behind them his Aide, a woman who’s job was largely to keep his ideas away from anyone but his Cabinet, looked concerned.

“We want to announce a new housing initiative,” said the Minister.  The Aide looked less concerned but still seemed ready to interject.  “Until the country has wintered its discontent it seems likely we’ll need new housing.  And when we eventually find a way to backtrack on Brexit without admitting anything so crass as culpability we will probably be able to fill any excess from the… ah, toughening that the country is going through this winter.”

David, two of whose neighbours had already frozen to death because they couldn’t afford the power bills, nodded.  He was fully aware what the Minister was talking about.

“That said, new housing should support the new ideas of the new government.  We should not be seen to be pandering to the people, and we definitely cannot be seen to be being soft.  So an initiative is taking shape: competitive housing.  The Cabinet is still in discussions with the TV production companies, but we think it should be possible to have housing that you can live in until you fail a challenge.  Or maybe two, that’s still up in the air.  And I think the paint you’re describing would be a useful interior feature of our housing.”

“Competitive housing?” David toyed with the word in his head.  It sounded intriguing, in much the same way as many of the Minister’s policies were intriguing until you realised they were life-threatening, maiming, or mentally and emotionally destructive.

“Antisocial housing was deemed too negative,” said the Aide.  She seemed to have relaxed completely now.

“Let’s paint all the common areas in the new housing with magnolia-ash paint,” said the Minister.  “Perhaps we could even use it to direct people through the corridors and public spaces, subtly.  Ah!  We could leave areas like the bike-sheds and car-parks generally open and warm so that the homeless are simultaneously attracted and repelled.”

“I thought the government was disposing of the homeless,” said David.  The Aide flashed him a quick smile.

“Well, the competitive housing is primarily aimed at removing the homeless and creating homes for them,” said the Minister.  “Though many of them seem not to want permanent homes, which is why we think the idea of them having to pass challenges to stay is interesting.  It allows them to move around and try out the various accommodations without us appearing to hound them.  Plus, you can vote on who gets to be kicked out for being too competitive.”

“I think we agreed that ‘antisocial’ was the better word for that,” said the Aide.

“Did we?  Oh right, we did.  That’s fine.  Do you have any other anti-human innovations here?”

David looked a tiny bit taken aback.  “Oh, we don’t use that word,” he said huffily.  “We prefer pro-work.”

“Of course, naturally!”

“Well, we have created carpets that cause painful build-ups of static electricity when you walk across them,” said David, assured now that he had a willing audience.  “It discourages people from leaving their desks, but also punishes them just a little when the leave.”

“Capital!” said the Minister.  “Ah, I think our time is up.  Tell my Aide all about these ideas, and I’m sure we’ll be adopting them.”

Clothesline Martyr

 Sunday, 3:32pm.  A single shot rang out, the noise echoing off the surrounding buildings and drawing the inhabitants of the tower blocks cautiously to their windows.  Net curtains twitched as curious eyes peered past them, wondering what had caused the noise; if it was really a gunshot or just a car backfiring; if the kids were messing around again or if something more serious were afoot.  When nothing seemed to move and no more noise sounded the curtains were pulled further back and windows were opened and heads poked out.  People looked this way and that, hunting for the source of the noise and not finding it.

On top of Clarence Abbabas Building (Block A), nine stories above the ground, amidst the washing lines strung up by the residents the martyr slumped over a peg-basket and bled out. The bloodstain soaked into the tar-paper roof and would see out six winters before finally fading so much that even its memory passed from the public mind.

Sunday, 9:39pm.  “This is ridiculous,” said the Minister as an assistant to an assistant adjusted his tie.  “Why are we making all this fuss over one person?”

Both assistants carefully realised they shouldn’t have heard that and immediately went, for all intents and purposes, deaf.  The Ministerial Aide, a young woman with hair so heavy sprayed and pinned in place that a gale wouldn’t have shifted it and make-up so heavily put on she looked like holding her head up was an effort, seemed unconcerned.

“Because it is one person,” she said, emphasising the last two words with care.  “And one person is as important to the government as one city.  Or one nuclear warhead.”

“I think I know Party Doggerel,” said the Minister testily.  He longed to rip the tie off and return to Chartiers, his favourite restaurant.  He’d been dragged from there, almost literally, by his bodyguard to attend to the news and make a statement about this idiot who’d managed to get himself shot on a housing estate somewhere in the city.

“Party Dogma,” said the Aide automatically.  The Minister’s malapropisms were often rather more accurate than she was comfortable with.  “And yes, you are basically reiterating what the news tells people every day, but the difference is that it is you doing it.  In response to a tragedy.”

“A tragedy?”  The Minister swatted at the annoying hands at his neck, deciding at last that he could sort his own tie out.  A few seconds was all it took to smooth it into place and then he buttoned the lowest button of his suit jacket.  “He was poor, wasn’t he?”

“Many people are,” said the Aide, who wasn’t.  “And since there are lots of them, and they believe that their votes count for something, they need to be humoured.  By you, Minister.”

“By me, Minister,” mimicked the Minister.  His riff on the Aide’s voice was near perfect and she looked startled.  That lasted only for a few seconds before she composed herself again and opened her mouth.  “It was a poor idiot who ran away from the police,” said the Minister before she could complain.  She suspected he’d waited for her to be ready to speak just so he could cut her off.  “That’s not news.  That doesn’t need an apology.  That just needs a clean-up crew and a hole to bury him in.  Or burn him in.  We do burn pits, don’t we?”

The Aide considered what she could say here.  There were burn pits, most used for mass cremations and keeping people warm who couldn’t afford to heat their houses.  The mass cremations helped cover up the mass starvation, but it wasn’t perfect and although warm people complained less, they were still hungry and the cremation was a measure to prevent cannibalism.  She decided that that was the wrong approach to take with the Minister though as she wanted him smooth, eloquent, and polished.

“He was running from police,” she said, speaking quickly to avoid the Minister cutting her off again.  “After shoplifting a loaf of bread, for his starving two-year old daughter.”

“Good,” said the Minister, unwilling to let anyone else talk for too long in case people started forgetting he was there.

“Morality aside, Minister,” said the Aide with just a hint of a sigh, “this captures the popular imagination.  Think, Robin Hood.”

“Thief, con-man, criminal,” said the Minister promptly.  “I think I covered this with that therapist in June, didn’t I?”

“The people,” said the Aide, pressing on, “want to believe that a man who commits crime for the benefit of others — an altruist! — is somehow better and more worthy than them.  They want to celebrate him.  He’s becoming a martyr very rapidly, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.  He will be the headlines tomorrow, and we need to control the situation.  And that, Minister, means that you have to endorse his martyrdom.  Make him a martyr for the state and not the people.  Take their victory away from them—“

“And dance on it!”

“And appropriate it, I was going to say.”  The Aide looked suddenly old and tired.  “It’s a disgraceful thing to do, and I’m slightly appalled that I came up with it, but it’s Sunday night and I was planning on having a long bath and hot chocolate so I’m putting it down as PMT.  Which I can do because I’m a woman, Minister.  You can’t.”

“Bah, humbug,” said the Minister who’d tried claiming he had PMT twice already and ignored the complaints made to the House Committees.

“But yes, you have to go out there, and own this martyrdom.  It will make the population stronger.  The surviving population, I should say.  It’s good for the country.”

“And dancing on their victory will be fun,” said the Minister.  “You know, I’m quite looking forward to this now!”

Strike!

 The Minister stepped out off the front steps of the white-stone-clad administrative building and dodged a couple of hurled eggs expertly.  A black-clad assistant held the door to an expensive, sleek grey car open and the Minister slipped inside with practiced ease.  As the door closed another egg shattered against the window and the assistant took out a cloth and wiped it away, taking care to erase all the smears as well.

"What was that about?" asked the woman who was already in the car.  She was dressed smartly but in an old-fashioned way, as though she was depending on her clothes for warmth even indoors, and smelled of cats and mould.  The Minister smiled and chose to discreetly breathe through his mouth.

"Protestors," he said.  "We allow a few through at any given time so long as they're mostly harmless.  If they're carrying actual weapons they're usually stopped."

"Usually?"  The woman arched an eyebrow and a faint frostfall of powder fell from her face.

"If the weapon is clearly archaic or defunct we let them through for fun," said the Minister.  "The papers love it and it makes the protestors feel like they're outsmarting us."

"I see," said the woman.  The car moved smoothly off, pulling into the traffic and quickly becoming just another element of the flow. "Do we want to encourage them?"

"Yes," said the Minister.  "If they have these outlets then they don't start looking for others.  They won't start bombing places, or trying to get hold of guns and being... well, American about things."

"Your prejudices are showing," said the woman.  She smiled and there was another frostfall of white powder.  "Where are we going today?"

"First stop is the Trade Union," said the Minister.  "They have a building -- grotty thing, brutalist architecture as you might imagine, sat right next to a much more elegant hotel.  We have a couple of agents in the hotel, naturally, as despite their socialist rhetoric they like to put their visitors and officials up in it.  And it's not cheap either."

"You?  Concerned about cheap?"

"Well, only inasmuch as I don't like it when people who claim I have too much money start spending it like water and pretending there's a difference."

The woman smiled again. "You're starting to sound like you might have a conscience budding there," she said.  "Do keep an eye on it, won't you?"

The Minister stifled a laugh.

"So you're going to negotiate with them?"

"No," he said.  "We're going to pretend to negotiate with them and encourage them to strike harder.  And as soon as they do, we'll release the details of the package they've turned down and make them look like petty gougers and con-men."

"Will that end the strikes?"

"I doubt it.  But it will damage their grass-roots support, and this is a long-term strategy to get rid of the unions for good."

The woman looked out of the window.  "Over winter?  People are freezing."

"Survival of the fittest, my dear.  After winter only those people who can tolerate hardship adequately will be left.  The country is improving its breeding stock."