by Nick Bryan
THE GIRL
WHO
TWEETED
WOLF
HOBSON & CHOI
CASE ONE
Nick Bryan
HOBSON & CHOI SERIES
The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf
Rush Jobs
Trapped In The Bargain Basement
SHORT STORY: Current Affair Commentary - free to mailing list subscribers
Copyright © 2014 Nick Bryan
http://www.NickBryan.com
Nick Bryan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
ONE
#HobsonVsWolf
Not only was there no name stencilled on the window of Hobson’s office door, it didn’t even have a window. Angelina was disappointed — what kind of crappy detective doesn’t have an office name stencil window?
Instead, it was a solid beige fire door. The only thing marking it out from the beige corridor was the change in texture from beige plaster to beige wood. Same old London office in a boring building. Clearly all her effort to dress interesting had been silly. The black floaty layers and purple tights looked ridiculous against all the nothingness.
Too late to change though, she was already five minutes late. She knocked on the hollow, cheap-sounding door, with the firmness of an adult, rather than a nervous sixteen-year-old. Or so she hoped.
“Yeah, come in,” said the hoarse yell from inside.
Angelina pushed the door open. Considering how long she’d spent staring at the tedious thing, it floated away easily.
The office behind was more interesting than the corridor, thankfully. Bright blue, two desks, a few filing cabinets. But no discarded whiskey bottles, nor a mattress round back where the detective slept.
“Good morning, Choi,” said a deep voice. The huge man behind the larger desk leapt up, revealing a pressed black suit and straight tie. Buttoned down to a fault, this guy could be a real veteran police detective, right up to the grey peppering his short dark hair.
And why was he calling her by surname?
“Good to meet you. I’m John Hobson, just Hobson is fine though.” And, when she didn’t immediately reply: “How are you? Good trip over?”
“Um, thanks, I’m fine, you too.” She forgot to punctuate any of that, blushing as soon as it finished.
“Good. Good. Well, welcome to our new work experience internship programme. I hope I’ll be able to show you something about the business in two weeks. As you can see, I’ve cleared a desk for you here.” He gestured at the smaller one in the room, with a wedge of papers recently shoved to one end.
“Looks nice,” she glanced down and nodded. “Lots of room.”
Another silence.
“So,” he was already standing up and hooking his jacket off the back of the chair, “I have to get moving for a lunch meeting, but I do have a job for you to get on with.”
Her ears pricked up, but expectations remained measured. She’d be filing all those papers away, wouldn’t she? Or running out to buy milk?
“I’ve noticed this social Twitter internet media thing seems to be taking off,” he said, gesturing widely at the computer on her desk, as if that explained everything, “could you create an account for me and get me some of those… followers?”
Angelina blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Well, you know. I’ve just repainted my office, I want to be modern, and your lot seem to be familiar with this kind of thing.”
“My lot? What do you mean my lot?”
“No no no no no,” Hobson spun round, nearly whirling her across the room, “not Asians. Teenage girls.”
“Oh. Right.” Depressingly, she was relieved he’d even noticed she was Asian. “Well, sure. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Choi.” He shrugged his massive coat on, composure back in place. “Just a couple of hundred should do. Cheers, running late, back in an hour.”
With that, he waved and dashed out the door. And then popped his head back round. “Oh, could you also go to the shops and get some coffee? Ain’t much left.”
Angelina nodded, and kept her sigh inside until he’d definitely gone. This office was the size of a rich person’s cupboard.
*****
Picking up the coffee took a few minutes. The hardest part was checking out his machine and working out what type to buy. Now she was an intern, Angelina knew she had to do these menial tasks, so swallowed her pride and went to Tesco.
Not long after, guzzling a pack of dirt-cheap cardboard crisps, she plonked herself down in front of her computer. She had a job to do, so resisted the urge to head straight for Facebook and complain about her negligent boss.
Instead she went on Twitter and got to work. She typed, she schmoozed, she strived, she read blog posts about Social Media Success, many of which made her angry. Finally, several tweets and retweets later, something clicked.
Shortly later, so did the door to their office, as Hobson returned. His lunch meeting ended at a reasonable time and left him completely sober; again, both reassuring and disappointing. When did she get to sniff corpses and snort whiskey, delve deep into the underworld?
Instead, she had a presentable, clean shaven, punctual detective without a visible drinking problem. Should’ve been more specific on the form.
“So Choi,” Hobson said, his jacket flopping back over the chair, “am I… trending yet?”
He pronounced trending like it was the name of an alien planet.
“Um, sort of,” she said.
“Sort of?”
“Well, you’ve got 353 followers…” Angelina broke off mid-stream as a rectangular email notification popped up. “Well, 354 now. But I had to say some stuff to get them.”
Hobson fiddled with his own computer, not paying much attention. “Yeah? What kind of stuff?”
“I tried just creating an account and following people, engaging with other detectives, but it wasn’t working much,” she could hear herself talking faster in response to his blank stares, “so I found an interesting murder case and said that if you got enough followers, you’d totally solve it for free.”
And it sounded like a better idea at the time, she added silently, rolling her chair away from Hobson as his face turned red and he stood up, tie flapping wild. It was hard not to be scared when a man bigger than the room he was sitting in started yelling at you.
“You did what?” At least he’d noticed her. “Do you have you any idea how shitty that is? What if the press find out? What if the victim’s family find out? How do you know I even can solve it? How am I meant to pay my rent?”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry, I wanted to get it right and I just…” Angelina inhaled deep and snorted by accident. “I may have said something else too.”
“Oh God.”
“Yeah. If we get up to 400 followers, you have to fight a wolf.”
The email indicator leapt up again. Only forty-five to go.
*****
With a speed you wouldn’t expect from a man of his size, Hobson turned off her monitor, and pointed to the tiny space in front of his main desk.
“Go on, Choi.” He jabbed the finger again. “Plant yourself there and go over what the hell’s going on. Quick as you like.”
“Well, um, you know Twitter?”
“No.”
“Right.”
To her relief, the phone on his desk rang, but her respite was short-lived. Hobson picked it up, listened for a few seconds, then said “Yup, no comment,” and beeped the handset off again.
“Choi. You were saying?”
“Well,” she took a deep breath, knowing this was her moment, “I just started an account, and it wasn’t going that well, and then I had this idea and I started up a hashtag, it was #HobsonVsWolf which I thought was pretty good, and then people started getting really into it and…”
Hobson held up a hand, eyes tightening as if suffering the beginnings of a headache. “Okay. Pretending for a moment that I know what a hashtag is — people really went for this? You suggested I fight a wolf and that was it?”
“Well, a couple of people thought it was insensitive, but mostly, they seemed really keen. We were even at the bottom of the UK trending topics for a few minutes! So you see,” she finished, determined to end on a high, “I did exactly what you asked for.”
Angelina was sure his head raised up for a few moments when she mentioned the trending, twitching like a dog who’d smelt some appealing food. However, his disapproving scowl soon reasserted itself.
“Okay, so I think we’ve gone as far as we can with the how. Can we move on to why you thought this was a good idea?”
Dragging out an inhale to collect her thoughts, Angelina gave it a go. “I don’t know if you’ve done much research into online marketing and social media in the past, Mister Hobson…”
“I told you Choi, just Hobson, it’s fine.”
Soon, Angelina thought, he might ask permission to call her Choi. Somehow, he made her name alone sound racist. But this wasn’t the time to file a complaint.
“Okay, well, everyone else has been online for quite some time,” she said. “You see, you have to engage with people in a way they understand, a way that’s funny and catches their interest.”
“Right…”
“So what I was doing, I think, is trying to make you seem relevant and exciting. You know, like someone who gets up and solves crime, instead of just going to lunch and sounding bored. Tap into modern events in a way that draws attention to your business. Like ‘Hello, you’ve all got this problem and I, John Hobson, am the solution! I fight the bad guys! I’ll protect you from the wolf!’ Because everyone loves Sherlock Holmes or whoever, so you’ve got to be that guy. You see?”
“Sounds shallow and awful.” Hobson shook his head. “Honestly, Choi, you kids watch too much television.”
Her eyes were stuck open. Why wasn’t he excited by any of this?
Speech seemed pointless in the face of grand apathy. The skies outside greyed over, no doubt in sympathy at the boring office nightmare she was trapped in. So much for her plan to tease friends doing office admin placements — she might call them up and beg for spare desks.
And then another phone rang. Hobson reached back, rustled around in the tiny space behind his desk and plucked a brown, dusty wired receiver out of nowhere. Had the decency to mutter “Internal line” at her before talking into it.
“Hello? Hi Will, what’s up? Delivery?”
It all snapped into place, as Angelina remembered Will, the good-looking receptionist she’d met on the way up. She’d thought he ought to be older, or at least scarier, to be the front desk guy in such a dodgy block.
Hobson was still talking. “You saw what on Twitter? Oh, um, yeah, I guess that is us.”
“No, I’m not going to fight a wolf, my work experience girl got a little carried away.” He laughed into the phone, still somehow sounding bored at the same time. “But yeah, it’s an interesting case, isn’t it? I guess it captured our imagination. Well, you know, I don’t want to tell you too much this early in the investigation, but keep watching the Twitters, I suppose.”
Well, Angelina stewed, this internship was meant to prepare her for the world of work — now she knew how it felt when the boss took credit for her effort.
“Yup,” he continued, “I suppose that was in bad taste, I’ll have a word with Choi about overstepping the mark in future.”
Now she was the heartless bitch too. Her hand flicked, wanting to grab the phone and apologise to Will personally.
“Okay, thanks for calling, Will. Cheers.”
He replaced the handset, slowly. Tapped his desk. Eventually looked up at Angelina.
“So, real people can see your tweeting?”
“Real people?”
“Real real people? Like Will downstairs? Real people as opposed to internet people and trolls and whatnot?”
“Yes, Mister Hobson, the people on the internet are definitely real.”
“Interesting.” On that, he stood up, flicking his coat from the back of the chair. “Suppose we’ll take a look at this murder, then. You can brief me on the way.”
Hobson was moving across the tiny office, barely leaving room for her to stay standing. Determined to go with the flow, Angelina grabbed her own jacket and headed for the door behind him.
“Hey, Hobson, um, do we have to walk out past the main reception desk? The one where… Will sits?”
“Yes, that’s the front door.”
“Can we maybe use a back door?”
“Why?”
“Never mind.”
TWO
Dry Blood
There was a lot of police tape on Markham Road. Far more than she’d ever expected. Angelina stood outside the two houses, staring at the shiny web criss-crossing and peeling off their porches. No sign of any policemen or police cars, smashed in front doors or blood seeping under them, but yellow tape? Yeah, a lot of that.
She glanced at Hobson. “So, um, we just knock?”
“Let’s get this clear now — I am not Batman.”
“No no, I just mean…” She gulped as a gaggle of men moved closer — a cliché of a tabloid reporter, cloned. “Isn’t this a bit insensitive? Turning up at their house like this?”
“Heh.” Hobson chuckled and kicked the garden gate open. “Should’ve thought of that before you put them on the internet as a freebie really, Choi.”
Without pausing, he swept the tape aside with one huge arm and strode up to the door in his black suit like a visiting undertaker, knocking so hard Angelina saw it shake. She chased along behind him, the assembled journalists turning towards the noise like a flock of birds.
“Hobson, with all the tape, doesn’t that mean…”
“Oh, they’re in.”
A rustling behind the door, a crunch in its frame as someone inside leaned forward to look through the peephole. Behind them in the road, definite camera clicks. At least someone appreciated her amazing first-day outfit, Angelina thought, hoping the guy would open up before the paps asked her a question.
“Don’t get excited, Choi,” Hobson said, “we may not get in right away, might have to negotiate through the door, exchange numbers and call them later…”
The entrance swung open, to reveal a man with crimson gelled hair and oddly wide eyes. He was wearing a baggy hoodie, jeans and a huge grin, considering the murder in his house.
“Hey!” he said. “You’re the internet guys! I saw your hashtag! Hobson, right?”
Angelina flashed a smug grin at her boss but he faced forward.
“Yeah, that’s me. This is my assistant Angelina Choi,” awkward wave from her, poking a hand out behind Hobson, “we wondered if we could speak to you about the murders?”
“Wow, you’re actually investigating? I assumed that was just shitty online marketing.”
Only then did Hobson return Angelina’s smirk, before tu
rning back to the resident. “We are looking into it. Can we come in, mister…?”
“Oh, yeah, Ric McCabe, hi.” Broad wave, before looking past them to the photographers barely keeping off the front garden. “Best get inside, it’s a jungle out there.”
Ric ushered them in and slammed the door; Angelina was pretty sure he gave a middle finger to the waiting hordes before it fully closed.
Inside, all was dark; dim light and faded walls combined to blanket them with a sickly yellow glow. There were no windows, just a couple of heavy fire doors to the right and a staircase up to a world of darkness. It was about as homely as prison; she missed her mother’s flowery wallpaper.
“Nice place,” Hobson nodded, sincere as ever, “looks very secure.”
Ric just laughed. “You mean aside from the dead housemate?”
“Obviously. Speaking of which, I’m told it happened in the kitchen?”
“Wow, you’re a cheery fun guy.” Ric looked over to Angelina. “Isn’t he fun? With his serious face and his funeral suit.”
“Thanks,” Hobson said, not letting her speak. “You’re quite cheery and fun yourself, considering your housemate’s just been ripped to shreds by a wolf.”
“Well,” Ric said, “we never liked him.”
Not letting them digest that, Ric pushed open the second of the two doors on the right, and they entered a dingy living room. It had a window, at least, although enclosed by overhanging neighbours to stop too much light reaching it. There were two dusty sofas, a small TV and one used breakfast bowl on the table.
Commanding attention above those things was another mess of police tape around the closed door at the back. That must be the kitchen. A smear of red slipped beneath the crack of this door, and she could see more reflecting behind it, clotting and dark. That packet of cheap crisps stirred inside her.
“Hobson…” She said his name without meaning to. At least she hadn’t called him “Daddy”.
He glanced over at her, kept his face immobile but seemed to register something. Was she turning green, like a cartoon character?
