A short story by Wayne Dean Richards, with image above by Martin Gollan
As if it was something he’d studied at Eton, he knew how to make the camera work for him: was always animated without being twitchy, a sense of gravitas emanating effortlessly from his large head, and trust rather than decrepitude was what the snow-white hair and roadwork of facial lines conveyed as he said, “The British people are endlessly adaptable.”
“And you think that the adaptability of the British people is significant to this issue, Lord Raspberry?” Lauren Carlsberg asked, leaning forwards intently.
“Indeed, I do,” Lord Raspberry intoned, his hands resting calmly on the arms of his chair, the studio lights accentuating the blue of his finely tailored suit, the crisp whiteness of his shirt, and the strident irony of his scarlet tie. “Foreigners don’t have the adaptability of the Great British people – one of the reasons why their economies lag behind the Great British economy.”
“You mention the Great British economy,” Lauren Carlsberg snapped – the proud possessor of a First in Economics from Cambridge. She spoke as if she were biting ravenously into something when she said, “What difference has the Quick Kill Policy made to it do you think?”
“I’d like to correct you if I may,” Lord Raspberry said smoothly. “It isn’t what I think.” The corners of his eyes crinkled in anticipation of his joke: “My thoughts aren’t worth tuppence.”
Carlsberg dutifully raised the corners of her mouth for a moment.
“I deal in facts and the facts indicate, precisely, the impact of the Quick Kill Policy on the Great British economy.” Raspberry paused dramatically. “Would you like me to elaborate?”
“Please do,” Lauren Carlsberg said, still leant forwards, poised and ready.
“The findings of the Economic Study Forum indicate implementation of the Quick Kill Policy resulted in a fourteen-billion-pound increase in annual GDP.”
Following another dramatic pause Lord Raspberry said, “Am I right in thinking you have a clip to show at this point?”
Lauren Carlsberg turned to camera #2, raised her finely plucked eyebrows and said, “We do indeed have a clip.”
The clip played. It showed a middle-aged woman crossing a busy dual carriageway whilst engrossed in a call: her phone pressed hard to her ear and traffic slowing or stopping to let her cross, the woman perhaps halfway across when a white Transit in the outside lane spurted forwards. It hit her a glancing blow that lifted her high in the air, then deposited her – dead – on the pavement.
The clip ended.
Lauren Carlsberg said, “Can I get a response from you to that clip, Lord Raspberry?”
“You can indeed,” he said. Deftly crossed his left leg over his right leg and said, “We saw there an unfortunate consequence of the failure to comply with the Quick Kill Policy: a young woman either maliciously or innocently impeding businesses the length and breadth of our great nation by crossing the road too slowly. Prior to the implementation of the Quick Kill Policy all drivers would have slowed or stopped, and all businesses would have paid the price because as everybody knows, time is money. But since the Quick Kill Policy came into force businesses have been empowered to override all reasonable impediments, doing so out of necessity, for how else our nation compete? Only by killing if necessary, so long as it’s done quickly since we are, after all, a civilised people.”
“What would you say to the loved ones of the woman we just saw killed as a result of the Quick Kill Policy?”
“I’d say what I’ve said already: that what happened was unfortunate. But it’s a price worth paying in economic terms: and more so when you recognise that there have been only 102 deaths nationwide attributed to the Quick Kill Policy – the people of this country having adapted to its implementation accordingly, their ability to do so a testimony to the Great British public.”
“And would you care to comment on the proposed extensions to the Quick Kill Policy?”
“Only insofar as necessary,” Lord Raspberry said, “and all it’s necessary to say at this point is that the proposed extensions will further benefit the Great British economy.”
“There are likely to be more deaths every time the policy is extended,” Lauren Carlsberg insisted.
“That’s a possibility, of course, but I’m confident that Great British children and Great British pensioners have the same innate adaptability as the rest of the Great British public.”
*
“Decaf flat white, isn’t it, Baz?” Lauren Carlsberg asked an hour after the interview wrapped.
“Please, Loz,” Lord Raspberry said, watching her as she moved sensuously to the counter and placed their order.
Secure in the knowledge that he’d been watching her, when she returned to their table Lauren Carlsberg glanced over at the barista and said, “Would you ever consider the Quick Kill Policy for slow service, Baz?”
Then grinned, and waited.
