Free Dead Air by Iain Banks

misunderstood.’
    ‘You don’t actually believe any of this, do you, though?’
    ‘Are you mad?’ I cackled. ‘Of course not! I’m taking the piss out of fascist fuckwits!’
    ‘So is this what this TV thing’s about?’
    ‘Yeah. They’re going to get one of these nutters for me to “debate” with.’
    ‘Should people like that really be allowed to say that sort of stuff on national TV, though?’
    ‘Ask Channel Four that, not me,’ I said, drinking up. ‘But, yes, I think they should. You can’t hide that poisonous shit away for ever; it’ll come out somewhere. Better to face it and squash it. I want it out in the open. I want to know who these people are, I want to know where they live.’ I finished my drink. ‘That’s why these cowardly little shits love the Internet. They can post any sort of hate-filled drivel they want with no comeback because on-line they can hide. It’s the perfect medium for bullies, liars and cowards.’
    We were in the Golden Bough, our usual after-show drinking hole, in Hollen Street. The Bough was a basic central London pub; one of those places neither flattered nor insulted to be called a boozer. Not fashionable, rarely crowded to the point of standing-room only (save on a Friday evening and Saturday night), reasonable juke box, basic, unpretentious food, only one gaming machine - tucked out of the way under the stairs to the small first-floor function bar - and a solid, unadventurous choice of drink.
    There was no particular crowd associated with the place. Instead you got a smattering of all sorts in the Bough: workmen in dusty boots and paint-specked overalls, advertising creatives, theatre types, tourists, office workers, music people, film people, homeless guys nursing a half and keeping warm, waiting staff from restaurants and posher bars, one or two girls from the sex shows, and us. There was one dealer who used the place, though for a quiet drink, not for dealing. A couple of cops stuck their heads round the door about once a month or so.
    The manageress was Clara, a brusquely rotund, no-nonsense, half-Portuguese grandmother with a dry, wheezy laugh and sixty-a-day habit. Nobody we know has ever seen her without one of two turban-like things on her head - one green, one yellow - and there was a long-standing, variable-odds pot-bet, which has allegedly been running with a rolling roster of regulars for over twenty years concerning whether she was bald underneath there or not. Last time I’d checked it had been 65/35 for slap-headedness and I’d stood to make a fiver if it turned out she wasn’t.
    ‘Can I get you a drink? What’ll it be?’
    ‘Oh, thanks. WKD blue. Cheers.’
    ‘I haven’t asked you your name,’ I said to the girl as I signalled to Clara.
    ‘Tanya.’ She stuck her hand out.
    ‘Ken. Pleased to meet you, Tanya.’
    Tanya had overheard Phil and me talking about the Breaking News thing earlier. I’d seen her staring, brows pinched, at us and she hadn’t looked away when I’d stared back. I’d guessed she’d picked up an alarming selection of race-hate-associated buzzwords and was thinking about either walking out or throwing her drink at us and then running.
    ‘It’s okay,’ I’d said to her, past Phil’s shoulder. ‘We’re both nice liberals really and this is genuinely one of those rare occasions when it honestly isn’t as bad as it sounds.’
    Tanya was quarter Jewish, which was one reason she had been taking offence at what she’d thought she’d been overhearing. She worked for a film company in Wardour Street. I could be pretty sure of this because Phil had grilled her about the film industry, albeit subtly, for a few minutes. Phil had this paranoid theory that unscrupulous tabloid journalists had realised we drank in the Bough, that they thought we were worth exposing in some way and were likely to send somebody here to coax me into saying something I might regret, thinking I was talking off the record to a civilian when