Free We Are the Hanged Man by Douglas Lindsay

survivor's name was Jacobson, and when the boss wasn't around he assumed the mantle of alpha male, talking louder than anyone else, shooting people down, putting people in their place. And wherever that place was, it was below him.
    He was talking at Jericho, just so that Jericho knew who was in charge, who was dishing out the instructions, who was telling other people what to do.
    'So, you'll have a crib sheet. You don't need to worry about that, and the audience won't see it. Not the TV audience. They're just going to assume that you know everything that's been going on with these people.'
    He stopped, his first break in over five minutes. Jericho looked disinterested, which had made Jacobson slightly uncomfortable with the consequence of making him talk even more quickly.
    'You do know the kinds of things we're talking about with the contestants?' he asked and finally paused for Jericho to say something.
    Despite appearances, Jericho had heard every word. He had to sit with the panel, although, like the rest of the panel he would not have a vote in the final decision. Most of the six contestants had had allegations made against them in the press, many of which involved accusations of criminal behaviour. Jacobson said behaviours , as if it was an acceptable noun to pluralise. It would be Jericho's task to question them on these behaviours, and to try to root out a confession, with the likelihood that outright confessions of misdemeanours would lead to the contestant in question being ejected. Not that they knew this in advance, but it had been in the small print right from the start.
    Jacobson searched Jericho's face for an answer, but not for long. He knew it wasn't coming.
    'And we'll be looking for you to be quite aggressive in pursuit of the information. Quick punches, boom, boom, boom. Don't let them away with anything. They won't like it and most of them will fight back, but that's the kind of thing we're talking about. It'll be great TV. Edge of the seat. Some of the viewers will be on your side, some on theirs. Feisty, fiery talk, quick-witted, sharp. If you can be acerbic for us, but, you know, genuinely funny, that'd be fantastic.'
    Jericho was unmoving. Hattie Morris allowed herself a heavy and hopeless sigh. Light felt embarrassed by Jericho's silence. She was annoyed at him today. How hard could it be for him to play along with these people? They were just delivering a service to the British people, which didn't make them so different from the police.
    'Cher, for example,' said Jacobson, 'the papers have been full of stories about her prodigious drug intake. And not just the mild shit like, you know, shit, but crack coke and ice, all that kind of body-fucking heavy shit. No idea where they're getting their stories, so it's not like we can charge in there and bust her, but obviously we need to know at this stage whether any of it's true.'
    'You'd know about shit,' said Jericho dryly, catching him by surprise and cutting him off, 'because you're full of it. The press will be getting all their stories from you, because you lot are the ones with the vested interest.'
    Morris stared at the floor; Jacobson laughed awkwardly.
    Light tried to contain a smile, found herself drifting back towards Jericho's side.
    'Bingo!' said Jacobson. 'That's what we're talking about. That punchy, acerbic, tough TV cop typa thing. Rebus meets Morse, Barnaby meets Wallander.'
    'Oh, for crying out loud,' muttered Jericho, regretting that he'd made the effort to engage in conversation.
    'What would be perfect,' continued Jacobson, unabashed, 'what we're really looking for, let's imagine that at the end of this, someone made a movie of the whole damned crazy thing, you'd be played by Bruce Willis.'
    Light leaned forward and covered her face with her hand. Aware of the movement, Jericho glanced round at her, and the closest thing to a smile that day came to his face.
    'Or Tom Cruise.'
    The smile quickly left as he looked back at Jacobson.