The Times understands that the terror group has both a ‘Direct Action’ and ‘Indirect Action’ list. The Direct Action list is believed to include left-wing female MPs such as Amy Wittstock and Judith Marantz, whose constituency offices have both been sent explosive devices within the last 12 months. The pipe bombs were deactivated by specialist officers, without casualties. Those who are known to be on The Halvening’s Direct Action list have been alerted to the fact and provided with increased security at both their homes and offices.
Stabbing of Animators
The terror group claims that its Indirect Action programme has been responsible for three fatalities, one attempted suicide and one serious injury. These include Maya Satterthwaite, who took a fatal overdose in April 2012, Gigi Cazenove, who was found hanged on New Year’s Eve 2014, and Edie Ledwell, who was fatally stabbed in Highgate Cemetery last month. Ledwell’s co-creator of the cult animation The Ink Black Heart, Joshua Blay, was also attacked and remains in hospital. Comic book writer Fayola Johnson survived a suicide—
Strike’s mobile rang. He tugged it out of his pocket. It was Madeline.
‘Hi,’ she said, sounding extremely tense. ‘Can you talk?’
‘Yeah, I’m on a break,’ said Strike. ‘What’s up?’
‘Have you seen The Times? Gigi Cazenove – I—’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve just been reading that. It’s—’
‘Fucking alt-right group of trolls made her kill herself!’ said Madeline, who was clearly on the verge of tears. ‘I just – I mean, I can’t get my head around it – she was twenty-three, what fucking threat was she to a bunch of fascists?’
‘Don’t think you’re going to find any reasonable answer to that,’ said Strike. ‘But it’s horrible, I agree.’
‘I’m not pretending she was my best friend,’ said Madeline, ‘but she was a really sweet girl. She was always popping into the shop for a chat and… sorry… I can’t… I mean, her crime was talking about fucking climate change…’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I know. It’s—’
‘Fuck, I’m going to have to go, I’ve got another bloody lawyers’ meeting. Talk later?’
‘Yeah. I’ll call you.’
Madeline rang off. Strike put his phone back in his pocket, picked up the paper again, and read on.
Comic book writer Fayola Johnson has also been targeted by the group, but survived a suicide attempt in October 2013.
Prior to their deaths, all three women were subject to ‘trolling’ campaigns over social media that appear to have been planned and coordinated by The Halvening, with the aim of forcing their targets out of public life, or into taking their own lives.
‘What we’re seeing here are sophisticated campaigns of misinformation and harassment which aim in part to turn progressives against their own,’ said The Times’ source. ‘While we’ve previously seen “trolling” of liberals originating in spaces like 4chan, the terror group is using social media in a more organised and sophisticated way to incite harassment and campaigns of intimidation.’
Singer Gigi Cazenove was subjected to sustained abuse on social media after emails in which she had allegedly used racist language to describe a former backing singer were leaked online. The emails were subsequently found to have been faked. Maya Satterthwaite was revealed to have ‘misgendered’ a prominent trans woman in private text messages which were also leaked online, while Edie Ledwell was subject to a prolonged hate campaign for multiple alleged transgressions, particularly against the disabled, and survived a suicide attempt in 2014 before being fatally stabbed in February.
Hate Symbols
The terror group’s name is taken from a term used in cryptocurrency, where a ‘halvening’ refers to the deliberate halving of the amount of bitcoin that can be ‘mined’.
‘The Halvening’s stated aim is to reduce the number of so-called “social justice warriors” in public life and to diminish the value of holding progressive views,’ said The Times’ source.
The term ‘social justice warrior’ is used pejoratively by right-wingers to describe those who advocate and disseminate socially progressive agendas, although it is used as a badge of pride by many on the left.
While The Halvening—
Strike’s mobile rang for a second time. Wresting it out of his pocket he saw Lucy’s number. He hesitated before answering, but decided it was better to get the conversation out of the way now, while he was free to talk, rather than postpone it and pay an additional surcharge of resentment.
‘Stick?’
‘Hey, Luce. What’s up?’
‘I’ve just been talking to Ted. He sounds really low…’
Ted was Strike’s recently widowed uncle, a man he’d always considered his surrogate father.
‘… so I’ve asked him up to stay with us on the weekend of the seventeenth of April,’ said Lucy. ‘Could you come over and join us?’
‘Er – I haven’t got the work rota in front of me,’ said Strike, truthfully, ‘but I’ll—’
‘Stick, I’m giving you plenty of notice, it’s a month away!’
‘But I’ll try,’ Strike finished.
‘OK, well, I’ll send you a text reminder,’ said Lucy. ‘He really does want to see you, Corm. You haven’t been down to Cornwall since Christmas…’
Five minutes of intensive guilt-tripping later, Lucy hung up. The scowling Strike put his mobile back in his pocket, shook The Times free of creases again, then continued reading.
While The Halvening’s name is taken from the world of cryptocurrency, it also uses familiar far-right language and iconography. Members use pseudonyms taken from Norse runes, followed by the number 88. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the number 88 is a hate symbol representing the eighth letter of the alphabet repeated twice, and stands for ‘Heil Hitler’.
Growing Threat
According to MI5, the fastest-growing terror threat in the UK comes from the far right.
‘Historically, the threat from neo-Nazism and the alt-right has come from individual “haters”, which makes them difficult to track. Far right terror groups have tended to be short-lived.
‘The Halvening, by contrast, seems to be unusually well-organised and disciplined. They offer a unifying ideology, with both political and religious elements. Movements offering a coherent philosophy or belief system tend to be more cohesive and successful at instilling loyalty and in recruiting continued page 4
Strike was just turning to page four when his mobile rang for the third time.
‘Fuck’s sake.’
He tugged the phone out of his pocket yet again. The call had been forwarded from the office.
‘Cormoran Strike.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said an unknown voice, ‘hello. My name’s Allan Yeoman. I’m Edie Ledwell’s agent – or rather’ – he cleared his throat – ‘I was.’
16
We must arise and go:
The world is cold without
And dark and hedged about
With mystery and enmity and doubt,
But we must go…
At the precise moment Strike took the call from Allan Yeoman, Robin was eight miles away in Walthamstow, feigning interest in a stained-glass panel showing a naked Adam naming the animals. He sat round-shouldered on a grassy tussock, pointing at a tiger, while a bearded angel beside him recorded the chosen name in a book. Two tropical birds seemed to be poking out of the top of the angel’s halo. Adam’s expression was vacant, even clueless.