Political noir

In Competition No. 3088 you were invited to submit a short story in the style of hard-boiled crime fiction set in the corridors of power. Raymond Chandler cast a long shadow over an entry bristling with stinging one-liners, dames, black humour and grandstanding similes laid on with a trowel. The mean streets of Westminster were the most popular setting, though there were glimpses of Brussels and the Oval Office too. Commiserations to unlucky losers Bill Greenwell, D.A. Prince and Alan Millard. High fives to the winners, printed below, who trouser £25 each.
 

Down these dull corridors a man must go who is not himself dull. Besides, I was expected in Committee Room 4 where the usual suspects were taking evidence on the Universal Credit income taper, a topic dryer than August in a Death Valley temperance house. As I entered, they were comparing and disputing figures like contestants backstage at a beauty pageant.