Nicholas Royle - Regicide

‘Are you all right?’ The woman was frightened she’d done terrible damage. At this stage I still didn’t know. I was just lying there sort of enjoying the attention and the luxury of being able to lie flat in the middle of the road. ‘Please say something,’ the woman implored.

‘OK,’ I said, deciding it was time to see what the score was, and I started to feel my way back into my body. It was all there, as far as I could tell, and in one piece.

No dogs yet, but stay with it. I’ll come to the dogs.

Soon I was getting to my feet and the woman was helping to dust me down. I probably ended up cleaner than before. She went and looked at my bike before I did. She was gone a while, around the other side of the car. Meanwhile everyone was just driving past, slowing down to look for blood on the road. When she came back I was lighting a cigarette. I was shaking like fuck but had been remarkably lucky to have sustained only grazed ankles and an extremely sore back and shoulders.

‘The news is not good,’ she said, wearing a very worried expression. ‘I’m very sorry. It was my fault and I’ll pay.’

‘Don’t worry.’ I tried to reassure her. ‘No bones broken, I don’t think, and I’m not leaking smoke anywhere.’

She laughed nervously and we both went to take a look at my bike. She had been understating it really. The bike was completely fucked.

‘I’ve no idea what bikes cost,’ the woman said, producing a chequebook and pen. ‘If this isn’t enough I’ll write my name and address on the back, just let me know what else I owe you.’

I was a bit dazed at this point and didn’t look at the amount. The poor woman was muttering away to herself about having to go. I dragged my bike onto the garage forecourt she’d been trying to get to and then she was in her car burning rubber. I sat down on the little fence at the front of the garage, lit a cigarette and looked at the cheque for the first time. Two hundred pounds. To me that was a fortune and would have bought eight bikes the equal of mine. I suddenly felt quite lightheaded and started daydreaming about spending all that cash. I was brought back down to earth by the Thin Controller’s nasal voice crackling over the radio.

‘Alpha Two Three… Alpha Two Three. Where are you, Two Three?’

‘I had an accident, control.’

‘What about the job, Two Three?’

What a cunt. No How are you? Are you hurt? Was it serious? None of that. For all he knew I could be in casualty with only my voice still functional and the nurses were only waiting for him to call before unplugging the machines.

‘I’ve got to do something about the bike, try and get it fixed up,’ I said, surveying the wreckage in front of me.

‘Will you be able to do it?’

‘Probably. The wheels aren’t too good. A couple of new wheels and a bit of work and it should be OK.’

‘The job, Two Three.’ His voice had risen an octave. I could almost smell his dog and his disgusting roll-up cigarettes. ‘Will you be able to do the job?’

As I say, what a cunt.

I wanted to tell him to roll the job up tight and stick it up his arse and I’d help if he was having difficulty.

‘The job will get done but it may take a while to fix the bike,’ I said through clenched teeth.

‘Call me when you’ve done the job, Two Three.’

I lit another cigarette and kicked my bike. Then I remembered the cheque and smiled. Two hundred quid. I hoped there’d come a day when I’d demand a good deal more to cheat death and be completely humiliated in the space of ten minutes, but the state of my finances at that time meant it was a pretty good deal.

I left the pile of scrap where it was and walked the remaining mile and a half to the job address. I often asked myself later why I bothered to complete the job, given that I’d decided after picking myself up off the road — even before seeing the state of my bike — that I would ride no more jobs for the Thin Controller.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t like to leave loose ends. I find it hard to walk out of bad films and I never leave a football match until the final whistle even if my team are three goals down and leaving five minutes before time would get me home an hour earlier. I like to see things resolved. It sort of all ties in with my love of maps and my search, years later, for the city on my map.

It was painful to walk for the first quarter of a mile but then I seemed to loosen up and I knew how best to place my feet to minimise the jarring effect.

I headed vaguely south. I had my A — Z in the big fluorescent bag along with the radio and the job itself. Sometimes I wondered what was in the envelopes and packages I delivered. I liked the mystery and the sense of bringing people together, becoming a conduit for their communications. This job was a stiff-backed envelope, A4 size, bearing an address label and the words, handwritten in ballpoint, ‘By hand’. Despite my natural curiosity I had never been tempted to open any of the jobs.

The sun had sunk behind the old warehouses on the other side of the street. I wondered what I might do next. The idea of telling the Thin Controller I was no longer going to work for him frightened me a little. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I could have just called him up and told him, but I had to return the bag and the radio, and I had to get paid for my last week.

Eventually I reached the street, without the aid of the map, and crossed over to the odd numbers, looking for number 23. At first there didn’t seem to be one; it was a short street and the numbers only went up to 15. Then I noticed an alley down by the side of number 15. I turned down it and the alley opened out into a narrow road with old derelict properties on either side. They seemed to have been workshops and light manufacturing units. There were also occasional doorways that could have led to flats. Most of the jobs I did were delivering to businesses but very occasionally I’d get one to a residential address. There were no numbers on the doors and the street had not been given a name unless it was a continuation of the first street. Down near the bottom on the left hand side was an archway with the number 23 hand-painted on the wall at waist height. I passed under the archway into a courtyard scattered with household rubbish and black binliners ready to burst. All I wanted was a door with a letter box. I wasn’t sure I would bother waiting for a signature this time. I was feeling nervous, though I couldn’t account for it.

I heard a high-pitched keening noise like a circular saw coming from somewhere inside the building that abutted the courtyard on two sides. I saw a doorway but there was no door to speak of and certainly no letter box. A few bits of wood hanging on a rusty hinge wasn’t enough for me. A job worth doing and all that. I stepped inside and immediately felt the temperature drop. The walls wept foul-smelling moisture. Boards creaked under my feet and I heard noise coming from somewhere ahead of me, the same high-pitched sound again and the murmur of men talking in loud voices behind closed doors. I should have left the job on the floor and retraced my steps but something drew me on. I wanted to know what was going on. I stepped forward, taking care over the placing of my big feet. The building smelt of grease and sewage. I opened a door at the far side of the room and found a corridor that stretched ahead twenty yards. It was very cold and water dripped from pipes that ran along the ceiling, forming puddles on the sunken concrete floor. I felt completely alone, as if no one could see me, no one knew where I was, not even the Thin Controller, who’d sent me there. It was something to do with the cold of the place and the sense of utter neglect. I could still hear the men’s voices but something gave me the idea they’d reached wherever they were by some different entrance. I hurried to the end of the corridor and turned left into a disused office. Old telephones sat like fat spiders on desks thick with dust and fur. Cobwebs darkened every corner and I heard something scuttling behind the rusty filing cabinet. There was a louder noise though, coming from the far side of the room, which made the hair rise on the back of my neck. I reached a door and peered through the dirty circle of glass fitted at its centre. Beyond was a sort of galleried section with a wooden rail only fragments of which were still supported by splintered uprights. About eight feet below, at least a dozen men stood around a circular pit in which two dogs were fighting, yelping and snapping at each other as the spectators goaded them on.