Nicholas Royle - Regicide

My breath was coming quite fast and I realised I was burning red. Guiltily I looked around to see if by chance my mother had come in and was standing watching. But I was alone.

I picked up the hamster and lifted it out of the cage. It lay in my hand without moving. Normally you would feel its tension as it prepared to jump out of your hands or you would just feel its small, warm pulse beating in your palm. Instead it was just there. I rolled it from one hand to the other to see if I could wake it up. I realised I was grinning nervously and immediately wiped the expression off my face in case someone came in. Turning Cassidy over I looked closely at his face. It looked no different. His eyelids were closed as if he were asleep. I threw his little body up in the air several times and caught it then I put it back in the cage in the same position I had found it.

It was my first experience not only of death, but of the death of something I cared about. And for a while my reaction to it worried me. Why had I thrown it up in the air like a toy? Why had I preferred to leave it for someone else to discover?

In that dark upstairs room I drifted in and out of sleep, half-dreaming about my mother and the pleasure she used to get from weeding and gardening before it became an obsession and her only comfort. As she knelt at the edge of the lawn and rooted through the catmint and rhododendrons for stray grass seedlings and twists of bindweed I would watch from my bedroom window, pictures of footballers and pop stars decorating the wall behind me, and listen to the dogs barking in next door’s garden. Except that the neighbours didn’t have a dog.

I suddenly came wide awake and pricked my ears.

Dogs.

I heard them quite clearly and it wasn’t just a matter of a couple of strays picking over rubble. These were the real thing. I jumped up and ran quietly to the window. The street was empty and light had begun to creep into the sky. I could hear the dogs around the back of the house, maybe not in the garden or yard of the house itself, but pretty fucking close. Too close for my liking. My blind trust in Giff was beginning to look a bit previous. I heard more low growling and scurrying of feet and needed no further encouragement. I crossed the tiny landing and stepped into the back bedroom. Its boards, too, were bare and I had to walk lightly to avoid making a noise. I crept to the window and hugged the wall next to it as I looked outside. My heart raced. Half a dozen strong black dogs came running up the back entry. They stopped outside the gate that led to the little yard directly below my window. With saliva spraying from their snapping jaws they jumped at the gate and thumped it with their thick skulls. They looked like the dog I’d seen from the train. It wouldn’t take a pack of pit bulls very long to break down a simple wooden gate.

Another figure appeared. This was a heavily built man walking with a stoop. I couldn’t make out his features in the darkness. He strode purposefully through the dogs — which parted without a whimper — and rattled the gate.

I was down the stairs in two seconds flat, careless of the racket my boots were making, and at the front door with my hand on the latch as the gate to the back yard gave way. I heard the dogs growl like a single organism as they leapt across the yard and straight into the back door of the house. It splintered on impact. Fuck it, I thought, and yanked open the front door.

The street was deserted.

As I ran I heard the dogs break into the back of the house behind me and I ran faster, wishing I’d thought to shut the front door behind me — every second was vital and there was no point me making it easier for them.

I ran as fast as I could, my boots clumping and jacket buckles jangling. I was hardly inconspicuous. The identical streets closed around me as if they were folding me in. I saw no sign of human activity but I sensed the dogs couldn’t be far behind. I dived down a back entry and almost slipped on the cobbles and long wet grass. Turning right at the end I ran along the entry, the darkened backs of houses and their yards lining both sides of the path. At the end I emerged into a street lit by a meagre handful of dirty orange lights. I heard the car too late. It screeched around the corner and caught me in its full beam. I leapt back into the entry but a man jumped out of the passenger door and seized me before I’d got ten yards. Exceptionally strong, he hauled me back to the car and pushed me in through the rear door. We sped off and I picked myself up off the floor, recognising the black beanie of Giff bobbing above the back of the driver’s seat. There was another man in the car, in the front passenger seat, and he turned to look at me. He was unshaven and had staring bright blue werewolf eyes, but his gaze was neither hostile not self-congratulatory. Only later would I realise what it was.

‘That safe house wasn’t safe,’ Giff said.

‘No shit.’

‘It was safe a week ago. They’re tightening up.’

I just sat there and waited, resigned, wondering who ‘they’ were and whose side Giff and Wolf were really on.

We pulled up outside a large heavy tenement block with external spidery fire escapes and very few windows that were still intact.

‘Take him in,’ Giff said to Wolf. ‘I’ll park round the back. And,’ he placed his left hand on the other man’s forearm, ‘be gentle. We’re supposed to be looking after him.’

I wished someone would address me instead of just speaking about me but Wolf was already tugging at my arm.

‘OK, OK,’ I said. ‘I can manage.’ I got out of the car and allowed the staring man to lead me into the tenement building. He glanced about nervously. I shivered as I smelt animals.

‘What is it?’

It was the first time I’d heard him speak and it was a shock. He spoke with a quiet, educated voice which belied the wild look in his eyes.

‘Animals,’ I said. ‘There are animals here.’

‘Only rats,’ he said. ‘No dogs. No problem. Let’s go.’

As we made our way up the creaking wooden stairs I heard Giff enter the building from the back and run to catch up with us.

‘Don’t,’ snapped Wolf as I gripped the banister rail. I let go and he demonstrated by kicking out one of the spindles. The rotten length of wood turned somersaults in the air as it fell down the stairwell and clattered among the rubbish piled up in the foyer. Giff had caught up with us.

‘Trying to bring the house down, are you?’ he snarled at Wolf, who looked wounded. ‘Let’s get him inside quickly.’ He meant me.

Wolf kicked open a door and there was a desperate flurry of activity inside. As we stepped into the room a man pointed a gun in our direction.

‘Put it away, Professor,’ Giff growled.

‘You should have warned me. There were clearly three of you and I was expecting two.’ The Professor was a tall, thin man with small rimless glasses that flashed as his head moved. As we went further inside I noticed the Professor staring at me like Wolf had done. He didn’t let up until I had sat down on a battered old sofa covered with an off-white sheet. The Professor turned to Giff and said, ‘Is this really him?’

Giff just grunted and the Professor lost his shyness, looking directly at me and asking, ‘Is it really you? Was it you?’

I shrugged. This game was beginning to annoy me. I was tired and disorientated. Whoever I was supposed to be I was not sure I wanted the attention.

‘I’m tired,’ I said. ‘I need rest.’

The Professor nodded and Wolf looked at Giff, who wiped a hand over his head to remove his black woollen beanie. I kicked off my boots and swung my legs up on the sofa. No longer bothered about what I should and shouldn’t do, I really did need some sleep.