Charlie Williams's Blog, page 13

BEA Interview

Interview with me conducted by Helen Smith. I reply in my usual slack-jawed way to her incisive questions about BookExpo and the USA in general. Helen is the author of Alison Wonderland and Three Sisters, amongst others.

"Blakey on Tour - Part 14"

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

'So yis think ah'm this Highlander just because ah come from Scotland? Is that it?'

I slammed the van door and handed Jock one of the two stakes I had. I weren't expecting to use em but you had to protect yourself out here in Hurk Wood. Especially when barmy kebab men is burning human carcasses on bonfires. 'Woss you being Scottish got to do with shite?'

'Well, to start with there's the wee matter of Highlanders being from Scotland.'

'Jock...' I says, looking at him with the patience of a dad telling his son that Father Christmas ain't real, and that the lad's a fucking twat if he thinks different. I had to find the right words here cos I didn't want Jock believing himself to be a twat, like that lad. There can be only one Highlander, and he must not think he is a twat. 'Jock, I hate to break it to you, mate, but Highlanders ain't from Scotland.'

'What are yis oan about, Royston? If Highlanders are no from Scotland, where do yis think they're from?'

I looked at me watch: ten PM. Didn't seem five minutes ago I were rolling out of me pit that afternoon and deciding to go on me hols finally. I'd also made a couple of other big decisions about the way I were living my life, which I'll tell you about later. The point were that I'd started the day off so well and now look at us – out in the sticks, wearing the filthiest trousers in history and teaching a Scottish nutter about geography. 'Jock,' I says, 'the clue is in the title, mate. I mean, "Highlander" – think about it.'

I could see the cogs turning but fuck all happening.

With some folks, you just have to spell things out for em.

'Highlanders is from Highland, for fuck sake,' I says. 'I thought you of all people would of knowed that, being one yerself. And by the fuckin' way – there's no such thing as "Highlanders". There can be only one of em.'

'Highland? Royston, there's nae such place as "Highland". There's the High—'

'Jock, look, it's a lot for yers to take in, I know. But you just gotta trust us here - Highland exists.'

'Aye? And where do yis think this "Highland" is?'

'It's... I think it's near, erm...'

'And wherever you think it is, I'm no from there, Royston. I'm from Kilmarnock. So how can I be one o' these High—?'

'For fuck sake, Jock, it ain't about wheres and whys, it's about whats, right? And what you is, right, is an 'Ighlander. Now shut yer fuckin' face and get shifting.'

I did feel a bit bad for the way I'd handled things there. This were all new for Jock, and I ought to be more gentle with him. Mind you, it were new for me as well. But I couldn't let Jock know that. I had to be like Sean Connery in the film, all deep and philosophical and wearing a stupid fucking hat.

'Can I just ask yis one more question?' he says.

'Aye but it better be a good un. They been shite so far.'

We was yomping now, following a track that took you into the woods and ran alongside a gulley so deep you couldn't see the bottom of it. Once or twice I'd kicked a stone in that direction and harked it go over the edge, but never hit the bottom. I didn't like this end of Hurk Wood cos it were a lot denser and not many used it, so the branches and brambles and shite grew right into the path and snagged your togs as you went past. I had a torch though so I were alright.

'Aaagh,' yells Jock behind us. 'Fuck sake, what wis that?'

'Is that the best question you can come up with? I gotta say, Jock, I were expecting summat more—'

'I've caught mah arm in some briars here. Can yis no help?'

I rolled me eyes, booted a tree trunk and shouted a few choice words, but I did manage to hide my impatience. It were important, like I telled you. 'Jock, I'm on a fuckin' mission here. Can't you see? Do you truly reckon I got time to fuck around with you and your fuckin' brambles?'

'I can no see anythin', Royston. Is theer any chance I could hold that wee torch?'

'I'm in front, I gets to hold it.'

'Well can I no go in front?'

'No you can't.'

'Why? Ah'm no good in the dark, Royston, and—'

I tuned out his whinging for a minute while some interesting thoughts popped into me swede and sat down in the little waiting area I got up there. As a deep thinker I gets a lot of things occurring to us, and when you gets more than one at a time they starts shouting and having a pop at each other and trying to get in first. I couldn't have that, especially with me being a head doorman, which is where the waiting area came in. Mine were a top one, with nice brown sofas and a telly on the wall showing Rocky films, porn vids or Coronation Street, depending on who were in at the minute. Best of all I had a secretary keeping it all calm and flirting with the blokes within reason. If I had to describe her to you I'd say she were exactly like Rache, but with a short skirt, stilettos and a tight blouse that showed off her tits. Actually there were no flirting with the blokes. They tried it on with her alright, but she always put em in their place with a polite smile and a firm shake of the swede. She knowed who her boss were, our Rache did.

Anyhow, the main thought that had turned up just now were about Highlander, as in the film, namely the bit about halfway in where he's in the boat with Sean Connery, who is like his teacher of all matters Highlandish. Connery starts rocking the boat and Highlander's moaning about it, saying he's gonna fall in and he can't swim, so fucking pack it in, Connery. But Connery ain't having it, and rocks even more. He rocks so hard that Highlander falls in. Not being a swimmer, he splashes around and starts screaming like a fucking girl.

And Connery ain't having none of that, neither. 'Stop being a fuckin' ponce,' he shouts. I dunno if it's exactly them words but it's near enough. 'Highlanders can't die, you fuckin' twat, so you ain't gonna drown. Go on and sink to the bottom of this here lake and have a gander down there, then walk along and I'll meet you over there on the shore. Bring a couple o' fish, eh. And some chips.'

The thought I had in me swede, who had just come in from the waiting area and parked across the desk from us, were about me having the same situation here with Jock. He thought he couldn't see, and that he were getting fucked around by the wood with all its thorns and darkness and shite. But he could see. Actually I dunno, cos he did have them fat glasses on so his eyes were shite anyhow, but the point weren't about that – it were about Highlanders being indestructible. But they don't know it yet, and you have to force them to find out.

I got Jock by the arm, whispering soothing wossnames into his ear, led him up to a gap in the undergrowth and shoved him into the gulley.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

RB is back

DEADFOLK is re-launched today in paperback and Kindle formats in the UK, US and Canada. If you've seen me mention some aggressive, potty-mouthed guy called Blakey on this blog and you wondered what he was about, here is your chance to find out. The other books in the series will ensue throughout the summer, but here is where it starts... with a doorman, a crap town and a rumour that he has lost his bottle. You can check some reviews of the first edition, but here is a snippet that points to this small-town, slang-laced tale having a slightly wider appeal... maybe:

Royston Blake, Head Doorman at Hopper's Wine Bar & Bistro, somewhere in England's West Country, wouldn't know a bright idea "if it did a shite in my pocket." Which is exactly why I like him, and why this comic noir from cult favorite Williams makes such perfect sense in a world where the shite is everywhere but in your pocket.
Bill Ott - Booklist

"Blakey on Tour - Part 13"

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

'But why the fuck wid yis dae that?'

I couldn't get Jock concentrating on the matter in hand, which were about him being the Highlander. All he seemed to give a shite about were his swede damage, which amounted to a minor scratch if you asks me. Alright, so the blood weren't stopping and a flap of skin and meat about an inch wide were hanging off, but he'd fucking survive, wouldn't he? And it weren't like I'd bust his skull nor nothing. I knowed I hadn't cos I could see a bit of it, glistening white and pinkish there behind the flap and not even a scratch on the fucker.

'I told you, Highlander, it were a fuckin' accident,' I says, pulling into the road. Jock's van handled quite well, actually. 'Every cunt has accidents from time to time, fuck sake. Not that I'm a cunt, mind. But I does have the odd accident, just like cunts.'

'I'm no on about mah heed, Royston. It's mah fuckin' troosers. Why are yis weering mah fuckin' troosers?'

I looked down at em and frowned. I gotta tell you, I weren't happy about it – they stank, had dried bits of fuck knows what all over em and the front were stiff as cardboard, liked he'd spunked in em and it had dried up, the dirty cunt. They was just about the worst strides I'd ever wore (except for some orange flares I used to have as a youngun), but Nathan had refused to serve us when I'd gone in with me nuts hanging out. It's them fucking new rules again.

'I thought you was dead,' I says, slipping into second up the Wall Road. I wanted to see if my hearse were still there. 'Dead uns don't need strides.'

'Well I'm no deed, ahm I?'

'Aye but you was.'

'Well ahm no.'

'Aye but... shite.'

I pulled up, encountering the back-markers of a jam. It were the same one from earlier, stretching not so far back now with maybe forty motors in it. Then it started moving. I looked up ahead and saw they had a roadblock set up and they was diverting vehicles into Carl Street. Beyond the roadblock you could see the high tail-end of my hearse, coppers crawling all over it and blue flashing lights hither and thither. Mostly thither. But I ain't mentioned the worst bit yet.

'What the... Royston, what are yis doin'?'

'They'm stoppin' everyone,' I says. 'I can't get involved.'

'But... for fuck's sake, Royston, ye cannae traverse the central reservation like that. The suspension cannae take it.'

'I knows what I'm doin', Jock. I drove a 2.8i Capri for years. Gold, she were, with a black vinyl roof. Fucking classic.'

'What the fuck's that got to dae wi' it?'

'Look, Jock, just fuckin' shut yer face a trust us, right?'

'I dinnae see why we cannae go through. The polis will no connect us with that hearse, if that's yer worry. Ah'll dae the talkin'.'

He were almost right about that suspension, as it turned out. I could hear it making awful noises as I rocked to and fro, trying to get some momentum to mount the kerb, which were fucking high. And when I finally achieved that I could hear it scraping fuck out of the undercarriage, which set me bollocks aquiver summat chronic. I mean, what if I got stuck here? The coppers'd stroll down at their leisure and have a good old gander, finding Highlander, a bunch of wooden stakes and summat else incriminating (although I couldn't recall what just then). But it were alright cos I got over in the end and scooted off down the other side, ignoring the blares of horns behind us as I glanced in the rear-view and clocked the belly plate falling off. 'You got shite clearance on this thing,' I says.

I got no answer from Jock, and when I looked over he were in a bit of a daze, stretching himself flat on the bench there. It were like as not for the best, I thought, swinging into Strake Hill and sparking a fag. I hadn't seen the film Highlander in a while, but I think they have to regenerate themselves when they gets injured, like Doctor Who. Give it five minutes and his forehead would be good as branny. I drove and smoked and thought about that, not knowing where I were going just then but confident that I were doing alright, that things was as good as they could be at the min. Maybe I'd head up to Hurk Wood and bathe him in a stream or summat. Then again, the water in them streams up there is all brown and full up of poisons and shite from dead sheep, so I hears.

Every now and then I'd glance over at Jock and see how his regeneration were coming along. It were going alright, actually, and you could see he were about halfway to sorted after three or four minutes. I tried staring for upwards of ten seconds at a time, seeing if I could catch the actual regeneration in progress, like one of them nature programs where they films a sheep rotting for a couple of weeks and then speeds it up. I could have fucking swore I seen the flap start to shift back into place, but I clipped a Mini coming the other way and had to swerve a bit, dislodging Jock from his regeneration bed. I also dislodged summat in me swede. It were the thing I'd not been able to recall just now.

The incriminating summat.

'Jock,' I says, pulling over. He were still fucking around on the floor, trying to get on his paws and knees. Looked a bit like an upturned tortoise and I wanted to have a laugh about that, but I wanted to take care of business more. 'Jock,' I yells, taking care of business.

'What, for fuck... wid yis give us a hand, here?'

'Where's the fuckin' corpse?'

'Corpse? What corpse?'

'You knows what corpse.' We was on the Barkettle Road, up by Beaver Lane. Weren't a good place to stop, this. Especially with the clipped Mini upside-down in someone's front lawn back the way a bit. No one were coming out of house nor motor yet though so we was alright. 'The fuckin' vampire corpse who were laid out right there. Where the fuckin' shite is he?'

'Oh, him? He turned tae dust, Royston, just like a told yis he would.'

'Like fuck did he – spill the fuckin' beans, Jock. I ain't having corpses going AWOL no more. I had that before and it's a fuckin' pain.'

'I swear to yis – the fuckin' thing turned tae—'

'Jock.'

'Alreet, alreet... a wee man came in and took him, when you wis in the pub.'

'A wee man? What fuckin' wee man?'

'He wis wearing a mask, Royston, but I believe it wis the fella who does the kebabs.'

'Alvin? You let Alvin take our fuckin' vampire corpse?'

'It wis the best thing, honest it wis. See, if the eradicated vampire disnae turn into dust for some unknown reason, there's only one sure-fire way to dispose of it. And do yis ken what? Alvin happened to be proposing that anyway. So I let him.'

Lights was switching on all over now and folks coming out, aiming to have a gawp at the poor fucker in the Mini, like as not. People can be bloodthirsty cunts at times, I fucking swear. Mind you, ambulance and coppers'd be there in a minute and I'd only get under their feet, so I pulled away and carried on northwards.

'You don't even have to say it,' I says, I couldn't bear to so much as look at Jock now. He were fucking mental, weren't he? How the fuck had I got meself tangled up with a mental Scottish bloke? I swear, the only thing stopping me from punting him out on the roadside were cos he were the Highlander, and there can only be one of em, annoying cunts though they can be. 'You don't have to say it cos I can guess it. I can read you like a fuckin' newspaper, Jock. Some random twat walks in and suggests doing summat or other with the dead un, and you goes along with it. You lets him get on with it cos it fits in with your fuckin' bollocks fantasy about vampires and shite.'

'I swear, Royston, that wis no what hap—'

'Alvin's gonna butcher him, ain't he?' I says, slotting her into fourth and crunching it a bit. She only had four gears and I weren't used to that. 'Alvin's gonna turn our fuckin' corpse into kebabs, ain't he?'

I could feel Jock looking at us like I were the mental one instead of him.

Just relax, Blakey. Calm down and try not to kick his fucking teeth in.

There can be only one.

Actually he did have only one tooth, I think.

'Kebabs? No... for fuck sake, Royston, that's barbaric. And it might carry a risk of infecting the entire populace via his kebabs.'

'Eh? But...'

'No, he only wants tae burn it.'

'Alvin wants to burn our corpse?'

'Aye. Said he'd dae it aroond here, actually, up in Hurk Wood. In fact, what's that through them trees there? Is that a fire?'


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

"Blakey on Tour - Part 12"

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

'I'll grant you a tab but there's an upper limit of five pound, which you've now reached. You wants further service from this here bar, you pays cash.'

I'd been in the Paul Pry a while now, maybe ten minutes. Once upon a time I'd have told you all about going in that place and breaking the ice with Nathan the barman and what other punters is in there and all that other shite, but I can't be arsed. Nathan ain't worth the breath, in my opinion. And neither is the Paul Pry, which were getting to be a dump lately. For starters, it smelt of earth. And I don't mean earth as in the planet, I mean the stuff you gets in the ground when you digs it. Far as knowed, the planet just smelt of manure, and this weren't that. Then there was the new rules.

'I've reached me limit?' I says, necking half of the pint he'd just put afore us. 'This is only me fuckin' second. How can I reach a five fuckin' quid limit after two fuckin' pints?'

'Mind yer language,' says Nathan, 'ladies being—'

'Fuck my fuckin' language – I'm talkin' about human fuckin' rights here. How much is a pint? And I don't see no ladies, by the fucking way.'

'Don't mean they ain't present. One pint o' lager comes to two pound.'

'Two fuckin'...? For fuck sake, Nathe, no wonder you got no ladies in here. No wonder you got no decent punters at all down here.'

I looked around at what punters there was. You had old Mr Fillery, Gromer (the miserable cunt from the offy down Cutler Road), Margaret Hurge (who were looking a bit like a bloke these days and easily mistaken to be one, I thought) and some cunt I didn't recognise, although he didn't look no more decent than the ones I already mentioned. I didn't see Alvin nowhere. He'd be in the bogs, like as not, hiding from us. I'd go for a piss in a minute and give him the slap he had coming.

'You're free to go elsewhere,' says Nathan. 'Far as I knows, we're still the most reasonable place in town fer lager. And we're second on peanuts, after the Volley.'

I weren't harking him now. I were doing some sums, counting me fingers and finding there to be ten of em including the fat ones on the end. But I don't think that's what I were meant to be adding up.

'Four pound is your answer,' says Nathan, polishing a tankard. 'Two pints cometh to four pound, leaving you with one pound. I can do you a half, if you must.'

'I ain't drinkin' halves.'

'Thass your prerogative.'

'I don't give a toss what you calls it, I just ain't drinkin' em. They'm fuckin' tiny.' I rummaged in me pocket, finding the two quid bonus from Jock and putting on the bartop. 'Right,' I says, fixing Nathan with a look that told he were dealing with a different breed of businessman here, 'how much can I get now?'

'One and half.'

'Fuck sake...' I looked at me fingers again, but I didn't have no half ones so there were no point. 'Alright,' I says, draining me drink, 'giz one and half pints o' lager. But I wants it in the one glass, right?'

Nathan matched my stare for a few seconds, then reached under the bartop and pulled out an unusually large glass. 'You never came in here to quibble on beer prices,' he says, filling her up. 'I'd wager you never even came in here in pursuit of Alvin, although that were your front. No, I reckon you had another thing on your mind when you broke yer exile after all these months and came back in my pub.'

He put the full glass before me. I picked it up and went to down it in one, but got stuck about two thirds down, for some reason. 'Fuck's you on about?' I says, my words chased out by a lot of burp gas.

'What I'm on about, Royston Blake, is that van you've parked in my car park up there. And the outsider inside it.'

I'd forgot about that. Nathan knowing every fucking thing that came to pass in the Mangel area, I mean. You might have gathered that it had been a while since I'd been down the Paul Pry, and things slip your mind when they ain't under your hooter every day. Especially things you don't want to think about, like Nathan and his ways. 'Aye, alright,' I says, draining the dregs, 'so I got a dead Scottish bloke up there and I'm lending his motor off him for the minute. So fuckin' what? No one's perfect, is they?'

'How'd you know he's dead?'

I shook me swede slow, like I were a schoolteacher and he were a young lad who didn't know the ways of the world yet, although he had a dense tash and very hairy arms. 'Nathe, I think I'd know, don't you? I mean, for fuck's—'

'The name's Nathan,' he says. 'And I'd encourage you to go up there and check his pulse, cos I do believe he's still tickin' over.'

'But how—?'

'Cos I can hear his heart beatin'.'

I scratched me swede.

'I find it deafening, Blakey. It's all I can hear just now, the thumpin' of that outsider's heart and the madness that propels it. It will bring chaos to this town, that man's heart will. He will worry at the roots of our tree until all the leaves dries up and falls off. He is the one of which they spake, Royston. One from outside will come into our midst and do all this, they said. And no one will be able to stop him, because he is invested with a power that none of us can equal. Only one man, perhaps. If the stars is lined up right, and the wind blows a direct west and the moon rises gibbous over the Deblin Hills, perhaps that man might be able to do summat. But there can be only one.'

It were odd, the next bit. It were like I fell akip and got dreaming, traipsing through a misty land and not recognising it, although I could see the hills over there in the distance where they was meant to be. But then I noticed that them hills was right next to us, and that they was miniature versions of the actual Deblin ones.

And then I looked down, and I saw.

It were Mangel, the whole town like it had always been, right down to the prison over here and them factories down there, and the River Clunge slicing through the middle of it all like a weeping blister. Plus you had new bits like the Porter Centre, which looked quite nice from the sky, I had to say. Cos I were a giant, weren't I? I were like that one in Gulliver's Travels, although I can't recall his name just now. But then it all disappeared, and I found meself in the car park behind the Paul Pry, not knowing how I'd got there. Fucking typical – the very moment you realises what's going on in a dream, and you're about to plant your massive boot down in the middle of town and crush hundreds of little bastards like ants, it all ends.

But I weren't empty-handed.

Or empty-sweded, I should say. I had summat up there that I hadn't had before, a bit of info that changed everything and made the future look rosy and exciting. It were from what Nathan had said, I think, but it had took my time up in the clouds to make it come clear. I opened the door of the burger van.

Jock were sat up, holding a rag to his forehead and smoking a fag. He did seem to be alive, just like Nathan had suggested. But he couldn't not be, could he? Not with the thing I'd found out about him.

'Jock,' I says, hardly able to keep the excitement of me face. 'I just found summat out, and it's—'

'Was this you, ye we cunt?' he says, holding the bloody rag out to me. 'Did youse cut mah heed?'

'Don't worry about your fuckin' cut,' I says. Cos he were immortal, weren't he? No amount of cuts to the heed could cark him.

There can be only one.

'I ain't hundred percent pos, right,' I says, 'but I'm pretty fuckin' sure you're the Highlander.'


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

"Blakey on Tour - Part 11"

(An ongoing story in. Part one here)


JAIL THREAT FOR BURGER VAN RAT MAN

The owner of a burger van has been given a suspended jail term for failing health and safety checks.

James McCrae, 46, was sentenced at Mangel Crown Court to 28 days in jail for breaking food safety laws, 14 days for not co-operating with the authorities and 14 days for breaching a conditional discharge.

McCrae, of Drange Crescent, had already been given the 12 month conditional discharge last April for failing to keep his van in a hygienic condition. But just a month later, environmental health officers found cooked food near raw food, rat droppings and even a dead rat in the van, which traded outside the Rockefellers nightclub in Frotfield Way.

The prison terms were suspended for 12 months and are to run concurrently.




(Come back tomorrow for more...)

Blakey on Tour... another aside

I was going to write a blog whinging about how I've been tricked by evil forces into writing a substantial piece of fiction online, in first draft form, in front of millions of people (although only a select number are reading... ahem). But fuck that. It's fun, right? I don't know what's going to happen and nor do you. And the online thing means I don't get the option to go back and change things, which makes it simpler. One way or another, better or worser, we'll be guiding Blakey home. Or following in horror as he lurches blindly and somehow wakes up on his doorstep, more like.

"Blakey on Tour - Part 10"

(An ongoing story in. Part one here)

I dunno if you're aware of Doug the shopkeeper.

If you ain't (and I fucking envy you), all you need to know is that he is a cunt and he keeps a shop. I could just refer to him as Doug the cunt, I suppose, but that don't seem right. I don't like seeing bad words used when you don't have to. It's a sign of a poor vocabulary, in my opinion. Also it shows that you dunno many words.

So mind your effing and blinding around Royston fucking Blake.

But I were on about Doug, not you. Not that he turned up in the condemned house nor nothing, with Jock trying to stake the bird and me watching on in horror, not liking to see birds staked unless absolutely necessary, like if they're vampires or won't stop getting on your fucking nerves or summat. No, Doug popped into me swede like so because I clocked his face of a sudden, superimposed onto that of the vampire bird, who were lashing out at Jock just then and doing an alright job of keeping him at bay. It cast me swede back to summat Jock had said about vampires getting destroyed if the one who made em a vampire gets destroyed. Well, someone had to be the one who started the vampire ball rolling in the Mangel area, and it stood to reason that it would be someone sinister like Doug, who there are lots of stories about and none of em fit for bedtime. And it also stood to reason that you might glimpse his mug on one of his children of the night, or knights of the badger or whatever. Especially when Jock is about to drive a stake into that badger, just under the ribcage if I recalls him right, thereby turning her to dust.

But that weren't it.

'Erm... Jock,' I says, trying to get his attention. It were hard cos the female had just shoed him in the spuds. 'Jock,' I says again, 'I reckon we ought to hold up for a min and have a think about this, mate. Jock?'

He'd fell backwards onto the sink area, upsetting a drying board and a couple of mugs thereon. One of em went floorwards and smashed, no fucker noticing except me. They could fuck off if they thought I were clearing it up, mind.

'Jock, I reckon I knows who this bird is. We gotta stop a minute and... ah, shite.'

He'd launched himself at her again, pushing off the side and using his bulk to send her into a cupboard. The door came off as she hit it. Jock fell atop her and raised a paw high but didn't have the stake in it no more. In all the excitement and lairyness he must have dropped it. He spun his head around looking for it, holding an arm out to staunch her flurry of small fists.

'For fuck's fuckin' sake, Jock,' I says, also doing a quick scan of the lino, 'this is Mona, Doug the fuckin' shopkeeper's daughter. You can't just...'

'I can and I will, soon as I find ma fuckin'... och, where is it noo?'

But he couldn't and he wouldn't. Not with me standing by with my dooring skills. In a situation where one person is trying to cark another, you can't get better than a doorman for breaking it up and putting a stop to the carking. Actually you can get better: a head doorman. In Royston Blake, you're looking at the most highly revolved example of head doormanship known to man. Or bird.

Jock finally located the stake and made a grab for it. It were about three foot behind his arse, which were like two spacehoppers full up of lard and wrapped in filthy denim. I went to kick the stake out of his reach, but I tagged that arse by mistake and he went sideways.

'Oi you, yis fuckin...' he says, scrabbling back up a bit and making a play for my ankle. I snatched my leg out of reach at the last moment, but for some reason my toe connected with his swede and he went down.

'Fuck,' I says. Cos I hadn't meant to do that. 'Jock, are you...?'

'Get him off me!' the bird were shouting. Jock had slumped atop her and his face were up against her, like he were trying to shag her but had fallen akip. Didn't half look funny. 'Will you stop laughin' and get him off me?'

'Alright, keep yer fuckin' hairpiece on. It just looks like you and him is havin' a little cuddle, and...'

'Help!' she screams.

I hauled him off this time, shoving his dead weight sideways and leaving it face down, arse-up. Last thing I wanted were coppers getting called and me having to explain what were up here. Most Mangel coppers are thick twats whose only concern is putting Royston Blake inside. And the ones who ain't concerned with that are just as useless, being coppers. She went to scream again but I got a paw to her gob in time.

'Shut your fuckin' trap or I'll bust it,' I says, all gentle like. 'You ain't got a right to scream, right? Who saved whose fuckin' life here? Eh? And it ain't the first time, is it? Not that you'd recall it, being out of your fuckin' swede on wossnames at the time.'

'Joeys.'

'Eh?'

'That's what I was on at the time, when you... saved me. I was younger then. Everyone was doing Joeys.'

'Yeah, that's what I said.'

'Oh yeah, you did. Sorry.'

She were an odd one, this one. And she seemed to be able to talk even though I had a paw to her gob. I took it off. 'I got some questions for you,' I says. 'First off, why the fuck did you bite my neck just now?'

She weren't answering. Maybe she could only speak with my paw to her gob. I went to put it back.

'Please don't do that,' she says, flinching away. 'You dunno where it's been.'

I looked at my hand, wondering about all the places it had been. 'Far as I knows, this paw ain't been nowhere I ain't been,' I says. 'I can vouch for that.' Mind you, you just dunno, do you? I mean, how do you know what's happening when you're akip, for example? I had another look at the paw. The more you looked at it, the more you started wondering if it had a life of its own. Mona made a break for it.

She were a fast one, but I grabbed her ankle and reeled her in. 'What's you fuckin' playin' at?' I says. 'I'm the goodie here. I'm a fuckin' community pillar.'

'I'm scared,' she says, surrendering a bit but still trying to get her leg free.

'Why's you scaredy o' me? I'm Royston Blake, ain't I? I'm—'

'I know who you are! That's why I'm scared. I'm being held against my will by a notorious local psychopath wearing nothing but a pink anorak. Wouldn't you be scared if you was me?'

'Oh yeah,' I says, looking down at meself. 'I forgot about that. See, it ain't my anorak, and...' I noticed that me tadger and bollocks was in full view of her, so I pulled down the anorak a bit, covering up most of em. It made us feel uncomfortable, her looking at us like that, like she were taking advantage of us. Plus I'd just hauled Jock off her and booted him in the face by accident. All that swinging of me legs, she were bound to have clocked my arse. I felt naked of a sudden. I wanted to hide away from her and the rest of the world and perhaps put some togs on. 'Look,' I says, 'can you stop looking at my tadger? It makes us feel...' But she weren't there no more.

I looked round and she weren't there neither.

Jock were, mind. And he were still out cold.

A door slamming brung us to me senses a bit, and I hared towards where the slamming had come from. Front door were swinging open, letting all the cold and darkness in from outside. I had a look out and didn't see no one. Maybe she were hiding behind that bush over yonder, or Jock's van, but I couldn't be arsed to look. I had to get control of things here. I felt like I'd been on drugs or summat, and I were just coming to and realising I'd been marching to the tune of a fucking spanner, him being Jock. And now look at the shite I'd got meself in. Mind you, it weren't that bad. So far as I knowed, no one had got killed yet, and folks getting carked is the landmark of proper bad shite. So I were in some fairly decent shite at the minute. I shut the door and went in.

Walking back to the kitchen, it struck us how folks kept disappearing every time you turned arse on them. Alvin, Mona and like as not half a dozen other ones I couldn't recall about just then. I were hoping Jock would be the next one, but I knowed it weren't to be. The ones you want to stay, they fucks off... and vicey versa. It's the way of all life and I'd been getting used to it in recent years, especially from watching Rocky films and seeing first Mickey, then Apollo and then the robot from Rocky IV do a runner on him (cos it had mysteriously disappeared by Rocky V, even though Paulie were going out with it). But Jock were still there, lying where I'd felled him by accident and in the same arse-up position and everything, but now with the notable difference of having some blood leaking from his swede onto the white lino.

'Shite,' I says.

I'd been saying that word a lot of late, and I said it again as I ferried Jock back to his burger van and banged his arse on the door. I couldn't leave him, could I? All them cunts back on the Wall Road had seen us with him, and the coppers'd be swooping down on my house like crows to roadkill once they found his carcass. Cos carcass it were, no doubt about it. I've seen a few deadfolk in my time and this were one of em, for fucking surely.

'Fuckin' shite,' I says again, but with a fuckin' at the start this time. Cos I had to fish around in Jock's lardy pockets for the key, and it weren't a pleasant thing to do. Mind you, I did find it quite sharpish, along with a couple of quid which were a bonus. I fired her up, pocketing the bonus and humming a pleasant tune by Elvis Presley. I always done that when I scored a bonus. But the tune didn't last.

I were in fuck, weren't I? Fuel on empty, a fucking dead Scottish bloke in the back and no place to go. No matter how hard you tries to make it not so, things always seem to come around to this, every fucking time. But there is always summat around the corner, and in this case it were Alvin, pootling along in his little miniature van. This were all his fault, weren't it, when you looked at it? If he hadn't have fucked off back there on the Wall Road, Jock wouldn't have done whatever and I wouldn't have done my bit, although I couldn't recall what it were just now. And I'd still have me fucking togs on. So I went after him.

I dunno if he had mirrors on that fucking thing. If he did, maybe he would have seen us. And maybe he wouldn't have led us to the place he did, pulling his van into the car park and slotting her next to a silver Vauxhall Carlton. Then again, maybe he did clock us and he done it on purpose, thinking I wouldn't follow.

I waited out in the street, watching him get out and go on in. Then I scratched me swede and did a few sums and thought fuck it, life's too short. And I never were that good at sums anyhow. I got out.

And followed him into the Paul Pry.

(Come back tomorrow for more...)

"Blakey on Tour - Part 9"

(An ongoing story in. Part one here)

I do love knickers.

Soon as I sees a pair – even ones still wrapped up and hanging off a shelf in a togs shop – I can't help but thinking about what goes inside em. You're meant to, ain't you? Fellers is programmed since caveman times to get a hard-on at the sight of knickers and bras and that, and to want to pull them off and shag her. And I don't reckon I'm being sexist or whatever neither – it's just the way men is built. If it weren't, and blokes didn't give a toss about knickers, none of us would ever have been borned. I wouldn't be here now, picking up a pair of them in the hall of a cordoned-off house in a shite street in a forgotten part of Mangel, glancing up to see if Jock were looking at us so I could have a quick sniff. Jock wouldn't be there, going up the stair and not looking at us and thereby allowing us that crafty sniff. Not even Rocky Balboa would exist, and none of the fights he'd been involved in over the years would ever have took place. And where would we all be then? Where would Ivan Drago be, for example? Heavyweight World Champion, like as not, cos Rocky were the only one capable of getting past him.

'Erm, Jock?' I says, looking at the knickers.

He ignored us, carrying on up the stair, all but his boots and the bottoms of his dirty jeans now visible to the naked peeper.

'Jock,' I says again, louder.

'Och... what?'

'It's just these here knickers. There's summat up with em.'

His boots and jeans stopped a moment, then trudged down a few steps. 'I'm on an eradicating mission here. Do youse think I've got time to sniff knickers?'

'Nah, I weren't—'

'Put them in yis poacket and sniff em later, ye wee fuckin' pervert.'

'Jock, these knickers is fresh. Like someone's just took em off, know what I mean? And it's defo a bird.'

Jock let that swirl around his swede for a bit, then gripped his stake even tighter and went on up, saying, 'Youse perform a thorough search at groond level. Reet?'

'But Jock,' I says, pocketing the knickers, 'when I says fresh, I mean they'm still warm. Ain't vampires meant to be dead? Deadfolk ain't warm, Jock.'

'Warm knickers are a classic sign o' vampire activity. In fact, it's yis female vampire oan heat, which means, erm... they're oan the cusp of spawning new vampires. We've no time to squander here, Royston.'

He were gone now. I could hear his feet on the landing floorboards, creaking and cautious. I shrugged and started performing a thorough search at groond level. I mean ground level. It's amazing how I picks up foreign lingo without even trying. I swear I'm a fucking natural. I went through a door.

It were the living room and no one were in it. You could tell someone had been there though, and not so long back. Fag smoke lingered in the air and the telly were still warm when I touched it. It were odd, this whole set-up with the police cordon and the telly and the knickers, and I might have been curious on a normal day. But this day I seemed to be traipsing around after a Scottish vampire eradicator on a mission, and it were making us well nervous. Truth be telled, I quite fancied clearing off and leaving him to it. I know I said all that about vampires swiping my Little Royston and me getting revenge for him, but it just didn't seem so likely now, in the cold dark of night. I mean, come on, fucking vampires? Vampires is from fairytales, ain't they? Nah, I had to be realistic and accept that the evil witch had snatched him and took him to her house in the woods. I had some ideas about that, actually, and I were tossing them over as I went through the kitchen, headed for the door Jock had forced. Then I opened the fridge, out of habit like, and there it were.

The thing I most wanted at that moment, although I never knowed it until now.

As pies went, it were a fucking beautiful one. From the outside you couldn't tell if he were a sweet one or a not sweet one, and that is the landmark of a fine pie, in my opinion. It's all about surprise, see – you bite into one and you dunno if you'll be getting dinner or pud. I picked it up and had a nibble. While I were still trying to work things out, prolonging the mystery and thereby my enjoyment of the pie, someone stepped up behind and bit us on the neck.

I put the pie careful back in the fridge and stuck me paws in the air, wondering if that's what you're meant to do when you gets bit by a vampire. Actually I weren't wondering it at all, just doing it. I plain hadn't ever considered this as a thing that might happen in my life, and I didn't have a response for it. So hands up it were. 'I surrender,' I says. 'And that.'

I could smell it. The vampire, I'm on about. It were defo a she, not an it, and quite a nice she and all going by that smell. Not only were it a fragrance I knowed and loved, it were the one from the knickers just now... meaning this one here were like as not naked, or at least not wearing no knickers. I felt meself stirring.

'Any last requests before I suck the life out of your cholesterol-clogged veins?' she purrs into me ear. I could smell fags on her breath. It struck us as a mite odd, that did, but I suppose it weren't. Just cos a bird turns into a vampire, don't mean she has to give up the finer things in life, like fags.

'Well, have you?' she says all quiet

'Have I what?'

'Last requests.'

'Well, I'd quite like to know if you're wearing knickers or no,' I says. 'Or perhaps yer starkers? It's that, ennit?'

'Do you realise how close you are to oblivion?'

I thought about it. 'Not very close at all, I don't reckon.'

'What?'

'I'm pretty sure it's in Scotland.'

'I could destroy you in a split second,' she whispers. 'But I might not. I might give you a chance to carry on living your pathetic life, even though my entire being yearns to consume you, and Nature herself begs for you to be culled.'

I weren't sure what she were on about, and to be honest my thoughts was drifting back to the pie, which were still right there in front of us, its aroma overpowering all others by now and begging us to consume it with my entire soul, or summat. It got so chronic that me guts was whinging about it and moaning like I hadn't ate fuck all that day, which I had. Half a dozen eggs, I'd had that morning, plus a few ripe snags and half a bag of crisps I'd found under me pillow. And then I realised that it weren't complaining of hunger at all, but summat else entirely. Them fucking snags, like as not. I knowed I should have left em. But they looked alright once I'd scraped the growth off.

'Oh my God, what is that...? Eeeuurgh...'

'Yeah, soz about that,' I says. I'd just farted. As in a rancid one, reflecting the state of my insides just then. I always tries not to do that in front of birds cos it affects the way they think of you, I once heard. One whiff and they'll forever smell that fart when they ganders your mug or harks your voice, apparently, and I didn't want that. Not when I ain't even shagged em yet. 'Look,' I says, turning about to face her. 'Is there any way you could try to eradicate that smell from your swede? Only... hold up a min...'

'Swede? Oh... bleurgh..'

She bent over and started upchucking, right there on the expensive-looking kitchen lino. But that weren't my primary concern. More interesting just then were the fact she didn't look to me like a vampire. I mean, do vampires have short little stubby gnashers where they're meant to have big long sharp ones? Plus she had not only knickers on but a complete sets of togs. Mind you, could be she weren't wearing nothing under them jeans. Like as not she were, mind you. A man can tell. I felt meself stirring no longer. On top of all that, she looked familiar. And I ain't just saying that.

'Erm,' I says, trying to find the words so she didn't reckon I were chatting her up. Cos I weren't. I got high standards and I don't chat up puking birds. Not unless they're truly exceptional, with big tits and blonde hair and an alright face. 'Do I know you?' I says, choosing me words delicate. 'I mean, do you come here often? No, no... I meant...'

I stopped there cos Jock burst into the kitchen, stake held aloft and the intense look of a Scottish vampire eradicator on his face.

(Come back tomorrow for more...)

Twisted Interview

Interview with me conducted by David McWilliam of Twisted Tales. Theme is crime and horror. This is in advance of a great event in Liverpool on May 19th. And I don't mean Everton v Chelsea - that's the Sunday following.

Next instalment of Blakey on Tour up later today...