Royston Reeves on the Inspiration for The Weatherman

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I saw something on the local news that sent a shiver straight through me. This kid from a neighbouring college had gone out for drinks in Brentwood one Friday night and ended up accidentally killing a person.

After chucking out time, there’d been an altercation in the street. This kid had pushed someone, who’d tripped and fallen over backwards. The back of the guy’s head collided with a concrete kerb and he’d died instantly. One second they’re arguing, the next, the guy was dead. 

I couldn’t stop thinking about the horror of that moment. The daft confrontation; maybe a bit of shoving. Angry shouting. Scuffling shoes on the pavement. Then that sickening, life-changing moment of impact. A split second of mortifying silence as everyone processed the horror. And then the screaming. I can barely imagine anything more horrible.

The most terrifying part is how normal the guy was.

I remember thinking how he was just like me. 

There but by the grace of God go I.

For months it kept haunting me. I kept wondering what would have gone through the mind of the perpetrator immediately afterwards.

What would I do? Hold my hands up and await the police? Try and pretend it wasn’t me? Run and hide somewhere? Curl up in a ball on the ground? There is no useful human action at that moment. The train has left the station and it’s coming down the track for you.

Scenarios like these are the ones that have always gripped me. ‘Ordinary’ people forced into extraordinary situations; having to adapt in real-time to dark and terrifying new realities. Trying to fight to keep things normal. That’s why I wanted to write The Weatherman in first person – to take readers inside that pulsing, plunging, desperate mindset.

The Weatherman is a journey through the stomach-dropping horror of a scenario like this one. In Will’s (the protagonist) case there is an added layer of deniability: nobody saw him commit his crime. It happened in one of central London’s rare blind spots, obscured from onlookers and CCTV.

It's fascinating how pliable human morality can be in situations as taut this one. We humans are capable of morally licensing ourselves for all sorts of things when fate triggers our survival instincts. Extraordinary pressure changes people and contorts personalities into dangerously capable new shapes. The book explores how a person can descend and lose themselves in the pressure of that process.

Making the setting visceral and real was so important to landing this concept. I crafted the story around Farringdon because I worked there for almost a decade and I felt like I knew its bones, from Smithfield to the Coin Laundry.

The whole place has such a bustling, metropolitan vibe during the day: City workers, street traders and people from creative industries share a noisy and eclectic space. Then at about half six people clock off and pub culture takes over. You see all sorts of things after dark. Students sitting on kerbs eating kebabs, football fans shouting into cones, street sweepers driving those little tuk-tuk things. But then you walk around the next corner, and you could hear a pin drop. Fifty yards away from all that activity, there’s just nothing. It can be like that in inner London. There’s this eerie urban desert of commercial spaces after hours- a perfect modern setting for a moment of misadventure.

The Weatherman isn’t framed around any particular moral position. It’s more like a series of fierce, challenging collisions as the protagonist tumbles down this brutal, anxious rabbit hole. The protagonist Will is not a conventional hero. Neither is he a figure to be disliked. I hoped for Will to represent the slightly flawed, self-biased everyman. His impulsive, erratic nature ends up fanning the flames of his own downfall, no doubt, but I hope readers find his journey an exciting trip down a chillingly feasible road.

The Weatherman by Royston Reeves. Published (No Exit Press) Out Now

I'm going to tell you about the worst thing that ever happened to me.' Will's a nice guy. So when he takes a shortcut to the tube station after a few beers with his mates from work, he steps out of the way of the fellow who's staggering towards him. But he – deliberately – moves back into his path. They knock each other as they pass. Moments later one man is dead and another's life is changed forever. Or is it? There are no CCTV cameras. There was no one else in the out-of-the-way alley. Maybe the world doesn't have to end for Will after all. But there's always someone watching . . . and Will's life is about to implode.

You can follow Royston Reeves on X at @royston_reeves