King Rat

Chapter Nine

Almost as soon as Fabian had left, Pete had appeared. His alacrity was suspicious. In another mood it would have pissed Natasha off, but she felt like forgetting about Saul, just for a short time.

She and Fabian had sat up late in her small kitchen. Fabian always commented on Natasha’s rather self-consciously minimalist approach to decor, complaining that it made him feel uneasy, but that night they had other things on their mind. The faint strains of Drum and Bass filtered through from the stereo next door.

The next morning Natasha rose at eight, regretting the cigarettes she had shared with Fabian. He rolled out of the sleeping-bag she had lent him, when he heard her stir. They had no more words to say about Saul. They were numb and tired. Fabian left quickly.

Natasha wandered out of the kitchen dripping night-clothes, pulling a shapeless sweater over her shoulders. She turned on the stereo, slipped the needle onto the vinyl on the turntable. It was the best of last year’s compilations, now some months old, rendering it an ancient classic in the fast-mutating world of Drum and Bass.

She ran her hands through her hair, pulling brutally at the tangles.

Pete rang the bell. She guessed it was him.

She was tired but she let him in. As he drank her coffee, she leaned against the counter and peered at him. She considered him ugly, his pale skin and thin limbs. He was hardly a style guru, either. The world of Jungle could be elitist. She smiled slightly at the thought of the rudeboys and hard-steppers in the club AWOL being presented with this under-sunned apparition, complete with flute.

‘How much do you know about Drum and Bass?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘Not much, really…’

‘I can tell. When you played yesterday it was impressive, but I’ve got to tell you it’s a weird idea playing flutes or shit like that to Jungle. If it’s going to work, we’re going to have to figure it out carefully.’

He nodded, his face comical with concentration. Natasha almost wished for a repeat of his extraordinary performance of the previous day, his sudden knowing smile. The alternative was so cringing, so desperate to please, that it all but nauseated her. If this day didn’t go well, she decided, she wasn’t having any more of it.

She sighed. ‘I’m not cutting anything with you without you knowing something about the music. Just because General fucking Levy gets a single in the top ten, and some art-school wankers start writing about Jungle, and the next thing you know anything with a backbeat’s "Jungle". Even Everything But The fucking Girl!’ She folded her arms. ‘Everything But The Girl aren’t Jungle, alright?’

He nodded. It was clear he had never heard of Everything But The Girl.

She closed her eyes and bit back a grin.

‘Right. There’s a lot going on in Jungle: there’s intelligent Jungle, there’s Hardstep, Techstepping, Jazz Jungle… I like ’em all, but I can’t cut Hardstep tracks. All the darkness edges. You want Hardstep, go to Ed Rush or Skyscraper or something, OK? I cut tunes more like Bukem, DJ Rap, stuff like that.’ Natasha was enjoying herself enormously, lecturing him, watching his eyes dart frantically around. He had no idea what she was talking about.

‘DJs have started bringing musicians to gigs; Goldie brings in a drummer, and stuff like that. Some people don’t like it, they reckon Jungle should be digital or nothing. I’m not down with that, but I got no immediate plans to be dragging you on stage either. What I’m interested in is maybe playing with you for a while and sampling some of your flute for the top end. Loop it and cut it and stuff.’

Pete nodded. He was fumbling with his case, assembling his flute.

Saul woke in the throne-room under the city. He sat curled up in the cold, below the unmoving shape of King Rat, stiff on his throne. As soon as Saul’s eyes opened, King Rat stood up. He had been waiting for Saul to awake.

They ate and left the chamber by the brick ladder which crept up behind the throne, emerging by means of another hidden door into the main sewer. Saul followed King Rat through the tunnels, and this time he paid attention to his location, his movements, he created a map in his head, he tracked himself.

The water rushed around them as drizzle hit the urban sprawl above and poured into their recesses. It slid around the bricks, transporting a sudden deluge of oil. The walls here were coated with fat, thick with translucent white residue.

‘Restaurants,’ hissed King Rat as he plunged on, and Saul picked up his feet to avoid the slippery muck. He could smell it as he ran past, the stench of old frying and stale butter. It made him hungry. He ran a finger along the wall as he moved, sucked the glutinous mess he had picked up, and laughed, still amazed and excited by his hunger for old food.

Saul could hear things frantically escaping their path. The corridors were thick with rats, nibbling at the walls and the abundant edible detritus, fleeing as they approached. King Rat hissed and the path ahead of them cleared.

The two of them quit the underground, emerging into a Piccadilly backstreet, behind a great stinking pile of food waste, gastronomic effluent spewed out by London’s finest.

They ate. Saul devoured a crushed concoction of old cold fish in some rich sauce, King Rat wolfing broken tiramisu and polenta cake.

And then up onto the roofs, King Rat ascending by a stairway of iron piping and broken brick. As soon as he had used it, its purpose became clear. Saul saw through vulgar reality, discerned possibilities. Alternative architecture and topography were asserting themselves. He followed without hesitation, slipping behind slate screens and running unseen over the skyline.

They barely spoke. Periodically, King Rat would stop and stare at Saul, investigate his motions, nod or indicate to him a more effective way to climb or hide or jump. They picked their way over banks and behind publishing houses, sly and invisible.

King Rat whispered obscure descriptions under his breath. He waved at the buildings they passed and murmured at Saul, hinted at the dark truth concerning the scratchmarks on the walls, the hollows that broke up lines of chimneys, the destination of the cats that scattered at their approach.

They wove in and out of central London, climbing, creeping, moving behind houses and between them, over offices and under the streets. Magic had entered Saul’s life. It didn’t matter any more that he didn’t understand.

This was a million miles from the tawdry world of conjuring tricks. His life was in thrall to another hex, a power which had crept into his police cell and claimed him, a dirty, raw magic, a spell that stank of piss. This was urban voodoo, fuelled by the sacrifices of road deaths, of cats and people dying on the tarmac, an I Ching of spilled and stolen groceries, a Cabbala of road signs. Saul could feel King Rat watching him. He felt giddy with rude, secular energy.

They ate. They raced north beyond King’s Cross and Islington, the light already hinting that it would soon leave. They passed Hampstead, Saul still not tired, gorging himself from time to time from backstreet rubbish bins. They skirted briefly into Hampstead Heath, out of the intricate paved world. They doubled back and found their way through small parks and along ignored bus routes to the borders of the financial world, the City.

Saul and King Rat stood behind a cafe on the corner of High Holborn and Kingsway. Away in the east was the forest of skyscrapers where so much money was made. A huge squat building stood before them, a financial Gormenghast, a hulk of steel and concrete which seemed to exude like a growth from the buildings around it. It was impossible to define where it began and ended.

Away in Ladbroke Grove, Pete peered over Natasha’s shoulder. She indicated the tiny grey screen on her keyboard as the beats cascaded out of the speakers. She was tweaking the treble, playing with sounds. Pete’s pale eyes flitted from screen to speaker to flute.

Fabian emerged from Willesden police station, cursing with disbelief. He slipped into patois, into American slang, into profanities.

‘Bambaclaht motherfucker shithead blabddaht whitebread pig chickenshit piss-artist fuckers’

He wrestled with his jacket and stormed towards the tube station. The police had arrived to pick him up without warning, had not let him take his bike.

He still muttered obscenities in his rage. He flounced up the hill to the underground.

Kay stood under Natasha’s window, wondering what she had done to her music, where she’d got the flute sound from.

‘I don’t think he knows anything, sir,’ said Herrin.

Crowley nodded in vague agreement. He was not listening. Where are you, Saul? he thought.

Who’s the Ratcatcher? Saul wondered. What wants to kill me? But King Rat had mooched into melancholia after he had mentioned the name, and would say nothing more. Time enough for that, he had said. I don’t want to scare you.

King Rat and Saul saw the sun turn red over the Thames. Saul found himself scrambling without fear up the vast wires of the Charing Cross railway bridge, looking out over the river. He hugged the metal. Trains wriggled below like illuminated worms.

South, and they careered secretly through Brixton, bore west for Wimbledon.

King Rat told more and more stories about the city as they passed. His assertions were wild and poetic, unreal, senseless. His tone was as casual as a cabby’s.

The tour seemed to end quite suddenly, and they wound back towards Battersea. Saul was exhilarated. His body throbbed with exhaustion and power. The city’s mine, he thought. He felt headstrong and intoxicated.

They came to a manhole in a deserted car park and King Rat stood aside. Saul wiped the dust from the metal disc. He fumbled with it, pushed his fingers around it. He felt strong. His muscles were taut from the continual effort of the day, and he rubbed them in a motion that would have been narcissistic were it not for his obvious amazement. He twisted at the metal, felt his pores open with sweat and dirt then clog them, invigorating him.

The cover squealed momentarily and burst from its housing.

Saul barked in triumph and ducked into the darkness.

The music coming from Natasha’s window was by Hydro, Fabian realized. He had calmed somewhat in the time it had taken for him to reach Ladbroke Grove. The sky boiled in time to the beats.

He hammered on the door. Natasha came to him, opening the door, her small grin frozen by his scowl.

‘Tash, man, you ain’t going to fucking believe it. Just keeps getting weirder.’

She stood aside for him. As he came up the stairs he heard Kay’s laconic assertions.

‘… go down there once or twice a month, you know, and all Goldie and shit and them come there sometimes… Hey, Fabian, whassup man?’

Kay sat on the edge of the bed and peered up at him. Pete sat somewhat stiffly in a chair brought in from the kitchen.

Kay’s amiable face was devoid of concern, blind to Fabian’s mood. He sat with the same vague, open smile while Natasha caught up and entered the room.

Pete was clearly uncomfortable, but he sat with his eyes unblinking on Fabian until Natasha arrived.

Fabian paused before speaking.

‘I just spent the afternoon with the fucking pigs dem. They been giving me serious shit for nuff time, all fucking day, "What can you tell us about Saul?" I told the motherfuckers time and fucking again, I don’t knows^z’r.’

Natasha sat cross-legged on the mattress.

‘They still think Saul did in his dad?’

Fabian laughed theatrically.

‘Oh, Tash, man, no no no, not any more, that’s nothing, that’s the least of anyone’s worries.’ He sucked his teeth and pulled a battered newspaper out of his bag, waved it in front of them. The story was thumbed, the ink smeared. ‘You won’t get much from that,’ he said as they tracked it with their eyes. ‘Only the bare bones. Lemme give you the real deal.’

‘Saul’s gone. He escaped.’

Fabian laughed unpleasantly at Kay’s and Natasha’s dumbfounded expressions. He pre-empted their exclamations.

‘Not yet, man, there’s more. Two police got killed at Saul’s dad’s flat, smashed up bad. And it looks… they reckon Saul did it. They’re fucking bananas to find him. They’ll come for you all, your turn soon. With all the fucking questions.’

No one spoke.

The strains of Hydro were alone in filling the room.

Chapter Ten

King Rat was gone.

Saul brooded. He felt gorged on the supernatural and surreal.

He was crouched behind King Rat’s throne. He had lain down there after the epic journey around London, sated and exhausted. That night he had oozed in and out of sleep and when he awoke, King Rat had gone.

Saul had risen and meandered around the room. He listened to the sound of dripping and distant howls.

King Rat had pinned a grubby piece of paper to the throne.

back soon, it said. stay put.

Alone, Saul felt unreal.

It was difficult to believe that he existed independently of King Rat, that King Rat was not a figment of his imagination, or Saul of his. Saul felt the stirrings of panic.

Alone, he was suddenly sick of King Rat’s evasion. What was the Ratcatcher? he wanted to know. King Rat would not say. Their run across the city had been largely silent. With King Rat by his side, Saul had acquiesced, was complicit in the cover-up; he had been busy listening to the rat in him wake up.

But alone, he realized that it had been a long time since he had thought of his father’s death. That he had been remiss in his mourning. His father’s death was the fulcrum. Understand that and he would know what wanted to kill him, he would know why the rats would not obey their king.

With King Rat by his side, Saul had seen a new city. The map of London had been ripped up and redrawn according to King Rat’s criteria. Alone, Saul was suddenly afraid that the city no longer existed.

Stay put? he thought. Fuck that.

Saul climbed out of the room and into the sewer.

Wind swept through the tunnels. Saul stood perfectly still and listened. He could not hear King Rat anywhere. He replaced the door to the hidden exit and moved gingerly away.

As he left the side tunnel which concealed the ways in and out of the throne-room, the strong smell of King Rat’s piss dissipated. Three rats hovered outside the tunnel, moving nervously, regarding him. He was unafraid but uncertain. He stopped and watched.

One of the three scampered forward a little and shook its head in a shockingly human motion. Saul took off through the sewers, trembling with trepidation. Alone, the sewer was a different world from the one that King Rat had shown him, but Saul was not afraid. He walked through an olfactory patchwork, and the smells of piss told him stories. The rat who pissed here was aggressive and quick to anger; the one who pissed here was a follower; the one here ate too much, and his favourite food was chicken.

Saul could feel the city above him. He felt lines and directions pull at him. He followed the geomantic tugging.

From behind him, Saul heard a pattering. He turned, and in the grey non-light he saw three rats following him. He stopped still and watched them. They halted six feet from him and shifted, without taking their eyes from him. As he watched two more rats jumped from a pipe that jutted into the tunnel, and joined their fellows.

Saul backed up a little and the rats followed, keeping their distance. One of them squeaked loudly and the others joined in, a discordant cacophony which was taken up throughout the tunnels nearby. Small feet scampered from all directions towards him. The squealing reverberated around Saul’s head.

More rats began to froth around him, out of the side tunnels and the surrounding dark. They came in twos and threes and tens, and although he did not fear them the sheer number was overwhelming. There was no light to glint off the hundreds of eyes which ringed him; they remained only little points of blackness in the general gloom, foci in the simmering mass of bodies which had filled the tunnel around him.

The squealing continued. It filled his head.

Suddenly, through his trepidation Saul felt a burst of excitement. He was confused by the sensation, it felt alien and out of place. And he realized that it was not his excitement at all, but that of the rats, that he understood their shrill communication, that he could feel what they felt.

He was awash with vicarious emotions.

Saul trembled and turned. There was nothing to distinguish what was before him from what was behind, everywhere was filled with the tiny eyes and bodies of the rats. The rats voices were tremulous, cosseting, pleading.

Saul fled the pressure of the sound, flooded by panic. He turned and leapt over the mass of bodies, which parted under him, little islands of clear sewer appearing under his feet as he landed, tails being whisked out of the way. The voices were suddenly plaintive. They followed him.

Saul ran through the tunnels and the rats scampered after him. Ahead of him he saw a wall-mounted ladder. He leapt up, caught it. The rats jumped, scratching at the bottom rail. Saul felt a surge of relief as he looked down into their inscrutable faces.

He climbed and forced open the metal cover, peeping out through the crack. The exit was fringed with high grass. Saul climbed out of the depths and emerged in a hollow between shadowy bushes. He was in a deserted park. Above the distant hum of traffic there were closer sounds of birds. Saul saw water before him, a twisted lake with islands.

Trees framed his field of vision. He saw a shape over the arboreal boundary: a huge gilded dome surmounted with a shaving of crescent moon. London’s central mosque, burnished by the streetlamps. To the south he saw the thin stiletto of Telecom Tower. He was in Regent’s Park.

Saul circled the boating lake and slipped silently through the hedgerows and trees and railings.

Saul clambered out into the dark city.

He walked south to Baker Street. Lights waved wildly over the faces of the buildings as cars swung by. Headlights pinned him in their glare as a battered van swept towards him and past. Saul’s heart raced for a long time after it had gone.

He turned onto Marylebone Road.

People bore down on him from all directions. It took him a moment to realize that they also moved away on past him, that they were simply walking along the street. Saul’s breath shook a little as he exhaled. He pushed his hands into his pockets and set off west.

The first man to pass him was dressed in a blazer and jeans, his rugby shirt tucked in, cuddling his distended belly. He glanced momentarily at Saul before his eyes flickered back ahead of him.

Look at me! Saul shouted in his head. I’m a rat! Can you tell? Can you smell? The man must have detected the stench which hung around Saul’s clothes, but was it so much worse than that which coloured the passing of a drunk? The man did not turn to investigate Saul, who stopped and stared after him. He turned and gazed at the next person approaching him, a young Asian woman in a short tight dress. She smoked as she passed him. She did not spare him a glance.

Saul laughed, giddy. He was passed from behind by a short black man, from in front by a group of singing teenagers, and then a very tall man with glasses, from behind by a man in a suit who walked, then jogged, then walked to his destination.

No one minded Saul.

Ahead of him the broken stream of night traffic rose, cut across Edgware Road. It returned briefly to earth then rebounded, flying again. This was the Westway, the vast raised road which swept above London. A thousand tons of impossibly suspended asphalt, it soared off over Paddington and Westbourne Grove, with the city spattered out forever on all sides. In the west, over Latimer Road, it twisted into an intricate mess of raised ramps and exits. It extricated itself from this tangle and continued, finally returning to earth outside Wormwood Scrubs prison.

Saul stared at the Westway. It passed Ladbroke Grove station, where Natasha lived. The rules of the city no longer concerned him. The prohibition against pedestrians on the Westway did not apply to rats.

He ducked between the sparse cars and scampered onto the central reservation, racing up the incline, skirting the barrier with vehicles buzzing past him on both sides.

Below him he heard faint shouts from the mustard coloured estates. Dirty winking lights swept away from him. The drivers could not see him. He was a dark figure, utterly inured to the cold, his back bent, his arms grasping the barriers, pulling himself along. He moved like a cartoon villain on speed, a fast, exaggerated skulking.

Four great squat blocks reached up like stubby fingers around the Westway: brown tower blocks overlooking him with uneven points of light. The sound of traffic was a rhythmic, constant crescendo, flows without ebbs, never dying away.

Isolated in the centre of this wide road, Saul could not see the streets below him. He could not gaze into windows or over the edge of the Westway at late-night walkers. He was alone with the anonymous cars and the horizon. The whole city had become horizon punctuated by fat towers.

To his left, the raised tracks of the Hammersmith and City tube line shadowed the Westway, only a few feet away. A train rattled past. With a rush of adrenaline, Saul pictured himself racing across the road and leaping out, catching it as it went by and straddling it like a rodeo rider, but he felt a sudden, certain intimation that he could not make that jump, not yet, and he stood still as the train headed on to Ladbroke Grove.

He followed its passage on the Westway until he could see Ladbroke Grove station hovering in the air to his left. It was so close that he could probably leap across onto the platform itself. Saul peered into the headlights to his right, and bundled himself across the road, passing like a discarded coat in wind before the windscreens of startled drivers. He flattened himself against the barrier and leaned over.

Just beyond the station, Ladbroke Grove still throbbed with the beats of ghetto-blasters. A group of youth leaned, studiously cool, outside the closed Quasar building. They did their best to intimidate the passers-by. Late-night grocers leaned out of their doors and chatted to each other, to customers, to the mini-cab drivers. The streets did not throng, but they were hardly empty. From his precarious hide, Saul watched.

Unnoticed he clambered over the barrier and held it behind his back, leaning out over the streets. He enjoyed his own insouciance.

It was an easy jump to the drainpipe opposite, barely four feet, and he accomplished it without a sound. He descended to the wedge of low roofing between the station and the raised road, and slid into the Westway’s looming shadow. He clambered over mildewed eaves. Three days ago, he thought as he jumped to the ground, I was heavy and human. And now, he thought as he moved out of the graffitied darkness towards Ladbroke Grove itself, I’m rat and I can travel how I like. I woke up so fast.

He made no effort to hide himself, even swaggering a little, and the groups of young men who clotted the pavement eyed him but let him pass, their noses wrinkling in his wake. He walked through conversations in accented English, in Arabic and in Portuguese.

He turned into Bassett Road and trotted up to Natasha’s house. Her lights were off. He cursed and turned on his heel, pacing away to a tree opposite her window. He leaned against it and folded his arms, debating whether or not to wake her.

Saul had no illusions. He could never go back, he had become a rat. There was no way into that world again. But he had lived there once and he missed his friends.

As he stood trying to make up his mind, a slouching figure made its way down the street. With a sudden thrill, Saul recognized the stumbling gait. As the man approached Natasha’s house and slowed, Saul cupped his hands over his mouth and hissed, ‘Kay.’

Kay jumped and looked all around him in confusion. Saul hissed again. Kay stared straight at him for a moment and panned his eyes around, comically nervous.

Saul stepped out of the cover of the tree.

‘Jesus, Saul man, you gave me a heart attack!’ said Kay as he slumped with relief. ‘You were fucking invisible under that tree, and your voice has gone all weird…’ He stopped short suddenly, shook his head and put his hands to his face.

‘Shit, man!’ he hissed, looking wildly around him. ‘What’s gone on? How the fuck are you? I just heard about all your shit! Jesus! What’s happened?’

Saul had reached him, and he slapped his shoulder and gripped his hand.

‘Seriously, Kay, you wouldn’t fucking believe it. I’m not fobbing you off, man, it’s just… I don’t even understand it myself.’

Kay’s face had screwed up.

‘What is that stink, man? Is that you? I mean no offence, man, but…’

‘I’m… hiding out.’

‘Where? The fucking sewers?’ Saul said nothing and Kay’s eyes widened. ‘Fuck me! You aren’t! I wasn’t serious…’ Saul cut him off.

‘Yeah, well, you heard about me getting out of the cell? I got to hide, man, the police think I killed my dad.’

Kay stared at him for a moment.

Saul was aghast. ‘No I fucking didn’t. Jesus, do you have to ask me that?’

All the talk of chase and crime and capture was making him nervous, and he backed into the darkness under the tree, pulling Kay with him.

‘So what are you doing?’ said Kay.

‘Oh…’ Saul was vague. ‘I’ve got to find something to prove I didn’t do it.’ He could not explain that he could never go back.

‘What about the two cops?’ Saul stared at Kay blankly. ‘The ones who bought it in your flat.’

Saul stared at him in mounting horror.

‘Didn’t you know?’

‘So what fucking happened?’ Saul shook his lapels. Kay backed away, wrinkling his nose.

‘I don’t know, I don’t know. Fabian came up to Tash’s waving a newspaper around. The police have been interviewing him all day, said the two watching your flat got beat up and died. They’ve got you pegged for it, man.’

Kay had no malice. He could see that Saul knew nothing of the crime, and felt only concern, no more suspicion.

‘Do you… know… do you know who…’ he continued. ‘No, but I think I know someone who does. Shit!’ Saul ran his hands through his hair. ‘Shit, they’ll be going ballistic for me now! Shit!’

He’s going to tell me, he thought, overcome with rage. No more petulant silences. When I find King Rat he’s got to tell me who’s doing this and why, and fuck all this fobbing me off.

He turned back to Kay.

‘What’s going on, man? Why you here?’

Kay pointed up the road.

‘I was in the pub with Tash and Fabe and this geezer Tash has started cutting some tracks with. It’s a lock-in… we’re all talking about you, man.’ He grinned weakly. ‘I realized I left my bag at Tash’s, and she give me her keys. I’m going back in a minute. You want to come?’ Saul hesitated and Kay began to urge him. ‘Come on, man, everyone’s worried fucking sick over you, man. Fabe’s terrible.’

Saul thought of Fabian and felt a wave of nostalgia. His friendships felt shockingly distant. He wanted to come to the pub, but he was suddenly terrified. He had nothing in common with these people any more, though he wanted them desperately; he missed them. What could he say to them, tell them? And the police… they were already questioning them. After this latest killing, could he risk incriminating them?

‘I… can’t, Kay. I’m wanted, man, and I can’t be hanging around in pubs and stuff. I got to keep moving. But… will you tell them that I’m missing them and I promise I’ll try to see them. And Kay… tell them if they don’t hear from me for a bit they can’t worry… I’m sorting things out. OK? Will you tell them that?’

‘Are you sure you won’t come back?’

Saul shook his head.

Kay acquiesced with a sideways nod. ‘So… at least tell me what’s going on. How the fuck d’you get out of prison?’

Saul even laughed a little.

‘It was only a cell, and… I really can’t explain now. I’m really sorry.’

‘How are you looking after yourself?’

‘Kay… I can’t, alright? Please stop, man. I can’t explain it.’

‘But are you OK?’ Kay was concerned. ‘You don’t sound all that good. Like I say, your voice is all… weird, and you smell… like…’

‘I know, but I can’t talk about it. I promise I’m looking after myself. I have to go, man. I’m sorry. Give them all my big love.’ He touched him briefly on the shoulder and walked into the dark, turning to wave.

Kay stood under the tree, waving back. His eyes peered intently as Saul left the circle of shadow and found other darkness beside the front walls of houses.

‘Take care, man,’ Kay said, too loud, from behind him.

Saul was lost to his sight.

Kay stood for a moment under the tree before walking slowly to Natasha’s front door and letting himself in. He was deeply confused. Something was obviously very wrong with Saul, but he could not tell what. The man had turned into some kind of Ninja, for one thing; walk five feet away from him and he turned invisible. And his voice… husky and somehow… close up.

It had unnerved Kay, made him a little afraid. It was clear that Saul did not know anything about the dead policemen, but Kay found himself wondering whether he was somehow involved without knowing it. There was certainly a touch of the psychopath about him tonight: his eyes all dark, his voice and manner intense, and that smell…! The man must be living in pigshit. Could he really be dossing in the sewers? How would you even get into them?

He was afraid for his friend.

He found his bag in the unlit sitting-room and left the flat, locking the door behind him. He was eager to tell the others of his meeting. At least Saul was… well, alive, if not OK.

He stepped out into the street and turned left, still shaking his head in confusion. Something emerged from a patch of darkness behind him and moved in fast. Kay heard nothing. Metal twirled briefly and something long and hard cracked him on the back of his head. Kay emitted a gasp of air as he fell forward, was caught, dead-weight, hanging like a corpse, before he hit the pavement.

Blood welled up and dribbled onto his bag, trickling inside, staining the covers of records by Ray Keith and the Omni Trio.

Chapter Eleven

Saul saw the fat pillars of the Westway loom out at him again.

He turned right, skirting the great dark thoroughfare, wandering slowly west. He did not know where to turn. He turned his eyes to the ground, seeking a manhole. Perhaps he should hide himself from view, seek out King Rat again. He did not know if he could find his way back through the sewers to the throne room. He did not want to see the rats. They had unnerved him with their pleading. They wanted something of him.

A few late walkers passed him by. Saul wanted to stop, to sit and think for a while, to eat. He was not tired. He thought suddenly of the policemen who had died in his flat, and he winced.

He was gravitating towards the tangled concrete of the Westway’s mid-air junction, a confusion of sweeping curves which hung above the earth like an imminent threat. Below the skeins of steel and tarmac the council had provided enclosures for basketball and football, a climbing wall and chin-up bars. During the day the area was full of the shouts of young players oblivious to the concrete above and around them, swooping in all directions with functional grandeur, a found stadium occluding direct light, obscuring the sky.

Saul wandered into the darkness between the pitches. He looked up at the underside of the Westway itself. The traffic above sounded very far away.

He meandered into the passageways between chain-link fences and football fields. The wind was stilled under the roadway. He stood and listened to it buffet the edges of the secluded ground.

There was another sound.

A faint, quick scampering echoed quietly between the pillars.

Saul turned and moved his head sharply as something circled him. He backed away. Panic bubbled up inside him. The Ratcatcher! he thought, and ran for the faint glow of the streetlamps.

He spun around on his heel, desperately looking for a way out of the darkness. Something flitted across his vision, a black body that swung down from the shadows above him, from the crevices in the underside of the Westway. It swung around him, too quick for his eye to follow, free of gravity’s constraints, moving in all directions through the air. Saul’s breath came fast as he turned and ran.

Something sailed out of the air above him and flew overhead in a perfect parabola, with a grace and speed that eclipsed any gymnast or circus performer alive. The dark mass curved over the Earth and came to rest, landing lightly twenty feet in front of him. The crouching form sprang upright, splaying legs and arms suddenly like a jack-in-the-box.

A tall, fat man swayed before Saul, his arms and legs spread wide as if anticipating an embrace.

Saul braked and backed away, turning suddenly and running back into the darkness from which he had come. He tried to remember to hide, to become a rat, but terror had frozen his cunning.

As he ducked behind a tennis court, the fleeting shape passed, flying over the net, and the man was there before him again, arms outstretched. A thin cord suspended from somewhere above recoiled from the swing, and brushed against Saul as it returned along its flight path.

Saul changed direction and disappeared behind a climbing frame. He heard something hissing behind him. Saul gasped as he ran, his rat-strength pushing him faster than he had ever moved before. His skin crawled with fear. Ahead of him he glimpsed threadbare trees. There was a thin gap between two of the wire fences, beyond which was the garden to a housing estate.

He raced for the slit and careered along it, making very little sound, when something caught his ankle and he swung like a felled tree towards the concrete.

He was yanked away from the ground before he hit and he hung for a moment in the air. Thin ropes were stretched across his path, tied to the chain links on either side. One had swept away his foot, and another had caught him across the chest. He cursed frantically and struggled to stand, tugging at the rope which had somehow entangled itself around his ankle. He ploughed forward and saw spindly shapes before him more ropes, a thicket of them across his path. How had he not seen them before?

He struggled to climb over them, but they confused him; some tied so loosely they came away in his hand and wrapped themselves around him, others so tight they vibrated like a bass string as they repulsed him. He fell again, caught in this cat’s cradle. He could not move. He hung suspended at a forty-five-degree angle, head downwards, four feet from the ground.

Saul heard a footstep behind him. He jerked his head, disentangling himself frantically, swivelled in the midst of his mesh to face the way he had come, his back to the morose shrubs he had sought.

The man stood at the entrance to the little passageway.

Light from the far-off lamps struggled to illuminate him, glinting faintly on his skin. He wore nothing but a pair of black cut-off shorts on his lanky legs. He seemed unaffected by the cold. The man had very dark skin and a massive belly jutting over his belt, but arms and legs that were ridiculously long and thin, every muscle standing firm with every movement. His stomach was distended, globular but taut as a bubble. It hardly rippled as he moved slowly towards Saul. Saul saw a thick coil of filthy white rope wound around his left shoulder.

‘Don’t give me no more trouble, pickney, or me gwan mash you up.’

The voice was scratchy and sharp, vibrant with Caribbean intonation. It sounded close in his ear, as King Rat’s did.

The man moved in little bursts. He paced quickly forward a few feet, then stopped to investigate Saul, moved forward again. As he approached, he unwound the rope from his shoulder.

Saul shook violently to free himself from the tangles of rope, seemed only to pull them tighter around him. He began to screech.

The man was upon him, fetched him a vicious slap across the cheek that stopped Saul’s cry instantly. His head rocked. He was dizzy and his face throbbed.

‘He tell you to shut your mouth, bwoy!’ The man kissed his teeth.

Saul’s head wobbled forward and he blinked hard. The man was bending over him. Saul was deeply afraid. He put up his hands, tried to push them through the ropes to ward off the attack he was sure was coming. He thrashed in his bonds and opened his mouth to scream again.

The man reached down as fast as a snake and pushed his fingers into Saul’s mouth. Saul tried to bite down, but the man spread his fingers and with inhuman strength forced Saul’s mouth open. Saul’s captor tugged at the rope draped over his shoulder with his free hand. He wound it around Saul’s head once, twice, stuffed it into his mouth like a gag.

He muttered to himself in patois.

As he spoke, the man yanked the rope tight and wound it expertly around Saul’s head again, obscuring the lower half of his face. Saul mewed frantically from behind this mask as his eyes darted from side to side.

The man pulled at Saul’s arms, twisting the rope around them and pulling tight, securing them behind Saul’s back. He tugged Saul free of the little alley. Saul stumbled and ran forward till his feet were jerked out from under him and he fell. He had reached the end of the rope which bound him. He slid back across the concrete. The man was reeling him in.

Saul was pulled to his feet and turned to face his captor. With his mouth blocked, Saul breathed frantically through his nose, sputtering flecks of snot onto his bindings. Black eyes stared into his own, which were wet with fear.

‘You come with me fe see ratty. There some bad obeah loose now.’

He twirled the rope suddenly over Saul’s head like a film cowboy. The coils slid down through the air and wound around Saul’s body. The man spun him on the spot, tightening the bonds, letting out slack to constrict him like a top. He bent and ran the rope on down Saul’s legs, until his whole body was obscured in a shroud of grubby white cord.

Only Saul’s eyes could move. He could feel a hammering in his arms and legs as his heart struggled to push blood past the obstructions cutting into his flesh.

The man bit through the rope and tied the end at Saul’s feet. He stood before Saul and looked down at him, nodded.

‘No more nonsense and hollering now, innit?’

Saul began to pitch forward but the man caught him and, to Saul’s sudden horror, rolled him through the air and onto his back. He pulled Saul into position as effortlessly as King Rat had done. Saul felt like fluff. The man took more rope from his shoulder and wrapped it around his captive several times, attaching him more firmly. Saul was helpless on those broad flat muscles, his eyes facing backwards. His legs were twisted up into a tight bend. He was suspended from the man’s shoulders and waist, the rope cutting into his captor’s skin, seemingly painlessly. Saul bobbed in a terrifying and undignified fashion as his abductor raced suddenly through the darkness.

He rushed through the underworld below the Westway at a rate of knots, his route violent and oscillating. The hidden byways receded before Saul’s eyes. The man beneath him lurched suddenly and Saul saw the dark horizon drop around him. They were airborne. Saul’s eyes widened and he gave a muffled yell, spit slithering down his chin behind the ropes.

They flew through the air, paused and swung backwards, then around, a pendulum ten feet from the ground. They were suspended, clinging to a rope, Saul realized. The man began to climb.

He moved easily, the curve of his back suggesting that he was using both feet and hands. The pace was utterly smooth. The sports grounds disappeared below them and, as they swung from side to side, vistas of West London peeked in and out of Saul’s vision. The occasional roar of traffic was closer now.

They reached the top of the rope. Saul was facing away from the highway, out over badly lit sidestreets. The man clung to the barrier and scampered along the side of the Westway. Saul’s stomach drummed with fear. There was nothing below his feet. He saw the streets below curve a little closer to him, and he saw the dim light catch on a filament, a thread passing up from the chimney of a house fast approaching.

They were opposite the house now, and he caught another glimpse of the thin line of light. It was close by, twisting towards him.

Suddenly he was falling.

But the ground stopped rushing towards him, and he bobbed in the air. He was facing directly down, the Westway growling a few feet above and behind him. The filament he had seen was another rope, tied at one end to the roof and another to the railings of the great road above. The man was descending the rope now, headfirst, hand over hand, bouncing unnervingly as he slid fast towards the intricate darkness of the roofscape.

Saul prayed that the rope was strong.

And then they were down, and Saul was swung around. He heard a loud snap, and when the man turned again Saul saw that he had broken the rope behind them, obscured their passing.

They were off over the tops of houses, another raised race across London. The man swung himself around obstacles, scampering over the slates even faster than King Rat.

Blocks fleeted away below them. Behind them Saul saw the monolithic Westway shrinking.

The man leapt forward and bounced perilously over a road that blocked his path. Saul realized with terror that they were on another rope tied horizontally between buildings, but this time moving on top of it, tightrope-walking faster than Saul could run.

The air was buffeted out of him by the quick motion of his captor and the constricting ropes on his chest. Below them Saul saw a solitary walker moving nervously through the backstreets, oblivious to the mad funambulism above him.

With a jump the dark man left the rope, landed on the opposite roof, snapped the trail behind them.

They moved like this at a crazy speed over the streets, traversing a network of ropes already laid. They passed through grassland and into an estate, leaping along flat roofs and scampering insanely fast down sheer bricks. Saul was convulsed with terror, unable to see what his captor was doing.

They raced down a bank of scrub onto a railway line, and rushed along the wooden sleepers. Saul watched the tracks curve away behind them.

Again their passage was interrupted as the dark man climbed the side of a bridge that passed over the railway and the canal that skirted it. They swept through an industrial estate, a collection of low, shabby buildings and motionless forklift trucks. Saul was hypnotized by the breakneck progress over the houses. He had been caught, he did not know by whom, and he did not know what was to happen to him.

The noise of the city became oddly distant. They had entered a yard full of ruined cars crushed flat, piles of them like geological features: strata of old Volvos and Fords and Saabs. The cars teetered around them, leaving only narrow alleys through which to pass.

They wound through these walkways.

Suddenly the man stopped and Saul heard another’s voice: a strange, vain, musical voice coloured with a European accent he could not specify.

‘You did find him, then.’

‘Yeah, man. Caught the lickle bleeder down south from here, not far you know.’

There was no more speaking. Saul suddenly felt the ties that bound him slipping, and he fell in a heap to the dust. He was still wrapped tight in his own rope swaddling. The fat man picked him up and carried him in his arms like a bride.

Saul caught a glimpse of the newcomer: thin and very pale, with red hair, a sharp hawkish nose and wide eyes. Saul was borne towards his destination, a huge steel container like a vast skip ten feet high, over which loomed a yellow structure something like a crane.

His eyes flitted about as he was carried, he saw the cars all flattened around him, and he realized that this was a car-crusher, that the lid of the dark container would bear down on whatever was inside, and squeeze it, press it like a flower into two dimensions. And as he was borne inexorably towards it Saul’s eyes widened in horror and he began to struggle, to shout through his gag.

He flopped pathetically in the man’s arms, tried to roll out of his grip, but the man held him firm and kissed his teeth in disgust, did not break his stride, no matter how Saul emitted frantic humming protests and jack-knifed. The man hauled Saul over his shoulder, Saul staring for a moment into the insane looking eyes of the redhead behind them. Saul was held, bending and unbending at the waist pathetically, till the tall man heaved him upwards and he sailed over the edge of the ominous grey container… hung silent and still for a moment… fell, passing into the shadow of its metal walls, feeling the air cool and still, slamming into the pitted floor.

He landed hard on the shards of metal and glass which littered the dark.

Only because he was a rat was he not unconscious or dead, he decided, as he lay moaning. He struggled to sit upright, trickles of blood discolouring the cords which held him. Something approached him, footsteps clanging on the metal floor, and he tried to turn, and fell again, banging his head, only to feel himself grabbed around the shoulders and pulled upright. He opened his eyes and stared into a face glaring balefully at his, a dark face, darker than the shadows in the deadly car-crusher, a face boiling with anger, teeth gritted hard, scoring lines around the mouth, and the familiar stink of old wet animals and rubbish made acrid with anger.

King Rat looked at him and spat in his face.

Chapter Twelve

The spittle slid down around Saul’s nose. His gaze was bouncing off the walls of the crusher, vibrating back and forth, trapped. King Rat stared at him unflinching and angry. Why was he angry, Saul wondered frantically, the thoughts crowding around each other in his head. What was happening? They’d both been caught by the Ratcatcher, that was why they were here, about to be crushed, so why was King Rat still? He wasn’t trapped like Saul. Why did he not leap out of the container and save them, or flee?

With his breath fast and ugly in his ears, Saul saw the suspended weight of the lid hovering above them, hideous with potential energy, full of pent-up momentum. King Rat was trying to hold Saul’s eyes, was muttering something, but in his panic Saul stared briefly at his uncle, then up at the lid, back down and up again, waiting for it to descend.

King Rat shook him and growled, a quiet bellow of rage.

‘What by damn do you reckon you’re playing at? Off I go for my constitutional, on the lookout for some victuals, leave you akip like a babe, and what happens? You up and piss off.’

Saul shook his head frantically and King Rat impatiently yanked at the rope around his face, tearing it free. Saul spluttered, breathed deeply, spraying mucus and spit and a little blood at King Rat.

King Rat did not move, did not wipe himself clean.

Instead he slapped Saul in the face.

Saul felt so abused, so sore and bloodied, the sting of it was nothing to him, but his anger and confusion overflowed. He exhaled, and the breath turned into a long shout, a yell of incoherent frustration. He wriggled and felt his muscles bunch up against his bonds.

‘What are you doing?’ he yelled.

King Rat pushed his hand over Saul’s mouth.

‘Stow your parley, you little fucker. Don’t come the misunderstood. Don’t ever be fucking off on your tod, got it?’ He was motionless, staring at Saul, pushing him hard with his hand, driving his point home. ‘Care to share the whys and wherefores of your little exhibition, eh?’

Saul’s voice emerged muffled from behind King Rat’s hand.

‘I wanted to look about, that was all; wasn’t looking for trouble. I’ve been learning, haven’t I? No one saw me, and I climbed like… you would’ve been proud.’

‘Enough of your crap!’ King Rat bellowed.

‘Trouble’s got its eyes peeled for you, sonny. There’s a roughneck out there wants you dead. Like I told you, you’re wanted, you’re prey, someone’s out for your hide… and mine.’

‘So fucking tell me what’s going on,’ spat Saul, suddenly jutting his chin into King Rat’s face. There was a long silence. ‘You go on and on, talking in riddles like you think you stepped out of a fucking fable, and I don’t have time to wait for you to tell me what the moral of it is! Something’s after me? Fine. What? Tell me, explain to me what the fuck is going on, or shut up.’

The silence returned, stretched out.

‘He’s right, rattymon. He have to know wha’appen. You can’t keep him in the dark. He can’t protect himself.’

The voice of the man who had carried him from the Westway dropped from above, and Saul glanced up to see him crouched like a monkey on the corner of the car-crusher. As he watched, the redhead appeared, arriving suddenly next to the black man, with his legs dangling into the container, as if he had jumped up from below and landed perfectly on his bum.

‘And who are they?’ said Saul, jerking his head at the watchers. ‘I thought the Ratcatcher had caught me. I’m walking along and suddenly that geezer’s got me trussed up, tripped up. I thought he was going to crush me in this thing.’

King Rat did not look up at the men sitting on the rim above, even as one of them spoke.

‘Not just Ratcatcher, you know, bwoy. The one want you, him the Ratcatcher and the Birdcatcher and the Spidercatcher and the Batcatcher and the Human catcher and all tings catcher’

King Rat slowly nodded.

‘So tell me,’ said Saul. ‘Listen to your mate. I need to fucking know. And get me out of these!’

King Rat reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a flick-knife. It emerged from its case with a snikt, and he shoved it under Saul’s bonds and pulled. The ropes fell away. King Rat turned his head and paced to the far end of the container. Saul opened his mouth to speak, but King Rat’s voice emerged from the darkness, pre-empting him.

‘I want nary word fucking one to emerge from your gob, boy. I’ll give you the whole spiel then, my old son, if that’ll quell your hankering.’

Saul could dimly see that he had turned to face him. The three men now faced him in a row: the two above — one squatting, one swinging his legs like a child and the one below glowering in the corner.

Saul pushed the ropes away from him and backed into the opposite corner, pulled up his knees like protection for his brutalized body, listened.

‘Meet my mates,’ said King Rat. Saul looked up. The man who had caught him was still motionless on his haunches.

‘The name Anansi, pickney.’

‘The old China Anansi,’ interjected King Rat. ‘The gent who most likely saved your skin from the ruffian out there on the hunt for you.’

Saul knew the name Anansi. He remembered sitting in a hushed circle, surrounded by other tiny bodies all sucking lukewarm milk out of tiny bottles, listening to his Trinidadian teacher tell the class about Anansi the spider. He could not remember any more.

The redhead was standing now, balancing without effort on the thin metal edge. He gave an exaggerated bow, sweeping one arm out behind him. He wore suit trousers in burgundy, tightly pressed and perfect, a stiff white shirt and dark braces, a floral tie. His clothes were immaculate and stylish. Again he spoke in that peculiar accent, a composite of all the European intonations Saul could think of. ‘Loplop presents Loplop,’ he said.

‘Loplop, aka Hornebom, Bird Superior,’ said King Rat. ‘We go back a long way, not all of it friendly. When I saw you’d slung your hook, I called on this pair of coves. You put us to a lot of strife, sonny. And you want the story of the Ratcatcher.’

‘Spidercatcher,’ said Anansi softly.

‘Birdcatcher,’ spat Loplop.

King Rat’s voice held Saul still. King Rat settled back.

‘We’ve all had our admirers, you know, your uncles ’Nans and Loplop and I. Loplop chased a painter for a while, and I was always partial to a snatch or two of verse. If you know some poesy you might know this story already, acos I told it once before to another, and he wrote it down for the Godfers — a child’s story he called it. I didn’t mind. He can call it what he wants. He knew it was for honest.’

‘I haven’t always lived in the Smoke, you know. I’ve lived all over. I was here when London was born, but it was measly pickings for a long time, so I took my flock and jumped ship long time gone. Your ma was entertaining herself elsewhere while I bing a waste to Europa for a shufti with the faithful, going hell for leather over land in packs with me at the head, my coat sleek. One twitch of my tail and the massed ranks of Rattus went west, east, wherever I gave the word. We run through the dews-a-vill, through the fields of France, the high-pads of Beige, through the flatlands near Arnhem, and on through to Germany — not that those were the names they used.’

‘Next thing you know we’re looking around, bellies on the growl. We’ve found a place where John Barleycorn’s been most generous… The crops are high and golden, ripe and ready and fit to burst. We took a Butcher’s. "Yes," I says, "this’ll do," and on we trog, slower now, on the skedge for a place to set us down.’

‘Through a forest, tight-clumped together under me the boss-man, afeared of nowt, on the hoof through lightmans and darkmans. By a river we found us a town, not too gentry a gaff, mind, but with silos that fair creaked at the seams, and knockabout houses with a hundred holes, nesting nooks, eaves and cellars, a hundred little corners for a knackered rat to rest a Crust.’

‘I gave the word. In we marched. The populace dropped their bags, gobsmacked and agog. Next thing they’ve lost their marbles, running around hither and thither, and letting loose with such a damned caterwauling… We were an impressive phalanx: we spewed in and didn’t stop till the whole town was chock with me and my boys and girls. We herded the squealing civvies into the square, and they stood clutching their pathetic duds and children. We were bushed, been on the go a long time, but we pulled ourselves up proud in the sun and our teeth were magnificent.’

‘They tried to give us the heave-ho, flailing around with torches ablaze and paltry little shovels. So we bared our teeth, sank them in deep, and they ran screaming like yellow-bellied ponces, disappearing as quick as you like. We had the square to ourselves. I called the troops to order. "Right," I says, "quick march. This town is ours. This is Year One: this is the Year of the Rat. Spread out, make your mark, set the stage, find your places, eat your fill, anyone gives you any gyp, send them to me."’

‘An explosion of little lithe bodies, and the square’s empty.’

‘Rats in the rub-a-dubs, the houses, the kazis, the dews-a-vill, the orchards. We gave them what for. I did walkabouts, with nary a word said, but all and sundry knew who ran things. Any burgher raised a hand against one of my own, I took them down. People soon clocked the rules.’

‘And that was how the rats came to Hamelin.’

‘Saul, Saul, you should’ve seen us. Good times, chal, the best. The town was ours. I grew fat and sleek. We fought the dogs and killed the cats. The loudest sound in that town was rats talking, chattering and making plans. The grain was mine, the gaffs were mine; the tucker they cooked, we took our cut first. It was all mine, my Kingdom, my finest hour. I was the Kingpin, I made the rules, I was Copper and jury and Barnaby and, when occasion demanded, I was Finisher of the Law.’

‘It turned famous, our little town, and rats flocked to us, to join the little Shangri-La we put together, where we ruled the roost. I was the boss-man.’

‘Until that Ruffian, that bastard, that peripatetic fucking minstrel, that stupid tasteless shit with his ridiculous duds, the prancing nancy, until he strolled into town.’

‘First I knew of it, one of my girls tells me there’s a queer cove with the mayor, furtive at the gates, dressed in a two-tone coat. "Hallo," says I, "they’re about to have a go. They think they’ve a trick up the sleeve." I settled back to piss on their parade, and it all went a little sorry.’

‘There was a note.’

‘Music, something in the air. Another note, and I prick up my ears to hear what’s going on. Little sleek brown heads appear from holes all over town.’

‘Then the third note sounds, and apocalypse begins.’

‘Suddenly I could hear something: a body scraping tripe from a bowl, a huge bowl. I could see it! I heard apples tumbling into a press, and my Plates start moving forward. I could hear someone leaving cupboards ajar, and I knew the jigger had been sprung on the Devil’s own pantry… the door was wide open, and I could fair sniff the scran inside, and I had to find it, and I had to eat it all.’

‘I started forward and I could hear a rumble, a shaking, a scamper of a hundred million little feet and I saw the air around me heaving with my little minions, all shouting for joy. They could hear the food too.’

‘I do a leap from the gables into the Frog. Splashdown in a stream of rats, all my little boys and girls, my lovers and my soldiers, big and fat and small and brown and black and quick and old and slow and frisky and all of them, all of us after that food.’

‘And as I troop ravenous onwards, I suddenly feel queer horror in my gut. I was using my nous, and I saw there wasn’t no food where we were going.’

‘ "Stop," I shrieks, and no one listens. They just bump my bum from behind to get past. "Don’t," I yell, and that starving stream just parts around me, rejoins.’

‘I felt that hunger waxing, and I scamper over and sink me Hampsteads fast into the wood of a door, hard as you like, holding myself back with my good strong gob. My pegs are dancing, they want that music, that food, but my mouth’s holding strong. I feel my mind go slack and I gnaw some more, locking my jaw… but disaster strikes.’

‘I take a bite from the door. My mouth snaps free and, before you can say knife, I’m in the stream of my subjects, my brainbox weaving in and out of hunger and joy for the tucker I can all but taste — and the despair, I’m King Rat, I know what’s happening to me and my kind, and no one will listen. Something dire’s in the offing.’

‘On we march, willy-nilly, and from the corner of my eye I can see the people leaning out the windows, and the bastards are clapping, cheering, giving it all that. We’re trotting in time, all four legs stately and sharpish to that… abominable piping, tails swaying like metronomes.’

‘I can see where we’re headed, a little journey to the suburbs I’ve taken more times nor I can think, on a beeline for the grain silos beyond the walls. And there behind the silos, bloated after the showers, hollering like the sea, roaring and pelting down through the dews-a-vill, wide and rocky, filthy with swirling muck and mud and rain, is the river.’

‘There by the bridge I catch sight of the swine playing his flute in his fatuous duds. His Loaf bobs up and down, and I clock a revolting grin all over his North while he plays. The first ranks of rats are at the bridge now, and I can see them troop calmly to the edge, nary a hint of disquiet, eyes still narrowed on that lovely mountain of scran they’re headed for. I can see them getting ready and I’m screaming at them to stop, but I’m pissing in the wind, it’s a done deal.’

‘They step off the stone walls of the bridge into the water.’

‘The most almighty cacophony of squeals starts up from below the bridge, but none of the sisters and brothers can hear it. They’re still listening to the dance of the sugarplums and bacon rind.’

‘The next in line jump on their comrades, and more and more — the Fisherman’s is seething. I can’t bear it, I can hear the screams, every one a blade in my gut, my boys and girls giving up the ghost in the water, fighting to keep their Crusts over the waves, good swimmers all but not built for this. I can hear wails and keens as bodies are swept downriver, and still my goddamn fucking legs keep moving. I pull back through the ranks, trying to turn round, going a little slower than the others, feeling them pass me, and the squire on the bridge looks at me, that infernal flute still clamped to his gob, and he sees who I am. I can see him see I’m King Rat.’

‘And he smiles a little more, and bows to me as I march on past onto the bridge and into the river.’

Loplop hissed and Anansi breathed something to himself. The three were locked into themselves, all staring ahead, all remembering.

‘The Fisherman’s was icy, and the touch of it cleared the bonce of nonsense. Every splash was quick-echoed by a screech, a wail as my poor little minions fight to keep their I Supposes in the air, thinking What the fuck am I doing here? and busy dying.’

‘More and more bodies jumping in to join them, more and more fur becoming waterlogged, feeling the tug of the river, slipping below the caps, raking their claws every which way in panic, tearing each other’s bellies and eyes, and dragging brothers and sisters into the freezing cold under the air.’

‘I kicked my pegs to get away. There was a frantic mass of us kicking up froth, an isle of rat bodies, fighting and killing to climb atop, the foundations dying and disappearing below.’

‘Water plugged my lugs. All I can hear is the in-out of my breath, panicked and disjointed, gulping and retching and breathing in bile. The waves are smashing me around, tossing me against rocks, and on all sides rats are dying in thousands and thousands. I can just make out the noise of the flute. It’s stripped of magic here in the Fisherman’s, just a whining noise. I can hear the splashes of more rats leaping in the water to die; it’s endless and merciless. Screams and choking are everywhere; stiff little bodies bob past me like buoys in hell’s harbour. This is the end of the world, I think, and the stinking water fills my lungs, and I sink.’

‘Everywhere are corpses.’

‘They move with the swell, and through my half closed eyes I can just clock them, all around me, suspended under the water, above me as I sink and below me too, blobs of brown approaching. And there in the murk, as the last bubbles of air spew out of me, I can see the charnel house under the river, the killing fields, those sharp black rocks an abattoir for ratkind, pile upon pile of cadavers, little skinless babies and old grey males, fat matron rats and pugnacious youth, the fit, the ill, an endless mass of death shifting with the torrent above.’

‘And I alone stared this holocaust in the face.’

Drowned rats seemed to hover before Saul as he listened. His ears pounded as if his lungs fought for air.

King Rat’s voice came back, and the dead tone which had crept into his descriptions had gone.

‘And I opened my eyes and said, "No."’

‘I kicked suddenly, and left that cataclysm behind. I didn’t have no air, don’t forget, so my lungs were screaming murder, whipping me one stroke for every heartbeat, and I climbed out of the quiet into the light, and I could hear the cries through the river above me, and I moved out and away, and finally pushed my face into the air.’

‘I sucked it in like an addict. I was eager.’

‘I turned my Crust and it was still going on, the deaths still continuing, but the spume was a sight lower by now and there was no more ratkind falling out of the sky. I saw the man with his flute walk away.’

‘He didn’t see me watch him.’

‘And I decided, as I watched, that he had to die.’

‘I dragged myself out of the river, and laid myself down under a stone. The cries of the dying continued for a while, and then they went out, and the river swept all the evidence away behind it. And I lay and breathed and swore revenge for my Rat Nation.’

‘The poet called me a Caesar, who lived to swim across. But that wasn’t my Rubicon. That was my Styx. I should’ve gone. I should be a drowned rat. Maybe I am. I’ve thought of that. Maybe I never made it, and maybe it’s just hate that seeped into my bones that keeps me up and scrapping.’

‘I got some small satisfaction, the first part only, from the bastard sons and daughters of Hamelin. The stupid, stupid fuckers tried to put one over on the Piper and I had the pleasure of watching the gurning cunts, who’d clapped as we took our leave, screaming in the alleys, stuck like glue while their Kinder pranced away to the tune of the flute. And I had the small joy of smiling when the queer cove made the mountain split open for those little Godfers, and they skipped on in. Because those little Dustbins went to bell, and they hadn’t even died, and they hadn’t even done any wrong, and their bastard parents knew that.’

‘That was some pleasure, like I say.’

‘But it was that damnable minstrel himself I wanted. He was the real culprit. He’s the one who has a certain reckoning due.’

Saul shivered at the viciousness of King Rat’s tone, but he stopped himself from remonstrating about the innocence of the children.

‘He sucked all the birds out of the sky and taunted me, till I grew mad in my impotence.’ Loplop was speaking in the same dreaming tone as King Rat. ‘I fled to Bedlam, forgetting myself, thinking myself nothing but a madman who thought himself King of Birds. For a long time I rotted in the cage, till I remembered and burst away again.’

‘Him clear all the scorpion and my lickle pickneys from the palace in Baghdad. Him call me in with him piccolo, and my mind was gone, and him rough me, mash me up, hurt me bad. And all the lickle spiders them saw.’ Anansi spoke softly.

The three were emasculated, casually stripped of power by the Piper. Saul remembered the contempt, the spitting of the rats in the sewer.

‘That’s why the rats don’t obey you,’ he murmured, looking at King Rat.

‘When Anansi and Loplop were caught, some lived to see them suffer, saw Loplop lose his mind, saw Anansi tortured. They bore witness to the martyrdom of the monarchs. It was plain for every Jack with eyes to see.’

‘My rats, my troops, they saw nothing. Every one was taken. And drowning leaves no marks, no scars or stripes to illustrate engagement. Word spread to the towns and dews-a-vill around that King Rat had run, left his people to the swollen river. And they dethroned me. Stupid shits! They’ve not got the nous to live without me. It’s anarchy, no control. We should run the Smoke, and instead it’s chaos. And I’ve been without my crown more nor half a thousand years.’

When he heard this, Saul thought of the entreating, pleading rats who circled him below the pavements. He said nothing.

‘Anansi and Loplop, they still rule, bloodied maybe, bowed and cowed, but they’ve got their kingdom. I want mine.’

‘And if,’ said Saul slowly, ‘you can defeat the Piper, you think the rats will come back to you.’

King Rat was silent.

‘He roams around the world,’ said Loplop flatly. ‘He has not been here for a hundred years, since he cast me into the birdcage. I knew he had returned when I called all my birds to me a night not long ago, and they did not come. There is only one thing can make them deaf to my command: the damnable pipe.’

‘Sometimes the spiders rush away from me like them do another’s bidding. The Badman back in town, fe true, and him want the rattymon bad this time.’

‘None’s ever escaped, you see, sonny, except me,’ said King Rat. ‘He let Loplop and Anansi go, after shaming them, letting them clock who’s the bossman, he reckons. But me, he wanted my hide. I’m the one that got away. And for seven hundred years he’s been trying to make good his mistake. And when he found I had a nephew, he came looking for you. He’s on the skedge for you now. Anything to square accounts.’

Anansi and Loplop looked at each other, looked down at Saul.

‘What is he?’ breathed Saul.

‘Him greed,’ said Anansi.

‘Covetousness,’ said Loplop.

‘He exists to own,’ said King Rat. ‘He has to suck things in to him, always, which is why he’s so narked at me for having pulled a disappearing trick. He’s the spirit of narcissism. He’s to prove his worth by guzzling all and sundry in.’

‘Him can charm anything,’ said Anansi.

‘He’s congealed hunger,’ said Loplop. ‘He’s insatiable.’

‘He can choose, see?’ said King Rat. ‘Will I call the rats? The birds? The spiders? Dogs? Cats? Fish? Reynards? Minks? Kinder? He can ring anyone’s bell, charm anything he fancies. Just choose and he plays the right tune. Owt he chooses, Saul, except nor one thing.’

‘He can’t charm you, Saul.’

‘You’re rat and human, more and less than each. Call the rats and the person in you is deaf to it. Call to the man and the rat’ll twitch its tail and run. He can’t charm you, Saul. You’re double trouble. You’re my deuce, Saul, my trump card. An ace in the hole. You’re his worst nightmare. He can’t play two tunes at once, Saul. He can’t charm you.’

‘No, you he just wants to kill.’

No one spoke. Three pairs of unclear eyes transfixed Saul.

‘But no need to panic, sonny. Things are going to change around here,’ King Rat suddenly spat. ‘See, my mates and me are pissed off. We’ve had enough. Loplop owes the Piper for his brain-box that was Tea Leafed off him. Anansi here got tortured, still feels it sore in all his pegs — and in front of his own people. And me… I owe the fucker because he stole my nation and I want it back.’

‘Revenge,’ said Loplop.

‘Revenge,’ said Anansi.

‘Revenge is right,’ said King Rat. ‘Piper-man fucker better steel himself for some animal magic.’

‘The three of you…’ said Saul. ‘Is that how many there are? To take him.’

‘There are others,’ said Loplop, ‘but not here, not to do the job. Tibault, King of the Cats, he’s trapped in a nightmare, a story told by a man called Yoll. Kataris, Queen Bitch, who runs with the dogs, she’s disappeared, no one knows where.’

‘Mr Bub, Lord of the Flies, him a shifty murderer and me can’t work with him,’ said Anansi.

‘There are others but we’re the ones, the hard core, the sufferers, who’ve scores to settle,’ said King Rat. ‘We’re bringing the war back to him. And you can help us, sonny.’

Chapter Thirteen

What woke Kay was the drumbeat of blood in his head. Each stroke that landed on the back of his skull sent vibrations of pain through the bone.

His eyes cracked a seal of rheum. He opened them and saw nothing but black. He blinked, tried to focus on the vague geometry he could glimpse in the shadows. He felt that something stretched away in front of him.

Kay was freezing. He groaned and raised his head, a motion accompanied by a crescendo of aches, rolled his neck and tried to move. His arms hurt and he realized they were stretched out above him, held fast, and stripped of clothing. He opened his eyes more and saw coils of thick dirty rope around his wrists, disappearing into the gloom above him. He was suspended, his weight dragging him hard, pulling the skin of his armpits taut.

He tried to twist his body, to investigate his position, but he was suddenly constrained, his feet refusing to obey. He shook his groggy head and looked down. He saw that he was naked, his cock shrivelled and tiny in the cold. He saw the same rope around his ankles, spreading his legs. He was caught tight in a petrified star-jump, he was an X hovering in the dark, the pain in his wrists and ankles and arms beginning to register. Gusts of wind pulled at him, raised goosebumps.

Kay winced, blinked hard, tried to work out where he was, lowered his eyes again to his feet. As the cold air began to cut through the muck of pain in his head he became aware of the dim diffuse light around him. Shapes clarified in the shadow below his dangling toes: sharp lines, concrete, bolts, wood. Railway tracks.

Kay’s head wobbled up. He tried to throw it behind him, to see over his shoulder.

He gave a yell of shock which bounced back and forward in its enclosed environs.

Behind him, illuminated by half-hearted little bulbs dribbling beige light, stretched an underground platform covered in dust and small pieces of rubbish. The darkness before him stopped sharp above Kay’s head, where the bricks of the tunnel began. Those bricks arced down on both sides of him. To his right was a wall, to his left the platform edge. The ropes which bound him stretched out to that arch, wound around huge nails driven roughly into the old brickwork.

He hung cruciform at the entrance to the tunnel, from where the trains emerged.

Kay’s scream echoed around and around him.

He shook ineffectually, tried to wriggle from his bonds. His fear was complete. He was utterly vulnerable, suspended nude in the path of the locomotives.

He screamed and screamed, but no one came.

He twisted his head around as far as he could. Kay’s eyes frantically skipped from surface to surface, searching for some clue to tell him where he was. The trimmings of the station were black; the line above the poster spaces — all empty — was black. This was the Northern Line. At the edge of his limited field of vision he saw the curved edge of an underground sign, the tell-tale red circle bisected by a blue line containing the name of the station. He pulled his head over, ignoring the pain in his neck and skull, trying to push his shoulder out of the way with his chin, desperate to see where he was. As he vibrated to and fro the sign moved in and out of his view. He caught glimpses of the two words it contained, one above the other.

gton ent… ington scent… rnington rescent…

Mornington Crescent. The ghost station, the strange zone between Euston and Camden Town on the decrepit Northern Line: the odd, poky little tube stop which had been closed for repairs sometime in the late Eighties and had never opened again. Trains would slow down as they passed through, so as not to create a vacuum in the empty space, and passengers would glimpse the platform. Sometimes posters would apologize and promise a swift resumption of service, and sometimes obscure pieces of equipment to cure ailing underground stations lay scattered on the abandoned concrete. Often there was nothing, just the signs proclaiming the name of the station in the faint light. It lived a half-life, never being finally laid to rest, haunted by the unlikely promise that it would one day open for business again.

Behind him Kay heard footsteps.

‘Who’s there?’ he yelled. ‘Who’s that? Help me!’

Whoever it was had been standing on the platform, out of his sight when he had tried to turn round. Kay’s head was twisted as violently over his left shoulder as he could manage. The steps approached him. A tall figure strolled into view, reading something.

‘Alright, Kay?’ said Pete without looking up. He chuckled as he read. ‘My God, they’re not averse to a bit of pretension, this bunch, are they?’ He held up what he was reading and Kay saw it was Drum ‘n’ Bass Massive 3!, a CD Kay had just bought. Kay fought to speak but his mouth was suddenly dry in terror. ‘ "Rudeness ME sends shouts to: the Rough an’ Ready Posse, Shy FX," blah blah blah, "an’ Boys from da North, da South, da East, da West, remember… It’s a London Someting! Urban-style ghetto bass!" ’ Pete looked up, grinning. ‘This is drivel, Kay.’

‘Pete…’ Kay finally croaked. ‘What’s going on? Get me down, man! How did I get here?’

‘Well, I needed to ask you some questions about something. I’m concerned about something.’ Pete moved off, still reading. In his other hand he held Kay’s bag. He replaced the CD and brought out another. ‘ "Jungle versus the Hardsteppers." Cor! I’ve got a lot of lingo to learn if I’m going to get in with Natasha, haven’t I?’

Kay licked his lips. He was sweating even as he shivered. His skin felt slick with terror.

‘How did you get me here, man?’ he moaned. ‘What do you want?’

Pete turned to him, replaced the CD, squatted down on the platform to his left. His flute, Kay saw, was thrust through his belt like a sabre.

‘It’s early yet, Kay, probably not yet five o’clock. The Northern Line doesn’t start for a while. Just thought I’d let you know. And, yes, what I wanted… well. When I came out of the pub I headed for Natasha’s flat as well, a little after you, wanted to have a word or something. See what you got up to. I’ve been very interested in all these stories I keep hearing about your mate who’s in trouble, and I wanted to maybe get you on your own — see what you could tell me about him.’

‘Then, as I come towards you, downwind, I smell a very particular scent, one that someone wore once who I’m trying to track down. And it occurs to me that maybe your mate knows the bloke I’m after!’ He smiled reasonably and put his head on one side.

‘So. You did bump into your mate last night, didn’t you?’

Kay swallowed. ‘Yeah… but Pete… let me down… please. I’ll tell you all about it if you’ll just… please, man… this is really freaking me out.’

Kay’s mind was racing. He could not think for the pain in his head. Pete was mad. He swallowed again. He had to make him take him down, he had to do it now. Kay could not formulate his thoughts clearly, so overwhelming was the adrenaline rush brought on by fear. He was trembling violently.

Pete nodded.

‘I’m not surprised it’s freaking you out, Kay. Where’s your mate?’

‘You mean Saul? I don’t know, man, I don’t know. Please…’

‘Where’s Saul?’

‘Just get me fucking down!’

Kay’s control broke and he began to cry.

Pete shook his head thoughtfully.

‘No. You see, you haven’t told me where Saul is yet.’

‘I don’t know, I swear I don’t know! He, he, he said he was…’ Kay thought desperately for something to tell Pete, something that might save him. ‘Please let me go!’

‘Where’s Saul?’

‘The sewers! He said something… he stank. I asked where’d he been, and he was on about the sewers…’ Kay’s waist twisted, legs yanking violently at the strong cord.

‘Now that’s interesting,’ said Pete, leaning forward. ‘Did he say anything about where in the sewers? Because I’ve often suspected that… this guy I’m after uses them.’

Kay was sobbing.

‘Nah, man, he didn’t say nothing else… please… please… he was weird, his voice was weird, he stank… he wouldn’t tell me anything… Please let me down!’

‘No, Kay, I won’t let you down,’ Pete’s voice was suddenly shockingly vicious. He rose and stalked towards him. ‘Not yet. You see, I want to know everything you know about your friend Saul, because it’s important to me. I want to know everything, Kay, capeesh?’

Kay gabbled, tried to think of what he knew. He screamed about sewers, repeated that Saul had stunk, that he was hiding in the sewers. He ran out of anything to say. He whimpered and twisted where he hung.

Pete had been taking notes, nodding with interest now and then, writing carefully in a little notebook.

‘Tell me about Saul’s life,’ he said without looking up.

Kay talked about Saul’s father, the fat socialist they had all laughed at; about Saul’s brief, disastrous attempt to move in with a girlfriend; his return home, temporary he said, always temporary for the next two years. Kay kept talking, about Saul’s friends, about his social life, Jungle, the clubs, and as Kay spoke tears rolled down his cheeks. He was pathetically eager to please. He whimpered with each breath. He had no more to say and he was afraid, because Pete seemed pleased with him when he told him about Saul, and all Kay could think of was that he must keep Pete happy. But he truly had no more to say.

Pete sighed and put the pad in his pocket. He glanced at his watch.

‘Thanks, Kay,’ he said. ‘I guess you’re wondering what this all means, what I’m up to. I’m afraid I won’t tell you that. But you’ve helped me a lot. The sewers, huh? I thought as much, but you don’t really want to go wading around in shit unless you’re quite sure you have to, do you? It’s not really my turf, know what I mean? I’ll have to get him out.’ He grimaced lightheartedly. ‘Maybe… maybe… you… can… let… me… go…’ Kay forced the words out past chattering teeth. His body was shaking with little sobs, and every word of Pete’s chilled him.

Pete looked at him and smiled.

‘No,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘I don’t think so.’

Kay’s screams began again, went shooting off down the tunnel he faced, bounced around him. He threatened, cajoled, pleaded, and Pete ignored him, and continued speaking in his conversational tone.

‘You don’t know me, Kay. I can do a trick.’ He pulled the flute from his belt. ‘See this?’ Kay continued begging. ‘I can play this, make anything I want come to me. Play the right notes and I can get you the cockroaches around us, the mice, anything close enough to hear. And it feels so good to make them come to me.’ He crooned the last sentence, and at the sound of that cloying wetness, that fucked-up sugary tone, Kay retched.

‘And I was looking at these tunnels and thinking how much they looked like wormholes,’ Pete continued. ‘If I played this, what do you think I might call?’

Pete put the flute to his lips and began to play, a strange, droning tune, a hypnotic dirge that wailed flatly over Kay’s garbled exhortations.

Kay gazed into the mouth of the tunnel.

Behind him the melody continued, and Kay could hear the slap of feet as Pete danced to his own tune.

The wind jerked around Kay, pushed into his face from somewhere far off.

Deep in the darkness before him something growled.

Kay hung like an obscene toy, nude and chubby in the yawning darkness of the underground.

The wind pushed on with more resolve, and the growl sounded again. Kay shrieked in despair, felt himself relax in terror, sag in his bonds, felt piss run down his legs. The tune continued.

There was a sound like steel whiplashing as the tracks buckled and moved under the oncoming weight. The wind began to hit Kay now, began to push his hair out of his face. Scraps of paper and dirt came whirling out of the blackness, surrounding him, sticking to him; grit filled his eyes and mouth and he fought and spat to clear himself of debris, consumed by a ghastly desperation to see.

The growling ebbed and flowed, became a clattering, began to drown out the disinterested flute. A great presence rushed towards him.

Lights had appeared in the distance, two dirty white lights that seemed to crawl towards him, seemed determined never to arrive. It was only the wind and noise that moved at speed, he reasoned desperately, but even as he decided that, he saw how much closer those lights suddenly were, and Kay wriggled and fought and screamed prayers to God and Jesus.

He was in a tornado now as the lights suddenly rushed towards him. The howl and rumble echoed around the tube with a strange raging melancholy, an empty roar. The track was visible as glistening threads illuminated by those lights. The filthy off-white of the first Northern Line train of the day became evident before him, the driver’s glass front still a black slit. He must see me, thought Kay. He’ll stop! But the great flat surface moved ineluctably forward at a horrible speed, pushing the air out, clogging the wind with dirt. The speed was intolerable, thought Kay, just stop, but the lights kept coming, there was no let-up, the howl of the tunnel had become a charnel roar, the lights were dazzling, they blinded him, he looked up as he screamed, still hearing the flute, always the flute behind him, he looked up at the reflections varnished onto the windscreen, caught a glimpse of his ridiculous little body spreadeagled like a medical specimen, then saw through that, through the wide-open mouth of his reflection, into the incredulous gaze of the driver who bore down on him, disbelief and horror smeared across his face, those eyes aghast, Kay could see the whites of the other man’s eyes…

The glass front of the train burst open like a vast blood-blister. The first Northern Line train of the day arrived at Mornington Crescent station and ploughed to an unscheduled halt, dripping.