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.