‘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.’