Crowley straightened up suddenly. A long, thin, light club. Made of metaclass="underline" the impact was clear about that. Something the murderer hung on to, used more than once. Took from crime to crime. Where he played music, it seemed.
‘Bailey!’ Crowley yelled.
The big man appeared, still impatient, still exasperated with his boss.
He all but rolled his eyes at Crowley’s new question.
‘Bailey, do any of Saul’s mates play the flute?’
Chapter Twenty-One
Deep underneath London, King Rat skulked and ferreted in the darkness.
He clutched a stash of food, carried it slung over one shoulder like a swag bag. His strides were long A and left no sign. He stalked silently through the water of the sewers.
The rats ran as he approached. The braver souls stayed a little to spit at him and provoke him. His smell was deeply ingrained in their nervous system, and they had been taught to despise it. King Rat ignored them. Walked on. His eyes were dark.
He passed like a thief in the night. Unclear. Minimal. Dirty. Subaltern. His motives were opaque.
He reached under the dirty stream to dislodge the plug to his throne-room, slid through the murk into the great teardrop chamber. He shook the water from him, and stamped into the room.
Saul came from behind him. He clutched a broken chair leg which he swung at an incredible speed and cracked against the back of King Rat’s skull.
King Rat flew forward and flung his arms out with a sudden shrill bark of pain. He sprawled, rolled, clutching his head, regained his footing.
Food spread across the sodden floor.
Saul was upon him, quivering, his jaw set hard and tight. He swung the chair leg again and again.
King Rat was as pliable as quicksilver. He slid impossibly out of Saul’s flurry of blows and scampered away, hissing, clutching his bleeding head.
He spun to face Saul.
Saul’s face was a mosaic of bruises and blood and puffy flesh. King Rat was quite still. He eyed Saul with his hidden eyes. His teeth were bared and glinted with dirty yellow light. His breath came hard. His hands were crooked into eager claws.
But Saul hit him again, before those claws could move. Saul’s hands and club came at him hard, but King Rat ripped up with his clawed hands and drew lines on Saul’s stomach, below his ruined shirt.
Saul spoke, muttering in time to the blows he attempted to land.
‘So what the fuck was Loplop doing there, unh?’ Slam.
King Rat slipped outside the club’s arc. It hit the floor loudly.
‘Tell him to follow me, unh?’ Slam. ‘What was he going to do — report back?’ Slam. This time the wood connected and King Rat yelled in rage.
King Rat growled and slashed at Saul with those claws, and Saul bellowed and swung the club wit renewed venom. The two of them skittered around the dark room, slipping on mould and food, moving now on two limbs, now on four. Saul and King Rat moved like liminal figures, hovering between evolutionary strata, bestial and knowing.
‘So was Loplop going to send a message, unh? bird? Little bird going to let slip where I was, then?’
Again the attacks came, again King Rat moved, refusing to engage in battle, content to draw blood and slip away, his teeth still visible and wicked.
‘What if Loplop had accidentally told someone else where I was, unh? Was I fucking bait?’ King Rat caught the club with his right hand and bit at it suddenly and savagely, and it dissolved in a burst of splinters. Saul did not pause, but grasped King Rat’s filthy lapels and carried him down into the muck, straddling him.
‘Well you needn’t have bothered, you fucking shit because the Piper was there and look what he did to me, you shit. You just weren’t ready, you and Nans so poor old Loplop had to take him on his own.’ Saul pinioned King Rat’s arms to the brick floor and began systematically to punch his face. But even trapped lit that King Rat writhed and slipped under him, many of the heavy blows did not land.
Saul thrust his face right up to King Rat, and stare through the shadows on his eyes.
‘I know you wouldn’t give a fuck if I’d died, as long as I took Piper-man with me,’ he hissed. ‘And I know you killed my dad, you fucking shithead rapist, you piece of crud — not the fucking Piper…’
‘We.’ King Rat shouted the word out and convulsed, throwing Saul from him and sliding in a single movement until he stood in characteristic pose by the throne, skulking and aggrandizing, but this time with his claws bared and his teeth dangerous, coated in slaver like a wild animal. Saul moved backwards in the dirt, fought to right himself.
King Rat spoke again. ‘I never bumped off your dad, stupid. I killed the Usurper.’
The word stayed in the air after he had spoken it.
King Rat spoke again.
‘I’m your dad…’
‘No you fucking aren’t, you weird old fucked-up spiritual degenerate,’ replied Saul instantly. ‘I might have your blood in my veins, you fucking rapist bastard, but you aren’t shit to me.’
Saul smacked himself on the forehead, laughing bitterly.
‘I mean, hello? "Your mother was a rat, and I’m your uncle." Jesus, nice one — playing me like a fucking idiot! And…’ Saul paused and jerked his finger viciously at King Rat, ‘and, that goddamn fucking lunatic Piper who wants me dead only knows about me because of you.’
Saul sat down hard and held his head in his hands. King Rat watched him.
‘I mean, I keep saying I’ve sorted it out, right?’ Saul murmured. ‘And I just can’t stop thinking about it. You killed my father, you rapist shit, and when you did that you let some fucking spirit of darkness out after me, you gave him my fucking address, and, what, I’m supposed to go "Daddy!"?’ Saul shook his head in disgust. He felt his gut twist with contempt and hatred. ‘You can fuck off. It doesn’t work like that.’
‘So what’re you after, an apology?’
King Rat was scornful. He moved towards Saul.
‘What do you want? We’re blood. It was half an age since I left, since you were a little Godfer in the fat man’s arms. I could clock you getting flabby. It was time to join your old dad, the cutpurse king. We’re blood.’
Saul stared up at him.
‘No, fucker, I don’t want shit from you.’ Saul stood. ‘What I want is out.’ He moved off behind the throne, turned to face King Rat. ‘You can deal with the Piper on your own. He only wants me because of you, you know? You’ve been bragging about me, you stupid shit. You don’t give a fuck about family. You raped my mum so you could have your weapon. The Piper knows it; he called me the secret weapon, know what I mean to you. I know I’m a good way on getting at him, because he can’t control me.’
‘But he only wants me dead because of you. So, tell you what.’
Saul moved backwards as he spoke, towards the room’s peculiar exit.
‘Tell you what. You deal with the Piper as best you can, and I’ll look after myself. Agreed?’
And Saul looked King Rat in the eye, those eyes he could still not see, and he left the room.
Up above the sewers: in the sky, over the slate. Out in the air. Saul fingered the skin over his bruises and felt it stretched out taut and split. He gazed at London, spread out before him, unfolding, the underworld threatening to burst through, to rupture its surface tension. It was dark; his life was always dark now. He was becoming a night creature.