‘That geezer there, stopping and staring, that’s as close as you ever got to this before now. The place he’s looking at now — no, he’s not looking at it, he’s caught a glimpse, a hint, it’s teasing him out of the corner of his eye — that’s your gaff now, me old son.’ Emotion was disguised in King Rat’s bass snarl, but he seemed satisfied, as if with a job well done. ‘The rest of it, that’s just in-between for you now. All the main streets, the front rooms and the rest of it, that’s just filler, that’s just chaff, that ain’t the real city. You get to that by the back door. I seen you in the windows, at night, at the close of the lightmans. Staring out, playing look-but-don’t-touch. Well, you’ve touched it now. All the vacant lots and all — that’s your stomping ground now, your pad, your burrow, Saul. That’s London.’
‘You can’t go back now, can you? You stick with me, boy. I’ll see you’re alright.’ ‘Why me?’ said Saul slowly. ‘What do you want from me?’ he stopped, remembering, for what seemed the first time in hours, why he had been in the police station. ‘What do you know about my father?’
King Rat turned and stared at Saul, those features, already so obscured, now invisible in the moonlight. Without taking his eyes from Saul, he slowly sank until he sat straddling the roof ridge like a horseman.
‘Slide over here, cove, and I’ll tell you the story. You aren’t going to like it.’
Saul lowered himself carefully, facing King Rat, and pulled himself forward until he was only a couple of feet away from him. If anyone could see them, Saul realized, they must look like two schoolboys, ungainly figures from a comic strip, sitting with their legs swinging. Saul’s exhilaration had dissipated with as little warning as it had arrived. He was swallowing with anxiety. He was remembering his father. This was the key to everything, he thought; this was the catalyst, the legend that would make sense of the surreality which had caught him up in its gusts.
King Rat spoke, and just as it had in the police cell, his voice took on a rhythm, a dislocating monotony like a bagpipe drone. The sense and meaning of what he said crept into Saul’s head as much by insinuation as by conscious understanding.
‘This here Rome-vill, London, that’s my manor, but I been around wherever my little courtiers found grain and rubbish to Tea Leaf. And they did my bidding, because I’m their king. But I was never alone, Saul; that’s never how it was. Rats believe in their Godfers, chuck out broods, the more mouths to filch, the better.’
‘What do you know about your mother, Saul?’
The question took him by surprise. ‘The… her name was Eloise… She was, uh, a health visitor… She died when I was born, something went wrong…’
‘Seen any Beechams?’
Saul shook his head in confusion.
‘Beechams: pictures, photos…’
‘Of course… she’s short and dark, pretty… What’s this about? Where are you going?’
‘Sometimes, me old China, sometimes there are black sheep, ne’er-do-wells, if you clock me. I’d lay good money you and your dad were snarling at each other’s throats sometimes, am I right? Didn’t get on like you might have hoped? Well, do you really think rats aren’t the same?’
‘She was always the gentry mort, your ma. Took to your daddy a whole lot, and he to her. What a beauty she was, luscious, who’d have passed that up?’ King Rat finished his sentence with a flourish, twisted his head and looked at Saul from around the corner of his face.
‘Your ma made a choice, Saul. Health visitor! That was a cheeky little joke. Set a thief to catch a thief, they say, isn’t it, and so, likewise, with her. Walk into a place, one sniff of the I Suppose, and your ma knew exactly how many rats was in there, and where. Recidivist, traitor, they called her, but I suppose that’s the power of love…’
Saul was incredulous, staring and staring at King Rat.
‘She wasn’t built for the likes of you. You bumped her off on arrival. You’re a big strong lad, sonny, stronger than you probably think. There’s a lot you can do you don’t know about. I bet you gawped out of all those night-time windows longer and harder than any of your mates. I think you’ve been scrabbling to get into this city for real for a long time.’
‘You want to know who did the deed on your old man, I know. That’s what you call petulance, that is, that bod smashed out front, in the garden.’
‘The one who did that… he was after you. Your old dad just got in the way.’
‘You’re a special boy, Saul, got special blood in your veins, and there’s one in the city who’d like to see it spilled. Your mum was my sister, Saul.’
‘Your mum was a rat.’
Chapter Four
With that insane allegation hanging in the air, King Rat rocked back onto the flesh of his arse and fell silent.
Saul shook his head and struggled between incredulity and excitement and disgust.
‘She was… what?’
‘A… fucking… rat.’ King Rat spoke slowly. ‘She crept out of the sewers because she fell for your dad. More tragic than Romeo and Juliet. And her of royal blood, too, but still she went. Couldn’t get shot of me, though. I used to come see her on the nows and thens; she’d tell me to sling my hook. Wanted all that behind her, but with her new nose she stank to herself. Couldn’t shake birthright, you know. Blood’s thicker than water, and rat blood’s the thickest of all.’
Somewhere in the tar-black below, a patrol car lurched out of the pound spewing blue light.
‘And since your mum got put in the ground, I’ve been keeping a little eye out for you: trying to keep you out of trouble. What’s family for, Saul? But it looks like things have caught up. Can’t outrun your blood, Saul. Looks like you’ve been rumbled, and your dad had to take a fall.’
Saul sat still and gazed over King Rat’s shoulder. The words, the deadly understatement delivered with something like a flourish, unlocked a door inside him. He could see his father in a hundred images. And, like a backdrop to all the frozen moments he recalled, Saul could see a powerful fat body pitching in slow motion through the night air, the mouth a distended yawn of shock and terror, eyes rolling in frantic search for safety, thinning hair flickering like candlelight, jowls trembling with gravity’s sudden shift, paddling ineffectually with those thick limbs, jagged scintillas of glass whirling around him as he flew towards the dark lawn, its soil frost-hardened like tundra.
Saul’s throat caught, and he let out a tiny sound of grief. His tears amazed him with their speed, flooding his vision instantly.
‘Oh Dad…’ he sobbed.
King Rat was incensed.
‘Leave it out now, leave it out, will you give it a fucking rest?’
His hand snapped out and he slapped Saul lightly across the face.
‘Hey. Hey. Fucking enough.’
‘Fuck off!’ Saul found a voice between sniffing, weeping and wiping his nose on the sleeve of the police-issue jumper. ‘Just stop for a minute. Just leave me alone…’
Saul relapsed into tears for his father. He beat himself on the head in his loneliness, screwed up his eyes as if he were being tortured, moaned rhythmically as he pummelled his forehead.
‘I’m sorry Dad I’m sorry I’m sorry…’ he crooned between his quiet cries. His words were garbled and confused in isolation and terrible inchoate anger. He wrapped his arms around his head, desperate and alone up on the roof.
Through the gap between his arms, he saw that King Rat was no longer sitting before him, that he had risen without a sound and had somehow reached the other end of the roof, where he stood looking out over London, facing away from Saul whose sadness angered him so much. Saul’s body moved with sobs, as he stared from behind his hands at the strange figure perched between two outcroppings of brick, King Rat. His uncle.