It was damp and clammy, still shiny with spit where it had beenbitten.

Saul put it near his mouth. He let his mind play over the filth ofthe dustbin, waited for his stomach to turn. But it did not.

His mind still rang with admonishments heard long ago — don’ttouch, it’s dirty, take it out of your mouth but his stomach, hisstomach remained firm. The smell of the meat was enticing.

He willed himself to feel ill. He strove for nausea.

He took a bite. He wriggled his tongue into the meat, pushed apartthe fibres. He probed, tasting the dirt and decay. Lumps of gristleand fat split open in his mouth, mixed with his saliva.

The burger was delicious.

Saul swallowed and did not feel ill. His hunger, piqued, demandedmore. He took another bite, and another, eating faster and faster allthe time.

He felt something slipping away from him. He drew his strengthfrom the old cold meat, food that had surrendered to people anddecay, and now to him. His world changed.

King Rat nodded and ate on, grabbed handfuls and shoved them intohis mouth without looking at them.

Saul reached for a slimy chicken wing.

In the street, only twenty feet away, children were appearing inoutsized school uniforms. The bricks and the bags kept Saul and KingRat hidden. They looked up as the children passed, paused briefly intheir breakfast.

They were silent while they ate. When they had finished, Saullicked his lips. The taste of filth and carrion was very strong inhis mouth, and he investigated it, still wondering that it did notturn his stomach.

King Rat nestled into the bags and pulled his coat about him.‘Feeling better now?’ he asked.

Saul nodded. For the first time since his sudden release, he feltcalm. He could feel the acids of his stomach getting to work insidehim, breaking down the old food he had eaten. He felt moleculesscurrying out of his gut, carrying strange energy from the ruins ofother people’s suppers and breakfasts. He was changing from theinside out.

My mother was like this creature, he said to himself, thisskulking thing. My mother was like this thin-faced vagrant withmagical powers. My mother was a spirit, it seems, a dirty spirit. Mymother was a rat.

‘You can’t go back, you know.’ King Rat looked at Saul from underhis eyelids. Saul had long given up trying to make sense of hisfeatures. The light would not fall full on King Rat’s face, no matterwhere he stood or lay. Saul glanced at him again, but his eyes foundno purchase.

‘I know it,’ he said.

‘They think you did your pa, and they’ll do you for that. And nowyou’ve slung your hook from their old Bucket, they’ll have your gutsfor garters.’

The city had been made unsafe. Saul felt it yawn before him,infinitely vaster than he had imagined, unknowable and furtive.

‘So, so…’ said Saul slowly. So what is London? he thought. Ifyou can be what you are, what’s London? What’s the world? I’ve had itall wrong. Do werewolves and trolls lurk under bridges in the parks?What are the boundaries of the world?

‘So… what do I do now?’

‘Well, you aren’t going back, so you got to bing a waste forward.I’ve to teach you how to be rat. You got a lot going for you, sonny.Hold your breath and squeeze in tight, freeze like a statue… you’reinvisible. Move just right, dainty on your toes, you’ll make nary asound. You can be like me. As far as you’re concerned, up’s no longerout of bounds, and down’s nothing to fear.’

It didn’t matter any more that he didn’t understand. Unbelievably,King Rat’s words took away Saul’s trepidation. He felt himself growstrong. He stretched out his arms. He felt like laughing.

‘I feel like I can do anything,’ he said. He was overwhelmed.

‘You can, my old son. You’re a ratling boy. Just got to learn thetricks. We’ll cut your teeth. You and me together, dynamite. We’ve akingdom to win back.’

Saul had risen to his feet, was staring out into the streetbeyond. At King Rat’s words he turned slowly and looked down at thethin figure cocooned in black plastic.

‘Back?’ he said levelly. ‘Back from who?’

King Rat nodded. ‘Time,’ he said, ‘for a word in your shell-like.Much as I hate to piss on your chips, you’re forgetting something.You’re in another country now because your old man did the six-storeyswan-dive’ — King Rat blithely ignored Saul’s aghast stare — ‘and hedid that, the old codger, in lieu of you. There’s something out therewants your head, chal, and you’d be wise not to forget it.’

Saul wobbled to his knees. ‘Who?’ he whispered.

‘Well now, that’s the biggy, isn’t it? That’s the question. Andtherein lies a story, a twisting rat-tale.’

Fabian was trying to call Natasha but he could not reach her. Shehad taken her phone off the hook. The news about Saul’s father wasspreading among his friends like a virus, but Natasha had immunizedherself for a little while longer.

It was just after midday. The sun was bright but as cold as snow.The sounds of Ladbroke Grove filtered along the backstreets to thefirst floor of a flat on Bassett Road. They slid through the windowsand rilled the front room, a susurrus of dogs and paper sellers andcars. The sounds were faint; they were what passed for silence in thecity.

In the flat a woman stood motionless in front of a keyboard. Shewas short and her face was severe, with dark eyebrows that met abovea scimitar nose. Her long hair was dark, her skin sallow. Her namewas Natasha Karadjian.

Natasha stood with her eyes closed and listened to the streetsoutside. She reached out and pressed the power button on her sampler.There was a static thud as her speakers clicked into life.

She ran her hands over the keys and the cursor. She had stoodmotionless for a minute or two now. Even alone she feltself-conscious. Natasha rarely let people watch when she created hermusic. She was afraid they would think her precious, with her silentpreparations and her closed eyes.

She tapped out a message on a clutch of small buttons, twisted hercursor, displayed her musical spoils on the LCD display. She scrolledthrough the selection and plucked a favourite bassline from herdigital killing jar. She had snatched it from a forgotten Reggaetrack, sampled it, preserved it, and now she pulled it out and loopedit and gave it another life. The zombie sound travelled the innardsof the machine and out through wires, through the vast black stereoagainst her wall, and burst out of those great speakers.

The sound filled her room.

The bass was trapped. The sample ended just as the bass-player hadbeen about to reach a crescendo, and expectation was audible in thethudding strings as they reached out for something, for a flourish… then a break, and the cycle started again.

This bassline was in purgatory. It burst into existence with arecurring surge of excitement, waiting for a release that nevercame.

Natasha nodded her head slowly. This was the breakbeat, the rhythmof tortured music. She loved it.

Again her hands moved. A pounding beat joined the bass, cymbalsclattering like insects. And the sound looped.

Natasha moved her shoulders to the rhythm. Her eyes were wide asshe scanned her kills, her pickled sounds, and she found what shewanted: a snatch of trumpet from Linton Kwesi Johnson, a wail fromTony Rebel, a cry of invitation from Al Green. She dropped them intoher tune. They segued smoothly into the rolling bass, the slammingdrums.

This was Jungle.

The child of House, the child of Raggamuffin, the child ofDancehall, the apotheosis of black music, the Drum and Basssoundtrack for a London of council estates and dirty walls, blackyouth and white youth, Armenian girls.