Only Saul’s eyes could move. He could feel a hammering in his armsand legs as his heart struggled to push blood past the obstructionscutting into his flesh.

The man bit through the rope and tied the end at Saul’s feet. Hestood before Saul and looked down at him, nodded.

‘No more nonsense and hollering now, innit?’

Saul began to pitch forward but the man caught him and, to Saul’ssudden horror, rolled him through the air and onto his back. Hepulled Saul into position as effortlessly as King Rat had done. Saulfelt like fluff. The man took more rope from his shoulder and wrappedit around his captive several times, attaching him more firmly. Saulwas helpless on those broad flat muscles, his eyes facing backwards.His legs were twisted up into a tight bend. He was suspended from theman’s shoulders and waist, the rope cutting into his captor’s skin,seemingly painlessly. Saul bobbed in a terrifying and undignifiedfashion as his abductor raced suddenly through the darkness.

He rushed through the underworld below the Westway at a rate ofknots, his route violent and oscillating. The hidden byways recededbefore Saul’s eyes. The man beneath him lurched suddenly and Saul sawthe dark horizon drop around him. They were airborne. Saul’s eyeswidened and he gave a muffled yell, spit slithering down his chinbehind the ropes.

They flew through the air, paused and swung backwards, thenaround, a pendulum ten feet from the ground. They were suspended,clinging to a rope, Saul realized. The man began to climb.

He moved easily, the curve of his back suggesting that he wasusing both feet and hands. The pace was utterly smooth. The sportsgrounds disappeared below them and, as they swung from side to side,vistas of West London peeked in and out of Saul’s vision. Theoccasional roar of traffic was closer now.

They reached the top of the rope. Saul was facing away from thehighway, out over badly lit sidestreets. The man clung to the barrierand scampered along the side of the Westway. Saul’s stomach drummedwith fear. There was nothing below his feet. He saw the streets belowcurve a little closer to him, and he saw the dim light catch on afilament, a thread passing up from the chimney of a house fastapproaching.

They were opposite the house now, and he caught another glimpse ofthe thin line of light. It was close by, twisting towards him.

Suddenly he was falling.

But the ground stopped rushing towards him, and he bobbed in theair. He was facing directly down, the Westway growling a few feetabove and behind him. The filament he had seen was another rope, tiedat one end to the roof and another to the railings of the great roadabove. The man was descending the rope now, headfirst, hand overhand, bouncing unnervingly as he slid fast towards the intricatedarkness of the roofscape.

Saul prayed that the rope was strong.

And then they were down, and Saul was swung around. He heard aloud snap, and when the man turned again Saul saw that he had brokenthe rope behind them, obscured their passing.

They were off over the tops of houses, another raised race acrossLondon. The man swung himself around obstacles, scampering over theslates even faster than King Rat.

Blocks fleeted away below them. Behind them Saul saw themonolithic Westway shrinking.

The man leapt forward and bounced perilously over a road thatblocked his path. Saul realized with terror that they were on anotherrope tied horizontally between buildings, but this time moving on topof it, tightrope-walking faster than Saul could run.

The air was buffeted out of him by the quick motion of his captorand the constricting ropes on his chest. Below them Saul saw asolitary walker moving nervously through the backstreets, obliviousto the mad funambulism above him.

With a jump the dark man left the rope, landed on the oppositeroof, snapped the trail behind them.

They moved like this at a crazy speed over the streets, traversinga network of ropes already laid. They passed through grassland andinto an estate, leaping along flat roofs and scampering insanely fastdown sheer bricks. Saul was convulsed with terror, unable to see whathis captor was doing.

They raced down a bank of scrub onto a railway line, and rushedalong the wooden sleepers. Saul watched the tracks curve away behindthem.

Again their passage was interrupted as the dark man climbed theside of a bridge that passed over the railway and the canal thatskirted it. They swept through an industrial estate, a collection oflow, shabby buildings and motionless forklift trucks. Saul washypnotized by the breakneck progress over the houses. He had beencaught, he did not know by whom, and he did not know what was tohappen to him.

The noise of the city became oddly distant. They had entered ayard full of ruined cars crushed flat, piles of them like geologicalfeatures: strata of old Volvos and Fords and Saabs. The cars teeteredaround them, leaving only narrow alleys through which to pass.

They wound through these walkways.

Suddenly the man stopped and Saul heard another’s voice: astrange, vain, musical voice coloured with a European accent he couldnot specify.

‘You did find him, then.’

‘Yeah, man. Caught the lickle bleeder down south from here, notfar you know.’

There was no more speaking. Saul suddenly felt the ties that boundhim slipping, and he fell in a heap to the dust. He was still wrappedtight in his own rope swaddling. The fat man picked him up andcarried him in his arms like a bride.

Saul caught a glimpse of the newcomer: thin and very pale, withred hair, a sharp hawkish nose and wide eyes. Saul was borne towardshis destination, a huge steel container like a vast skip ten feethigh, over which loomed a yellow structure something like acrane.

His eyes flitted about as he was carried, he saw the cars allflattened around him, and he realized that this was a car-crusher,that the lid of the dark container would bear down on whatever wasinside, and squeeze it, press it like a flower into two dimensions.And as he was borne inexorably towards it Saul’s eyes widened inhorror and he began to struggle, to shout through his gag.

He flopped pathetically in the man’s arms, tried to roll out ofhis grip, but the man held him firm and kissed his teeth in disgust,did not break his stride, no matter how Saul emitted frantic hummingprotests and jack-knifed. The man hauled Saul over his shoulder, Saulstaring for a moment into the insane looking eyes of the redheadbehind them. Saul was held, bending and unbending at the waistpathetically, till the tall man heaved him upwards and he sailed overthe edge of the ominous grey container… hung silent and still fora moment… fell, passing into the shadow of its metal walls, feelingthe air cool and still, slamming into the pitted floor.

He landed hard on the shards of metal and glass which littered thedark.

Only because he was a rat was he not unconscious or dead, hedecided, as he lay moaning. He struggled to sit upright, trickles ofblood discolouring the cords which held him. Something approachedhim, footsteps clanging on the metal floor, and he tried to turn, andfell again, banging his head, only to feel himself grabbed around theshoulders and pulled upright. He opened his eyes and stared into aface glaring balefully at his, a dark face, darker than the shadowsin the deadly car-crusher, a face boiling with anger, teeth grittedhard, scoring lines around the mouth, and the familiar stink of oldwet animals and rubbish made acrid with anger.

King Rat looked at him and spat in his face.