‘Where’s Saul?’

‘The sewers! He said something… he stank. I asked where’d hebeen, and he was on about the sewers…’ Kay’s waist twisted, legsyanking violently at the strong cord.

‘Now that’s interesting,’ said Pete, leaning forward. ‘Did he sayanything about where in the sewers? Because I’ve often suspectedthat… this guy I’m after uses them.’

Kay was sobbing.

‘Nah, man, he didn’t say nothing else… please… please…he was weird, his voice was weird, he stank… he wouldn’t tell meanything… Please let me down!’

‘No, Kay, I won’t let you down,’ Pete’s voice was suddenlyshockingly vicious. He rose and stalked towards him. ‘Not yet. Yousee, I want to know everything you know about your friend Saul,because it’s important to me. I want to know everything, Kay,capeesh?’

Kay gabbled, tried to think of what he knew. He screamed aboutsewers, repeated that Saul had stunk, that he was hiding in thesewers. He ran out of anything to say. He whimpered and twisted wherehe hung.

Pete had been taking notes, nodding with interest now and then,writing carefully in a little notebook.

‘Tell me about Saul’s life,’ he said without looking up.

Kay talked about Saul’s father, the fat socialist they had alllaughed at; about Saul’s brief, disastrous attempt to move in with agirlfriend; his return home, temporary he said, always temporary forthe next two years. Kay kept talking, about Saul’s friends, about hissocial life, Jungle, the clubs, and as Kay spoke tears rolled downhis cheeks. He was pathetically eager to please. He whimpered witheach breath. He had no more to say and he was afraid, because Peteseemed pleased with him when he told him about Saul, and all Kaycould think of was that he must keep Pete happy. But he truly had nomore to say.

Pete sighed and put the pad in his pocket. He glanced at hiswatch.

‘Thanks, Kay,’ he said. ‘I guess you’re wondering what this allmeans, what I’m up to. I’m afraid I won’t tell you that. But you’vehelped me a lot. The sewers, huh? I thought as much, but you don’treally want to go wading around in shit unless you’re quite sure youhave to, do you? It’s not really my turf, know what I mean? I’ll haveto get him out.’ He grimaced lightheartedly. ‘Maybe… maybe… you… can… let… me… go…’ Kay forced the words out pastchattering teeth. His body was shaking with little sobs, and everyword of Pete’s chilled him.

Pete looked at him and smiled.

‘No,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘I don’t think so.’

Kay’s screams began again, went shooting off down the tunnel hefaced, bounced around him. He threatened, cajoled, pleaded, and Peteignored him, and continued speaking in his conversational tone.

‘You don’t know me, Kay. I can do a trick.’ He pulled the flutefrom his belt. ‘See this?’ Kay continued begging. ‘I can play this,make anything I want come to me. Play the right notes and I can getyou the cockroaches around us, the mice, anything close enough tohear. And it feels so good to make them come to me.’ He crooned thelast sentence, and at the sound of that cloying wetness, thatfucked-up sugary tone, Kay retched.

‘And I was looking at these tunnels and thinking how much theylooked like wormholes,’ Pete continued. ‘If I played this, what doyou think I might call?’

Pete put the flute to his lips and began to play, a strange,droning tune, a hypnotic dirge that wailed flatly over Kay’s garbledexhortations.

Kay gazed into the mouth of the tunnel.

Behind him the melody continued, and Kay could hear the slap offeet as Pete danced to his own tune.

The wind jerked around Kay, pushed into his face from somewherefar off.

Deep in the darkness before him something growled.

Kay hung like an obscene toy, nude and chubby in the yawningdarkness of the underground.

The wind pushed on with more resolve, and the growl sounded again.Kay shrieked in despair, felt himself relax in terror, sag in hisbonds, felt piss run down his legs. The tune continued.

There was a sound like steel whiplashing as the tracks buckled andmoved under the oncoming weight. The wind began to hit Kay now, beganto push his hair out of his face. Scraps of paper and dirt camewhirling out of the blackness, surrounding him, sticking to him; gritfilled his eyes and mouth and he fought and spat to clear himself ofdebris, consumed by a ghastly desperation to see.

The growling ebbed and flowed, became a clattering, began to drownout the disinterested flute. A great presence rushed towards him.

Lights had appeared in the distance, two dirty white lights thatseemed to crawl towards him, seemed determined never to arrive. Itwas only the wind and noise that moved at speed, he reasoneddesperately, but even as he decided that, he saw how much closerthose lights suddenly were, and Kay wriggled and fought and screamedprayers to God and Jesus.

He was in a tornado now as the lights suddenly rushed towards him.The howl and rumble echoed around the tube with a strange ragingmelancholy, an empty roar. The track was visible as glisteningthreads illuminated by those lights. The filthy off-white of thefirst Northern Line train of the day became evident before him, thedriver’s glass front still a black slit. He must see me, thought Kay.He’ll stop! But the great flat surface moved ineluctably forward at ahorrible speed, pushing the air out, clogging the wind with dirt. Thespeed was intolerable, thought Kay, just stop, but the lights keptcoming, there was no let-up, the howl of the tunnel had become acharnel roar, the lights were dazzling, they blinded him, he lookedup as he screamed, still hearing the flute, always the flute behindhim, he looked up at the reflections varnished onto the windscreen,caught a glimpse of his ridiculous little body spreadeagled like amedical specimen, then saw through that, through the wide-open mouthof his reflection, into the incredulous gaze of the driver who boredown on him, disbelief and horror smeared across his face, those eyesaghast, Kay could see the whites of the other man’s eyes…

The glass front of the train burst open like a vast blood-blister.The first Northern Line train of the day arrived at MorningtonCrescent station and ploughed to an unscheduled halt, dripping.

Days came and went in the city. In the sewers, on the rooftops,under the canal bridges, in all the cramped spaces of London, KingRat and his comrades held councils of war.

Saul would sit and listen as the three unlikely figures murmuredtogether.

Much of what they said made no sense to him references to peopleand places and occurrences that he could not fathom. But heunderstood enough of the growled discussion to know that, despitetheir grandiose declarations of hostilities, neither King Rat norLoplop nor Anansi had any idea how to proceed.

The prosaic truth was that they were afraid. Sometimes thearguments became heated, and accusations of cowardice would flurrybetween the three. These accusations were true. The circulardiscussions, the half-plans, the protestations of anger andpugnacity, all were stymied by the fact that the three knew that inany confrontation one of them would be doomed.

As soon as the Piper got his flute to his lips, or even pursed hislips to whistle, or perhaps even hummed, one of them would becommandeered, one of them would be taken over to the other side. Hiseyes would glaze and he would start to fight against his allies, hisears stuffed with the enticing sounds of food and sex andfreedom.

Anansi would hear sluggish fat flies blundering near his mouth,and the skittering of lovelorn feet approaching him over toweringwebs to mate. That was what he had heard in Baghdad, as the Piper hadthrashed him mercilessly.