She had a clear idea of the feeling she sought, the neurotic beatsof Public Enemy, especially on Fear Of A Black Planet, the sense of atreble constantly looking over its own shoulder. She took the harmonyof the flute and stretched it. Repetition makes listeners wary of astatement, and Natasha made the flute protest too much, coming backin and back in and back in on its purest note, till that puritybecame a testimony of paranoia, no sweet sound of innocence.

Pete loved what she was doing.

She would not let him hear the track until it was finished, butoccasionally she would give in to his pesterings and play him asnippet, a fifteen-second phrase. The truth was that although shefeigned exasperation, she enjoyed his rapturous reception.

‘Oh, Natasha,’ he said as he listened, ‘you really understand me.More than I think you think you do.’

Crowley was still haunted by the scene of the Mornington Crescentmurder.

There had been something of a news blackout, a halfway house ofsecrecy whereby the unknown victim’s death had been reported but theintricacies withheld. There was a vain and desperate hope that bymulling over the unbelievable facts in private, by containing them,they could be understood.

Crowley did not believe it would work.

The crime was not connected to his own investigation, but Crowleyhad come to examine the scene. The unearthly circumstancessurrounding the murder reminded him of the peculiarities of Saul’sdisappearance and the murder of the two police officers.

Crowley had stood on the platform, the train still waiting theresome hours after a hysterical driver had reported something whichmade no sense. A brief examination of the scene told the police thatthe driver’s ‘floating man’ had been suspended by rope to the tunnelentrance. Frayed cord dangled from the brick. The few passengers hadbeen cleared out and the driver was with a counsellor elsewhere inthe station.

The front of the train was encrusted with blood. There was verylittle of the body left to identify.

Dental records had been rendered useless by the crushing,inexorable onrush of metal and glass onto the victim’s face.

There was no escaping this crime, it lay all around him, on theplatform, spattering the walls, carbonized on the live rail, smearedby gravity the length of the first carriage. No cameras had recordedthe passing of criminal or victim. They had come and gone invisibly.It was as if the metal stakes and bloodied stubs of rope, the ruinedflesh, had been conjured up spontaneously out of the darktunnels.

Crowley exchanged words with the investigating detective, a manwhose hands still shook since his first arrival at the scene an houror more previously. Crowley had only tenuous reasons to connect thecrime to his own investigations. Even the savagery was wrong. Themurder of the policemen had seemed an act of huge rage, but aspontaneous act, brutally efficient. This was an imaginative piece ofsadism, ritualistic, like a sacrifice to some dangerous god. It wasdesigned to strip the victim of dignity and any vestige of power. Andas he thought that, Crowley wondered if the man — they had foundflesh that told them it was a man — had been awake and conscious asthe train had arrived, and he screwed up his face, felt briefly sickwith horror.

And yet, and yet, despite the differences, Crowley felt himselflinking the crimes in his mind.

There was something in the infernal ease with which life had beentaken, a sense of power which seemed to permeate the murder sites,the sure and absolute knowledge that none of these victims, for somuch as one second, had the slightest chance of escape.

He asked the shaking Camden detective to contact him were thereany developments at all, hinting at the connections he might be ableto make.

Now, days later, Crowley still visited Mornington Crescent when heslept, its walls chaotically re sprayed, abattoir chic, the redcarpet laid down, ghastly organic decor.

He was convinced that the three (four?) murders he investigatedcontained secrets. There was more to the story, there was much morethan they knew. The facts were damning, but still he wanted tobelieve that Saul had not committed the crimes. He sought refuge in afirm if nebulous belief that something big was going on, something asyet unexplained, and that whatever Saul was doing, he was not somehowresponsible. Whether being absolved by the sudden onset of madness,or another’s control, or whatever, Crowley did not know.

For a long time Pete had been asking Natasha to take him to aJungle club. She found his pesterings irritating, and asked why hecould not just go by himself, but he made noises about being anewcomer, being intimidated (which was, in all fairness, entirelyreasonable given the atmosphere at many clubs). His hectoring stayedjust on the right side of whining.

He made one or two good excuses. He did not know where to go, andif he were to follow Time Out’s appalling recommendations, he wouldend up a lonely figure at a hardcore Techno evening or some suchfate. Natasha, by contrast, knew the scene, and could walk into anyof the choicest evenings in London without paying. Just cashing infavours, calling in accounts set up in the early days of the music,by knowing the names and the faces, talking the talk.

Something was rumbling in the Elephant and Castle. The AWOL possewere getting together with Style FM in a warehouse near the railwayline.

Everyone was going to be there, she started to hear. A DJ she knewcalled Three Fingers phoned her and asked her to come along, bring atune or two; he’d play them. She could spin a few if she wanted.

She wasn’t going to take him up on that, but maybe just turning upwasn’t such a bad idea. It was a month since she’d last been out on aserious night, and Pete’s clamouring made for a decent excuse tomove. Three Fingers put her ‘plus whoever’ on his guest list.

Fabian immediately said he would come. He seemed patheticallygrateful for the idea. Kay remained incommunicado and, for the firsttime since he had disappeared a week or more previously, Natasha andFabian felt the beginnings of trepidation. But for the moment thatwas forgotten as they made preparations for the foray into SouthLondon.

Pete was ecstatic.

‘Yes yes yes! Fantastic! I’ve been waiting for this forages!’

Natasha’s spirit sank as she saw herself being shoehorned into therole of Junglist Nanny.

‘Yeah, well, I don’t want to disappoint you or anything, Pete, butso long as you know I’m not looking after you there or anything.Alright? We get there, I listen, you dance, you leave when you want,I’m leaving when I want. I’m not there to show you around, d’you knowwhat I’m saying?’

He looked at her strangely.

‘Of course.’ His brow furrowed. ‘You’ve got some odd ideas aboutme, Natasha. I don’t want to cadge off you all evening, and I’m notgoing to… to leach any of your cool, OK?’

Natasha shook her head, irritated and embarrassed. She wasconcerned that having a pencil-necked, white bread geek padding afterher was going to do her credentials as an up-and-coming Drum and Bassfigure no good at all. She had only been vaguely conscious of thethought, and having it pointed out with frank good humour made herdefensive and snappy.

Pete was grinning at her.

‘Natasha, I’m going because I’ve found a new kind of music I neverknew existed, and it’s one which — for all I don’t look the part — Ithink I can use, and I think I can probably make. And I presume so doyou, because you haven’t stopped recording me yet.’

‘So don’t worry about me making you look less than funky in frontof your mates. I’m just going to hear the music and see thescene.’

After the last bout of arguing, Anansi had disappeared. Loplop hadremained in the area for another day or two, but had ultimatelyfollowed the spider into obscurity.