Fabian shook his head, scrunched up his dreadlocks into viciouslittle bunches. His head ached terribly. He lay on his bed and pulledfaces at the mirror just visible on his desk.

Lying some way off was his ‘work in progress’, as his tutorinsisted on calling it. The left two-thirds of the huge canvas were agarish panoply of metallic spray-paints and bright, flat acrylic; theright third was covered in ghost letters, faint pencil lines andcharcoal. He had lost motivation for the project, though he stillfelt a certain pride in it as he stared at it again.

It was an illuminated manuscript for the 1990s, the letters acareful synthesis of mediaeval calligraphy and graffiti lettering.The whole screen, six feet by eight, consisted of just three lines:Sometimes I want to lose myself in faith and Jungle is the only thingI can turn to, because in Drum an’ Bass I know my place…

He had thought of a phrase which started with an ‘S’ because itwas such a pleasing letter to illuminate.

It was very large, contained in a box, and surrounded by ganjaleaves and sound-system speakers and modern serfs, rudebwoys andgyals, an intricate parody, the expressionless zombies of monasticart executed by Keith Haring or one of the New York Subway Artists.The rest of the writing was mostly dark, but not matt-black, shotthrough with neon strips and encased in gaudy integuments. In thecorner below the writing lurked the police, like devils: The Man. Butthese days the sloganeering had to be ironic. Fabian knew the rulesand couldn’t be bothered to disobey them, so the devils coming upfrom the pit were ridiculous, the worst nightmares of St Anthony andSweet Sweetback combined.

And up in the top right, though not yet drawn, would be thedancers, the worshippers who’ve found their way out of the slough ofurban despond, a drab maze of greys in the centre of the piece, toDrum and Bass heaven. The dancing was fierce, but he had been carefulto make these faces more than ever like those in the old pictures hewas mimicking: placid, stupid, expressionless. Because individualism,he remembered explaining earnestly to his lecturer, had no more placein a Jungle club than in a thirteenth-century church. That was why heloved it and why it frustrated him and sometimes frightened him. Thatwas why the ambiguous text as well.

He was always on at Natasha to cut a really political track, andshe demurred, claiming not to be interested, which irritated him. Sountil someone would do it, he would keep on with his loving chiding.Hence the Middle Ages, he had explained. The necessary displays ofopulence and style at the clubs were as grandiose and vapid as anydisplay of courtly etiquette, and the awe in which DJs were held waspositively feudal.

At first, his tutor had hummed and hawed, and sounded unconvincedat the project, until Fabian had hinted that he did not appreciatethe importance of Jungle in modern pop culture, and that had given itthe seal of approval. All the lecturers at his art college wouldrather have died than admit that there were any gaps in theirknowledge of youth.

But he was unable to concentrate on ‘Jungle Liturgy’, even thoughhe was quite proud of it.

He was unable to concentrate on anything except his disappearingfriends. First Saul, in a blur of shocking violence and mystery, thenKay in circumstances far less dramatic but no less mysterious. Fabiancould still not bring himself really to worry about Kay, although ithad been at least a couple of weeks now since he had seen him, maybemore. He was concerned, but Kay was so vague, so aimless and genial,that any notion that he was in trouble was impossible to takeseriously. It was, nonetheless, frustrating and perplexing. No oneseemed to know where he had gone, including his flatmates, who werebeginning to get agitated about his share of the rent.

And now it seemed as if he might be losings Natasha. Fabianscowled at the thought and turned over on his bed, sulking. He wasangry with Natasha. She was obsessive about her music at the best oftimes, but when she was on a roll it was compounded. She was excitedabout the music she was making with Pete, a man Fabian considered tooweird to be liked. Natasha was working on tracks to take to JunglistTerror, the event coming up fast in the Elephant and Castle. She hadnot called Fabian for several days.

It was Saul’s departure, he thought, which had precipitated allthis. Saul was hardly the leader of a social phalanx but, since hisextraordinary escape from custody, something that held Fabian’sfriendships together had dissipated. Fabian was lonely.

He missed Saul deeply, and he was angry with him. He was angrywith all his friends. He was angry with Natasha for failing torealize that he needed her, for not putting away her fuckingsequencer and talking to him about Saul. He was quite sure she mustbe missing Saul, but she was such a control freak she was unlikely todiscuss the matter. She would only allude to it obliquely andsuddenly, and then refuse to say more about it. She would listen tohim, though, patiently. She always broke that social contract, theexchange of insecurities and neuroses with one another. With Natashathe offering was always one-way. She either did not know, or did notcare, how that disempowered him.

And Saul — Fabian was angry with Saul. He found it amazing hisfriend had not contacted him. He understood that somethingunbelievable must be going on in Saul’s life, that it would take alot to cut Fabian off so completely, but it still hurt him. And hewas desperate to know what was happening! He was sometimes afraid nowthat Saul was dead, that the police had killed him and had concocteda bizarre story to allay suspicion, or that he was caught up insomething huge — vague images of Triads flashed through Fabian’smind, and the London chapter of the Mafia, and God-knew-what — andthat he had been routinely eliminated.

Often that seemed the likeliest explanation, the only thing thatcould explain the deaths of the police and Saul’s escape, but Fabiancould not believe he would have known nothing about his friend’sinvolvement. It seemed unbelievable. And then he was forced toconsider the possibility that Saul had killed those men — and hisfather, which he did not believe, definitely — but then… what washappening?

Fabian stared around him at his room, a tip of paint and recordcovers and clothes and CDs and posters and cups and wrappers and dirtand paper and books and pads and pens and canvas and bits of glassfor sculptures and plates and postcards and peeling wallpaper. He waslonely and pissed off.

The view was so familiar Natasha did not see it. It was a tabularasa to her, a white space on which she could impose her tunes. Shehad gazed out at it for so many hours and days, especially since Sauldisappeared and Pete appeared, that she had achieved a Zen-liketranscendence of it. She transcribed its features into her mind asnothingness.

First the net curtains, a tawdry throwback to the previousoccupant that she had never bothered to get rid of. They movedslightly, a constant whiteness with flickering edges. Through thisveil the trees, just at the level where the boughs thrust outwardfrom the body. Stripped by winter, black branches clutching. So afilm of curtain, then the twisted knots of wood, dark and intricate,a random lattice of twigs and thick limbs. Beyond that a street lamp.

After dark when it had rained, she would sit at her window andpoke her head out from under the net curtains and stare at that lampthrough the tree outside. Its rays would pass through the thicket,lighting up the inside of each branch, surrounding the streetlightwith thin circles of illuminated wood, composites of a thousand tinywet sections reflecting the light. As Natasha moved her head, thestreetlight’s halo moved with it behind the tree. The lamp sat like afat spider in the centre of a wooden web.