To hell with them, thought Crowley, furious. To fucking hell withthem. He looked at the blood on the floor and the pillow. He lookedout of the window. The constables held back the growing crowds. Thebicycle lay alone, ignored.

Fabian, Fabian… thought Crowley. I’ve lost you, I’ve lost you.You were my lead, Fabian, and now you’ve gone.

He leant down and rested his head on his arms, there on thewindowsill.

Fabian, Natasha, where have you gone? he thought. And withwhom?

Scrawled notes were appearing on walls.

In a hand at once gothic and subliterate, they entreated Saul to apeace. They were etched into the brick, scribbled in pencil, sprayedwith aerosol.

The first, Saul found on the side of a chimney stack he haddecided to sleep in.

listen sonny, it read. were blood and blood

STICKS SO LETS US LET BYGONES BE. TWOS BETTER NOR ONE YOU KNOW ANDIN FACT TWO CAN BE THE DEVIL.

Saul had run his fingers over the thin scratches and looked aroundthe roof. The stench of King Rat was on the air, he could smell itclearly. The rats with him had bristled, and been ready to bite orrun. He was never alone now, always surrounded by a group whosenumber was unchanging even as the individuals who formed it came andwent.

Saul and his entourage had crouched on the roof and sniffed theair. He had not slept in the chimneys that morning.

The next evening he had woken in the corner of the sewer he hadfound, and painted above his head was another message. This was inwhite paint, paint that had dripped and slid down the walls into thedirty water, leaving the words only just legible.

LOOK YOU AINT DOING NOONE ANY FAVOURS CEPT THE PIPER.

It had been written while he slept. King Rat was stalking him,afraid to speak but desperate for reconciliation.

Saul was angry. The ease with which King Rat was still able tosneak past him rankled. He realized that he was just a baby, a littleratling.

He could not think about whether or not King Rat was right. It wasirrelevant to him. He had had enough of compromise. King Rat therapist and murderer, destroyer of his family, had no right to hiscollaboration. King Rat had released the Piper, King Rat had madeSaul what he was. He had released him, but only into his newprison.

So fuck King Rat, thought Saul. He had had it with being bait. Heknew that King Rat could not be trusted.

So instead he thought about what he could do for himself.

For all that he felt liberated, for all that he felt powerful,Saul did not know what to do. He did not know where the Piper lived.He did not know when the Piper would attack. He knew nothing at allexcept that he himself was not safe.

Saul began to think more and more about his friends. He spent alot of time speaking to the rats, but they were only cunning, notclever, and their stupidity alienated him. He remembered his thoughtson the night he had left King Rat, the realization that it was hisdecision whether or not his world would cross those of Fabian andothers.

He wanted to see Fabian more than anything.

So one evening he bade the rats leave him alone. They obeyedimmediately, disappearing in a sudden flurry. Saul began to cross thecity, alone again.

He wondered if King Rat was with him, was watching him. As long asthe fucker kept his distance, Saul decided, he did not care.

Saul crossed the river under Tower Bridge. He swung like an apealong the girders which festooned its underside, convoluted thicketsof vast wires and pipes. In the middle, just at the point where thebridge could split and open for tall ships, he stopped and hung byhis hands, swaying slightly.

The sky was taken from him; the great mass of the bridge above himwas all he could see at eye-level and above. At the very edge of hissight, buildings appeared again over the river. But for the most partthe city was inverted and refracted in the Thames, a sinuousshattered mirror. Lights glinted on the water, dark shapes punctuatedwith hundreds of points of light, the towers of the city, the far-offlights of the South Bank Centre, far more real for him then thantheir counterparts in the air above.

He stared down at the city below his feet. It was an illusion. Theshimmering motion of the lights he saw was not the real city. Theywere part of it, to be sure, a necessary part… but the beautifullights, so much more lively than those above them, were a simulacrum.They merely painted the surface tension. Below that thin veneer thewater was still filthy, still dangerous and cold.

Saul held on to that. He resisted the poetics of the city .

Saul walked fast, making the passers-by ignore him, being nothingto them. He strode the streets like a cipher, invisible. Sometimes hestopped quite still and listened, to see if he was being followed. Hecould see no one, but he was not so naive as to think that wasconclusive.

He approached Brixton from the backstreets, not wanting to run thegamut of its light and crowds. His pulse was up. He was nervous. Hehad not spoken to Fabian for so long, he was afraid they would nolonger understand each other. How would he sound to Fabian now? Wouldhe sound strange, would he sound ratty?

He reached Fabian’s street. An old woman walked past him, bentinto herself, and he was alone.

Something was wrong. The air tasted charged. People moved behindthe white curtains of Fabian’s room. Saul stood quite still. Hestared at the window, saw the vague movements of men and womenwithin. They milled uncertainly, investigating. With a growinghorror, Saul pictured those within opening drawers, examiningbooks, looking at Fabian’s artwork. He knew who moved like that.

Saul’s demeanour changed. One moment his shoulders were hunched,he was tightened into a drab stance, something to see but not notice,his disguise for the streets. Now he uncurled and sank towards thepavement. He bent in a sudden snap of motion, sidling simultaneouslyagainst the low wall. He crept through the thin strip of garden, thedesultory tiny patios.

He was truly invisible now. He could sense it in himself.

He sidled along the wall, sudden bursts of motion interspersedwith unearthly stillness. His nose twitched. He smelt the air.

Saul stood before Fabian’s house. Soundlessly he vaulted the lowwall and landed in a crouch below the window. He placed his ear tothe wall.

Architecture betrayed those within. Bluff voices seeped outthrough cracks and rivulets between bricks.

‘… don’t like that bloody picture, though…’

‘… know that the DFs totally losing it over this. I mean he’sfucking well lost it…’

‘… geezer Morris, why have a go at him?… thought he was amate’

The police talked in an endless stream of banalities, cliches andpointless verbiage. Their speech served no purpose, thought Saul indespair, no fucking purpose at all. He ached for conversation, forcommunication, and to hear words wasted like this… he felt likecrying.

He had lost Fabian. He put his head in his hands.

‘Him gone, bwoy. Him with the Badman now.’

Anansi’s voice was soft and very near.

Saul rubbed his eyes without opening them. He breathed deeply.Finally he looked up.

Anansi’s face hovered just in front of his, suspended before himupside-down. His strange eyes were very close, staring right intoSaul’s.

Saul looked at him calmly, held his gaze. Then he let his eyesslide casually up, investigating Anansi’s position.

Anansi was hanging from one of his ropes, suspended from the roof.He grasped it with both hands, effortlessly suspended his weight, hisnaked feet intertwined with the thin white rope. As Saul watched,Anansi’s legs uncoupled from the fibres and swivelled slowly andsoundlessly through the air. His eyes held Saul’s, even as his faceturned one hundred and eighty degrees.