A long way off to the south, somewhere in the heart of the city, asiren sounded mournfully. The smell of smoke still clung faintly tothe air. It mingled with exhaust fumes and the whiff of rubbish, allmade chill and even refreshing by the night.

Above the black bags and deserted streets rose the walls of NorthLondon; above the walls the slate roofs; and, above the slates, twofigures: one standing astride the apex of the police station rooflike a mountain climber, the other crouching in the shadow of theaerials.

Saul wrapped his arms tightly around himself. The unlikely figureof his saviour loomed above him. He was sore. His borrowed clotheshad rubbed against concrete many times during his escape, till hisskin was scraped raw and bleeding, imprinted with a has relief ofcotton weave.

Somewhere in the guts of the building under his feet was the cellhe had recently vacated. He supposed that the police had discoveredhim missing by now.

He imagined them scurrying about frantically, searching for him,looking out of windows and filling the area with cars.

Back in that cell, the grotesque figure calling itself King Rathad impaled Saul with his grandiloquent and preposterousdeclamations, taking his breath away and rendering him dumb. Then hehad paused again, and hunched those bony shoulders defensively. Andagain that invitation, as casual as from a bored lover at a party.

‘Shall we go?’

Saul had hovered, his heart shaking his body, eager to followinstructions. King Rat had sidled up to the door and gently tugged itopen, silent this time. In a sudden movement he had poked his headinto the tight crack between door and frame, and twisted his headexaggeratedly in both directions, then reached hand behind himwithout looking back and beckoned to Saul. Something magic had cometo take him away and Saul had crept forward with guilt and hope andexcitement.

King Rat had briefly turned as he approached and without warning,swept him up over his shoulder in fireman’s lift. Saul had let out abark of surprise before King Rat crushed his body against him, drivingthe from him and hissing: ‘Shut it.’

Saul lay still as King Rat stalked forward with ease. He jouncedup and down as the stinking figure pace out of the room. Saullistened.

His head was flat against the other’s back. The smell of dirt andanimal suffused him. He heard a very faint whine as the door waspushed further open. He closed his eyes. The light of thepolice-station corridor shone red through his eyelids.

King Rat’s thin shoulder dug into Saul’s stomach.

Through the flesh of his belly he felt King Rat pause, then padforward without the slightest sound. Saul kept his eyes shut tight.His breath came in starts. He could hear the low hubbub of peoplenearby. He felt the wall press into him. King Rat was hugging theshadows.

From somewhere in front of them came footsteps, brisk andinexorable. The wall scraped along Saul’s side as King Rat swiftlysank into a crouch and froze. Saul held his breath. The footstepscame closer and closer. Saul wanted to shriek his guilt, hispresence, anything to break the unbearable tension.

With a tiny breeze and a moment of warmth, the footsteps passedby.

The grey shape moved on, one arm coiled tight around Saul’s legs.King Rat was weighed down under Saul’s motionless body like agrave-robber.

King Rat and his cargo passed silently through the halls. Againand again footsteps approached, voices, laughing. Each time Saul heldhis breath, King Rat was still, as people passed by impossibly close,near enough to touch, without seeing him or his burden.

Saul kept his eyes closed. Through his lids he could see changesin darkness and light. Unbidden, his mind drew a map of the station,rendering it a land of the stark and sudden oppositions. Here bemonsters, thought, and felt ridiculously close to giggling. He becameacutely aware of sounds. The echoes he head aided his helplesscartography, waxing and waning the rooms and corridors through whichhe was carried grew and shrank. Another door creaked open, and Saulwas held still.

The echoes hollowed out, changed direction. The bobbing of hisbody increased. He felt himself born upwards.

Saul opened his eyes. They were on a narrow flight of grey stairs,musty and sterile and badly lit. Muffled sounds came from above andbelow. His rescue carried him up several flights, past floor afterfloor, filthy windows and doors, eventually coming to rest and duckinghis body for Saul to dismount. Saw struggled off the bony shoulderand looked about him.

They had reached the top of the building. On his left was a whitedoor through which the tapping of keyboard could be heard. There wasnowhere else to go. On all other sides was dirty wall.

Saul turned to his companion. ‘What now?’ he whispered.

King Rat turned back to face the stairs. Directly in front of himwas a big greasy window, high above the little entresol where thestairs had changed direction.

As Saul stared, the grey figure cocked his head, sniffed theexpanse of air between himself and the window ten feet away. In aburst of feverish motion he locked his hands onto the banister andsprang astride it, right foot planted below the left, perfectly stilland poised on the sloping plastic. He seemed to bunch up hisshoulders, contracting muscles and sinews relentlessly one by one. Hepaused for a moment, the sharp, obscure face contorted in a grin or agrimace, then he burst forward in a silent flurry of limbs, for amoment filling the gap between mezzanine and ceiling. He flew throughthe air, grasped the handles of the window and set his feet on theedge of the tiny sill. And as suddenly as he had moved he was quitestill, a bizarre shape spreadeagled on the glass. His trenchcoat wasthe only thing in motion, swinging gently.

Saul gasped, clapped his hand over his mouth, glanced fearfullyover his shoulder at the nearby door.

King Rat was sinuously unwinding. His long limbs disentangled andhis left hand scrabbled quietly at the window lock. With a click anda gust of cold, the window opened. His right hand still poised on thesill, the weird apparition twisted his body, pulling it bit by bitout of the narrow opening. He made himself impossibly thin as hesqueezed through the vertical strip of darkness that was all thewindow was built to admit. His passage was as enchanted as that of agenie from a lamp, clinging as tight to the outside frame as he hadwithin, poised on a few centimetres of wood five stories above theearth, until those unclear eyes were staring at Saul from beyond thefilthy glass.

Only King Rat’s right hand remained inside the police station. Itbeckoned to Saul. Outside the dark figure breathed mist onto thepane, then wrote with the index finger of his left hand. He wrote inlooking glass script so the words appeared the right way round toSaul.

‘now you’ he wrote, and waited.

Saul tried to clamber onto the banister. He scrabbledineffectually as his legs slid towards the floor. He clungdesperately and started to haul himself up again, but the weight ofhis body tugged at him. He was beginning to pant.

He stared up at the thin figure in the window. That bony handstill stretched out towards him. Saul descended to the mezzanine.Flattening his body as low as it would go on the window-ledge, theother swung his hand down, following Saul, reaching towards thefloor. Saul looked up at the tiny opening under the window-frame: itwas no more than nine inches wide. He looked down at himself. He wasbroad, a little fleshy. He spread his hands about his girth, lookedup at the window again, looked at the thing waiting for him outside,shook his head.

The hand stretched towards him clawed the air impatiently,clutched fitfully at nothing. It would not take no for an answer.Somewhere below them in the building, a door slammed and two voicesentered the stairwell. Saul stared over the banister, saw feet andthe tops of heads two floors below. He jumped back out of sight. Themen were rising towards him. The hand still clutched at him; outside,that shady face was twisted.