It had been so long since he had held one of his friends.

He put her gently down, searched for Fabian.

Saul found him lolling out of the hole King Rat had pushed throughthe stage. He almost wept to see him. He was badly damaged, his facecrushed and broken, his skin as ruined as Natasha’s.

‘He’ll live.’

Saul looked up sharply at King Rat’s harsh voice.

King Rat stood over him, taking his weight on his left leg,regarding Saul’s ministrations to Fabian.

Saul looked back down at his friend.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘His heart’s beating. He’s breathing.’

It was difficult to talk. His throat was constricted with emotion.He looked up at King Rat, gesticulated at the wall.

‘The children…’ he couldn’t say any more.

King Rat nodded sharply. ‘The little fuckers whose parents clappedus out of town,’ he spat.

Saul’s face twisted. He could not speak, could not look at KingRat. He shook with anger and disgust, clenched his fists. He couldstill hear the pathetic cries echoing up from the dark.

‘Fabian,’ he whispered. ‘Can you hear me, man?’

Fabian moved gently but did not respond. It’s better, thought Saulsuddenly. I can’t talk to him now, here, I can’t explain all this.He needs to be out of this. He mustn’t see this. Saul could not bearthe loneliness. He wanted his friend so much, but he knew that hemust wait.

Time enough soon, he thought and tried to be brave.

He stood, limped his way to King Rat. The two looked warily ateach other, then fell forward, catching each other’s forearms,gripping each other. It was a long way from an embrace or areconciliation, but it was a moment of connection. Like exhaustedboxers leaning on each other, still enemies, but each granting theother a moment’s respite, and each grateful.

Saul breathed deep, stepped back.

‘Did you kill him?’ he said.

King Rat was silent. He turned away.

‘Did you?’

‘I don’t know…’ The words lingered in the silence of the hall.‘I think so… the flute was deep inside him, his throat was crushed… I don’t know…’

Saul ran his hands through his hair, looked down at his heavytorso, smeared with the muck of combat. He felt winded by anticlimaxand uncertainty. But, then, he thought suddenly, it doesn’t matter tome. He can’t touch me. He’s dead, or dying, or fucked and wounded,and if he ever comes back, I’ll be whatever I am now, only infinitelymore so. He can’t touch me.

‘He can’t touch you,’ said King Rat and licked his lips.

Anansi’s body had gone. King Rat was unsurprised. He looked fromside to side at the carpet of crushed spiders on the stage and thedancefloor.

‘You’ll never find him,’ he mused.

Saul looked at him and stared around the room. He was tremblingviolently. The stench of rat-blood was heavy in the air, and withevery step Saul walked on the bodies of Anansi’s dead. Some of thedancers were beginning to stir.

Blood decorated the walls like abstract art.

‘I have to get out of here,’ Saul whispered.

Without words Saul and King Rat climbed to the attic. King Ratwent before him. Saul untied his prison shirt and draped it acrosshis back before jumping and grasping the edges of the hatchway,hauling himself up and out.

He looked back once, stuck his head into the huge, silentroom.

Red and green and blue lights spun on intricate axes, flashing atrandom now that the beats had gone. The floor was littered withbodies, a few twitching gently. Saul looked at the stage where he hadarranged Fabian and Natasha. They looked as if they were sleepingpeacefully side by side. Natasha moved her arm dreamily and it fellacross Fabian’s chest.

Saul’s breath caught. He could not look on any more.

He followed King Rat, emerged blinking from the skylight, suckedat the cold fresh air. It seemed days ago that he had entered by thisroute, but the sky was still dark and the streets as deserted as theyever were.

It was the small hours, the small hours of the same night. Londonslept, fat and dangerous and blithely unaware of what had happened inthe Elephant and Castle. The crisp ignorance of the city refreshedhim. It carried on whatever, he thought. There was a great comfort inthat.

King Rat and he were eager to leave these bricks behind. Theymoved as fast as they could, hauling themselves across the roofs,trailing their bruised limbs and wincing with pain, but high andexhilarated. When they had put some houses between them and thewarehouse, Saul stopped.

He was going to call for help for those left behind in the club.God knew how many broken bones and punctured lungs and so on werelying in that hall, and he was very afraid of what they mightcontract from his troops. He could not contemplate that any woulddie. Not after that night. To live through that, crazed, possessedand dancing, only to die of ratbite in bed… he could not bear tothink of that.

He stood a little way off from King Rat, on the flat roof of abookie’s shop. Nondescript low-rise housing surrounded them. Saulrevelled in the banality of the view, the slate grey, the lacklustrebillboard ads, peeling and out of date, the obscure graffiti. Hecould hear a train pass by somewhere not far away.

King Rat faced him.

‘You off, then?’ he said.

Saul burst out laughing at the absurd understatement of theparting.

‘Yeah.’ He nodded.

King Rat nodded back. He seemed very distracted.

‘I killed him, you know,’ he said suddenly. ‘I took him out.Not you, you froze up. You’d have let him do a bunk, but not me! Isprung up with my sharp Hampsteads and took the ruffian out!’ Saulsaid nothing. King Rat stared at him, his excitement ebbing. ‘Butnary a rat was there to get a shufti,’ he said slowly. ‘None of myboys and girls. They saw nowt, all dancing, out of it, dead anddying.’

There was a long silence.

King Rat pointed briefly at Saul.

‘They’ll think you done it.’

Saul nodded.

King Rat began to quiver. He fought to control himself, shoved hishands into his mouth, beat his sides, but he could not contain theanguish and excitement.

He grabbed Saul’s arms, his hands shaking.

‘Tell them,’ he begged. ‘They’ll believe you. Tell them what Idid.’

Saul stared at that dark, dirty figure. From where he stood,nothing of London was visible behind King Rat. That wiry, ill-definedface was all he could see, surrounded by nothing but the sky, thefaint stars and oily clouds. King Rat was an island in his field ofvision, operating under his own rules. The dark spaces in which thoseeyes hid were fervent, would not release him. The clouds behind KingRat’s head were tinged with red, stained by the city.

King Rat begged for absolution. He wanted his kingdom back.

Saul did not want it. He did not want to be Crown Prince of rats.He was not a rat any more than he was a man.

But as he stared at King Rat’s face he saw a sordid brutality inan alley. He saw a fat old man who loved him falling out of the skyin a deadly rain of glass.

Saul closed his eyes and remembered his father. He wanted him. Hewanted to talk to him so much.

He would never ever speak to him again.

He spoke very slowly, without opening his eyes.

‘I’m going to tell my troops,’ he said, ‘about how you cowered andbegged the Piper for your life, and promised him all the rats hecould kill, and how it would have worked if I hadn’t fought past youbravely and shoved him into hell impaled on his flute.’

‘I’ll tell them all what a craven lying coward Judas youwere.’

He opened his eyes as King Rat began to screech.

‘Give me my Kingdom,’ he shrieked, and clawed at Saul’s face. ‘Youlittle cunt I’ll kill you…’

Saul stumbled back from the flailing claws, and pushed King Rat inthe chest.

‘So what are you going to do?’ he hissed. ‘You going to kill me?Because you know what? I’m not sure you killed the Piper! And if heever comes back he’ll kill you dead like fucking vermin, and he’llmake you dance and beg for it before you die, but he can’t killme…’