He scampered to the edge of the roof, impossibly sure-footed onits steep angle. Clinging on to the guttering, he scouted somedistance round the edge, until he found what he was looking for. Heturned and gestured for Saul to follow him. Saul edged along the roofridge on all fours, afraid to expose himself to the wicked-lookinggrey slate. He reached the spot directly above King Rat, and there hewaited.

King Rat bared his teeth at him. ‘Slide down,’ he whispered.

With both hands, Saul gripped the little concrete ridge he wasstraddling, and slowly swung his leg over until his whole body wasspreadeagled on the slope above King Rat. At this point his armsrebelled and would not release him. He swiftly changed his mind abouthis actions, and attempted to haul himself back across the roofridge, but his muscles were stiff with terror. Trapped on theslippery surface, he panicked. His brittle ringers lost theirgrip.

For a long, sick-making moment he was sliding towards his death,until he met King Rat’s strong hand. He was halted sharply, pluckedfrom the roof and swung up and over in a terrifying hauling motionbefore being dropped hard onto a steel fire escape below.

The noise of his landing was muffled and insubstantial. Above himgrinned King Rat. He still hung on to the edge of the roof with hisleft hand, his right extended over the stairs where he had depositedSaul. As Saul watched, he released himself, and fell the shortdistance to the iron mesh of the platform, his big rough bootslanding without a sound.

Saul’s heart was still racing with fear, but his recentundignified precipitation galled him.

‘I… I’m not a fucking sack of potatoes,’ he hissed with spuriousbravado.

King Rat grinned. ‘You don’t even know which way’s up, you littleterror. And until you’ve a bit of learning in your Loaf, that’sexactly what you are.’

The two crept down the steps, past door after door, descending tothe alley.

Dawn came fast. King Rat and Saul made their way through thecrepuscular streets. Afraid and excited, Saul half expected hiscompanion to repeat his escapades of last night, and he glanced fromside to side at drainpipes and garage roofs, the entrances to rooftoppassageways. But this time they remained earthbound. King Rat ledSaul through deserted building sites and car parks, down narrowpassages masquerading as culs-de-sac. Their route was chosen with aninstinct Saul did not understand, and they did not pass any earlymorning walkers.

The dark dwindled. Daylight, wan and anaemic, had done what itcould by seven o’clock.

Saul leaned against the wall of an alley. King Rat stood framed byits entrance, his right arm outstretched, just touching the bricks,the daylight beyond silhouetting him like the lead in a filmnoir.

‘I’m starving,’ said Saul.

‘Me too, sonny, me too. I’ve been starving for a long time.’ KingRat leaned out of the alley. He was peering at a nondescript terracedrow of red brick. Each roof was topped with a dragon rampant: littleflurries of clay enthusiasm now broken and crumbled. Their featureswere washed out by acid rain.

That morning the city seemed made up of back streets.

‘Alright then,’ murmured King Rat. ‘Time for tucker.’

King Rat, a figure skulking like a Victorian villain, steppedcarefully from his point of concealment. He lifted his face to theair. As Saul watched, he sniffed loudly twice, twitched his nose,turned his face a little to one side. Gesturing for Saul to followhim, King Rat scampered down the deserted street and ducked into agash between two houses. At the far end was a wall of black rubbishbags.

‘Always follow your I Suppose.’ King Rat grinned briefly. He wascrouched at the end of the narrow alleyway, a hunched shape at thebottom of a brickwork chasm. The surrounding walls were inscrutable,unbroken by windows.

Saul approached.

King Rat was tearing at a plastic sack. The rich smell of rot wasreleased. King Rat plunged his arm into the hole, and fumbled insidein an unsettling parody of surgery. He pulled a polystyrene box fromthe wound. It dripped with tea-leaves and egg yolk, but the hamburgerlogo was still evident. King Rat placed it on the ground, reachedinside the bag again, and pulled out a damp crust of bread.

He thrust the sack aside and reached for another, ripped it open.This time his reward was half a fruitcake, flattened and embeddedwith sawdust. Chicken bones and crushed chocolate, the remnants ofsweet corn and rice, fish-heads and stale crisps, the bags yieldedthem all, disgorged them into a stinking pile on the concrete.

Saul watched the mound of ruined food grow. He put his hand overhis mouth.

‘You have got to be joking,’ he said, and swallowed.

King Rat looked up at him.

‘Thought you was peckish.’

Saul shook his head in horror, his hand still clamped firmly overhis mouth.

‘When was the last time you puked?’

Saul furrowed his brow at the question. King Rat wiped his wethand on his trenchcoat, adding to the camouflage-pattern of stainshidden in its dark grey. He poked at the food.

‘You can’t recall,’ he said, without looking at Saul. ‘You can’trecall because you’ve never done it. Never spewed nothing. You’vebeen ill, I’ll bet, but not like other Godfers. No colds or sneezing;only some queer sickness making you shiver for days, once or twice.But even then, not a sign of puke.’ He finally met Saul’s eye, andhis voice dropped. He hissed at him, something like victory in hisvoice. ‘Got the notion? Your belly won’t rebel. No sicking up Pig’s,no matter how plastered, no sweet sticky chocolate bile on yourpillow the night after Easter, no hurling seafood across the tiles,no matter bow dodgy the take-away. You’ve got rat blood in yourveins. There’s nothing you can’t stomach.’

There was a long moment of silence as the two stared at eachother.

King Rat continued.

‘And there’s more. There’s no grub you don’t want. Said you werestarving. I should coco; it’s been a while. Well here we go. Sittingcomfortably? I’m going to teach you what it is to be rat. Look at allthis scran your uncle sorted you out with. Said you were starving.Here’s breakfast.’

King Rat picked up the fruitcake without taking his eyes fromSaul. He raised it slowly to his mouth. Moist chunks dropped from hishand, sultanas made juicy from their long marinating in blackplastic. He bit into it, crumbs bursting out of his mouth as heexhaled in satisfaction.

He was right. Saul could not remember a time when he had thrownup. He had always eaten a lot, even for his frame, and had never beenable to sympathize with people put off their food. Stories aboutmaggots told over risotto left him unmoved. He had never sufferedafter too much sugar or fat or alcohol. This had never occurred tohim before; he sympathized with others when they complained thatsomething made them feel sick, never stopping to ask what it meant orif it was true.

Now he was sloughing off those layers of habit. He stood watchingKing Rat eat. The wiry figure would not take his eyes from him.

It had been hours and hours since Saul had last had food. Heinvestigated his own hunger.

King Rat continued chewing. The stench of slowly collapsing foodwas overwhelming- Saul gazed at the leftovers and remnants heaped infront of the bags, the flecks of mould, the bite marks, and thedirt.

He began to salivate.

King Rat kept eating.

When he opened his mouth wet chunks of cake were visible. ‘You caneat pigeon-meat scraped off a car-wheel,’ he said. ‘This here’s goodscran.’

Saul’s stomach growled. He squatted before the pile of food.Gingerly, he picked out the unfinished burger. He sniffed it. It waslong cold. He could see where teeth had torn through the bun. Hebrushed at it, cleared it of grime as best he could.