King Rat Part 19

The bins were not rich in pickings. Withoutl domestic rubbish there was little to them. Saul crept back towards King's Cross. He found his way to the dumping grounds of the all-night eateries, and ama.s.sed a huge pile of food. He played games withl 286.

himself, refusing to allow himself to eat a mouthful until he had collected everything he wanted.

He sat in the shade of a skip in a cul-de-sac by a Chinese take-away and fondled the food he had collected, chunks of greasy meat and noodles.

Saul gorged himself. He ate as he had not for days. He ate to fill all the cavities inside him, to drive out anything that had been left behind.

King Rat had used him as bait, but the plan had gone wrong. The Piper had pre-empted his plan.

As Saul stuffed himself, he felt an echo of that surge of strength that had coursed through him the first time he ate reclaimed food, found food, rat food.

The Piper still wanted him dead, of course, now more than ever. He did not think he would have to wait too long before the Piper came for him.

It was a new chapter, he reflected. Away from King Rat. Out of the sewer. He ate until his belly felt dangerously taut, and then resumed his position in the skyline.

Saul felt as if he would burst, not from food but from something that had been released inside him. / should be mad, he thought suddenly, and I'm not. I haven't gone mad.

He could hear sounds from all over London, a murmuring. And as he listened, it resolved itself into its components, cars and arguments and music. He felt as if the music was everywhere, all around him, a hundred different rhythms in counterpoint, a tapestry 287.

being woven underneath him. The towers of the city were needles, and they caught at the threads of music and wound them together, tightened them around Saul. He was a still point, a peg, a hook on which to wind the music. It grew louder and louder, Rap and Cla.s.sical and Soul and House and Techno and Opera and Folk and Jazz and Jungle, always Jungle, all the music built on drum and ba.s.s, ultimately.

He had not listened to music for weeks, not since King Rat had come for him, and he had forgotten it. Saul stretched as if waking from a sleep. He heard the music with new ears.

He realized that he had defeated the city. He crouched on the roof (of what building he did not know) and looked out over London at an angle from which the city was never meant to be seen. He had defeated the conspiracy of architecture, the tyranny by which the buildings that women and men had built had taken control of them, circ.u.mscribed their relations, confined their movements. These monolithic products of human hands had turned on their creators, and defeated them with common sense, quietly installed themselves as rulers. They were as insubordinate as Frankenstein's monster, but they had waged a more subtle campaign, a war of position more ; effective by far.

Saul kicked carelessly off and stalked across the; roofs and walls of London.

He could not put off thinking for ever.

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Tentatively, he considered his position.

King Rat was no longer with him. Anansi was his own man, would do whatever made him and his kingdom safest. Loplop was mad and deaf and maybe dead.

The Piper wanted to kill them all.

Saul was on his own. He realized that he had no plan, and felt a curious peace. There was nothing he could do. He was waiting for the Piper to come to him. Until then he could go underground, could investigate London, could find his friends ...

He was afraid of them now. When he let himself think of them, he missed them so much it made him ache, but he was not made of the same stuff as them any more, and he was afraid that he did not know how to be their friend. What could he say to them, now that he lived in a different world?

But perhaps he didn't live in a different world. He lived where he wanted, he thought suddenly, furiously. Wasn't that what King Rat had told him, all that time ago? He lived wherever he wanted, and even if he didn't live in the same world as them any more, he could visit, couldn't he?

Saul realized how much he wanted to see Fabian.

And he remembered as well that the Piper wanted to kill him precisely because he could move between the worlds. He felt a fleeting sense of loneliness as he thought about the Piper, and then he realized that the 289.

smell of rat was all around him, was always all around him. He stood slowly.

He realized that the smell of London was the smell of rat.

He began to hiss for attention, and lithe heads poked out of piles of rubbish. He barked a quick order and the ranks began to approach him, tentatively at first and then with eagerness. He shouted for reinforcements and seething waves of filthy brown bodies boiled over the lip of the roof, and from chimneys and fire escapes and hidden corners, like a film of spilt liquid running backwards, they congealed around him, tightly wound, an explosion frozen at the flashpoint, hovering with suppressed violence, hanging on his words.

He would not face the Piper alone, he realized. He would have all the rats in London on his side.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Sometimes, between putting food in her mouth and sleeping and then Jungle, seeing Pete, Natasha remembered other things.

She remembered something; she had a sense of being needed for something. She could not be sure what it was until somebody called her. She fumbled with the phone, confused.

To yo Tasha!'

The voice was bizarre, muted and enthusiastic. She did not recognize it at all.

'Tash man, you there? It's Fingers. I got your message about Terror and, yeah, that's no problem. We're going to stick you on the poster, make out like you're famous. No one's gonna admit they haven't heard of you.' The man on the telephone yelled with laughter.

Natasha muttered that she did not understand.

There was a long pause.

'Look, Tash, you faxed me, man - told me you wanted to spin some at Junglist Terror ... you know, 291.

couple of weeks' time? Well, that's fine. I wanted to know what name you're under, because we're chucking out some last-minute posters. Going to do a blitz down Camden, down your way too.'

What name? Natasha gathered herself, played the phone call by ear, pretended she understood what was happening.

Tut me in as Rudegirl K.'

That was a name she used. Was that what he wanted, the man? Gradually she began to remember, and to understand. Junglist Terror, near the Elephant and Castle. It came back. She smiled delightedly. Had she asked for an opportunity to play? She could not remember that, but she could play Wind City, she didn't mind...

Fingers rang off. He seemed perturbed, but Natasha only promised to come on the date he told her, and agreed that she would spread the word. She held the receiver against her ear for a little bit too long after he had rung off. The buzz confused her again, until gentle hands reached around her head and disentangled her from the machine.

Pete was there, she realized with a jolt of pleasure. He put the receiver down, turned her to look at him. She wondered how long he had been with her. She looked up at him, smiled beatifically.

'I forgot to tell you that, Natasha,' he said. 'I thought we should take the opportunity to show the 292.

world what we've been doing. So we're going to play Wind City. OK?'

Natasha nodded and smiled.

Pete smiled back. His face; Natasha saw his face. It seemed hurt, she saw long thin scabs adorning it, but she did not really notice them somehow, he grinned so happily. His face was very pale, but he smiled at her with the same wide-eyed pleasure she always a.s.sociated with him. Such a sweetie, she thought, so green. She smiled.

Pete backed away from her, holding her hand until he was out of reach.

'Let's play some music, Natasha,' he suggested.

'Oh yes,' she breathed. That would be excellent. A little Drum and Ba.s.s. She could lose herself in that, take the tunes apart in her mind, see how they fitted together. Maybe they could play Wind City.

All of Saul's friends were accounted for, apart from the man Kay. As he considered the piece of paper he held, the queasy foreboding in Crowley's stomach grew. He was afraid he knew exactly where Kay was.

He felt ridiculous, like a cop from some American TV show, operating on hunches, responding to preposterous gut feelings. He had sought to cross-refer the data that had been gathered on the ruined body in the tube with the information they had on Saul's 293.

friend Kay, who had been missing now for a couple of weeks.

For a while, Crowley had played with the idea that Kay could be behind all this. It would be so much easier to attribute the carnage he had seen to the other missing man. He kept his conjectures to himself. His unwillingness to see Saul as the killer made no sense to those around him, and he could understand why. There was just something, there was just something ... the thoughts went around and around in his head ... it did not work; he had seen Saul; there was something else happening.

He jeopardized control of the investigation with his disquiet. He was reduced to scribbled notes to himself, exchanging favours with laboratory technicians, the usual channels too risky for his ideas. He could not sit with his men and women and brainstorm, bouncing possibilities back and forth, because they knew full well who they were looking for. His name was Saul Garamond, he was an escaped prisoner and a dangerous man.

So Crowley was cut off from discussion, the medium in which his best work was done. He was afraid that without it his notions were stunted, half truths, soiled with the muck of his own mind that no one could brush off for him. But he had no choice; he was atomized.

Kay as killer. That was one of the ideas that he must dispense with. Kay was peripheral, not close to any of 294.

the main protagonists in this drama. He had even less motive than Saul for any of these actions. He was even less physically impressive than Saul.

And besides, his blood group matched that which had covered the walls of Mornington Crescent station.

The fragments of jaw that could be a.n.a.lysed seemed to match Kay's.

Nothing was certain, not with a body as destroyed as that had been. But Crowley believed he knew who they had found.

And he still, he still, could not believe that it was Saul they wanted.

But he could talk to no one about this.

Nor could he share the pity he felt, a pity which was welling up inside him more with every day, a pity which was threatening to dwarf his horror, his anger, his disgust, his fear, his confusion. A growing pity for Saul. Because if he was right, if Saul was not the one responsible for all the things Crowley had seen, then Saul was right in the middle of something horrendous, a kaleidoscope of bizarre and b.l.o.o.d.y murder. And Crowley might feel isolated, might feel cut off from those around him, but if he was right, then Saul... Saul was truly alone.

Fabian returned to his room and immediately felt bad again. The only time now that he did not feel oppressed by isolation was when he got on his bike 295.

and rode around London. He was spending more and more of his time on the road these days, burning up the junk calories he got from the c.r.a.p he was eating.: He was a wiry man, and his hours and hours on the road were stripping the final ounces of excess flesh from him. He was being pared down to skin and muscle.

He had ridden for miles in the cold and his skin blushed with the change of temperature. He sweated unpleasantly from his exertions, his perspiration cold -1 on him.

Straight south he had ridden, down Brixton Hill, past the prison, through Streatham, down towards Mitcham. Real suburbia, houses flattening down, shopping districts becoming more and more flat and soulless. He had ridden up and down and around a roundabouts and along sidestreets: he needed to cross traffic, to wait his turn on the road, to look behind him and indicate brief thanks to someone letting him in, he needed to cut in front of that Porsche and ignore the fact that he had p.i.s.sed them off...

This was Fabian's social life now. He interacted on the f.u.c.king tarmac, communicated with people pa.s.sing him in their cars. This was as close as he came to relations.h.i.+ps now. He did not know what was happening.

So he rode around and around, stopped to buy crisps and chocolate, orange-juice maybe, ate on the 1 saddle, standing outside the poky little groceries and 296.

newsagents he now frequented, balancing his bike next to the faded boards advertising ice-cream and cheap photocopying.

And then back out onto the road, back into the cursory conversations of the roadways, his dangerous flirtations with cars and lorries. There was no such thing as society, not any more, not for him. He had been stripped of it, reduced to begging for social sc.r.a.ps like signalling and brake lights, the rudenesses and courtesies of transport. These were the only times now that anyone took notice of him, modified their behaviour because of him.

Fabian was so lonely it made him ache.

His answering machine blinked at him. He pressed play and the policeman Crowley's voice jerked into life. He sounded forlorn, and Fabian did not think it was just the medium which was having that effect. Fabian listened with the contempt and exasperation he always felt when he dealt with the police.

'... pector Crowley here, Mr Morris. Ummm ... I was wondering if you might be able to help me again with a couple of questions. I wanted to talk to you about your friend Kay and ... well... perhaps you could call me.'

There was a pause.

'You don't play the flute, do you, Mr Morris? Would you or Saul have known anyone who does?'

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Fabian froze. He did not hear what else Crowley said. The voice continued for a minute and stopped.

A wave of gooseflesh engulfed him briefly and was gone. He fumbled, stabbed at the rewind b.u.t.ton.

'... ould call me. You don't play the flute, do you, Mr Morris?'

Rewind.

'You don't play the flute, do you, Mr Morris?'

With an agony of numb fingers Fabian fast forwarded, found the number Crowley gave. He punched it into the phone. Why does he want to know that? why that? his mind kept begging.

The number was busy, and a pleasant female voice told him he was in a queue.

'Mother/wc&er!' Fabian yelled and threw the receiver at the cradle. It bounced and hung from its cord, the dial tone just audible.

Fabian was trembling violently. He tugged at his bike, wrestled it through the constricted entrance hall and hurled it ready for him into the street. He slammed the door behind him. Adrenaline and terror made him feel sick. He lurched into the road and sped towards Natasha's house.

No sociability now. He wove in and out of cars, leaving a cacophony of horns and curses in his wake. He twisted around corners at sharp, sharp angles, leaving pedestrians leaping out of his way.

Jesus Christ Jesus Christ, he thought, why does he 298.

want to know that? What has he found out? What has a man who plays the flute done?

He was over the river now, Jesus G.o.d knew how, he realized he was risking his life at every second. He seemed to be in and out of fugues, he had no recollection at all of pa.s.sing through the intervening streets before the bridge.

Blood poured through Fabian's veins. He felt giddy. The cold air woke him, slapped him in the face.

He saw a clump of phone boxes speeding into view before him. He was struck with a sudden realization of his isolation, again. He tugged at his brakes and pulled his bike up short, letting it fall to the ground and breaking into a run before it had stopped moving. The nearest box was empty, and he ransacked his pockets for money, pulled out a fifty-pence piece. He dialled Crowley's number.

Dial 999 you stupid f.u.c.ker! he suddenly admonished himself, but this time Crowley's phone was ringing.

'Crowley.'

'Crowley, it's Fabian.' He could hardly speak; the words swallowed each other up in their eagerness. 'Crowley, go to Natasha's house now. I'll see you there.'

'Now, hold on, Fabian. What's this all about?'