Saul turned slowly on one heel in a deliberate motion. He dragged his feet, picking them up, dropping them, walking ponderously along the street. He looked down at his chest as he moved. Saul was thinking.

He felt as if he had lost all capacity for urgency.

Saul wondered what he was trying to achieve. Was this revenge? Boredom? A dare?

He was becoming King Rat. Was he? Was that what he was doing? He was not sure at all. He had not asked the rats to follow him, but he wanted to see what he could do with them.

He was aware that he should fear the Piper, that he should think, form a plan, but he could not, not now. He felt untrustworthy, confused, full of betrayal. He would show King Rat. King Rat who had not chased him, not tried to stop him, not urged him to come back.

He did not know what he was about to do, he did not know where he would go, when he would return. But then the very emptiness he felt was a liberation. For a long time he had felt full of guilt about his father, full of his father’s disappointment. Then he had been full of King Rat, full of trepidation and amazement.

Now he was empty, all of a sudden. He felt very alone. He felt light, as if he might evade gravity with every step. As if he had pissed after a day holding it in, or had put down a massive burden he had forgotten he carried. He felt he could blow away in the wind, and he had to keep moving. And each movement, for the first time he could remember, the first time ever, was entirely his own.

There was a screaming from the alley just ahead of him, and he swore and rushed to the corner. He swung around the edge of brick and stared into the shadows. A few feet from the Edgware Road a young woman was lying in the delivery entrance of a shop. She had a dirty face and dirty brown hair. She sat huddled in a greasy blue sleeping-bag, pulling it up tight around her. Her face was shot through with horror, her mouth stretched as if it would split her cheeks. Her voice had run dry. She did not see Saul. She could not take her eyes from the wall before her.

A cascade of rats spewed and bubbled over the edge. The stream was almost soundless, marked only by a low white noise of scratching.

The sleeping-bag slipped slowly from the woman’s hands, and they stayed as they were, frozen, framing her face. Rats simmered around her, looked up at Saul, made sounds of supplication, sought approval. They parted as he strode towards the terror-stricken woman.

She did not look at him, still unable to look anywhere except at the deluge of scuttling bodies. There were more rats there than Saul had seen in the sewers. They had been joined by compatriots from the houses around them. Saul glanced up at them, then turned to the woman.

‘Hey, hey,’ he said gently, and kneeled before her. ‘Don’t panic, shhhhh…’

The woman’s eyes flickered briefly to him and she found her voice.

‘Oh my God do you see them they’re coming for me Jesus Christ…’

She spoke in a strangled screech. It sounded as if there were no air in her lungs, as if it were only fear that was giving her a voice.

Saul grabbed her face in both hands and forced her to look at him. Her eyes were green and open very wide.

‘Listen to me. You won’t understand this, but don’t worry. Shhh, shhh, these rats are mine. They won’t hurt you, do you understand?’

‘But the rats are here to get me and they’re going to get me and…’

‘Shut up!’ There was silence, for a second. ‘Now watch.’ Saul held her head still and slowly moved his aside, until the woman could see the rats which waited in the shadows and, as her eyes widened again and the muscles around her mouth went taut, Saul threw his head back briefly and hissed, ‘Disappear!’

There was a flurry of feet and tails. The rats vanished.

The alley was silent.

Bewilderment crept into the creases on the woman’s face. She looked from side to side as Saul moved away from her. She craned her neck and peered nervously around her. Saul sank to his haunches next to her, sat back against the door. He looked to his right and saw the lights of Edgware Road, only ten feet away. Again he thought: these things take place so close to the real city, and no one can see them. They take place ten feet away, somewhere in another world.

Next to him the woman turned. Her voice quivered.

‘How did you do that?’ She spoke too loudly still.

‘I told you,’ he said. ‘They’re my rats. They’ll do what I tell them.’

‘Is it like a trick? Like trained rats? Don’t they scare you?’

As she spoke her eyes wavered from side to side. Her voice was unnaturally loud and abrupt. Her panic was over too quickly. She spoke to him as though she were a child. Saul suddenly understood that this woman was probably mentally ill.

Don’t treat her like a child, he thought warily. Don’t patronize her.

‘The rats don’t scare me, no,’ he said carefully. ‘I understand them.’

‘They frightened the shit out of me. I thought they were out to get me!’

‘Yeah, well I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know anyone was here when I sent them into the alley.’

‘It’s amazing that you can do that, I mean make rats do what you want!’ She grinned quickly.

There was silence. Saul looked around him but the rats remained hidden. He turned back to his companion. Her eyes were darting around like flies.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Deborah.’

‘I’m Saul.’ They smiled at each other. ‘Now that you know the rats are mine,’ he said slowly, ‘would you still be scared of them?’

She looked at him questioningly. Saul sighed for a long time. He did not know what would happen next. He did not really know what he was doing. He was enjoying his words, rolling every one around his mouth. It was the first time since meeting Kay that he had spoken to a human being. He revelled in every sentence. He did not want the conversation to end.

‘I mean, I could bring them out again.’

‘I don’t know, I mean, aren’t they dirty and stuff?’

‘Not my lot. And if I tell them not to, they won’t touch you.’

Deborah twisted her face up. She was grinning, a sickly frightened grin.

‘Oh you know I don’t know I mean I don’t know…’

‘Don’t be scared, now. Look. I’ll call them out, and show you they do what I want.’ He turned his head slightly. He could smell the rats. They waited just out of sight, quivering. ‘Heads up,’ he said firmly, ‘heads only.’

There was a stirring in the debris and a hundred little heads poked up, like seals in the waves, sleek skulls under greased-back fur.

Deborah shrieked and put her hand over her mouth. Her head shook, and Saul saw that she was laughing.

‘It’s amazing…’ she said through her fingers.

‘Down,’ said Saul, and the heads disappeared.

Deborah laughed delightedly.

‘How do you do it?’

‘They have to do what I say,’ said Saul. ‘I’m the boss, as far as they’re concerned. I’m their prince.’ She looked at him in consternation. Saul felt irresponsible. He wondered if he was damaging her further. What she needs is reality, he thought, but the realization came firmly to him that this was reality, whether anyone liked it or not. And he wanted to keep talking to her.

‘Are you hungry, Deborah?’ She nodded. ‘Well, why don’t I get you some food?’ He jumped up and crept into Edgware Road, returned some seconds later with two pastries, intricate things encrusted with pistachios and icing sugar, which he put in Deborah’s lap.

She bit into one, licked her lips. She was obviously hungry.

‘I was asleep,’ she said, honey muffling her voice. ‘I heard the rats in my sleep and they woke me up. Oh, it’s OK. I’m glad I’m awake. I wasn’t sleeping very well, actually, I was dreaming horrible things.’

‘Wasn’t waking to a plague of rats a horrible thing?’

She laughed jerkily.

‘Only at first,’ she said. ‘Now I know they do what you tell them I don’t mind so much. It’s very cold.’ She had finished the pastries. She had eaten very fast.