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 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 Classical and Soul and House and Techno and Opera and Folk and Jazz and Jungle, always Jungle, all the music built on drum and bass, 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, circumscribed 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.

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 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, 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 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 associated 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 Bass. 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 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.