King Rat spoke, and just as it had in the police cell, his voice took on a rhythm, a dislocating monotony like a bagpipe drone. The sense and meaning of what he said crept into Saul’s head as much by insinuation as by conscious understanding.

‘This here Rome-vill, London, that’s my manor, but I been around wherever my little courtiers found grain and rubbish to Tea Leaf. And they did my bidding, because I’m their king. But I was never alone, Saul; that’s never how it was. Rats believe in their Godfers, chuck out broods, the more mouths to filch, the better.’

‘What do you know about your mother, Saul?’

The question took him by surprise. ‘The… her name was Eloise… She was, uh, a health visitor… She died when I was born, something went wrong…’

‘Seen any Beechams?’

Saul shook his head in confusion.

‘Beechams: pictures, photos…’

‘Of course… she’s short and dark, pretty… What’s this about? Where are you going?’

‘Sometimes, me old China, sometimes there are black sheep, ne’er-do-wells, if you clock me. I’d lay good money you and your dad were snarling at each other’s throats sometimes, am I right? Didn’t get on like you might have hoped? Well, do you really think rats aren’t the same?’

‘She was always the gentry mort, your ma. Took to your daddy a whole lot, and he to her. What a beauty she was, luscious, who’d have passed that up?’ King Rat finished his sentence with a flourish, twisted his head and looked at Saul from around the corner of his face.

‘Your ma made a choice, Saul. Health visitor! That was a cheeky little joke. Set a thief to catch a thief, they say, isn’t it, and so, likewise, with her. Walk into a place, one sniff of the I Suppose, and your ma knew exactly how many rats was in there, and where. Recidivist, traitor, they called her, but I suppose that’s the power of love…’

Saul was incredulous, staring and staring at King Rat.

‘She wasn’t built for the likes of you. You bumped her off on arrival. You’re a big strong lad, sonny, stronger than you probably think. There’s a lot you can do you don’t know about. I bet you gawped out of all those night-time windows longer and harder than any of your mates. I think you’ve been scrabbling to get into this city for real for a long time.’

‘You want to know who did the deed on your old man, I know. That’s what you call petulance, that is, that bod smashed out front, in the garden.’

‘The one who did that… he was after you. Your old dad just got in the way.’

‘You’re a special boy, Saul, got special blood in your veins, and there’s one in the city who’d like to see it spilled. Your mum was my sister, Saul.’

‘Your mum was a rat.’

Chapter Four

With that insane allegation hanging in the air, King Rat rocked back onto the flesh of his arse and fell silent.

Saul shook his head and struggled between incredulity and excitement and disgust.

‘She was… what?’

‘A… fucking… rat.’ King Rat spoke slowly. ‘She crept out of the sewers because she fell for your dad. More tragic than Romeo and Juliet. And her of royal blood, too, but still she went. Couldn’t get shot of me, though. I used to come see her on the nows and thens; she’d tell me to sling my hook. Wanted all that behind her, but with her new nose she stank to herself. Couldn’t shake birthright, you know. Blood’s thicker than water, and rat blood’s the thickest of all.’

Somewhere in the tar-black below, a patrol car lurched out of the pound spewing blue light.

‘And since your mum got put in the ground, I’ve been keeping a little eye out for you: trying to keep you out of trouble. What’s family for, Saul? But it looks like things have caught up. Can’t outrun your blood, Saul. Looks like you’ve been rumbled, and your dad had to take a fall.’

Saul sat still and gazed over King Rat’s shoulder. The words, the deadly understatement delivered with something like a flourish, unlocked a door inside him. He could see his father in a hundred images. And, like a backdrop to all the frozen moments he recalled, Saul could see a powerful fat body pitching in slow motion through the night air, the mouth a distended yawn of shock and terror, eyes rolling in frantic search for safety, thinning hair flickering like candlelight, jowls trembling with gravity’s sudden shift, paddling ineffectually with those thick limbs, jagged scintillas of glass whirling around him as he flew towards the dark lawn, its soil frost-hardened like tundra.

Saul’s throat caught, and he let out a tiny sound of grief. His tears amazed him with their speed, flooding his vision instantly.

‘Oh Dad…’ he sobbed.

King Rat was incensed.

‘Leave it out now, leave it out, will you give it a fucking rest?’

His hand snapped out and he slapped Saul lightly across the face.

‘Hey. Hey. Fucking enough.’

‘Fuck off!’ Saul found a voice between sniffing, weeping and wiping his nose on the sleeve of the police-issue jumper. ‘Just stop for a minute. Just leave me alone…’

Saul relapsed into tears for his father. He beat himself on the head in his loneliness, screwed up his eyes as if he were being tortured, moaned rhythmically as he pummelled his forehead.

‘I’m sorry Dad I’m sorry I’m sorry…’ he crooned between his quiet cries. His words were garbled and confused in isolation and terrible inchoate anger. He wrapped his arms around his head, desperate and alone up on the roof.

Through the gap between his arms, he saw that King Rat was no longer sitting before him, that he had risen without a sound and had somehow reached the other end of the roof, where he stood looking out over London, facing away from Saul whose sadness angered him so much. Saul’s body moved with sobs, as he stared from behind his hands at the strange figure perched between two outcroppings of brick, King Rat. His uncle.

Saul wriggled backwards, still weeping, until he felt the damp pressure of the chimney on his back. He looked over his shoulder and saw a place where two chimney stacks met near the roof edge, leaving a space between them, a rooftop cubby-hole into which he crept with a quick contortion. He curled up in this little space, insulated from the sky and the sickening drop on all sides, out of the sight of King Rat. He was so tired, exhaustion had soaked into his bones. He lay on his side in the cramped, sloping chamber he had found and covered his head with his hands. He cried some more until his tears became mechanical, like a child who has forgotten what he is weeping for. Saul lay there on the slate slope under the chimneys, without food inside him, in someone else’s ruined clothes, lonely and utterly confused, until, amazingly, he slept.

When he woke, the sky was still dark, with only a faint fringe of dun in the east. There was no time for a luxurious morning state for Saul, no slow stretches or confusion, no slow remembrance of where he was and why. He opened his eyes onto red brick, and realized with a shudder of claustrophobia that he was surrounded, that curled up around him was King Rat. He started, pulled himself upright out of that passionless, utilitarian embrace. King Rat’s eyes were open.

‘Morning, boy. Bit parky in the small hours. Thought we’d share a bit of warmth to help you kip.’

King Rat uncoiled and rose, stretching each limb individually. He grabbed the top of the high chimney and hauled himself up with his arms, his legs dangling. He looked slowly from one side to the other, surveying the dim urban sprawl, before hawking noisily and spitting a gob of phlegm down the chimney. Only then did he relax his arms and lower himself to the roof again. Saul struggled to his feet, slipping on the slope. He wiped rheum and rubbish from his face.

King Rat turned to him. ‘We never finished our little chat. We was… interrupted last night. You’ve an awful lot to learn, matey, and you’re looking at teacher, like it or not. But first off, let’s make ourselves scarce.’ He laughed: a filthy, throaty bark that tickled Saul’s ear. ‘They were going hell for leather for you last night. No sirens, mind — didn’t want to warn you off, I reckon, but they were frantic: cars and constables running around like the blue-arsed proverbials, in a right old state, and all the time there I am playing at peek-a-boo over their gables.’ He laughed again, the noise of it, like all he issued, sounding as if it were just inches from Saul’s ear. ‘Oh yes, I am a most accomplished thief.’ He said this final line with stilted gusto, as if delivering lines in a play.