‘Yeah, well, you heard about me getting out of the cell? I got to hide, man, the police think I killed my dad.’
Kay stared at him for a moment.
Saul was aghast. ‘No I fucking didn’t. Jesus, do you have to ask me that?’
All the talk of chase and crime and capture was making him nervous, and he backed into the darkness under the tree, pulling Kay with him.
‘So what are you doing?’ said Kay.
‘Oh…’ Saul was vague. ‘I’ve got to find something to prove I didn’t do it.’ He could not explain that he could never go back.
‘What about the two cops?’ Saul stared at Kay blankly. ‘The ones who bought it in your flat.’
Saul stared at him in mounting horror.
‘Didn’t you know?’
‘So what fucking happened?’ Saul shook his lapels. Kay backed away, wrinkling his nose.
‘I don’t know, I don’t know. Fabian came up to Tash’s waving a newspaper around. The police have been interviewing him all day, said the two watching your flat got beat up and died. They’ve got you pegged for it, man.’
Kay had no malice. He could see that Saul knew nothing of the crime, and felt only concern, no more suspicion.
‘Do you… know… do you know who…’ he continued. ‘No, but I think I know someone who does. Shit!’ Saul ran his hands through his hair. ‘Shit, they’ll be going ballistic for me now! Shit!’
He’s going to tell me, he thought, overcome with rage. No more petulant silences. When I find King Rat he’s got to tell me who’s doing this and why, and fuck all this fobbing me off.
He turned back to Kay.
‘What’s going on, man? Why you here?’
Kay pointed up the road.
‘I was in the pub with Tash and Fabe and this geezer Tash has started cutting some tracks with. It’s a lock-in… we’re all talking about you, man.’ He grinned weakly. ‘I realized I left my bag at Tash’s, and she give me her keys. I’m going back in a minute. You want to come?’ Saul hesitated and Kay began to urge him. ‘Come on, man, everyone’s worried fucking sick over you, man. Fabe’s terrible.’
Saul thought of Fabian and felt a wave of nostalgia. His friendships felt shockingly distant. He wanted to come to the pub, but he was suddenly terrified. He had nothing in common with these people any more, though he wanted them desperately; he missed them. What could he say to them, tell them? And the police… they were already questioning them. After this latest killing, could he risk incriminating them?
‘I… can’t, Kay. I’m wanted, man, and I can’t be hanging around in pubs and stuff. I got to keep moving. But… will you tell them that I’m missing them and I promise I’ll try to see them. And Kay… tell them if they don’t hear from me for a bit they can’t worry… I’m sorting things out. OK? Will you tell them that?’
‘Are you sure you won’t come back?’
Saul shook his head.
Kay acquiesced with a sideways nod. ‘So… at least tell me what’s going on. How the fuck d’you get out of prison?’
Saul even laughed a little.
‘It was only a cell, and… I really can’t explain now. I’m really sorry.’
‘How are you looking after yourself?’
‘Kay… I can’t, alright? Please stop, man. I can’t explain it.’
‘But are you OK?’ Kay was concerned. ‘You don’t sound all that good. Like I say, your voice is all… weird, and you smell… like…’
‘I know, but I can’t talk about it. I promise I’m looking after myself. I have to go, man. I’m sorry. Give them all my big love.’ He touched him briefly on the shoulder and walked into the dark, turning to wave.
Kay stood under the tree, waving back. His eyes peered intently as Saul left the circle of shadow and found other darkness beside the front walls of houses.
‘Take care, man,’ Kay said, too loud, from behind him.
Saul was lost to his sight.
Kay stood for a moment under the tree before walking slowly to Natasha’s front door and letting himself in. He was deeply confused. Something was obviously very wrong with Saul, but he could not tell what. The man had turned into some kind of Ninja, for one thing; walk five feet away from him and he turned invisible. And his voice… husky and somehow… close up.
It had unnerved Kay, made him a little afraid. It was clear that Saul did not know anything about the dead policemen, but Kay found himself wondering whether he was somehow involved without knowing it. There was certainly a touch of the psychopath about him tonight: his eyes all dark, his voice and manner intense, and that smell…! The man must be living in pigshit. Could he really be dossing in the sewers? How would you even get into them?
He was afraid for his friend.
He found his bag in the unlit sitting-room and left the flat, locking the door behind him. He was eager to tell the others of his meeting. At least Saul was… well, alive, if not OK.
He stepped out into the street and turned left, still shaking his head in confusion. Something emerged from a patch of darkness behind him and moved in fast. Kay heard nothing. Metal twirled briefly and something long and hard cracked him on the back of his head. Kay emitted a gasp of air as he fell forward, was caught, dead-weight, hanging like a corpse, before he hit the pavement.
Blood welled up and dribbled onto his bag, trickling inside, staining the covers of records by Ray Keith and the Omni Trio.
Chapter Eleven
Saul saw the fat pillars of the Westway loom out at him again.
He turned right, skirting the great dark thoroughfare, wandering slowly west. He did not know where to turn. He turned his eyes to the ground, seeking a manhole. Perhaps he should hide himself from view, seek out King Rat again. He did not know if he could find his way back through the sewers to the throne room. He did not want to see the rats. They had unnerved him with their pleading. They wanted something of him.
A few late walkers passed him by. Saul wanted to stop, to sit and think for a while, to eat. He was not tired. He thought suddenly of the policemen who had died in his flat, and he winced.
He was gravitating towards the tangled concrete of the Westway’s mid-air junction, a confusion of sweeping curves which hung above the earth like an imminent threat. Below the skeins of steel and tarmac the council had provided enclosures for basketball and football, a climbing wall and chin-up bars. During the day the area was full of the shouts of young players oblivious to the concrete above and around them, swooping in all directions with functional grandeur, a found stadium occluding direct light, obscuring the sky.
Saul wandered into the darkness between the pitches. He looked up at the underside of the Westway itself. The traffic above sounded very far away.
He meandered into the passageways between chain-link fences and football fields. The wind was stilled under the roadway. He stood and listened to it buffet the edges of the secluded ground.
There was another sound.
A faint, quick scampering echoed quietly between the pillars.
Saul turned and moved his head sharply as something circled him. He backed away. Panic bubbled up inside him. The Ratcatcher! he thought, and ran for the faint glow of the streetlamps.
He spun around on his heel, desperately looking for a way out of the darkness. Something flitted across his vision, a black body that swung down from the shadows above him, from the crevices in the underside of the Westway. It swung around him, too quick for his eye to follow, free of gravity’s constraints, moving in all directions through the air. Saul’s breath came fast as he turned and ran.