It wasn’t worth wasting time worrying about it. At any moment the rats might change their minds and decide to attack me after all. Yes, they were small but there were enough of them to turn me into a half-eaten carcass before I could say that I smelled a rat. And, boy, they smelled bad.
I clamped my hand over my nose and tried to breathe through my mouth. I turned back towards the lamppost, noting that the figure, whoever it was, was now barely clinging on with his fingertips. His head turned towards me and I registered that he was little more than a kid. I swallowed and stepped towards him, the rats continuing to avoid me whenever I moved.
The boy jerked his head frantically, his mouth moving as he yelled something. He could have been shouting at the top of his lungs; I wouldn’t have a heard a word over the squealing and skittering of the rats. I waved at him, indicating that he should stay put. Easy for me to say, of course. He momentarily lost his grip and slipped half a foot down the post. Three rats leapt up and started gnawing at the hem of his jeans. He did his best to kick them off, but more were on their way.
Steeling myself, I stopped pansying around and ran. The rats parted for me, adapting to my movements rather than the other way around. Within moments I reached the base of the lamppost.
‘Let go!’ I shouted.
‘You’re nuts!’ the boy screeched back at me. ‘They’ll eat me alive!’
I spread my feet, making even more rats scatter. ‘Look down,’ I said, sounding much calmer than I felt. ‘They’re not coming near me. Drop down and I’ll piggyback you to safety.’
With eyes as wide as saucers, he stared down at me without moving. Strangely, when he registered the lack of flesh-eating rodents around me, he seemed more disturbed rather than less. ‘What the hell is wrong with you if those fuckers won’t go near you?’
Ordinarily, I’d have thought he was making a good point. However, given that several of the fuckers in question had swerved away from me and were still attempting to clamber up to him, albeit at a distance from me, I didn’t think this was the time. Gritting my teeth, I gave him my best glare. ‘Jump now,’ I hissed.
Even with my stern instruction, he seemed unable to prise his fingers away and drop. He was virtually frozen to the post itself – no mean feat, given its slender, smooth nature and the fact that he was several feet up it. I supposed that near-death experiences encouraged physical feats of all sorts, then I quashed that thought before it destroyed my psyche.
‘You…’ I began, as a sudden vicious gust of wind sprang out of nowhere followed by shouts from the police station behind me.
As if someone had flicked on a switch, the bleak sky lightened and the sun poked through. There was a tremendous screech, as if all the rats had joined in deafening chorus. Like magic, the brown mass seemed to dissipate, the creatures disappearing into drains and holes and into side streets. In moments there were only a few left. Perhaps these leftovers were less geographically inclined rodents because they clawed at the ground, as if confused by their cronies’ vanishing act.
A moment later, a crowd of police officers came running out waving sticks and chairs and bellowing at the remaining rats until they also scattered back to whichever hole they’d sprung from.
The boy still didn’t move.
‘You can definitely come down now,’ I said drily. ‘There’s not an animal in sight.’
He blinked rapidly and dropped, landing in a crouch. He stood up and brushed himself off, looking round as if embarrassed to have been so frightened.
I pointed at the various members of Manchester’s finest, who were scowling up and down the street. Maybe they thought evil looks would be enough to stave off another storm of vermin. ‘They wouldn’t even leave the building,’ I said softly. ‘You did well to shimmy up that lamppost and keep yourself safe.’
The boy ran a shaky hand through his hair and nodded, although I wasn’t sure he’d heard what I’d said.
DI Mulroney, one of the older policemen, shambled over and clapped an arm round his shoulder. ‘Come on, laddie,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you inside and make you a good cup of tea, shall we?’ He threw me a meaningful look to suggest that I should join them, to what end I wasn’t entirely sure. I was hardly the only witness to the strangeness that had just occurred.
As Mulroney and the kid vanished back into the station, Anna Jones strode up to me. ‘Can you explain any of that?’ she enquired. She looked as shaken as I felt but she was certainly putting a brave face on it, her mouth in a tight smile and her hair as perfectly coiffed as usual.
I breathed out and looked round. Several of the cars around us had been all but stripped of their paintwork and a heavy, sulphurous reek clung to the air. ‘Some sort of natural phenomenon,’ I guessed. ‘An earthquake that caused all the rats in the sewers to swarm up – although that smell suggests volcanic activity.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Since when has there been a volcano underneath Britain? Besides,’ she continued, ‘that’s not what I meant. Can you explain why those … things wouldn’t go near you? It was as if you had some sort of force field holding them at bay. They weren’t acting like that around anyone else.’
I sucked on my bottom lip for a moment before answering. ‘Residue cleaning chemicals, maybe? Frankly, Anna, I don’t have a scooby.’ I glanced at her. ‘You said there had been
