Period charm of street cloaks a sinister secret

‘Oh my god it’s a rat,’ I shouted. ‘How do you know it’s a rat?’ my wife shouted back, closing her eyes tight and grabbing my arm, then prizing her eyes open, she added, ‘Oh my God it’s a rat.’

We could have been strolling through the set of one of those TV period dramas that always starts with a horse drawn carriage bowling across the screen. The lighting department had certainly done a great job conjuring up an evening that was positively romantic with some playful wisps of mist completing the scene.

“It looks very Jane Austen doesn’t it, very authentic,” I said, meaning that the scene lived up to my expectations of what a grand street which was hundreds of years old should look like of a moonlit autumn evening.

“That’s because it is authentic,” said my wife.

She was right of course. Carriages really had rumbled down this ancient street. The splendid mansions may now be broken into flats but each one would have cost you around half a million.

After just a few yards the old street dipped suddenly into an unsettling gloom and we were in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde territory. Under the pools of light the cobbles gleamed like crocodile skin.

“Could be a setting for a Sherlock Holmes mystery,” I suggested hopefully, but there was no mistaking the fact that the darkness seemed to be closing in on us like a sinister cloak.

“Anybody could jump out on us here and we’d be none the wiser,” whispered my wife. Presumably she was whispering so as not to alert any potential ambushers.

No sooner had she said that than a small black cat ran out from under a gate in front of us. If my wife had believed for one minute I would have caught her she would have leaped into my arms, but I was too busy pinning myself to a horrible clammy wall.

The little cat stopped in the middle of the road and ran back towards us, somehow managing to make itself smaller on the way.

“It’s only a kitten!” I shouted, laughing.

Smiling away we watched with growing curiosity until the kitten stopped under a streetlight and revealed its true identity.

“Oh my God it’s a rat,” I shouted.

“How do you know it’s a rat?” my wife shouted back, closing her eyes tight and grabbing my arm, then prising her eyes open she added, “Oh my God it’s a rat!”

“Maybe it’s escaped from one of the houses,” I suggested, staring hard at the dark shape as it sniffed at the gutter.

“Maybe you should catch it and take it back to its owners,” said my wife. Still clinging to me.

“Yes, there might be a reward,” I said enthusiastically, “we could just knock on all the doors and ask people if they’ve lost their rat.”

“Could be a gerbil, or a hamster,” said my wife optimistically.

“With a long leathery tail,” I added.

Right on cue, Ratty darted out of the gutter and up onto the pavement about five or six yards in front of us. My wife shuddered visibly when she saw that long leathery tail for herself.

I suggested we keep walking since Ratty seemed quite happy to go about his business without attacking us. Also I reckoned he was better in front of us so we could keep an eye on him. A glamorous looking couple appeared from a sleek car on the other side of the road and stared at us and our rat trotting dutifully in front of us.

It must have looked to the couple as if we were taking it for an evening walk.

“It’s not ours!” I explained pointing at the rat but the couple hurried off.

At this point Ratty bolted at a ninety-degree angle, hunkered down in the middle of the road and gazed back at us. In the gloom he looked like a big fat glossy cobble that had been knocked out of place, except of course that he was breathing heavily.

“I think he looks too well groomed,” said my wife, “I reckon he’s definitely an escaped pet.”

Pet or no pet I had to help my wife past what she called ‘the line of fear’, tiptoeing in complete silence as if we were escaping from a dozing ogre. Round the corner with the church graveyard looming we broke into a jog.

I couldn’t get a signal on my phone so back home I Googled rat and a few seconds later there he was staring back at me.

“Yes, that’s him!” nodded my wife like a witness in a police line-up, “what’s his form?”

“Rattus Norvegicus,” I read, “often referred to as the Fancy Rat.”

“Aha, I was right!” shouted my wife.

I frowned at her baffled, “about what?” I asked.

“Fancy Rat,” she said pointing at the screen, “I told you he was special, in fact he was positively posh.”