10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (69 page)

‘You’re saying he’s a copper?’

She laughed again, shaking her head. ‘I’m saying he may have prior convictions.’

‘Yes, well,’ he thought of the file George Flight had shown him a few hours earlier, ‘we’ve checked on over a hundred ex-offenders already. No luck there.’

‘But you can’t possibly have talked to every man who has ever been convicted of rape, violent assault or the like.’

‘Agreed. But there’s something you seem to have overlooked – the teeth marks. Those are very palpable clues. If the Wolfman is being so clever, why does he leave us a neat set of bite marks every time?’

She blew on her tea, cooling it. ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘the teeth are a – what do you call it – a red herring?’

Rebus thought about this. ‘It’s possible,’ he conceded, ‘but there’s something else. I visited a dental pathologist today. From the marks made by the teeth, he said he couldn’t rule out the possibility that the Wolfman is a woman.’

‘Really?’ Her eyes opened wide. ‘That’s very interesting. I’d never even considered it.’

‘Neither had we.’ He scooped more rice into his bowl. ‘So tell me, why does he, or she, bite the victims?’

‘I’ve given that a lot of thought.’ She flipped to her final card. ‘The bite is always on the stomach, the female stomach, carrier of life. Maybe the Wolfman has lost a child, or maybe he was abandoned and consequently adopted and resents the fact. I don’t know. A lot of serial killers have fragmented upbringings.’

‘Mmm. I read all about it in those books you gave me.’

‘Really? You read them?’

‘Last night.’

‘And what did you think?’

‘I thought they were clever, sometimes ingenious.’

‘But do you think the theories are valid?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘I’ll tell you if and when we catch the Wolfman.’

She toyed with her food again, but ate nothing. The meat in her bowl had a cold, gelatinous look. ‘What about the anal attacks, John. Do
you
have any theories there?’

Rebus considered this. ‘No,’ he said finally, ‘but I know what a psychiatrist might say.’

‘Yes, but you’re not with a psychiatrist, remember. I’m a psychologist.’

‘How can I forget? You said in your essay that there are thirty
known
serial killers active in the USA. Is that true?’

‘I wrote that essay over a year ago. By now, there are probably more. Frightening, isn’t it?’

He shrugged, the shrug disguising a shiver. ‘How’s the food?’ he asked.

‘What?’ She looked at her bowl. ‘Oh, I’m not really very hungry. To tell you the truth, I feel a little bit . . . deflated, I suppose. I was so excited at what I thought I’d managed to piece together, but in telling it all to you, I see that really there’s not very much there at all.’ She was thumbing through the index cards.

‘There’s plenty there,’ said Rebus. ‘I’m impressed, honest. Every little bit helps. And you stick to the known facts, I like that. I was expecting more jargon.’ He remembered the terms from one of her books, the one by MacNaughtie. ‘Latent psychomania, Oedipal urgings, gobbledygook.’

‘I could give you plenty of that stuff,’ she said, ‘but I doubt it would help.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Besides, that’s more in line with psychiatry. Psychologists prefer drive theories, social learning theory, multiphasic personalities.’ Rebus had clamped his hands over his ears.

She laughed again. He could make her laugh so easily. Once upon a time he’d made Rhona laugh too, and after Rhona a certain Liaison Officer back in Edinburgh. ‘So what about policemen?’ he asked, closing off the memory. ‘What can psychologists tell about us?’

‘Well,’ she said, relaxing into her seat, ‘you’re extrovert, tough-minded, conservative.’

‘Conservative?’

‘With a small “c”.’

‘I read last night that serial killers are conservative, too.’

She nodded, still smiling. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘you’re alike in a lot of ways. But by conservative I mean specifically that you don’t like anything that changes the status quo. That’s why you’re reticent about the use of psychology. It interferes with the strict guidelines you’ve set yourselves. Isn’t that so?’

‘Well, I suppose I could argue, but I won’t. So what happens now you’ve studied the Wolfman?’

‘Oh, all I’ve done so far is scratch the surface.’ Her hands were still on the index cards. ‘There are other tests to be done, character analyses and so on. It’ll take time.’ She paused. ‘What about you?’

‘Well, we’ll plod along, checking, examining, taking it –’

‘Step by step,’ she interrupted.

‘That’s right, step by step. Whether I’ll be on the case much longer or not I can’t say. They may send me back to Edinburgh at the end of the week.’

‘Why did they bring you to London in the first place?’

The waiter had come to clear away their dishes. Rebus sat back, wiping his lips with the serviette.

‘Any coffees or liqueurs, sir?’

Rebus looked to Lisa. ‘I think I’ll have a Grand Marnier,’ she said.

‘Just coffee for me,’ said Rebus. ‘No, hold on, what the hell, I’ll have the same.’ The waiter bowed and moved off, his arms heavy with crockery.

‘You didn’t answer my question, John.’

‘Oh, it’s simple enough. They thought I might be able to help. I worked on a previous serial killing, up in Edinburgh.’

‘Really?’ She sat forward in her chair, the palms of her hands pressed to the tablecloth. ‘Tell me.’

So he told her. It was a long story, and he didn’t know exactly why he gave her as many details as he did – more details than she needed to know, and more, perhaps, than he should be telling to a psychologist. What would she make of him? Would she find a trace of psychosis or paranoia in his character? But he had her complete attention, so he spun the tale out in order to enjoy that attention the more.

It took them through two cups of coffee, the paying of the bill, and a balmy night-time walk through Leicester Square, across Charing Cross Road, up St Martin’s Lane and along Long Acre towards Covent Garden. They walked around Covent Garden itself, Rebus still doing most of the talking. He stopped by a row of three telephone boxes, curious about the small white stickers covering every available inch of space on the inside of the booths: Stern corrective measures; French lessons; O and A specialist; TV; Trudy, nymphet, Spank me; S/M chamber; Busty blonde – all of them accompanied by telephone numbers.

Lisa studied them, too. ‘Every one a psychologist,’ she said. Then: ‘That’s quite a story you’ve just told, John. Has anyone written it up?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘A newspaper reporter wrote a couple of articles.’ Jim Stevens. Christ, hadn’t he moved to London, too? Rebus thought again of the newspaper story Lamb had shown him, the
unattributed
newspaper story.

‘Yes,’ Lisa was saying, ‘but has anyone looked at it from your point of view?’

‘No.’ She looked thoughtful at this. ‘You want to turn me into a case study?’

‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘Ah, here we are.’ She stopped. They were standing outside a shoe shop in a narrow, pedestrianised street. Above the rows of shops were two storeys of flats. ‘This is where I live,’ she said. ‘Thank you for this evening. I’ve enjoyed it.’

‘Thank you for the meal. It was great.’

‘Not at all.’ She fell silent. They were only two or three feet apart. Rebus shuffled his feet. ‘Will you be able to find your way back?’ she asked. ‘Should I point you in the right direction?’

Rebus looked up and down the street. He was lost. He had not been keeping track of their meanderings. ‘Oh, I’ll be all right.’ He smiled and she smiled back but did not speak. ‘So this is it then,’ he persisted. ‘No offer of a coffee?’

She looked at him slyly. ‘Do you really want a coffee?’

He returned the look. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘not really.’

She turned from him and opened the door to the side of the shoe shop. The shop claimed to specialise in handmade and non-leather shoes. Beside the door to the flats was an entryphone boasting six names. One of them read simply ‘L Frazer’. No ‘Dr’, but then he supposed she wouldn’t want to be disturbed by people needing a medical doctor, would she? There were times when a qualification was best kept under wraps.

Lisa drew the mortice key out of the lock. The stairwell was brightly lit, its plain stone painted cornflower blue. She turned back towards him.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘since you don’t want a coffee, you’d better come on up . . .’

She later explained, running a hand over his chest as they lay together in bed, that she saw no point in the little games people played, the slow edging towards a moment when both would admit that what they really wanted was to make love.

So instead she led Rebus up to her first floor flat, took him into the darkened room, undressed and got into bed, sitting with her knees tucked up in front of her.

‘Well?’ she said. So he had undressed, too, and joined her. She lay now with her arms reaching behind her to grab at the bedposts, her body dusky in the light cast from a street lamp outside. Rebus ran his tongue back up along the inside of her leg, the inner thigh, her legs supple. She smelt of jasmine, tasted of flowers more pungent still. Rebus was self-conscious at first. His own body had become an embarrassment, while hers was in fine, toned condition. (Squash and swimming, she told him later, and a strict diet.) He ran his fingers over the ripples, the corrugations in her flesh. There was some sagging to the skin above her stomach, some creasing to the sides of her breasts and to her throat. He looked down and saw his own distended chest. There was still some muscle to his stomach, but there was also excessive fleshiness; not supple, tired and ageing. Squash and swimming: he would take up some exercise, join a health club. There were enough of them in Edinburgh.

He was eager to please. Her pleasure became his only goal, and he worked tirelessly. There was sweat in the room now. A lot of sweat. They were working well together, moving fluidly, each seeming to sense what the other was about to do. When he moved slightly too quickly and bumped his nose on her chin, they laughed quietly, rubbing foreheads. And when later he went in search of her fridge and cold liquid, she came too, popping an ice cube into her mouth before kissing him, the kiss extending downwards as she sank to her knees in front of him.

Back in bed, they drank chill white wine from the bottle and kissed some more, then began all over again.

The air between them had lost its nervous charge and they were able to enjoy themselves. She moved on top, rearing above him, her rhythm increasing until all he could do was lie back and watch with his eyes closed, imagining the room in diffuse light, a cold spray of water, a smoothness of skin.

Or a woman
. The Wolfman could be a woman. The Wolfman was playing with the police, seemed to know the way they thought and worked. A woman? A woman officer? Cath Farraday came to mind, with her Teutonic face, that wide but angular jaw.

Jesus, here he was with Lisa, thinking of another woman! He felt a sudden pang of guilt, hitting him in the stomach a moment before a very different reaction arched his back and his neck, while her hands pressed down upon his chest, her knees clamped to his hips.

Or a woman. Why the teeth? Leaving not a single clue except those bites. Why? Why not a woman? Why not a policeman? Or . . . or . . .

‘Yes, yes.’ Her breath escaped with a hiss, the word losing all meaning as she repeated it ten, twenty, thirty times. Yes what?

‘Yes, John, yes, John, yes . . .’

Yes.

It had been another busy day for her, a day spent pretending to be what she’s not, but now she was out again, prowling. She is beginning to like the way she can move so smoothly through the two worlds. Earlier this evening she was the guest at a dinner party in Blackheath. Mock-Georgian elegance, stripped pine doors, talk of school fees and fax machines, of interest rates and foreign property – and the Wolfman. They asked for her opinion. Her opinion was reasoned, intelligent, liberal. There was chilled Chablis and an exquisite bottle of Chateau Montrose: the ’82. She could not choose between the two, so enjoyed a glass of both.

One guest was late arriving, a journalist on one of the better dailies. He apologised. They asked for tidbits from the next day’s news, and he supplied them generously. The sister paper to his own was a downmarket tabloid. He told them the next day’s front page would have a headline reading SECRET LIFE OF GAY WOLFMAN. Of course, as the journalist knows, this is nothing more than a ruse, to try to bait the killer. And she knows too, naturally. They smile at one another across the table, as she lifts more pasta expertly with her fork. How stupid of them to run a story like that: gay Wolfman indeed! She chuckles into her oversized wine glass. The conversation turns to motorway traffic, wine acquisition, the state of Blackheath Common. Blackheath, of course, is where they buried the plague victims, piling the corpses high. Black Death. Black Heath. One letter separates the two. She smiles at this, too, discreetly.

The meal over, she took a taxi back across the river and got out at the beginning of her street. She intended to go straight home, but walked past her door and kept on walking. She shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be out here, but it feels right. After all, the toy in the gallery must be lonely. It’s always so cold in the gallery. So cold Jack Frost could bite off your nose.

Her mother must have told her that. Her mother.
Long nosehairs, Johnny, are so unbecoming in a gentleman
. Or her father, singing nonsense songs while she hid herself in the garden. ‘Fuck art,’ she hisses quietly to herself.

She knows where to go, too. Not far. The intersection of one road with a much larger one. There are many like it in London. Traffic lights, and a few women wandering back and forth, sometimes crossing at the lights so that the drivers can see them, can see their legs and their white bodies. If a car window is rolled down, a woman may lean down close to the driver so that they can discuss terms. Professional, but not very discreet. She knows that sometimes the police will make a rudimentary attempt to close down business, knows too that policemen are among the whores’ best customers. That’s why it’s dangerous for her to come here. Dangerous but necessary: she has an itch, and women like these go missing all the time, don’t they? No one gets suspicious. No one starts alarm bells ringing. Alarm bells are the last thing you need in this part of the city. Like with her first victim, by the time they got to her she was a meal for rats. Animal feed. She chuckles again, and makes to walk past one of these women, but stops.