10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (74 page)

‘Can what, Miss Crawford?’

‘Identify him,’ she said, her voice almost a whisper now. She searched in the sleeve of her blouse, found a tissue, and blew her nose. The tear dripped onto one knee. ‘Identify him,’ she repeated, ‘if he’s here, if you’ve caught him.’

Rebus was staring hard at her now, and at last his eyes found hers. Her brown eyes, covered with a film of liquid. He’d seen cranks before, plenty of them. Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn’t.

‘What do you mean, Jan?’

She sniffed again, turned her eyes to the window, swallowed. ‘He almost got me,’ she said. ‘I was the first, before all the others. He almost got me. I was almost the first.’

And then she lifted her head. At first Rebus couldn’t understand why. But then he saw. Under her right ear, running in a crescent shape towards her white throat, there was a dark pink scar, no more than an inch long.

The kind of scar you made with a knife.

The first intended kill of the Wolfman.

‘What do you think?’

They faced one another across the desk. Four inches of fresh paperwork had appeared in the in-tray, threatening to overbalance the pile and send it slewing down across the floor. Rebus was eating a cheese and onion sandwich from Gino’s. Comfort food. One of the nice things about being a bachelor was that you could eat, without fear of regrets, onions, Branston pickle, huge sausage, egg and tomato sauce sandwiches, curried beans on toast and all the other delicacies favoured by the male.

‘What do you think then?’

Flight sipped from a can of cola, giving slight closed-mouth burps between times. He had listened to Rebus’s story and had met with Jan Crawford. She had now been taken to an interview room to be fed tea and sympathy by a WPC while a detective took her statement. Flight and Rebus both hoped she would not have to deal with Lamb.

‘Well?’

Flight rubbed a knuckle against his right eye. ‘I don’t know, John. This case has gone ga-ga. You’re off telling porkies to the press, your picture’s all over the front pages, we’ve got our first – maybe not our last – copycat killing, then you come up with some idea of flea markets and false teeth. And now this.’ He opened his arms wide, pleading for help to put his world back into some semblance of order. ‘It’s all a bit much.’

Rebus bit into the sandwich, chewing slowly. ‘But it fits the pattern, doesn’t it? From what I’ve read about serial killers, the first attempt is often botched. They’re not quite ready, they haven’t planned well enough. Somebody screams, they panic. He didn’t have his technique honed. He didn’t go for the mouth, so she was able to scream. Then he found that human skin and muscle is tougher than it looks. He’d probably seen too many horror films, thought it was like cutting through butter. So he scraped her, but not enough to do serious damage. Maybe the knife wasn’t sharp enough, who knows. The point is, he got scared and he ran.’

Flight merely shrugged. ‘And she didn’t come forward,’ he said. ‘That’s what bothers me.’

‘She’s come forward now. Tell me this, George. How many rape victims do we actually
see
? I heard tell somebody reckons it’s less than one in three. Jan Crawford is a timid little woman, scared half to death. All she wanted to do was forget about it, but she couldn’t. Her conscience wouldn’t let her. Her conscience brought her to us.’

‘I still don’t like it, John. Don’t ask me why.’

Rebus finished the sandwich and made a show of wiping his hands together. ‘Your copper’s instinct?’ he suggested, just a little sarcastically.

‘Maybe,’ said Flight, appearing to miss, or at least to ignore, Rebus’s tone. ‘There’s just something about her.’

‘Trust me. I’ve talked to her. I’ve been through it all with her. And, George, I believe her. I think it was him. Twelfth of December last year. That was his first time.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Flight. ‘Maybe there are others who haven’t come forward.’

‘Maybe. What matters is, one did.’

‘I still don’t see what good this does us.’ Flight picked up a sheet of paper from the desk and read the scribbled details. ‘“He was about six feet tall, white, and I think he had brown hair. He was running away with his back to me, so I couldn’t see his face.’” Flight put down the paper. ‘That narrows things down nicely, doesn’t it?’

Yes, Rebus wanted to say, it does. Because now I think I’m dealing with a man, and before this I wasn’t sure. But he kept that particular thought to himself. He’d given George Flight enough grief in the past few days.

‘That’s still not the point,’ he said instead.

‘Then what in God’s name
is
the point?’ Flight had finished the can of cola and now tossed it into a metal wastepaper bin, where it rang against the side, the reverberation lasting for what seemed like an age.

When all was quiet again, Rebus spoke. ‘The point is, the Wolfman doesn’t know she didn’t get a good look at him. We’ve got to persuade Miss Crawford to go public. Let the TV cameras feast on her. The One Who Got Away. Then we say that she’s given us a good description. If that doesn’t panic the bastard, nothing will.’

‘Panic! Everything you do is designed to panic him. What good does that do? What if it simply frightens him off? What if he just stops killing and we never find him?’

‘He’s not the type,’ Rebus said with authority. ‘He’ll go on killing because it’s taken him over. Haven’t you noticed how the murders are coming at shorter and shorter intervals? He may even have killed again since Lea Bridge, we just haven’t found the body yet. He’s possessed, George.’ Flight looked at him as though seeking a joke, but Rebus was in deadly earnest. ‘I mean it.’

Flight stood up and walked to the window. ‘It might not even have been the Wolfman.’

‘Maybe not,’ Rebus conceded.

‘What if she won’t go public?’

‘It doesn’t matter. We still issue the news story. We still say we’ve got a good description.’

Flight turned from the window. ‘You believe her? You don’t think she’s a crank?’

‘It’s possible, but I really don’t think so. She’s very plausible. She kept the details just vague enough to be convincing. It
was
three months ago. We can check on her if you like.’

‘Yes, I’d like that very much.’ The emotion had left Flight’s voice. This case was draining him of every reserve he had. ‘I want to know about her background, her present, her friends, her medical records, her family.’

‘I could even get Lisa Frazer to give her some psychological tests?’ Rebus suggested, not altogether without tongue in cheek. Flight smiled faintly.

‘No, just the checks I’ve mentioned. Get Lamb onto it. It’ll keep him out of our hair.’

‘You don’t like him then?’

‘Whatever gives you that idea?’

‘Funny, he says you’re like a father to him.’

The moment of tension was over. Rebus felt he had won another small victory. They both laughed, using their dislike of Lamb to strengthen the link between them.

‘You’re a good policeman, John,’ Flight said. Rebus, despite himself, blushed.

‘Sod off, you old fart,’ he replied.

‘That reminds me,’ said Flight. ‘I told you yesterday to go home. Have you any intention of doing so?’

‘None at all,’ said Rebus. There was a pause before Flight nodded.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s good.’ He walked to the door. ‘For now.’ He turned back towards Rebus. ‘Just don’t go rogue on me, John. This is my turf. I need to know where you are and what you’re up to.’ He tapped at his own head. ‘I need to know what’s going on up here. Okay?’

Rebus nodded. ‘Fine, George. No problem.’ But the fingers behind his back were crossed. He liked to work alone, and had the feeling Flight wanted to stick close to him for reasons other than traditional Cockney chumminess. Besides, if the Wolfman did turn out to be a policeman, nobody could be discounted, nobody at all.

Rebus tried Lisa again, but without success. At lunchtime, he was wandering around the station when he bumped into Joey Bennett, the constable who had stopped him on Shaftesbury Avenue that first night in London. Bennett was wary at first. Then he recognised Rebus. ‘Oh, hello, sir. Was that your picture I saw in the papers?’

Rebus nodded. ‘This isn’t your patch, is it?’ he asked.

‘No, not exactly, sir. Just passing through, you might say. Dropping off a prisoner. That woman in the photo with you. She looked a bit of all –’

‘Do you have your car with you?’

Bennett was wary again. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you’re going back into town now?’

‘To the West End, yes, sir.’

‘Good. Then you won’t mind giving me a lift, will you?’

‘Er, no, sir. Of course not, sir.’ Bennett broke into the least convincing smile Rebus had seen outside a synchronised swimming event. On their way out to the car, they passed Lamb.

‘Teeth stopped chattering yet?’ he asked, but Rebus was in no mood to respond. Lamb, undaunted, tried again. ‘Going somewhere?’ He managed even to make this simple question sound like a threat. Rebus stopped, turned and walked up to him, so that their faces were a couple of inches apart.

‘If that’s all right with you, Lamb, yes, I’m going somewhere.’ Then he turned away again and followed Bennett. Lamb watched them go, half his teeth showing in a parody of a grin.

‘Mind how you go!’ he called. ‘Shall I phone ahead and get the hotel to pack your bags?’

Rebus’s reply was a two-fingered salute, a more determined stride, and a whispered ‘FYTP’. Bennett heard him.

‘Sorry, sir?’

‘Nothing,’ said Rebus. ‘Nothing at all.’

It took them half an hour to reach Bloomsbury. Every second building seemed to sport a blue circular plaque commemorating some writer’s having lived there. Rebus recognised few of the names. Finally, he found the building he was looking for, and waved Bennett goodbye. It was the Psychology Department of University College in Gower Street. The secretary, who appeared to be the only living soul around at one o’clock, asked if she could help him.

‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for Lisa Frazer.’

‘Lisa?’ The secretary seemed unsure. ‘Oh, Lisa. Dear me, I don’t think I can help. I haven’t seen her in over a week. You might try the library. Or Dillon’s.’

‘Dillon’s?’

‘It’s a bookshop, just around the corner. Lisa seems to spend a lot of her time in there. She loves bookshops. Or there’s always the British Library. It’s just possible she might be there.’

He left the building with a new puzzle. The secretary had seemed very distant, very fuzzy. Maybe it was just him. He was starting to read things into every situation. He found the bookshop and went inside. ‘Shop’ was something of an understatement. It was huge. He read on a wall that psychology books were to be found three floors up. So many books. One man could not hope to read them all in a lifetime. He tried to walk through the aisles without focusing. If he focused, he would become interested, and if he became interested he would buy. He already had over fifty books at home, piled beside his bed, waiting for that elusive weeklong break when he could concentrate on something other than police work. He collected books. It was just about his only hobby. Not that he was precious about it. He did not lust after first editions, signed copies and the like. Mostly, he bought paperbacks. And he was nothing if not catholic in his tastes: any subject matter would do.

So he tried to pretend he was wearing blinkers, pondered the essential difference between catholic and Catholic and finally reached the psychology section. It was a room joined onto other rooms as in a chain, but there was no sign of Lisa in any of the links. He did, however, find where some of her own library of books had no doubt originated. There was a shelf next to the cashier’s desk, dedicated to crime and violence. One of the books she had loaned him was there. He picked it up and turned it over to look at the price. Then blinked twice in astonishment. So much money! And it wasn’t even a hardback! Still, academic books always did carry steep price tickets. Strange really: weren’t students, the intended readership after all, least able to afford these titles? It might take a psychologist to explain that one, or perhaps a shrewd economist.

Next to the criminology section were books on the occult and witchcraft, along with various packs of Tarot cards and the like. Rebus smiled at this curious marriage: police work and hocus-pocus. He picked up a book on rituals and flipped through it. A young, slender woman, in billowing satin dress and with long fiery hair, paused beside him to lift a Tarot set, which she took to the cash desk. Well, it took all sorts, didn’t it? She looked serious enough, but then these were serious times.

Ritual. He wondered if there was an element of ritual to the Wolfman’s particular spree. So far he had been seeking an explanation from the killer’s psyche: what if the whole thing were some kind of rite? Slaughter and defilement of the innocent, that sort of thing. Charlie Manson and his swastika-tattooed forehead. Some said there was a Masonic element to Jack the Ripper’s methods. Madness and evil. Sometimes you found a cause, and sometimes you just didn’t.

Slash the throat.

Gouge the anus.

Bite the stomach.

The two ends of the human trunk, and something like the mid-point. Could there be a clue in that particular pattern?

There are clues everywhere
.

The monster from his past, rearing up out of the dark deep waters of memory. That case had tied him up all right, but not half as much as this. He had thought the Wolfman might be a woman. Now a woman had conveniently appeared to tell him the Wolfman was a man. Very conveniently. George Flight was right to be wary. Perhaps Rebus could learn something from him. Flight did everything by the book, and in scrupulous detail. He didn’t go running down the bloody hall with a pair of toy false teeth clutched in his sweaty hand. He was the type to sit down and think things through. That was what made him a good copper, better than Rebus, because he didn’t snap at every red herring that came along. Better because he was methodical, and methodical people never let anything escape them.

Rebus left Dillon’s Bookshop with his own little thundercloud hanging above his head and a plastic carrier-bag full of newly purchased books swinging from his right hand. He walked down Gower Street and Bloomsbury Street, took a fortuitous left at a set of traffic lights and found himself outside the British Museum, inside which, he knew from memory, was to be found the British Library. Unless, that was, they’d already moved it, as he’d read they were planning to.