Eventually she spoke. `All I want to do is read through the material on the case.'
Rebus found some spare sarcasm. `That's all?' He tapped the mound of paperwork in the in-tray. `No problem then, it'll only take you a couple of months.' She was ignoring him, fumbling with the briefcase. She produced a slim orange, folder.
`Here,' she said stonily. `Just read this. It'll only take you twenty minutes. It's one of the profiles I did of an American serial killer. If you think it has no validity in helping to identify the killer or target where he might have struck next, fair enough, I'll leave.'
Rebus took the file. Oh God, he thought, not more psychology! Relating . . . involving motivating. He'd had his fill of psychology on the management training courses, But then again, he didn't want her to leave. He didn't want to be left sitting .here on his own with everyone in the Murder Room smirking at their little trick. He opened the folder, drew out a typed and bound thesis about twenty-five pages long, and began to read. She sat watching him, waiting for a question perhaps. Rebus read with his chin held up, so, that she wouldn't see the sagging folds of flesh on his neck, and with his shoulders back, making the best of his admittedly not very muscular chest. He cursed his parents for not feeding him up as a child. He, had grown skinny, and when eventually he had started to put weight on, it had been to his gut and his backside, not his chest and, arms.
Backside. Chest. Arms. He gazed hard at the words in front of him, but aware of her, body, resting in his line of peripheral vision, just above the top edge of the paper. He didn't, even know her first name. Perhaps he never would. He frowned as though, deep in thought and read through the opening page.
By page five he was interested and by page ten, he felt there might be something in it after all. A lot of it was speculative. Be honest, John, it was almost all conjecture, but there were a few points where she made a telling deduction. He saw what, it was her mind worked in a different orbit from a detective's. They circled the same sun, however, and now and then the satellites touched. And what harm could come from letting her do a profile for the Wolfman? At worst, it would lead them up another dead end. At best, he might enjoy some female company during his stay in. London. Yes, some pleasant female company. Which reminded him: he wanted to telephone his ex-wife and arrange a visit. He read through the final pages quickly.
`All right,' he, said, closing the thesis, `very interesting.'
She seemed pleased. `And useful?'
He hesitated before replying. `Perhaps.'
She wanted more from him than that. `But worth letting me have a go on the Wolfman?'
He nodded slowly, ruminatively, and her face lit up. Rebus couldn't help returning her smile. There was a knock at the door. `Come in,' he called.
It was Flight. He was carrying a tray, swimming with spilt tea, `I believe you asked for some refreshment,' he said. Then he caught sight of Dr Frazer, and Rebus delighted in the stunned look on his face.
`Christ,' said Flight, looking from woman to Rebus to woman, before realising that he had somehow to justify his outburst. `They told me you were with someone, John, but they didn't, 'I mean, I didn't know . . . ' He tumbled to a halt, mouth still open, and placed the tray on the desk before turning towards her. `I'm Inspector George Flight,' he said, reaching out a hand.
'Dr Frazer,' she replied, `Lisa Frazer.'
As their hands met, Flight looked towards Rebus from the corner of his eye. Rebus, beginning to feel a little more at home in the metropolis, gave him a slow, cheerful wink.
`Christ.'
She left him a couple of books to read. One, The Serial Mind, was a series of essays by various academics. It included `Sealing the Bargain. Modes of Motivation in the Serial Killer' by Lisa Frazer, University of London. Lisa: nice name. No mention of her doctorate though. The other book was an altogether heavier affair, dense prose linked by charts and graphs and diagrams: Patterns of Mass-Murder by Gerald Q MacNaughtie.
MacNaughtie? That had to be a joke of some kind.) But on the dustjacket Rebus read that Professor MacNaughtie was Canadian by birth and taught at the University of Columbia. Nowhere could he find out what the Q stood for. He spent what was left of the office day working through the books, paying most attention to Lisa Frazer's essay (which he read twice) and to the chapter in MacNaughtie's book concentrating on `Patterns of Mutilation'. He drank tea and coffee and two cans of fizzy orange, but the taste in his mouth was sour and as he read on he began to feel physically dirty, made grubby by tale after tale of casual horror. When he got up to visit the bathroom at a quarter to five, everyone in the outer office had already quit for the day, but Rebus hardly registered the fact. His mind was elsewhere.
Flight, who had left him to his own devices for most of the afternoon, came into the office at six. `Fancy a jar?' Rebus shook his head. Flight sat down on the edge of the chair. `What's the matter?'
Rebus waved a hand over the books. Flight examined the cover of one. `Oh,' he said, `not exactly bedtime reading, I take it?'
`Not exactly. It's just . . . evil.'
Flight nodded. `Got to keep a perspective though, John, eh? Otherwise they'd go on getting away with it. If it's so horrible, we all shy away from the truth, then everybody gets, away with murder. And worse than murder.'
Rebus looked up. `What's worse than murder?'
`Lots of things. What about someone who tortures and rapes a six-month old child and films the whole thing so he can show it to similarly minded individuals?'
Rebus's words were barely audible. `You're kidding.' But he knew Flight was not.
`Happened three months ago,' Flight said. `We haven't caught the bastard, but Scotland Yard have got the video—and a few more besides. Ever seen a thalidomide porn film?' Rebus shook his head wearily. Flight leaned down so that, their heads were nearly touching. `Don't go soft on me, John,' he said quietly, `that's not going to solve anything. You're in London now, not the Highlands. The top deck of a midday bus isn't safe here, never mind a tow-path after dark. Nobody sees any of it. London gives you a thick skin and temporary blindness. You and I, can't afford to be blind. But we can afford the occasional drink. Coming?'
He was on his feet now, rubbing his hands, lecture over. Rebus nodded and rose slowly' to his feet. `Only a quick one though,' he said. `I've got an appointment this evening.'
An appointment reached by way of a packed tube train. He checked his watch: 7.30 pm. Did the rush hour never stop? The compartment smelt of vinegar and stale air, and three not-so-personal stereos battled it out above the roar of speeding and juddering. The faces around Rebus were blank. Temporary blindness. Flight was right. They shut it all out because to acknowledge what they were going through was to realise the monotony, the claustrophobia and the sheer agony of it all. Rebus was depressed. And tired. But he was also a tourist, so it had to be savoured. Thus the tube journey instead of a closeted taxi ride. Besides, he'd been warned about how expensive the black cabs were and, he had checked in his A-Z, and found that his destination was only a quarter of an inch from an Underground station.
So Rebus travelled through the Underground and tried hard. not to look out of place, not to gawp at the buskers and the beggars, not to pause in a busy conduit the better to read this or that advertising poster. A tramp actually entered his carriage at one stop and as the doors closed and the train pulled away again he began to rave, but his audience were deaf and dumb as well as blind and they successfully ignored his existence until the next stop where, daunted, he slouched from the carriage onto the platform. As the, engine pulled away, Rebus could hear his voice again, coming from the next carriage along. It had been an astonishing performance, not by, the tramp but, by the passengers. They had closed off their minds, refusing involvement. Would they do the same if they saw a fight taking place? Saw a thick-set man stealing a tourist's wallet? Yes, they probably would. This wasn't an environment of good, and evil, it was a moral vacuum and that frightened Rebus more than anything else.