`Must be a lot of prospects for a lad like you.'
Kenny cheered up immediately. `Yeah,' he said, `I might even set up' my own fleet. All you need's—' He fell silent as he belatedly noticed that use of `lad' as though he were dressed in shorts and school-cap. But, it was too late to go back and correct it, way too late. He had to push on, but now it all sounded like pipe-dreams and playground fantasies. This rozzer might be from Jockland, but he was every bit as oily as an East End old-timer. He'd have to watch his step. And what was happening now? This Jock, this rough-looking tosser in the ill-fitting gear, the com?pletely uncoordinated gear, this `man at C&A' type, was reminiscing about a grocery shop from his youth. For a time, Rebus had been the grocer's `message boy'. (He explained that in Scotland `messages' meant `groceries'.) He'd run about on a heavy-framed black bicycle, with a metal rectangle in front of the handlebars. The box of groceries would be held in this rectangle and off he would pedal to do his deliveries.
`I thought I was rich,' Rebus said, obviously coming to a punch line'. `But when I wanted more money, there wasn't any to be had. I had to wait till I was old enough to get a proper job, but I loved running around on that bike, doing errands and delivering messages to the old folk. Sometimes they'd even give me a tip, a piece of fruit or a jar of jam.'
There was silence in the room. A police siren sped past outside. Rebus sat back and folded his arms, a sentimental smile spread across his face. And then it dawned on Kenny: Rebus was comparing the two of them! His eyes widened. Everyone knew it. Rhona knew it. Sam knew it. For tuppence, he'd get up and stick the nut on the copper, Sam's dad or not. But he held back and the moment passed. Rhona got up to make more tea, and the big bastard got up, and said he had to be going.
It had all happened so fast. Kenny was still trying to ?unravel Rebus's story and Rebus could see it. The poor half-educated runt was trying to work out just how far Rebus had put him down. Rebus could answer that as far as was necessary. Rhona hated him for it, of course, and Samantha looked embarrassed. Well to hell with them. He'd done his duty, he'd paid his respects. He wouldn't bother them any more. Let them live in the cramped flat visited by this gentleman, this mock adult. Rebus had more important things to do. Books to read. Notes to make And another busy day ahead. It was ten o'clock. He could be back at his hotel by eleven. An early night, that's what was needed. Eight hours' sleep in the last two days. No wonder he was ratty, looking for a fight.
He began to feel a little bit ashamed. Kenny was too easy a target. He'd crushed a tiny fly beneath a tower-block of resentment. Resentment, John, or plain jealousy?' That was not a question for a tired man. Not a question for a man like John Rebus. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he might start getting some answers. He was determined to pay for hi keep now that he had been brought to London. Tomorrow the task began in earnest.
He shook. Kenny's hand again and gave him a man-to-man half-wink before leaving the flat. Rhona offered to see him to the, door. They went into the hall, leaving Samantha and Kenny in the living-room, behind a closed door.
`It's okay,' Rebus said quickly. `I'll see myself out.' He started downstairs, aware that to linger was, to invite a argument with Rhona. What was the point? `Better go keep an eye on Lothario,' he called, unable to resist the parting shot.
Outside, he remembered that Rhona liked her loves young, too. Perhaps she . . . but no that thought was unworthy of him. `Sorry, God,' he said, turning with steady stride back towards the Underground.
Something is going wrong.
After the first killing, she had felt horror, remorse, guilt. She had begged forgiveness; she would not kill again.
After a month, a month of not being found, she grew more optimistic, and grew hungry too. So she killed again. This had satisfied for another month, and so it had gone on, But now, only, twenty-four hours after the fourth time, she had felt the urge again. An urge more powerful and focused than ever. She would get away with it, too. But it would be dangerous. The police were still hunting. Time had not elapsed. The public was wary. If she killed now, she would break her patternless pattern, and perhaps that would give the police some clue that she could not predict.
There was only one solution. It was wrong; she knew it was wrong. This wasn't her flat, not really. But she did it anyway. She unlocked the door and entered the gallery. There, tied up, on the floor, lay the latest body. She would store this one. Keep it out of sight of the police. Examining it, she realised that now she would have more time with it, more time in which to play. Yes, storage was the answer. This lair was the answer. No fear of being found. After all, this was a private place, not a public place. No fear. She walked around the body, enjoying its silence. Then she raised the camera to her eye.
`Smile please,' she says, snapping her way through the film. Then she has an idea. She loads another, film cartridge and photographs one of the paintings, a landscape. This is the one she will carve, just as soon as she has finished playing with her new toy. But now she has a record of it, too. A permanent record. She watches the photograph develop but then starts to scratch across the plate, smearing the colours and the focus until the picture becomes a chemical swirl, seemingly without form, God, her mother would have hated that.
`Bitch,' she says, turning from the wall filled with paintings. Her face is creased with anger and resentment. She picks up a pair of scissors and goes to her plaything again, kneels in front of it, takes, a firm hold of the head and brings the scissors down towards the face until they hover a centimetre away from the nose. `Bitch,' she says again, then carefully snips at the nostrils, her hand shaking. `Long nosehairs,' she wails, `are so unbecoming. So unbecoming.'
At last she rises again and crosses to the opposite wall—lifts an aerosol and shakes it noisily. This wall—she calls it her Dionysian wall—is covered in spray-painted black slogans: DEATH TO ART, KILLING IS AN ART, THE LAW IS AN ARSE, FUCK THE RICH, FEEL THE POOR. She thinks of something else to say, something worth the diminishing space. She sprays with a flourish. .
`This is art,' she says, glancing over her shoulder towards the Apollonian wall with its framed paintings. `This is fucking art. This is fuck art.'' She sees that the doll's eyes are open and throws herself down to within an inch of those eyes, which suddenly screw themselves, shut. Carefully, she uses both hands to prise apart the eyelids. Faces are close now, so intimate. The moment is always so intimate. Her breath is fast. So is the doll's. The doll's mouth struggles against the tape holding it shut. The nostrils flare.
`Fuck art,' she hisses to the doll. `This is fuck art.' She has the scissors in. her hand again now, and slides one blade into the doll's left nostril. `Long nosehairs, Johnny, are so unbecoming in a man. So unbecoming in a man.' She pauses, as though listening to something, as though considering, this statement. Then she nods. `Good point,' she says, smiling now.'
`Good point.'
Catching a Bite
The telephone woke Rebus. He could not locate it for a moment, then realised that it was mounted on the wall just to the right of his headboard. He sat up, fumbling with the receiver.
`Hello?'
`Inspector Rebus?' The voice was full of zest. He didn't recognise it. Took his Longine (his father's Longine actually) from the bedside table and peered through' the badly scratched face to find that it was seven fifteen. `Did I wake you, up? Sorry. It's Lisa Frazer.'
Rebus came to life. Or rather his voice did. He still sat slumped and jangling on the edge of the bed, but heard himself say a bright, `Hello, Dr Frazer. What can I do for you,