`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 onside 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 he 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 r 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.