Tooth & Nail

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.

But there were compensations of a sort. Every beautiful woman he saw reminded him of Lisa Frazer. Squeezed into one compartment on the Central Line, he found himself pressed against a young blonde girl. Her blouse was undone to the cleft of her breasts, giving the taller Rebus an occasionally breathtaking view of slopes and swells. She glanced up from her paperback and caught him staring. He looked away quickly, but felt her cold gaze focusing on the side of his head.