Tooth & Nail

'So he's becoming more violent.'

`If you can term an attack made on someone who's already dead “violent”, then yes, Inspector Rebus,' he's getting more violent, or perhaps more unstable would be a better way of phrasing it.' Rebus and Flight exchanged a glance. `Apart from the change in the relative depth of the bite marks, there's little I can add to my, previous findings. The teeth are quite likely to be prosthetic—'

Rebus interrupted. `You mean false?' Morrison nodded. `How can you tell?'

Morrison beamed again. The prodigy who liked to show off in front of his teachers. `How can I best explain this to a layman?' He seemed to consider his own question for a moment. `Well, one's own teeth—your own, for example, Inspector Rebus—and by the way, you should get them seen to—they get a little ragged over time. The cutting edge gets chipped and worn. The edge on false teeth is more likely to be smoother, more rounded. Less of an edge to the front teeth especially, and less chips and cracks.'

Rebus, lips closed, was running his tongue over his teeth. It was true, they had the serrated feel of a workman's saw. He hadn't visited a dentist in ten, years or more, had never felt the need. But now Morrison had commented on them. Did they really look so awful?

`So,' Morrison continued, `for that reason, as well as for several others, I would say the killer has false. teeth. But he also has very curious teeth indeed.'

`Oh?' Rebus tried to speak without showing Morrison any more of his own decaying mouth.

`I've already explained this to Inspector Flight,' Morri?son paused so that Flight could nod agreement of this, `but briefly, the upper set has a greater biting curve than the lower set. From my measurements, I conclude that the person in possession of these teeth must have quite a strangely shaped face. I did draw some sketches, but I've managed to come up with something better. I'm glad you've come this afternoon.' He walked over to a cupboard and opened it. Rebus looked' to Flight, who merely shrugged. Morrison was turning towards them again, his right hand supporting a large object covered by an inverted brown-paper bag.

'Behold,' he said, lifting the bag from the object. 'I bring you the head of the Wolfman!'

There was silence in the room, so that the traffic noise from outside became conspicuous. Neither Rebus nor Flight could think of anything immediately to say. Instead, they, walked across to meet with the chuckling Morrison, who was regarding his creation with a measure of glee. There was a squeal of suddenly braking tyres. outside.

`The Wolfman,' Morrison repeated. He was holding the cast of a human head, constructed so far as Rebus could ascertain from pale pink plaster. `You can ignore the idea from the nose upwards, if you prefer,' said Morrison. `It's fairly speculative, based on mean measurements taking into account the jaw. But the jaw itself is, I believe, pretty accurate.'

And a strange jaw it was. The upper teeth jutted out from the mouth, so that the lips over, them and the skin below the nose was stretched and bulging. The lower jaw seemed tucked in beneath in what seemed to Rebus a Neanderthal display, to the extent that it almost disappeared, The chin had a narrow, pinched look and the cheekbones' were swollen in a line with the nose, but concave as the face extended downwards. It was an extraordinary face, the like of which Rebus could not recall having encountered in the real world. But then this was not the real world, was it? It was a reconstruction, depending upon a measure of averages and guesswork. Flight, was staring at it in fascination, as though committing, the face to memory. Rebus had the chilling. notion that Flight would release a photograph to the papers and charge the first poor soul he came across possessing such a physiognomy,

`Would you call that deformed?' Rebus asked.

`Heavens, no,' said Morrison with a laugh. `You haven't seen some of the medical cases I've had to deal with. No, this couldn't be termed deformed.'

`Looks like my idea of Mr Hyde,' commented Flight. Don't mention Hyde to me, Rebus thought to himself `Perhaps,' said Morrison, laughing again. `What about you, Inspector Rebus? What are your thoughts?'

Rebus examined the cast again. `It looks prehistoric.'

'Ah! said Morrison enthusiastically. `That was what I thought at first. The jutting upper jaw especially.'

`How do you know that is the upper jaw?' asked Rebus. `Couldn't it be the other way round?'

`No, I'm pretty sure this is correct. The bites are fairly consistent. Apart from victim three, that is.'

`Oh?'

`Yes, victim three was a strange one. The lower set, that is the smaller set, seemed more extended than the upper set. As you can see from this cast, the killer would have had to make an extraordinary contortion of his face to produce such a bite!

He mimed the bite for them, opening his mouth wide, lifting his head, and pushing out his lower jaw, then making a biting motion, the lower jaw doing most of the work.