Tooth & Nail

Flight gave a short humourless laugh. `Too late. It's been on the local radio news already. The other stations can't just sit back. It'll be on every local news report by midnight. It's your snowball, John. You started it running down the hill. All we can do now is watch it getting bigger and bigger.' He stabbed a finger into Rebus's chest. `Cath is going to be after your guts, lad. She's the one they'll blame, the one who'll have to apologise, who'll have the job of gaining their trust all over again.' Flight now wagged the finger backwards and forwards, then grinned. `And if anyone can do it, Inspector Cath Farraday can.' He checked his watch. `Right, I've let the bugger stew long enough. Time to get back to the interview room.)

'How's it going?'

Flight shrugged. `Singing like Gracie Fields. We couldn't stop him if we wanted to. He thinks we're going to pin all the Wolfman killings on him, so he's telling us everything he knows, and some things he's probably making up besides.'

`Cousins said it was a copycat, done to disguise a cocked up burglary.'

Flight nodded. `I sometimes think Philip's in the wrong game. This guy's a petty thief, not the bloody Wolfman. But I'll tell you what is interesting. He's told us he sells the stuff on to a mutual friend.'

'Who?'?

'Tommy Watkiss.'

`Well, well.'

`Coming?' Flight pointed along the corridor, towards the stairwell. Rebus shook his head.

`I want to make a couple of phone calls. I might catch you up later.'

`Suit yourself.'

Rebus watched Flight go. Sometimes it was only brute stubbornness that kept humans going, long after their limbs and intellect had told them to quit. Flight was like a footballer playing in extra time. Rebus hoped he could see the game out to its end.

They watched him as he walked back through the Murder Room. Lamb in particular seemed to peer at him from behind a report, eyes gleaming with amusement. There was a noise coming from his office, a strange tapping noise. He pushed open the door and saw on his desk a small toy, a grotesque plastic jaw atop two oversized feet. The jaw was bright red, the teeth gleaming white, and the feet walked to a clockwork whirr while the jaws snapped shut, then open, shut then open. Snap, snap, snap. Snap, snap, snap.

Rebus, furious at the joke, walked to the desk, lifted the contraption and pulled at it, his own teeth bright and gritted, until it snapped in two. But the feet kept on moving, stopping only when the spring had run down. Not that Rebus was noticing. He was staring at the two halves, the upper and lower jaws. Sometimes things weren't what they seemed. The punk at the Glasgow flea market had turned out to be a girl. And at the flea market they had been selling teeth, false plastic teeth. Like a supermarket pick-n-mix counter. Any size you liked. Christ, he should have seen it sooner!

Rebus walked quickly back through the Murder Room.

Lamb, doubtless responsible for the joke, seemed ready to say something until he saw the look on, Rebus's face, an urgent, don't-mess-with-me look. He ran along the corri?dor and down the stairs, down towards the euphemism known as an Interview Room. `A man is helping police with their enquiries.' Rebus loved those euphemisms. He knocked and entered. A detective was changing the tape in a recording machine. Flight was leaning across the table to offer a cigarette to a dishevelled young man, a young man with yellow bruising on his face and skinned knuckles.

`George?' Rebus tried to sound composed. `Could I have a word?'

Flight pushed back his chair noisily, leaving the cigarette packet with the prisoner. Rebus held open the door, indicating for Flight to move outside. Then he thought of something, and caught the prisoner's eye.

`Do you know somebody called Kenny? he asked.

`Loads.'

`Rides a motorbike?'

The young man shrugged again and reached into the packet for a cigarette. There was no answer forthcoming, and Flight was outside waiting, so Rebus closed the door.

`What was that all about?' asked Flight.

`Maybe nothing,' said Rebus. `Do you remember when we went to the Old Bailey, how someone shouted out when the case was stopped?'

'Someone in the public gallery.'

`That's right. Well, I recognised the voice. It's a teenager called Kenny. He's one of those motorcycle messengers.'

`So?'

'He's going out with my daughter.'

`Ah. And that bothers you?' Rebus nodded.

`Yes, a bit.'

`And that's what you want to see me about.'

Rebus managed a weak smile. `No, no, nothing like that.'

`So what's on your mind?'

`I was in Glasgow today, giving evidence. I had a bit of free time and went to a flea market, the sort of place tramps go to do their messages—'

'Messages?'

`Their shopping,' Rebus explained.

`And?'

`And there was a stall selling false teeth. Odds and sods. Top sets and bottom sets, not necessarily matching.' He paused to let those final three words sink home. `Is there someplace like that in London, George?'