Tooth & Nail

`Bastard,' Rebus hissed. `Jesus, you bastard.'

He took the letter along the corridor and up the stairs to the room where Flight was sitting, rubbing at his face again.

`Where's Lisa?'

`Ladies' room.'

`Does she seem . . . ?'

'She's, upset, but she's coping. The doctor's given her some tranqs. What have you got there?' Rebus handed over the copy. Flight read through it quickly, intently. `What the hell do you make of it?' he asked. Rebus sat himself down on a hard chair still warm from Lisa's presence. He reached out a hand and took the paper from Flight, then angled his chair so that both men could inspect the letter together.

`Well,' he said. `I'm not sure. At first sight, it looks like the work of a near-illiterate.'

`Agreed.'

`But then again, there's something artful about it. Look at the punctuation, George. Absolutely correct, right down to every comma. And he uses colons and semi-colons. What sort of person could spell “woman” as “womin”, yet know how to use a semi-colon?'

Flight studied the note intently, nodding. 'Go on.'

`Well, Rhona, my ex-wife, she's a teacher. I remember she used to tell me how frustrating it was that nowadays no one in schools bothered to teach basic grammar and, punctuation. She said that kids were growing up now with no need for things like colons and semi-colons and no idea at all of how to use them. So I'd say we're dealing either with someone who has been well educated, or with someone in middle age, educated at a time when punctuation was still taught in every school.'

Flight gave a half-smile. `Been reading your psychology books again I see, John.'

`It's not all black magic, George. Mostly it's just, to do with common sense and how you interpret things. Do you want me to go on?'

`I'm all ears.'

`Well,' Rebus was running a finger down the letter again. `There's something else here, something that tells me this letter is genuinely from the killer, and not the work of some nutter somewhere.'

`Oh?'

`Go on, George, where's the, clue?'

He held the paper out towards Flight. Flight grinned for a moment, then took it.

`I suppose,' he said, `you're talking about the way the writer refers to the Wolfman in the third person?'

`You've just named the tune in one George. That's exactly what I mean.'

Flight looked up. `Incidentally John, what the hell happened to you? Did you get in a fight or something? I thought the Scots gave up wearing woad a couple of years back?'

Rebus touched his bruised jaw. `I'll tell you the story sometime. But look, in the first sentence, the writer refers to himself in the first person. He's taken our homosexual jibe personally.' But in the rest of the letter, he speaks of the Wolfman in the third person. Standard practice with serial murderers.'

`What about the misspelling of homosexual?'

`Could be genuine, or it could be to throw us off the scent. “U” and “a” are at different ends of the keyboard. A two-fingered typist could miss the “a” if he was writing fast, if he was angry.' Rebus paused, remembering the, list in his pocket. `I speak from recent experience.'

`Fair enough.'

`Now look at what he actually' says: “Wolfman is what Wolfman does”. What the books say is that killers find their identity through killing. That's exactly what this sentence means.'

Flight exhaled noisily. `Yes, but none of this ? HYPERLINK “http://gets.us/”??gets us? any closer, does it?' He offered a cigarette to Rebus. `I mean, we can build up as clear a picture as we like of the bastard's personality, but it won't give us a name and address.'

Rebus sat forward in his chair. `But all the time we're narrowing down the possible types, George. And eventually we'll, narrow it down to a field of one. Look at this final sentence.''

“`Just tell the truth and no harm can cum to you,”' Flight recited.

`Skipping the pun, which is intriguing in itself, don't you think there's something very, I don't know, official sounding about that construction? Something very formal?'

'I don't see what you're getting at.'

`What I'm getting at is that it seems to me the sort of thing someone like you or me would say.'

`A copper?' Flight sat back in his chair. 'Oh, come on, John, what kind of crap is that?'

Rebus's voice grew quiet and persuasive. `Someone who knows where Lisa Frazer lives, George. Think about it. Someone who knows that kind of information or knows how to get it. We can't afford to rule out '

Flight stood up. 'I'm sorry, John, but no. I simply can't entertain the notion that . . . that someone some copper, could be behind all this. No, it's just not on.'

Rebus shrugged. `Okay, George, whatever you say.' But Rebus knew, that he had planted a seed now in George Flight's head, and that the seed would surely sprout. .

Flight sat down, again, confident, that this time he had won a point from Rebus. `Anything else?'