Tooth & Nail

So Flight made a decision. What did it matter after all if she did visit the Bailey? There were few better protected spots in the whole city. It was several hours yet until the first of her interviews, but that didn't really bother her. She did not, she said, mind hanging around in the `courthouse'. In fact, she rather enjoyed the idea. The two officers could accompany her, wait for her, then drive her on to whatever safe location Flight had in mind. This, at any rate, was Lisa Frazer's argument, an argument defended by Philip Cousins who could see `no flaw in the reasoning, m'lud'. So, to smiles on their part and a shrug on Flight's, the course of action was decided. Flight watched the Ford Granada roll away from him. the two officers in the front, Philip and Lisa Frazer in the back. Safe as houses, he was thinking. Safe as bloody houses.

Unknown

And now Rebus had buggered off. Oh well, he'd catch up with him no doubt. He didn't regret bringing Rebus down here, not a bit. But he knew it had been his decision, not one entirely endorsed by the upper echelons. Any balls-ups and it would be Flight's pension on the block. He knew that only too well, as did everyone else. Which was why he'd stuck so close to Rebus in the first few days, just to be sure of the man.

Was he sure of the man? It was, a question he would rather not answer, even now, even to himself. Rebus was like the spring in a trap, likely to jump no matter what landed on the bait. He was also a Scot, and Flight had never trusted the Scots, not since the day they'd voted to stay part of the Union . . .

`Daddy!'

And she runs into his arms. He hugs her to him, aware that he does not have to bend too far to accomplish this. Yes, she's grown, and yet she seems more childlike than ever. He kisses the top of her head, smells her clean hair. She is trembling. He can feel the vibrations darting through her chest and arms.

'Sshh,' he says. 'Ssshhh, pet, ssshhh.'

She pulls back and almost smiles, sniffs, then says, `You always used to call me that. Your pet. Mum never called me pet. Only you.'

He smiles back and strokes her hair. `Yes,' he says, `your mum told me off for that. She said a pet was a possession and that you weren't a possession.' He is remembering now. `She had some funny ideas, your mum'

`She still does.' Then she remembers why she is here. The tears well up anew in her eyes.

`I know you don't like him,' she says.

'Nonsense, whatever gives you that—'

`But I love him, Daddy.' His heart spins once in his chest. `And I don't want anything to happen to him.'

`What makes you think something's going to happen to him?'

`The way he's been acting lately, like he's keeping secrets from me. Mum's noticed it, too. I'm not just dreaming. But she said she thought maybe he' was planning an engage?ment.' She sees his eyes widen, and shakes her head. `I didn't believe it. I knew it was something else. I thought, I don't know, I just . . .'

He notices for the first time that they have an audience. Until now they might have been in a sealed box for all the notice he has taken of their surroundings. Now, though, he sees a bemused desk sergeant, two WPCs clutching paperwork to their bosoms and watching the scene with a kind of maternal glow, two unshaven men slumped in seats against the wall, just waiting.

`Come on, Sammy,' he says. `Let's go up to my office.'

They were halfway to the Murder Room before he remembered that it was not, perhaps, the most wholesome environment for a teenage. girl. The photos on the walls were only the start of it. A sense of humour was needed on a case like the Wolfman, and that sense of humour had begun to manifest itself in cartoons, jokes and mock-ups of newspaper stories either pinned to the noticeboards or taped onto the sides of computer screens. The language could be choice, too, or someone might be overheard in conversation with someone from forensics.

`. . . Torn . . . ripped her right . . . kitchen knife, they reckon . . . slit from ear . . . gouged . . . Anus . . . nasty bastard . . . makes some of them seem almost human.' Stories were swapped of serial killers past, of suicides scraped from railway lines, of police dogs playing ball with a severed head.

No, definitely not the place for his daughter. Besides, there was always the possibility that Lamb might be there.

Instead, he found a vacant interview room. It had been turned into a temporary cupboard while the investigation continued, filled with empty cardboard boxes, unneeded chairs, broken desk-lamps and computer keyboards, a heavy-looking manual typewriter. Eventually, the com?puters in the Murder Room would be packed back into the cardboard boxes, the files would be tidied away into dusty stacks somewhere.