Tooth & Nail

`Well, perhaps.' But she sounded doubtful. Rebus lifted the small wicker paper-basket onto her desk and sifted through it. Pencil shavings and sweet-wrappers, an empty polystyrene coffee cup and crumpled bits of paper. Lots of bits of paper.

`Too big,' she would say as he started to uncrumple one, or `too small.' Until finally, he pulled out a sheet and spread it out on the desk. It was like some bizarre work of art, filled with doodles and hieroglyphs and little notes, phone numbers, names, addresses.

'Ah,' she said, sliding a finger over to one corner where something had been written in very faint, wavering pencil. `Is that it?'

Rebus looked closer. Yes, that was it. That was most definitely it. 'Thank you,' he said.

`Oh dear,' said the secretary. `Have I, got her into trouble? Is Lisa in trouble? What has she done, Inspector?'

`She lied to us,' said Rebus. `And because of that, she's ended up having to go into hiding.'

`Hiding? Gracious, she didn't mention anything about that.'

Rebus was beginning to suspect that the secretary was a couple of keys short of a typewriter. `Well,' he said, 'she didn't know she was in trouble until today.'

The secretary was nodding. `Yes, but she only phoned a little over an hour ago.'

Rebus's face creased into an all-over frown. `What?'

'Yes, she said she was calling from the Old Bailey. She wanted to know if there were any messages for her. She told me she had time to kill before her second appointment.'

Rebus didn't bother to ask. He dialled quickly, the receiver gripped in his hand like a weapon. `I want to talk to George Flight.'

`Just a minute, please.' The ch-ch-ch-ch of a re-routing. Then: `Murder Room, Detective Sergeant Walsh speaking.'

`It's Inspector Rebus here.'

`Oh yes?' The voice had become as rudimentary as a chisel.

`I need to speak to Flight. It's urgent.'

`He's in a meeting.'

`Then get him out! I told you; this is urgent,'

There was doubt, cynicism in the Sergeant's voice Everyone knew that the Scotsman's, `urgent' wasn't worth its weight in breath. `I can leave a message—'

`Don't fuck me around, Walsh! Either get him, or put me on to someone with a spare brain they're not sitting on!'

Ca —click. Brrrrr. The ultimate put-down. The secretary was staring at Rebus in horror. Perhaps psychologists never got angry. Rebus attempted a reassuring smile, but it came out like a clown's drunken greasepaint. He made a bowing motion before turning to leave, and was watched all the way out to, the stairwell by a woman mortified almost to the core of her being.

Rebus's face was tingling with a newly-stoked anger. Lisa Frazer had tricked him, played him like a fool. Christ, the things he'd told her Thinking she wanted to help with the Wolfman case. Not realising he was merely part of her project. Christ, the things he had said. What had he said? Too much to recall. Had she been taping everything? Or simply jotting things down after he'd left? It didn't matter. What mattered was that he had seen in her something solid and believable amidst a sea of chaos. And she had been Janus. Using him. Jesus Christ, she had even slept with him. Was that, too, part of the project, part of her little experiment? How could he ever be sure it wasn't? It had seemed genuine enough, but . . . He had opened his mind to her, as she had opened her body to him. It was not a fair exchange.

`The bitch!' he exploded, stopping dead. `The lying little bitch!'

Why hadn't she told him? Why hadn't she just explained everything? He would have helped her, he would have found time for her. No, he wouldn't. It was a lie. A research student? A project? He would have shown her the door. Instead he had listened to her, had believed her, had learned from her. Yes, it was true. He had learned a lot from her. About psychology, about the mind of the killer. Had learned from her books. Yes, but that wasn't the point. The point was that it had all become crass and diluted, now that he knew her for what she was.

`Bitch.' But his voice was softer, his throat tightening, as though a hand had slid around it and was slowly applying pressure. He swallowed hard, and began to take deep breaths. Calm down, John. What did it matter? What did any of it matter? It mattered, he answered himself, because he felt something for her. Or had felt something for her. No, still did feel something. Something he thought might have been returned.

`Who are you trying to kid?' Look at him, overweight and in his forties. Stuck at Inspector level and going nowhere except, if Flight carried out his promise, down. Divorced. A daughter distraught and mixing with darkness. Someone in London with a kitchen knife and a secret and a knowledge of Lisa. It was all wrong. He'd been clutching at Lisa the way drowning men reached out for a thin snap of straw. Stupid old man.