Outside, he remembered that Rhona liked her loves young, too. Perhaps she . . . but no that thought was unworthy of him. `Sorry, God,' he said, turning with steady stride back towards the Underground.
Something is going wrong.
After the first killing, she had felt horror, remorse, guilt. She had begged forgiveness; she would not kill again.
After a month, a month of not being found, she grew more optimistic, and grew hungry too. So she killed again. This had satisfied for another month, and so it had gone on, But now, only, twenty-four hours after the fourth time, she had felt the urge again. An urge more powerful and focused than ever. She would get away with it, too. But it would be dangerous. The police were still hunting. Time had not elapsed. The public was wary. If she killed now, she would break her patternless pattern, and perhaps that would give the police some clue that she could not predict.
There was only one solution. It was wrong; she knew it was wrong. This wasn't her flat, not really. But she did it anyway. She unlocked the door and entered the gallery. There, tied up, on the floor, lay the latest body. She would store this one. Keep it out of sight of the police. Examining it, she realised that now she would have more time with it, more time in which to play. Yes, storage was the answer. This lair was the answer. No fear of being found. After all, this was a private place, not a public place. No fear. She walked around the body, enjoying its silence. Then she raised the camera to her eye.
`Smile please,' she says, snapping her way through the film. Then she has an idea. She loads another, film cartridge and photographs one of the paintings, a landscape. This is the one she will carve, just as soon as she has finished playing with her new toy. But now she has a record of it, too. A permanent record. She watches the photograph develop but then starts to scratch across the plate, smearing the colours and the focus until the picture becomes a chemical swirl, seemingly without form, God, her mother would have hated that.
`Bitch,' she says, turning from the wall filled with paintings. Her face is creased with anger and resentment. She picks up a pair of scissors and goes to her plaything again, kneels in front of it, takes, a firm hold of the head and brings the scissors down towards the face until they hover a centimetre away from the nose. `Bitch,' she says again, then carefully snips at the nostrils, her hand shaking. `Long nosehairs,' she wails, `are so unbecoming. So unbecoming.'
At last she rises again and crosses to the opposite wall—lifts an aerosol and shakes it noisily. This wall—she calls it her Dionysian wall—is covered in spray-painted black slogans: DEATH TO ART, KILLING IS AN ART, THE LAW IS AN ARSE, FUCK THE RICH, FEEL THE POOR. She thinks of something else to say, something worth the diminishing space. She sprays with a flourish. .
`This is art,' she says, glancing over her shoulder towards the Apollonian wall with its framed paintings. `This is fucking art. This is fuck art.'' She sees that the doll's eyes are open and throws herself down to within an inch of those eyes, which suddenly screw themselves, shut. Carefully, she uses both hands to prise apart the eyelids. Faces are close now, so intimate. The moment is always so intimate. Her breath is fast. So is the doll's. The doll's mouth struggles against the tape holding it shut. The nostrils flare.
`Fuck art,' she hisses to the doll. `This is fuck art.' She has the scissors in. her hand again now, and slides one blade into the doll's left nostril. `Long nosehairs, Johnny, are so unbecoming in a man. So unbecoming in a man.' She pauses, as though listening to something, as though considering, this statement. Then she nods. `Good point,' she says, smiling now.'
`Good point.'
Catching a Bite
The telephone woke Rebus. He could not locate it for a moment, then realised that it was mounted on the wall just to the right of his headboard. He sat up, fumbling with the receiver.
`Hello?'
`Inspector Rebus?' The voice was full of zest. He didn't recognise it. Took his Longine (his father's Longine actually) from the bedside table and peered through' the badly scratched face to find that it was seven fifteen. `Did I wake you, up? Sorry. It's Lisa Frazer.'
Rebus came to life. Or rather his voice did. He still sat slumped and jangling on the edge of the bed, but heard himself say a bright, `Hello, Dr Frazer. What can I do for you,
`I've been studying the notes you gave me on, the Wolfman case. Working through most of the night, to be honest. I just couldn't sleep, I was so excited by them. I've made some preliminary observations.'
Rebus touched the bed, feeling its residual warmth. How long since he'd slept with a woman? How long since he'd woken up the following day regretting nothing?
'I see,' he said.
Her laughter was like a clear jet of water. `Oh, Inspector, I'm sorry, I've wakened you. I'll call back later.'
`No, no. I'm fine, honestly. A bit startled, but fine. Can we meet and talk about what you've found?'
`Of course.'
`But I'm a bit tied up today.' He was trying to sound vulnerable, and thought on the whole that it was probably working. So he played his, big card. `What about dinner?'
`That would be nicer Where?'
He rubbed at a shoulder-blade. `I don't know. This is your town, not mine. I'm a tourist, remember.'
She laughed. `I'm not exactly a local myself, but I take your point. Well in that case,_ dinner's on me.' She sounded set on, this. `And I think I know just the place. I'll come to your hotel. Seven thirty?'
‘I look forward to it.'
What a very pleasant way to start the day, thought Rebus, lying down again and plumping up the pillow. He'd just closed his eyes when the telephone rang again.
`Yes?'
`I'm in reception and you're a lazy git. Come down here so I can put my breakfast on your tab.'
