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 corridor 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?'
Flight nodded. 'Brick Lane for one. There's a market there every Sunday. The main road sells fruit, veg, clothes. But there are streets off, where they sell anything they've got. Bric-a-brac, old rubbish. It makes for an interesting walk, but you wouldn't buy anything.'
'But you could buy false teeth there?'
'Yes,' said Flight after a moment's thought. 'I don't doubt it.'
'Then he's been cleverer than we thought, hasn't he?'
'You're saying the bite marks aren't real?'
'I'm saying they're not the Wolfman's teeth. The lower set smaller than the upper? You end up with a pretty strange jaw, as Doctor Morrison showed us, remember?' 'How can I forget? I was going to feed the pictures to the press.'
'Which is probably exactly what the Wolfman wanted. He goes to Brick Lane market, or at least to somewhere like it, and buys any upper and lower set. They don't match, but that doesn't matter. And he uses them to make those damned bite marks.'
Flight seemed dismissive, but Rebus knew the man was hooked. 'He can't be that clever.'
'Yes he can,' persisted Rebus 'He's had everything worked out from the start from before the start! He's been playing with us like we, were clockwork, George.'
'Then we have to wait until Sunday,' Flight said thoughtfully. 'Search every stall at every market, find the ones selling, false teeth there can't be many and ask.'
'About the person who bought a set of teeth without trying them for size!' Rebus burst out laughing. It was ridiculous. It was absolutely mad. But he was sure it was true, and he was sure the stall-holder would, remember, and would give a description. Surely most of the customers would try for size. It was the best lead they'd had so far, and it might just be the only one they'd need.
Flight was smiling too, shaking his head at the dark comic reality of it. Rebus held a closed fist in front of him, and Flight brought his open palm to rest beneath it. When Rebus opened his hand, the plastic chattering teeth fell into Flight's palm.
'Just like clockwork,' said Rebus. 'What's more, we've got Lamb to thank.' He thought about this. 'But I'd rather he didn't get to know.'
Flight nodded. 'Anything you say, John. Anything you say.'
Back at his desk, Rebus sat in front of a fresh sheet of paper. The Wolfman had been too clever. Too clever by half. He thought of Lisa, of her notion that the killer might have a criminal record. It was possible. Possible, too, that the Wolfman simply knew how the police worked. So, he might be a policeman. Or work in forensics. Or be a journalist. A civil rights campaigner. Work in the law. Or write bloody scripts for television. He might just have done his reading. There were plenty of case histories in libraries and bookshops, plenty of biographies of murderers, tracing how they were caught. By studying them, you could learn how not to get caught. However hard Rebus tried he just couldn't whittle away at the list of possibilities The teeth might be yet another dead end.. That was why
