Ian Rankin - Tooth and Nail

'I know what to look for now, of course,' he said, 'so it didn't take long to establish that, these are probably the same teeth used in the previous attacks. A pattern is also emerging, however, perhaps a disturbing one.' He went to his desk and returned with more photographs. 'These are from victim number one. You'll notice that the indents left by the teeth are less marked. They grow a little more marked by victims two and three. And now ' he pointed to, the current crop of pictures.

'They've got even deeper,' Rebus answered. Morrison beamed at him.

'Quite right.!

'So he's becoming more violent.'

'If you can term an attack made on someone who's already dead "violent", then yes, Inspector Rebus,' he's getting more violent, or perhaps more unstable would be a better way of phrasing it.' Rebus and Flight exchanged a glance. 'Apart from the change in the relative depth of the bite marks, there's little I can add to my, previous findings. The teeth are quite likely to be prosthetic

Rebus interrupted. 'You mean false?' Morrison nodded.' 'How can you tell?'

Morrison beamed again. The prodigy who liked to show off in front of his teachers. 'How can I best explain this to a layman?' He seemed to consider his own question for a moment: 'Well, one's own teeth — your own, for example, Inspector Rebus — and by the way, you should get them seen to — they get a little ragged over time. The cutting edge gets chipped and worn. The edge on false teeth is more likely to be smoother, more rounded. Less of an edge to the front teeth especially, and less chips and cracks.'

Rebus, lips closed, was running his tongue over his teeth. It was true, they had the serrated feel of a workman's saw. He hadn't visited a dentist in ten, years or more, had never felt the need. But now Morrison had commented on them. Did they really look so awful?

'So,' Morrison continued, 'for that reason, as well as for several others, I would say the killer has false. teeth. But he also has very curious teeth indeed.'

'Oh?' Rebus tried to speak without showing Morrison any more of his own decaying mouth.

'I've already explained this to Inspector Flight,'; Morrison paused so that Flight could nod agreement of this, 'but briefly, the upper set has a greater biting curve than ' the lower set. From my measurements, I conclude that the person in possession of these teeth must have quite a strangely shaped face. I did draw some sketches, but I've managed to come up with something better. I'm glad you've come this afternoon.' He walked over to a cupboard and opened it. Rebus looked' to Flight, who merely shrugged. Morrison was turning towards them again, his right hand supporting a large object covered by an inverted brown-paper; bag.

'Behold,' he said, lifting the bag from the object. 'I bring you the head of the Wolfman!'

There was silence in the room, so that: the traffic noise from outside became conspicuous. Neither Rebus nor Flight could think of anything immediately to say: Instead, they, walked across to meet with the chuckling Morrison, who was regarding his creation with a measure of glee. There was a squeal of suddenly braking tyres. outside.

'The Wolfman,' Morrison repeated. He was holding the cast of a human head, constructed so far as Rebus could ascertain from pale pink plaster. 'You can ignore the idea from the nose upwards, if you prefer,' said Morrison. 'It's fairly speculative, based on mean measurements taking into account the jaw. But the jaw itself is, I believe, pretty accurate.'

And a strange jaw it was. The upper teeth jutted out from the mouth, so that the lips over, them and the skin below the nose was stretched and bulging. The lower jaw seemed tucked in beneath in what seemed to Rebus a Neanderthal display, to the extent that it almost disappeared, The chin had a narrow, pinched look and the cheekbones' were swollen in a line with the nose, but concave as the face extended downwards. It was an extraordinary face, the like of which Rebus could not recall having encountered in the real world. But then this was not the real world, was it? It was a reconstruction, depending upon a measure of averages and guesswork. Flight, was staring at it in fascination, as though committing, the face to memory. Rebus had the chilling. notion that Flight would release a photograph to the papers and charge the first poor soul he came across possessing such a physiognomy,

'Would you call that deformed?' Rebus asked.

'Heavens, no,' said Morrison with a laugh. 'You haven't seen some of the medical cases I've had to deal with. No, this couldn't be termed deformed.'

'Looks like my idea of Mr Hyde,' commented Flight. Don't mention Hyde to me, Rebus thought to himself 'Perhaps,' said Morrison, laughing again. 'What about you, Inspector Rebus? What are your thoughts?'

Rebus examined the cast again. 'It looks prehistoric.'

'Ah! said Morrison enthusiastically. 'That was what I thought at first. The jutting upper jaw especially.'

'How do you know that is the upper jaw?' asked Rebus. 'Couldn't it be the other way round?'

'No, I'm pretty sure this is correct. The bites are fairly consistent. Apart from victim three, — that is.'

'Oh?'

'Yes, victim three was a strange one. The lower set, that is the smaller set, seemed more extended than the upper set. As you can see from this cast, the killer would have had to make an extraordinary contortion of his face to produce such a bite!

He mimed the bite for them, opening his mouth wide, lifting his head, and pushing out his lower jaw, then making a biting motion, the lower jaw doing most of the work.

'In the other bites, the killer has bitten more like this.' Again he put on a dumb show, this time drawing his lips back from his upper, jaw and biting down sharply so that the upper teeth closed over the lower teeth, the teeth themselves snapping together.

Rebus shook his head. This wasn't making things clearer. If anything, he was growing more confused. He nodded towards the cast. 'You really believe the man we're looking for looks like this?'

'The man or woman, yes. Of course, I may have exaggerated a little with this cast, but I'm more or less convinced.'

Rebus had stopped listening after the first sentence. 'What do you mean, or woman?' he asked:

Morrison shrugged his shoulders theatrically. 'Again, this is something I've discussed with Inspector Flight. It just seemed to me that, purely on the dental evidence you understand, this head could as easily belong to a woman as to a man. The large upper set of teeth seems to me very male, judging from size and what have you, but the lower set, just as equally, seems very female. A man with a woman's chin, or a woman with a masculine upper jaw?' He shrugged again. 'Take your pick.'

Rebus looked to Flight, who was shaking his head slowly. 'No,'' Flight said, 'it's a man.'

Rebus had never considered the possibility that a woman might be behind the killings. It had never entered his head. Until now.

A woman? Improbable, but why impossible? Flight was dismissing it out of hand, but on what grounds? Rebus had read last night that a growing number of multiple murderers were women. But could a woman have stabbed like, that? Could a woman so completely have overwhelmed victims of similar height, similar strength?

'I'd like to get some photographs of this,' Flight was saying. He had taken the cast from Morrison and was studying it again.

'Of course,' Morrison said, 'but remember, it's only my idea of the look of the killer's head.'

'We appreciate it, Tony. Thanks for all your work.' Morrison shrugged modestly. — He had fished for a compliment and had hooked one.

Rebus could see that Flight was convinced by this whole piece of theatre, the unveiling of the head and so on. To Rebus it was more showmanship than tangible truth, more the stuff of courtroom melodrama. He still' felt that to trap the Wolfman they had to get inside his head, not play with plaster mock-ups of it.