Crack in the Wall

3:30 p.m.

Where do you go when you're worried, when you need some time to think?

Francois Chartrand was worried, so he put on his coat, left the Westin Bayshore hotel by the back door and walked along the Seawall beside Coal Harbor until he reached Stanley Park.

As the Commissioner strolled through the afternoon chill, his collar turned up at the neck, he breathed in great lungfuls of air, exhaling slowly, slowly and willing himself to relax. When he reached the entrance to the park he saw an old man fishing off the dock near the rowing club. Two lovers were smoking a joint as they played with their reflections in a small pool left by the rain. Two old people, a man and a woman, were hunched together over a checkerboard on the ground. Leaves fell constantly from the trees and he could hear the sounds of the zoo.

Eventually Chartrand found a bench by the penguin pit. The walk had cleansed his mind, so he ambled over and sat down to think.

He was worried about DeClercq and felt guilty about him.

For there was no doubt in his mind now that it had been a very foolish move on his part to have brought the Superintendent back. He cursed himself for not having realized that the fissures created by the man's past were just too deep to have healed over even with twelve years. The fact that DeClercq was in torment was written all over his face, the way that his flesh hung from his bones.

So what am I going to do?

Pull Robert from the command and destroy his self-esteem?

Let him go on and allow this madman to slowly shred him to pieces?

He had to do something, that was for sure,to try and relieve the pressure. For Chartrand had spent his whole life working with men at the line of combat. He knew all the signs, and he could see them building.

DeClercq was on that combat line. And Robert DeClercq was cracking.

4:15 p.m.

It was MacDougall's idea to draw lots to see who would go and who would stay.

The North Vancouver Detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was filled to overflowing with men and women all bedecked in their red serge uniforms. The men wore heavy scarlet tunics with stiff choker collars. Stetson hats, breeches, white lanyards, Sam Browne belts and riding boots and spurs. The women wore the tunic, turtleneck sweaters and long blue skirts. They all wore gloves. Some had stitched to their sleeves the insignia of appointment: rough riders and dog masters and bandsmen and lancers of the musical ride. Some wore the crown and firearm badges that set apart the distinguished marksmen. All wore the regimental badge of the RCMP.

It was no secret that Jack MacDougall was damn proud of the Force. It was also no secret that he expected every other Member under his command to feel exactly the same way. That was why he had ordered them to attend a dress rehearsal before proceeding from North Vancouver Detachment to the Parade.

"All right," MacDougall said. "Those who are going, polish your brass and form into groups of five. Those who are staying, hold the fort, and luck be with you next time."

They were just about to leave for their cars when a very excited dispatcher came running in from the radio room.

"Bad news, Inspector," the man said. "We got another one."

For a moment MacDougall hesitated, stunned, then he recovered himself and said: "You mean here? In our jurisdiction?"

"Looks like it. Number three. Up on Seymour Mountain. Found about forty-five minutes ago by two cross-country skiers."

Good God! MacDougall thought. Not here! Not again!

Then he held up his hand for silence among the Members gathered around him.

"Okay, let's roll," he said.

4:18 p.m.

"My, my," Genevieve stated, leaning against the doorjamb.

"Now I see why women used to go for a uniform."

DeClercq turned from the mirror and gave her a wan smile.

He was dressed in the blue serge of an RCMP Superintendent. "At the present rate of recruitment," he said, "we'll soon have more women in uniform than we do men."

"Well don't you turn the tables and fall for a woman dressed in red serge."

"I won't," he said as the telephone rang.

Together they moved to the living room where DeClercq picked up the receiver.

As she watched him listen, Genevieve saw her husband's face fall apart and his spirit disintegrate. She saw him swallow dryly and his shoulders actually slump. Instinctively she comprehended the news coming over the line. Oh no, not another one. Please don't do this to him.

DeClercq put down the phone. "Don't wait up," he said.

4:53 p.m.

By the time Chartrand reached the murder scene it was swarming with uniformed Members. For a moment even he was surprised—all those years in the Force and here was his first red serge investigation. It certainly gives one a sense of history, he thought as he walked over to the body.

Robert DeClercq looked up from where he was squatting on his knees.

"It's a bad one," he said.

It wasn't that Inspector Jack MacDougall was any more hardened than the others, it was just that for him the outrage of the crime had no sexual element. When he looked down at Natasha Wilkes all he saw was the violence.

The woman lay spread-eagled on her back in the snow a yard from the bank of the river. On her feet were a pair of cross-country skis. Her legs were spread apart, the left boot four feet from its partner. The back half of each ski had been rammed vertically into the snow. The clothes on the lower half of the corpse had been ripped to shreds with a knife. Her pubic hair was matted with ice and blood. There was a long slash across her breasts, rending her jacket open. A great deal of blood had stained the snow, particularly in a wide pool circling out from the throat. Rivulets of red were still seeping into the Seymour River where they washed toward the sea. The head was missing.

As MacDougall watched Avacomovitch pick up what had replaced the skull, he thought: DeClercq does not look well.