except for position I had nothing to leave behind.' He smiled down at Jane who was rapidly falling asleep.
'But it was really intellectual incentive which gave me the mental push.' Avacomovitch looked from the baby directly at Robert DeClercq. 'When I was involved in studies toward my final two degrees, we were encouraged to pore over all the classic works on famous Western murderers. The official line was that they revealed the sickness in bourgeois society. The ones who intrigued me most of all were the killers who slaughtered for no other reason than the fact they enjoyed it
The Germans have a word for this — they call such a motive
'Now it just so happens that we don't have such murderers in the Soviet Union. At least not that I could hunt — and that's a realistic fact. Those with the
Jane had fallen asleep, cradled in Robert DeClercq's lap. Raising his glass the Russian drained the last of his cognac.
'The reason I defected was to find an adversary. That's why I came to the West. There are so many of them here.'
8:25 a.m.
Joseph Avacomovitch was a giant of a man. He stood six four in his stocking feet with shoulders and chest as massive as an old-fashioned, wood-staved beer barrel. Like most men his size the Russian had a slightly stooped posture, as if subconsciously attempting to shrink to the size of the majority of men around him. Although it had been twelve years since Robert DeClercq had last laid eyes on him, the Russian had changed little. His hair was still almost albino white and luxurious, combed back in a pompadour. His gray eyes still twinkled behind a pair of wire- rim glasses. He still wore no jewelry on his large hands, save a ring removed from his father's body when the Nazis left the old man sprawled in the blood-splashed Ukrainian snow. And he still wore the hat.
The hat was a prairie Stetson, worn and slightly off-color, the sort of headgear that was common in Alberta and in Texas and in John Travolta's closet. At the base of the crown and above the rim was wound a thin Indian bead hatband and sticking out from this on the left side was a tiny flag pennant. Small words printed on the pennant read: DALLAS COWBOYS.
The two men were sitting in the White Spot coffee shop at Cambie and King Edward, several blocks north of Head-hunter Headquarters. They had both ordered bacon and eggs poached, with brown toast on the side. They both drank their coffee black. The Stetson lay on the table between them and off to the right.
'Is that the
'Yep. The same one.'
DeClercq shook his head. 'I don't understand,' he said.
'Don't understand what? The hat or the pennant?'
'Both,' the policeman said.
The Russian grinned. 'Have you ever been around immigrants, newly arrived? Well when you first set foot on foreign soil and know you're there to stay, that you can never go home, a kind of depressing alienation inevitably sets in. Clothes, food, language, manner, cut of hair, way of walking — everything around you is so vastly different. You know you don't belong. And you fear you never will.
'When I arrived in Calgary in 1964 the Stampede was in full swing. Indians dancing in the streets, chuck- wagon breakfasts, rodeo acts, everyone walking around in a ten-gallon hat.
'There I was walking the streets surrounded by pseudo-cowboys. I bought the Stetson and was immediately lost in the crowd.
'When the Stampede was over I kept the hat — it keeps my head warm.'
The waitress refilled their coffee cups and in doing so glanced at the hat. Arching one eyebrow slightly, she looked at DeClercq. 'Want some oats for your horse?' she asked with a smile. The Russian laughed.
'Okay,' DeClercq said. 'What about the pennant?'
'In Russia everybody plays chess. I've played since I was five. Here few play chess, but a lot follow football. In both games the win depends on psychology and strategy. And to really enjoy the football spirit you need a team. Mine's the Dallas Cowboys cause I like their style of play. People see the pennant and if they share my interest they start a conversation. It provides an opener — and like the hat itself, helps me find some friends.'
DeClercq had interrogated too many people in his time not to have learned that it mattered less what was said than how it was delivered. Too long an explanation meant lack of conviction.
Robert DeClercq said: 'I don't think it's possible to leave your roots behind. That's what I tried to do by leaving Quebec. After what happened to Janie and Kate all I wanted to do was run and try to escape. I discovered you can't. It's been twelve years, Joseph, yet every day the memory still comes back to me. It'll haunt me till I die. Particularly my child. All I did was take my roots and transplant them out here. I suppose that's the real reason I came back to work. Time to stop running. Life's too short. Do you know what I mean?'
Avacomovitch nodded, but didn't meet his eyes. 'Some days I worry that I'm not even alive. That somehow I've turned life into an empty game of chess. That all I've got waiting is checkmate at the end.'
'Then welcome to the West Coast,' Robert DeClercq said. 'You don't escape from here. You either go back where you came or sink into the sea. And that's a narrow choice.'
For a moment they both were silent, as if each was using the other to assess where he had been, to put twelve intervening years into some rough perspective. Finally Joseph Avacomovitch shrugged and said: 'Chartrand told me you made a special request.'
'I told him I'd only take command if he put you on special assignment to the case. He agreed.'
'Just like the old days,' the scientist said.
'Just like the old days,' the policeman repeated.
'And we'll have a celebration if we nail this guy?'
'I'll have you out to my house, to meet Genevieve.'
'Then no more crying in the beer. Let's pick up the pieces. Robert, I really mean it. I'm damn glad you're back and it's good to see you again.'
'And I feel the same way. Let's get to work.'
They paid the check and walked out onto Cambie Street. All the way back to Headhunter Headquarters the pale October sunshine shone down on the park to their left, bringing the color of the grass to a vibrant green, dazzling off the patches of snow which remained in the shadier parts protected from rain by the trees. Several small children were throwing slushy snowballs.
'Last night I took the red-eye special out from Ottawa,' Avacomovitch said. 'I got in at five and couldn't sleep so I went to the lab. I spent about an hour on the envelope sent to the
As they entered the Headquarters building the sun was still shining. Off to the west there were storm clouds on the horizon, boiling in from the sea.
8:55 a.m.
If DeClercq had found little to work with in the files on Helen Grabowski and the North Vancouver skeleton, the case of Joanna Portman presented other problems. Her file was over three inches thick already, and the body had only been discovered two days before. MacDougall and Rodale had obviously been working around the clock. Their squad had interviewed over a hundred people already: doctors and nurses and administrative personnel at St. Paul's Hospital; the BC Hydro bus drivers on the Macdonald route; Portman's landlady in Kitsilano and every neighbor in every house between the bus stop where she had alighted and the home she had never reached. Nothing had come up. Nothing had been seen.
