5:27 p.m.
Robert DeClercq had been drinking.
As he climbed out of the small boat with his wife helping him onto the dock, the man tripped on a loose board and fell down on his hands and knees. The empty bottle of Camus cognac which he had in one hand rolled over to stop at Genevieve's feet. She crouched down to look at both the bottle and her husband.
'Robert DeClercq, I do believe you're drunk,' she said.
'Was drunk, Genny. Now I'm just high.'
She picked up the bottle. 'Well at least it's a high-class binge.'
DeGercq sat down on the dock in the pouring rain and looked out across the sea. All he could see was gray, the downpour like a curtain.
'Let's go up to the house,' she said, 'and settle in for the night. I want to talk to you about your case.'
'Screw the case,' DeClercq said. 'I've got the day off.'
Genevieve stared at him in wonder. She had never before seen him this way.
'Don't you have a seminar tonight?' the Superintendent asked.
'I'm going to cancel it.'
'Why?'
'To be at home with you.' 'Well, I wish you wouldn't.' The man turned to look at her. 'Would you do that for me? Would you please go to that class?'
'Will you tell me why?'
DeClercq looked at the bottle in her hand and then looked away, once more out to sea.
'Well. Genny, do you recall telling me I hold myself too tight. Well that tightness is my cell, it's the dungeon of my guilt.
'This afternoon I took the boat and that bottle and just drifted along the coast, measuring the distance to shore. It's been a long time since I've done that — shared my own company with a bottle. And I'm finally thinking things out.
'If it hadn't turned dark I wouldn't be back yet because I still have some distance to go. But if I get just a bit more time to myself, just some more time to examine this dungeon of mine and how I built it, then I believe I'll find a way out.'
She didn't say anything at first, but watched this man she loved so much just sitting in the pouring rain. He had his legs curled up and his chin on his knees and his arms wrapped around his shins. Finally she sighed a long sigh and said: 'How long do you want?'
'Will you give me till twelve o'clock?'
'Yes,' Genevieve said.
6:55 p.m.
'What time is the seminar?' he asked.
'Seven-thirty,' she said.
'Where is it?'
'In North Vancouver. Just off the Upper Levels Highway.'
'What's it about?'
'I haven't decided yet.' Then Genevieve's eyes fell upon the open book on the living room coffee table. She walked over and picked up Albert Camus'
'By all means,' DeClercq said. 'Perhaps you should look at I, I, I — the extension of the self. Or at The Little-ease — the dungeon of man's guilt.'
For a moment Genevieve watched him with sadness in her eyes. Again she wished with all her heart that she could give him a child. For she knew that when Janie had died, a part of Robert had died with her too. Sometimes just the fact that she would never have a son or daughter affected her as well. It was almost as though the future could hold no hope, as though without the innocence of childhood the cancer of experience would eat up all that ever had been.
Genevieve crossed to the liquor cabinet and removed an unopened bottle of port. Five minutes later with bottle and book in hand she left by the front door.
With one last look at her husband she thought,
7:06 p.m.
She came out of the house and into the downpour, the rain pounding against her umbrella and the wind that blew through the high trees threatening to turn it inside out. As she climbed the driveway up to where her TR 7 was parked beside Robert's Citroen the tarmac beneath her feet had become a rushing river. About her branches tossed wildly in the storm as the lights from the front porch of the house threw convulsing shadows across the wooded lot. Reaching the car she unlocked it, climbed in, put the book on the dash and wedged the bottle of port between the bucket seats, then she started the engine, and pulled out onto Marine Drive.
Fifty feet down the road there was another car parked at the curb. It pulled out behind her and followed at a distance.
Sparky was at the wheel.
The Fall
7:07 p.m.
Once Robert DeClercq heard the car pull away he went to the liquor cabinet and removed a bottle of Scotch. He took the cap off the top and swallowed a slug straight. Within seconds he could feel the liquor ignite the lining of his stomach, the glow of its heat radiating out to the rest of his body.
After a minute he put the bottle down and crossed over to a bookcase against one of the walls. From a lower drawer that he had not opened for several years he removed a picture that was lying face down.
The photograph was of a little girl, maybe four years old, sitting in a pile of maple leaves colored gold and amber and red and orange and brown. She was laughing, her blond hair in curls thrown back to catch the glint of the sun.
DeClercq carried the picture over to a table and set it against a lamp. Then he pulled a chair across to face it, retrieved the open bottle of Scotch, and sat down to stare at the photo.
From the liquor bottle he took another slug.
Then with words so soft that they seemed to tiptoe around the room, he touched the picture lightly and said: 'Princess, this is your father. I want to talk to you.'
8:03 p.m.
The cutlass was two feet long. It was similar to the sort of machete used for hacking sugar cane, except for one difference. Down the back of the knife, along the spine opposite the razor-sharp cutting edge, ran a rounded ridge jutting out to both sides. Close to the handle and clamped loosely like fingers around and under both sides of this ridge was a sliding six-ounce weight. When the cutlass was swung in a wide arc, the weight would slip down to the end of the blade to increase the centrifugal force of the blow by arithmetical proportions.
One cut from the knife in Sparky's hand would slice a head clean away.
From the shadows beside the driveway and hidden behind a tree, Sparky could watch the front of the house into which Genevieve DeClercq had disappeared. Already the driveway was filled with cars. The TR 7 was eight feet away. The rain had died down to a drizzle, almost a mist hanging in the air.
Sparky settled down to wait and pass the time with talk.
For there was talk in Sparky's mind.
Lots of talk with Mother.
