Perhaps I blame myself,he thought,for hating the child inside her. But I never, never, never meant for her to die.
No, the blame falls on the nigger. And now she has to die. For if she had only fetched the doctor, the death of the unborn child would not have taken my mother.
The man stopped walking abruptly, for he'd reached the mouth of the alley.
Nonchalantly he paused and lit a cigarette. The smoke felt good as the nicotine played with his nerves. He waited for a break in the crowd, then he darted down the passage.
Crouching down, he reached out and groped behind a trashcan. It was still there, exactly where he'd left it before attending the ball. Removing it, hefting it, he placed it under the jacket of his formal evening clothes. Then he stood up swiftly and returned to Bourbon Street. At the next corner he turned right and made for the French Quarter.
As he walked it felt good, the object hanging in the sling beneath his left armpit. For even through his ruffled shirt, the metal of the axe-head was cool against his heart.
Flying Patrols
Vancouver, British Columbia, 1982
Sunday, October 31st, 10:15 a.m.
"Good morning. My name is Robert DeClercq. I hold the rank of Superintendent. I have been assigned command of this investigation."
As he spoke, beginning slowly, getting the feel of once more addressing a task force of officers, DeClercq stood erect with his hands behind his back at the front of the room and moved his gaze from face to face connecting with the eyes. The parade room, like everything else at Headhunter Headquarters, was still under construction, and those who had been unable to find an empty folding chair sat on the top of piles of lumber or leaned against the walls. There were more than seventy officers in the room, two thirds of them dressed in the brown serge working uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the others in plain clothes. Approximately one fifth were women — a change which had come over the Force since DeClercq had retired. It occurred to him now that for its next edition Men Who Wore the Tunic,his first book, would require a change of title.
"The task assigned to this squad is not an easy one," he began. "It would appear, from what we know at the moment, that the object of this manhunt is a random killer — an assassin in the purest sense who kills for the love of killing." DeClercq caught Joseph Avacomovitch's expression of agreement, a brief nod from where the Russian stood at the back of the room.
"You men and women have been specially selected to spearhead this investigation. The purpose of this, our first briefing, is to discuss the operational structure under which this squad will be working. Basically it is this.
"Effective communication is the essence of any teamwork. I therefore hope that each of you will utilize every avenue of dialogue within this group without rank creating a barrier. The bulk of you have been assigned to the Central Corps or general investigative body of this dragnet. Attached to this core as adjuncts will be a Scientific Section under the control of Joseph Avacomovitch, who I am sure you all know by reputation, our own Identification Squad and our guiding brain, a Computer Command under Inspector Chan. This Computer Command will build on the program developed during the Olson investigation to integrate and enhance each bit of information gathered by our hunt. Every member of this Central Corps will receive a daily printout from Inspector Chan listing composites, suspects and developing avenues of inquiry. At the end of each day you are invited — every one of you — to pose questions or assumptions or guesses to Computer Command. You'll have a software-enhanced answer by the following morning.
"In addition, this core group will be working in liaison with those Municipal Police Forces separate from the RCMP, and each of them will appoint a specific liaison officer. I am informed that Vancouver Police coordination will be through Detective Almore Flood of the Major Crimes Squad. He is here this morning.
"The overall command of this Central Corp — our general investigation — has been assigned to Inspector Jack MacDougall. He is the gentleman off to my right frowning over the misrepresentation that I just made of his rank — unaware that for the quality of his work to date on this case Ottawa has accepted my recommendation that he be promoted from Sergeant."
A spontaneous round of applause began, and at this point DeClercq paused both to let MacDougall be congratulated and to let the implication of his promotion permeate the group.
DeClercq then moved off to his left and sat down informally on the corner of a desk. He continued his roving gaze, still connecting with the eyes.
"I think that we must all recognize that any coordinated police investigation works on a base of assumptions — these assumptions being the tentative conclusions that are drawn from the evidence at hand.
"The importance of this is that here is where our greatest danger lies.
"Let me give you an example. In November of 1980 it was commonly believed by the West Yorkshire police in England that the killer called the Yorkshire Ripper had cracked the skulls and mutilated the bodies of thirteen women. Victim No. 2 they thought was a twenty-six-year-old prostitute named Joan Harrison killed in November 1975. There were bite marks on her body — and swabs taken from her vagina and anus indicated the presence of semen deposited by a secretor with the rare blood group B. As with all the Ripper's other victims she had been killed by a hammerlike blow to the head.
"During the course of the investigation, Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, who was in charge of it, received a number of letters signed 'Jack the Ripper.' Saliva on the gum flap of the third letter was analyzed as coming from a secretor of blood group B, and the letter was postmarked Sunderland in the North of England. Then in June of 1979 the police received a tape from someone claiming to be the killer, taunting Oldfield for his lack of progress in tracking him down. The writing on the envelope containing the tape was the same as that on the letters; the saliva that sealed its flap was also from a secretor of blood group B. The tape was of a male voice with a Geordie accent from the Northeast of England.
"Based on this evidence at hand, the West Yorkshire police made certain assumptions about the killer that they were seeking. The result was that people in eleven thousand households were questioned and a million-pound publicity campaign was undertaken on the slogan: 'The Ripper would like you to ignore this.'
"In fact, the man who was ultimately convicted of all the Ripper crimes except that of Joan Harrison was a Bradford truck driver with a Yorkshire accent named Peter Sutcliffe.
"The point of all this is that from the evidence at hand the West Yorkshire police appear to have made an erroneous assumption, and then working on the basis of that assumption acquired tunnel vision. And that tunnel vision may have allowed Sutcliffe to kill again, slipping through the police net until his use of a stolen license plate finally brought him down.
"As I have said — assumptions are where our greatest danger lies.
"Now," DeClercq said smiling and using an easy tone of voice, "the question is, what can we do to counteract this natural human tendency from the very beginning of our manhunt?
"First, we can take as our motto: Watch for tunnel vision!
"Secondly, while it is fairly obvious that we are hunting for one killer or set of killers in all three cases, we can make sure that we look at each case as both separate and connected. Just in case life is throwing us some bizarre coincidence.