He held out the rosebud just in front of her heart, maroon on maroon for a perfect match.
"Genevieve, "he answered, now giving it a title.
With a light laugh, Genevieve DeClercq broke into a smile.
And in that moment, it seemed to him even brighter in the room.
Monday, October 25th, 6:30 p.m.
It is common knowledge that for physical setting there are only six great cities in the world. Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Cape Town, Hong Kong and San Francisco: these are five of them. Vancouver is the sixth one.
The young man who leaned on the port rail of the BC Government boat was watching the city pass by on the left. He was six feet tall and lanky, with a long face, good teeth, and blond hair that blew in the wind.
The boat was returning from a salvage check up the bite of Howe Sound. The Sound lay just north of the city harbor, one of the million indentations that make up the ten thousand rugged linear miles of the British Columbia coastline. The boat had just reached the mouth of English Bay, the gate to Vancouver Harbor. Point Grey lay ahead, Vancouver to the left.
It was the shank of the day; the sunset, the time Heller enjoyed the most. His work completed, he could now relax with nothing more important to do than breathe in slow, deep lungfuls of the salt-sea air. To the north and left the backdrop peaks of Hollyburn and Grouse and Seymour Mountains were burnished copper by the sun. In the foreground where slope met sea the Point Atkinson Lighthouse was winking. Far away in the distance which comprised the State of Washington, the volcanic cone of Mount Baker stood guard above the scene.
Heller loved the sea because the sea knew no control. Here English Bay one moment was a sheet of calm green glass, its freighters and tugs and sailboats slipping among the tide lines like small fish through a net. Then the sky would change suddenly as a storm came crashing in, the boats then tossing in the wild waves like corks in boiling water. From all around would come the shouts of men in rubber raingear, and the clouds would open up to pelt the angry waters.
It had been like that this morning, but now the sea was calm.
Dan Heller turned around and waved to the man in the wheelhouse. Glen Simpson gave him a thumbs up back.
Now the boat had crossed the harbor mouth and the city lights slipped away. Looming up before him were the sandstone cliffs of Point Grey. Down near the water Heller could see the tower gun emplacements which had waited for the Japanese during the Second World War. High on the cliff were the buildings of the University of British Columbia, the glass walls of the Museum of Anthropology ablaze with the setting sun. Behind Point Grey lay the Fraser River.
Ten minutes later, as the boat turned into the North Arm of the Fraser, Heller saw a heron lift off from Wreck Beach. A log in the water thumped along the hull. Then they were home and the boat bumped the dock.
Glen cut the engines and left the wheelhouse once Heller had secured the lines. They were moored to the Government Wharf of the Provincial Ministry of Lands and Forests. A helicopter was landing on the helipad, its rotors flashing and throwing off rays of blood-red sunlight. Glen joined Heller at the rail.
"Like a cup of coffee?" the wheelman asked.
"Thanks," Heller said, taking the mug. The brandy warmed his stomach.
The two men were silent for several minutes as they watched the hustle and bustle in the estuary. Log booms lined the river and boats were everywhere. Jets came and went from the International Airport on Sea Island, across the water.
"How many boats you think'll be gone by this time next year?"
"Who knows?" Heller replied. "Maybe twenty percent."
"That high? Man, oh man. What a change in the weather. Want another coffee? There's some left in the pot."
"Why not?" Heller said. "But you better hurry. Less than a minute till the sun sinks in the sea."
"I'll make it," Glen said, heading for the wheelhouse.
But he didn't make it — and both men missed the sunset. For as Glen Simpson grabbed the rail that ran up to the pilot's station, he happened to glance at the water and his eyes caught something floating.
"Hey, Dan! Come here! And bring that gaff behind you."
"What's wrong?" Heller asked, joining him at the boat rail.
"You see what I see?" Glen pointed at the water.
And there, half submerged and bumping the hull, was the body of a woman. Naked. Bloated. Just a body ending at the neck. The corpse was missing a head.
11:31 p.m.
Commercial Crime Section (Special "I")
Target: Steve Rackstraw (aka "The Fox")
Tape installed: October 25th. 0900 hours. (Tipple)
Tape removed: October 25th. 1130 hours. (Tipple)
u/m only known as "The Weasel."
Outgoing local call.
Weaseclass="underline" Hey.
Fox: Hey. Hey.
Weaseclass="underline" Sorry I forgot to call ya… forgot all about it.
Fox: Ya did, huh?
Weaseclass="underline" Sorry.
Fox: Well ya better grab your ride and get your black ass over here. Now.
Weaseclass="underline" I can't, not now. Later maybe.
Fox: Is that our lady, Ms. Billie Holiday, I hear behind you, man?
Weaseclass="underline" Yeh, you know how pussy reacts to that. I need time man, time to get this horse in the stable.
Fox: Yeh?
Weaseclass="underline" Time to get this here filly broken, ya know, broken, so I don't need no rope, ya know, to keep the bitch from leaving.
Fox: So? So what?
Weaseclass="underline" Stay cool… Hey, just a moment (Shouting: Turn that music down. U/f: Come on. Baby. Make me fe-e-el good.
Weaseclass="underline" In a bit, just git your selfishness ready.) Ya still there, man?
Fox: Okay. Okay, a bit more time. But I'm warning you, cousin, get your priorities straight. Important things are beginning to break and you had better be ready.
Weaseclass="underline" Yeh, yeh, I be ready.
Fox: When the Wolf calls, you had better have your shit together, man. Don't use your dick, use Sister M.
Weaseclass="underline" What, what the… (inaudible)… zombi walks.
Fox: By the by, man, where is H.G.? She been missing for a week.
Weaseclass="underline" Yeh, I know, like that's cold, real cold.
Fox: You better find her, man, before the Wolf finds out, or you'll be cold, stone dead cold if there's a leak.
Weaseclass="underline" No, no worry. I can do… Fox: We will be waitin' on you all.
Weaseclass="underline" Bye.
Fox: Huh. Huh. (end of call)
Tuesday, October 26th, 8:15 a.m.
Winter had arrived early within the four walls of the room. It was that cold. The air had a chill, brittle quality to it and there was a light condensation on the stainless steel surface. The pathologist wore gloves.
Doctor Kahil Singh was an elderly man with close-cropped silver hair. His face was long and angular and he wore rimless glasses. Dr. Singh was one of three pathologists at the Richmond General Hospital. Today he had drawn duty in the hospital morgue.
He had arrived for work at 7:30 this morning to find three accident victims waiting for him in their drawers. Two of the bodies had come from a motor vehicle collision last night on Highway 99, the police report stating that a bottle of Cuervo Tequila was found smashed on the road. The third corpse was a floater fished out of the Fraser River.
Dr. Singh did not like floaters. So he took that one first.
This had been Singh's practice ever since medical school, for as one of his professors way back then had so wisely put it: "If you take the ugly ones first, the worst is over." And this one was certainly ugly. Bloated and immense, the girl's body was partly decomposed and here and there fibrous strands of muscle clung to exposed bone.