Michael Slade - Headhunter

When she reached the car she inserted a key into the driver's door, opened it and bent in to retrieve the bottle of port from between the bucket seats. The sucking sound of her rubber soles on the tarmac made her once more think: I, I, I .

As the woman eased her body back out of the car and began to straighten up, Sparky left the shadows of the trees and crossed the distance between them.

As the woman turned the knife began its sweeping diagonal descent, the whickering sound of the blade lost in the wind among the trees.

Then suddenly her world was turning over and over and over again, her vision spinning madly until with an abrupt jar her horizontal slammed to a halt on the perpendicular.

Oh God! she thought, I see my body! For there on the ground not ten feet away her headless form had hit the tarmac, spurting blood in all directions as it twitched in the death-throe spasms.

I've lost my head! her mind screamed with terror, but no sound came from her lips.

Then her eyes saw feet and legs approaching, a human figure walking toward her on the horizontal, crouching, reaching down, one gloved hand gripping a bloodstained cutlass, the other entangling its fingers within her hair, as her mind thought I, I, I, I, and then died because the oxygen in the blood within her severed head had all of a sudden run out.

Sparky picked up the head, bagged it and ran off into the mist.

9:03 p.m.

Not ten minutes after the report of the killing came into Headhunter Headquarters the Prime Minister called. Chartrand picked up the receiver in DeClercq's office and thought: So we have a spy in our midst.

"Chartrand?"

"Yes, sir."

"The Solicitor General is with me. In fifteen minutes we're telling the Commons that you have personally assumed command of the Headhunter investigation."

"Yes, sir."

"This man DeClercq, the one in charge. I want him pulled right now."

"Yes, sir," Chartrand sighed.

I'm sorry, Robert, he thought.

9:06 p.m.

It was the final turn of the screw. No sooner had Robert DeClercq put down the phone than he grabbed the instrument violently and heaved it across the room. The telephone line was wrenched out of the wall. In the process the remains of the bottle of Scotch smashed all over the floor.

There was another killing and he was sacked: that was all he knew. He didn't care where. He didn't care who. I don't give a damn, he thought.

Then he began to settle down. "Yes, I do give a damn," he said aloud. He wanted another drink. You're smashed already, he thought. Then his eyes struck the photograph.

Weaving, he walked across the living room and picked up the picture. His eyes watered as he looked at the little girl, so very, very long ago, laughing in the leaves.

Then he slumped into the chair.

"Can you hear me. Princess?" he said to the photo. "This time believe me. Daddy's coming for you."

He went to get his gun.

9:11 p.m.

The call came through on the radio of every Headhunter Squad patrol car.

"Spann. Scarlett. This is Tipple. Our boy just came home. He's carrying something in a bag and he's just gone into the shack. Here's how to get here." No sooner had Tipple finished giving the address directions and signed off than he came on again. "Spann. Scarlett. It's me again. Hardy's just come back out. He's going to his car and from what I can see in this light, he hasn't got the bag. I'm on his tail. And this time no one gets lost."

Monica Macdonald was down with the flu and therefore Rusty Lewis was on patrol alone. He was driving along the Upper Levels Highway in North Vancouver when he heard the broadcast. Something's up, he thought.

Ed Rabidowski was less than a quarter mile from the murder scene when he picked up Tipple's reports.

With a frown of puzzlement on his face, he turned up the radio volume.

9:47 p.m.

Inspector Mac Fleetwood (no relation to the pop group; in fact he loathed rock music) was standing near the water cooler in the bull pen of Major Crimes when a constable who manned the front desk at 312 Main came up with an envelope.

"This was just dropped off," the wide-eyed man said. "There's a taxi driver downstairs says he went into McDonald's to get a coffee and when he returned to his car that was on the seat. He has no idea who left it."

Fleetwood glanced at the envelope which was labeled For the police. It had been opened.

He dumped the contents onto a desk and out fell a roll of film and a note pieced together with newspaper clippings. The note said: say uncle robert haven't you had enough? ps you develop this one.

"Hey, Al," Fleetwood called to the man across the room. "It's the Headhunter again."

Detective Al Flood rose quickly from his desk and ran across the bull pen.

10:02 p.m.

"Where are you. Tipple?" Rick Scarlett said into the microphone of his radio patrol car. He was parked behind Katherine Spann's vehicle on a small dirt road up on Grouse Mountain. Spread out before his eyes, down below, were the jewels of the city. At least a million of them, some of them in motion.

Spann was standing outside the door. She listened to the reply through the open window.

"We're coming across the Lion's Gate Bridge. I think he's coming home."

"Where's he been?"

"To the record studio, but he just drove by. He didn't stop. He must be looking for Rackstraw." "Maybe checking for his car. The Fox told him on the phone not to go near the place."

"Well then Weasel doesn't listen. What are you going to do?"

"Enter the place. I got the warrant." ' "You better do it fast, Rick, if Hardy's coming home." "Yeah. And listen, I've got a walkie-talkie, so for Christ sake keep us informed. I want to know if Hardy's coming in the door."

"You'll know," Tipple said, and they both signed off. "Okay," Scarlett said to Spann. "Let's get the tools." The woman moved forward to her car and removed a large box from the trunk. Both cars were one hundred yards past the shack and well hidden by bushes. When Hardy arrived, he wouldn't see the cars. But if he did drive on Tipple was on his tail.

"Pretty run-down," Katherine Spann said, "for a ski chalet." "I don't think it's been used for that for at least a dozen years."

They were skirting along one side of the structure to enter it from the back. The building was made of rotting boards with one window in each side. It was heated by a wood stove, if the pipe they passed by was an accurate indication. The place did not have electricity. It looked like an abandoned hermit's shack.

Once they were hidden around back, the woman opened the tool box and shone a flashlight inside. Scarlett selected a crowbar and began to jimmy the window but it slid up easily. "This place has probably already been B & E'd a hundred times by cold-assed skiers," he said. He put his hand up. "Yeah, I can feel other jimmy marks. Give me a boost."

Spann locked her fingers together and made them into a step. Scarlett grabbed hold of the sill with both hands, put one foot into her palms and hoisted himself inside. Leaning back out through the window he grasped Katherine Spann by the wrist and hauled her through the opening.

"Okay, let's spread out. You stay here and do this room, I'll do the one in front."

The woman nodded as Tipple's voice came over the walkie-talkie clipped to Scarlett's belt. "We're starting up the mountain. We're less than ten minutes away."

The male cop crossed to a closed door and entered the front room. Spann remained behind. Four minutes later, Scarlett was down on his hands and knees working his way clockwise around the walls when the woman called out to him: "Hey, Rick. You better come here." The man went back to the rear.