Chapter Ten

The glow of the sound control panels lit up Geline's face and behind her on the wall her shadow dances and moves. She turns and looks at me; the expression she is wearing confirmed that this has never happened before. But before she can speak, the gentle creak of a door handle moving directed both our eyes to the dark figure that had just entered the booth. Slowly our eyes become accustomed to the face of who was standing pointing a small revolver at Geline's chest.

"Hello Wilbert,'' I whisper, "We have been expecting you.''Wilbert indicated with his gun that we should move back against the control desk, Geline slides her hand into mine, it was clammy and damp and I felt her pulse racing through it.

"Ah, Isaac, Isaac, Isaac,'' Wilbert says shaking his head. "You just couldn't let it be could you, I gave you a simple job and you had to mess it up.''

"It was you that killed those boy's, my father figured it out and put it all in his journal. That's what you were both arguing about that day when I played in the other room. Not about the story coverage, he wanted you to give yourself up, plead guilty or he would expose you to the police, and you destroyed him for this!'' I held up a worn out leather bounded book in the semidarkness of the radio booth. Wilbert's eyes followed it with anxiety and anticipation.

"Give it to me.'' he ordered.

I hand it to him and he placed it in his overcoat pocket. "Why? Wilbert I don't understand.''

A slight smile embroiders Wilber's face, making the deprivation of his cold heart obvious in his demeanour. His shoulders drop before he blows out his cheeks into a deep resounding sigh and for a moment I saw the man I thought I knew. The man who took me under his wing and gave me a job, looked in on me as I learned the business that my father was unable to teach me. My friend, my mentor.

"Ironic really, there I was creating the news and your father asks me to report on it, talk about having an inside angle.''

"But why those boys?'' I asked him.

Wilbert buried his head in his hands for a moment. I can hear his breathing become shallow, it's as if my question is like a knife in his stomach. And it's one blade he was afraid to remove in case it bleeds the blood of guilt. "There isn't no reason to this sickness I have inside me'' He began to cry, "I got weak is all. The flesh is frail and they were just there, waiting by the bus stop, walking home from school. It was easy to get them into my car.''

"And Matt'' I replied, "Why wait twenty years''

"A few months ago I read somewhere that the Venetian Douper was going to be refurbished, after I had disposed of the last body back then I swore I would never do it again. I stayed there, regularly during my cover of the murders and on my last night I hid your fathers Journal under a loose floorboard in my room. But, when I learned of the renovation work I couldn't take a chance that it wouldn't be found. The only thing was by the time I returned it had already been completed, Jasmine was a young girl then but she remembered me and made a big deal of giving me my old room. And would you believe it, below the loose board it was still there. I placed it under my pillow until I could figure out what to do. But the following night I decided to drive into town, and he was there, Matt, just waiting by the kerbside looking lost with his skateboard. It was hard for me to suppress this monster that I have to live with everyday, I couldn't help myself. When Geline called last night and told me you were going back to the grave and that you had the Journal, also that Matt was about to disclose who killed him, I had no choice but to come here tonight.''

"What now then Wilbert?''

"No one will believe these phone calls are real, this story would be lost in the annals of some obscure two bit magazine, I'll make sure of that, something I sent you to do in the first place, it would have been better coming from you Isaac, but no matter, and you have no proof of any of this now that I have this Journal.''

I squeezed Geline's hand and from inside her blouse she produced her small recording device that had a thin grey wire attached to its side. The wire was running through her skirt and was plugged in to the control panel behind us. Wilbert's eyes began to widen, and his face drained of blood as Geline pushes the playback button and his voice boomed out of the panel's base speaker.

"You've been on air all the time Wilbert, so you see I have all the proof I need. Don't I Selvix?''

From outside the booth in main room Selvix removed his sunglasses and gave me a thumb up.

"You tricked me'' Wilbert says, "And the phone calls from Matt?'' he asks.

I look to Geline and then to him, "Can't say for sure if they are real or not I guess,'' he nod, and gives a wistful smile and hands me back my father's Journal.

"I'll be seeing you Isaac,'' he says as he opened the door.

"Yeah, see ya Wilbert,'' I replied, and then just as quietly as he came he was gone.