I Was Dora Suarez (11 page)
Authors: Derek Raymond
(Christ, I was in that flat with them at Empire Gate now. Peace. Their broken telly with its screen glimmered in the darkness of the sitting room at the foot of the two beds. The two women were talking together softly, Suarez knowing that this was the last night of her life; she was going to take it. Betty had just gone to the bathroom; the electric fire glowed. And then
snap!
Suddenly all the lights went on. Dora looked up from the picture in the magazine, perhaps – and there he was, swinging his hand axe. Terror! And then the end.)
Dora was beautifully dressed when she died. Besides her newly-washed hair, the frock she was wearing, the black high-heeled shoes we found near her feet which were curled up under her, everything she wore was brand-new. She was dressed for a special occasion. She was going out; as Dylan Thomas wrote, she was dressed to die.
She certainly had wonderful black hair. I saw it now, recalling how clean it had smelled, the part of it that was not matted with blood, from the scent of apples in the shampoo she had used. This little detail about her, her hair and the trouble she had taken with it, and with her clothes, the two bottles of wine that she had not even had time to drink before her murderer arrived, pierced me in the stomach like a physical wound, so that I wanted to clap my hand on the place.
What I felt was of no apparent importance to my enquiry whatever, and yet it was; for otherwise I could not have been so intent on finding the man.
For I had already read:
Saturday morning. I shall do it tonight, I’ve worked it all out. I’m not worried any more. Now that I’m at the last station, at the barrier with my ticket in my hand, I’m already in another world, and there’s even some kind of pleasure in arranging the details – in a way, it’s almost as though I were going on holiday; some part of me suddenly feels quite irresponsible!
She wrote – later, evidently, because it was with a different pen:
Yes, it’s certain I’ll do it today, this evening, my mind’s made up. I said to Betty just yesterday: ‘I suppose we have certain rights to ourselves.’
I said to myself: ‘When I find him, he’ll have just five seconds for his prayers, and then he’ll be glad he’s gone.’ For I had already learned by heart one passage she had written, poor darling:
So I shall die. I know how I shall do it – with the gas from the cooker while Betty’s out at the doctor’s. I shall leave a note on the front door, of course, explaining what I’ve done so that she can get people to come and turn the gas off and open the windows.
In writing that trailed down the page she added:
Betty will understand all right – in her heart of hearts she’ll know, she knows already.
She continued:
Since it’s a grave matter, and the physical part of it difficult to face, I have decided to turn my death into a party with myself. First, I shall have a bath and wash my hair. Then I shall dress up. I have bought a new dress and shoes, and two bottles of wine to help me go, and I shall wear the scent I’ve bought that normally I could never have afforded. I shall look at the brochure on Hawaii, listen to music on the radio and then tell myself as I go that my death having been my wedding, I am leaving with my husband on our honeymoon to the Pacific. I have made the arrangements exactly because I have always found it soothing to make plans; it gives me courage, just as it helps me to write this; and so, with unearthly intentions, I go into a dark room as a dark bride.
I ran back to the Ford and started back to the Factory, driving too fast.
I got in to the Factory and said at the desk: ‘Anything on that autopsy yet? Carstairs/Suarez?’
‘They rang to say there were complications – out of the ordinary. It was the pathologist on the line, he said he was going to ring back.’
‘What complications? What’s out of the ordinary? When is he going to ring back? How long?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘Right,’ I said.
Before I left for the morgue I went up to 205 and rang Tom Cryer at the
Recorder
. When the girl at the switchboard came on, I said immediately: ‘Mr Cryer is not in conference with the news editor at the moment so can he ring you back – put him on straightaway, it’s the Factory here.’
She was probably divorced with three children, dedicated to her job and in financial need – anyway, she must have been far too bright to stay on the switchboard for long because Cryer came on the line at once and I said: ‘Well, there you are, take it or leave it, it’s me here over at Poland Street – how’s Angie and the kid?’
‘Christ,’ he said, ‘don’t tell me you’re back at A14.’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘That’s where I belong, isn’t it? Look, can I see you?’
‘What over?’
‘Over a beer at the Navigator,’ I said. ‘But it’ll have to be fast. Still, it’s urgent I see you.’
He said: ‘What are you on?’
‘Carstairs/Suarez.’
‘Christ,’ Cryer said, ‘that’s the worst we’ve had for years, it’s worse than Sutcliffe.’
‘Mine’s a Kronenbourg if you get there first,’ I said, ‘and get me a packet of Westminster filters, I’ve run out.’
‘It’s on the paper,’ he said. ‘Now just move your arse and get over here.’
Cryer and I sat at the counter of the Navigator in Little Titchfield Street on red plastic-topped stools like a couple of old tarts and I told him that this case was very bad and that one reason why it was very bad was that as yet I had no leads on the killer. I said: ‘He’s got to be found and caught.’
He said: ‘Your people won’t let us even go near the place, so why do we have to cooperate?’
‘Because your job’s to sell newspapers,’ I said, ‘and if you can’t get near the place, that’s because it’s on my instructions, Tom – you know me.’
He said: ‘What’s in it for the paper?’
‘I’m in it,’ I said, ‘and we’ve known each other awhile.’
‘All I got was the usual crap,’ Cryer grumbled. ‘You know, the press would get an official handout; handout, my bollocks. Jollo and Charlie Bowman reading us the lesson on Sunday morning and wondering how the roast’s doing, more like.’
I said: ‘If you do me a favour, I can go better than that.’
‘How much better?’
‘Usual deal.
Recorder’s
there first, and only the
Recorder
. No other press.’
‘What do I have to do?’ Cryer said.
‘Easy,’ I said. ‘Get your Pickwick nib out and get this down, are you listening? “Owner grandfather clock smashed Kensington Saturday seeks vandal responsible, reward interesting. Box number,
Recorder’s
phone number.” That’ll get all the grasses on heat. Run it a week or till I tell you to leave off. Anything that comes through, bike it over to us fast. And the same goes,’ I added, ‘if you get any lead on this artist at all.’
‘All right,’ said Cryer, putting the message away, ‘that sounds like jacks to open – I’ll play.’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘because without a little assistance from us from time to time, your crime page would look a bit on the empty side, wouldn’t it, and that’s what the public want to read about, not restoring thirteenth-century castles in Somerset.’
But Cryer said exactly what Ballard had said: ‘This one is really bothering you, isn’t it?’
I said: ‘If you’d seen it, Tom.’
He said: ‘There’s a rumour going round our end that Suarez was very sick, is it true?’
‘How do I know till I get some sense out of the morgue?’ I said. ‘But there’s certainly something strange.’
‘What?’
‘It’s in an exercise book.’
‘Suarez’s?
‘Yes.’ I stood up. ‘I must go, Tom – there may be something for me over at the Factory now. Let’s keep in touch, big kiss for Angie, good night.’
After leaving Cryer I drove back to the Factory to see if the morgue had rung back, but in my head Dora and Betty were talking. Betty had nodded off in her chair; she had slid in it a little and her head had fallen in its woollen hat against the high back. Dora was saying:
‘Betty, I don’t want to wake you, but I’ve something I must say.’
‘It’s all right, I’m not asleep, just resting.’
‘Betty,’ Dora said, ‘have you ever considered what it might feel like to be a horse?’
‘A horse? No, dear, why a horse?’
‘Betty,’ Dora said, ‘I remember once picking up a newspaper and reading a small ad quite by chance: “For sale. Young mare, Arab stock. £3000 o.n.o. Guaranteed docile.’ ”
‘I don’t understand, Dora.’
Dora said: ‘When an insecure man mounts a horse, his overriding instinct is to dominate it and prove he’s the master. He thrashes it to make it obey. He behaves like this because he is frightened of the horse, Betty; the animal is much bigger and stronger than he is, and he thinks it could easily kill him, or at least throw him off, make him look and feel ridiculous. This can’t be allowed to happen, of course, so he gets the whip out.’
‘Dora, what are you trying to say?’
‘What I’m trying to say is that the man hasn’t understood that the horse lives in a different world to his, and that the horse has no need to be beaten into obedience; the horse accepts the master.’
‘Dora!’
‘Betty, I am the horse,’ Dora said.
‘Ah, darling,’ Betty said, ‘I see you have been most wrongly treated.
Won’t you go for help?’
‘What help?’ Dora said. ‘I am just a horse.’ She added:
I am dark, and have always had an obsession for dark hats. I used to go down Singleton Street at eighteen wearing black Levi’s, smiling sharply at everyone. I wore my wide-brimmed hat tipped over my nose; inside myself I would be singing. I used to wear deep crimson scarves and say to myself, ‘My name is Dora Suarez!’
I told Betty partly about when I was young when we were talking together this morning at about three.
As I went back into the Factory and was making for the stairs to go up to 205 I ran into Jollo again.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘Nice to be back, is it?’
‘Don’t take the acid today,’ I said, ‘it isn’t the day. I’m taking this very seriously, so listen.’
‘All right,’ Jollo said, ‘I’m listening.’
‘Suarez,’ I said. ‘That was her maiden name according to her DHSS papers. Has anyone checked to see if she had British nationality? It’s just a detail.’
‘Funny you should say that,’ he said, ‘because it was me that checked it, and the answer came in only twenty minutes ago.’
‘And?’
‘She was British,’ Jollo said, ‘born right here in London. It was her dad that was Spanish. Came over as a refugee in March ’39 after some war they had down there and found work as a builder’s labourer.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘and her mother?’
‘British as you and me,’ said Jollo, ‘I don’t think. Polish-Jewish from the East End, Whitechapel – you get all sorts, don’t you?’
‘I don’t want your opinions,’ I said, ‘just facts.’ I had my work cut out not to send him up to Harley Street to a heart quack’s, but I kept calm and said: ‘Don’t any of you read her at all? Make out who she moved about with at all?’
‘You expect us to keep a check on the entire population?’
‘Now don’t get high-flown,’ I said. ‘I was just asking if any of you knew anything about Suarez that could assist me in my enquiry, that’s all.’ I added: ‘Any sarcasm being handed out, it’ll be from my end, not yours.’
‘I’ll overlook the tone, Sergeant,’ he said.
‘That’ll save no end of time,’ I said. ‘Well?’
He said: ‘Well, she never did bird – but then a lot of people in this city who ought to never do, do they?’
‘Now don’t come on like a bishop or something,’ I said, ‘the holy tone doesn’t go with your gear.’ I added: ‘Another thing. What about this autopsy report on Suarez and Carstairs?’
‘These things take time, Sergeant.’
‘I know they do,’ I said. ‘Only the problem with this one is that there most likely isn’t any.’ I went on: ‘Look, don’t be pathetic. Charlie Bowman and myself went and had a look at what this joker did to two women only just now, and I rather think we should get the spindles turning round here just that fraction faster before something else exciting happens with this cunt which’ll get us all floundering around in another great flap. Look, there’s your office just upstairs, so will you just give them a bell down at the morgue if there’s anyone alive there and find out where that fucking report is, since we’re on police business in this building, after all? Well? Will you or won’t you? Because if not, I’m going down there on my jack, and there’ll be breakage when I arrive, I warn you. But you’re the superintendent, Jollo, and I’d rather you did it, darling, because rank always speaks louder than words.’
‘All right, you insolent bastard,’ he said.
I shouted after him: ‘You’ve got five minutes, otherwise I’m on my way.’
He went on upstairs, while I went to 205. I’d hardly sat down on the edge of my desk when the phone rang. Jollo said: ‘The report’s here. It’s coming straight up.’
‘At last,’ I said.
I took the envelope from the police clerk, signed for it and slit it open the minute he was gone. It felt strangely thin, and when I pulled out what was inside it, no wonder – for nothing came out of the envelope except one lonely piece of hospital paper signed by the chief pathologist, not the younger one I usually dealt with
who was snide and chain-smoked Gauloise filters to cover his true anxiety. The message said merely: ‘I have the Suarez report here, and I would appreciate it if you would come over and discuss it with me at once.’
I got the clerk back who had brought the message and said: ‘What time did this document arrive?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure.’ He added briskly: ‘Not really my job, you know, Sarge.’
I said: ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? It’s your business to know. So move your great boots and find out, you’ve got three minutes.’
‘What’s the problem?’
I told him: ‘What you’ve given me is a very urgent message from the morgue. The time of its receipt here in this building should have been marked, look, here, and it hasn’t been, see? Find out why that was, who was responsible and what time this envelope actually did arrive, and now you see what the problem is.’
‘Tricky right now,’ he said. ‘I’ve got stuff running on the computer.’