Death Going Down Read online

  Aurora chose not to look at her husband.

  “She said she was going to the ground floor and that I’d made her go up unnecessarily when she took the lift. As if I give people rides for fun!”

  “Tell me everyone who lives in the building,” the Superintendent said to Torres.

  “On the first floor it’s the Suárez Loza family, who are away in Europe at the moment. On the second floor, señor Iñarra and his family; on the third, señor Czerbó and his sister; on the fourth, señor Soler; on the fifth, Dr Luchter. Everyone here is very peaceful, señor Superintendent.”

  The same old story. It was just what Superintendent Lahore expected: peaceful buildings and good people, always the same. So how was it possible that so much went on?

  “We must call all those who aren’t yet here. Someone has to identify the body. She must be a friend or acquaintance of one of the residents.”

  One of the police officers went upstairs with Torres. Soler was dozing on the sofa. Everyone else eyed one another in silence. Officer Vera was writing in his small notebook. Aurora had adopted a spiteful, curious expression that revealed the breadth of her inner world.

  Two more women soon appeared. The first, who looked no older than thirty-five, was wearing a comfortable dark red dressing gown and slippers of the same colour. She was dark-skinned and slight. She wore no make-up so the yellowish tone of her olive skin and the two grooves at either side of her mouth were clearly visible. Her dark eyes had metallic glints. The other was a girl of no more than twenty, tall and pleasant-looking, with a round face and the kind of nose that twitches and gives its owner a mocking air. She was dressed for going out, in a black skirt and a bright green cashmere top.

  “My husband can’t come down, Superintendent,” explained the older woman to Lahore. “I’ve already told the officer that he isn’t well. Dr Luchter can testify to that, my husband is his patient.”

  “That’s correct,” Luchter hurriedly confirmed, “señor Iñarra suffers from a nervous condition. He should not be disturbed unless absolutely necessary.”

  “We’re not planning on disturbing any of you. All we want is for you to identify this person.”

  The two women examined the body with swift glances, then said they’d never seen the victim before.

  “Good evening,” called a bright voice from outside. Superintendent Lahore frowned at Vera.

  “I told you to call Inspector Ericourt.”

  “He wasn’t there. Blasi answered the call.”

  This same Blasi joined the group, followed by several photographers.

  “Are they journalists?”

  Señora de Iñarra’s voice trembled as she asked the question. No one answered her.

  The photographers were already focusing on the body in the lift. Soler sat up when he heard the first flash, muttering something about letting a person sleep in peace. Señora de Iñarra turned towards Luchter.

  “Please don’t let them photograph us. It would be horrible to appear in the papers.”

  “This is Inspector Ericourt’s secretary, madam,” explained Officer Vera. “The photos are for the police record.”

  Meanwhile another two people had appeared, accompanied this time by the Officer and Andrés. A tall, thin, dark-skinned man with pronounced cheekbones and a woman with washed-out hair and a harried look. Both were wearing scruffy stay-at-home clothes.

  The man introduced himself as Boris Czerbó, Bulgarian, resident in Argentina for two years. He explained that the woman was his sister Rita. Too afraid to speak, she simply nodded when she heard her name.

  The police procedures were starting in earnest outside. An ambulance had stopped next to the cordon on the pavement and on the other side of the door were the restless, wide-awake faces of newspaper reporters. Señora de Iñarra spoke to the Superintendent; her graceful Madrid accent lent her question a feminine touch.

  “Is our presence absolutely necessary, sir? I’ve left my husband in the care of the maid.”

  “No, madam, you can go. But please understand that you must not leave your home until authorized to do so.”

  Beatriz Iñarra, sitting next to Soler, bit her nails and periodically shrugged her shoulders to shake off the drunken man who persisted in leaning against her chest.

  “I’ll stay, Gabriela,” she announced. “This is more fun than sitting in my room, reading.”

  Each of the words sounded as definitive as if it were followed by a full stop.

  The only commentary was an approving smile from Blasi, seen by no one because it was directed at his shoes. Dr Luchter took señora de Iñarra’s arm.

  “I’ll go with you, madam, if you don’t mind.”

  There was silence once they had both left, as well as a sense that something was going to happen. And indeed, a few seconds later Czerbó spoke, mangling the words with his terrible accent and even worse grasp of Spanish syntax:

  “Señor Superintendent, you ask me if I am know the lady. She Frida Eidinger. I know husband. Lives Villa Devoto, Calle Lácar forty-one.”

  Vera grabbed his notebook. The others feigned indifference. A snore from Soler broke the monotonous tension. Lahore weighed up the sleeping man with desperation.

  “Was this woman a guest in your home this evening?” he asked Czerbó.

  “No, mister. She not guest of us.”

  The voice had become sickly sweet.

  “So then, how do you know her?”

  Behind Boris Czerbó, Rita’s face was red with shock.

  “Her husband is client of me.”

  “And how do you explain señora Eidinger’s presence here?”

  All eyes focused on Czerbó. He let his arms fall wearily.

  “I cannot explain nothing.”

  “Where were you at the time señora Eidinger died?”

  “Can you tell me in what time this happened?”

  He smiled with a cynic’s empty grimace. The cheerful glimmer faded from Lahore’s eyes and, calling aside the doctor who had come with the ambulance and certi"ed the body, he exchanged a few words with him. He then turned back to face Czerbó.

  “She died at approximately one thirty, or rather between one thirty and two in the morning, from poisoning,” he said.

  “In that time I slept,” replied Czerbó, unruffled.

  His sister confirmed his words with another nod.

  “Who else lives with you?”

  “No one. We not having servants.”

  “Very well.”

  Lahore stepped aside to make way for the stretcher bearing Frida Eidinger’s body. Rita and señorita Iñarra averted their eyes. Soler, who had woken up and was about to light a cigarette, threw it to the floor with a repulsed grimace. Frida Eidinger was leaving the scene of her death accompanied only by disgust.

  Only Aurora Torres seemed curious and craned her neck to watch how the stretcher-bearers loaded the body into the ambulance.

  “Dear goodness!” she exclaimed, distractedly crossing herself.

  “You’re all free to go,” Lahore said to everyone present, “I’ll call if I need you.”

  They filed towards the service lift in silence. As the ambulance’s siren tore through the air the lobby filled with palpable worry and mistrust. The empty lift, its light still on, opened its jaws to suspicion. Lahore moved away quickly, shaking off the journalists who were trying to besiege him.

  An hour later, Blasi was knocking on the door of Soler’s apartment. After a few minutes Soler appeared holding a bag of ice to his head. When he recognized the Inspector’s secretary his face became one of consternation.

  “It’s you! Have you come for me?”

  “Not yet. This is a social visit. May I come in?”

  “Of course, I was just making a cup of coffee. My head’s spinning.”

  The harmonious combination of antique furniture and modern details in Soler’s apartment revealed the care with which those educated in good taste and a profound sense of elegance always decorate a house. From th
e door one could sense the comfort of the place. Blasi breathed it in like a lungful of fresh air.

  “What can they want with me now?” asked Soler. “I don’t know who she was.”

  “She was Frida Eidinger,” said Blasi, “just as that brute with the frightful Spanish said. I was in the morgue when her husband identified the body.”

  Water was bubbling in the coffee percolator. Dark liquid thickened in the upper glass bowl as the gurgling column of boiling water rose towards the filter. Soler, frowning, put the cap on the alcohol burner.

  “An instinctive gesture, covering up,” thought Blasi, who had acquired certain psychological assumptions and was keen to get rid of them through practical application.

  “Then I swear I don’t know what they want with me,” said Soler.

  “They assume you were with her.”

  “But I didn’t know her! I’ve told the truth and I can prove it. I was seen in a nightclub with a girl a few minutes before I came back here. My companion will tell you that I escorted her home.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  Soler simultaneously considered the sugar bowl and this absurd possibility. His thoughts must have led him to an optimistic conclusion because he smiled as he offered Blasi a cup of coffee.

  “Luisita wouldn’t do that to me.”

  “Suppose she went out with you, shall we say, unofficially. It must happen a lot with the kind of relationships you seem to cultivate.”

  Soler drank the bitter coffee in one gulp.

  “Not with her, she’s a loyal girl.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. The loyalty of girls like her shifts like a weathervane.”

  “What are you suggesting? Do you mean to help me?”

  In Soler’s moral code, teasing naturally meant mistrust.

  “Aren’t you from the police?”

  “That’s exactly the point. I aim to save time and I believe pursuing you would mean wasting it, which is why I came to see you. I’d like you to tell me what you can about the others.”

  “Do you really take me for a gossip?”

  “No, for someone who lives in the same building. Everyone has something to say, even if it is only general observations. What do you do when you’re standing in front of a painting? You adopt different positions until you get the best perspective. Do you see?”

  “Not entirely.” Soler poured himself another cup of coffee. “Nor do I see why a suicide has to be so complicated.”

  “Do you really think the lift in an apartment building is where a stranger would choose to commit suicide? The police are assuming someone put the body there. But who?”

  His inquisitive smile surprised Soler.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said.

  “OK, it wasn’t you. So tell me about the others. Who are they?”

  Soler let out a sigh in surrender.

  “Who do you want me to start with? This job isn’t for me. I don’t know how to do it.”

  “Let’s eliminate Luchter because he wasn’t at home. That leaves the Iñarras. Is señor Iñarra as unwell as his wife says he is?”

  “Señor Iñarra is a respectable person. The whole family is.” Blasi had naturally discounted Soler’s partiality. Groups form as soon as danger rears its head.

  “His wife looks too young to be the mother of that girl. What’s her name?”

  “Betty, I mean Beatriz. Señora de Iñarra is her stepmother.” Soler paused. “You’ll find out in any case. She was Betty’s nursemaid when her mother was alive. She married señor Iñarra not long after he was widowed, and ever since then she’s dedicated her life to him,” he added, using the idea of sacrifice to explain a marriage he must have thought unequal. “Betty’s very independent, she’s not at home much.”

  “Caramba! How do you know that?”

  Soler pointed sheepishly towards the light shaft window.

  “And the others?”

  “The Czerbós? They haven’t lived here long and they’re a real mystery. I shouldn’t tell you anything. It’s not my place.”

  A man holding a bag of ice to his head and gulping down large cups of coffee becomes a caricature when he starts outlining his moral obligations. Blasi carried on regardless.

  “The sister seems very intimidated.”

  “She’s always like that. She works like a slave for him, even though people say he’s a rich man.”

  “They’re Bulgarian?”

  “They used to live in Germany. They came over soon after the war ended.”

  The doorbell interrupted them.

  “I’ll answer it,” said Blasi, standing up. “Go and get dressed.”

  Vera was at the door with two other officers. Blasi looked sidelong into the apartment. Soler had disappeared.

  “Are you making an arrest?”

  “Not yet, but there’s a serious charge. Are you coming with us?”

  Blasi shook his head.

  “I haven’t finished my rounds. My boss is getting me to work on my social skills. I have to go up to the caretaker’s apartment.”

  Gabriela de Iñarra entered the bedroom carrying a steaming cup of tea on a tray, which she put down on the bedside table. Don Agustín’s left arm trembled constantly on top of the blankets and although his face, aged by his illness, was stern, he spoke to his wife in a sweet, measured voice.

  “Thank you, darling. You always go to such trouble. You’re an angel.”

  Betty Iñarra was reading a magazine in the corner of the room. Hearing her father’s words, she buried her nose in the pages.

  “Your heart rate is fine, Don Agustín,” said Dr Luchter. He was standing next to the bed, preparing a syringe. The bedside lamp cast a circle of white light over the scene.

  “I feel absolutely fine,” said his patient. “Sleepless nights are old acquaintances of mine. They don’t affect me. It’s young people who need their sleep.”

  Iñarra’s eyes sought his daughter.

  “Did you get dressed to go out, darling?”

  “I didn’t get dressed,” Betty replied, imitating her father’s measured tone. “I was dressed when they called me.”

  Gabriela threw her stepdaughter a pleading look.

  “She shouldn’t humiliate him like that,” she whispered to Dr Luchter. He lowered his eyes to better observe the transfer of liquid from the vial to the syringe.

  “You went out earlier, then?” asked Don Agustín.

  “I went to the cinema with Raquel.”

  “And you’re still dressed at three in the morning?”

  His voice communicated cold disapproval.

  “You know I don’t like you going out alone at night. Gabriela, why didn’t you tell me Betty had gone out?”

  He had called her Gabriela, not Gaby. The voice of reproach.

  “It’s not easy to tell Betty what to do,” said Gabriela apologetically.

  Dr Luchter leant over his patient. His furrowed brow added years to his rosy face.

  “I don’t blame you, dear. I’m just telling you what’s best for you both. I’m responsible for keeping you safe. You and Betty both know you can always count on my protection.”

  “You’ve protected me so much, Dad, I’ve had enough!” Betty said irreverently. “Save your protection for Gabriela, she needs it more than me.”

  “The alcohol, please,” Luchter asked Gabriela. She looked for it on the side table. Her eyes had filled with tears she was struggling to hold back.

  The telephone suddenly rang in the living room. Betty leapt up. She returned to the bedroom a few seconds later.

  “It’s for you, Doctor,” she said with forced indifference. The doctor and the girl exchanged a look of mutual understanding.

  It was Superintendent Lahore, wanting to see Dr Luchter. He said he had called his apartment to no avail and thought he would find him with his patient. Luchter promised to drop by the station at once.

  His work with the Iñarras was done. Don Augustín’s condition was satisfactory and the unusual
events did not seem to have affected him. It made sense. Sick people wrap themselves up in their own concerns and become entirely indifferent to the outside world. Their rooms are cells separated from the social hive. Their walls get thicker and end up as impenetrable as the shell of a snail.

  At the station, Luchter found Lahore waiting for him in his office.

  “Look, Doctor,” Lahore said to him, “I wanted to see you because I’d like you to recall the details as precisely as possible. According to your statement, you opened señora Eidinger’s handbag in search of something that would identify her.”

  “That is correct.”

  “And according to what Soler has said, as you did so the contents of the handbag fell to the floor and the lipstick disappeared down the gap by the lift door.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Do you remember if anything else fell out of the handbag at the same time?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  The Superintendent looked at him with irritation.

  “You don’t believe so? Can’t you be sure?”

  “I didn’t see anything else. I can’t be sure of anything but that.”

  “That tallies with what Soler says. But look.”

  Carefully and professionally, he picked up a key ring that was on his desk.

  “Señor Eidinger identified this key ring as belonging to his wife. On it is a key to the main door of your building. Do you know what that means?”

  “More or less,” admitted the doctor modestly.

  “It means that someone has lied. This key means that the victim had been to visit someone she knew well. It means she was in the habit of visiting the building at hours when her presence there would go unnoticed, it means someone got rid of the key ring because they thought it would be compromising. Can we therefore consider this a case of simple suicide?”

  “Don’t ask me,” was what Luchter’s dismissive gesture seemed to say.

  “I didn’t know señora Eidinger, and I can prove where I was that night,” he explained.

  “I know that,” said the Superintendent, shuffling some papers, “I have Dr Honores’s statement here. You left his house at two a.m. and went straight to the garage where you usually keep your car. The night watchman and the valet saw you enter at ten past two, therefore you took no more time than strictly necessary to make the journey. Your situation is clear.”