The early edition is already out when I pull up to the front steps of the ultra-luxurious President Hotel and, as I step to the pavement, a boy runs up to me with a bundle of papers under his arm. I toss him a quarter and, tipping his cap to me, he gives me one and then rushes off to sell more.
The whole street is full of people, news vans, police cars and all manner of disruption. There are flashbulbs popping everywhere and the air seems full of their metallic odour. The police are fighting a losing battle trying to keep people behind the barricades. The spot light that, last night, was swirling upwards into the clouds announcing the benefit dinner to the whole city is now turned full on the neoclassical facade of the building, drowning it in brilliant white light.
I flip open the newspaper and glance, grimacing, at the headline, bold and black. It says: Diamond goes out in style.
I keep my head low and make it to the foot of the red-carpeted stairs before I am recognised. Diane McGovern, a society reporter, comes rushing toward me and is stopped by two quick thinking constables.
"Dr. Jackson!" she calls out to me, "Can you give us any details?"
I shake my head sadly and make my way up the stairs. I am immediately joined by Det/Sgt. Pearson and escorted upstairs to the scene in one of the ladies' powder rooms.
She has been cut down and is laid out on the floor with the gold lamé belt still knotted around her neck. The other end hangs from the silver and crystal chandelier above the vanity counter. The chair has been kicked over and is the one thing that makes the scene disjointed and uncomfortable. Some of the bottles of perfume on the counter have been disturbed and one lies shattered in the sink, releasing it potent mixture of violet. In the sink, with the scattered shards of glass around it is a shoe. I pick it up and study it; the label inside reads 'Yves Martin, Paris'.
Diamond's body is composed but bears the effects of the slow strangulation. My examination is quick and thorough; there are simply no mitigating signs. Her dress is by Hébert de Gascony, a river of sumptuous satin and lace now lying crumpled about her.
I conclude and stand to begin signing the papers. Pearson stands beside me and I nod, 'Yes, suicide'.
My mind wanders to a year ago when I met Diamond for the first and only time before today. She was hosting the benefit dinner for the Police Services Foundation. She strode up to me with all of the confidence one could imagine in a young woman and extended a white-gloved hand. 'It's a great pleasure to meet you, Dr. Jackson,' she said to me and I was immediately transfixed by her elegance and poise; as though Grace Kelly had returned to us from her new home far across the Atlantic - an image of feminine strength that seems to be lost today. I am confounded by that memory and the scene before me.
"Do we know who saw her last, Detective Sergeant?" I turn my attention from the forms.
"Actually that's been a bit of an issue, Doctor," he reports stiffly, "apparently no one saw her go."
Again, her image comes to my mind and I wonder how she could possibly not be missed. What sort of man would not be magnetically attracted to that degree of charm and composure?
"There is the young Aaron Kearn, sir."
"Yes, I've heard of him. Take me to him, please." Kearn is an actor. He just debuted beside Rock Hudson in a dark comedy about two incompetent thieves. The first night across America was a block-buster.
Kearn is in an adjoining room smoking and whining to a distressed looking constable as we enter.
"Oh thank God!" he says as the door opens, "You simply must let me leave, I'm so terribly bored."
"Mr. Kearn," I say, trying to placate him, "if you could just be patient for a little while longer and answer a few questions, we would be most appreciative."
"Oh very well...," he drawls and I begin to understand the chemistry that showed on screen with Rock Hudson.
I begin my questioning of what he saw and heard over the course of the evening and what interaction he had with Diamond.
"I asked her when she was going to really fall in love, I recall," he reports, "and her answer was so drole I seriously could not stop laughing. She could have her choice of any boy she wanted!"
"And what was her answer, Mr. Kearn?"
"She said, and I remember this quite distinctly, 'Love is for others, but me it destroys'. Poetic, don't you think?" He dramatically flips the curl of hair from his forehead and takes another drag from his cigarette before putting it out.
"Do you, Mr. Kearn, have any idea why Diamond would do such a thing?"
"Are you kidding with me? What else was there for her to do?" He strikes a dramatic pose and speaks, "Diamond, darling, wherever you are, I love you! Now, you really must let me leave! Have you seen Monica LaSalle? She's still here! She is the most delightful creature!"
The gurney is carried down the red carpeted-stairs by two well-muscled officers amidst a chorus of 'Ooh's and 'Agh's and a blinding flurry of flashbulbs. It is loaded into the back of my black hearse with the word 'Coroner' emblazoned on the side, to be taken to the morgue.
As I slide into the driver's seat I hear the CBC society editor finishing her report, talking loudly toward the boom above her head to be heard above the whir of the film camera, 'Diamond, the girl with one name and the most glamorous of our time, is gone but now the question on everyone's lips is 'who will be the next society darling?' and lend their sparkle to this city's society events. This is Sheilagh Paton reporting to the CBC."
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This is about loss of self and being co-opted to someone else's purpose but I don't think I wrote it very well. It came to me while remembering a 'Boomtown Rats' track and I have included the lyrics below. I've set it in the late 50's - early 60's which makes the Grace Kelly and Rock Hudson stuff work out (Grace Kelly, a Hollywood actress, became Princess Grace of Monaco when she married Prince Ranier). It also explains the 'flashbulbs', if you were wondering about that.
Diamond Smiles (Geldof)
(The Boomtown Rats, 1979, "The Fine Art of Surfacing")
"Traffic's wild tonight"
Diamond smiles her cocktail smile.
Tonight she's in heavy disquise.
She looks at her wrist to clock the passing time.
"Weather's mild tonight"
She wonders if they'll notice her eyes,
She wonders will her glamour survive,
And can they see she's going down a third time.
Everybody tries,
It's Dale Carnegie gone wild,
But Barbara Cartland's child
long ago perfected the motionless glide.
In the low voltage noise,
Diamond seems so sure and so poised
She shimmers for the bright young boys,
And laugh's "Love is for others, but me it destroys"
The girl in the cake
Jumped out too soon by mistake,
Somebody said the whole things half baked
And Diamond lifts her glass and says "cheers"
She stands to the side
There's no more to this than meets the eye,
Everybody drinks Martini dry,
And talks about clothes and the latest styles.
Chorus:
They said she did it
With grace.
They said she did it
With style.
They said she did it all
Before she died
Oh No
I remember Diamond's smile
Nobody saw her go,
They said they should have noticed
'cos her dress was cut so low.
Well it only goes to show
Ha, ha, how many real men any of us know.
She went up the stairs,
Stood up on the vanity chair,
Tied her lame belt around the chandelier,
And went out kicking at the perfumed air.
Repeat Chorus
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