A Dead Man in Barcelona (7 page)

A roped-off enclosure on an immaculate green lawn overlooking the sea; a gigantic, seven-foot-high hat striding around, which, on inspection, had the Governor under it; ladies in feathers and ensembles which had been the glory of the London Season several seasons ago; Naval uniforms heavy with golden braid; besuited gentlemen, some of them ruddy-faced from England, others darker and browner and from a variety of places around the Mediterranean; a few unquestionably Spanish but keeping quiet about it – this was what struck Seymour when he arrived at the tea party.

There were quite a few children: cleaned up for the occasion but already sticky from the sugared cakes unwisely left unguarded on a table. And rather fewer presentable women in their early twenties, thought Seymour, with the usual male eye; although quite a lot of less presentable women in the over-twenties. Among them was Chantale, not, in her view, satisfactorily dressed, but surrounded by a gaggle – or should it be goggle? – of Naval admirers.

Seymour moved among the suits.

‘Sam Lockhart? Knew him well. Bad business, that. But that’s what you get, mixing with the Spaniards.’

‘And the Arabs,’ put in his neighbour.

‘And the Arabs, of course,’ conceded the first businessman.

‘Of course, that’s where his business was,’ said the second.

‘And look where it got him!’

Not a lot there, thought Seymour, and moved on.

‘Problems with the Spanish Customs? Who hasn’t had problems with them? But Sam had it more worked out than most of us. A little bit of this, I fancy!’ – rubbing imaginary banknotes between the fingers.

A uniform to outshine even the Navy, which could only belong to a Spanish Customs official.

‘Señor Lockhart? We will miss him. A reasonable man – and there are not, Señor, that many reasonable men in a place like this! Sympathies?’ A shrug. ‘We all have sympathies. But we learn to keep them quiet. Now Señor Lockhart never could do that. If it was not the anarchists it was the Arabs. Catalonians? There are no Catalonian Nationalists in Spain.’

His companion, also dripping with gilt:

‘Tragic Week? The name says it all. That’s what it was. A tragic week for Spain, not just for those unfortunates caught up in it. And why Señor Lockhart got caught up in it, I cannot think. But oh, yes, I can. He was a man, Señor, in whom feeling outran discretion. You know? He would see someone being robbed and then, instead of staying sensibly out of it, would rush to intervene. Killed? Frankly, Señor, I’m surprised he stayed alive so long! Especially in Barcelona. Especially in Tragic Week.’ The Customs official laid his finger alongside his nose. ‘You know, Señor. A week for paying off scores. Among so many, who would notice a few more? And that, maybe, was how it was with Señor Lockhart.’

More useful, perhaps, to talk to the women.

‘Ah, yes, Señor, that is Señora Lockhart. So sad! You have heard, yes? A wronged woman.’

‘Wronged?’

‘Well, yes, Señor. Señor Lockhart, although a good man, a very good man, and especially a good man to have a private tête-è-tête with in a carriage on a dark evening, was, nevertheless, a little bit forward. In too much of a hurry, yes? Spanish women like to hold back, to tease. But the Señor would accept only a little teasing, and then he would want to proceed to – well, you know, Señor! You know what men are! Are you like that, Señor?’ – taking his arm. ‘Señor Lockhart?’ – pouting. ‘Why are we talking about him? Well, if you insist . . . The fact is, Señor, he did not confine his attentions to unmarried ladies. Well, that is all right. Married ladies can tease, too. But sometimes men – husbands especially – do not understand. And that, I think, is perhaps what happened in Señor Lockhart’s case. A wronged husband. No, I cannot think of one in particular. There were –’ archly – ‘so many!’

An English lady was more specific.

‘Sam?’ – laughing. ‘A right one he was! A wife in every port – and there were a lot of ports in his business! It was only a question of time before someone caught up with him. And, if you really want to know what I think, I think that’s exactly what happened. They say there was a woman in Barcelona, the wife of a high-up official. And that he seized the opportunity of Tragic Week to settle the score!’

It might be worth looking into, thought Seymour. But, on the whole, he thought it was more likely to be romantic rather than real. Jealousy was supposed to be a big thing in Spain. He himself did not go in for jealousy.

He looked around to see how Chantale was getting on and if she was in need of any assistance. She didn’t seem to be, however. In fact, she seemed to be rather enjoying herself. Seymour was not a man to feel jealous, but . . . Well, on second thoughts, maybe he
was
a man to feel jealous. All those over-excited and, possibly, in her eyes at least, glamorous Naval officers clamouring round her. In a moment, he thought, he would go over and extricate her. Use their drink with the Admiral as pretext.

There
was
the Admiral. Talking to Leila Lockhart. They seemed to be deep in a serious conversation, not chattering idly. He half thought of going over but decided not to. He shouldn’t interrupt them.

Standing not far away, on duty, so to speak, was Leila’s brother, alone. Seymour had seen him earlier talking to one or two of the businessmen, only to the men not to any of the women. But now he wasn’t talking to anybody, he was just standing there looking bored.

He noticed Seymour and came across to him.

‘Señor . . .? I am sorry, I have forgotten your name, but I do remember – you came to visit us, yes?’

‘Yes. Seymour.’

‘And your lady,’ He glanced round. ‘She is not here?’

‘Over there.’

‘Ah, yes.

He saw the knot of sailors.

‘You do not mind?’ he said.

‘I think she can look after herself.’

‘Yes, that is what Leila says. She can look after herself, she says. That is what women here say. But I do not think they are right. They are sometimes foolish. They let things go further than they should, and then it gets out of hand.’

He put up an apologetic hand. ‘I am not, of course, saying that your lady . . . But . . . It is different here. Your society and my society are different. I would never let my wife . . . But it is different here, yes. Leila is always saying that to me. “Things do not mean the same,” she says. “What looks to you like an immodest invitation means nothing of the sort over here. It is just social warmth.” Well, I take her word for it. But I find it strange.’

When Seymour got back to Barcelona he found a message from Manuel waiting for him. It said that Manuel would like to see him, so he went round to the café right away. It was late in the afternoon and the café was almost empty. It would fill up later when people on their way home from work started dropping in for their aperitif. Most of the staff came on duty then, too, and the only person there now was Dolores, wiping the tables.

‘Manuel?’

She disappeared inside. A moment later she came back.

‘He’s been having his siesta,’ she said. ‘He’s just getting up. He says to give you a beer.’

She put a beer on the table in front of him.

‘Where have you been?’ she said. ‘The
cabezudos
have been wondering. They think you might have gone back to England.’

‘I’ve been to Gibraltar.’

‘Ah? Where Mr Lockhart came from?’

‘That’s right. I’ve been talking to Mrs Lockhart.’

‘
Mrs
Lockhart,’ said Dolores bitterly. ‘Well, that must have been a pleasure.’

Seymour said nothing.

‘You might have been talking to me,’ said Dolores wistfully.

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Seymour.

‘Lockhart would still have been dead.’

‘How do you know?’ said Dolores. She bent over a table and rubbed it hard. ‘I would have looked after him better.’

Manuel came out and sat down beside him. Dolores scuttled away to the other side of the café. A moment later she went outside and began to wipe the tables there.

‘It has not been easy,’ said Manuel. ‘I have had to spend money.’

‘How much?’

‘Sixty.’ He put his hand on Seymour. ‘Don’t give it me now. We may have to spend more. Have you some cash with you? Good. We may need it when we get there. The sixty has all gone on just getting them ready to listen.’

‘I understand.’

Manuel got up from the table.

‘We’ll go now,’ he said, ‘if that’s all right. I don’t want to leave it too long or else they’ll change their mind. And that will mean more money.’

When they got to the prison, he didn’t go to the main entrance but to a little door round the side.

‘Ah, there you are!’ said the man who opened it.

They went in.

‘That’ll be twenty.’

‘You’ve had twenty.’

The man shrugged. ‘This was to square things inside.’

Manuel gave the man another twenty.

He led then along a corridor and then up some stone steps, and then along another corridor to a staircase. They went up the staircase to another long, bare corridor with doors along it. He stopped outside one of these.

‘You can have twenty minutes,’ he said.

He unlocked the door and they all three went in.

‘Right,’ said the man, who appeared to be a warder of some kind, ‘you’ve got visitors!’

It was pitch black and Seymour couldn’t see anything. He sensed people moving, however.

‘Just watch it!’ warned the warder. ‘I don’t want any trouble.’

There was a window, high up and barred off, but what Seymour wanted now was as much ventilation as it was light.

‘I’ll leave you,’ said the warder. ‘Remember, no trouble!’ he warned.

‘I’ll stay with you,’ said Manuel.

‘Thanks.’

He might need the Spaniard to interpret if they got deep into Catalan.

‘Has he got any fags?’ asked someone.

‘I might have,’ said Manuel, who had come prepared.

He handed round cigarettes and soon to the stench of sweaty, unwashed bodies was added the acrid fumes of cheap cigarettes.

‘I want to ask about someone,’ said Seymour.

‘I want to ask ‘Okay, ask.’

‘An Englishman. His name was Lockhart.’

No one said anything.

‘He was killed. Here. In the prison.’

‘It happens,’ said someone.

‘How can it happen?’

There was a little laugh.

‘Why do you want to know?’ said someone.

‘The father is asking,’ said Manuel.

‘The father?’

‘The Englishman’s father.’

‘He shouldn’t have let his son come here.’

‘His son was killed during Tragic Week,’ said Seymour.

‘So were a lot of others.’

‘This one was killed
after
they had put him in prison.’

There was another silence.

‘He was a friend of the Catalonians,’ said Manuel.

‘And of the anarchists,’ said Seymour. Then he wondered if that was wise.

‘Lockhart?’ a voice questioned.

‘
Si
.’

‘He was a friend of Arabs, too.’

‘He seems to have been a friend of everybody!’ said a voice caustically.

‘But not of the authorities,’ said Seymour.

There was another silence.

‘Got any more fags?’

‘Here!’ said Manuel.

‘How can a man die when he is in prison?’ asked Seymour.

‘Accident,’ said someone. ‘On his way along the corridor. Or in his cell.’

‘The warders?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘They might let someone in,’ said another voice. ‘If they were told to.’

‘The Englishman was poisoned,’ said someone. He thought it may have been the Arab.

‘He was,’ said Seymour. ‘How could that happen?’

‘Easy. Get someone to poison the food.’

‘The warders?’

‘It would have to be, wouldn’t it? If it was in the kitchens,
we’d
have been poisoned, too, wouldn’t we?’

‘So between the kitchen and the cell?’

No one replied.

‘Do you always have the same warder?’

‘One on during the day, the other on during the night.’

‘The man who brought us?’

‘Not him, no. Two others.’

‘It would have been the last meal,’ said someone. ‘He was found dead in the morning.’

‘And who brings the last meal?’

‘The night warder.’

‘Enrico.’

There was a sudden hammering on the door.

‘One minute!

‘Señor,’ said someone urgently, ‘was this man truly a friend of Catalonia?’

‘He was out on the streets in Tragic Week so that he could tell the world what he saw.’

‘So the bastards made sure that he couldn’t!’

The warder outside began to unlock the door.

Someone touched Seymour’s arm.

‘Señor,’ he whispered, ‘sometimes people bring food for those in the prison. It is forbidden but it is done. That is, perhaps, how the poison reached the Englishman.’

The warder came into the cell.

‘Right!’ he said. ‘Time’s up. If you’re still alive.’

‘It’s only bastards like you, Diego, that we kill!’

Chapter Seven

Looking out from the balcony of his room he saw the Chief of Police standing in the plaza below.

‘He’s been hanging around,’ Chantale said.

Seymour shrugged and then went back inside. But when he looked out again some time later the Chief was still there.

‘Does it matter?’ said Chantale.

‘No. I’m just curious.’

The Chief marched across the square to the little anarchist school.

‘I think I’ll go down,’ said Seymour.

The school had closed for the day but the two teachers were still busy in the playground doing something to one of the pieces of equipment. They didn’t look up when the Chief arrived but he spoke to them and Nina went across.

Seymour got there in time to hear the exchange.

‘So, Señora, you are still at work?’

‘So, Chief, you are again not at work?’

‘I
am
at work,’ retorted the Chief with dignity. ‘I am keeping an eye on things.’

‘The glasses in the bar?’

‘People,’ said the Chief heavily. ‘People who are up to something.’

‘Well, you won’t be keeping your eye on me, then,’ said Nina, and turned to go.

‘One moment, Señora!’

She stopped. ‘
Si?
’

‘I have come to warn you.’

‘Oh?’

‘You are mixing with bad people, Señora.’

‘Only when I talk to the police. Which isn’t very often.’

The Chief breathed heavily. ‘You will find yourself mixing with them more if you go on the way you are doing.’

‘Oh? What way is that? Teaching our children?’

‘How you teach your children is not my concern, Señora. Although it may be the Church’s. It is what you do out of school that bothers me.’

‘I do not break the law.’

‘You do not treat it with respect.’

‘It does not deserve respect. And nor, Chief, do you.’

The Chief reddened. ‘I am giving you advice, Señora. Good advice. The next time it will not be advice. You will be back in jail. And this time there will be no one to bail you out.’

‘Will you kill me, as you did him?’

‘Señora –’

‘I do not need your warnings,’ said Nina scornfully.

‘You do, Señora. And would do well to heed them. You mix with bad people.’

‘Poor people,’ said Nina. ‘Not bad people.’

‘Murderers.’

‘What nonsense!’ said Nina, beginning to turn away.

‘We know who killed Ramon Mas.’

Nina stopped.

‘No one killed him,’ she said. ‘He died when his boat sank.’

‘Sank? Just like that? A fisherman’s boat? One that was out on the water every night? No, no, Señora, boats like that do not sink. They sink only when somebody sinks them.’

‘Why should anyone do that? He was a poor man, like us.’

‘He knew too much. He was out on the water every night and he had seen. And he was going to tell.’

‘He was an ordinary fisherman out with other fishermen. What was there to tell? That he had seen the nets being pulled in, that he had seen fish leaping in the darkness.’

‘Oh, more than that, Señora. More than that!’

‘He was a poor fisherman and he died as other poor fishermen have done. Let him rest in peace. Do not draw him into your sick fantasies.’

‘He was a poor fisherman, Señora, and needed money. Otherwise he was going to lose his boat. And he was not like your friends, Señora, he was not one of them. So why shouldn’t he tell? The night before he died he met one of my men and they made an appointment. Someone must have heard them, for he did not keep it.’

‘You think that because my friends are anarchists –’

‘I think that because they are anarchists they do not fear God. Nor His justice. And I think you should have nothing to do with them. You are an innocent young girl without a father and your mind is full – well, you spoke of my sick fantasies. You should have regard to the beam in your own eye. And stay away from such men.’

Nina walked away. The Chief of Police stood for a moment watching her and then turned. He saw Seymour and beamed.

‘Señor Seymour, it is good to have you back with us!’

‘It is a pleasure to be back. Of course, I have not been away for very long.’

‘At Gibraltar, did you say?’

Seymour hadn’t said, but he guessed that this was a way of telling him that they knew.

‘Gibraltar, yes.’

‘I hope you had a fruitful time?’

‘I did, yes.’ And then, to rattle the Chief a little, ‘More than I had expected.’

‘Ah? Well, Señor, we have missed you. “I was just getting to know him,” I said to Constanza. (That’s my wife.) “Oh?” she said. “Well, that’s very nice. Why don’t you come home at a proper time one evening and get to know me? Instead of going out drinking.”

‘Well, there you are, Señor! That’s a wife for you! She doesn’t understand that a man needs a drink after a hard day’s work. “A glass, yes; but a bottle?” she says. But it’s only a bottle when I’m with friends. “Everyone’s a friend if they buy you a drink!” she says. “We’re talking business,” I say. “There’s obviously a lot of business,” she says. Well, there is. That is why I am not home till late.’

‘“I don’t come home on the dot,” I tell her, “because I am conscientious.” “You don’t come home on the dot,” she says, “because you’re a drunk.”

‘A drunk! What a thing for a wife to say to a husband! Does your wife say things like that, Señor? Ah, I was forgetting. Perhaps she is not your wife, the lady I met.’

He gave Seymour a rascally wink.

Then he looked around. ‘Where is the beautiful Señora, by the way?’

‘Out shopping.’

‘Ah, shopping? Dangerous, dangerous. They run through the money as if it was water. A pity, Señor. I was hoping to take you both out for a drink.’

‘Alas!’ said Seymour. ‘Another time, perhaps. But perhaps this time you will allow me to take
you
out for a drink?’

‘Well . . .’ said the Chief of Police.

He took Seymour to a little bar on Las Ramblas.

‘I come here often,’ he said.

‘I’m sure.’

‘But it is not as Constanza supposes. I come here to pursue my duties.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes. You know what they say about Las Ramblas? They say that on Las Ramblas you will meet everyone in Barcelona that you know. Sitting here, they come to me. I don’t go to them. I can keep an eye on what they’re up to. See, for instance, who they talk to. And that suggests things. Things that might happen. Or things that have happened or might have happened. As with Señor Lockhart, for example.’

‘Lockhart?’

‘Yes. Whenever he came to Barcelona he would take a walk along Las Ramblas. and I would see him and see who he talked to. And I would see him talking to someone and say to myself: ah, so something’s happening in that quarter, is it? And later something would happen. A bargain would be struck, a deal made. And I would have seen it coming. People say to me, “How do you know these things?” I know them because I have seen the beginnings of them. Here on Las Ramblas.

‘Of course, Señor Lockhart used to talk to many people. It would be necessary to sift a bit. I would see him talking to someone and say to myself, “Ah, that is an old friend.” Or perhaps I would see him talking to a pretty girl and say to myself, “Ah, there he goes again!” But in this way I learned a lot about Señor Lockhart.

‘I would see him talking to the
cabezudos
, for example. He always talked to them, every time he came. He said they brought fun into the life of Barcelona. And that, perhaps, is true. But they also brought other things : disorder, misrule, subversion. The things that a Chief of Police has to keep his eye on. And I wondered why Señor Lockhart always talked to them.

‘But the answer is clear, is it not? There was a side to Señor Lockhart that was sympathetic to them. It showed itself in other things; that crazy girl, for example, that you just saw me talking to. They tell me he used to give her money. For the school, he said. Well, I wonder about that. I, too, am keen on education. We would have sent our children to a good Catholic school. The one near St Mark’s, for example. And when the Fathers come along, I put my hand in my pocket. But that is different from supporting a place like that. And I wonder if he really was supporting it, or whether – well, you know, Señor, some would see her as a pretty girl and maybe that’s the way it was.

‘She told me once she’d been to a decent Catholic school. A good convent school, she said. You would have thought, then, that she would have known better. But she said they were all nasty old bitches there. I told Constanza this, and she crossed herself, and said, “It takes one to know one.”

‘Well, I don’t know about that. I always try to steer clear of religion when I’m talking to Constanza. But she’s a difficult girl, that Nina, and a bit crazy. She’s another one to steer clear of.

‘But that school wasn’t the only thing. There were other things, too. The Catalonians, for example, and the Arabs. He had time, too much time, for them all. And for any other cracked group of misfits. So I was not surprised when Tragic Week came along and he got mixed up in it. You could say I had seen it coming – here, on Las Ramblas. It was in the wind, in the air.’

The Chief gave a great sniff. ‘You could say it was my job. To sniff the air and see when trouble’s coming. And here on Las Ramblas is a good place to sniff it.’

He looked down into the bottom of his glass. It was empty.

‘Another one?’

‘Well . . .’

When they resumed, the Chief said, ‘So when I sit here, with a glass in my hand, like this, I am not wasting my time. Despite what Constanza thinks. I am working. I am noticing things. And adding them up. I have watched Señor Lockhart from here many times. Watched what he does, who he talks to.

‘And I think, Señor, that I have seen a process. It begins with a walk along Las Ramblas. Sampling the air, enjoying the fun. Talking to acquaintances, old friends. Acquaintances become old friends on Las Ramblas. And I have watched Señor Lockhart’s friendships grow. They begin with a stop to watch, continue with a laugh, and then another laugh, develop into an exchange, into a conversation, and soon there is something more. There is a relationship.

‘And that relationship leads on. One relationship leads to another. And in the end it led, in Señor Lockhart’s case, to what happened during Tragic Week. That is what I think, Señor Seymour. It is like pitch. You touch it and it sticks to your fingers. But you also stick to it; and it draws you in. That is what I think happened to Señor Lockhart.

‘And why I am telling you this is that I see in this also a risk for you. For you, too, Señor Seymour, have been touching pitch. I have watched you, too, and seen you talking to the
cabezudos
. And the beginning, perhaps, of a conversation?’

Afterwards, as he was walking back to the hotel, he wondered what the Chief of Police had been trying to tell him. Warning him, certainly; but about what? Not about talking to the
cabezudos
, surely. But who else was the ‘pitch’? Again, surely not Nina. He had warned Nina, too. And there seemed to have been some grounds for that warning. Was that, what she had perhaps been mixed up in, the pitch?

While Seymour had been talking to the Chief, Chantale had gone for a walk of her own along Las Ramblas. On her way she had a strange encounter. She had noticed a man looking at her intently. Well, she was used to that and here, in Barcelona, she didn’t mind it. In Tangier she would have felt uneasy and possibly a little apprehensive. Here, however, in some odd way, it added to the sense of freedom.

The man wavered and then suddenly came purposefully across to her.

‘Señora,’ he said apologetically, ‘I would not ordinarily have approached you in such a way, in the absence of your husband. But I am in some difficulty and when I saw you, I thought, ah, yes, perhaps with her special knowledge she can help me.’

He spoke as if he had recognized her. And then, after a moment, she realized that she recognized him. It was Abou, Leila Lockhart’s brother.

‘Yes?’ she said uncertainly.

‘The fact is, I am in Barcelona for a special purpose.’

‘Yes?’ Still slightly uncertainly. If this was a sexual approach, it was a rather unusual one.

‘I do not know the customs here,’ he said.

‘Well, I am not exactly an expert,’ said Chantale, ‘but if I can help –’

‘I am going back to Algeria,’ he said. ‘Soon. Perhaps next week.’

‘Yes?’ she said, encouragingly.

But he seemed unable to say anything more. And then it come out with a rush.

‘I want to arrange my marriage before I go.’

‘Marriage?’ said Chantale.

‘Yes,’ he said, and stopped again.

‘Really?’ said Chantale encouragingly. ‘Marriage?’

‘It is not easy here. In Algeria I would know what to do. I would make it known to my family and, if they approved, they would see to it. They would approach her family and between them they would settle it – the portion, and so on. But here I have no family.’

‘What about your sister?’

‘Leila?’ He frowned. ‘Leila is angry with me. Very angry. I do not want to ask her. And I don’t think she would be very willing to help me, not in this.’

‘Well, I’m not sure that I –’

‘It is advice that I need, Señora, only advice. And I thought that you, as a woman, would know about these things. How it is done here.’

‘Well . . .’ She paused. ‘I am not sure that I do. I am from Morocco.’

‘But that is precisely why you would understand. You have taken the step yourself.’

‘Step?’

‘Of marrying a foreigner.’

Chantale felt uncomfortable. ‘Well, actually . . .’ And then enlightenment dawned. ‘Ah! So you are intending to marry someone – not from Algeria?’

‘That is it! Precisely it. She is Spanish. She is the daughter of a business acquaintance of mine. I have seen her when visiting his house. And I have decided to make her my wife.’

‘I – I am not sure it is as straightforward as that, Abou – it is Abou, isn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘Abou, yes.’

‘It is not quite the same as it would be in Algeria. Or Morocco.’

‘Ah, good! That is what I wanted to know.’

‘Have you any idea as to how she feels about it?’