A dead man of Barcelona

Chapter Four

It was early in the morning and although there were one or two people sitting in the cafe the chairs were still tipped against the tables outside. Dolores was going round tipping them back and wiping the tops of the tables. She recognized Seymour and greeted him politely but warily.

He sat down at one of the tables outside, where no one would hear them, and asked for a coffee. When she brought it, he said:

‘Dolores, I would like some advice.’

‘From me?’ she said, surprised. She thought for a moment and then said, ‘Well, my advice would be for you to go back home.’

‘Would you like that?’

She considered. ‘No. But it’s good advice.’

‘I’ve been to the prison,’ Seymour said, ‘and I’ve got nowhere.’

‘Well, that’s a surprise.’

‘I talked to the governor. I want to talk to people lower down. Other prisoners. People who were there when Lockhart died and who might know something about it.’

‘I can’t help you,’ said Dolores, dabbing at the table.

‘Can’t?’ said Seymour. ‘Or won’t?’

‘Look,’ said Dolores. ‘I’ve got a life to live and I want to live it. Lockhart told me to stay out of it and I reckon he knew what he was doing. Because he didn’t and now he is dead. I don’t want to be like that. Manuel said the same.’

‘It’s about Manuel that I want to talk.’

‘About Manuel?’ she said, surprised.

‘Yes. You said that when you couldn’t get into the prison to see Lockhart, Manuel said he would fix it. And later he did. Could he do that for me, do you think?’

‘No. He did it for me because I was one of his girls. He looks after us waitresses, you know, and he knew how things were between me and Lockhart. He wouldn’t do it for just anybody.’

‘This is still Lockhart.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘If you asked him.’

‘He knows that Lockhart is dead. And he’s said, “Now that he’s dead, forget him.” ’

‘You can’t forget him, though, can you?’

She moved away and began polishing a little vigorously.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, I can’t.’

‘You told me to see the people in England did not forget him, either. I’m doing that. But I need help. Will you help me?’

She moved away to another table.

He waited but she did not come back.

He finished his coffee and got up to go, putting some coins on the table. At the last moment she came back.

‘Why don’t you ask him?’ she said. ‘He knows you’ve come from England and that you want to know about Lockhart. You could say you were asking on behalf of Lockhart’s father. Manuel is very keen on fathers. He never had one himself and he has this idealistic picture. I’ll take you in to him and say that you’ve come to me and I don’t know what to do.’

‘Ah, Senor,’ said Manuel, ‘it is too late now. No one can do anything.’

His large brown eyes looked at Seymour sadly. He had a big droopy face and, with the eyes, the effect was of a large, doleful spaniel.

‘I know,’ said Seymour. ‘Nevertheless, the father-’

‘Ah, the father,’ sighed Manuel.

Seymour took him confidentially by the arm. ‘All I can hope to do is set his mind at peace.’

‘Of course. Of course!’

‘It is the uncertainty that is tearing him apart. All he knows is that his son has disappeared in a foreign country. He cannot believe that he is dead. How could he be? How could such a thing happen? In a country like Spain? It must be a mistake.

‘Someone has spoken of prison. But how can that be? His son, he knows, is no criminal. It is, surely, a mistake. A clerical error. You know these clerks, you know these bureaucrats. Well, it will be the same in Spain as it is in England. Some fool of a clerk has got it wrong. It must be so! And so he goes on tearing himself apart.

‘If I could find out something for sure, then perhaps that would help him. If it was only to confirm that he was dead. At the moment, you see, he cannot believe that he is dead. He goes on hoping that he is still alive. And he will until he knows for sure.’

‘Alas,’ said Manuel sympathetically, ‘there can be no doubt.’

‘But told in a notification from a prison! Cold, bald, remote. Can it be relied on? An institution — big, heartless, and, perhaps, like so many institutions, wrong. A mistake — that’s what it could be! And while there’s a chance of that he will go on hoping. Until — you will understand this, I am sure, Senor — some personal witness… a human being, someone of flesh and blood, not an anonymous cipher in an anonymous institution… says it definitely.

‘Well, that is all I am hoping for, Senor, all I can expect to achieve. Will you help me, Senor, in this task I am undertaking for a bereft, deeply loving father?’

‘Senor, I will! For the sake of the holy bond that exists between father and son, I will!’

Lockhart’s Barcelona office was just round the corner from the church with soot-blackened doors through which the coffins had emerged. It was up a side street at the entrance to which several Arabs were lounging. They looked curiously at Chantale and for a moment she wondered if she should put her scarf back over her face; but then she decided she would not, and looked back at them hard, and after a moment they looked away.

Seymour registered that but registered also, with his policing experience, that they posed no threat. This was Spain and without the reinforcement they would have received from the general culture in Morocco or Algeria their power dwindled and they seemed slightly helpless.

The office consisted of two rooms and a man at a desk. The man was Arab, too.

‘I am looking for Senor Lockhart’s office,’ said Seymour.

“This is it. But Senor-’

‘I know,’ said Seymour. ‘But the business goes on? Who runs it now?’

‘His wife. From Gibraltar. That’s where the main office is. This is just a branch office.’

‘So you’re on your own here?’

‘I always was on my own. Mr Lockhart used to come over from time to time but mostly he left me to get on with it.’

‘And, of course, he was over here when — well, during Tragic Week.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you were, too, presumably?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was it like?’

‘Terrible, terrible. After the first day we all kept inside. I kept inside here. For five nights I did not go home. “You stay right here, Hussein,” he told me. “I’ll see food comes in. Don’t even put your head out.” ’

‘But he did. He went out, didn’t he? Into the streets.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why was that?’

‘To look after his friends.’

‘Friends?’

‘Arab friends. We thought at first, when it began, that it was directed against us. It usually is.’

‘But it wasn’t this time, was it? It was the conscripts.’

‘Yes, but we didn’t know that. Not at first. And when we did, people began to come out on their side. So in the end it didn’t make any difference. I don’t suppose it would have anyway. Once the Army had been called in, they would have gone for us anyway.’

‘And Lockhart was trying to see they didn’t?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wasn’t that foolhardy? I mean, one man-’

‘He was well known. He thought he had influence. He thought he might be able to stop them. Just being there, he thought, an independent witness, it might restrain them.’

‘But it didn’t?’

‘No. And it was foolish to even think that he could. But Senor Lockhart was like that. Foolhardy, yes. But generous, too. And he thought that nothing could happen to him. That he was, somehow, inviolable. That the bullets wouldn’t touch him. But they always do, don’t they?’

‘Except that, apparently, this time they did not. He was just taken into prison.’

‘The bullet got him in the end, though, didn’t it?’

‘Was it a bullet?’

The Arab shrugged.

‘The garrotte, perhaps?’ he offered.

There were flies buzzing in the window and through an open door Seymour could see Arabs sitting in an upper room. They were sitting on the ground, squatting on their haunches, content to sit in the darkness, since that was cooler. It could have been Tangier, he thought.

‘Why would they do that?’ he said.

The Arab shrugged again. ‘To warn, perhaps? To warn others not to be too friendly?’

He suddenly seemed to become nervous at his own frankness.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘I’m British,’ said Seymour. ‘Like Lockhart. A British policeman. Lockhart had British friends. Who are wondering what happened to him.’

‘A policeman?’ said the Arab doubtfully

‘A British one,’ said Seymour.

‘Not Spanish?’

‘No.’

The Arab seemed relieved.

‘The Spanish police came here,’ he said. ‘They wanted to know things about him. But we wouldn’t say anything.’

‘What might you have said?’

But the Arab did not reply

Or perhaps he did.

‘Lockhart had many friends,’ he said.

‘Arab friends?’

‘Si.’

‘I would like to meet some of those friends.’

The Arab thought.

‘You are British?’ he said, as if seeking reassurance.

‘Yes. Cannot you hear it?’

The Arab smiled.

‘Just,’ he said.

Afterwards, Seymour thought that there was something strange about it: an Arab testing an Englishman’s facility in Spanish. But the Arab seemed to see nothing strange in it. Perhaps he thought of himself as Spanish? He certainly spoke Spanish like a native and seemed confident of his ability to judge Seymour’s Spanish.

‘Whenever Senor Lockhart came down here,’ he said, ‘he always used to go to a particular cafe to play dominoes.’

‘Where would I find it?’

‘It’s further on along the Calle. On the left.’

‘A name, perhaps?’

The Arab hesitated.

‘Mine is Seymour.’

‘You could try asking for Ibrahim.’

As they were going out, the Arab looked at Chantale as if seeing her for the first time. Perhaps he was seeing her for the first time. When in the presence of women, Arabs often didn’t seem to notice them. This was not necessarily rudeness; indeed, to them it was politeness. It was felt offensive to address a woman directly, almost shockingly so, if she was with her husband — as, Seymour suspected, Chantale might well be supposed to be.

‘The Senora, perhaps, knew Lockhart?’

‘Not directly,’ said Chantale.

‘The Senora-’ there it was again, the obliqueness — ‘is perhaps from Algeria?’

‘Tangier.’

‘Ah, yes. Senor Lockhart knew many people in Tangier.’

Seymour wondered if he could make use of Chantale’s Arabness when he went to the cafe. Perhaps her being an Arab would in a way vouch for him. He suggested she go with him.

Chantale said it wouldn’t do at all. Arab women never entered cafes, even with their menfolk. It was a very bad idea.

Seymour had to accept this but he was reluctant to abandon the idea altogether. As a foreigner, he felt he needed some kind of entree into the Arab world, some kind of guarantee that he was a friend. He knew from experience that with immigrants this would be especially important.

In the end they decided that she would not go into the cafe with him but they would establish the link outside. They would go into the quarter together and then part. Chantale would go to the little market and make some purchases, as if shopping for a family. Seymour meanwhile would go into the cafe alone. When she had finished making her purchases she would stand outside the cafe patiently waiting for him. That, she said, ought to clinch it!

The cafe was set slightly below ground, as was usually the case with Arab coffee houses, and to enter it you had to go down some steps. Inside, it was dark. It was the Arab way to retreat from the sun and heat. There were stone benches around the wall and men were sitting on them either drinking coffee from small enamel cups or puffing away at bubble pipes on the ground beside them.

The men were all Arabs and Seymour at once felt himself to be, or was made to feel, an intruder. He sat down, however, in a corner with a low table in front of him. It was some time before he was served, one of those ways in which a cafe can make a customer feel he is not wanted. But then a waiter came up and put a cup before him and poured coffee from a coffee pot with a long spout.

As he bent over the table, Seymour said, ‘Is Ibrahim here?’

The waiter inclined his head towards a man with a square-cut beard sitting with two men playing dominoes.

‘Would you whisper a name in his ear? The name is Lockhart.’

The waiter showed no sign of having heard and continued on his round with the pot. Shortly afterwards, however, Seymour saw him bending over the man with the beard. The man sat up with a start. A little later Seymour saw him studying him carefully. Eventually he came across.

‘You wish to speak with me?’

‘About Lockhart.’

‘Lockhart is dead.’

‘I know. That is what I want to talk to you about.’

The Arab hesitated but then slid on to the bench beside Seymour.

‘Who gave you my name?’ he said.

‘Hussein. The man in Lockhart’s office.’

‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Seymour and I come from England.’

‘From England?’ said the man, astonished. ‘Why?’

‘Lockhart had friends there.’

‘He had friends here. But-’

‘They are interested in how he came to die.’

‘We, too, are interested in how he came to die. But what business is it of theirs?’

‘Naturally, as friends-’

The Arab shook his head firmly. ‘It is no business of people in England.’

‘Well, it is,’ Seymour insisted. ‘When an Englishman dies in a Spanish prison, the English Government is always interested.’

‘This is nothing to do with Governments.’

‘Did he not die in prison?’

‘Well, yes, but-’

‘And how did he come to be there? Was not that something to do with Government?’

‘I do not think — ’ began the Arab, but stopped.

‘And was he not taken in in Tragic Week when so many others were taken in? Including Arabs? And isn’t that something to do with Government?’

‘Yes. But it had nothing to do with Lockhart.’

‘Nothing to do with Lockhart?’ said Seymour, astonished.

‘No. It was a terrible thing. But it was quite separate.’

‘But did not Lockhart go out on to the streets so that he could bear witness?’

‘Well, yes, and that was the act of a good man. But that was not why he died.’

‘Why did he die, then?’

The Arab was silent for a while. Then he said, ‘Senor, this is really no concern of yours. Nor of people in England. It is a private matter.’

‘Private!’

‘Yes. To him, to us.’

‘As friends you may think that. But if the Government-’

The Arab shook his head. ‘This was nothing to do with the Government, either Spanish or British. It was, as I have told you, a private matter. That it happened during Tragic Week was, well, incidental. The confusion of Tragic Week provided them with an opportunity. But even then they couldn’t take it. They had to wait until he was in prison. Then it became easier.’

‘Easier?’ said Seymour incredulously. ‘To kill a man when he is in prison?’

‘Yes. Because then he didn’t have his bodyguard with him.’

‘What is this about a bodyguard?’

‘You don’t know about his bodyguard? No? Well, he had one. And they were very good, too. My people. People from the Rif. Good fighters, no nonsense. They would have protected him. But, of course, when he was in prison-’

‘Why did he need a bodyguard? Who was it against?’

‘Senor, you ask too many questions, when, really, this is no concern of yours. Go home to England. Leave it to us. We shall see that justice is done.’

He rose to his feet, took Seymour by the arm, and then escorted him firmly to the door. As they stepped up on to the street he caught sight of Chantale, waiting patiently outside, and stopped suddenly.

‘Is she with you?’ he said, surprised.

‘Yes.’

The Arab looked uneasy.

‘Are you from Leila?’ he asked her.

‘Leila? Lockhart’s wife? No.’

The Arab looked again at Chantale, as if he did not believe her.

‘I was thinking of going to see her, though,’ said Seymour.

The Arab shook his head.

‘I do not think that would be wise,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

The Arab disregarded his question. He kept studying Chantale, as if fascinated. ‘Why have you come here, Senora?’ he said abruptly.

Chantale, not unnaturally, was caught for a reply.

‘Because she must,’ said Seymour.

‘I have come to find out,’ said Chantale, cleverly.

‘Leave it to us, Senora. This is not for women. Go back to your own people.’

‘Who are her people?’ said Seymour.

The Arab looked at him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That is the question, isn’t it? For all of us.’

Seymour and Chantale went for a walk along Las Ramblas. There was a slight breeze, which was very welcome because it was getting towards noon and the heat was already becoming overwhelming. The sunlight seemed to bounce back off the white boulevard. The flowers around the foot of the trees wilted. The onions on their strings seemed to hang more heavily. The piles of melons which had earlier shone green and gold seemed to whiten and lose their glow. The boulevard began to empty.

They found a little restaurant in a back street just off Las Ramblas. It was a humble place, consisting just of bare tables crammed together cheek by jowl, with the legs of the chairs often so interlocking that you could not get up or sit down without disturbing everyone else. But that did not seem to matter. It soon became apparent that most of the people there knew each other. Often they had children with them, who would crawl under the tables to escape or return. No one seemed to mind. In fact, the children appeared to be generally owned. Sometimes when they were very small and creating a hullabaloo an apparent stranger would reach over from one of the adjacent tables with a piece of bread dipped in sauce and give it to the child. Usually it worked and the child would calm down.

Once they had got used to the hubbub, Seymour and Chantale rather enjoyed it. There was so much of human interest going on. And somehow the family atmosphere was just what they needed at the moment.

A man in yellow oilskins came up carrying a bucket of freshly caught fish and the proprietor came out to study them.

‘That’s fine,’ he said, ‘that’s fine. But, look, people are asking for sea bass tonight. We’ve got some coming up from the market but we’ll need more. Can you get us some?’

‘I’ll ask Juan, and Silvia will bring them up if he’s got any. I want to go out.’

‘The fishing will be good tonight, will it?’

‘Yes, God willing.’

‘Or maybe you’ve got something else in mind,’ said the proprietor, laughing.

‘There is that,’ said the oilskinned man.

‘Well, just be careful, that’s all.’

The proprietor took the bucket inside and the man in oilskins waited for his return.

‘Got time for a quick one?’ asked someone at one of the tables, holding up a glass.

‘Not just now, Vincente,’ said the man in oilskins respectfully

‘Oh, it’s like that, is it? Well, good luck!’

The proprietor came out again with the empty bucket and the man in oilskins took it and went off.

There was a noisy group just beside them and Seymour and Chantale couldn’t quite make out what it was. In the end they decided that there had been a family christening and these were the family elders gathered to wet the baby’s head. Someone had produced a huge camera and set it up nearby and began to take a photograph of the group. It was taking some time. The photographer’s head disappeared under the cloth and he held up a hand. At the last moment a woman gave a cry, and the proceedings stopped while she took the bottles of olive oil and whatever off the table. She put them under the table so they would be out of the line of vision. Then the group recomposed itself. The photograph was taken and normal business resumed.

Then, suddenly, there was a dismayed cry. The woman, forgetting about the condiments, had kicked them over with her foot and now there was a great pool under the table and everyone was lifting their feet and inspecting their trousers and dresses.

The woman squeezed herself out and ran to one of the waiters to get a cloth. The waiter stood with arms akimbo and said with mock severity, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll just stay on for a few hours and clean it up!’

The offender began apologizing profusely. Suddenly the waiter collapsed into laughter and put his arms around her. Everyone in the restaurant roared. A couple of waiters darted over with cloths and a bucket and began wiping the people down. The owner of the cafe appeared, chuckling, and suggested that the women go out into the kitchen and take their dresses off. ‘What, again?’ said someone, and everyone burst into laughter. ‘She can save that till later,’ someone said, and again the place erupted.

It seemed a very jolly place, not at all like the cafe Seymour had previously been to. But this was Spanish, he could tell by the voices. That had been Catalan. The only Catalan voice that he had heard here had been that of the fisherman.

At the back of the restaurant was a large metal fish tank. He got up and went over to it. At this time of the day there were only a few fish in it, but a huge pair of lobsters, armour-plated dinosaurs with whiskers like aerials, probing out in front of them.

‘There’ll be more this evening,’ said a passing waiter. ‘Last night’s catch hasn’t come in from the fish market yet. They’ll be bringing it up right now.’

‘Fresh from the sea, is it?’

‘Straight from the boats. You can go down and see them if you want.’

‘Boats?’

‘Just through there. You wouldn’t think it, with the docks so close, but there’s a little harbour there for the fishing boats. It’s a nice little place. You want to take a look.’

‘Perhaps we will.’

‘Down that street and keep going. Eventually you’ll get there.’

Eventually they did, having almost lost their way in what became a maze of tiny side streets, where all the businesses were to do with the docks and the sea. In the doorways thigh-length rubber boots were hanging, with coils of rope and great drifts of netting. There was a carpenter’s, where they were working on a boat, and a place where they were mending netting. And everywhere there was the smell of fish and tar and the sea.

The harbour was very small, just round a headland from the main docks for the cargo vessels, not an adjunct but a kind of afterthought, although it had probably been there longer than the docks. It was full of little fishing boats. They would be ones which fished locally and would be out at night. Just now it was deserted, apart from a solitary man pulling a long net up from a boat and running it through his fingers before folding it neatly on the quay. When they got closer they saw it was the man in yellow oilskins they had seen earlier.

They stopped for a moment and watched him.

The net must have been about fifty yards long and it was about a yard wide. As the man ran it through his fingers he pulled out seaweed and tar and little dead fishes and squid.

‘Getting it ready for this evening?’ said Seymour.

The man grunted.

‘You’ve got to have it just right,’ said Seymour.

‘Sometimes it gets torn,’ said the man. ‘It fouls on something. And then in no time you’ve got a hole as long as my arm and anything can get through.’

‘What do you do? Tie it between buoys?’

‘Sink it. I use buoys but this net needs to go deeper. I leave it for a couple of hours and then pull it in.’

‘How far out do you go?’

‘About two miles.’

‘Don’t you have to look out for the big boats coming in?’

The fisherman laughed.

‘They don’t come in until the morning,’ he said. ‘And do you know why?’

‘Safety?’

The man laughed again. ‘It’s the Customs people. They don’t like it. They like to have a good sleep during the night and save their work for the morning. So everyone has to wait.’

He spat contemptuously into the sea. ‘The big boats lie offshore. So when I’m out there I just keep a bit further in. But sometimes they’re so close I can hear them talking.’

‘Or talk to them?’

The man gave him a long look.

‘Or talk to them,’ he agreed.

He bundled the net, neatly coiled now, up in his arms, took it across the quay, and dropped it into a boat. Then he walked off up the hill into the houses.

Seymour watched him go.

‘Lockhart liked fish,’ he said.