A dead man of Barcelona

Chapter Eight

And over-boldly: for, when Seymour entered the room with Manuel, he found mother and wife sitting there, very much in occupation.

Manuel looked at Enrico, Enrico looked back at Manuel and shrugged. And so the meeting went ahead.

‘This is an English Senor,’ said Manuel. ‘He has come not on his own behalf but on behalf of a grieving father who has lost his son.’

‘Poor man!’ said Enrico’s mother, much moved.

‘Poor man!’ echoed his wife. ‘Just think, Enrico, if we had lost our Simon!’

‘Where is the little bugger?’ said Enrico. ‘You’ve made sure that he is staying out of the house?’

‘He is playing with Ramon.’

‘That’s all right, then.’

Enrico turned to Seymour.

‘So, Senor,’ he said, a little uncertain of himself in this strange situation and therefore belligerent. ‘What can I do for you? I cannot take long. I’m a busy man.’

‘This will not take long. I want to know how the poison got into the cell.’

‘Poison!’ said Enrico’s mother, crossing herself. ‘You did not tell us that, Enrico!’

‘How was I to know it was poison?’ protested Enrico. ‘I thought it was just a dainty. Something to give the prison food a bit of flavour.’

‘You’ve always said that the food there is terrible,’ supported his mother.

‘Well, it is. And he’d been in for a few days and wasn’t eating anything. The last two meals I had taken him he had just left.’

‘That goes to show!’ said Enrico’s wife. ‘If a man is hungry and still can’t eat it, that tells you what the food must have been like.’

‘I thought I was doing him a good turn,’ said the warder.

‘And so you were!’ said his mother warmly. ‘So you were.’

She frowned, however.

‘If it’s that bad, Enrico,’ she said anxiously, ‘perhaps I ought to put something in a pot? Then you could take it in and give some to everybody.’

‘No, I couldn’t!’ snarled Enrico. ‘This is a prison, not a bloody hotel.’

‘Our Lord bids us to take care of all those in need,’ said Enrico’s mother piously.

‘Look, I’m just a warder, not the bloody caterer!’

‘There’s no need to swear at me!’ said his mother severely.

‘Even the beasts of the field,’ said his wife, timid but supportive, ‘need their food.’

‘Animals now, is it?’

‘So, Enrico,’ said Seymour, intervening swiftly, ‘when you were given the food to take in, you did not know it was poisoned?’

‘Of course not! Do you think I would-’

‘My son would never do a thing like that!’ said the warder’s mother, shocked.

‘No, no. I didn’t mean-’

‘Enrico’s a good man,’ said his wife indignantly.

‘What was it?’ said Seymour. ‘A pie, or something?’

‘Yes, with a good crust on it.’

‘That the way I do them,’ said his mother approvingly.

‘Enrico likes a good crust,’ said the wife.

‘Look, can you keep out of it?’

‘I’m just wondering, you see,’ said Seymour quickly, ‘how it was done. For the poison to work, he’d have to have taken quite a lot of it. So the dish must have been tasty-’

‘Oh, it was!’

His wife looked at Enrico suspiciously. ‘How do you know that, Enrico?’

‘Well, I tried a bit, didn’t I?’

‘Oh, Enrico, you might have been poisoned!’

‘So I might! The bastards! They should have known I might have a taste.’

‘But, Enrico, it was not your pie!’

‘He was always putting his fingers in,’ said his mother fondly, ‘even when he was a child.’

‘I didn’t put my fingers in! I just took a bit of the crust.’

‘It was a mercy you didn’t.’

‘And there was nothing unusual about the taste?’ asked Seymour.

‘A bit sour, perhaps.’

‘He always likes it sweet,’ said his wife.

‘Or about the smell?’

‘Not that I noticed. Mind you, you wouldn’t notice, not with the general stink in there.’

‘Do you collect the plates afterwards? How was he then? Did you notice?’

‘He was sleeping. At least, that’s what I thought. I don’t collect the dishes straight away, I go in a bit later. And there he was, huddled up in a corner.’

‘Poor man!’ said his mother, sympathetically.

‘He wasn’t in there for nothing, you know,’ said Enrico. ‘So let’s not bother too much about him.’

‘How was the food actually given to you?’ asked Seymour.

‘She gave it me that morning as I was on my way to the prison.’

‘She?’

‘Yes.’

‘A woman?’

‘That’s usual when it’s a she. She had talked to me the day before. As I was on my way home. She stops me and says, “You’re Enrico, aren’t you?” “That’s right,” I say. “And you work in the prison?” “I do,” I say. “On the third floor?” she says. “You’ve being doing your homework,” I say.

‘She smiles. “Maybe I have,” she says. Then she holds a hundred peseta note up in front of me. “I’ve got a brother in there and I don’t think he’s eating enough. So I wanted to get something to him. Something that would tempt him, you know. If I gave it you, could you see that he gets it?” “Well, I could,” I say. She smiles again, and waves the note. “A hundred now,” she says “and two hundred afterwards.”

‘ “For your brother?”

‘ “That’s right,” she says. “Cell number five.”

‘And then I knew she was lying. Because I knew who was in the cell, and it was an Englishman. And she was speaking Spanish, so he couldn’t be her brother,’ said Enrico triumphantly.

He shrugged. ‘But what the hell did I care? Spanish or English, as long as the note was all right.’

‘I expect she was in love with him,’ said his wife.

‘Perhaps she was his wife,’ said Enrico’s mother.

‘Not his wife,’ said Enrico.

His mother clicked her tongue reprovingly.

‘I expect she loved him passionately,’ said his wife, brooding.

‘Well, that’s as may be-’

‘I expect there was a file in that pie. So that he could file through the bars.’

‘Look, there aren’t any bars. There isn’t even a window.’

‘She would do anything for him. She would lay down her life-’

‘Yes, well, she didn’t, did she? She laid down his.’

This checked her. But only for a moment.

‘She loved him,’ she said, softly. ‘She loved him passionately. And then he betrayed her.’

‘Look-’

‘And so she killed him. As I would kill you, Enrico, if you betrayed me.’

‘You don’t need to worry about that

‘What about Conchita?’

‘Conchita?’

‘She’s always standing at the corner waiting for you.’

‘No, she’s not. She’s just on her way to the baker’s to get a loaf for the evening meal.’

‘She makes eyes at you.’

‘The shameless hussy!’ said his mother indignantly.

‘I should be so lucky!’ said Enrico: mistakenly.

‘Ah! So it’s not just on her side? You’ve had eyes for her, too?’

‘No, no-’

‘I shall kill her!’ cried his wife.

‘Quite right!’ said his mother.

‘Hold on a minute-’

‘You don’t love me!’ cried his wife. ‘You have betrayed me. I will kill her!’

‘Now, look-’

‘Let’s leave Conchita out of it,’ said Seymour, mistakenly, too. ‘Let’s go back to this other woman-’

‘ Another woman!’ cried Enrico’s wife. ‘You are not a man but a beast!’

‘Look — ’ began Enrico despondently.

As they walked away from the house Manuel was silent. He seemed to be thinking something over. He had not expected this, he said then, not this bit about the woman. She had obviously been employed, he said, for the occasion. A woman would attract less attention and it would seem more natural, he said, for a woman to be wanting to pass food in than it would have been for a man. A minor accomplice, he said: any woman would have done.

But he backed off quickly when Seymour asked him if it was possible for him to make further inquiries and see if he could find any clue to the woman’s identity. Seymour did not press him. Manuel had done more than could reasonably be expected already. But, given his initial enthusiasm — he had, after all, volunteered his services — and given what he had already done, Seymour was surprised. And then an idea came to him: could Manuel be backing off because he had suddenly thought where such inquiries might lead?

‘Senor Seymour!’ cried the governor of the prison, with what appeared to be genuine pleasure and — or had Seymour got it wrong? — a definite relief. The relief on second thoughts, and perhaps much of the pleasure, could have been to do with the fact that the governor’s desk was covered with sheet after sheet of numbers.

‘I hope I am not interrupting you?’

‘You are,’ said the governor. ‘Thank God!’

Seymour recognized the situation. ‘Budget time?’

‘You’ve hit on it. And now what can I do for you? There must be — ’ with a hint of desperation — ‘something I can do for you to take my mind off-’ he looked around him — ‘all this?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact-’

The governor almost rubbed his hands.

‘Oh, good!’ he said. He broke off to go to the door and called for coffee.

‘How are you getting on with your inquiries?’

‘Oh, progressing. Progressing. And how is the report of the investigation into Lockhart’s death getting on?’

‘Oh, progressing,’ said the governor.

They both laughed.

‘I shall not ask you about it,’ said Seymour, ‘but there is a little point — you will certainly think it a little point — which I would like your help on.’

‘Big things I probably can’t help you on; little things, just possibly I may.’

‘You will probably think this trivial, and, anyway, there may not be a record of it: but while Lockhart was in the prison, did he have any visitors?’

‘Senor Seymour, I am mortified to have to tell you — yes, he did.’

‘Why mortified, Senor?’

‘Because it reveals all too clearly the situation in the prison which my superiors falsely believe I have under my control. I think I told you that as soon as I found out that Senor Lockhart was among those admitted, that he was, in fact, in my cells, I sent someone down to see him. So I did. And it was then — then only — that I learned that he was dead. Well, I couldn’t believe it. I summoned the doctor — I think I told you I summoned the doctor?’

‘You did.’

‘And it was only then that the full enormity of what had happened was revealed to me. But this was several days after he had been admitted, and all that time I did not know that I had Senor Lockhart in my prison. I did not know, but — but it appears that half of Barcelona did! That is what is so mortifying! There were no fewer than three requests to be allowed to visit him. I have only just found that out. Following your visit the other day I went back through the papers. And it was then that I found the records of the requests.’

‘The requests were not granted, I presume?’

‘Two of them were granted. The third was from a lady known to me. Known, in fact, to all of Barcelona. Known as one of the biggest liars in Catalonia! I turned it down. Goodness knows what might have got out if she had had a word with him!’

‘This lady — her name wouldn’t be Dolores, by any chance?’

‘My God!’ said the governor. ‘You don’t mean — you don’t mean that you already know about her? Have, perhaps, talked to her?’

He struck himself a blow on the head with the heel of his hand. ‘But that means she has been telling everybody about what she saw in the prison! Even though she didn’t see it!’

‘Actually, Governor, I think it’s possible that somehow or other she may have wriggled her way in.’

‘Oh, my God!’

The governor took a great gulp of the coffee that had now come in.

‘It fits,’ he said, sunk in gloom. ‘Didn’t I tell you, when you came before, that I was surrounded by anarchists? There are anarchists everywhere. In prison, out of prison. Spain, I sometimes think, consists entirely of anarchists. And they are all bent on subverting the system.’

‘Tell me about the other two,’ said Seymour, ‘the ones you did allow in.’

‘Not I,’ said the governor. ‘I had nothing to do with it. My subordinates — my alleged subordinates — agreed it without reference to me.’

He hesitated.

‘I think I can understand it,’ he said. ‘One of them was an important lady, the wife of a very important person, high up in the Administration, and I don’t think they felt that they had much choice: if they wanted to stay in their jobs. At least, that is the impression she gave them.’

‘You couldn’t give me an idea of her identity, I suppose?’

‘No,’ said the governor decisively, ‘I couldn’t. Because if I did, my own wife would never let me hear the last of it. The lady knows her and would be round to our house in a flash. No.’ He shook his head regretfully, but firmly. ‘No, I couldn’t. Life would not be worth living. You see, Senor Seymour, there is a kind of romantic solidarity among Spanish women.’

‘Especially where Senor Lockhart was concerned.’

‘Exactly. Especially where Senor Lockhart was concerned.’

‘And the other lady? She was a lady, I take it.’

‘She was, but this was rather a different case. It was made on compassionate grounds. By Senor Lockhart’s daughter.’

‘Senor Lockhart’s daughter?’

‘Or so she claimed. And I think there may have been some truth in it. For although every woman in Barcelona who wasn’t Lockhart’s mistress claims to be his daughter, I think in this case it may be with more justice. Or so I gather from the police at Gibraltar and, more reliably, my wife.’

‘Her name?’

‘I do not think that would help you, Senor. For while it is a good, honest Spanish name, it is not the name of her true father. A matter of considerable joy to the ladies of Barcelona. Including my wife.’

‘It is true,’ admitted Hattersley, ‘that he did — well, put himself about a bit. There were rumours about the child. A daughter, I think. And yes, I’ve heard the other story — about the wife of the high-up official. Not to mention,’ he said with a wink, ‘plenty of others. And some of them were true. I can vouch for it myself. But I’m not so sure about those two. Still, if you’ve had it from the governor…’

They had met Hattersley on Las Ramblas.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am switching a lot between the two just at the moment — between Gibraltar and Barcelona. I’m having a big argument with Spanish Customs, and British, too, but the Spanish are worse. They take up more time. But I’ll get there, I’ll get there.’

He had suggested a coffee and taken them to a little place they had not discovered, where you sat outside and had a good view right along Las Ramblas. And it was there that Seymour had put it to him.

‘These two women,’ he had said, ‘have you any idea who they might be? The daughter, I think I might know; but the other?’

‘I couldn’t put a name to her,’ said Hattersley, ‘but I’ve heard the story. The wife of a high-up. On the judicial side, I think. But, you know, there are always these stories and, in fact, I have my doubts about this one.’

‘Why?’ asked Seymour.

Hattersley hesitated.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘on the whole, in recent years at least, he’s not been that taken by Spanish women. By women, yes, but not Spanish women. Some people say it goes back to the one he had the child by. A difficult customer, apparently. Prickly, certainly. The trouble was, she was devout.’

‘I can see that might cause difficulties,’ said Seymour.

‘Well, yes. And why he got entangled with her in the first place! And she was married, too. Already, I mean. Well, of course, it didn’t make things easy for her and she certainly didn’t make things easy for him. Since I’ve known him, he’s tended to steer clear of Spanish women. I used to tease him about it. If you are going to have these affairs, I would say, why don’t you pick a beautiful Spanish woman? A Catalonian, for example, since you’re so fond of them. There are lots of lovely women in Catalonia.

‘ “But they are all so virtuous!” he would say. “And religious!”

‘I think that came from his previous experience. “It just makes for a lot of trouble,” he said. Well, I don’t know much about it really. I’m a bit of a bachelor, confirmed, myself. But I’d noticed, you see, that although he was unfaithful to Leila, he always seemed to go for someone like her. That striking Arab look. A bit like you, yourself, if I may say so, Miss de Lissac. Lockhart would have fallen for you in the first five minutes.’

‘Well, thanks!’ said Chantale, laughing.

‘You may not think it, Miss de Lissac, but Leila Lockhart was quite like you when she was young. Shorter, yes, and smaller all round. But the face, the eyes, the dark hair, and something in the manner. Anyway,’ said Hattersley, becoming embarrassed, ‘he always used to fall for people like you. And Leila. He was faithful, you could say, in his own fashion.

‘I spoke to him about that, too. “Why do you always choose Arab women?” I asked him once. “Do I?” he said, surprised. “Yes, you do,” I said. He thought. And then he said, “Well-” and I do not know whether he was serious or whether he was joking — “perhaps because it is piquantly transgressive.” “What?” I said. I was still a young man then and very innocent and I genuinely did not know what he meant. Of course, he knew that and I think he may well have been teasing me.

‘ “Transgressive,” he said. “Crossing borders. Conventional ones, usually. Which pretend to be moral and are not. I think it is because I am an Englishman.”

‘Well, I knew then that he must be joking.

‘ “No, no,” he said, “I’m not. My parents were very traditional and very strict and very English, even though my father came from Scotland. He was a soldier and had almost always been stationed abroad. In India, mostly. And there it was very bad form to take a native woman seriously. Sleep with them, yes, that was permissible. But marry one! No, no, quite out of the question. You would have been — what is the expression? Drummed out of the regiment.

‘ “But it wasn’t out of the question for me,” Lockhart said. “In fact, it was very much in question. I was about fifteen at the time and all women seemed beautiful to me. Especially the Indian ones. I wanted them so badly, and once I almost fell in love with one. It was very serious. At least, it was for me. Perhaps not for her. But certainly for my father. He packed me off back to England and sent me to what he called a good school, which would bring me up to be like him. I’ve always had a thing about schools since. I’ve even started to put my money into one — one which would not bring children up to be like him. That’s Lockhart’s blow for humanity!

‘ “You see, I didn’t want to be like him. I wanted to be different. I cut away as soon as I could and I went to Africa, to Arab Africa. Anything to get away from the stifling conventions my father wanted to confine me in. And there, of course, I fell in love again. With Leila. And decided to marry her.

‘ “My father nearly went mad. Which, of course, made me even more determined. He threatened to cut me off. I said, thank God for that, and stayed where I was and married her.

‘ “So there you are. That’s the answer to your question. Why did I go for an Arab? To show, at least to show myself, that I had broken loose from my father and all he stood for. And just that act of doing something major that he didn’t approve of, that he had positively forbidden, gave me a great surge of freedom. Well, a surge of something or other. I thought it was freedom but it was probably sexual.

‘ “So there you are: that is why I like my Leilas. And perhaps why, although I am at bottom faithful to her, I am always looking for new ones. Each time, it gives me that same thrill of energy. Of course, it doesn’t last, it never does. And then I go back to Leila.”

‘ “You know, old man,” I said, “I find that a bit shocking.”

‘He laughed. “You know, I find it a bit shocking, too. Because if it is true, it means that my father has won after all. I can’t break loose. For, or against, I just can’t break free from his influence. The old bastard!”

‘Well, as I say, he was probably teasing me. And maybe he didn’t confine himself to Arab women as much as I have suggested. Come to think of it, that is certainly so. His favours were broadcast and not confined to women who looked like Leila. No, definitely not. So maybe I’m wrong to discount this story about the wife of the high-up. He would probably have enjoyed it. The higher up, the better.

‘But all the same there is something in what I said. He did have a strong preference for Leilas. So much so that we made a joke of it. Whenever we saw him with another one we would say, “Ah, there’s a new Leila!”

‘And when we saw one without him, we would sometimes say, “Hello, where’s Lockhart?” ’

Hattersley looked at Chantale.

‘So you see, Miss de Lissac, that could be what people who know Lockhart think when they see you. “Another Leila: where’s Lockhart?” Seeing you, they see him. That may be why they look at you in the way that you say they do. Where’s Lockhart? And perhaps they wonder, seeing you, if this is just another of his tricks. And if, perhaps, this is a signal that one day he will be coming back.’

When Manuel had so suddenly backed off from making further inquiries, Seymour had thought that it might be because he had become afraid of where those inquiries might lead. Seymour had wondered for a moment if Manuel had been afraid that they must lead to Dolores.

Could Dolores have been the woman who had talked to Enrico and persuaded him to take the food in to Lockhart? Seymour could certainly see her doing that. She had tried to get in to see him in the prison — she had, actually, succeeded in getting in to see him in the prison. She could be, he saw, despite her scattiness, a determined woman. When thwarted, she did not give up. And she might well have tried to get food in to him, in the same way as one takes fruit to someone in hospital. Yes, he could see her doing that, and working out who the relevant warder was, and finding out a way of intercepting him and working on him.

But he could not see her wanting to poison him. Nothing that she had said to Seymour had made him think that she was anything other than genuinely in love with him.

Could it be that she had been in love with him but that something had happened to turn her against him? But, again, nothing that she had said had led him to think that. He went over in his mind all the conversations they had had and no, nothing in what she had said had even hinted at that. The reverse, if anything: poor, romantic Dolores seemed as stuck on Lockhart as she had ever been.

But could she have given the warder something unknowingly? Not knowing that it was poisoned? Well, yes, she could. If she thought it was something which would help Lockhart, she would certainly have been ready with her services and she would certainly have carried it through.

But equally certainly, probably even more certainly, if afterwards she had suspected what she had been used to do, he couldn’t see her letting it rest. He was convinced that her passion for Lockhart was genuine and, if she thought that she had been tricked into killing him, it would surely have come out. This was something on which she could not, would not, have remained silent.

And, whatever else she might be, she did not seem to him stupid. She was intelligent enough to add two and two together. When she had known that Lockhart had been poisoned, she would, if she had had a role in it, have realized what she had done. No, she couldn’t have done it knowingly and, if she had done it unknowingly, she would not have been content to let it rest there. Dolores, he thought, could be ruled out.

So if Manuel had backed off because he had been afraid of where his inquiries might lead, it was not on Dolores’ account. On someone else’s account, then? Manuel himself had said that the woman, whoever she was, had been merely a pawn, used by someone else. Who? Who else might Manuel have been shielding? Or, rather, the interests of what group of people might he have feared for?