Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

‘No.’

‘Are you saying,’ said Seymour slowly, ‘that you were not doing this secretly?’

‘That is right, yes. I was not doing it secretly.’

‘What are you saying, Koskash? That Mr Lomax knew what you were doing?’

‘That is so, yes.’

For a moment Seymour couldn’t think what to say.

‘You surprise me, Koskash.’

‘I know. It is surprising,’ said Koskash simply. ‘But it is true.’

‘He knew what you were doing? And didn’t stop it?’

Koskash nodded.

‘How far was Mr Lomax involved in this? In what you were doing? This. . arrangement? He knew what you were doing. Was there more to it than that?’

Koskash shook his head.

‘He knew what I was doing,’ he said hoarsely. ‘That is all.’

‘He knew, but condoned it. Is that what you are saying?’

‘That is what I am saying,’ said Koskash quietly.

‘Sand.’

‘ — or,’ said Seymour.

The man at the Club’s reception desk raised his head.

‘Or what, sir?’

‘Sandor. That’s the name. S-a-n-d-o-r. Sandor. It’s a Hungarian name. Comes from my mother.’

‘Right, sir. Thank you, sir. Well, Mr Sandor, if you’ll just — ’

‘That’s just my first name. You said you wanted my full name.’

‘Well, yes, sir. If you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Pelczynski.’

‘Pel. .?’

Resignedly Seymour spelt it out.

‘It’s a Polish name. Comes from my grandfather.’

Why did he have to go on like that? He knew why. Ever since he had started going to school he had been self- conscious about his name. Most of the teachers in the East End were used to the assortment of immigrant names but it so happened that his first teacher had not been; and floundered.

‘Pel. .’ Mumble, mumble. ‘Well, thank you, sir, I’ll — ’

‘Seymour.’

And even that had problems. ‘Listen,’ his grandfather had said when he got to England. ‘No Englishman is ever going to get his jaw round a name like Pelczynski!’ And he had changed it to Seymour, retaining, however, Pelczynski as a second Christian name in the family to the chagrin of his descendants ever since.

‘Sandor Pelczynski Seymour,’ said Seymour firmly.

‘Right, sir. Thank you, sir. If you’ll just take a seat, I’ll tell Mr Barton that you’re here.’

So Seymour sat down on the horsehair-stuffed, leather-upholstered sofa in the foyer of the English Club and waited. Seymour wasn’t used to clubs. Ordinary policemen from the East End weren’t. But he had been in one once, taken in by a superior when he was one of the team working on the Ripper case in Whitechapel not long before. Seymour’s job had been to check out some of the royal suspects. Well, that had been a waste of time. He had run straightaway into the same wall of superiority and superciliousness, call it class distinction if you liked, that he had encountered when he had gone to the Foreign Office. The English Club in Trieste wasn’t quite like that but it had something of the same air as the club he had been taken to in the West End. ‘Neutral ground,’ his superior had said. Well, it wasn’t neutral ground as far as Seymour was concerned.

There were the same comfortable chairs, the same discreet, deferential servants. From a room in the back he could hear the click of billiard balls. English newspapers were strewn on the tables and there was a rack of illustrated periodicals hanging from the wall. While he was watching, a man came in and took one. He went into an inner room, where Seymour caught a glimpse of yet more comfortable chairs. ‘Surrey, 231 for one,’ the man said to someone already sitting there.

On the wall were pictures of hunting scenes, together with a portrait of the monarch: not, actually, the present King but the old Queen, Victoria. The English Club in Trieste, like most clubs, in Seymour’s view, was a bit behind the times.

Barton came bustling in.

‘Seymour! Good to see you. Good of you to come.’

‘It was kind of you to invite me.’

‘I thought, just while you’re here — I know it probably won’t be for long, but even so, I thought you’d be glad of the chance to get back to a piece of England occasionally.’

‘I would indeed,’ said Seymour untruthfully.

Barton led him into the inner room, the reading room perhaps, and took him over to a corner, away from the only two other inhabitants.

‘Tea? Or something stronger?’

‘Coffee?’

‘Coffee it is.’ Barton went off to place the order, then came back and sat down opposite him.

‘Well, how are you finding things? And how are you getting on with sorting things out over poor old Lomax?’

‘Oh, reasonably well. People are very helpful’

‘Well, of course, they are. In Trieste. Usually.’

‘As a matter of fact, though, there’s one area where I could do with a bit of help. The business side. I thought you might be able to help me.’

‘Well, of course. Only too glad to.’

‘It’s really to do with the cinema.’

‘Cinema!’

‘Don’t you know about it? I thought you might have heard.’

‘Did hear something about it. Jog my memory.’

‘There’s an Irishman who wanted to start up some cinemas in Dublin and persuaded some Trieste businessmen to join him. Lomax gave them some advice. You know, help on Customs, that sort of thing.’

‘Irishman? That man, Juice?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’d steer clear of him if I were you. He’s a bit of a nutcase.’

‘I know, I know. Perhaps that’s the reason why Lomax was helping him. Hold his hand, you know. See he didn’t get into too deep water.’

‘That man would be out of his depth in a bloody puddle,’

‘And he was in it, you see, with some quite sharp people. Do you know a fellow named Machnich?’

The carpet shop?’

‘And cinemas, apparently.’

‘Has trouble with his people. Hasn’t he got a strike on?’

‘Yes. What is it about?’

‘The usual. Wages. Hours. Bringing in people who work for less.’

‘Bringing in? Immigrants?’

‘We don’t call them that. There’s so much coming and going of people in the Empire, and certainly in Trieste. But yes. People he brought in from outside. His own kind usually.’

‘A tough customer, is he?’

‘Too tough for Juice, definitely. But I don’t know how tough he’d be if it really came to it. They say he’s going to settle.’

‘And what about Lomax? Is he up to mixing it with someone like Machnich?’

‘I don’t know that a consul usually needs to mix it,’ said Barton doubtfully. ‘It’s usually just a case of giving advice. Actually, from what I heard, they got on surprisingly well.’

‘Surprisingly?’

‘Well, you know, they used to go off for a drink together. But he never came here for a drink. He’d drink with a foreigner but not with us. I call that surprising.’

It was true about the strike. In the piazza outside the Edison there was surprising activity this morning. Men were spilling out of the taverna and then standing talking. One of them looked up as Seymour went by.

‘Christ, here he is again!’

Seymour glanced at him and thought he recognized him.

‘What is it this time?’ said another voice resignedly.

This time he did recognize the man. He was one of the men he had talked to down in the docks.

‘Hello!’ he said. ‘What are you doing up here?’

‘What do you think we’re doing?’ said the first man bitterly. Seymour had placed him now. It was the most aggressive of the dockers, the one who had threatened to kick him. ‘Giving in, of course.’

‘Giving in?’

‘It’s all over. She’s bloody fixed it. Fixed it with that bastard, Machnich.’