Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

She caught herself up. Well, she hoped it had been a home to him. He had come to them from Dublin as a boy of eleven when his mother, Auntie Vi’s sister, had died. He had been a shy, odd little creature, she said, who had found it difficult to settle in. For a long time his only interest had been stamps. He had been quite bright, though, and had done well at school. They had been surprised all the same when he had chosen to apply for the Consular service; and even more surprised when he had been accepted. Perhaps it was the stamps that had put it into his mind. No one in their family, which was a decent, honest one, had ever done anything like that before. His mother, Auntie Vi said, would have been proud of him.

She said nothing about his father. He would have been Irish, perhaps? That might account for the Dublin. Died, possibly, like his wife? Or simply disappeared from the scene. Disappeared from Auntie Vi’s scene, anyway.

She said that although they had not seen Lomax for some time, they would miss him. Not being blessed with a child of their own, they had always treated him as a son. He had in turn looked on them as his parents. He had written to them regularly from his various postings all over the world and had sent them little presents, souvenirs, really, which were all they would have of him now but which at least would be a constant reminder of him.

She thanked Seymour again for his kindness in writing and said that if he was ever near Warrington he should call in; although she imagined that was not very likely. She expected he was always, like Lomax, in some other part of the world.

Seymour had the sense of a decent family stricken. With his own acute sense of family, he could guess how they felt. He was glad he had written.

He thought over what she had said. So Lomax had originally come from Ireland. He wondered if that accounted for his friendship with James and his helping him over the cinema business. Perhaps, too, it had stirred old loyalties and old attitudes, an old nationalism that went back to childhood, ever a romantic siding with the underdog which seemed suddenly relevant again when he came to Trieste.

There was a knocking on the door. Someone was trying to get in. He had forgotten he had locked it. He went to the door and opened it.

A man was standing there who seemed vaguely familiar. He clicked his heels.

‘Rakic,’ he said.

Seymour remembered him now. He was the man who had talked to Marinetti about hiring the Politeama for his Futurist Evening. Someone to do with Machnich.

‘You are the Consul?’ he said.

‘No.’

The man corrected himself.

‘Of course not. Lomax was the Consul. And Lomax is dead. But you. .?’ He seemed puzzled. ‘I thought they said that you — ’

‘No,’ said Seymour. ‘I am just here temporarily. Passing through. I am a King’s Messenger.

‘King’s. .?’

‘Messenger. I carry messages. Diplomatic ones.’

‘Ah, yes, I see. And what, exactly, are you doing here?’

And what, exactly, business was it of his, thought Seymour, reacting to the tone?

‘Carrying messages,’ he said, however. ‘I just happened to be here when Lomax was found.’

‘Ah, yes. So you are nothing, then.’

‘I wouldn’t quite put it like that,’ said Seymour.

The man seemed to realize how he sounded.

‘I am sorry,’ he said, though only half graciously. ‘I meant, in the context of Trieste — ’

‘I am passing through,’ said Seymour. ‘And you?’

He had had enough of this boorish questioning.

‘Machnich sent me.’

A little unwillingly, Seymour showed him in. They sat down in the inner office. Rakic looked around curiously at the walls.

‘Decadent,’ he pronounced.

‘Out of the usual, definitely.’

Rakic shrugged. The pictures did not really interest him.

‘You come from Machnich?’

‘Yes.’ Rakic studied him for a moment. ‘He has heard about Koskash,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘It is of concern to him. Will you tell me, please, what happened?’

Seymour hesitated. Why should he tell this man?

Rakic evidently guessed what he was thinking.

‘Perhaps you do not know. Machnich is a Serb.’

‘Koskash is not a Serb.’

Rakic made an impatient gesture with his hand.

‘It was to do with Serbs. Did they not explain that to you?’

‘Why should that matter to Machnich?’

‘Because he is a Serb, as I say. He is a big man in Trieste. The biggest Serb. And so the other Serbs look to him. When something happens that affects Serbs, they turn to him. And so he needs to know what happened yesterday.’

Rather grudgingly, Seymour told him as much as he knew.

‘The two who came and asked for papers, they were Schneider’s men, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘So Schneider knows.’

It was a statement rather than a question and did not need answering. Seymour had a question of his own.

‘And Machnich knows, too, does he? About the escape route?’

Rakic did not answer him directly.

‘Machnich looks after his own,’ he said.

‘The Consulate was being used illicitly,’ said Seymour coldly.

Rakic gestured dismissal again.

‘Lomax knew.’

He seemed to be thinking.

‘You will be staying here?’ he said. ‘Until someone else comes out?’

‘Probably.’

‘Then you must go and see Koskash.’

‘I may well go and see him.’

‘See him. It is important. He is weak. His wife is strong, but he is weak. You must see him every day.’

Seymour made no reply.

‘Every day!’ insisted Rakic.

‘Why is Machnich so concerned?’ asked Seymour.

‘As I told you, because this touches the Serbs.’

‘Not because it might touch him?’

Rakic laughed.

‘That, too, no doubt,’ he said drily. It was the first time the obsessive single-mindedness had lifted. ‘However,’ he said, ‘that is not his only concern. He looks after his own, as I have said. And Mrs Koskash is a Serb.’

He sat there looking at Seymour. He seemed to be weighing him up.

‘She must not be left on her own,’ he said.

Then he seemed to make up his mind. He stood up.

‘Machnich wishes to see you,’ he said. ‘The Stella Polare at eleven. Tomorrow.’

There was a man waiting outside the Consulate the next morning when Seymour arrived. He turned round and smiled.

‘Signor Seymour?’

‘Si.’

He bowed, in a formal, old-fashioned way.

‘Augstein. Mrs Koskash sent me. She thought I might be of use.’

He had, he said, been the Consulate’s clerk before Koskash and had been retired for some years now.

‘However,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I do not expect things to have changed much. You will need some temporary help, and it will not be like getting in someone completely new to the job.’

‘Mrs Koskash sent you?’

‘Yes. She said she owed you something,’ said Augstein quietly.

He was an elderly, grey-haired man, stooping slightly but still alert and active. When Seymour took him into the Consulate he looked around fondly.

‘Much the same,’ he said.

He went to Koskash’s desk. It was locked.

He went across to a shelf with a row of box files and felt between them.

‘We used to leave the key here. Ah!’

He showed it to Seymour.

‘As I said, I don’t expect things have changed much. Mr Koskash is an orderly man and I, too, was orderly.’

He sat down at Koskash’s desk and pulled the mail in the in-tray towards him. He glanced at some of the letters and then went to the files.

‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘we are almost up to date. It will not take long to catch up. Mr Koskash is most conscientious.’