Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

He turned up an alleyway and heard Trilby’s footsteps echoing behind him. That was another thing he felt like complaining about. It was almost like cheek. Of course, Schneider didn’t know, not for sure, that he was a policeman, but even if he had been a diplomat. .

A consul like Lomax. Had Lomax been followed, too? Because if he had. .

Seymour turned on his heel, throwing Trilby into confusion, and walked back the way he had come. A few moments later he was being shown into Schneider’s office.

Schneider looked up, smiling politely.

‘Still here, then?’

‘Still here,’ said Seymour, ‘and still hoping to find out what happened to Lomax.’

‘You’d better ask Kornbluth — ’

‘Not much point in doing that,’ said Seymour, ‘is it?’

The smile faded.

‘What is it that you are meaning?’ said Schneider.

‘Not much point in doing that when you’re the one I should be approaching.’

‘Mr Kornbluth is the officer — ’ began Schneider, and then stopped.

‘You are the one who is holding all the loose ends,’ said Seymour. ‘I want to know about the pattern.’

Schneider said nothing for a moment, then sighed.

‘You know about the pattern. Or as much about it as I do. I told you. I suspect his involvement with the Serbs. I suspect there was more to it than just helping students to escape. If I am right, it is you that should be doing the explaining.’

‘Lomax was killed,’ said Seymour, ‘and I want to know who killed him.’

‘So do I,’ said Schneider. ‘Of course. And if you ask Mr Kornbluth — ’

‘You know more than Kornbluth. You knew more right from the start. Because you were having him followed. You knew, for instance, but did not tell Kornbluth, that after leaving the Piazza Grande and the artists he went to the Edison cinema. You knew that after the performance, after saying goodbye to James Juice he went back in. You would have worked out that he went to see Machnich.’

‘Well?’

‘Well? You tell me.’

Schneider looked at him for a moment.

‘What do you want to know?’ he said quietly.

‘What I want to know is what happened when he came out. The second time. Your man was there. What did he see?’

Schneider thought, then sighed again.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘Nothing?’

‘He did not come out.’

‘But then — ’

‘Unless he came out by some other door. We have, of course, spoken to Machnich. He swears that after their conversation, Lomax left. There are two cleaners there who support that. One never believes entirely but I think they were speaking the truth,’

‘He left, but your man did not see him?’

Schneider nodded.

‘That is what Machnich says must have happened. Unfortunately, he could be right. My men are not what they ought to be.’

‘You shadow me, too,’ said Seymour.

‘That is for your own protection.’

Seymour hoped that if that was so, and he very much doubted it, then whoever was shadowing him would show rather more efficiency than the man who had been shadowing Lomax.

Mrs Koskash was waiting for him at the Consulate.

‘You have been to see him?’

‘Yes. He is well. As well as can be expected. They have not touched him yet.’

‘Keep going,’ said Mrs Koskash. ‘Go to see him every day.’

‘He asked me to pass a message to you. It was that you shouldn’t do anything — anything precipitate. Like turning yourself in. He said that it would be easier for him if he knew that you were outside.’

‘The fool!’ said Mrs Koskash. The hard shell cracked, however. ‘The fool!’ she said again, softly.

Augstein came in with two cups of coffee.

‘Thank you for sending him,’ said Seymour, when he had gone.

‘It was the least we could do. Koskash was particularly anxious that the work of the Consulate should not suffer. More than it had to.’

‘Augstein is a Serb, isn’t he?’

She looked at him quickly.

‘Does that worry you?’

‘It didn’t worry Lomax’s predecessors.’

‘He is a good, conscientious man.’

‘It didn’t worry Lomax’s predecessors; but I wonder if it ought to worry me.’

‘Because of what we did for the students, you mean? He had nothing to do with that. It happened after his time.’

‘When did it start?’

‘Two years ago. After the Austrians annexed Bosnia. There was protest and the Austrians cracked down. Mostly it was the young, students. Suddenly there were a lot of them trying to flee from the police. We felt we had to do something.’

‘We?’

‘The Serbs here. But I never intended it to become what it did. I thought I would do it once or twice only. And Koskash was happy with that. But when it grew, he was less happy. And I was less happy, not because it was dangerous, but because it wasn’t fair, to him. But Machnich kept sending us more people. They all went to him because he is the Big Man, here, the big Serbian man, at any rate. And I think — I think he revelled in it. He thought of himself as the Saviour of his people. Machnich looks after his own, you know!

‘But I think we would have stopped, anyway. It came to a head when he started sending us people who were not Serbs, not even students! I remember, he sent us two Herzegovinians. Herzegovinians! Look, I said, they’re not Serbs. They’re not even students. They’re a pair of roughs, they look criminals to me. Just this once, he said. A special favour! I don’t like the look of them, I said. Who knows what they might have done? They haven’t done anything, he said. They’re students, staying in the student hostel. But I wouldn’t do it. I said, no, that’s enough. And that man of his became very hot under the collar, but I stuck to it. No, I said, we’ve done enough. But then, of course, Machnich sent us some more. Proper students this time, so, well. . It was a mistake. I should have stopped. For Koskash’s sake.’

‘When was this?’ asked Seymour. ‘When was it that the two Herzegovinians came along?’

‘I can place it exactly. It was after Machnich started sending Rakic. There was a period when he seemed to be coming all the time. Koskash noticed it because Lomax became increasingly angry. But still he kept coming. Koskash thought he was badgering Lomax over something. Well, it was after that. Something happened, and then Rakic didn’t want to see Lomax any more. But suddenly he wanted to see Koskash. It was about those Herzegovinians. Machnich came too and they were both very angry when he refused,’

Herzegovinians now, thought Seymour, after she had gone. Where the hell was Herzegovina? It must be another of those Balkan countries. And how exactly was Herzegovina aligned in all these disputes that seemed to occur in that part of the world? And did it matter? Not to anyone outside the Balkans and not, hitherto, to him. But maybe he should look into it when he got home. Do a bit of reading. It was shocking to be so ignorant. Especially when his own people, his mother, at least, came from that area.

And that was another thing. Nationalism. Half the trouble seemed to be that they all wanted to be independent, run their own show. Well, why not? A nuisance to everyone else, maybe, but why couldn’t you just leave them to get on with it? He was certain about one thing, though: how right his family had been to get out of it!

He was still thinking about it when Maddalena arrived. She was another, caught up in all these local politics. Or at any rate, the local passions about politics, and there seemed to be plenty of those. Maddalena was certainly passionate, in all senses, but at least her political action was confined to daubing statues and making musical gibes at authority.

And much the same seemed to be true of that bunch of artists he had met in the Piazza Grande. They were Italians and seemed to want independence, or, at least, union with Italy — irredentism, was it? — as passionately as everyone here seemed to want something else, but on the whole they stuck to their art, and that was harmless, surely?