Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

They were all walking in the same direction towards the seaward end of the huge piazza, where the lamps in the trees around the bandstand had come on too, and where, beyond the trees, rows of little lights indicated the positions of the liners in the bay.

And suddenly Seymour knew what this was. The word came floating up in his mind: the passeggiatta , that great Mediterranean ritual, the evening stroll to take the air.

Seymour had learnt the word from old Angelinetti, standing in the doorway of his shop back in the East End, looking out mournfully on the grey-green fog which came up from the docks every evening at that time of year. He had spat out the taste and then told Seymour, the young Seymour, about the passeggiatta . Seymour had caught some of the feeling that the word contained, the sense of release after the work and heat of the day, the communal taking of pleasure. Now his own experience caught up with the word.

Almost despite himself, despite his English stiffness, he felt a kind of inner easing. Had Lomax, too, he wondered, felt an easing when he came to Trieste? Some sort of reaction, perhaps, against the constraint and formality of life in the Foreign Office? Was that what had led him to stepping over the traces? If over the traces he had stepped.

The artists were still at the table. He hesitated a moment and then approached them. At once he was hauled into their circle, welcomed with embraces, plied with wine. He felt his reserve — and Seymour had plenty of reserve — melting.

A puff of wind came up from the sea front. It smelt of flowers and of the sea. In the bandstand the band was playing a waltz and beneath the trees people were dancing. Seymour could see bright dresses and the flash of gilt from the uniforms. He thought that perhaps he should go back to his hotel but found it difficult to move.

‘It will be big,’ Marinetti was saying.

He seemed to be talking about some event that he was organizing.

‘And noisy,’ he added with satisfaction.

‘Will there be drink?’ asked Lorenzo.

‘Oceans!’

‘Who’s paying?’ asked Alfredo.

Marinetti frowned.

‘There are some details yet to be settled,’ he said.

There was now a counter-flow to the movement down to the sea front. People had begun to make their way back. They dropped off into the cafes or into the side streets. Several turned aside to greet the group at Seymour’s table.

‘No James tonight?’ one of them said.

‘Not yet. I think he’s probably still at the police station,’ Alfredo said.

‘No, no. I saw him coming into the piazza,’

‘Well, where the hell is he, then?’

Another, hearing that Seymour was Lomax’s friend, came specially round the table to shake his hand.

‘How can it be,’ he said, ‘that someone can just disappear? In a place like Trieste?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Marinetti belligerently. ‘In the same way as James has disappeared.’

‘James has not disappeared — ’

‘And Maddalena — ’

‘Maddalena probably hasn’t either!’

‘In the same way as we’re all going to disappear,’ roared Marinetti. ‘They take us in and they let us out. Then one day they take us in and they don’t let us out. Not ever! Ever!’

He burst into tears.

‘Poor Lomax! The bastards!’

He collapsed, sobbing, across the table.

‘I think perhaps I’ll — ’ began Seymour, starting to get up.

The others sprang up, too.

‘Your hotel — ’

‘Do you know the way?’

‘We’ll show you — ’

‘It’s all right, thanks.’

‘No, no! We’ll come with you.’

They all got up, apart from Marinetti, and began to accompany him across the piazza. As they were turning off into one of the side streets, they nearly tripped over someone lying drunk in the middle of the road.

‘Why, it’s James!’ Lorenzo said.

Seymour was used to covert operations and that, he told himself, was all this was. But this was very different. In the East End he had been part of a team and there had been a certain sharing of information. Here he was on his own and although Kornbluth had promised to keep him informed he knew he could not rely on that in the same way. Yet Kornbluth was the man conducting the investigation and there were things he could do that Seymour couldn’t. He could openly question witnesses, for example, or people who might have witnessed something: Lomax leaving the piazza, for instance. But any information that Seymour gleaned would have to be gathered indirectly.

He was already beginning to find it frustrating. In England if he was starting on a case there were obvious things he would have done. Here he could do none of them. He would have to wait for Kornbluth to do them and then hope that he would tell Seymour about it afterwards. How did you begin if you were having to operate covertly but without the larger operation around you?

But perhaps he was being too impatient. What was it that the two men at the Foreign Office had said? That they had had doubts about Lomax because of the kind of man he was: and they had been afraid that he would involve himself too readily in ‘the situation’ out there in Trieste. Perhaps he ought to start there and, for the moment, leave what happened on the night that Lomax had disappeared to Kornbluth.

So far he hadn’t got much of a picture of Lomax the man and why he had seemed frankly out of place. There must be more to Lomax than that. He must , for a start, have done some work.

Oh, yes, said Koskash, slightly offended, Signor Lomax was very conscientious. He would never, he insisted, neglect his work.

What was this work? Well, of course, most of it was to do with the port. There were always English ships coming in and sometimes they had problems or they needed help with the paperwork. Or perhaps there was some problem with Customs or with the Port Authority which required Lomax to go down and sort things out. He was very good at that, Koskash said.

Seymour was relieved to hear it. Up till then he had been getting the impression that Lomax’s day consisted largely of sitting around and drinking.

No, no, said Koskash, or, at least, not entirely. That was where he sat, his base, as it were, where people always knew they could find him. After he had been down to the port, or wherever, he would come back there and that was where people would go if they needed his help. A little odd, perhaps, but this was Trieste and the Mediterranean and a lot of things were conducted outside, al fresco, so why shouldn’t a consul be al fresco too?

Why not, thought Seymour? Or a policeman. It seemed a good idea. But what exactly would people be coming to see him about? Could Koskash give an example?

Certainly, said Koskash obligingly. Take seamen, for instance. They were always coming to the Consulate for loans. They would be paid off at the end of the voyage and then spend all their pay in the tavernas or brothels. And then they would come to the Consul for a loan until they signed on again.

‘And he would give it them?’ said Seymour incredulously.

‘We would recover it when they signed on again. It was just a temporary loan. They would come to him at the cafe and he would make out an order to pay. Then they would bring it to me and I would pay them. Look, I will show you,’

He went away and came back with a pile of slips of paper.

‘But these are all bills from the Caffe degli Specchi!’

‘No, no.’ He turned them over. On the back of each one was written ‘Order to Pay’ and then a sum, together with a name, and Lomax’s signature.

‘Are you sure you didn’t pay for anything on the other side?’ said Seymour suspiciously.