Michael Pearce - A dead man of Barcelona

‘I know,’ said Seymour. ‘Nevertheless, the father-’

‘Ah, the father,’ sighed Manuel.

Seymour took him confidentially by the arm. ‘All I can hope to do is set his mind at peace.’

‘Of course. Of course!’

‘It is the uncertainty that is tearing him apart. All he knows is that his son has disappeared in a foreign country. He cannot believe that he is dead. How could he be? How could such a thing happen? In a country like Spain? It must be a mistake.

‘Someone has spoken of prison. But how can that be? His son, he knows, is no criminal. It is, surely, a mistake. A clerical error. You know these clerks, you know these bureaucrats. Well, it will be the same in Spain as it is in England. Some fool of a clerk has got it wrong. It must be so! And so he goes on tearing himself apart.

‘If I could find out something for sure, then perhaps that would help him. If it was only to confirm that he was dead. At the moment, you see, he cannot believe that he is dead. He goes on hoping that he is still alive. And he will until he knows for sure.’

‘Alas,’ said Manuel sympathetically, ‘there can be no doubt.’

‘But told in a notification from a prison! Cold, bald, remote. Can it be relied on? An institution — big, heartless, and, perhaps, like so many institutions, wrong. A mistake — that’s what it could be! And while there’s a chance of that he will go on hoping. Until — you will understand this, I am sure, Senor — some personal witness… a human being, someone of flesh and blood, not an anonymous cipher in an anonymous institution… says it definitely.

‘Well, that is all I am hoping for, Senor, all I can expect to achieve. Will you help me, Senor, in this task I am undertaking for a bereft, deeply loving father?’

‘Senor, I will! For the sake of the holy bond that exists between father and son, I will!’

Lockhart’s Barcelona office was just round the corner from the church with soot-blackened doors through which the coffins had emerged. It was up a side street at the entrance to which several Arabs were lounging. They looked curiously at Chantale and for a moment she wondered if she should put her scarf back over her face; but then she decided she would not, and looked back at them hard, and after a moment they looked away.

Seymour registered that but registered also, with his policing experience, that they posed no threat. This was Spain and without the reinforcement they would have received from the general culture in Morocco or Algeria their power dwindled and they seemed slightly helpless.

The office consisted of two rooms and a man at a desk. The man was Arab, too.

‘I am looking for Senor Lockhart’s office,’ said Seymour.

“This is it. But Senor-’

‘I know,’ said Seymour. ‘But the business goes on? Who runs it now?’

‘His wife. From Gibraltar. That’s where the main office is. This is just a branch office.’

‘So you’re on your own here?’

‘I always was on my own. Mr Lockhart used to come over from time to time but mostly he left me to get on with it.’

‘And, of course, he was over here when — well, during Tragic Week.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you were, too, presumably?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was it like?’

‘Terrible, terrible. After the first day we all kept inside. I kept inside here. For five nights I did not go home. “You stay right here, Hussein,” he told me. “I’ll see food comes in. Don’t even put your head out.” ’

‘But he did. He went out, didn’t he? Into the streets.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why was that?’

‘To look after his friends.’

‘Friends?’

‘Arab friends. We thought at first, when it began, that it was directed against us. It usually is.’

‘But it wasn’t this time, was it? It was the conscripts.’

‘Yes, but we didn’t know that. Not at first. And when we did, people began to come out on their side. So in the end it didn’t make any difference. I don’t suppose it would have anyway. Once the Army had been called in, they would have gone for us anyway.’

‘And Lockhart was trying to see they didn’t?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wasn’t that foolhardy? I mean, one man-’

‘He was well known. He thought he had influence. He thought he might be able to stop them. Just being there, he thought, an independent witness, it might restrain them.’

‘But it didn’t?’

‘No. And it was foolish to even think that he could. But Senor Lockhart was like that. Foolhardy, yes. But generous, too. And he thought that nothing could happen to him. That he was, somehow, inviolable. That the bullets wouldn’t touch him. But they always do, don’t they?’

‘Except that, apparently, this time they did not. He was just taken into prison.’

‘The bullet got him in the end, though, didn’t it?’

‘Was it a bullet?’

The Arab shrugged.

‘The garrotte, perhaps?’ he offered.

There were flies buzzing in the window and through an open door Seymour could see Arabs sitting in an upper room. They were sitting on the ground, squatting on their haunches, content to sit in the darkness, since that was cooler. It could have been Tangier, he thought.

‘Why would they do that?’ he said.

The Arab shrugged again. ‘To warn, perhaps? To warn others not to be too friendly?’

He suddenly seemed to become nervous at his own frankness.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘I’m British,’ said Seymour. ‘Like Lockhart. A British policeman. Lockhart had British friends. Who are wondering what happened to him.’

‘A policeman?’ said the Arab doubtfully

‘A British one,’ said Seymour.

‘Not Spanish?’

‘No.’

The Arab seemed relieved.

‘The Spanish police came here,’ he said. ‘They wanted to know things about him. But we wouldn’t say anything.’

‘What might you have said?’

But the Arab did not reply

Or perhaps he did.

‘Lockhart had many friends,’ he said.

‘Arab friends?’

‘Si.’

‘I would like to meet some of those friends.’

The Arab thought.

‘You are British?’ he said, as if seeking reassurance.

‘Yes. Cannot you hear it?’

The Arab smiled.

‘Just,’ he said.

Afterwards, Seymour thought that there was something strange about it: an Arab testing an Englishman’s facility in Spanish. But the Arab seemed to see nothing strange in it. Perhaps he thought of himself as Spanish? He certainly spoke Spanish like a native and seemed confident of his ability to judge Seymour’s Spanish.

‘Whenever Senor Lockhart came down here,’ he said, ‘he always used to go to a particular cafe to play dominoes.’

‘Where would I find it?’

‘It’s further on along the Calle. On the left.’

‘A name, perhaps?’

The Arab hesitated.

‘Mine is Seymour.’

‘You could try asking for Ibrahim.’

As they were going out, the Arab looked at Chantale as if seeing her for the first time. Perhaps he was seeing her for the first time. When in the presence of women, Arabs often didn’t seem to notice them. This was not necessarily rudeness; indeed, to them it was politeness. It was felt offensive to address a woman directly, almost shockingly so, if she was with her husband — as, Seymour suspected, Chantale might well be supposed to be.

‘The Senora, perhaps, knew Lockhart?’

‘Not directly,’ said Chantale.

‘The Senora-’ there it was again, the obliqueness — ‘is perhaps from Algeria?’

‘Tangier.’

‘Ah, yes. Senor Lockhart knew many people in Tangier.’

Seymour wondered if he could make use of Chantale’s Arabness when he went to the cafe. Perhaps her being an Arab would in a way vouch for him. He suggested she go with him.