Michael Pearce - A dead man of Barcelona

When Seymour got back to Barcelona he found a message from Manuel waiting for him. It said that Manuel would like to see him, so he went round to the cafe right away. It was late in the afternoon and the cafe was almost empty. It would fill up later when people on their way home from work started dropping in for their aperitif. Most of the staff came on duty then, too, and the only person there now was Dolores, wiping the tables.

‘Manuel?’

She disappeared inside. A moment later she came back.

‘He’s been having his siesta,’ she said. ‘He’s just getting up. He says to give you a beer.’

She put a beer on the table in front of him.

‘Where have you been?’ she said. ‘The cabezudos have been wondering. They think you might have gone back to England.’

‘I’ve been to Gibraltar.’

‘Ah? Where Mr Lockhart came from?’

‘That’s right. I’ve been talking to Mrs Lockhart.’

‘Mrs Lockhart,’ said Dolores bitterly. ‘Well, that must have been a pleasure.’

Seymour said nothing.

‘You might have been talking to me,’ said Dolores wistfully.

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Seymour. ‘Lockhart would still have been dead.’

‘How do you know?’ said Dolores. She bent over a table and rubbed it hard. ‘I would have looked after him better.’

Manuel came out and sat down beside him. Dolores scuttled away to the other side of the cafe. A moment later she went outside and began to wipe the tables there.

‘It has not been easy,’ said Manuel. ‘I have had to spend money.’

‘How much?’

‘Sixty.’ He put his hand on Seymour. ‘Don’t give it me now. We may have to spend more. Have you some cash with you? Good. We may need it when we get there. The sixty has all gone on just getting them ready to listen.’

‘I understand.’

Manuel got up from the table.

‘We’ll go now,’ he said, ‘if that’s all right. I don’t want to leave it too long or else they’ll change their mind. And that will mean more money.’

When they got to the prison, he didn’t go to the main entrance but to a little door round the side.

‘Ah, there you are!’ said the man who opened it.

They went in.

‘That’ll be twenty.’

‘You’ve had twenty.’

The man shrugged. ‘This was to square things inside.’

Manuel gave the man another twenty.

He led them along a corridor and then up some stone steps, and then along another corridor to a staircase. They went up the staircase to another long, bare corridor with doors along it. He stopped outside one of these.

‘You can have twenty minutes,’ he said.

He unlocked the door and they all three went in.

‘Right,’ said the man, who appeared to be a warder of some kind, ‘you’ve got visitors!’

It was pitch black and Seymour couldn’t see anything. He sensed people moving, however.

‘Just watch it!’ warned the warder. ‘I don’t want any trouble.’

There was a window, high up and barred off, but what Seymour wanted now was as much ventilation as it was light.

‘I’ll leave you,’ said the warder. ‘Remember, no trouble!’ he warned.

‘I’ll stay with you,’ said Manuel.

‘Thanks.’

He might need the Spaniard to interpret if they got deep into Catalan.

‘Has he got any fags?’ asked someone.

‘I might have,’ said Manuel, who had come prepared. He handed round cigarettes and soon to the stench of sweaty, unwashed bodies was added the acrid fumes of cheap cigarettes.

‘I want to ask about someone,’ said Seymour.

‘Okay, ask.’

‘An Englishman. His name was Lockhart.’

No one said anything.

‘He was killed. Here. In the prison.’

‘It happens,’ said someone.

‘How can it happen?’

There was a little laugh.

‘Why do you want to know?’ said someone.

‘The father is asking,’ said Manuel.

‘The father?’

‘The Englishman’s father.’

‘He shouldn’t have let his son come here.’

‘His son was killed during Tragic Week,’ said Seymour. ‘So were a lot of others.’

‘This one was killed after they had put him in prison.’ There was another silence.

‘He was a friend of the Catalonians,’ said Manuel.

‘And of the anarchists,’ said Seymour. Then he wondered if that was wise.

‘Lockhart?’ a voice questioned.

‘Si.’

‘He was a friend of Arabs, too.’

‘He seems to have been a friend of everybody!’ said a voice caustically.

‘But not of the authorities,’ said Seymour.

There was another silence.

‘Got any more fags?’

‘Here!’ said Manuel.

‘How can a man die when he is in prison?’ asked Seymour.

‘Accident,’ said someone. ‘On his way along the corridor. Or in his cell.’

‘The warders?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘They might let someone in,’ said another voice. ‘If they were told to.’

‘The Englishman was poisoned,’ said someone. He thought it may have been the Arab.

‘He was,’ said Seymour. ‘How could that happen?’

‘Easy. Get someone to poison the food.’

‘The warders?’

‘It would have to be, wouldn’t it? If it was in the kitchens, we’d have been poisoned, too, wouldn’t we?’

‘So between the kitchen and the cell?’

No one replied.

‘Do you always have the same warder?’

‘One on during the day, the other on during the night.’

‘The man who brought us?’

‘Not him, no. Two others.’

‘It would have been the last meal,’ said someone. ‘He was found dead in the morning.’

‘And who brings the last meal?’

“The night warder.’

‘Enrico.’

There was a sudden hammering on the door.

‘One minute!’

‘Senor,’ said someone urgently, ‘was this man truly a friend of Catalonia?’

‘He was out on the streets in Tragic Week so that he could tell the world what he saw.’

‘So the bastards made sure that he couldn’t!’

The warder outside began to unlock the door.

Someone touched Seymour’s arm.

‘Senor,’ he whispered, ‘sometimes people bring food for those in the prison. It is forbidden but it is done. That is, perhaps, how the poison reached the Englishman.’

The warder came into the cell.

‘Right!’ he said. ‘Time’s up. If you’re still alive.’

‘It’s only bastards like you, Diego, that we kill!’

Looking out from the balcony of his room he saw the Chief of Police standing in the plaza below.

‘He’s been hanging around,’ Chantale said.

Seymour shrugged and then went back inside. But when he looked out again some time later the Chief was still there.

‘Does it matter?’ said Chantale.

‘No. I’m just curious.’

The Chief marched across the square to the little anarchist school.

‘I think I’ll go down,’ said Seymour.

The school had closed for the day but the two teachers were still busy in the playground doing something to one of the pieces of equipment. They didn’t look up when the Chief arrived but he spoke to them and Nina went across.

Seymour got there in time to hear the exchange.

‘So, Senora, you are still at work?’

‘So, Chief, you are again not at work?’

‘I am at work,’ retorted the Chief with dignity. ‘I am keeping an eye on things.’

‘The glasses in the bar?’

‘People,’ said the Chief heavily. ‘People who are up to something.’

‘Well, you won’t be keeping your eye on me, then,’ said Nina, and turned to go.

‘One moment, Senora!’

She stopped. ‘ Si?’