Michael Pearce - A dead man of Barcelona

‘ “Shock,” he said. “Heart failure. A stroke or something.”

‘ “Or something.” I said. “Look, you’ll have to do better than that. This man was known to me personally. And to my wife. And to a lot of other people, too. Big people. People who’ll put their boot up your backside. You’d better find out what he did die of. Pretty quickly, too.”

‘Well, he went off. And then next minute he was back. White as a sheet. “Boss,” he said, “he was poisoned!”

‘ “Bollocks!” I said. “Now you go back and look again. And look a bit more carefully this time. Poisoned, my ass! Here? In my prison?”

‘But, Christ, it was true. That was what the post-mortem showed. Poisoned! I couldn’t believe it.’

‘Was there an inquiry?’ asked Seymour.

‘Was there an inquiry?’ the prison governor mimicked ironically. ‘You bet there was! I told my deputy to get down there at once. And then I went over it myself. With a fine-tooth comb.’

‘And did you find anything?’

‘No,’ the governor admitted.

‘No?’

‘No. Nothing hard, that is. Nothing that would stand up in court. The bastards were too clever. I had them in and grilled them. Personally. Myself. But there was no one we could actually tie it on to. They were too damned clever. Of course, we know who did it.’

‘You know who did it?’

‘The anarchists.’

‘Anarchists?’

‘The place was full of them. Especially after Tragic Week. It still is. That’s the best place for them. Inside. Where they can’t do any harm. At least, they shouldn’t be able to do any harm. But-’

‘You’re saying you had some anarchist prisoners, and that they, or some of them, poisoned Senor Lockhart?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But-’

‘You wonder how this can be? I will tell you. Spain is a strange country just at the moment. It is full of anarchists. Yes! Anarchists. There is a strong popular movement. The Government is very worried. You can see how strong they are when you look at Tragic Week. A mass insurrection. Of anarchists. They came out on the streets. The Army had to be called out to put them down.’

‘Anarchists?’ said Seymour incredulously,

The governor was watching him.

‘Yes, anarchists,’ he said. ‘I know you, coming from England, find this hard to believe. But it is true. The anarchist movement is very strong in Spain. And especially around Barcelona. They are all around us, Senor!’

‘And in your prison, too, you say. But, surely, if Lockhart was in a cell with them, that narrows it down-’

The governor held up a hand. ‘Ah, no. Let me correct you there, Senor Seymour. He had been in a cell with a lot of others, that is true. But then he was moved to a cell of his own.’

‘He was in a cell of his own when he was poisoned?’

‘That is correct, yes.’

‘But-’

‘Someone showed a flash of intelligence. They realized that he was an Englishman. “An Englishman?” they said. “What the hell is he doing here?” So they moved him.’

‘Into a cell of his own?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s where he died? Where he was poisoned?’

‘Yes.’

‘But — but how could that be? How could the poison have been got to him? The warders-’

Again the governor held up his hand.

‘I know what you are thinking, Senor. And you are right, suspicion must fall on the warders. Or so you would think. But, Senor Seymour, here it is not like that. The prison was, as I say, full of anarchists. All in their cells. You would think it impossible for them. But, Senor, I’ll tell you how it could happen.

‘One day a warder is talking to a prisoner. That is allowed, yes? You cannot forbid people to talk. And the prisoner says, “Would you like a cigarette?” Well, yes. The warder would like a cigarette. What is wrong with that? Anyone may smoke. So he accepts a cigarette. And then another one the next day And the next.

‘And then one day the prisoner says to the warder, “It is unjust that I should smoke, and that you should smoke, but that poor man down the corridor, alone in that cell, should not.” Well, maybe it is, thinks the warder. But rules are rules. It cannot be allowed, he says. “Not allowed?” says the prisoner. “Look, it’s just a cigarette! That’s not going to bring the Government down, is it? Let me just stick a hand in.”

‘ “No, no, it cannot be done. It is forbidden.” “To put a hand in? With a cigarette? For a poor man who is dying for a smoke? Have you no heart?” “Well, maybe just one,” said the warder.

‘But you see what has happened? The system has been subverted. A chink has been opened. Just a chink, but the chink becomes a crack, and through the crack anything can pass. Including poison.’

‘All right,’ said Seymour, ‘I can see how it might have happened. But have you checked to see if it actually did happen?’

‘Of course.’

‘And?’

‘And found nothing. Everyone on the corridor denies all knowledge.’

‘And that is where it has been left?’

‘Not left,’ said the governor, hurt. ‘An investigation was carried out. And is, in fact, still continuing.’

‘Still continuing? But all this happened two years ago!’

‘It takes time,’ said the governor. ‘There are many things to be considered.’

‘But two years… When is the report expected?’

‘Soon,’ said the governor blandly. ‘Soon.’

Oddly, Seymour knew about anarchists. The East End of London was full of them. You were always running into little anarchist groups, as you were into nutty groups of all kinds. The East End was an immigrant area. It was where you landed when you got off the boat. Where you landed and where, quite often, you stayed. Seymour’s own family had done that. His grandfather had come first, from Poland, with his grandmother coming along a little later. Their son, Seymour’s father, had grown up there and started a timber business. Later he had himself married another immigrant, this time from an obscure part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And that, in the East End, was where Seymour had been born, and where he had grown up, among the variety of immigrant families. This was how he had come to speak other languages. He had soon discovered that he had a flair for them. The police discovered that too and had put him to work mainly at first in the East End, among the people and languages that he knew.

Often the immigrants brought their enthusiasms and nuttinesses with them. Usually they were political nuttinesses, which was why they had had to emigrate in the first place. And, yes, there had been plenty of anarchists among them.

The newspapers, and, consequently, the politicians, often got excited about them. That in turn meant the police often got excited about them, too, and Seymour had frequently been put to work on the anarchist groups. He had soon found that they belied their reputation. Some were violent, certainly, but most of them weren’t. Even with the violent ones, the violence was usually confined to their speaking. On the whole he had found them an unusually pacific lot.

So he knew about anarchists, yes. And he didn’t believe a word of what the governor had been saying.

Before he left England Seymour had obtained Hattersley’s Barcelona address and now he went to see him.

Hattersley jumped up from his desk.

‘Seymour! You know, I had my doubts whether… When I was in London, I rather thought… That dreadful meeting! I wondered if I was wasting my time.’

‘You certainly weren’t.’

‘I’m glad you think so. Now, what can I do for you? A drink?’

‘Not just now, thank you. A few minutes of your time, that’s all.’

‘Glad to, glad to!’