Michael Pearce - A dead man of Barcelona

Seymour didn’t mind them. He quite liked talking to them. There was an element of seriousness in their conversation that he responded to. Partly it was his own family again. They were an argumentative lot and used to holding their own corners. Seymour’s mother came from a revolutionary past in Herzegovina and his sister was a member of just about all the left-wing organizations that there were in the East End, and there were certainly plenty of those. She was a bit like Nina.

Sympathy, though, was one thing; credence quite another. He took what Nina said with a pinch of salt. He felt, though, that he had learned something about Lockhart. Several things, in fact. Perhaps there was more to the anarchist movement in Spain than he had supposed. And Lockhart seemed particularly prone to following his sympathies into all kinds of complicated political situations. The thought came to him that maybe the Deputy Commissioner had been right: this was not a thing for Scotland Yard. Or him personally. But, then, without that he wouldn’t be here, would he? And if he weren’t here, he wouldn’t be with Chantale.

Hattersley had pressed him to return for a drink that evening. Seymour had hesitated, reluctant to abandon Chantale.

‘I’m afraid I’m rather committed to a colleague,’ he said apologetically.

‘Bring him along! Yes, do!’ said Hattersley enthusiastically.

‘It’s not a him, actually-’

‘Bring her along! All the better!’

Colleague? How was he going to get out of this?

‘Not — not a police colleague, actually.’

‘No?’

Inspiration came. ‘A colleague on the Intelligence side.’

‘Really?’ Hattersley was impressed. ‘I suppose that will be on the Naval side,’ he said. ‘I must say, the Admiral has really got things moving!’

‘Yes. Yes. Naval Intelligence. That’s what she is.’

Foreboding struck him.

‘But you’d better keep that quiet,’ he said.

‘Of course, old man! Of course. Hush hush. Absolutely! Not a word.’

Hattersley seemed slightly surprised, however, when he arrived with Chantale. He fussed around her and showed her out on to the balcony. But then he took Seymour aside and said: ‘She’s not quite what I expected, you know.’

‘What did you expect?’ said Seymour, with sinking heart.

‘Well, not someone like this.’ He caught himself up. ‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Not if they were in Naval Intelligence. I mean, if they were obviously Naval Intelligence, that wouldn’t do at all. Give the game away, wouldn’t it? Crafty old bugger, the Admiral! No one would think for a moment-’

‘That’s the idea, of course,’ said Seymour.

‘Of course! Of course!’

‘You will keep quiet about it, won’t you?’

‘Oh, gosh, yes. I’ve always thought it was best to steer clear of these Intelligence things. Unlike Lockhart. He was pretty close to the Admiral at one time. Goodness knows what they got up to. But I think the Admiral found him pretty useful. Not for me, though. A bit too risky for me, that sort of thing.’

He took Chantale a gin-and-tonic and then came back to Seymour, still shaking his head.

‘Well, she would certainly have fooled me! Pretty smart, is she?’

‘Oh, gosh, yes,’ said Seymour.

‘One of their aces? Trust the Admiral to get one of the best!’

A little later, as they were sitting out on the balcony, Hattersley said, ‘Excuse me, Miss de Lissac, do you mind my asking? Do you come from these parts?’

‘Tangier,’ said Chantale.

‘Ah, Tangier? Well, you’ll know your way around, then. I’m sure that’s why they chose you. The Arab dimension! Well, I’m not going to say a word about that, of course. Not a word. It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but I daresay the Admiral knows what he’s doing.’

Then he slapped his hand on his knee.

‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Stupid of me not to spot it! The Arab dimension! Important with Lockhart. Always was.’

‘Why should that be?’

Hattersley smiled. ‘Well, he married one, for a start.’

‘His wife was an Arab?’

‘Yes. Leila,’ said Hattersley. He chuckled. ‘Leila Lockhart. Double L. That made her Welsh, Evans said. You don’t know Evans, do you? A bit of a wag. You don’t see him much over here but you’d see him every day in the Club over in Gibraltar. Great joker! “Ll” as in Llangollen. Very good, don’t you think?’

‘Ye-e-es…’

‘Well, I thought so. And so did Leila. She laughed no end.’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure. And — and she’s running the business now, I gather?’

‘Yes. Took over when Sam died. Of course, she knew all about it. Knew more than he did, Sam used to say. A tough old bird, Leila. Wily, too. She’ll be a match for them.’

‘Match for…?’

‘The Spaniards. They always give you trouble if you’re trading out of Gibraltar. Between you and me, that’s why I’ve got a sub-office here. Why Sam had one, too.’

‘Difficult, were they? The Spaniards?’

‘Oh, yes. Mind you, it didn’t bother Sam too much. It was part of the game, he said. He quite liked them, actually. More than they liked him, the bastards. He used to say they were a proud people and that was why they were so difficult. Like the Arabs, he said. Proud. That’s what people didn’t recognize. But he could understand them, he said, because the Scots were like that. But not the English.

‘Well, of course,’ said Hattersley, ‘I took him up on that. “What about our Navy?” I said. “We’re proud of that. And our cricket. Sometimes.” “No, no,” he said, “it’s not the same thing. You’ve got to be touchy with it. The English aren’t touchy because they take their superiority for granted. The Spaniards can’t, because they lost their superiority long ago. The Arabs even longer. So they’re touchy, and that makes them difficult.” Sam said he didn’t mind that because he could understand it.’

‘Yes. Yes, I see. Interesting theory. Possibly. And — and he was married to an Arab, you say?’

‘Yes. He met her when he was over there once. Married her and brought her back to Gibraltar, and they’ve stayed together ever since. Just!’

Hattersley laughed. ‘There were some rocky moments, especially early on. Sam’s always had a roving eye and it roved a bit too frequently for Leila. There was even talk of a child he’d had by some other woman, which made things harder. They couldn’t seem to manage any children of their own, you see. And I think she found it very difficult at first in Gibraltar. It was a bit too British and stiff-upper-lip for her. But, then, there are always stresses and strains in a mixed marriage, aren’t there?’

‘Yes,’ said Chantale.

‘You spoke of an Arab dimension to Lockhart,’ Seymour said. ‘Did it go further than just the fact that he was married to one?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Hattersley. ‘A lot of his business was over there. That’s how he first made his name. Started there. In Algeria, I think. And then spread along the coast. And then came back to Gibraltar. But he always kept up that side. It had grown quite big by the time he left. That’s where he made the bulk of his money, in fact. Of course, Leila’s family are there. That’s why he married her, some say. But I don’t believe that. Leila was always first with him. No matter what happened, he always went back to her.

‘I asked him once why he didn’t stay out there. “Gibraltar’s become too important to me now,” he said. It was the Navy, you see. Especially when the Admiral took over. He needed help, you see. Especially over the oil business — when the ships converted to oil. He had to scratch around a bit for supplies, and that’s where Lockhart, with his contacts, came in. It’s not so important now, of course, but it gave Lockhart a leg up, and that’s all he needed. The firm still does a lot of work for the Navy. That’s why the Admiral got so fired up when Lockhart was killed. He wouldn’t have got Whitehall interested without him.’