A Dead Man In Trieste

by Michael Pearce

  As they were going out, she looked at the pictures again.

  ‘He spoke about these the last time I saw him. It was just before he died. He said that sometimes artists saw things that other people didn’t. About the world, I mean.’

  ‘People always think that the wheels are coming off the world.’

  ‘I know. And Lomax said that diplomats were worse than anybody at thinking that. That they always thought they were sitting on a powder-bag which was about to explode. But that sometimes they were right.’

  Chapter Eleven

  In one of the streets leading to the Piazza Grande there were some large poster hoardings. Usually they displayed advertisements for local shops or even for the cinema. Whatever they were displaying today was unusually arresting, for a large knot of people was gathered in front of them.

  Seymour, taller than most Triestians, was able to see over the heads. He read:

  Futurist Evening. The Politeama on Saturday.

  Underneath, it said:

  Art Breaks into the Future! Art IS the Future!

  Beneath that were two separate posters, alongside each other. One said:

  The Future is Here! At the Politeama on Saturday. Embrace it!

  Scribbled beneath that were the words:

  And your Girl Friend!

  And then another, different, scribble:

  But not too closely! Otherwise you’ll have to pay for the infant.

  The poster next to it showed a caricature reproduction of the Mona Lisa. The corners of her mouth were exaggerated into a depressed droop. Art is Tired! read the caption. Underneath, the scribble, which Seymour now saw as part of the poster, said:

  No, it’s not! All she needs is a Man!

  Another artist had added a bristly moustache to the face and then:

  She IS a Man!

  Just along the street was another poster which at first seemed to consist of the single word, written huge:

  SMASH

  But, then, down the edge, much smaller, one saw a column of other words:

  Galleries

  Museums

  Libraries

  Police Stations

  The Assicurazioni Generale

  and then, right at the end:

  The Hapsburgs

  Get rid of the Old, ran a caption around the bottom, Let in the New. Let Art let in the Future!

  A man detached himself from the group of viewers. ‘Children!’ he said, with a sneer.

  It was Rakic.

  ‘What rubbish!’ he said, seeing Seymour and half recognizing him. ‘To think people are being invited to an evening of that!’

  Now he did recognize Seymour.

  ‘The King’s Messenger? Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you carry messages, you said. Yes?’

  ‘Yes. For the Foreign Office in London. To consulates and embassies.’

  ‘And back again?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes.’

  Rakic smiled.

  ‘And what message will you be carrying back to London from Trieste? Not about this, I hope,’ he said, gesturing towards the posters.

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Only messages of diplomatic significance.’

  ‘And this is not,’ said Rakic, somehow with satisfaction. ‘It is childish rubbish. And yet people will be going to their Evening! Important people. The Governor!’ He shook his head in wonderment.

  ‘These are just advertisements,’ said Seymour, moved, for some reason, to speak up on behalf of Marinetti. ‘There may be more to the Evening than this,’

  Rakic seemed struck.

  ‘More to the Evening? Well, perhaps you are right. We must hope so. For the sake of the people who are going. The important people.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, it is no concern of mine. So long as the money for the hall has been paid.’

  Seymour had not heard from Kornbluth for two or three days, despite his promise to keep him informed. Two or three days were perhaps not much. All the same . . .

  He made up his mind to see Kornbluth and later in the morning called in on him at the police station. Kornbluth was back to his most stolid and looked up at Seymour with none of his usual affability.

  ‘I was wondering how you were getting on,’ said Seymour.

  Kornbluth, almost reluctantly, gestured to him to sit down.

  ‘Badly,’ he said. ‘There have been no further developments.’

  ‘You have found no one who saw Lomax after he had left the cinema that night?’

  ‘We have asked,’ said Kornbluth, ‘but no one seems to have seen him.’

  ‘Have you been asking about the right time?’ said Seymour.

  ‘The right time?’

  ‘Not when the performance ended. Later.’

  ‘Later?’

  ‘He went back into the cinema. To see Machnich. He would have left later than we thought.’

  ‘Did he, now?’

  Kornbluth sat there thinking.

  ‘How do you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone told me. And I have spoken to Machnich.’

  Kornbluth thought some more.

  ‘You will check?’ Seymour pressed him. ‘For the new time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Seymour sensed reluctance, however.

  ‘Is anything wrong? Something gone wrong with the investigation? Have I done something?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Kornbluth hurriedly. ‘All is as it should be.’ He paused. ‘It is just that - well, we have been told to hold back a little on the investigation.’

  ‘Hold back? Who by?’

  ‘I am afraid I cannot say,’ said Kornbluth unhappily.

  ‘Schneider? But, Christ - ’

  ‘Listen,’ said Kornbluth. ‘I am sorry. It is not as I would have it. But sometimes it is necessary to hold back on one thing so that you can progress on another.’

  ‘But he has progressed on another! He got Koskash. He’s closed that escape route down. You mean to say there’s something else? Somebody else to do with Lomax?’

  Kornbluth put up a hand.

  ‘I say nothing,’ he said. ‘I know nothing. That is because I would know nothing. Schneider doesn’t tell me what he’s doing. All I know is that he’s asked me to hold back.’

  ‘But do you have to? I mean, if you’ve got an investigation going -’

  ‘If Schneider asks,’ said Kornbluth, ‘I have to. Look, I don’t like it. Those bastards over there get up my nose. I’m an ordinary policeman, right? And I like to get on with my ordinary work in an ordinary way. And I don’t like those bastards coming in over my head and ordering me around. But I’ve got to put up with it, see? Schneider’s a bloody General and I’m a bloody Inspector, and what his lot says, goes, and what my lot says, doesn’t. So there you have it. If I could do something about it, I would. If I could put one across him, I would. But I can’t. I’ll do what I can for you. I’ll check possible witnesses at the new time. But don’t expect too much, that’s all. Schneider’s got his heel on me, the same as he has on everyone else.’

  Seymour walked away simmering. He wondered, as he walked, and as his ‘shadow’ fell in behind him, whether he should write a letter of protest to the people back in the Foreign Office and savoured, for a moment, a few juicy phrases that he could put in. But then a note of caution crept in. This was probably happening to diplomats all the time. Governments were probably always saying something or doing something to them and they just had to swallow it. They couldn’t answer back and it wouldn’t be much good writing complaining letters to London. He could just imagine that supercilious bastard back in London getting a letter from him. ‘Always knew he wasn’t up to it,’ he could hear him saying. ‘From the East End. Not a diplomat, of course.’

  But there was another reason why perhaps it would be best not to write. At least, not yet. Schneider evidently thought there was something else he had to find out. Something else, probably about Lomax, something more than just involvement in the escape route. It would be better if Seym
our could discover what that was before writing any complaining letters. Because Schneider might, just might, be in the right.

  He turned up an alleyway and heard Trilby’s footsteps echoing behind him. That was another thing he felt like complaining about. It was almost like cheek. Of course, Schneider didn’t know, not for sure, that he was a policeman, but even if he had been a diplomat . . .

  A consul like Lomax. Had Lomax been followed, too? Because if he had . . .

  Seymour turned on his heel, throwing Trilby into confusion, and walked back the way he had come. A few moments later he was being shown into Schneider’s office.

  Schneider looked up, smiling politely.

  ‘Still here, then?’

  ‘Still here,’ said Seymour, ‘and still hoping to find out what happened to Lomax.’

  ‘You’d better ask Kornbluth - ’

  ‘Not much point in doing that,’ said Seymour, ‘is it?’

  The smile faded.

  ‘What is it that you are meaning?’ said Schneider.

  ‘Not much point in doing that when you’re the one I should be approaching.’

  ‘Mr Kornbluth is the officer - ’ began Schneider, and then stopped.

  ‘You are the one who is holding all the loose ends,’ said Seymour. ‘I want to know about the pattern.’

  Schneider said nothing for a moment, then sighed.

  ‘You know about the pattern. Or as much about it as I do. I told you. I suspect his involvement with the Serbs. I suspect there was more to it than just helping students to escape. If I am right, it is you that should be doing the explaining.’

  ‘Lomax was killed,’ said Seymour, ‘and I want to know who killed him.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Schneider. ‘Of course. And if you ask Mr Kornbluth - ’

  ‘You know more than Kornbluth. You knew more right from the start. Because you were having him followed. You knew, for instance, but did not tell Kornbluth, that after leaving the Piazza Grande and the artists he went to the Edison cinema. You knew that after the performance, after saying goodbye to James Juice he went back in. You would have worked out that he went to see Machnich.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well? You tell me.’

  Schneider looked at him for a moment.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he said quietly.

  ‘What I want to know is what happened when he came out. The second time. Your man was there. What did he see?’

  Schneider thought, then sighed again.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘He did not come out.’

  ‘But then - ’

  ‘Unless he came out by some other door. We have, of course, spoken to Machnich. He swears that after their conversation, Lomax left. There are two cleaners there who support that. One never believes entirely but I think they were speaking the truth,’

  ‘He left, but your man did not see him?’

  Schneider nodded.

  ‘That is what Machnich says must have happened. Unfortunately, he could be right. My men are not what they ought to be.’

  ‘You shadow me, too,’ said Seymour.

  ‘That is for your own protection.’

  Seymour hoped that if that was so, and he very much doubted it, then whoever was shadowing him would show rather more efficiency than the man who had been shadowing Lomax.

  Mrs Koskash was waiting for him at the Consulate.

  ‘You have been to see him?’

  ‘Yes. He is well. As well as can be expected. They have not touched him yet.’

  ‘Keep going,’ said Mrs Koskash. ‘Go to see him every day.’

  ‘He asked me to pass a message to you. It was that you shouldn’t do anything - anything precipitate. Like turning yourself in. He said that it would be easier for him if he knew that you were outside.’

  ‘The fool!’ said Mrs Koskash. The hard shell cracked, however. ‘The fool!’ she said again, softly.

  Augstein came in with two cups of coffee.

  ‘Thank you for sending him,’ said Seymour, when he had gone.

  ‘It was the least we could do. Koskash was particularly anxious that the work of the Consulate should not suffer. More than it had to.’

  ‘Augstein is a Serb, isn’t he?’

  She looked at him quickly.

  ‘Does that worry you?’

  ‘It didn’t worry Lomax’s predecessors.’

  ‘He is a good, conscientious man.’

  ‘It didn’t worry Lomax’s predecessors; but I wonder if it ought to worry me.’

  ‘Because of what we did for the students, you mean? He had nothing to do with that. It happened after his time.’

  ‘When did it start?’

  ‘Two years ago. After the Austrians annexed Bosnia. There was protest and the Austrians cracked down. Mostly it was the young, students. Suddenly there were a lot of them trying to flee from the police. We felt we had to do something.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘The Serbs here. But I never intended it to become what it did. I thought I would do it once or twice only. And Koskash was happy with that. But when it grew, he was less happy. And I was less happy, not because it was dangerous, but because it wasn’t fair, to him. But Machnich kept sending us more people. They all went to him because he is the Big Man, here, the big Serbian man, at any rate. And I think - I think he revelled in it. He thought of himself as the Saviour of his people. Machnich looks after his own, you know!

  ‘But I think we would have stopped, anyway. It came to a head when he started sending us people who were not Serbs, not even students! I remember, he sent us two Herzegovinians. Herzegovinians! Look, I said, they’re not Serbs. They’re not even students. They’re a pair of roughs, they look criminals to me. Just this once, he said. A special favour! I don’t like the look of them, I said. Who knows what they might have done? They haven’t done anything, he said. They’re students, staying in the student hostel. But I wouldn’t do it. I said, no, that’s enough. And that man of his became very hot under the collar, but I stuck to it. No, I said, we’ve done enough. But then, of course, Machnich sent us some more. Proper students this time, so, well . . . It was a mistake. I should have stopped. For Koskash’s sake.’

  ‘When was this?’ asked Seymour. ‘When was it that the two Herzegovinians came along?’

  ‘I can place it exactly. It was after Machnich started sending Rakic. There was a period when he seemed to be coming all the time. Koskash noticed it because Lomax became increasingly angry. But still he kept coming. Koskash thought he was badgering Lomax over something. Well, it was after that. Something happened, and then Rakic didn’t want to see Lomax any more. But suddenly he wanted to see Koskash. It was about those Herzegovinians. Machnich came too and they were both very angry when he refused,’

  Herzegovinians now, thought Seymour, after she had gone. Where the hell was Herzegovina? It must be another of those Balkan countries. And how exactly was Herzegovina aligned in all these disputes that seemed to occur in that part of the world? And did it matter? Not to anyone outside the Balkans and not, hitherto, to him. But maybe he should look into it when he got home. Do a bit of reading. It was shocking to be so ignorant. Especially when his own people, his mother, at least, came from that area.

  And that was another thing. Nationalism. Half the trouble seemed to be that they all wanted to be independent, run their own show. Well, why not? A nuisance to everyone else, maybe, but why couldn’t you just leave them to get on with it? He was certain about one thing, though: how right his family had been to get out of it!

  He was still thinking about it when Maddalena arrived. She was another, caught up in all these local politics. Or at any rate, the local passions about politics, and there seemed to be plenty of those. Maddalena was certainly passionate, in all senses, but at least her political action was confined to daubing statues and making musical gibes at authority.

  And much the same seemed to be true of that bunch of artists he h
ad met in the Piazza Grande. They were Italians and seemed to want independence, or, at least, union with Italy - irredentism, was it? - as passionately as everyone here seemed to want something else, but on the whole they stuck to their art, and that was harmless, surely?

  Maybe that was why Lomax had turned to them - as a relief after having to do with everyone else! The Serbs, for instance. Clearly, he had felt a lot of sympathy for them, too much, probably, and that might have led him to go too far. But maybe he had felt that, as the Koskashes seemed to have done, and had tried to draw back, back to the sunshine of the piazza and the great ships in the bay, back to the inconsequential chatter and the pictures on the wall?

  Maddalena had news for him.

  ‘I think you’ve made a mistake,’ she said. ‘You’ve been thinking that Lomax did not go to that reception at the Casa Revoltella. But it seemed that he did,’

  She said that she had been talking to some students and that two of them made some money in their spare time by working as waiters at wedding party receptions and the like. They had done some waiting at the reception at the Casa Revoltella, going round with trays of drinks and titbits. At one point, when things had slackened off, they had gone outside for a breath of fresh air. They had stood just outside the door, at the top of the steps, and looked down and had seen some men arguing. One of the men was trying to get in and another was trying to stop him. They were pretty sure that the second man had been Lomax.

  In the end someone had summoned the major-domo and he had come down and ordered the first man away. And then, they thought, Lomax had mounted the stairs and gone in.

  ‘What about the second man?’ said Seymour. ‘Did they know him?’

  Maddalena said that they didn’t, but that they didn’t think he was a student. More like a soldier, one of them said, all stiff and upright. Not like an ordinary soldier, the other had corrected him: like an officer. Bossy, commanding.

  ‘Commanding Lomax?’ said Seymour.

  ‘He tried to push past him,’ said Maddalena, ‘but Lomax wouldn’t let him. He wouldn’t be bossed.’

  Seymour asked Augstein to find out from the Casa Revoltella who had been the major-domo on that occasion. Augstein, who seemed to know everybody in Trieste, didn’t need to find out.