A Dead Man in Barcelona

by Michael Pearce

  ‘You are saying this was the case here?’

  ‘No. Just that it may be the case. We keep coming back, you see, to that question you asked, a very good question. What exactly was Señor Lockhart doing during Tragic Week?’

  ‘Was he taking sides, you mean?’

  ‘Or did he have his own agenda? In which case, what exactly was that agenda? You see, Señor, even after all this time, these questions still have to be answered.’

  ‘There is another question which has to be asked,’ said Seymour. ‘Even after all this time.’

  ‘I know, I know!’ said the Chief of Police.

  ‘It is about how Lockhart came to die.’

  ‘A shock!’ said the Chief of Police. ‘It came as a terrible shock. I couldn’t believe it! I went home and told my wife and she couldn’t believe it, either. A man like Señor Lockhart, known to all, respected by all. But in the midst of life we are in death, Señor Seymour. One moment Señor Lockhart was with us and the next he was taken away.

  ‘“Let it be a warning to you, Alonzo,” my wife said.

  “You, too, could be carried off if you go on the way you do. Remember, God has his eye on you!”

  ‘“Father Roberto has his eye on me, more like, and has been talking again,” I said.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, Señor, my wife is a good woman and on the whole has her head screwed on all the way. But, between you and me, Señor, she listens a bit too much to the people in black. She’s always there at the church, morning, noon and evening. Well, that’s as it should be. And perhaps she’s right. Maybe I should go there more often. But how to find the time? In our job one is always busy. And never more busy than that dreadful week!

  ‘Madrid was on to me, Colonel Ramirez was on to me, the Legal Department was on to me – “Get those men processed!” they said. But there were hundreds of them! I didn’t know which way to turn. I’ve only got a handful of men, and, between you and me, Señor, some of them are not great hands at paperwork. So it all fell on one or two. And me. And it wasn’t until about the third day that I saw Señor Lockhart’s name on the list.

  ‘“Christ, what have you done?” I said. “There’s a respectable man here!”

  ‘“How were we to know he was respectable?” they protested. “We just took him in like everyone else!” And, you know, Señor, when I thought it over, I couldn’t blame them. In the heat of the moment . . .

  ‘“All right, all right!” I said. “But, boys,” I said, “you’ve make a mistake. You’ve picked up someone who was nothing to do with it. Someone who’d popped out for a look –” “But, boss,” they said, “he was something to do with it. And he hadn’t just popped out for a look. He’d been there all the time. We’d seen him.”’

  ‘Seen him doing what?’ said Seymour.

  ‘Talking. Talking to them. In a friendly way. Giving instructions, my men said. Telling them what to do.’

  ‘How do they know that?’ said Seymour.

  ‘That’s just what I asked them. They said they’d heard him. But, between you and me, Señor, I had my doubts. How anyone could hear anything in all that racket beats me. I said, “Look, lads, this is an important man and you’ve got to be sure. Sure enough to be able to stand up to a lawyer asking you twisty questions.”

  ‘Well, they weren’t so sure then, and I wasn’t so sure, either. All the same, I wasn’t not sure, if you know what I mean. I mean, what the hell was he doing there? If he wasn’t mixed up in it somehow?

  ‘The fact was, we’d taken him in, and there he was in the prison, and that’s no place for any respectable man to be. Particularly with all those hoodlums. So I sent a man down there post haste.

  ‘But by the time he’d got there, Lockhart had already died. I was – well, I won’t say I was distraught, I’m not that kind of man, you can’t be in my job, but I was pretty cut up, I can tell you. “He’s a decent man,” I said to my wife, “and now – this!”

  ‘Well, she thought a bit. “Yes a decent man, yes,” she said. “But he’s also a big one. There will be questions asked about this. And you’re going to have to find some answers.” “I’ll get down there right away,” I said. “No,” she said. “Don’t you do that. All you did was pull him in. It’s for others to answer questions about what happened afterwards.”’

  ‘But, just a moment,’ said Seymour. ‘Is it? He was in police custody when he died. Your custody.’

  The Chief put his hand up. ‘Ah, no, Señor. I must correct you on that. He wasn’t in my custody.’

  ‘Not in your custody?’

  ‘No. You see, Señor, we had so many coming in that in no time at all our cells were full. So we had to send them straight down to the main jail. And that’s where Señor Lockhart was taken. And where he died.’

  ‘Ah, Señor Lockhart!’ said the prison governor, shaking his head. ‘A bad business, that! Tragic! One of the many tragic things that happened during Tragic Week. I couldn’t believe it when I heard.’

  ‘When you heard?’ said Seymour. ‘But surely you knew that he had been admitted?’

  ‘No. Not straightaway. You have to understand, Señor, that hundreds were being admitted. We were swamped. It was days before we sorted ourselves out. And, besides, we weren’t supposed to be doing the initial processing. That is normally the responsibility of the police. But everything was at sixes and sevens during that week. It took time to sort it out. And it was only when things were beginning to settle down that I heard that an Englishman had been admitted. And it was some time after that that I heard it was Señor Lockhart.

  ‘“Señor Lockhart?” I said. “But that is ridiculous!” For Señor Lockhart is well known around here. Was well known, that is. I knew him myself. My wife knew him. Socially. I sent someone down immediately. But then they came back and told me he was dead. “Dead?” I said. “How can he be?” For all prisoners are looked at by a doctor when they are admitted. Now, as I said, we were all at sixes and sevens that week and there may have been a little delay. But he should have been seen by a doctor, and in fact he was seen by a doctor. Who should surely have spotted it if he had been wounded.

  ‘I called him in at once. “What’s this?” I said. “What sort of examination is this, when you can’t even tell when a man’s got a bullet in him?” “But, Governor,” he said, “he didn’t have a bullet in him!” “Oh, come,” I said, “what did he die of, then?”

  ‘“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 a
ny 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 Señor 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, Señor!’

  ‘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, Señor 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, Señor. And you are right, suspicion must fall on the warders. Or so you would think. But, Señor 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, Señor, 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.’ 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!’

  And he seemed it. He was one of those men, Seymour thought, who were always taking up causes: enthusiastic, committed to whatever he had just taken up. A little diffident, too, lacking, ultimately, in confidence; although still determined.

  ‘Can I just take you back to the starting-point of this whole business? That church. Where you saw the coffins.’

  ‘A shock, I can tell you!’ said Hattersley. ‘When I saw them get out –’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Now, I’ve been looking at that church. It still shows the signs, doesn’t it? The soot on the doors – it must have been badly burnt during Tragic Week. Who by?’

  ‘Who by?’ Hattersley fingered his chin. ‘Well, a lot of places were damaged at the time . . .’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘But why the church?’

  ‘Does there have to be a why? Couldn’t it have just been an accident?’

  ‘It looks pretty deliberate to me. And if so, I wondered why. Were some of the insurrectionists particularly opposed to the Church?’

  ‘Well, a lot of people in Spain are opposed to the Church. It’s not like England, you know. The Church is more powerful, and because it’s more powerful, more people are against it.’

  ‘The anarchists?’

  ‘Anarchists are certainly opposed to the Church.’

  ‘Could it have been them, then? I gather there were a lot of anarchists on the streets.’

  ‘Were there as many as all that? I think the newspapers sometimes exaggerate . . . But they could have done it, I suppose.’

  ‘And that little ceremony you witnessed: who was responsible for that? Clearly not the anarchists, if they are so opposed to churches. And yet it seems quite an anarchist thing to do.’

  ‘Local people, perhaps
?’

  ‘I’m sure there was an element of localness. Was it just that it was the local church?’

  ‘Well, it was the local church. But it didn’t seem very churchy to me. I mean, usually when there’s a church service over here, there’s a lot of business that goes with it – incense, bells, that sort of thing.’ Hattersley thought for a moment. ‘And I didn’t see any clergymen. No,’ he said definitely. ‘I didn’t see any priests at all.’

  ‘So not particularly religious, then, even though it’s a church. But possibly still chosen because it’s local. And the local people here are Catalan, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A Catalan point, then, not an anarchist one? After all, a key factor in the uprising was the attempt to embark Catalan conscripts.’

  ‘That’s certainly true.’

  ‘Would they have burnt the church? Probably not. But they might well have used it. Afterwards, for a kind of ceremony of remembrance. And the Church, which would, presumably, have had to have given permission, might well have been prepared to go along with it. Which they certainly wouldn’t do if the organizers were anarchists.’

  ‘So what is your point, old man?’

  ‘Since I’ve been here I’ve heard a lot about anarchists. But not much about the Catalans.’

  ‘They’re all Catalan around here, old boy.’

  ‘And yet,’ said Seymour, ‘if the authorities are to be believed, there’s not a Catalonian Nationalist among them.’

  Chapter Three

  One of the things he had already noticed about Barcelona was the crocodiles.

  Of children. They were everywhere. Little, disciplined processions, usually with a man in a long black cassock at the head of them, with, perhaps, another man in an ill-fitting dark suit walking behind.

  Here was one now. A crocodile of boys had entered the square, big boys at the front, small ones at the rear, chivvied by two men in dark suits. They went straight across the square and turned up a side street.