A Dead Man in Barcelona (3 page)

‘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 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.

A bell began to sound.

A moment later another crocodile appeared, exactly similar except that it consisted of girls, and with nuns in attendance. They marched swiftly along, hands neatly folded in front, eyes cast modestly down. It, too, disappeared up the side street and shortly afterwards the bell stopped ringing.

Since Nina was a woman he thought it likely that she taught at the school the girls came from, but he couldn’t see any woman with them who was not a nun. Besides, the
cabezudo
had definitely said that she taught at a school that was in the square. But he couldn’t see one.

Most schools he had seen in Barcelona were easily recognizable. They were like barracks. From the outside all you could see was a high – three storeys high – white, forbidding wall, with a shut door which a porter reluctantly opened. There was nothing like this in the square. All there was was the play area in the corner.

Later, he established that there were two rooms behind the play area but at the moment all he could see was the play space, which itself seemed a bit impromptu, consisting only of a few pieces of equipment and an area marked off by a foot-high fence of split logs roped together. But that, it turned out, was Nina’s school. He had asked someone where the school was and they had pointed to it without hesitation.

The trouble was, he couldn’t see a way in. There didn’t seem to be a gate. Perhaps you just stepped over the fence? Seymour was reluctant to do that, however, because there were a lot of children milling around on the other side. He went up to the fence and looked around for someone to speak to. Finding no one, he eventually addressed one of the children.

‘Nina?
Si
!’ the child responded.

He pointed to the other side of the play area and then, seeing that Seymour was still standing there uncertainly, called out impatiently.

‘Nina! Nina!’

A young women emerged from the mass of children.

‘
Si?
’ And then, seeing Seymour and Chantale, came across to them.

‘Señora, forgive me for interrupting you. I was wondering if it might be possible to have a word with you?’

‘It is about a child joining the school?’ she asked, her eye taking in Chantale beside him. ‘You will have to talk to Esther about that.’

‘No. It is not about that. It is about a friend of mine. An Englishman. His name is Lockhart.’

She seemed to go still. ‘Lockhart?’

‘You know him?’

‘Of course I know him!’ she said. She hesitated, and then made up her mind. ‘Later,’ she said. ‘When the children have gone to their science lesson. About ten minutes.’

Then she turned sharply away and plunged into a pile of children.

Seymour and Chantale walked back across the plaza and found a bench in the shade of a palm tree. It didn’t give much shade but they were glad of what there was. Already the heat in the square was building up.

They sat for a while watching the children. Although it seemed pretty hectic in the play area, it sorted itself out gradually into little areas of purposeful play, which they watched, amused.

Suddenly something was happening. The children had stopped playing and were going inside. There was another, older, woman with Nina, he saw now, and she went inside with them. Nina stayed behind and came across.

‘Esther is taking them now,’ she said. ‘We have twenty minutes. You wished to talk to me about Lockhart.’

‘My name is Seymour and I am a policeman from London. I have come to find out what happened to Lockhart.’

She nodded. Then she looked at Chantale.

‘And this is Chantale. She is with me.’

She nodded again. ‘You are from Algeria, Señora?’

‘Morocco.’

‘Lockhart knew many people from Algeria. That is why I thought . . . And from Morocco, too.’

‘I am from Tangier.’

‘Then you will understand why Lockhart went out into the streets that night.’

‘That night in Tragic Week?’ asked Seymour.

‘Yes.’

‘Señora, I do not know much about Lockhart yet but I get the impression from what you are saying that he felt concerned for the young men being sent out to fight in Africa?’

‘That is so, yes. It was wrong; wrong that they were going at all, and wrong that they were being forced to go.’

‘And Lockhart felt this strongly?’

She laughed, a little bitterly. ‘Lockhart felt all things strongly.’

‘Why did he go out into the streets?’

‘To observe. And then bear witness. He thought that people would believe him afterwards, when they wouldn’t believe us.’

‘Because he was . . . outside it?’

‘Because he was an Englishman. And therefore neutral.’

‘Neutral between . . .?’

‘The Government. The Army.’

‘And . . .?’

‘The people.’

‘The Spanish people?’

‘The Catalonian people. It was our men that they were sending out to fight. In their war.’

‘And, if I have understood you correctly, Señora, there was another reason why Lockhart felt involved: he had strong sympathies, too, for those the soldiers were being sent against?’

‘That is so, yes. He had lots of contacts with Algerians and Moroccans and looked upon them as his friends. “We get on well,” he said. “Why do we need soldiers?” But he was thinking of the sort of relationships that go on without Government – private relationships, even business relationships. “Where there is Government, there is not relationship, but domination,” he used to say. “The Spanish want to take over the country. Just as the French do, are doing, in both Algeria and Morocco.”’

She gave a thin little smile. ‘And as the British, everywhere. That was why he left Britain. He didn’t like to think of himself as British. Except when it was useful.’

Something that the Admiral had said came into Seymour’s mind and he was puzzled.

‘You are suggesting that he turned his back on England, Señora?’

‘Yes, of course.’

She looked at him almost triumphantly.

‘But not on the Catalonians?’

‘No.’

‘Why was that?’

She looked surprised.

‘Because we are an oppressed people,’ she said seriously.

‘Clearly he felt so,’ Seymour said, ‘if he was prepared to go out into the streets that night.’

‘Yes.’

‘And was that why the police picked him up? So that he wouldn’t be able to bear witness?’

‘I think they were as frightened as we were and didn’t know what they were doing. They just picked everyone up, everyone who was there.’

‘You say “we”, Señora, does that mean that you yourself were there?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you weren’t picked up?’

‘Someone knocked me over, or I fell over. I lay there half stunned and then someone pulled me into a house.’

‘But Lockhart was taken to prison. Where he died.’

‘He was killed!’ she said passionately. ‘They killed him.’

‘
After
he was taken into prison?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘They must have found out who he was.’

‘He was known to them, then?’

‘Lockhart was well known in Barcelona.’

‘Forgive me, Señora, known for
what
?’

‘Everyone knew him. He was always coming here on business.’

‘For business, then; not for anything else?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘For, shall we say, his sympathies?’

She laughed, a short bark of a laugh. ‘They knew his sympathies, too.’

‘But that would not be enough, surely, for them to want to kill him?’

‘It
ought
not to be enough. But, Señor,’ she said bitterly, ‘this is Spain.’

‘Even so –’

‘You have to understand, Señor, the kind of man that Lockhart was. It wasn’t enough for him to believe something. If he believed something, he also had to
do
something.’

‘He translated his beliefs into action?’

‘Yes. Yes!’

‘Catalonian beliefs? Catalonian action? But I thought you said, Señora, that he was neutral.’

‘He was neutral about the fighting. Or not neutral. He felt it was wrong. But he also felt that it was wrong to force young men into the Army and then to send them to Africa.’

‘Many would consider that stance laudable, Señora. I cannot believe that it would make a Government wish to kill him.’

‘It wasn’t just Catalonia.’

‘What was it, then?’

She didn’t reply for a moment but stood there thinking. Then she said: ‘You have seen our school. What did you think of it?’

‘Think of it?’ said Seymour, surprised. ‘Well . . .’

‘Different,’ said Chantale.

Nina seemed pleased.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we are different. This is a Ferrer school. You know about Ferrer schools? No? I will tell you. There are a lot of them. Especially here, around Barcelona. They were founded by Francisco Ferrer. He called them Modern Schools. You know about this?’

‘Well, I know what “modern” means . . .’

‘No, no, that is not it. That is not it at all. He called them Modern to mark them off from other schools. In Spain, schools are under the Church, yes? His schools were not. They were . . . how shall I say? Rationalist, yes?
Not
religious. Not under the Church.’ She paused for a moment, ‘Free-thinking,’ she said in English. ‘Is that right?’

‘Atheist?’

‘
Si
. But that is not all. They were modern, too, in that the curriculum is modern. It includes, for example, science. In Church schools there is no science. It is frowned upon because it disturbs people. The Church does not like people to be disturbed. Nor does the Government, no?’

‘Well, I suppose science helps you to see things in a different way –’

‘Yes!’ she said eagerly. ‘That is it! And that is not allowed. Not in Spanish schools. It leads to children questioning. And if they question as children, they may continue to question as adults. That, say the authorities, we cannot have. In our schools. And so Ferrer started up his schools, different schools, which would offer an alternative. It is in the end a matter of freedom. Freedom from Church control. Freedom from control of all sorts! You have seen our school, yes? You have seen the children playing. It is free, yes? The children are happy, they are allowed to go their own way!’

‘Yes, I do see that. At least, that is what I gather from a first impression. And you are rightly enthusiastic about your school. But – but – forgive me, Señora – what is all this to do with Lockhart?’

‘The school was built with his money. He paid for the rooms, he bought the equipment. He helped to pay our wages. We need that because we are a private school and we have to charge. Oh, only a little, the families are poor, they can’t afford much. But each one pays something. This is important because it says that they are not beggars. But we couldn’t live on the money they give. So we wouldn’t be here if it were not for Lockhart’s money.
That
is why I say Lockhart was not content with just words. He always had to
do
something.’

‘Well, that is very praiseworthy. As is his generosity. I always like people who are prepared to put their money where their mouth is. But, Señora, how does all this connect with his death? However strongly the Government might disapprove of his views on education, I cannot believe that –’

She cut him short impatiently. ‘Still you have not understood! This is an
anarchist
school. Anarchist, yes? You understand
that
?’

‘Of course I understand what anarchism is! But – look, I just can’t believe that it would be enough for the Government to want to kill him!’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ she demanded. ‘It was enough to make the Government kill Ferrer. And that was in Tragic Week, too!’

Yes, Seymour knew about anarchists. And he thought he knew about Nina, too. He had met women like her in the political East End: serious, articulate and committed; and usually a great problem for the ordinary police constable to handle. He didn’t know how to go about them. They didn’t respond to the badinage which was part of the East End policeman’s stock in trade, an essential tool in the soothing of relationships. They saw the badinage as sexual, which, admittedly, it often was, and took offence. In no time at all the policeman had bigger trouble on his hands, and he soon learned to give such women a wide berth.

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 –’