A Dead Man In Trieste

by Michael Pearce

  Lately, Seymour had been thinking about his family. In particular, he had been thinking about his mother, which was not a thing the macho policemen of the novels usually did. He had been thinking about her because she came from Vojvodina. ‘Vojvodina?’ his grandfather would sometimes tease his mother. ‘Where the hell’s that?’ It was, in fact, at the top right-hand corner of Bosnia, lying immediately above Serbia, another of those Balkan countries which any reasonable individual could be unable to place. Like Herzogovina.

  Like those countries it had a prickly, overdeveloped sense of its own identity and insisted passionately on its need for independence. ‘Independence?’ his grandfather would roar. ‘Vojvodina? It’s like the Isle of Wight demanding independence.’

  But Seymour’s other grandfather, his mother’s father, had died in an Austrian jail for Vojvodina’s independence. And even his booming grandfather, who affected to deride petty nationalism, had been thrown out of Poland because of his devotion to it. It was part of their family history. Just as some families have a talent for gardening which crops up in different generations, so Seymour’s family had a talent - or, possibly, the reverse - for dissenting politics.

  It was a talent, though, that since their move to England they had tried to suppress. Seymour’s mother never spoke about the past. His father wouldn’t have anything to do with politics. His sister had switched interest to a different, non-nationalist kind of politics. And even Seymour’s booming grandfather confined his interests these days to putting the world right with its newspapers every morning over the breakfast table.

  Seymour had followed his father; and his avoidance of politics had been reinforced by his time in the police. For the average policeman, ‘politics’ was a dirty word. It was something those above were always involved in and best avoided. If in the course of your work you ran into it, you shied away. It closed off avenues, as it had done in Seymour’s case when he had been looking at possible royal dimensions to the Jack the Ripper case.

  What Seymour had come to see, though, over the last few days, was that politics was not always something to be avoided. It was not always something you could or should avoid. It was too important. Suppose Schneider was right? Or if his testimony was too tarnished, what about Lomax? Lomax, who had at first seemed such a dilettante - the al fresco Consul! - but who had gradually shown himself to have an engagement with the world that was far from frivolous. Seymour was beginning to feel that he ought to know more about politics. Not to engage, no, but not to avoid, either. If politics was this important, you needed at least to be able to grasp what the hell was going on.

  And what he was gradually coming to see, too, was that he did have a bit of a feel for such things. ‘He’ll be like a fish out of water!’ the man at the Foreign Office had said contemptuously. Well, maybe. At first. But, actually, these waters were waters that Seymour knew. He had grown up in them, unconsciously been steeped in them. He knew about them from the inside. His mother’s father had, after all, died in such currents. Some things you didn’t have to learn: you knew.

  And possibly, Maddalena, in her desire for knowledge, was making a similar progression.

  She came to the Consulate later in the morning. Augstein showed her in.

  ‘I hoped you would be here,’ she said, as she came into the room. ‘I wanted to tell you to look in at the piazza. It’s all beginning to happen.’

  ‘The Futurists? Marinetti’s Evening? I thought that was tomorrow.’

  ‘It is. But it’s starting already.’

  ‘At least it’s starting. I wasn’t sure that it would.’

  ‘Oh, Marinetti’s more competent than you think.’

  ‘Is there anything to it, do you reckon? This Futurist business?’

  ‘I ask myself that a dozen times a day. At one time I was convinced that there was. It seemed so exciting, so bold. So different. And Marinetti was so enthusiastic. I was rather swept away.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I am not so sure. Not so much about the art, I still think that’s very exciting. But about the other claims. You know, changing the world and all that. I used to talk about it with Lomax. He said that the world was changing. What with the new technologies of electricity and steam and oil, and that people would change with it. The question, though, was how people would use them. You know, to lead a better life, or just to make better bombs and bullets,’

  ‘And what did he think?’

  ‘He said it was a toss-up.’

  She looked up at the pictures on the wall.

  ‘And that perhaps what art was expressing was potential, what could happen, not what would happen. I don’t know. Lately I have begun to think that art doesn’t express anything at all. It is just marks on the wall. Perhaps I am getting tired of art. Perhaps it is time for me to move on.’

  ‘What to?’

  ‘Ah!’ said Maddalena. ‘That’s the question,’

  She was silent for a while, and sat there looking broodingly at her feet. Then she looked at him, almost defiantly, and said:

  ‘Do you know why I go to the library every day?’

  ‘You said you wanted to know about things.’

  ‘Yes, I want to know why the Hapsburgs are so awful, and how it is that they can keep Trieste from us, and why it is that people like Lomax should die. I want to know why some should be rich while others aren’t. But do you know why I want to know these things?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ she said, frowning, ‘I want to be in charge of myself. I don’t want others to be, or things to be. If you were a poor woman from Puglia, you would understand.’

  ‘I think I can understand.’

  Before she left, he asked her to find out something for him.

  ‘Is this for Lomax?’

  ‘I think so.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Very well, then.’

  Seymour sat at Lomax’s desk, thinking. He knew he had it nearly all now, but there was still something missing, something that would put it all into place. He could see that the reception at the Casa Revoltella was central, but exactly why was it so central? The reception, with all Trieste’s worthies there, the Chamber of Commerce, the consuls, the Governor - And then he saw.

  On his way, Seymour passed through the Piazza Grande. It was, indeed, as Maddalena had said, warming up. Although it was only mid-afternoon it seemed quite full. The tables in the cafes were practically all occupied and street performers of all sorts, jugglers, mimers, musicians and tumblers, were busy working them. In some places the musicians were giving impromptu concerts and one or two people were even dancing. There was a general air of suppressed excitement. By evening the piazza would be really buzzing.

  Seymour’s artist friends were, as might be expected, already at their table. They hailed him and he sat down, briefly, for a moment.

  ‘Isn’t that Boccioni?’ said Luigi, pointing to one of the tables.

  ‘And Severini?’

  Seymour could see that the artists were impressed.

  Marinetti suddenly shot past them.

  ‘Hey, Filipo!’ they called. ‘How about a drink?’

  ‘Can’t stop!’

  ‘Can’t stop!’ The artists’ heads swivelled. ‘Can’t stop for a drink? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Everything’s wrong!’ said Marinetti dramatically. ‘We’ve only just been able to get into the Politeama. And nothing’s there! No chairs, no bottles - ’

  ‘No bottles?’ said James.

  ‘The banners haven’t arrived. The musicians, who were supposed to be there for rehearsal - ’

  ‘Why don’t you just sit down, Filipo? Have a drink!’

  ‘There is no time for drink. There is no time for anything! Everything has to be done!’

  He strode off.

  ‘No time for a drink?’ said Lorenzo. ‘If this is the Future, you can count me out.’

  Marinetti suddenly came racing back.

  ‘I need dwarfs!’

&nbs
p; His eye fell on James and Seymour, both unusually tall, and moved on disappointedly. It lit on Ettore.

  ‘Rehearsal!’

  Ettore was dragged away, protesting.

  Two men on stilts, dressed as giraffes, began to move through the tables distributing flyers for the Evening. As they passed one of the tables, a man leaped up and stroked them fondly. One of the giraffes sat down on his lap and lifted a leg casually on to the table.

  ‘Lomax would have loved this!’ said Luigi.

  ‘Lomax,’ said James, who had already clearly drunk far too much, ‘was Irish.’

  He looked around pugnaciously, as if challenging anyone to disagree with him.

  There was a slight pause.

  ‘Ye-e-s?’ said Lorenzo doubtfully.

  ‘He was all right,’ said James, glaring round.

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘He couldn’t help being English.’

  There was another slight pause.

  ‘But I thought you said . . .?’

  ‘I know that!’ roared James. ‘Do you think I’m daft? He was half Irish and half English. So he was both. Both!’ he said triumphantly.

  ‘We-ll . . .’

  ‘He was half and half. Like a shandy,’ he giggled.

  ‘Like a . . .?’

  ‘Shandy. An English drink, you ignoramuses. (Or is it ignorami?’ he muttered to himself.) ‘Half bitter, half lemonade. Or possibly ginger. Bitter is beer. The Irish half,’ he said firmly, ‘was the bitter.’

  ‘Well, it would be.’

  ‘The English half was the lemonade.’

  ‘Very true.’

  ‘Light, slight, blight - Blighty!’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘That’s England for you. The English half,’ he enunciated carefully, ‘held him back. It made him a consul.’

  ‘Poor Lomax!’

  ‘The Irish half,’ James roared, ‘made him side with the underdog. It made him fight against injustice!’

  ‘Good for him!’

  ‘He was a man divided,’ said James, beginning to weep. His head fell on to the table. ‘Aren’t we all?’ he murmured.

  ‘I know what I like,’ said Kornbluth, ‘and it isn’t this.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better wait? It’s not happening until tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t need to wait. I know what those layabouts are capable of producing. Giraffes! And’ - he lowered his voice - ‘filth! I saw them this afternoon. When I was working out where I wanted to put my men. Naked women! Well, they weren’t quite naked, there was a little star over - well, you can guess where. I wouldn’t like my Hilde to see it, I can tell you. Fortunately, she won’t be there. She wanted to go, when she heard the Governor’s lady would be there, but I put my foot down. “Listen,” I said, “I’ve got to put up with it, but there’s no reason why you should.” “It’s the Future, they say,” she said. “I’ll tell you one thing,” I said. “It’s not going to be your Future! So, you’re not going.”‘

  ‘Are you tied up completely tomorrow with policing?’

  ‘Pretty well. And that’s another thing I’ve got against that lot. It’s taking me away from what I should be doing. Why? Was there something else you had in mind?’

  ‘I’ve found out something. In fact, I knew it before. Those Socialist strikers told me, but I’ve only just put two and two together. When Lomax left the Edison that night, he didn’t leave by the ordinary way. There’s another door.’

  ‘Another door?’

  ‘Yes, Machnich uses it when he doesn’t want to run into people who might be waiting outside. I think Lomax used it that night.’

  ‘Where is this door?’

  ‘It opens into the Piazza delli Cappucine. Could you get your men to check if anyone saw him come out? And if anyone was seen waiting for him.’

  ‘I’ll have them on to that,’ said Kornbluth, ‘right away.’

  Seymour hesitated.

  ‘There’s one other thing. It’s just possible that the men you might be looking for are two Herzegovinians.’

  ‘Herzegovinians?’

  ‘Yes. Posing as students. And staying, I think, in a student hostel.’

  ‘I’ll get someone to go round them.’

  ‘You don’t need to. I’ve got somebody already doing that.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yes, that girl who was with the artists. Maddalena, her name is.’

  ‘That troublemaker? But - ’

  ‘I think you might find her,’ said Seymour, ‘in the public library.’

  ‘The library!’ said Kornbluth incredulously.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Signor Machnich to see you,’ said Augstein.

  ‘Ah!’ Seymour rose from the desk. ‘Signor Machnich! It is good of you to come.’

  Machnich glanced round the room, took in the pictures on the walls and winced, then sat down.

  ‘Signor Machnich, I have a confession to make. I am not a King’s Messenger but an English police officer. I am here to investigate Signor Lomax’s death. Now, I know you were a friend of Signor Lomax. I have found out some things that interest me, and I wonder if I could run through them with you?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Machnich. ‘We were people of a kind. Close together. Like that!’ He put his two fingers together.

  ‘Quite so. And that is why you, of all people in Trieste, can help me. Can we go back to the beginning? You got to know each other when he was advising you over that cinema business, and you got on surprisingly well. Not only that, you were a prominent Serb locally, so it was, perhaps, natural that he should talk to you when he found out something about the Serbs - that they were running an escape route through his Consulate.’

  ‘Well, now - ’

  Seymour held up his hand soothingly.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Do not worry. We are talking about Lomax, yes? Only about him. He was not, I think, too disturbed. Indeed, he had some sympathy for the students. He may even have been prepared to let it continue, although I think he probably suggested to you that you should think about bringing it to an end. Anyway, he talked about it with you. Why not? You were people of a kind, you understood each other. And you were friends.

  ‘And then, suddenly, you were not friends. Why was that, I wonder?’

  He waited.

  Machnich merely shook his head.

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think? I think it was because you, or Rakic, misread the friendship. You thought it went further than it did. You put something to Lomax and he didn’t like it. Not one little bit!

  ‘But, again, you, or Rakic, misread the situation. You thought you could persuade him. You kept sending him to Lomax, or, perhaps, he insisted on going - he was that kind of man. But still Lomax wouldn’t agree. And in the end Rakic realized that he would have to do what he wanted to do another way.

  ‘The trouble was, he had a deadline. What he wanted to do could be done only on a particular occasion. He needed access to the reception at the Casa Revoltella.

  ‘Well, Rakic being Rakic, he thought he could bluster his way in. Lomax, however, was there. He may even have been waiting for him, guessing that he might try to get in. Anyway, he intercepted him. There was a fracas at the entrance and Rakic was prevented from going in and delivering his package - which, incidentally, he claimed was for you. I don’t think you would have been very happy to take possession of it. That was, perhaps, why you weren’t there. And if that was so, then it means that you knew about it, didn’t you, and what Rakic was intending?’

  ‘I know nothing about that,’ said Machnich, ‘or any of it.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re only talking about Lomax. For the moment. And Lomax, you see, had suddenly become important. For it wasn’t just that he had stopped Rakic from doing what it was that he had in mind to do, it was that he knew about it. He knew about it and could tell someone about it. Schneider, for example.

  ‘Now why he didn’t tell Schneider about it straightaway, I don’t know. Perhaps he was so shocked by it,
perhaps he didn’t quite believe that it could happen, until he saw Rakic there. And then perhaps when he did, he still couldn’t quite believe it. Or maybe that a man he looked upon as his friend could lend himself to such a thing. So he waited and thought about it. Perhaps, in the end, he was too much of a diplomat: too cautious, reluctant to move until he could be quite sure, could quite convince himself. That was his mistake.

  ‘For Rakic, too, was thinking about it. He knew he had to act, and act quickly. Luckily, the two men he had wanted had now arrived and they were just the men for something like this.

  ‘So he got you to ask Lomax to come and see you. In your room at the Edison. I don’t know what the pretext was. Perhaps it was precisely this. To talk about what had happened and what he was going to do. He might even have told you that he was going to see Schneider and you might even have tried to persuade him not to.

  ‘Anyway, afterwards he left. By your private, secret door. Was that your suggestion? I think it must have been. If so, it was hardly an act of friendship. Because outside the door Rakic’s two men were waiting.’

  ‘This is mere supposition,’ said Machnich. ‘I spit on it.’

  ‘Is it? Is it supposition that Rakic tried to get into the reception at the Casa Revoltella? Is it supposition that he wanted to leave a package? That Lomax stopped him?

  ‘That you invited Lomax to the Edison the night that he died? That he left not in the ordinary way but by a door which only you - or so you thought - knew about? And that he was killed after leaving that door?’

  ‘It is mere supposition,’ said Machnich. ‘You cannot prove any of it.’

  ‘I am not so sure. You see, Mr Kornbluth has learned about the secret door. And he has been checking with people who were in the Piazza delli Cappucine at the time that Lomax would have come out of the secret door. And he has found someone who saw him come out. This person is prepared to say that he saw Lomax leave with two men. He is even able to identify the men. They are the two Herzegovinians whom you brought to Trieste and who were so close to Rakic that the strikers thought they were his bodyguards. The two men whom Rakic tried to get Koskash to make out papers for so that they could leave quickly and secretly. After they had done what they had been brought to Trieste for. He refused, and I hope that will be remembered in his favour.’