A Dead Man in Barcelona

by Michael Pearce

  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 –’

  ‘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.’