A Dead Man in Barcelona

by Michael Pearce

  Both his mother and his wife had crossed themselves at this and his mother had renewed her insistence that he go to see Father Roberto. Enrico had stumped out and taken to drinking even more heavily, and mother and wife were now at their wits’ end. The time was therefore ripe, thought Manuel, for a discreet approach.

  He had made the approach, very cleverly, through one of Enrico’s drinking cronies, a long-standing friend whom the warder trusted; and he had used the card yet again of the father grieving for his son. It was not a case, said Manuel, of a family seeking to take revenge – so Enrico need not worry – but of a father needing to set his mind at rest. Information was all he sought, and for that he might be prepared to pay. Of course, said Manuel sternly, one should not accept money for such a sacred service as this, but . . .

  Enrico said sod the sacred service. The money, on the other hand . . .

  But could it be kept secret? He didn’t mind doing the old chap a favour – it was only right that he should do what he could to make it easier for the old boy – but he didn’t want to find himself caught and landed before the investigating prosecutor.

  No chance of that, said Manual confidentially. The information could be conveyed only to an ignorant Englishman who knew nothing about the set-up and so wouldn’t ask awkward questions. He was interested only in putting the old man’s mind at rest.

  And wouldn’t it set Enrico’s own mind at rest? Anyone could see that his mind was troubled, had been troubled for a long time. In fact, too many people could see that and were, perhaps, beginning to ask questions. Put the old man’s mind at rest, and then, perhaps, that would put Enrico’s own mind at rest. He would have done what he could. And there would be no need for either priest or doctor and it would get his mother and his wife off his back.

  This was a powerful argument and gradually Enrico became convinced. He had, after all, as he said to Manuel, nothing – much – to hide. He had been an innocent party to someone else’s trickiness. He certainly wouldn’t have passed the stuff into the cell if he had known – he had thought it was just sauce, something that would improve the God-damned awful food that the poor bastards were served with, make it a bit more tasty. No one had been as surprised as he had been when . . . It was all that damned woman’s fault.

  Damned woman?

  Yes, the damned woman who had given it him and tricked him into passing it into the cell.

  Enrico had been willing eventually, and after much persuasion by Manuel, to talk to Seymour. The question, though, was where. Not in the bar, certainly, in front of his cronies; that would be asking for trouble. Somewhere private, secret? Seymour’s room in the hotel? Enrico was reluctant: in fact, he was reluctant about any suggestion which would take him away from his own pitch and on to foreign ground.

  But why did it have to be foreign ground, asked the ever-resourceful Manuel? Could not the meeting take place in Enrico’s own home?

  In front of his wife and his mother? Enrico shuddered at the thought. But then, gradually, came round to the thought. He himself wouldn’t have to do anything (always a welcome idea, that). The meeting would be completely private – he could tell them to get out of the house while the meeting was going on, couldn’t he? Of course, he could, said Enrico confidently.

  Chapter Eight

  And over-boldly: for, when Seymour entered the room with Manuel, he found mother and wife sitting there, very much in occupation.

  Manuel looked at Enrico, Enrico looked back at Manuel and shrugged. And so the meeting went ahead.

  ‘This is an English Señor,’ said Manuel. ‘He has come not on his own behalf but on behalf of a grieving father who has lost his son.’

  ‘Poor man!’ said Enrico’s mother, much moved.

  ‘Poor man!’ echoed his wife, ‘Just think, Enrico, if we had lost our Simon!’

  ‘Where is the little bugger?’ said Enrico. ‘You’ve made sure that he is staying out of the house?’

  ‘He is playing with Ramon.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  Enrico turned to Seymour.

  ‘So, Señor,’ he said, a little uncertain of himself in this strange situation and therefore belligerent. ‘What can I do for you? I cannot take long. I’m a busy man.’

  ‘This will not take long. I want to know how the poison got into the cell.’

  ‘Poison!’ said Enrico’s mother, crossing herself. ‘You did not tell us that, Enrico!’

  ‘How was I to know it was poison?’ protested Enrico. ‘I thought it was just a dainty. Something to give the prison food a bit of flavour.’

  ‘You’ve always said that the food there is terrible,’ supported his mother.

  ‘Well, it is. And he’d been in for a few days and wasn’t eating anything. The last two meals I had taken him he had just left.’

  ‘That goes to show!’ said Enrico’s wife. ‘If a man is hungry and still can’t eat it, that tells you what the food must have been like.’

  ‘I thought I was doing him a good turn,’ said the warder.

  ‘And so you were!’ said his mother warmly. ‘So you were.’

  She frowned, however.

  ‘If it’s that bad, Enrico,’ she said anxiously, ‘perhaps I ought to put something in a pot? Then you could take it in and give some to everybody.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t!’ snarled Enrico. ‘This is a prison, not a bloody hotel.’

  ‘Our Lord bids us to take care of all those in need,’ said Enrico’s mother piously.

  ‘Look, I’m just a warder, not the bloody caterer!’

  ‘There’s no need to swear at me!’ said his mother severely.

  ‘Even the beasts of the field,’ said his wife, timid but supportive, ‘need their food.’

  ‘Animals now, is it?’

  ‘So, Enrico,’ said Seymour, intervening swiftly, ‘when you were given the food to take in, you did not know it was poisoned?’

  ‘Of course not! Do you think I would –’

  ‘My son would never do a thing like that!’ said the warder’s mother, shocked.

  ‘No, no. I didn’t mean –’

  ‘Enrico’s a good man,’ said his wife indignantly.

  ‘What was it?’ said Seymour. ‘A pie, or something?’

  ‘Yes, with a good crust on it.’

  ‘That the way I do them,’ said his mother approvingly.

  ‘Enrico likes a good crust,’ said the wife.

  ‘Look, can you keep out of it?’

  ‘I’m just wondering, you see,’ said Seymour quickly, ‘how it was done. For the poison to work, he’d have to have taken quite a lot of it. So the dish must have been tasty –’

  ‘Oh, it was!’

  His wife looked at Enrico suspiciously. ‘How do you know that, Enrico?’

  ‘Well, I tried a bit, didn’t I?’

  ‘Oh, Enrico, you might have been poisoned!’

  ‘So I might! The bastards! They should have known I might have a taste.’

  ‘But, Enrico, it was not your pie!’

  ‘He was always putting his fingers in,’ said his mother fondly, ‘even when he was a child.’

  ‘I didn’t put my fingers in! I just took a bit of the crust.’

  ‘It was a mercy you didn’t.’

  ‘And there was nothing unusual about the taste?’ asked Seymour.

  ‘A bit sour, perhaps.’

  ‘He always likes it sweet,’ said his wife.

  ‘Or about the smell?’

  ‘Not that I noticed. Mind you, you wouldn’t notice, not with the general stink in there.’

  ‘Do you collect the plates afterwards? How was he then? Did you notice?’

  ‘He was sleeping. At least, that’s what I thought. I don’t collect the dishes straight away, I go in a bit later. And there he was, huddled up in a corner.’

  ‘Poor man!’ said his mother, sympathetically.

  ‘He wasn’t in there for nothing, you know,’ said Enrico. ‘So let’s not bother too much about him.’r />
  ‘How was the food actually given to you?’ asked Seymour.

  ‘She gave it me that morning as I was on my way to the prison.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘That’s usual when it’s a she. She had talked to me the day before. As I was on my way home. She stops me and says, “You’re Enrico, aren’t you?” “That’s right,” I say. “And you work in the prison?” “I do,” I say. “On the third floor?” she says. “You’ve being doing your homework,” I say.

  ‘She smiles. “Maybe I have,” she says. Then she holds a hundred peseta note up in front of me. “I’ve got a brother in there and I don’t think he’s eating enough. So I wanted to get something to him. Something that would tempt him, you know. If I gave it you, could you see that he gets it?” “Well, I could,” I say. She smiles again, and waves the note. “A hundred now,” she says “and two hundred afterwards.”

  ‘“For your brother?”

  ‘“That’s right,” she says. “Cell number five.”

  ‘And then I knew she was lying. Because I knew who was in the cell, and it was an Englishman. And she was speaking Spanish, so he couldn’t be her brother,’ said Enrico triumphantly.

  He shrugged. ‘But what the hell did I care? Spanish or English, as long as the note was all right.’

  ‘I expect she was in love with him,’ said his wife.

  ‘Perhaps she was his wife,’ said Enrico’s mother.

  ‘Not his wife,’ said Enrico.

  His mother clicked her tongue reprovingly.

  ‘I expect she loved him passionately,’ said his wife, brooding.

  ‘Well, that’s as may be –’

  ‘I expect there was a file in that pie. So that he could file through the bars.’

  ‘Look, there aren’t any bars. There isn’t even a window.’

  ‘She would do anything for him. She would lay down her life –’

  ‘Yes, well, she didn’t, did she? She laid down his.’

  This checked her. But only for a moment.

  ‘She loved him,’ she said, softly. ‘She loved him passionately. And then he betrayed her.’

  ‘Look –’

  ‘And so she killed him. As I would kill you, Enrico, if you betrayed me.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that –’

  ‘What about Conchita?’

  ‘Conchita?’

  ‘She’s always standing at the corner waiting for you.’

  ‘No, she’s not. She’s just on her way to the baker’s to get a loaf for the evening meal.’

  ‘She makes eyes at you.’

  ‘The shameless hussy!’ said his mother indignantly.

  ‘I should be so lucky!’ said Enrico: mistakenly.

  ‘Ah! So it’s not just on her side? You’ve had eyes for her, too?’

  ‘No, no –’

  ‘I shall kill her!’ cried his wife.

  ‘Quite right!’ said his mother.

  ‘Hold on a minute –’

  ‘You don’t love me!’ cried his wife. ‘You have betrayed me. I will kill her!’

  ‘Now, look –’

  ‘Let’s leave Conchita out of it,’ said Seymour, mistakenly, too. ‘Let’s go back to this other woman –’

  ‘Another woman! cried Enrico’s wife. ‘You are not a man but a beast!’

  ‘Look –’ began Enrico despondently.

  As they walked away from the house Manuel was silent. He seemed to be thinking something over. He had not expected this, he said then, not this bit about the woman. She had obviously been employed, he said, for the occasion. A woman would attract less attention and it would seem more natural, he said, for a woman to be wanting to pass food in than it would have been for a man. A minor accomplice, he said: any woman would have done.

  But he backed off quickly when Seymour asked him if it was possible for him to make further inquiries and see if he could find any clue to the woman’s identity. Seymour did not press him. Manuel had done more than could reasonably be expected already. But, given his initial enthusiasm – he had, after all, volunteered his services – and given what he had already done, Seymour was surprised. And then an idea came to him: could Manuel be backing off because he had suddenly thought where such inquiries might lead?

  ‘Señor Seymour!’ cried the governor of the prison, with what appeared to be genuine pleasure and – or had Seymour got it wrong? – a definite relief. The relief on second thoughts, and perhaps much of the pleasure, could have been to do with the fact that the governor’s desk was covered with sheet after sheet of numbers.

  ‘I hope I am not interrupting you?’

  ‘You are,’ said the governor. ‘Thank God!’

  Seymour recognized the situation. ‘Budget time?’

  ‘You’ve hit on it. And now what can I do for you? There must be –’ with a hint of desperation – ‘something I can do for you to take my mind off –’ he looked around him – ‘all this?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact –’

  The governor almost rubbed his hands.

  ‘Oh, good!’ he said. He broke off to go to the door and called for coffee.

  ‘How are you getting on with your inquiries?’

  ‘Oh, progressing. Progressing. And how is the report of the investigation into Lockhart’s death getting on?’

  ‘Oh, progressing,’ said the governor.

  They both laughed.

  ‘I shall not ask you about it,’ said Seymour, ‘but there is a little point – you will certainly think it a little point – which I would like your help on.’

  ‘Big things I probably can’t help you on; little things, just possibly I may.’

  ‘You will probably think this trivial, and, anyway, there may not be a record of it: but while Lockhart was in the prison, did he have any visitors?’

  ‘Señor Seymour, I am mortified to have to tell you – yes, he did.’

  ‘Why mortified, Señor?’

  ‘Because it reveals all too clearly the situation in the prison which my superiors falsely believe I have under my control. I think I told you that as soon as I found out that Señor Lockhart was among those admitted, that he was, in fact, in my cells, I sent someone down to see him. So I did. And it was then – then only – that I learned that he was dead. Well, I couldn’t believe it. I summoned the doctor – I think I told you I summoned the doctor?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘And it was only then that the full enormity of what had happened was revealed to me. But this was several days after he had been admitted, and all that time I did not know that I had Señor Lockhart in my prison. I did not know, but – but it appears that half of Barcelona did! That is what is so mortifying! There were no fewer than three requests to be allowed to visit him. I have only just found that out. Following your visit the other day I went back through the papers. And it was then that I found the records of the requests.’

  ‘The requests were not granted, I presume?’

  ‘Two of them were granted. The third was from a lady known to me. Known, in fact, to all of Barcelona. Known as one of the biggest liars in Catalonia! I turned it down. Goodness knows what might have got out if she had had a word with him!’

  ‘This lady – her name wouldn’t be Dolores, by any chance?’

  ‘My God!’ said the governor. ‘You don’t mean – you don’t mean that you already know about her? Have, perhaps, talked to her?’

  He struck himself a blow on the head with the heel of his hand. ‘But that means she has been telling everybody about what she saw in the prison! Even though she didn’t see it!’

  ‘Actually, Governor, I think it’s possible that somehow or other she may have wriggled her way in.’ other she may have ‘Oh, my God!’

  The governor took a great gulp of the coffee that had now come in.

  ‘It fits,’ he said, sunk in gloom. ‘Didn’t I tell you, when you came before, that I was surrounded by anarchists? There are
anarchists everywhere. In prison, out of prison. Spain, I sometimes think, consists entirely of anarchists. And they are all bent on subverting the system.’

  ‘Tell me about the other two,’ said Seymour, ‘the ones you did allow in.’

  ‘Not I,’ said the governor. ‘I had nothing to do with it. My subordinates – my alleged subordinates – agreed it without reference to me.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘I think I can understand it,’ he said. ‘One of them was an important lady, the wife of a very important person, high up in the Administration, and I don’t think they felt that they had much choice: if they wanted to stay in their jobs. At least, that is the impression she gave them.’

  ‘You couldn’t give me an idea of her identity, I suppose?’

  ‘No,’ said the governor decisively, ‘I couldn’t. Because if I did, my own wife would never let me hear the last of it. The lady knows her and would be round to our house in a flash. No.’ He shook his head regretfully, but firmly. ‘No, I couldn’t. Life would not be worth living. You see, Señor Seymour, there is a kind of romantic solidarity among Spanish women.’

  ‘Especially where Señor Lockhart was concerned.’

  ‘Exactly. Especially where Señor Lockhart was concerned.’

  ‘And the other lady? She was a lady, I take it.’

  ‘She was, but this was rather a different case. It was made on compassionate grounds. By Señor Lockhart’s daughter.’

  ‘Señor Lockhart’s daughter?’

  ‘Or so she claimed. And I think there may have been some truth in it. For although every woman in Barcelona who wasn’t Lockhart’s mistress claims to be his daughter, I think in this case it may be with more justice. Or so I gather from the police at Gibraltar and, more reliably, my wife.’

  ‘Her name?’

  ‘I do not think that would help you, Señor. For while it is a good, honest Spanish name, it is not the name of her true father. A matter of considerable joy to the ladies of Barcelona. Including my wife.’

  ‘It is true,’ admitted Hattersley, ‘that he did – well, put himself about a bit. There were rumours about the child. A daughter, I think. And yes, I’ve heard the other story – about the wife of the high-up official. Not to mention,’ he said with a wink, ‘plenty of others. And some of them were true. I can vouch for it myself. But I’m not so sure about those two. Still, if you’ve had it from the governor . . .’