‘I can’t be sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to put it to my people. But I think it’s for the Edison, and they changed the tickets just about that time. This is one of the new ones.’
There was nothing that Seymour himself could do with the tickets. It would have to await the verdict of Kornbluth’s people. He pushed the pile away and turned to making a list of Lomax’s effects. He would send it back to London and they, presumably, would forward it on to Lomax’s next of kin.
The thought sent his mind back to the letter from Lomax’s ‘Auntie Vi’ which had also been found stuffed in the pocket of one of his suits. Seymour took it out and read it through.
The big news it contained was that Lomax’s Uncle Sid had gone in to Manchester to have his teeth done. Seymour knew Manchester or, rather, of Manchester. It was another place where immigrants went. Some of the Jewish tailors he knew in the East End had relatives there. What they had told him of the poorer parts where they lived had not made him want to go there.
And yet for Auntie Vi Manchester had seemed an El Dorado. While Uncle Sid had been having his teeth done she had gone to ‘the big shops’ and she listed their names and her purchases with starry-eyed breathlessness. Seymour wondered what Warrington could be like.
Warrington, it appeared, was where Lomax had grown up too. The letter was full of ‘you will remember, of course’ and references to places and people’s names. Seymour wondered if Auntie Vi and Uncle Sid had been substitute parents. There was no mention of parents and the letter breathed a closeness which Seymour, used to family closeness, could recognize.
But if it breathed closeness, it also breathed narrowness. Lomax had travelled a long way to get from Warrington to Trieste. Seymour had learned enough about the Foreign Office now to realize that there was a considerable difference between a consul and the lordly figures he had encountered in London. A consul, he had worked out, was the journeyman of the Diplomatic Service, the man who conducted much of the humdrum business of ports and trade. He operated at a different level from the ambassadors and secretaries and, given the kind of institution that the Foreign Office seemed to be, that meant that he was usually recruited from a different social level. Going by the letter, that certainly seemed to be true in Lomax’s case. Coming from such a background, Lomax had done well to get where he had done. Trieste, Seymour was beginning to see, was a more important place than he had thought.
He read through the letter again and was struck by its warmth. The news of Lomax’s death would come as a shock. He hoped that the Foreign Office would break it gently. When he remembered the stiffness of the people he had encountered there, however, he didn’t think that was likely. Prompted by a sudden movement of sympathy, arising, perhaps, because the memory of Lomax lying there on the slab was so fresh in him, he wrote Auntie Vi a letter of condolence. He realized, of course, that it was not the sort of thing he should do: either as a policeman or as a member, if only temporary, of the Diplomatic Service.
‘If you or I disappear,’ Alfredo had said, ‘that is nothing. But if an official disappears. .!’ And all the more so, apparently, if an official died in suspicious circumstances. Nobody had taken much notice of Lomax living; dead, he seemed to have become the centre of Trieste’s attention. A whole string of people came to the Consulate to express their condolences.
Mostly they expressed them to a slightly surprised Seymour.
‘Well, they wouldn’t express them to me,’ said Koskash. ‘I am just a clerk.’
‘Yes, but I’m not even — I mean, I’m not a permanent person here.’
‘You don’t have to be permanent, you just have to be British,’ said Koskash. ‘And vaguely official. A uniform would, of course, help.’
‘Well, I can tell you — ’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Koskash kindly. ‘There just has to be some focus for symbolic diplomatic action. A donkey would do just as well.’
Seymour wasn’t sure if this made him feel any better. Anyway, the doyen of the consular corps was waiting outside so he pulled himself to attention, put on a sombre face, and told Koskash he could show him in.
Signor Caramelli was a distinguished-looking, grey-haired man who shook his hand sadly and then held on to it for longer than Seymour liked.
‘It is with deep regret. … I speak for the whole consular corps … So sad. Signor Lomax was a man much loved.’
But not, perhaps, much known; certainly not by Signor Caramelli, who got his name wrong several times in the conversation that followed.
Nor, perhaps, by Herr Stiickenmeier, who came in afterwards.
‘So sorry,’ he said. ‘Deepest regrets. That such a thing should happen to so popular a figure as Mr. . Mr. . Lamberg?. . comes as a shock to all of us.’
It was with some relief that Seymour heard an English voice in the office outside.
Its owner announced himself.
‘Barton,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m the Peninsular man here. Sorry to hear about Lomax. I suppose that goes for all of us, although most of us didn’t know him very well. He never had much to do with the Club.’
‘Club?’
‘The English Club. For people who work here. Only English, of course. Nothing against the Triestians, it’s just that if you’re with them all day, sometimes you want to get away.’
‘But you say that Lomax. .?’
‘Wasn’t like that.’ Barton seemed puzzled. ‘Spent all his time in the piazza. With Italians! Could never understand that. The man who was here before him — Shockley, his name was — was in the Club all the time.’
‘Well, I suppose it take all sorts — ’
‘Yes. I know. But a consul ought not to be spending all his time with locals. He ought to be a bit detached. That’s why it’s useful to have a place like the Club. You can get away from everybody, be with your own. I daresay you’ll find that.’
‘Actually, I’m only here temporarily — ‘
‘Just standing in? Well, at least they’ve got someone here quickly. And that’s important in a place like Trieste, where there are a lot of business interests. Look, you’re very welcome to make use of the Club while you’re here. Just sign yourself in. I’ll look after the sponsoring.’
‘Thank you. That’s very kind of you.’
‘Not at all,’
Barton held out his hand.
‘I’ve got to push off, I’m afraid. Trouble at the docks again. Sorry about Lomax. Funny bloke. Can’t say I really got on with him. Could never make him out. All right at his job, I will say that. But you never knew where you were with him. Too much in with the locals. You began to wonder whose side he was on.’
When the stream had subsided, Koskash came in.
‘Schneider wants to see you,’ he said.
‘Fine, show him in.’
‘No, no. You go to him, he doesn’t come to you.’
‘Well, all right, if that’s the way it is. Where do I go?’
‘The police station.’
‘Police station?’
‘There’s a special part. Behind the main building.’
‘Well, all right. And I just ask for Schneider, do I? Will that be enough?’
‘Oh, yes. That will be enough.’
‘Look, who the hell is Schneider?’
Koskash considered for a moment.
‘In Trieste,’ he then said carefully, ‘there are two sorts of police.’
‘Yes, yes, someone else has told me that.’
‘The ordinary sort — Kornbluth is one of those. And — well, a different sort. The special police. They deal mostly with political matters.’
‘Well, I’m like that. Mostly.’
‘You are?’ Koskash looked at him evenly. ‘Well, then, you and Schneider should get on.’
Inside the room a man was sitting at a desk. He wore a general’s uniform and had close-cropped hair and a scar — a duelling scar? — on his cheek.