Seymour registered that but registered also, with his policing experience, that they posed no threat. This was Spain and without the reinforcement they would have received from the general culture in Morocco or Algeria their power dwindled and they seemed slightly helpless.
The office consisted of two rooms and a man at a desk. The man was Arab, too.
‘I am looking for Senor Lockhart’s office,’ said Seymour.
“This is it. But Senor-’
‘I know,’ said Seymour. ‘But the business goes on? Who runs it now?’
‘His wife. From Gibraltar. That’s where the main office is. This is just a branch office.’
‘So you’re on your own here?’
‘I always was on my own. Mr Lockhart used to come over from time to time but mostly he left me to get on with it.’
‘And, of course, he was over here when — well, during Tragic Week.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were, too, presumably?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Terrible, terrible. After the first day we all kept inside. I kept inside here. For five nights I did not go home. “You stay right here, Hussein,” he told me. “I’ll see food comes in. Don’t even put your head out.” ’
‘But he did. He went out, didn’t he? Into the streets.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why was that?’
‘To look after his friends.’
‘Friends?’
‘Arab friends. We thought at first, when it began, that it was directed against us. It usually is.’
‘But it wasn’t this time, was it? It was the conscripts.’
‘Yes, but we didn’t know that. Not at first. And when we did, people began to come out on their side. So in the end it didn’t make any difference. I don’t suppose it would have anyway. Once the Army had been called in, they would have gone for us anyway.’
‘And Lockhart was trying to see they didn’t?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wasn’t that foolhardy? I mean, one man-’
‘He was well known. He thought he had influence. He thought he might be able to stop them. Just being there, he thought, an independent witness, it might restrain them.’
‘But it didn’t?’
‘No. And it was foolish to even think that he could. But Senor Lockhart was like that. Foolhardy, yes. But generous, too. And he thought that nothing could happen to him. That he was, somehow, inviolable. That the bullets wouldn’t touch him. But they always do, don’t they?’
‘Except that, apparently, this time they did not. He was just taken into prison.’
‘The bullet got him in the end, though, didn’t it?’
‘Was it a bullet?’
The Arab shrugged.
‘The garrotte, perhaps?’ he offered.
There were flies buzzing in the window and through an open door Seymour could see Arabs sitting in an upper room. They were sitting on the ground, squatting on their haunches, content to sit in the darkness, since that was cooler. It could have been Tangier, he thought.
‘Why would they do that?’ he said.
The Arab shrugged again. ‘To warn, perhaps? To warn others not to be too friendly?’
He suddenly seemed to become nervous at his own frankness.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘I’m British,’ said Seymour. ‘Like Lockhart. A British policeman. Lockhart had British friends. Who are wondering what happened to him.’
‘A policeman?’ said the Arab doubtfully
‘A British one,’ said Seymour.
‘Not Spanish?’
‘No.’
The Arab seemed relieved.
‘The Spanish police came here,’ he said. ‘They wanted to know things about him. But we wouldn’t say anything.’
‘What might you have said?’
But the Arab did not reply
Or perhaps he did.
‘Lockhart had many friends,’ he said.
‘Arab friends?’
‘Si.’
‘I would like to meet some of those friends.’
The Arab thought.
‘You are British?’ he said, as if seeking reassurance.
‘Yes. Cannot you hear it?’
The Arab smiled.
‘Just,’ he said.
Afterwards, Seymour thought that there was something strange about it: an Arab testing an Englishman’s facility in Spanish. But the Arab seemed to see nothing strange in it. Perhaps he thought of himself as Spanish? He certainly spoke Spanish like a native and seemed confident of his ability to judge Seymour’s Spanish.
‘Whenever Senor Lockhart came down here,’ he said, ‘he always used to go to a particular cafe to play dominoes.’
‘Where would I find it?’
‘It’s further on along the Calle. On the left.’
‘A name, perhaps?’
The Arab hesitated.
‘Mine is Seymour.’
‘You could try asking for Ibrahim.’
As they were going out, the Arab looked at Chantale as if seeing her for the first time. Perhaps he was seeing her for the first time. When in the presence of women, Arabs often didn’t seem to notice them. This was not necessarily rudeness; indeed, to them it was politeness. It was felt offensive to address a woman directly, almost shockingly so, if she was with her husband — as, Seymour suspected, Chantale might well be supposed to be.
‘The Senora, perhaps, knew Lockhart?’
‘Not directly,’ said Chantale.
‘The Senora-’ there it was again, the obliqueness — ‘is perhaps from Algeria?’
‘Tangier.’
‘Ah, yes. Senor Lockhart knew many people in Tangier.’
Seymour wondered if he could make use of Chantale’s Arabness when he went to the cafe. Perhaps her being an Arab would in a way vouch for him. He suggested she go with him.
Chantale said it wouldn’t do at all. Arab women never entered cafes, even with their menfolk. It was a very bad idea.
Seymour had to accept this but he was reluctant to abandon the idea altogether. As a foreigner, he felt he needed some kind of entree into the Arab world, some kind of guarantee that he was a friend. He knew from experience that with immigrants this would be especially important.
In the end they decided that she would not go into the cafe with him but they would establish the link outside. They would go into the quarter together and then part. Chantale would go to the little market and make some purchases, as if shopping for a family. Seymour meanwhile would go into the cafe alone. When she had finished making her purchases she would stand outside the cafe patiently waiting for him. That, she said, ought to clinch it!
The cafe was set slightly below ground, as was usually the case with Arab coffee houses, and to enter it you had to go down some steps. Inside, it was dark. It was the Arab way to retreat from the sun and heat. There were stone benches around the wall and men were sitting on them either drinking coffee from small enamel cups or puffing away at bubble pipes on the ground beside them.
The men were all Arabs and Seymour at once felt himself to be, or was made to feel, an intruder. He sat down, however, in a corner with a low table in front of him. It was some time before he was served, one of those ways in which a cafe can make a customer feel he is not wanted. But then a waiter came up and put a cup before him and poured coffee from a coffee pot with a long spout.
As he bent over the table, Seymour said, ‘Is Ibrahim here?’
The waiter inclined his head towards a man with a square-cut beard sitting with two men playing dominoes.
‘Would you whisper a name in his ear? The name is Lockhart.’
The waiter showed no sign of having heard and continued on his round with the pot. Shortly afterwards, however, Seymour saw him bending over the man with the beard. The man sat up with a start. A little later Seymour saw him studying him carefully. Eventually he came across.
‘You wish to speak with me?’
‘About Lockhart.’
‘Lockhart is dead.’
‘I know. That is what I want to talk to you about.’
The Arab hesitated but then slid on to the bench beside Seymour.
‘Who gave you my name?’ he said.