‘And of the anarchists,’ said Seymour. Then he wondered if that was wise.
‘Lockhart?’ a voice questioned.
‘Si.’
‘He was a friend of Arabs, too.’
‘He seems to have been a friend of everybody!’ said a voice caustically.
‘But not of the authorities,’ said Seymour.
There was another silence.
‘Got any more fags?’
‘Here!’ said Manuel.
‘How can a man die when he is in prison?’ asked Seymour.
‘Accident,’ said someone. ‘On his way along the corridor. Or in his cell.’
‘The warders?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘They might let someone in,’ said another voice. ‘If they were told to.’
‘The Englishman was poisoned,’ said someone. He thought it may have been the Arab.
‘He was,’ said Seymour. ‘How could that happen?’
‘Easy. Get someone to poison the food.’
‘The warders?’
‘It would have to be, wouldn’t it? If it was in the kitchens, we’d have been poisoned, too, wouldn’t we?’
‘So between the kitchen and the cell?’
No one replied.
‘Do you always have the same warder?’
‘One on during the day, the other on during the night.’
‘The man who brought us?’
‘Not him, no. Two others.’
‘It would have been the last meal,’ said someone. ‘He was found dead in the morning.’
‘And who brings the last meal?’
“The night warder.’
‘Enrico.’
There was a sudden hammering on the door.
‘One minute!’
‘Senor,’ said someone urgently, ‘was this man truly a friend of Catalonia?’
‘He was out on the streets in Tragic Week so that he could tell the world what he saw.’
‘So the bastards made sure that he couldn’t!’
The warder outside began to unlock the door.
Someone touched Seymour’s arm.
‘Senor,’ he whispered, ‘sometimes people bring food for those in the prison. It is forbidden but it is done. That is, perhaps, how the poison reached the Englishman.’
The warder came into the cell.
‘Right!’ he said. ‘Time’s up. If you’re still alive.’
‘It’s only bastards like you, Diego, that we kill!’
Chapter Seven
Looking out from the balcony of his room he saw the Chief of Police standing in the plaza below.
‘He’s been hanging around,’ Chantale said.
Seymour shrugged and then went back inside. But when he looked out again some time later the Chief was still there.
‘Does it matter?’ said Chantale.
‘No. I’m just curious.’
The Chief marched across the square to the little anarchist school.
‘I think I’ll go down,’ said Seymour.
The school had closed for the day but the two teachers were still busy in the playground doing something to one of the pieces of equipment. They didn’t look up when the Chief arrived but he spoke to them and Nina went across.
Seymour got there in time to hear the exchange.
‘So, Senora, you are still at work?’
‘So, Chief, you are again not at work?’
‘I am at work,’ retorted the Chief with dignity. ‘I am keeping an eye on things.’
‘The glasses in the bar?’
‘People,’ said the Chief heavily. ‘People who are up to something.’
‘Well, you won’t be keeping your eye on me, then,’ said Nina, and turned to go.
‘One moment, Senora!’
She stopped. ‘ Si?’
‘I have come to warn you.’
‘Oh?’
‘You are mixing with bad people, Senora.’
‘Only when I talk to the police. Which isn’t very often.’
The Chief breathed heavily. ‘You will find yourself mixing with them more if you go on the way you are doing.’
‘Oh? What way is that? Teaching our children?’
‘How you teach your children is not my concern, Senora. Although it may be the Church’s. It is what you do out of school that bothers me.’
‘I do not break the law.’
‘You do not treat it with respect.’
‘It does not deserve respect. And nor, Chief, do you.’
The Chief reddened. ‘I am giving you advice, Senora. Good advice. The next time it will not be advice. You will be back in jail. And this time there will be no one to bail you out.’
‘Will you kill me, as you did him?’
‘Senora-’
‘I do not need your warnings,’ said Nina scornfully.
‘You do, Senora. And would do well to heed them. You mix with bad people.’
‘Poor people,’ said Nina. ‘Not bad people.’
‘Murderers.’
‘What nonsense!’ said Nina, beginning to turn away.
‘We know who killed Ramon Mas.’
Nina stopped.
‘No one killed him,’ she said. ‘He died when his boat sank.’
‘Sank? Just like that? A fisherman’s boat? One that was out on the water every night? No, no, Senora, boats like that do not sink. They sink only when somebody sinks them.’
‘Why should anyone do that? He was a poor man, like us.’
‘He knew too much. He was out on the water every night and he had seen. And he was going to tell.’
‘He was an ordinary fisherman out with other fishermen. What was there to tell? That he had seen the nets being pulled in, that he had seen fish leaping in the darkness.’
‘Oh, more than that, Senora. More than that!’
‘He was a poor fisherman and he died as other poor fishermen have done. Let him rest in peace. Do not draw him into your sick fantasies.’
‘He was a poor fisherman, Senora, and needed money. Otherwise he was going to lose his boat. And he was not like your friends, Senora, he was not one of them. So why shouldn’t he tell? The night before he died he met one of my men and they made an appointment. Someone must have heard them, for he did not keep it.’
‘You think that because my friends are anarchists-’
‘I think that because they are anarchists they do not fear God. Nor His justice. And I think you should have nothing to do with them. You are an innocent young girl without a father and your mind is full — well, you spoke of my sick fantasies. You should have regard to the beam in your own eye. And stay away from such men.’
Nina walked away. The Chief of Police stood for a moment watching her and then turned. He saw Seymour and beamed.
‘Senor Seymour, it is good to have you back with us!’
‘It is a pleasure to be back. Of course, I have not been away for very long.’
‘At Gibraltar, did you say?’
Seymour hadn’t said, but he guessed that this was a way of telling him that they knew.
‘Gibraltar, yes.’
‘I hope you had a fruitful time?’
‘I did, yes.’ And then, to rattle the Chief a little, ‘More than I had expected.’
‘Ah? Well, Senor, we have missed you. “I was just getting to know him,” I said to Constanza. (That’s my wife.) “Oh?” she said. “Well, that’s very nice. Why don’t you come home at a proper time one evening and get to know me? Instead of going out drinking.”
‘Well, there you are, Senor! That’s a wife for you! She doesn’t understand that a man needs a drink after a hard day’s work. “A glass, yes; but a bottle?” she says. But it’s only a bottle when I’m with friends. “Everyone’s a friend if they buy you a drink!” she says. “We’re talking business,” I say. “There’s obviously a lot of business,” she says. Well, there is. That is why I am not home till late.’
‘ “I don’t come home on the dot,” I tell her, “because I am conscientious.” “You don’t come home on the dot,” she says, “because you’re a drunk.”
‘A drunk! What a thing for a wife to say to a husband! Does your wife say things like that, Senor? Ah, I was forgetting. Perhaps she is not your wife, the lady I met.’
He gave Seymour a rascally wink.
Then he looked around. ‘Where is the beautiful Senora, by the way?’
‘Out shopping.’
‘Ah, shopping? Dangerous, dangerous. They run through the money as if it was water. A pity, Senor. I was hoping to take you both out for a drink.’