‘And so, when you came back here to look for names, this was the name you were looking for?’
She nodded.
‘Do you think it might have been an Italian name?’
‘I hope not,’ she said.
The Mediterranean evening set in early and it was dark by the time Seymour got back to the Consulate. There was a light on. Koskash must still be there. Seymour hoped he had not stayed on because of him.
The front door was locked so he went round to the side door. It opened easily and he stepped in.
Koskash was at his desk. There were two men standing in front of him. They had their backs turned to the door and were blocking Koskash’s view so that for a moment none of them knew that Seymour had come in.
‘I can’t do it,’ Koskash was saying. ‘Not now.’
‘He needs them tonight,’ one of the men insisted.
‘I’m only half-way through doing them and I’ve got to go out.’
‘He needs them. Tonight.’
Koskash looked up and saw Seymour.
‘All right,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Tell him to come later. Not too much later. Between nine and nine thirty. And if he’s not here by nine thirty, it will be too bad, because I’ve got to go out.’
He ushered the men out.
‘Seamen!’ he said feelingly when he got back. ‘They just don’t understand. It’s always got to be done immediately. They can’t see that things take time.’
‘They’re lucky to catch you at this hour.’
‘They wouldn’t normally. It’s just that my wife and I are going out later this evening and this is a good place for her to pick me up.’
Seymour went on into the inner room. It was too early to go to the cinema or to have a meal and Lomax’s office, bare though it was, was more congenial than his hotel room.
He sat down at the desk and began to copy out the list of Lomax’s effects. It would be needed back in London by whoever was winding up Lomax’s estate.
Through the half-open door he could see Koskash working on assiduously. He saw him look at his watch.
‘Nine thirty,’ he said, catching Seymour’s eye, ‘and he’s not come. Seamen!’
There was a knock on the side door.
‘Ah!’
It was his wife, however. She was younger than Koskash and distinctly Slav in looks. She stopped when she saw Seymour, as if surprised, and then came forward, smiling.
‘Koskash had told me about you,’ she said. She called him Koskash. ‘I hope you will enjoy your stay, even though it will obviously be a short one. And comes at such a sad time.’
They chatted for a while and then she looked at her husband.
‘Oughtn’t we to go?’
Koskash had tidied his papers up but was hesitating by his desk.
‘There’s someone coming,’ he said.
‘At twenty to ten? Look, if we don’t leave soon, the meeting will have started.’
‘It’s — it’s for papers,’ said Koskash.
‘Oh! Oh, well, in that case — ’
‘I’ll be here for a bit longer,’ said Seymour.
Koskash looked at his wife.
‘That would be very kind,’ she said, smiling. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’
‘Not at all,’
‘Don’t hang around for him,’ said Koskash. ‘Leave when you want to and if he’s not come, well, too bad.’
He and his wife went off arm in arm.
Seymour went back to his desk. It didn’t take him long to finish his copying. Lomax hadn’t had many effects.
It was getting towards ten now. If he wanted to get to the cinema in time for the evening performance, he would have to leave now. The man had probably decided not to come.
He put the papers he had been working on in the empty drawer of Lomax’s desk, together with the envelope that Koskash had given him. Then he went out into the main office. Koskash had given him a key to the side door. He opened the door and went out.
As he stepped outside, he almost collided with a man about to come in. The man fell back with a surprised gasp.
‘Signor Lomax?’ he said hesitantly.
‘No. Seymour. Have you come for something?’
‘Si. Si.’
Seymour took him in. He was a young man in his twenties, wearing spectacles and in a cheap, dark suit. He brought his heels together and gave a little bow. Then he looked at Seymour uncertainly.
‘I was expecting Koskash,’ he said.
‘He’s just gone.’
‘I am sorry, I am late. They said to be here before nine thirty but I took a wrong turning. I do not know Trieste.’
Reassured by the reference to the deadline Koskash had appointed, Seymour went back into his room and fetched the envelope.
‘Was this what you were wanting?’
The man looked in the envelope and nodded. He seemed relieved.
‘Please will you thank Mr Koskash for me,’ he said.
He spoke in Italian but was not Italian. Nor was he English. This troubled Seymour but for the moment he couldn’t think why.
The man clicked his heels and bowed again, and Seymour let him out.
All day he had been listening to the voices around him: the women haggling in the markets, the men unloading the boats, the newspaper seller in the piazza, the barely comprehensible old woman behind her pile of melons; the little groups of men standing talking in the piazzas — they seemed to stand there all day; the housewives sitting in their doorway to catch a breath of air, calling back over their shoulder from time to time to someone inside, an elderly mother who would occasionally show herself, or a young daughter who would emerge indignant and passionate, holding an even younger child by the hand; the policemen at the police station with their Austrian bittes and the waiters in the Piazza Grande with their Italian pregos. All day he had been taking them in and now, sitting in the Edison, at the time that Lomax had sat there, waiting for the picture to begin, the picture that Lomax had waited for with James, he was listening to them still.
Seymour had an unusual ear for language. It was that that had brought him here, had made him what he was. Growing up in the East End and hearing its various languages he had sometimes mimicked them when he had gone home. Old Appelmann, visiting once, had noticed his facility and encouraged it. Occasionally he took Seymour with him when he was doing his work as the local interpreter, and had talked about the language after. Old Appelmann had once been a teacher and could not resist teaching now. Gradually, with his help, Seymour had acquired the languages of the East End.
Much of Appelmann’s work had been for the police and in that way they had got to know Seymour too. That had led first to his becoming Appelmann’s paid assistant and then to his joining the police force itself.
At first he had not liked the police and had thought about leaving. But acute superiors had spotted his talent, which was not confined to languages, and encouraged him to make use of it. In time he had settled and things suddenly became easier when, unusually for an ordinary constable, he had been transferred to the Special Branch. They had used him a lot in the East End, where so many languages were spoken.
Trieste, from that point of view, was a delight. It was like the East End only more so. It was Europe in miniature, Europiccola, as James had once said fondly, Europe with all its languages brought together in a small space.
Now, in the cinema, his ear trailed, as it were, lovingly over them; but all the time at the back of his mind he was hearing again the voice of the man who had come to the Consulate late to pick up his ‘papers’. Something about it continued to niggle at him.
A piano at the front of the cinema started to play. The show was about to begin. It was the picture that Lomax had seen on the night he died. Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. Seymour felt an anticipating thrill of excitement. This, at any rate, should be a treat.