by Brian Martin
‘We are extremely disturbed by the murder, and, yes, we do think that there is an involvement with certain criminal organisations. We deplore that. We know that Estonia, and Tallinn in particular because of its strategic importance in trade with Russia, are vulnerable to criminal exploitation, but we are doing, and shall continue to do in the future, everything we can to stop such activity. We shall do all we can to reassure our European partners that we are a stable and profitable place in which to invest. We do not want any erosion of confidence.’
I began to wonder when he would stop talking. It was obvious to me that he was speaking carefully from a well-prepared brief. I wanted to shift the conversation to a more informal level.
‘Well, that’s very good to hear. Have you anything written down, some sort of press release, then, about this murder that I could use?’
‘No. We have not done that. I can only tell you what our thoughts are on the matter.’
‘Could I ask you a straight question? Is there a firm called Myrex suspected of being involved in this affair?’
He turned and looked at me directly in the eyes. ‘I can’t say exactly that. Let me say this though, people with business interests based in Spain and Switzerland are suspected of having some connection with this murder. You can draw your own conclusions, and you can be sure that we are determined to root out any form of criminal activity, extortion, bribery, smuggling, that we find. Our government is determined to meet the standards that are required of us. I can also say this without being undiplomatic, that we are able to rely on the assistance of our friends in tracking down any criminals who think they can exploit our newly won freedom. They think we are naïve, but they forget we have waged a hidden war for many years against a formidable occupying power. We have experience and know what to do.’ He had reverted to the official line again. I knew that the friends his government could rely on were the Americans. Rovde’s was a favoured presence in the country.
I tried to bring the discussion down from the official level again and talked about how much I admired the welcoming atmosphere that exists in Tallinn and anywhere you go in Estonia. I did not mention the inhospitable nature of Paldiski; but then that was a one-off blight on the Estonian landscape. He proved an amiable young man. I discovered that he had worked for a time with the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia: he held an economics doctorate from the London School of Economics. We ended up on friendly terms. As I left, I suggested that at some future time when I happened to be in Tallinn, we should have a drink together. He said he would enjoy that. I thanked him and went out through reception. I thought to myself how nice it would be to invite the really very presentable girl who had first spoken to me for a drink. She looked welcoming and attractive. I wondered if she would be inclined to start a little affair or whether she had a boyfriend to whom she was faithful. I made no move. It could all wait for another day.
I repaired to the English Café and had an espresso and a glass of water. I needed the caffeine to make me think. The interview at the Department of Economic Affairs had not told me much more than I had known already. My mind drifted to Roxanne. I wondered what she was doing and where she was. I had no idea: my reverie was pointless. After ten minutes or so, I decided my course of action should be to visit Paldiski to see what was happening there; and then I should return to England and travel to Newcastle and search out Arne. He would know that I had been asking for him. He might be surprised, or suspicious, if I trailed him to Newcastle, but then the persistency of journalists is a necessary part of their stock in trade and should not be unexpected. I gambled on him realising that.
I rang Rovde on his mobile and asked him if he could join me that afternoon on a trip to Paldiski. I would hire a car. We could drive through the flatlands and pine forests. It might make an agreeable afternoon out. He thought he could be ready by 1.30 p.m. and told me to pick him up outside the Italian hotel.
We met on time. The car I had been given was a well-looked-after C series Mercedes. I thought it a little old for a hire car, but it ran smoothly and was smart inside. Rovde sat next to me. I turned up the heating and we headed out of the city. It was a dull, cold day, overcast and gloomy, the sort of day when you could easily nosedive into deep depression. For some time we kept to the coast, passing through dockland and industrial settlements. Then we went inland for some time and cut through mile after mile of pine forest, hemmed in by dark green and occasional swirls of mist. We did not hurry and I approached the outskirts of Paldiski mid-afternoon. As we came up to the shoreline, the road to the left was closed. Warning notices and metal barriers shut off the road leading towards vast naval sheds and some dry docks. Radiation alert logos were clearly visible on the warning signs. Rovde reckoned the road led to a derelict nuclear submarine. There was no official information about it: he thought the Estonian government had put a security blackout on it. From what I knew, I thought he was right and commented that there was nothing like a radiation sign to keep inquisitive people away from something you did not want them to see. It was important in a place like Paldiski to be sceptical about radiation signs, especially when used by private companies. They were used as a means of countering industrial espionage.
We turned right about a third of a mile from the water’s edge and followed a concrete road, more like an airport runway than a road, drove past dilapidated buildings that could once have been office blocks, and then passed a huge length of low concrete slab buildings of the old fifties Soviet sort. Once they had been white: now they were a dirty grey. In places there were no doors, at others doors hung aslant from one hinge, windows were broken or non-existent. It was a scene of devastation and neglect. They were terminally ill buildings.
Behind the long range of rotting concrete, tower blocks of apartments in the same dreary Stalinist style rose grubbily up into the dark sky. You could see in those skeletal structures empty windows that no longer held panes of glass. A few of the flats were lived in. An occasional roughly hung, makeshift curtain draped a window. It was an indication that some of the original occupying Russians had chosen not to go back to the motherland. The centre part of the settlement – it could hardly be called a town – was run down. Most premises were shut. A few, mostly food shops, had boxes of goods stacked up and displayed outside on what remained of the pavement. Potatoes and vegetables, cabbages and onions predominated in the Paldiski diet. Here and there small groups of men stood and talked. As we drove past, all eyes turned to watch us. We had been warned early on in our visits to Estonia not to stop where there were people around. Paldiski was a dangerous place. An obvious foreigner in a hire car was prey for determined, unscrupulous, scavengers.
On the far side of what might be called the centre, there was a long line of naval hangars, one of them huge: it looked as though it could house an aircraft carrier. Near it was a brick and concrete, single-storey building that had been newly painted white. A small but prominent sign above the main door proclaimed Myrex. Elsewhere on the building, and on the large hangar, were notices that read Danger: Keep Out. They alternated, written in Russian, Estonian, and English.
There was no one about, so I stopped the car and we sat there viewing the site of Myrex’s operations. The low building, we worked out, must have been the technical lab.
‘But what’s the hangar for?’ I asked Rovde.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ he retorted.
‘What do they need that space for? It’s got huge storage facility, of course. But Myrex isn’t into goods or commodities. Maybe it’s just property speculation, long-term stuff, investment for the future.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Myrex’s style here,’ Rovde said. ‘They’ve never been interested in that sort of deal. They must have something going on there. Maybe they are doing a bit of import/export. It might be transit storage for stuff going into Russia. We have to remember, Tallinn is the gateway into Russia. It’s open all year round. I’ll bet Arne and his people see it as an acquisition for benef
it in the future.’
One dim light shone from a window in the low lab. That was the only sign of life. We got out of the car and walked to the back of the lab. As we did so, the lowering sky lightened, clouds in the far western distance melted into a fierce dull red glow of sunset. It lasted no more than a few minutes, before the sun, already low in the sky and only just visible, sank altogether out of sight. The deep red glow settled and disappeared as though someone had gradually turned off a dimmer switch. Behind the lab, a well-polished, navy blue Saab was parked. It made our old Mercedes look the poor relation.
‘We’d better move off,’ I said. ‘We don’t want to be caught snooping.’
‘Right,’ Rovde agreed. ‘Let’s go on up to the end of the waterfront, see what else is here, and then get back to the city. At least we know that Myrex is operational in some way here.’
We drove slowly along a badly surfaced road to its end. It ran up against a metal barred barrier behind which there was a large field, then the beginnings of the usual pine tree plantations. An unmade track went off into the hinterland away from the sea. It looked like a farmer’s track to a barn: it then disappeared into the pine trees.
I was beginning to feel depressed. It was a gloomy place. The half-light and shade had been momentarily relieved by the late glimmer of sunset. That had been the only cheering aspect of the grim settlement. As we retraced our route and found our way out of Paldiski, the windscreen drizzled with sleet. The temperature gauge showed outside measurements between zero and minus two degrees. We left the miserable, derelict, inhospitably grim outpost, a last reminder of old Soviet power.
I turned up the heating in the car and shivered involuntarily, not I think from cold but rather from anxiety. I could not figure out where our investigation was leading us. I had no wish to go back to Paldiski; but somehow I felt I was destined to see more of the awful place.
After the dark corridors through the pine trees it was a great relief to reach the lights of Tallinn. After all, it was an international city. It had a certain buzz to it. It was busy, commercial, intent on making a going concern of itself. We both welcomed its embrace.
‘I’ll leave the car outside the garage. Then we can walk the block to the Gloria and have some supper in the cellar. Is that a good idea?’ I asked Rovde.
He agreed. As soon as we entered the cellar, the manageress who often looked after the reception upstairs told me that there was a message for me. An official-looking, smart, expensive envelope, had been delivered by hand and left for me. I left Rovde to order a bottle of wine and I went to fetch it. When I opened the envelope, I saw that it was a short note written on Myrex-headed notepaper, signed by someone called Christiansen, telling me that Arne had informed him that he would be in Newcastle for the following four days. If I were to be back in England within that time, he would be pleased to see me if I contacted him at the Malmaison hotel there.
The note came as a surprise. I had not told anyone at Myrex where I was staying. Of course, it is not difficult to discover someone’s lodging place in a small city, but it did mean that they had gone to some trouble to find out. I experienced an uneasy feeling that they were keeping an eye on me. Furthermore, someone had felt it important to inform Arne that I had been asking for him. Their network was efficiently operational.
I thought it would do no harm to show the note to Rovde.
‘Take a look at this. They’re certainly keeping tabs on me,’ I said.
‘They’re careful, professional,’ he said. ‘They want something from you or they’re suspicious of you. Otherwise they’d ignore you. I wonder what’s going on. You should meet him. Don’t miss out.’
‘That’s what I feel. It’s odd though. There’s a bit of keenness on their part. If they’re any good, by now they will know that I’m not just a journalist. You’re right. I’d better sort him out. There’s no story anyway about the murdered man here. It’s more likely that I’ll find out more about that in London, or, who knows, even in Newcastle.’
‘Yep. That’s my feeling, buddy. You’ve been invited. Accept it. Myrex isn’t known for its friendliness. You’re a special person.’
I decided to ring Mark. I wanted to let him know what was happening. He, too, thought it strange. He was more cautious. He sensed danger. Myrex knew what I was doing and they wanted something from me. He was convinced of that. He told me that as soon as I was back in the UK, I should let him know. He would monitor me: it was important to keep contact.
I did not prolong the call from the cellar. Rovde and I had an excellent Chilean Syrah, younger than I usually prefer them, but it was extremely palatable and delicious. After some discussion with Rovde, I decided to leave for London the next morning and continue to Newcastle on an internal UK flight. I thought I would ring Lorel in the morning and ask her to book me into a Thistle hotel near the railway station, an average, acceptable transit hotel in the centre of the city, walking distance from the Malmaison. My plan of campaign settled, I enjoyed the rest of the evening with Rovde, secure in the knowledge of American support. Around ten, Mo appeared. While I had been collecting the Myrex letter, Uri must have phoned her. She was cheerful and happy. Uri kissed her directly on the mouth when he greeted her. I kissed her on the cheeks. I bought her a cognac and coffee. That night I fell asleep wondering if Rovde and Mo had gone to bed together, unable to picture the intimacies of love that the heavy-footed Rovde might be capable of. Inevitably my mind took me into my own amatory realms of Roxanne and Lena. I enjoyed a few highlights and slept soundly, not at all worried about murders or Myrex.
15
I was back in London by mid-afternoon the following day. I immediately contacted Mark. He was delighted to hear from me and told me some welcome personal news that he had received the day before. An old uncle had died: he was a legatee and had inherited just over £80,000. It solved a number of his pressing financial problems. To celebrate, he wanted me to go with him to Tower 42, the old NatWest building in Old Broad Street, the tallest building in London. There on floor 42 was a bar that ran round the top of the tower and afforded the most spectacular view of London. He invited me to share a bottle of champagne with him.
We met outside the Tower and went in through heavy security. We were checked by X-ray machines and given identity tags. It was infinitely different from going for a drink in the local pub. The fast lift took us straight to the forty-second floor where we looked out over the huge metropolis lit not only by artificial lights but by an almost full moon. The sky had cleared after the rain of the day: the view, all the way round, extended for miles. We sipped champagne and nibbled at lobster claws. After about twenty minutes, we were brought a small salver of sushi. The contrast between that elevated experience and the world of dreary, depressed Paldiski made its mark upon me as I gazed out towards Canary Wharf. I could overhear other people talking, brokers, bankers, venture capitalists, financial analysts. I picked up that one of a group next to us was a spin doctor who worked for the Lord Chancellor’s department. This milieu was a world away from the decrepitude of Paldiski. Yet then I thought of the IRA bombing at the end of the eighties. Everywhere in the vicinity of that great tower had been a sea of broken glass and twisted metal. The engine of the van that had been packed with explosives had risen with the force of the blast and slammed through the windows of the thirty-second floor to land in the middle of the offices there. Even with Mark present, I began to feel uneasy. We were at a great and vulnerable height at the summit of that tall tower. I imagined what it must have been like to be in the World Trade Center on that fateful 11th of September. I began to wish that we had chosen to go to a subterranean champagne bar of which there were many to choose from close to the Bank. I expressed my nervousness.
‘I only hope there are no aircraft around this evening. This height right in the centre of the City makes me extremely nervous.’
‘Relax. Enjoy. The chances are negligible. Anaesthetise yourself with champagne.’
So that is wha
t we did.
Mark treated me to supper. He took me to a little French restaurant behind Bart’s Hospital. I told him of my visit to Paldiski, about Myrex finding me and about Arne’s message suggesting I went to Newcastle. I said I would go there the next day.
‘How extraordinary! You’d better be careful. They definitely want to keep track of you. What’s their reason? Someone must think you can be useful. Or, on the other hand, they might see you as a possible danger that can be neutralised. Either way, you must be careful, dear Pel. I don’t altogether like what’s going on. I don’t understand it.’
‘Nor do I. Of course, it might be quite straightforward and innocent. The trouble with my profession is that we are trained to be suspicious. Arne is probably just being helpful.’
Mark came back at me quickly. ‘I very much doubt that. He doesn’t have that philanthropic reputation. Still, I’ll be fascinated to hear what happens.’
The Journal had no objections to my going to Newcastle. The Baltic Centre, that old flour mill converted into a magnificently trendy art work space and gallery, was exhibiting some of the work of Julian Opie, the fashionable line-drawing minimalist artist whose portrait print of the pop group, Blur, had been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery. My editor wanted me to write a general piece on Geordie reaction to London’s artistic invasion of the North East. That, I thought, would be a contrast to the darker side of my life to do with national security, Arne, Myrex and murders.
