Song of the Dead

by Douglas Lindsay

  She smiles briefly, shakes my hand.

  ‘Glad you got here safely. You have a problem with flying?’

  I’m not getting into it. Never felt the need to justify myself before, so answer with a slight movement of the shoulders.

  She takes a seat behind her desk. Top floor in the offices of the Central Criminal Police. View of the old port area and out over the sea, but not attached to the port. The office is large and sparsely furnished. A lot of dead space. Perhaps she has meetings in here. In the UK this would be an open plan office for about fifteen. I decide the Estonians must still be at the stage where government and the services are expanding, before they hit the part where they have to start shedding people, buildings, and other assets by the hundred-weight.

  When was the peak of the British government and civil service? I wonder, but never think of the question when I’m next to a computer. 1914 probably. Thereabouts. The height of Empire. Been downsizing ever since, with no end in sight. Eventually there’ll be a few people working in Whitehall calling themselves the government, while the country is run by enormous, corrupt corporations. It’ll be the East India Company in reverse.

  ‘I’ve had a long chat with Chief Inspector Quinn. I don’t think he believes you ought to be out here for an extended period. Hopefully we should get this wrapped up very quickly.’

  She has a certain tone about her, but I’ve been warned by Kuusk. She takes a while to warm up and doesn’t do small talk. She gets to the point. ‘Almost as though she’s Estonian rather than Russian.’ That’s how he put it.

  Regardless of whether this is just the way she is, or if there is any real resentment about my being in the country, as her tone suggests, I’ll be giving Quinn a call as soon as we’re through here.

  Kuusk, for his part, seems to be modelling himself on American movies.

  ‘Have they found Emily King?’

  ‘So far, no.’

  ‘They know where she is and can’t get hold of her, or they–’

  ‘–They appear to be having difficulty locating her. You should speak to your Chief Inspector when we’re done. I believe Detective Kuusk wants to go with you and the supposed victim to try to identify the area where he says he was held?’

  ‘You’re sceptical then? About this man claiming to be Baden?’

  ‘Of course, Detective Inspector. I was a junior officer when the case had its previous incarnation. John Baden’s body was found, it was identified. There was no question. He was dead. So, how can this man be him? I have seen his dead body. So the question you need to be asking is not, is this man John Baden? It is how does he come to think he is John Baden, or why is he pretending?’

  ‘For the moment, and until proven otherwise, I won’t be taking any questions off the table.’

  She smiles, which is surprising.

  ‘Of course. You must tackle this as you see fit. Will you be taking Mr Baden back to the UK?’

  Genuinely hadn’t thought of that. Much too soon. The length of time I think I’m going to be here seems to differ greatly from her expectations.

  ‘Too early to say.’

  ‘Very well. Inspector Kuusk can keep me informed as you go.’

  A last look, then she lowers her eyes to her paperwork. The international sign of the dismissal. Not quite ready to go yet, however.

  ‘Regardless of who he thinks or says he is, there’s clear evidence that this man has been abused, that his body has been used. Regardless of the historical aspect of the case, you surely must be wanting to investigate the possibility of a group of people, whoever they are, holding prisoners in the forest.’

  Her lowered head remains steady. I wait for the glance, the rebuke, the sharp tone telling me it’s none of my business. Perhaps she and Kuusk have already had the conversation.

  Nothing. I glance round at Kuusk and he indicates with a slight eye movement that it’s time to go.

  * * *

  Another office window, but now it’s completely dark outside and all I’m looking at is my own reflection. Talking Quinn through how I found our man to be.

  ‘Are you convinced?’ he asks.

  ‘Much too early to be making any judgement calls. He seems genuine, that’s all. But it could just be that he’s very well prepared and a damn good actor.’

  I can see him nodding at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Right, we’d better press ahead this end,’ he says. ‘I was trying to avoid going to court to get an exhumation order…’

  ‘But you’re going to have to.’

  ‘I’d already started Sutherland on the paperwork anyway. Hopefully, under the circumstances, we can get it pushed through quickly.’

  ‘And how about Emily King?’

  ‘Dropped off the map not long after the affair in Estonia.’

  ‘There wasn’t insurance money, was there?’

  ‘Yes, there was.’

  God, how mundane, how disappointing. This case seems so far from the normal, so different. How banal it would be if it turns out to have been an insurance scam.

  Still, that wouldn’t explain the blood harvesting. And the rest.

  ‘Perhaps she sold him off,’ I venture, ‘and somehow there was another body they could use that she was willing to identify as his.’

  ‘The mother and father would have had to have been in on it.’

  ‘Yes… Yes, a theory too far. But let’s play with it, and see where it gets us. With the exception of the mother and father, it’s at least something that would explain the anomaly.’

  ‘Indeed. Right, Ben, do what you have to do out there. Try not to be too long about it. Another couple of days maximum if you can. We don’t want you going all Rosco on us. We’ll keep things going this end, see what we can come up with.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Ten minutes later I’ve said goodbye to Kuusk for the evening, and I’m walking to my hotel, case in one hand a map in the other.

  I stop off at a bar in the old town square. An old cobbled area like in a thousand places across Europe, the beer three times the price of what you’ll pay two streets away.

  I sit at the window, listening to the voices around me. Mostly English being spoken. There’s an American couple discussing the effect of the war on Tallinn, and how it changed hands between the Soviets, the Germans, and back to the Soviets. The guy read a book about it on the plane on the way over, or before he got off the cruise ship, and is consequently talking with total authority.

  My heart’s not in it. I don’t really want to be sitting in a bar, drinking beer I don’t like and unable to shut out the surrounding chatter.

  Rain is falling into the dark evening, as I head out the bar, leaving the beer half-finished, and walk the two blocks to my hotel.

  13

  We’re in a black Peugeot, heading south. Kuusk in the front with a police driver, me in the back with Baden.

  I’m not going to interview him like this, sitting in the back of a car, taking him back to the area where he was held captive, taking him back closer to his trauma. I thought he might engage in some conversation, a general what-have-I-missed kind of discussion, even if it was dispassionate and detached. But there’s nothing.

  I can feel his nervousness, almost a palpable entity sitting beside him. We probably ought to have had him trauma risk assessed by now. If his account is true, then there’s no question that the man will be traumatised. I expect there would be a legion of counsellors out there screaming at us for immediately trying to take him back to where he was held. Has to be done, however. It’s the only way to take this forward at the moment.

  The driver is an interesting chap. He seems nervous as well. I wonder what his story is. He talked to Kuusk in Estonian when we got going, and I didn’t understand a word. But Kuusk seems sullen this morning, as though another grey day has finally got the better of him. The driver tried to draw something out of him, but didn’t get anywhere. Eventually gave up as we hit the outskirts of Tallinn.

  We
’ve been driving, painfully slowly, in silence for the last half hour. The driver scrupulously observes the speed limits. Single carriageway, past woods of silver birch and pine. The Nordic/Baltic model. Occasionally there are glimpses through the trees of marshland, bogs and wild grass stretching as far as the grey mist of morning will allow.

  Daylight, such as it is, doesn’t arrive until well after eight. It’s early November. One hates to think what it’ll be like a month and a half from now.

  We’re on a long, straight stretch of road. Trees down either side, far into the distance. Grey cloud, so low and suffocating that it seems to be sitting just above the level of the trees. Barely any traffic on the road, but the driver determinedly sits at the speed limit. The energy in the car, the life-force of us four men, seems to be sucked dry, drawn up into the clouds, pulled in by the grimness of the day.

  I feel suddenly like I’m part of some awful, low-budget Eastern European film, a road trip, where the producers couldn’t afford incidental music, so there’s nothing but the sound of the car, and there’s no script, just men sitting in silence, and it’s filmed in black and white, and you watch this car drive along for mile after mile without anything being said, and it’s strangely captivating, yet at the same time it crushes your soul, brings your spirit down to the same level as these four desolate men, going nowhere, thinking nothing, bereft of spirit.

  And that’s us now. The four of us. The sullen Estonian policeman, the nervous, troubled driver, the Scottish policeman weighed down and feeling like a stranger, and the ghost.

  ‘Can’t you drive a little faster?’ I ask. Have to force the words out. They don’t want to come. No words allowed in this sullen car. Nothing to be asked, or answered.

  I wait for him to say something, or perhaps just to speed up a little without actually acknowledging the request, but he does neither. The words disappear in the monstrous claustrophobia.

  Perhaps he never heard me. Perhaps I never spoke.

  * * *

  Tartu is a university town, bustling, as such places tend to, with the energy of youth. Despite the heavy skies, one still senses the liveliness of the place as we drive through. However, we’re not aiming for the centre of the town, the merest glimpse of which we get on our way. We’re aiming for the eastern end, the last police station on the edge of town, before it vanishes into the woods and bogs that continue all the way to Lake Peipus.

  While he has been sitting absolutely still throughout the journey, now I can see Baden’s nervousness manifesting itself in small, uneasy movements. The fingers, the clench of the fist. Feet and toes. A slight judder of the legs.

  The blanket of fog over the car lifts. Almost there, we’ll be getting out shortly, conversation will be had, the small world of the car will be broken up, escaped from, and others will be drawn briefly into our investigation.

  We will announce ourselves at the station: a courtesy to let them know we’re in the area, and from then it really is all down to Baden. What he can remember. I wasn’t too hopeful starting off, and now, having sat next to him the whole way down, I doubt he’ll be able to tell us from which direction he approached the police station, never mind trace his steps back to his starting point.

  We park at the side of the station. Having glimpsed the life of the centre of town, out at the edges it returns to the more regulation Eastern European standard, colourless square buildings thrown together, wooden or concrete or brick, no structure, no life. The roads are poor, the pavements occasionally placed, as though optional. Road signs I don’t recognise, arrows pointing towards available directions at every junction.

  The station is small and grey. There are three cars parked outside, one of which is marked Politsei. A sign over the door, next to a small Estonian flag, marks the entrance. Of the six sets of windows at the front of the building, four are shuttered, two of which have bars on the outside.

  Three of us can’t get out the car quickly enough. The driver has a cigarette lit and in his mouth practically before his feet have touched the ground. Kuusk and I step out more measuredly, but in all likelihood our desperation to escape was just as great. Baden remains in the car, his right leg now shaking constantly, his hand squeezing his knee.

  Kuusk lights a cigarette as he walks round the car. It’s cold, I stand with my hands thrust in my pockets. I’d take the cold any day over what we were feeling in the car.

  ‘You want to come in and say hello? We shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘D’you think they’ll speak English?’

  He shrugs, takes a long draw. ‘You never know.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, you can pass on anything you think worthwhile.’

  He nods, probably quite happy to be able to conduct the brief conversation in Estonian, rather than potentially struggling through a conversation in English that the other officer might not be up to. He takes another long draw of the smoke and then flicks it casually onto the ground as he walks up the steps.

  The driver is stretching, almost as though he’s trying to draw attention to himself with the elaboration of movement. Squats, then his leg stretched out with his foot against the car, followed by great movements of his arms, the cigarette in his mouth the whole time. Perhaps he’s about to take off running. Perhaps he knows what they’re like around here.

  I stare up and down the street. Should have had more breakfast. This isn’t the kind of trip where you casually mention having lunch before doing what you came here for. We need to get on with it. Unlikely to be more than a few decent hours of daylight left.

  I walk round the car and open Baden’s passenger door. He jumps at the sound. Hadn’t seen me coming. Immersed in whatever narrative he was using to protect himself.

  ‘Can you get out the car, please?’

  He glances up at me, looks back at the seat in front. Contemplating the possibility of not moving, but it isn’t really a possibility at all. He slowly gets out, stands outside the car, taking vague, darting looks around.

  ‘Can you remember the direction from which you approached the station?’

  For a moment he looks as though the question surprises him, then he steps away from me towards the road and points to his right. I walk out onto the edge of the pavement and follow his gaze. Long and straight, the road to nowhere. There are numerous buildings down either side at first, then the main stretch of the road turns sharply to the right. However, a side road goes straight ahead, and it allows a view beyond the end of the town where the buildings run out to scrubland, the trees quickly following.

  ‘You came all the way from there?’

  He nods, something I pick up on without really looking at him.

  ‘Have you any idea how long you were walking for?’

  This time I have to look at him to see that he’s shaking his head.

  ‘But it was two nights?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you say you were moving quickly?’

  He doesn’t answer.

  ‘Would you say you were moving quickly?’

  ‘I don’t know. At first, yes, of course. I was trying to get away. Running, running as best I could. I tired quickly though. It’d been a long time since I’d run anywhere.’

  ‘Did you have any idea where you were going, or did you just stumble into the town?’

  ‘Found a small road, followed it.’

  ‘The day you got to the station?’

  ‘The day before.’

  ‘You think you’ll recognise that road as we drive out of town?’

  Pause.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You have any idea how many miles you walked along it?’

  Shakes his head.

  I know he’s not going to have answers to these questions, but they have to be asked.

  ‘So you were walking for maybe a day and a half before you found the road? What d’you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. That sounds about right.’

  ‘Did you have any sense that you were walking i
n the same direction the whole time?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Were you aware that you had gone back on yourself at any point? You saw a landmark that you’d already seen?’

  ‘It was just trees.’

  ‘What about the sun even? Did you use the sun?’

  He stares at me, and then, slowly, his eyes lift upwards. I know what he’s doing, but I can’t help myself following his lead. The grey sky lies oppressively on top of us, as it has since my arrival. My sense of direction and orientation is reasonably good, but I have absolutely no idea where the sun should be at the moment.

  The door to the station opens and Kuusk trots down the stairs. The second he’s outside he lights up another cigarette, takes a long draw, leaves the cigarette on his lips and pulls his jacket in close to him.

  ‘They need us to go into Tartu, the main station. They’re expecting us there. They’ve got like, I don’t know, a team of guys.’

  ‘No.’

  We both turn to Baden. He’s not quite looking either of us in the eye. Staring at the ground, shaking his head. Not sure what he’s thinking, but I have to admit I agree with him. I don’t want it taken out of our hands yet. I want to spend the day with him, try to make some decision on what’s happening with the guy, and then leave the investigation of this apparent band of enslavers to the locals once I’m gone. If they all come on board now, I might as well not be here.

  ‘Did Stepulov instruct you to hand yourself over to the locals?’

  ‘No, I just came here to be nice.’

  ‘Right, we ignore them. You’ll be able to handle the fallout.’

  ‘Just obeying orders. Stepulov can handle the fallout.’

  Doesn’t this have Estonian police turf war written all over it? None of my business.

  ‘Right, let’s hit the road. You…’ I say, pointing at Baden. He said he was all right coming back here. I need him to start shaping up. I’m not going to start hugging the guy and caressing him towards usefulness. ‘I know this’ll be tough, but I need you to start buying into it. We’re relying on you and we’re going to be fine. If we actually come to somewhere that you think you might recognise, then we’ll call for backup. We won’t just go blindly charging into a situation where we could be heavily outnumbered, but we need to try to at least identify the area.’