“Erikkson?”
“Yes Erikkson.”
“A bloody Swede!”
“Yes he’s a Swede, he with the Bottens Handelsbank.”
“ I don’t care which bank he’s with, let me tell you something.”
“Tell me!”
“You know how a Swede gets his rubber boots off?”
“How?”
“By farting!” Koskinen roared with laughter.
The Mercedes accelerated down one the many elegant tree lined avenues of St Petersburg, passing an army truck filled with pale faced young conscripts, weaving through worn-out Lada’s and shiny BMW’s. The crowds of office workers were already running towards the red trolley buses.
As night fell and they passed the Moscow Gate monument that celebrated the defeat of Napoleon in 1812. Wet snow splattered the cracked windscreen as the car tried to slip through the gaps in the traffic. Arrowsmith had the impression that the temperature had risen; perhaps it was around minus four or five.
“Seriously, for Christ’s sake!”
“Okay,” he said still laughing. “I don’t know too much about Erikkson, but I do know he’s involved with another Swede called Anders Johansson, he sells stuff for the pharmaceutical industry.”
“Are they involved in business in Russia?”
“I’ll say they are, they have supplied things to Bashkiristan.”
“Bash…what!”
“Bashkiristan, Ufa that’s the capital, it’s a Republic in the Russian Federation south of the Urals.”
“What have they supplied?”
“Some kind of pharmaceutical laboratory I think.”
“So what’s Erikkson doing?”
“He’s involved with some kind of Mafiya.”
“So - any business in Russia is called Mafiya, isn’t it?”
“These really are Mafiya, I’ve got a Finnish friend there in Ufa and I can guaranty they are real Mafiya and bad…very bad.”
Kutzmenkov asked the driver to stop at a foreign currency exchange bureau; he needed to change a few of his new one hundred dollar bills for Roubles. It was easier said than done many such bureaux were closed for inexplicable reasons. An armed guard with a bored expression stood at the door in his drab army uniform, Koskinen continued to talk about girls, he was certainly feeling horny. Arrowsmith recognised the Ainichkov Bridge over the Neva River and knew that they would be at the hotel within a few minutes.
“I see,” said Arrowsmith absorbing the news.
“One of the key figures is a crook called Demirshian. He’s involved in just about everything illegal possible. Drugs, rackets, counterfeiting, money laundering and women – with big tits,” he laughed.
“You can’t stay serious for a moment!”
He turned his attention to the passing scenery, looking admiringly at the endless avenues of fine stately buildings, gardens and squares, conceived by the numerous dukes and counts who had been masters of the Czarist Empire and too greedy as had been their successors, the party chiefs.
Times had changed and once again power was in a transitional phase, in the hands of the Mafiya, whilst the politicians argued over lost causes and the inheritors waited in the wings for the call of the people.
The hotel was almost new, the Nevsky Palace. They met in the bar at the far end of the lobby at six. It was a little quiet, the pianist, a young woman looked bored. They took a corner table and waited for the others to arrive. As they looked around several tables were occupied by young women, who looked quite attractive thought Arrowsmith.
“Professionals,” announced Koskinen.
He turned his attention to business, he wanted to show Arrowsmith his latest acquisition, a furniture factory that had cost Finnish investors one hundred million Finnish marks and had been picked up for a song from a desperate Helsinki bank after months of strangulation by the suppliers of wood, who also happened to be Koskinen’s friends.
“With friends in Russia you can do anything, with enemies….”
The factory lay in an inner suburb of St Petersburg on a modern industrial zone where most construction had been long been abandoned.
Once they passed through the doors of the modern looking factory it was as though they had been transported a few hundred kilometres to the north-east. It was Finnish organisation and technical perfection down to the least detail.
They were met by the factory manager, Marti Raitakari, a quiet but likable Finn, with long experience in the woodworking and furniture industry. He described the difficulties of working in Russia. The problem was not the staff, who were competent and hard working given the training and the incentives, good jobs were few and far between. The main problem was the authorities who were disorganised and corrupt. Then there was the unreliable transport system and the power company. It took hefty bribes to get anything moving and protection money to stay in business.
Marti invited them to his new apartment for a before dinner drink and meet his friends. They followed his Mercedes back into the city. They stopped at the lights and the tramcars slide by with a metallic whirr. The driver of the Mercedes started and then turned left bumping over the rails. The traffic almost resembled that of a Western capital, perhaps somewhat more fluid for six forty five in the evening.
His apartment on the fourth floor was impeccably renovated with high original ceilings. It overlooked the ice covered Moika River where the embankment curved opposite Peter the Great’s Stable built in 1720, nearby the church where Alexander II was murdered in 1881.
Marti was a collector of fine art and enjoyed classical music. The walls of his apartment were covered with paintings new and old that he had collected in Russia. His wife lived in Finland whilst he led a bachelor’s life in St Petersburg, returning to Helsinki for business or weekends.
He warned Arrowsmith of the danger of becoming involved with the Russian Mafiya. They did not hesitate to use violence openly, the previous manager of the furniture plant had been shot down whilst taking a coffee with a business friend in the arcade of the Nevsky Palace Hotel. He and a bystander, a British businessman, an innocent hotel guest, had been killed and two other persons injured. He had not come up with a payment for protection having complained to the local police. After a year’s investigation the police had not made the least progress in finding the killers.
Chapter 71
Riga
Offshore Islands Page 70
