by Brian Martin
He insisted on buying my tea and customary slice of gateau. He always enjoyed being the giver of hospitality, and now he was changed into a bonhomous, Falstaffian host. I was amused that Mo could so have softened him. Yet business soon took over.
‘I’m sure you’re not just here for the vacation,’ he opened up. ‘I bet they’ve sent you because of the homicide.’ It was more of a question, but a rhetorical one: he assumed he knew the answer.
‘You’re right in part,’ I said. I did not want to give my whole game away. ‘We are concerned and mystified by that murder. No doubt, you are too. Any ideas you can let me have? What’s the popular view?’
‘The local press thinks it’s mafia-based. They write about conflict of big business interests and say that he was involved somehow; but they don’t know how. What do I think from what I know? I think he was caught between two massive forces and got crushed. One of them was a big European conglomerate that includes your Myrex friends, and the other was a Moscow-based group backed by oil money. My poor American got himself in the way, and one or the other finished him off. Which one, we don’t know. If you want my guess, it was your Myrex boys.’
‘How was he killed?’ I asked.
‘He was shot twice, once in the back and once in the throat. There was no chance of him speaking with his last gasps. It was a classic contract deal. The gunman was a great professional. We think we know who it was. He left by air within an hour of the shooting. He’s gone to Germany and, I can tell you, won’t last long. It’s been decided by my bureau that he has to go. I can tell you that in confidence. It’s not going to make any difference. In fact, by now, his body’s probably in Hamburg docks, or on a waste tip in the suburbs.’
Naturally, I did not like what I heard. It was a bleak reminder of what the sharp end of the intelligence trade is, havoc and mayhem. It pulled me up promptly and I put into perspective all my other concerns, my long-running affair with Roxanne, my sudden success with Lena that had preoccupied me during the Helsinki flight, my friendship with Mark, and what I thought I might do in the future. Rovde, in spite of his cuddly attitude, represented the nasty side of the intelligence business. I realised again that I was just one step away from murder and that the next person in target line might be me. In London, even in Washington, I had tended to forget that grim fact.
I quizzed Rovde. ‘Shouldn’t we Brits be doing something about all this, a little more actively than we are? My paper’s going to want an answer to that question.’
‘You should certainly hint that they keep a close eye on all this,’ he said. ‘We’re already involved but our aim is to muddy the waters at the moment. Don’t ask me why. I just tell you what I know.’
That meant, I reckoned, in cipher that Rovde could go no further in his explanation or advice. The Journal might help to make our Service decide to do something, unless someone at a much higher level decided in concert with the Americans.
‘I’ll try to contact Myrex again, and see if there is anything to be picked up there. Perhaps Arne will talk to me.’
We both agreed that we should continue to pursue our own ways but keep in touch. That was useful for our respective professions and a kind of insurance policy for ourselves. We both seemed to implicitly understand that. We kept an eye on each other.
We changed the subject. I asked him about Mo. She was returning that evening from a visit to Sweden. He told me how much he had missed her. She had only been away for three days and yet he pined for her company. He said he was conscious that he was in love. Was that what it was like? He had never before felt such an insistent urgency about needing to be in the presence of a particular person. It was almost painful. As he said, it hurt his heart. I made a joke of it but told him it sounded like love to me. He had better watch out: he was ensnared. He was condemned to endure the torments. There were lots of lessons to give on the subject, but I was not going to give them, because, in my experience, someone in his position would either not listen or would think them impertinent and foolish. I would say no more, simply watch and keep my own counsel.
I envied him though. I thought back: it was good to be in love. Six years ago I had been in love with Annie. That definitely was the real thing. She was tall, slim, elegant, fashion conscious in the extreme, even-featured, blonde, considerate, loving, intelligent, mesmerising company, and a great lover. I could not bear to be out of her company. I used to pretend that we were mature enough to lead, at times, our separate existences. Yet when we did, or tried to, we were constantly in touch, mostly telephoning each other. We lived in each other’s heart and soul. When we were together we lived in each other’s eyes. We could not stop looking at each other. When we were apart, I could not remember the details of her looks. Her features faded. I used to make myself practise a disciplined exercise of conjuring up in my mind her exact image; and it was never entirely successful. I always managed an impression that was not precise. When we met again, it was a renewed surprise to discover her so attractive, so demanding in the unspoken insistence that she was the one person I wanted to be with. That was real love I experienced with Annie: she was gorgeous and she made you literally lust after more of her presence with you all the time, both when you were with her, and when you were apart.
Rovde asked me about love because he knew something about Annie and me. I explained that quality of urgency you felt about being with your beloved, the insistency of that feeling, the helplessness to change or to do anything at all about it. I reckoned he was in the toils of love, or, at any rate, approaching close to the tender trap. He knew, too, that my idyll had dissipated, vanished. Suddenly, without warning, Annie had turned: she took another direction. The reciprocity necessary to the shared, intimate, experience of love, dissolved. She went her own way and stopped phoning me. She told me where she was going and by certain circumstances that combined to torment me, I found out that she was not telling the truth. She had been besieged by another man. He had tempted her away from me and she had gone. He was successful, moderately good-looking, well travelled, worldly: he enticed her. It was a very bad time for me. Recovering from that state of love is difficult. You have to deal with depression, loss of self-esteem, lack of confidence, acute jealousy, hatred of the rival. The only remedy is to suffer agony, endure patiently and wait for time to dissolve the longing and the pain. It is an old story, as old as existence; and it is mundane. Yet for those who have never been in love, it is the new world. Rovde was embarked on the voyage of discovery.
I suppose I gradually recovered from dear Annie – I choose to remember her as she was my first lover – and I had not experienced anything quite so powerful since. Roxanne? I loved her, but differently. I could bear to be away from her. I could easily endure her being with her husband; and besides we had no real conjunction of souls. That was the point. I told Rovde that you had to be able to be with someone for twenty-four hours of the day and night, and still be talking non-stop; or, you had to know that you were communicating even in silence. Uri, I sensed, wanted to be there, even if he were already and did not quite know it.
I told Rovde that I would ring him later. It was time I made some moves towards Myrex even if it was late. I thought I would walk round to the grand house on Lai Street near St Olaf’s church where Myrex and Arne had their offices. There was just a chance that someone would still be there. I was disappointed. The house was in darkness apart from a light glimmering from a basement where, I calculated, a caretaker probably lived. So far as Lai Street was concerned, Myrex had shut down for the night. I wondered where Arne went, where he lived when he was in Tallinn. It was all idle: I had no idea. My mind was a complete blank. Arne had given me no clues to inspire my imagination about his domestic arrangements.
There was no alternative but to leave everything until the morning. I went back to the Gloria, decided to write my plan of campaign down on paper, and then relax. Since I had bought a bottle of whisky on the way out through Heathrow, I poured myself a generous slug, added some sp
arkling water, and allowed myself the luxury of sipping it while I wrote. I took no more than a page of A4 to sketch what I intended to do, aware that such plans were liable to change at any time as circumstances varied in the flux of developing events. I wrote that I should ring Rovde round about ten that evening. I should also ring Mark: he had to be kept in touch in his role as friend and confidant. The next morning I had to pursue Arne, and if not him, then someone at Myrex had to be talked to. I would also visit the offices of the Estonian government’s department of economic affairs: someone there might be able to give me a view on what the then current state of commercial development was like. There might, too, have been an official spin on the murder that the government was putting out. At the end of the day, I would contact Rovde again so that we could confer and see if he had news that might help me. My plan clear on paper and in my head, I enjoyed my whisky, lay back on the bed wishing that Roxanne, or come to that, Lena, were with me, and watched repetitive CNN news bulletins. The business news showed a slight rise in the market in New York and much the same percentage gain in London. There was a short feature on developing trade in Sweden, Finland and the Baltic states. A number of companies were mentioned, among them Myrex. The woman commentator, power-dressed and wearing heavy-rimmed glasses, her hair petrified into a blonde wave that rested securely over her right eyebrow, recommended that punters should watch one or two enterprising companies that were expanding to do business in the Baltic, one of which was the Spanish- and Swiss-based Myrex Corporation. So, I reflected, Myrex was now making headway, growing in prominence, in international news programmes, and I wondered if this had happened by chance, or whether Arne had orchestrated the publication and broadcast of Myrex’s Baltic affairs.
I rang Rovde at about ten. The call was brief. He was at Mo’s apartment. He had met her earlier, dined with her in the Gloria cellar and then they had gone back to her place. He sounded satisfied and cheerful. There was a relief in his voice, no trace of anxiety. Mo was back: he could see her and be with her. She was no longer a worry. It was possible to sense his contentment by the subtle change in his tone of voice on the phone. I estimated that he was almost there. The doors of the tender trap were about to close on him. An inch or two more, a few moments longer, and there would be no escape. There was nothing to report. Nothing had happened. The evening progressed. I wished him joy, and decided to ring Mark. I did not dwell on any image of Rovde and Mo. The idea of Rovde making love was repellent. I simply could not picture him doing what was necessary. Some people you can see in the actual physical process of lovemaking: others you cannot. Their intimate actions seem impossible, unacceptable, repugnant. I shut my mind to envisaging what Rovde might accomplish, whereas with someone like Mark, the passionate scene was entirely credible. I had no difficulty in imagining him in the process of making love.
So, I rang Mark, and that for me was a relief. I spent nearly half an hour talking to him. He told me that he had dispatched his poem to the magazine and that the editor had rung him to say how much she liked it. He had been reading a book on economic development recently written and published by a Fellow of a Cambridge college he knew. This economics tutor had been drifting through Cambridge for the last twenty years, had published little apart from three or four papers, and suddenly had produced this significant tome that had taken the political world by storm. He told the political world that it had to consult, and decide, on the direction of economic government for the ensuing fifty years. Tough decisions had to be taken, old orthodoxies scrutinised, new ideas assessed. The prosperity and wealth of Europe and America were about to be seriously challenged by the countries of the Pacific rim and China. Western governments had to take stock and a debate had to be started so that strategies could be intelligently worked out. By writing the book, exposing a multitude of issues and factors in numerous arguments, he planned to open up the debate that would prove definitive for economic policy over the following fifty years. It had happened. The book was seized upon, first by the academic community, then by politicians in every country in Europe and in the States. Newspaper articles, magazine features, radio and television broadcasts, were devoted to discussion of his book over a period of six weeks or so, and consistently the book was being cited anywhere a discussion on economics took place. The ineffectual tutor of twenty years’ standing was rarely in Cambridge. He had become an international celebrity, courted by universities and think-tanks, learned societies and economic forums. The book had to be read. I promised to do so. I would buy it on the way back through Heathrow.
As I was about to say goodbye and hang up, Mark told me to hang on. He said he had heard some rather nasty things about Myrex. A city contact, who, in the past, had dealings with Myrex in Spain and Germany, said that he had once been threatened.
‘This guy was informed that if he didn’t agree to the terms of the particular deal that Myrex was pursuing, then his life would be made difficult,’ Mark told me. ‘He took no notice, and then two or three days later his car windscreen was smashed in. A few days after that, on a crowded escalator, he was pushed hard in the back and he fell forward grazing his shins and both his hands on the ridged metal of a step. It might have been worse but the crush of people saved him from further damage. Whoever had pushed him had vanished into the crowd.’
I countered, ‘Both incidents were probably coincidental. Those things are always happening.’
‘That’s what the police said, but the guy wasn’t convinced. On the evening after each incident, a Myrex person rang him to ask him if he was ready to sign. He obviously made the connection and was more obviously meant to. Fortunately, the whole business was taken out of his hands and given to someone else. But he reckoned he was being targeted. The moral is, watch out, Pel.’
‘Thanks for the warning. I have no illusions. I’ll look after myself.’
I slept well that night and Lena came back to haunt me nicely. I could have done with her in the Gloria’s double bed.
14
By nine o’clock the next morning I was outside the Myrex house. I thought it best to appear in person. Arne was more likely to see me if I was there on his doorstep than if I were entreating on the end of a phone. There was quite a long delay before anyone spoke through the intercom. Then a male voice responded and asked who I was. I explained my connection and my previous meeting with Arne and asked if he could possibly see me. The voice invited me to enter. I went up the steps and ascended to the Myrex floor. A smart-looking man, dark-haired, suave, smelling of eau de cologne met me and apologised for Arne’s absence. He wondered if he could help in any way. I asked if Arne would be in at all that day. The answer was that Arne was abroad: he was in Newcastle where Myrex was concerned with a property development deal. Arne was inspecting a site and working out an agreement with the owner. He was also having talks with someone in the university’s computing department in the hope of employing him.
‘You might be able to help me,’ I said him. ‘I wanted to know how things are going in Paldiski. Is the development of the computer labs on schedule? When will the set-up be a really profitable going concern? You may know.’
He deflected my questions with practised diplomatic skills. He said he was just a mere menial, which I doubted, and that he knew no details.
‘I am a mere functionary in administration,’ he explained. ‘I simply keep the ship afloat. I don’t know anything about our policy in Paldiski or about expansion strategy. You will have to talk to Arne, I’m afraid. The only people who know what’s going on there are our main board people, Arne, and one or two of our scientists.’
It was clear to me that he would know the score, so close in Tallinn, but it was equally obvious that he was saying to me that I would receive no information from him. He suggested I wait for Arne to return, although it was not known when he would be back. He was in Newcastle for the next three days, and then it was thought he might go on to Seville. Otherwise I might like to contact the Myrex offices in Seville or Geneva. He di
d his job well. He was polite and considerate. He gave the impression of being extremely helpful: nothing was too much trouble. I thanked him and said I would think what I should do next.
I left the Myrex house, the portraits watching my every step downstairs. I turned into Lai Street, descended into Pikk Street and made towards the town hall. I passed the Club Havana. I could not think of a more unsuitable name for a club in this cold northern clime. The Raekoja Plats, in which the town hall with its sharply acute-angled roof stood, was deserted. I walked along Harju past the Church of St Nicholas, looked in the window of the Max Mara shop and thought how lovely Roxanne would look in one of the dresses displayed in the window.
The government Department of Economic Affairs stood in Muurihave not far from the Gloria opposite a stretch of the old city wall. The brass nameplate next to the glass doors announced the department in Estonian and English. I went in and a smart girl at a reception desk greeted me. I explained that I was a British journalist and asked if it were possible to speak to one of the officials or a press officer if there was one. She dialled an extension number that I observed was 120, spoke briefly in Estonian, and said that someone would come and speak with me. A minute or two later, a young man in his late twenties came into reception from an interior office, held out his hand, shook mine and asked me into his office. He hoped he could help me. I told him I was writing about expanding trade opportunities in Estonia for the European Community and about Estonia integrating in the EC when the proposed enlargement takes place. An American had recently been murdered in the dockland area. Some companies had been made uneasy by alleged connections with organised crime. I asked him what the Estonian government’s line was on those allegations. He was well drilled. It immediately struck me that he was prepared for that sort of question.