In adulthood, however, it has gradually moved – through experience – through different levels of discomfort, before ending up in absolute terror. And that’s the decision I came to, seven years ago, when I sat on the train heading north out of the DRC. I never have to get on a plane again. Those people, the ones who think nothing of flying, the ones you hear chatting casually while the plane shakes and rattles through awful turbulence, I don’t care if they don’t understand. I don’t care if they feel contempt. I don’t care if they mock me, to my face or behind my back. It’s my life, and I need never get on a plane again.
What had I been thinking when I’d allowed Quinn to send me over here by boat? That it would be such a leisurely trip, that things at home would be so relaxed, that in the end I’d be able to spend six days travelling, not including whatever time I was going to need to spend in Tallinn attempting to unravel the mystery?
I will never have to get on a plane again. And if anyone tells me I need to get on a plane, there will be nothing so important that I can’t just tell them to forget it. I’m not going.
That was what I told myself. And here I am, about to get on three flights in quick succession.
I look out the window at the dawning of another bleak November day. There is a nervousness in the car right enough, but my own comes from somewhere completely different.
I try to think logically about the situation, but my attempted logical thoughts aren’t about flying and how safe it is and how you’re more likely to die using virtually any other mode of transport.
What have I told myself the last seven years? No one can make me get on a plane. What can anybody do if I choose not to? Shout at me? Sack me?
The boat to Stockholm leaves at a not dissimilar time to my flight to Amsterdam. My thoughts are all about how it will play out if I get on the boat and not on the plane.
* * *
No one is speaking English to try to make this easier for Baden. I expect the real reason they’re not speaking English is in order to exclude me, but I already feel, quite happily, on the outside, so they needn’t bother. I suspect Baden feels the same. In fact, he possibly likes the fact that discussions are taking place and he has no idea. Almost as though all this is happening to someone else. None of his concern.
Kuusk tried speaking English when we arrived, but he didn’t get a word of it from Inspector Lippmaa.
Twenty minutes now we’ve been waiting in the car park. Dawn is creeping over the town, cold and grey. There might actually be some patchy sun this morning, if those few breaks in the cloud that are evident manage to hold up. I’ve got some coffee, handed round in small plastic cups. Bitter and strong, not enough milk. I drink it quickly, try not to let the sharpness show on my face.
Baden refuses, the driver takes a cup, downs it in one, and then lights another cigarette.
There is agitated discussion, although it’s impossible to tell whether or not there’s a real argument taking place. We’re about to raid an alleged body-harvesting prison. If there wasn’t tension, then it would be strange.
We get back in the car, leading the way, trailed by four cars from the Tartu force.
‘What was the discussion?’ I ask, as we leave the town and start to head off into the backwoods where Baden directed us the previous day.
Trying not to think about the plane. I put myself there for a short time. I put myself in the plane. I imagined strapping myself in. The other passengers. The safety announcements. The noise of the engines. The take-off. I imagined the turbulence, imagined how I feel when a plane is flying through it. I rationalised the turbulence. I thought about the fact that when a plane passes through turbulence so bad that people get injured, it makes the news. That’s how rarely it happens.
The rationalisation didn’t help. I was starting to sweat, so I stopped. I asked the question.
‘They didn’t want you here,’ says Kuusk in reply.
‘That makes sense,’ I say.
‘It’s your case.’
‘John’s my case. Potentially though, what we’re going to find here, it’s all for your guys.’
He doesn’t reply. Baden makes a strange little noise, like a tiny explosion of nervous gas. We drive off towards the woods, the day meeting us reluctantly, tension settling nicely over the car. It reminds me of working for the security services, rather than anything I’ve had to do in the Highlands.
‘There’s something you should know about Lippmaa,’ says Kuusk.
I ask the question with a look in the mirror.
‘He’s an asshole.’
* * *
And so we come to the operation. Baden and I remain at the back, for now, with nineteen others ahead of us, as we cross the marshland. Baden tried to hang back, cross as slowly as possible, but we had to keep up with the others, to follow in their tracks.
The driver is just ahead of us. He argued, through Kuusk, that this was not in his remit. I said I wanted him to come, so that he could then get Baden out of there once he had identified the house. I didn’t want to be the one left with that job. If we’re entering a building, observer or not, I want to be there.
The driver, who I come to like more and more in his sullen, smoke-filled silence, seemed even more unhappy about babysitting Baden than storming the house, but Kuusk used whatever powers of persuasion were required. Maybe he just ordered him to do it.
Orders. Orders. Do I really care so little about my career that I’m going to defy the Chief Inspector this evening? Or is it that, while I suppose he might well be angry about it, ultimately what is his sanction going to be? Demotion? Six months on traffic? Will it really be a charge of insubordination followed by dismissal?
Into the woods on the far side. Boots soaking. Cold seeping up from my damp feet. Now the pressure is on Baden. Will it be worse for him if we fail to find any potential buildings for his human farm, or if we find it and he faces his trauma head on?
We stand at the front of the small crew as they begin to spread out to either side. Some of the men have already drawn their guns.
‘You have to try to ignore them all,’ I say. ‘Take your time, don’t worry about them. Now, you said you thought you approached the marshes roughly at this angle?’ I ask, pointing to our right.
He shakes his head. Looks incredibly nervous, like me getting on a damned plane.
‘That was what you said last night,’ I add.
‘I don’t know.’
Turn away. Maybe he’s going back on what he said because he’s just making the whole thing up. I’ll choose to assume the nerves are jumbling his brain. If it’s all true, then why wouldn’t they be?
‘Come on,’ I say, and start walking in the direction I’d indicated. He makes another small tense ejaculation and follows. We’re also followed by the sound of the others dropping in around and behind.
I wonder what action these woods saw in the war. I don’t know much about Estonia in the war. Occupied by the Russians, the Germans kicked them out, then obviously the Russians came back. Did they fight over Estonia the way they fought over Poland? I don’t know.
But that’s what it feels like now, at the head of a group of twenty or so men. Like troops marching through the forest, like they might well have done over seventy years previously, on the lookout for enemy combatants.
A few minutes in we come to a small track. Probably just about wide enough for a car, but it doesn’t look as though cars are ever driven along it.
‘You remember this path?’ I ask.
Baden nods.
He hasn’t quite walked fully out onto it, as though fearing it would give away his position. The fact that everyone else around him has happily walked onto the track, has probably already done that, however.
‘Which way?’
He points to the right.
‘Not far,’ he says.
‘Not far along the path until we turn off, or not far to the house?’
He shakes his head, eyes darting in the other direction, then
back again.
‘Which don’t you know?’ I ask. ‘You have to help me out a bit more here.’
Another shake of the head. ‘Not far along the path, but I’m not sure about the house.’
‘You didn’t walk on the path for long?’
‘No.’
‘Ten yards? A hundred?’
Another head shake.
‘Come on, lead the way. You can see you’re perfectly safe, you’re surrounded by people on your side.’ Not that that’s something I’m entirely convinced about. ‘We’ll walk along the path and try to see if there’s anything that rings a bell about where you emerged from the woods. If you can’t see anything, we’ll just pick a spot not too far along and go in.’
Deep breaths. I can see him taking them, fingers nervously clicking. The others are waiting, spreading out along the path, none of them looking at Baden, everybody looking into the trees. Then he starts to move, everyone gives him space and he heads along the path to the right, pine trees on either side, me following closely behind.
He stops. Studies the trees. Walks on a little further. I think I’m going to be suspicious if he suddenly says, oh, here we are, I recognise this pine tree, quite distinguishable from all the others.
‘I think it was here.’
I stop beside him and look into the woods. He’s got to be kidding. If not kidding, something more sinister.
‘Why?’
He glances at me, stares back into the trees.
‘You wanted me to find the spot,’ he says. ‘The spot where I found the path.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘I’m not sure, I don’t know,’ he says, the words edgy and uncertain.
I turn and look at Kuusk, who’s been following closely behind. He shrugs. What else can we do, his shoulders ask? We’ve trusted him this far, we can’t now say, we don’t believe you, so we’re just going to go back.
‘Right, lead on,’ I say.
He nods, his head a series of nervous twitches, and walks into the trees. The ground is soft, the air heavy with the scent of damp pine, as it has been since we stepped away from the cars.
He walks for a short while, not far, maybe less than a hundred yards, then stops, his head shaking slowly.
‘Not sure.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Not sure. I might recognise it, but I was running at this point. Everything was a blur. I was quite disorientated.’
‘That’s OK,’ says Kuusk surprisingly and he pats him on the shoulder. Then he walks past me a few yards, away from Baden, and I come alongside him.
‘I think it’s time to spread out,’ he says. ‘He might have given us everything he’s going to.’
‘I’d still want him to make a visual of the outside of the building. I know it’s going to be sketchy, but–’
‘–Of course.’
He turns back to Lippmaa and they have a quick exchange in Estonian, following which the local police commander, in a series of low, barked instructions, sends his men in a fan out across the woods, at something like twenty yard intervals.
And on we go, walking slowly.
The plane is still there, in my head. That’s stupid. I should be able to get rid of it, for now at least. But I can’t. I’m sitting in it, I’m buckling up, I’m in the air, I’m being served a drink as the cabin rocks, I can’t enjoy any food because of the shaking of the plane, and my own nervousness. My own all-consuming nervousness.
Concentrate!
Walk forward, occasionally taking a look along the fan of police officers. Mostly keeping an eye on Baden. Would I be surprised if he suddenly took off in the opposite direction?
A ripple suddenly carries along the fan. Someone on the far right of the line has passed the message, and everyone stops. Lippmaa indicates for Baden and I to follow, and Kuusk joins us as we run along the line, on attempted quiet footfalls, to the far end. As we go, the policemen are all ducking down onto their haunches, following the lead of those on the right, so that we, as we run, start to duck down.
We can see it before we stop running. A building through the trees, the slight glint of a couple of SUVs parked outside. We come to a stop, and Lippmaa waves for complete stillness along the line. Crouching down low, we try to make out the building. Some do, at any rate. I think Kuusk and I are more interested in Baden. Is this where he ran from?
‘What d’you think?’ I ask, voice low.
He looks terrified. That’s something, I suppose, something he was going to have to go through when he got near here.
‘I don’t know,’ he replies, his voice breaking.
‘We’ll get you a little closer.’
‘No.’
‘You need to. Just you and me. The others will hold back for a moment, and we can just go another few yards.’
What are we? Seventy yards away perhaps. Another twenty closer maybe. It’s not really about the distance anyway, more about getting a good, clear view.
I start to move forward, keeping as low as possible, indicating with no more than a glance for him to follow. His reluctance is a palpable presence in the forest, but I’m aware of him moving behind me.
I move from side to side, as much as forward, trying to get a clear view, dropping lower down every time I change angle. And then I get the better view of the house, and I look behind at Baden, a few yards back, and indicate for him to catch up. This is the spot.
I pull back and usher him into the clear line of sight with a nod. He closes his eyes, braces himself for it, then inches forward into position without opening his eyes. There’s a laugh there, somewhere, in my head, although it doesn’t come out, at the childlike thoughts that must be running through Baden’s head. If I can’t see them…
He opens his eyes. Focuses. Strains to see through the trees, and then he’s backing off. Suddenly I can hear his breath, his body seems to be about to burst. Recognise the signs straight away. Panic attack.
Bad place for it.
‘John! John! Look at me!’ My voice a strained whisper.
Grab him by the shoulders, as he looks as though he’s about to run.
‘Did you see anyone?’ I ask. I know he didn’t. If he had, he’d already have been running.
Shakes his head. His body is straining against my hands, but I’m not sure he’d actually jump away if I let him go. Not risking it though.
‘We’re good, John, we’re good. Look at me. Look at me, take a deep breath.’
I can smell him, his warm breath in my face.
‘It’s all good, John. Now, tell me. Were you held in the main house, or in one of the outbuildings?’
He swallows. Words seem impossible, but he manages to say, ‘Main, I think,’ and that’s all I’m getting.
‘That’s good, John. It’s all we need. You’ve done everything we asked, so it’s all good. We’re going to turn, we’ll walk back to the others same as we walked here, keeping low, quiet footsteps. And then they take over, and you are out of here. You all right with that, John?’
Closes his eyes. Grips my arm with his right hand. Deep breaths, the warm air back in my face again. Try not to breathe in the scent of him.
‘Right, come on, nice and easy.’
I’m talking in clichés. Dear God. I let go of his arms and turn back to the others. I can see a few of them, but really only because I know to look for them. They have done a good job of natural concealment.
We walk back towards them, bent low. I nod at Kuusk, and he finds the driver, who’s made it this far at the back of the group, and again, a nod is enough to give him his instruction.
As Baden walks past me to the driver, I notice Lippmaa pass the same nod of instruction to one of his men to follow them, and he turns as they go, and then the three of them disappear into the trees, back in the direction from which we came.
‘What did you see?’ asks Lippmaa, coming towards me and speaking English for the first time. Maybe he really didn’t trust Baden.
‘Looks like a farmhouse, a
t least two more buildings to the side. Could have been a lot more. Didn’t see any more cars, but there’s some sight of the road leading away to the other side.’
Lippmaa takes a look over his shoulder at what he can see through the trees, then turns back to me.
‘Your work is finished. I would prefer if you would go back with your man, but if you don’t want to, then keep out of our way. I don’t want to see you following us into the house.’
I nod. He surely knows that I have no intention of paying any attention to him.
He turns, looks both ways along the line, tosses his hand forward to indicate the start of the approach, and then the small police team begins to quickly advance through the trees.
18
If I die here I won’t need to get on the plane tonight.
That thought passes through my head as we emerge from the trees. An honest thought; one that genuinely makes me feel better. I’m happier at the thought of death than at the idea of sitting on a plane that may, or may not, experience a little bit of turbulence.
That’s the moment I decide I’m not getting on the plane, and that I’d better do a decent job here to compensate. If, that is, there’s any sort of a job for me to do.
* * *
There’s a maroon Land Rover and a Dodge of some sort. The Dodge is huge, a cab with a large platform at the back. Neither of them has been cleaned in a while. Lippmaa indicates to one of his men with a slight wave of the gun in his right hand. You stay out here, make sure there are no getaways in these vehicles. Another wave, and the men start to flank out around the house and the outbuildings. I get a warning glance from him, but pause only briefly before moving forward.
Round the side, to the front of the house. There’s another car parked, this one an old, small Toyota. Men staying in position as we go past, others running silently ahead. I wonder how often they do this kind of manoeuvre, or if they’ve trained for it and this is the first time they’ve had to implement the moves they’ve learned.
Lippmaa, leading the way, gets to the front door, a couple of his men, and Kuusk, still at his back. There’s a small bell on a chain to the right of the door. I think for a moment that he’s going to ring it, but instead he lifts it in order to inspect the handiwork, then he lets it gently down into place.
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