Cold Courage

by Pekka Hiltunen

  Mari paused for a moment before slamming her damning conclusion down on the metaphorical table. When Fried lied about the bankruptcies, he and his wife had in effect stolen some £320,000 from the public coffers. That was only a rough estimate, and the real value was greater, because that figure didn’t include all of the employment and other taxes never collected from the companies.

  ‘Why did no one in Lincoln ever wonder why the companies continued operating in London?’ Lia asked.

  ‘Fried wasn’t famous yet, so hardly anyone would have noticed.’

  If someone had happened to ask, Fried would probably just have said that they were new companies with the same names. In the business world, recreating old firms was common. Sometimes the name of even a failed company could be a valuable asset. But for some reason Fried hadn’t bothered establishing new companies.

  ‘He wanted to save the bother and expense. He assumed that he wouldn’t be found out because they’re such small companies. White-collar crime detectives’ nets usually aren’t that fine.’

  ‘Three hundred and twenty thousand pounds. That’s a lot,’ Lia said.

  ‘If you ask the editor-in-chief of one of the newspapers how much that is, I bet he’ll say, “About one Arthur Fried’s career’s worth.”’

  They had found what they were looking for. Mari had been right. Arthur Fried was a criminal.

  ‘But this isn’t enough,’ Mari said. ‘Fried is good enough that he could get around this. We need two more things just as bad.’

  This surprised Lia. Mari’s dogmatism felt exaggerated. How could she know that they would find anything else this damaging?

  ‘I believe he’s done much more like this and worse. I just don’t know what,’ Mari said.

  Frustrated, Lia fell silent, but Mari still had more to say.

  ‘I have something for you,’ she said.

  Maggie had spent the day concentrating on places where they could try identifying the Latvian woman.

  Two London nightclubs had reputations for specifically attracting Eastern Europeans. Some of the club patrons were wealthy foreigners who visited London while travelling, but most of them lived there. A certain taste in music and an expensive style of dress united the regulars, wherever they hailed from. Eastern European prostitutes also frequented both clubs because Russian businessmen were reliable clients.

  ‘Some Russian men want their sex in Russian here too.’

  Concentrated in Ealing and Leyton, there were any number of Slavic grocery shops. But only some of the stores sold Baltic goods.

  ‘Now we have to start going through those,’ Lia said, realising herself how discouraged she sounded.

  ‘It’s hard work,’ Mari admitted. ‘Weeks might pass with no results. It could also be as far as you ever get. But you have to start somewhere.’

  The supermarkets seemed like a more remote possibility than the clubs, because few people created personal connections at a supermarket. But at a nightclub you chatted with other patrons and the staff constantly.

  ‘So I’ll start with the clubs,’ Lia said.

  She would have to invent a cover story, Mari reminded her. Eastern mafia types frequented these places, so marching in and starting to ask questions about dead women wasn’t a good idea. Lia’s appearance clearly showed that she was not a police officer, but she had to have a reason for her questions.

  ‘What if I were looking for a friend from Latvia?’

  ‘Too vague. The explanation has to be more specific to be believable. They’ll be able to hear from your voice that you aren’t a Brit, so say you’re a Finn. Say maybe that you have a sister or stepsister who was born in Latvia and is missing, and you’ve heard that she came to London. Do Latvian women come to the club often; does anyone know who you could ask?’

  ‘What do I say if they ask why my sister hasn’t contacted me?’

  ‘Because she’s sick. That’s why you’re worried: maybe your sister is so sick that she can’t contact you. But think the story through thoroughly beforehand. You have to believe it too. The sister has to have a name and an age, habits and flaws, and of course you have to know what she looks like. She has to have a fully fledged life in case someone asks something unrelated.’

  The enormity of the undertaking began to dawn on Lia.

  One thing did feel like a stroke of luck amidst it all though: Lia’s work leave was starting. She had arranged to begin her three-week holiday at the end of September, and hadn’t had time to think much about what she would do. Visiting Finland held little appeal. Now she could concentrate on her search for the Latvian woman.

  ‘Don’t use your whole vac now,’ Mari suggested.

  ‘Why not? Right now is when I need the time.’

  She should perhaps take one week off now for this, Mari explained. The rest of her holiday allowance she would do best to store up.

  ‘If you start getting somewhere with your investigation, time will be the thing you need the most.’

  At first this idea was difficult for Lia to get her head around, but after considering it for a moment, she saw the upside.

  Maybe I should start demanding more at Level instead of just waiting for what they’re going to say.

  ‘Do you want Paddy or someone else as a minder at the clubs?’ Mari asked. ‘I know good people in that line of work.’

  ‘Thanks, but I have no intention of getting myself into a situation in which I would need a bodyguard.’

  Later that evening in Hampstead, Lia was finding it hard to fall asleep. She had spent a good hour out jogging, but that had done nothing to calm her down.

  Deciding to go back out for a walk, she stepped into the churchyard. Security cameras kept watch over the area, Lia knew, but she had always assumed she could walk there freely whenever she wished. A young woman strolling calmly through the church grounds has never set off any alarms.

  Kidderpore Avenue, her home street, was like that. Most of the buildings in the area were either large houses or old, beautiful edifices housing schools and businesses. The residents were predominantly families who had lived there for years, students and cultural types. A small oasis of peace and quiet amid the hubbub of London.

  Lia gazed at the familiar statues. St Luke and Poundy the Dog, which she could see from her own window, and, further off, the composer Edward Elgar and his wife, the author Caroline Alice Elgar. Lia sat down on Florence Nightingale’s plinth, which was only just wide enough.

  What am I doing? Visiting the police and prying into a murder investigation. Staying up at night reading news articles to catch a smug politician up to no good. Cooking up a cover story about a sister in Latvia I don’t have.

  I’m not the person I used to be.

  The Studio felt familiar to her now, no longer like an extraordinary or special place. Coming and going freely, she knew the details of every room, like the paintings on Mari’s walls and the way the sunlight moved across the spaces.

  She knew the care with which Berg built his projects in the Den and how deliberately he tidied up. Once he had arranged the chips that flew off while he was planing wood into small, artistic ornamental piles. Just the sounds of machines echoing from the Den made Lia think of Berg grinning in his overalls.

  My peculiar home away from home.

  Rising, Lia gingerly touched the cold surface of the statue. She liked how the marble was always hard and soft all at once.

  17

  Mari sits in her office at the Studio reading the news on her computer screen. After reviewing all the headlines, she goes back and rereads the information Maggie has unearthed about the Baltic shops and nightclubs in London that Lia intends to visit.

  She thinks of the Eastern European population of London, its customs and sense of humour, the unemployment and jobs and the unspoken dreams that brought these people here.

  Lia will fit in well with the Russians and Poles and Balts at the clubs – in that crowd in this city, a Finn wouldn’t stand out much at all.

&nb
sp; And Lia will manage.

  Mari likes the change visiting the Studio has brought about in Lia and done for their friendship. Lia still is not committed to the Studio emotionally, but she doesn’t need to be. That will come in time.

  Mari knows how it will happen. That was why she planned carefully how and when Lia would meet each person there.

  Maggie and Berg, charming and safe. Lia got to know them first. Thinking of them, Mari feels a surge of joy. Her cornerstones.

  And Rico and Paddy, whom she allowed Lia to meet gradually – weapons she couldn’t parade around until a person was used to their presence. Just a little more time and Lia would stop thinking of them and their skills as anything remarkable.

  They all have their reasons for being here. Over the years, Mari has done a favour for each of them: Rico, Maggie, Berg, Paddy and now Lia. Each of them has been the subject of one of her operations in his or her own time. She helped them, asking nothing in return, giving each space to receive the gift. She allowed each of them to see the effect of the assistance they received and decide for themselves what they thought. Perhaps they are repaying her by giving something back.

  Instead of being beholden, they are simply more satisfied with their lives.

  Changing as a person and finding a community you want to work in creates a bond stronger than most.

  Mari has chosen them well. With each of them, it began slowly. When she heard about Lia, she knew it was more than a coincidence. Out of all the Finnish women living in London, Lia was the one whose background had placed her in Mari’s path.

  Mari has learned to trust her instincts. That was how she chose Rico out of a room of hackers and Maggie from a small London stage where she was brilliantly screaming a Greek tragedy.

  Once at the Studio, Maggie mentioned her acquaintance Berg and his staging skills, and Mari knew that she wanted to meet him. Paddy she encountered in a bar. On the surface she could see his gambling debts and prison background, as well as the warmth that would gradually develop between them.

  There are things that Mari doesn’t tell any of them. Rico knows the most – he was the one Mari sought out first and his are the skills she calls on most frequently. But even Rico doesn’t know everything.

  And Lia knows least of all. But the trust between them will grow to become something different from that with the others.

  Lia sees herself as introverted, even a bit lost. In reality she is strong and capable. She has achieved a promising position in the London journalism scene, no small accomplishment for a young foreign female. But she keeps her world small, living alone in her tiny apartment and falling into a rut doing the same things every day. Because her Finnish background is what it is.

  Lia is becoming strong. She just needs time, time to do things and time to learn. That Lia is worth it, Mari knows.

  18

  Flash Forward was not a place Lia would normally have chosen to spend an evening. Everything was harsh: the sounds, the lights, the colours, the people’s eyes.

  A brazen pickup joint. There was something ironic about it: Lia had been prowling the London nightlife circuit for men for years, but here she felt like a kitten by comparison.

  She was looking for information, not company, and she worried it was too obvious. She was also dressed entirely too conservatively.

  By ten o’clock, at least two hundred people had filled the club, more than half of them male and all of them wearing suits. Unlike the British men in the clubs that Lia went to, these men could wear bright white, red or even green suits with complete nonchalance.

  The women were something else again. Not since the parties of the 1980s had Lia seen such a parade of iridescent fabrics and gaudy jewellery. The make-up was garish and hours had gone into each coiffure. Lia had guessed that glitz might come with the territory and had donned a blue top with demurely sparkling stripes, but in this company her sequins were like dying embers surrounded by raging wildfire.

  Flash Forward was the playground of London’s Eastern European community. Standard music ranging from Madonna to U2 set the tempo for the game in the early evening, but Lia knew that as the night progressed the music would switch to hard dance beats. Maggie had said as much as she described this and all the other Eastern European haunts.

  What Maggie had unfortunately failed to factor in was how Lia could afford to drink for the whole night. She ordered a coke for almost £5. Bottles of champagne and flamboyant mixed drink concoctions flowed across the bar. The patrons were doing well for themselves, or at least they were prepared to pay to have a good time.

  Lia looked around and tried to determine whether any prostitutes were present. She guessed that a couple of the women must be, based on how they approached a group of men, but whether there were more was impossible to say.

  She had spent the last few days reading up on Eastern European human trafficking. Estimates indicated that prostitutes from these areas were particularly prevalent in Britain and Germany, and hundreds of women were thought to leave Latvia alone for other parts of the world to work in the sex trade every year. But no precise figures were available for obvious reasons.

  Media coverage had perhaps exaggerated the scale of the problem. Exposés of human trafficking in Britain claimed that thousands of women and young girls had fallen victim to forced prostitution. However, academic and government research showed far fewer cases coming to the attention of police investigators. Dozens, perhaps hundreds. Only a few human trafficking cases had actually ended up in the courts. How much prostitution and human trafficking remained undetected was impossible to know, but no one could deny that it was a serious problem.

  Lia had found two reports that focused on Latvian prostitutes. For a small country, prostitution there seemed surprisingly prevalent. Selling sex was not illegal in Latvia, and some researchers claimed that the shame associated with it was less than in many other nations. Some even referred to Riga as the Bangkok of the Baltic. This was a crude comparison but not completely inaccurate. Due to the weakness of the Latvian economy, some women considered prostitution their best way to achieve a more comfortable life.

  Perhaps we Finnish women live in a bubble of equality. We can afford to be horrified by prostitution. Our standard of living protects us. And the illusion that we possess a morality they supposedly lack.

  As she did the rounds of Flash Forward, Lia realised that if there were prostitutes present, considering notions of morality or the lack of them was the wrong way to approach the situation.

  This is about money. And desire, the fulfilment of desire.

  After a while, just waiting around started to get on her nerves. Approaching the bar, Lia made eye contact with the barman.

  ‘I need something fun,’ Lia said.

  In his bow tie, the man smiled.

  A moment later, he returned with an enormous drink containing three bright, plastic female figures with flashing lights inside.

  ‘The Lovelight, eighteen pounds.’

  Lia gave the barman her credit card and tasted the drink. With a considerable alcohol content, its effects were rapid. The Robbie Williams echoing from the loudspeakers started sounding more fun, and Lia began noticing the men whose glances brushed over her.

  A few minutes later, one appeared at her side.

  ‘You look like a woman who knows how to have a good time.’

  Aljoša was from Russia and had a strong accent.

  ‘You can call me Al,’ he said.

  Lia laughed. ‘Like the Paul Simon song.’

  ‘Huh? Who?’

  ‘No one. Where are you from in Russia? I’m from right next door in Finland.’

  By half past eleven, Lia had collected four business cards, accepted three drinks and laughed a lot.

  Aljoša had turned out to be a salesman with a loud, brash streak who wanted to show off his dance moves. With his help, Lia had met two parties of Russians and one of Estonians, but no one seemed to know any Latvians or where to ask about women from Latvia. H
er cover story had worked brilliantly – a search for a sister seemed to be sufficiently personal and serious that no one asked any questions.

  Lia decided to try the same barman again.

  ‘I’m looking for a Latvian woman who lived around here. Do Latvians come to the club often?’

  The barman’s eyebrow went up.

  ‘Latvia? I don’t think so.’

  Lia motioned to the barman to lean in closer.

  Offering the man a folded twenty-pound note, she asked, ‘And Latvian prostitutes? Are there any here tonight?’

  The barman laughed and took the banknote.

  ‘Everyone here!’ he said, spreading his arms at the crowd.

  Lia cast him a sharp glance.

  ‘Don’t fool around. I have an important reason for asking.’

  The barman slipped the note into his pocket and then looked around until he found the person he was looking for.

  ‘She knows,’ the barman said, motioning towards a tall woman with red hair.

  Lia thanked him and moved aside.

  The red-haired woman was dressed conservatively given the surroundings: black leather boots, black skirt and a red frilly blouse. Her party consisted of two other women and one man.

  Lia noticed that the man was not participating in their conversation. With dark hair and dressed in a black suit, he appeared to be there for reasons other than carousing.

  If they are prostitutes, he’s their protector. Or pimp. Neither is good.

  Lia couldn’t think of a natural way to approach them. Aljoša was waving to her to rejoin him on the dance floor, but Lia only blew him kisses.

  About ten minutes later, the women set off towards the toilet in a group. The man stayed put.

  Lia hurried after them. There was a long queue outside the women’s loos, and as Lia arrived, the red-headed woman and her friends were just turning back.

  Now. Come right out with it.

  ‘Hi, my name is Lia. May I ask you a question?’