FEARLESS FINN'S MURDEROUS ADVENTURE (37 page)

I’m watching his reflection in the mirror; he’s packing up his things and counting out currency notes into neat piles. I’ve never thought of Finn as a neat man. In my eyes he’s considerate, spontaneous, brave, loving, maybe even violent…but not neat.

I walked out of the bathroom as silently as possible and approached him from behind. I thought I’d take him by surprise – until he reached over his shoulder and up-ended me on to the carpet.

“You got your hair done, I see. And what else?” he asked, as he bent down to lift me up.

“Let me show you….”

———

Finn gave me ‘Brother Leader Gaddafi’s complimentary satellite phone’ before I left to collect Nakita Sylvina at Theatre Apartments. He showed me the button that will dial the direct line in Gerry’s suite at the Island Shangri-La in Hong Kong.

I asked Galina Maksimovna for the birth certificates, and I gave her the scarf I bought for her, and the doll I got for Nakita Sylvina, at GUM. Then I placed the call to Hong Kong. I took Nakita Sylvina to my room and left Galina Maksimovna alone to talk with her daughter in a far away hotel. Nakita waited with me until her grandmother called her in for a big surprise.

Five minutes later there was a slight tap on my door. Nakita Sylvina is bundled up in her warm coat, with a woolly hat on her head and a scarf around her neck. She has a small suitcase in one hand, the satellite phone in her other hand, and tears in her eyes.

“Baba Maksimovna told me to say goodbye for her, to thank you, and to be a good girl…because you’re taking me to my mama. Oh…and she told me to give you this,” she said, holding out the satellite phone. The little darling said everything in one breath, trying to say it all before she forgets.

I packed the satellite phone in my suitcase, put on my furs, and took Nakita’s free hand. We walked out to Ulitsa Bol’shaya Dmitrovka and hailed a taxi. I told the driver to take us to a café by the Hotel Katarina, where we waited for Finn to arrive in the special taxi.

Nakita Sylvina sat beside Finn in the back of the limousine. He’s staring straight ahead, pretending that Nakita Sylvina isn’t there, and she’s doing the same. I’m watching as Finn Flynn shows me a side of him I’ve never seen before. He’s managed to cheer up a small, frightened child without speaking a word.

TRANS-MONGOLIAN TRAIN: USSR

I was expecting
Nakita Sylvina to take my hand when we got out of the limousine at Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal in Komsomolskaya Square. Instead, she gave me her small suitcase and reached up to hold Finn’s hand. He swept her off her feet and swung her up on to his shoulders. She seems to enjoy seeing the world from nine feet off the ground.

We found a café in the train station and bought tea and cakes. Finn left us for a short while and went to purchase our tickets on the Trans-Mongolian train – one of the Trans-Siberian railway lines.

Nakita Sylvina switched seats when Finn came back, so she could sit next to him on the banquette. By the time we were ready to board the train she was asleep with her head resting against his arm. They shared
massor
of giggles before she nodded off…but they still haven’t uttered
ett enda ord
to each other.

At precisely eight twenty-one p.m. we pulled out of the terminal, amidst waving flags and orders being yelled along the platform. We have a first class, four-berth compartment all the way from Moscow to Kowloon Station, in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Our journey will cover almost eight thousand kilometres; we’ll travel via Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan Ude, Ulan Bator and Beijing.

We’re building up speed as we pass through the outskirts of Moscow, and the movement of the train has woken Nakita Sylvina. She’s looking around, bewildered, and clinging to Finn. Her young eyes are exploring our compartment with darting glances at the four bunk beds, the elaborate hand washbasin, the old fashioned brass light fittings, and the window blinds – which are pulled almost all the way down.

We’ll be on this train for seven days and six nights; this journey will make my childhood train excursions seem like short little jaunts. My parents and I would travel from our home in Helsingborg to Jokkmokk in the north of Sweden, but we never made the trip in winter. It always felt to me like I was going on a long, exciting adventure. I was just a little older than Nakita Sylvina when my parents divorced. They sent me by train to live with Nanny and Grand Pappy Lindbergh in Göteborg, or Gothenburg as English speakers say. That journey lasted only a few hours.

Lifting the blinds, I looked out the carriage window; everywhere is covered in snow. It’s Nakita Sylvina’s vast, snow-covered country we’ll pass through…and she’s unlikely ever to see it again. I would’ve liked to be taking this journey in spring or summer, when the fields are full of colour. I could’ve pointed out the flowers – bellflower, day lily, iris, peony, ladybells, edelweiss, tulips and violets – the changing landscapes, trees and rivers to Nakita Sylvina.

She seems content enough just to play with her dolls, or to gaze at her photographs of Nataliya Yelena and Galina Maksimovna. Nakita keeps the photos in her pocket when she isn’t looking at them, but she’s been looking at them most of the time.

I can’t imagine what thoughts are going through her little head. Whatever they are, I hope the thought of being with her mamma sustains her…and stops her from dwelling on all she’s leaving behind.

———

Finn has vouchers for free breakfasts – for himself. We went to the dining car for the less crowded second breakfast seating and ordered a banana milk shake for Nakita, tea for Finn, and coffee for me. With his free breakfast vouchers, Finn ordered fresh orange juice and an enormous cooked breakfast, a ‘full Irish breakfast’ he calls it. Nakita Sylvina and I settled for cereal and fruit juice.

Arriving at stations in daylight is a pleasant relief. I take Nakita Sylvina off the train to give her a little break, and to get some fresh air. Now, when we know we’re approaching a station, Nakita presses her nose to the ice-cold window and watches for the black signal box standing out against the white snow. ‘Look, look, we’re nearly there, we’re nearly there,’ she says excitedly, as soon as she spots a black signal box. Then we dress quickly in our warm clothes and snow boots and rush to the end of the carriage. It’s our little game to try to be the first ones to leave the train and explore the station – and then we buy snacks, sweets, chocolate and fresh fruit.

Finn usually disappears with the satellite phone from Brother Leader Gaddafi during stopovers. He often just manages to jump back into the carriage as the train is pulling out of the station. Never mind missing the train, if he’s left behind with no papers he’ll be questioned by the authorities.

———

Earlier today, at Yekaterinburg Station, Finn left the train with his precious satellite phone; he only just managed not to be left behind. I want to say something to him about taking such risks, but I understand that he wouldn’t behave so foolishly unless there is good reason.

Nakita Sylvina is fast asleep in her bunk, and I’m sipping delicious hot chocolate that was delivered to our compartment by a handsome steward. He’s already tried twice to engage me in conversation; he believes I’m from Murmansk – like Galina Maksimovna on the first night I met her. I can handle a little harmless flirtation if it means hot chocolate delivered at bedtime. Anyway, this steward has been subjected to one of Finn’s terrifying glares, so I’m sure he knows he isn’t going to get anywhere with me…at least not while Finn Flynn is around.

———

Nakita Sylvina and I bumped into the amorous steward at Vokzal-Glavny Station in Novosibirsk. He introduced himself to us as Vikoff, then he stooped down and asked Nakita Sylvina if I’m her mother! My heart almost stopped beating…until I heard her reply.

“Anna can’t be my mummy, silly. And she isn’t even married to Finn yet.”

We walked on quickly before Vikoff could ask any more awkward questions. I hope Nakita Sylvina won’t let on to Finn that we met Vikoff. Either way, I presume I’ll be getting no more late night mugs of hot chocolate.

At Ilanskaya Station we were only able to stretch our legs for a few minutes. I hurried Nakita Sylvina back on board the train when I noticed a great commotion on the platform. A crowd of peasants wanted to get on the train with baskets of chickens and twelve goats.

I had leaves of salad I’d kept back from my tea – wrapped in a serviette in my pocket – and I gave them to Nakita Sylvina. We leaned out from the carriage, and she fed the leaves to the goats while I bought a pail of fresh yoghurt from a woman in a traditional Mongolian costume.

One of the goats boarded the train and tried to follow Nakita Sylvina back to our compartment. Laughing at this, the previously furious conductor formally informed the peasants that ‘goats do not travel in first class.’ His funny remark seemed to have defused an uncomfortable situation.

———

I’m lying in my bunk across from Finn. Nakita Sylvina’s fast asleep after all the excitement at Ilanskaya Station – and the fresh yoghurt, which she loves.

It's dawned on me that I’ve known Finn for more than a few years, but I know almost nothing about him. All I know is what I’ve seen with my own eyes…and that he’s a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. I don’t even know why he has such a curious name. Even among the Irish, Finn Flynn is a pretty rare name…I think.

“Finn, tell me about your name.”

“Which one…Flynn or Finn?”

“Both.”

“Finn comes from the old Irish word
fin
for fair or blond. I suppose I must’ve been born with a mop of fair hair. You must know about Nils Dacke?”

“Yes, of course. Everyone in Sweden knows he’s a folk hero.”

“Well, did you ever hear tell of Robin Hood, the fellah who lived in Sherwood Forest outside Nottingham, England at the time of the Crusades? See, there was a fellah in Ireland, so legend tells us, about nine hundred years before Nils Dacke and Robin Hood…by the name of Fionn mac Cumhaill. He also robbed the rich and gave to the poor…when he wasn’t busy bedding Nordic wenches. Your great, great, great…well, however many times great grandmother probably…if she was half as beautiful as you. My mother might have liked the idea that I’d do the same – not the bedding bit mind you, but robbing the rich and giving to the poor. Flynn’s just Flynn…there’s really nothing legendary there. The name comes from the Irish word
laoch
, meaning warrior.”

“And your childhood, Finn? Tell me about growing up in Ireland.”

“I didn’t, and that’s the problem. I’ve a love-hate thing going on with the Brits. My dad was killed with two other volunteers during a raid on a military barracks during the Republican campaign in the 1950s. My mother was pregnant with me at the time, and she had to leave our home on Monastery Road in Tipperary Town. The women there didn’t believe she’d married my father in France when he was on the run from the Brits. So they called her a harlot and ran her out of town for getting pregnant with no husband to show for it. She took the cattle boat to Fishguard Harbour in Wales, and hitched a lift in a Boots Chemist’s lorry going to Nottingham, in the Midlands of England. That’s where I was born.”

“Finn Flynn the Irish revolutionary is an Englishman. Ha, ha. What do your other revolutionaries think of that, eh?”

“It’s no problem. There’s a tradition of English-born Irish men and women joining the Republican movement. They say we’re more dedicated, and fight all the fiercer to make up for the unfortunate accidents of our births, you see.

“The lorry driver who gave my mam a lift lost a daughter in an air raid during the Second World War. She was about the same age as Mam – and also expecting a child – when she died. Anyway, he took pity on my mam and offered her a bed for the night with him and his wife. So I was born in the Bainbridge’s house.

“Fred Bainbridge got Mam a job in the packing department of the Boots factory. I started school at Robert Shaw Primary Infants, and the other kids at school thought I was a Bainbridge. When they learnt I wasn’t, and made fun of my real name, I kicked them in the shins and came home most afternoons with a black eye.

“Ethel Bainbridge got fed up seeing me with black eyes, and she asked Fred to do something about it. He filled an old army kit bag with sand and hung it from a tree in the back garden. Then he stuffed newspaper into a pair of his old boxing gloves…so that they wouldn’t fall off my hands…and told me to punch the bag. Every afternoon after school I punched that bag hour after hour until my arms ached so much I could hardly lift them to eat my tea. By my eighth birthday Fred had taught me to box properly.

“The mocking of my name at school stopped after I fought Franky McLaughlin. He was the school bully…two years older than me…and I boxed the ears off him. Franky’s family was from Northern Ireland, but he pretended that he wasn’t Irish. He was more Irish than me because he’d been born in Warrenpoint, County Down in Northern Ireland…though he was probably a Unionist Protestant. Some of them are more British than the Brits themselves.

“The family of a woman who was shot alongside my father had been trying for years to bring the British Army to court for an unlawful shooting, a murder. The three volunteers on the raid were unarmed, and the soldiers were in mufti, or civilian clothing. Ten years later, the Application for a Judicial Review finally reached the courts in London. Pictures of my dad were splashed across the front pages of newspapers, and he was shown on television carrying a rifle at the funeral of an IRA volunteer. He had wavy blond hair like me, and stood very straight, like a soldier at attention.