The Double Bind of Mr. Rigby (9 page)

My expectation of more days like that was disappointed. I received an urgent call from Willy; would I drop into the St James’s office? Of course, I did drop in. My curiosity got the better of me. Willy said that the Service’s agent in Tallinn, a woman as it happened, was in Lithuania for a period on another mission. There was nobody in Tallinn who could substitute. If I were there I could perhaps find out what was going on. Somebody out there was getting heavy-handed. There had been a murder in the dockland district of the new town. The victim was known to have connections both to the Estonian government and to an American pharmaceutical company. He had been in discussions with Myrex over the past two months representing the interests of the US company. The Estonian government could not work out why he had been killed. They felt instinctively sure that it must have had something to do with the expanding role of foreign interests in their technological and computer resources. The murdered man had links with all the right people concerned. They wanted to know why he had become a target. Informally, through other countries’ agents, our intelligence services had been sounded out to see if we had any firm knowledge at best, or any ideas at worst. It was important for our national interests to see what we could discover. I wondered if Rovde’s bosses had been in touch. Since Myrex was apparently involved in the man’s business life, Willy thought it would be advantageous if I were to go back speedily to Tallinn and ferret around. I could use discreetly my Myrex contacts.

There was no trouble with the
Journal
. If my editor could sniff a story, and I gave him the scent, he would send me off immediately. I would have preferred to delay my departure for a few days, but Willy was eager for me to go quickly. For some reason there was political concern about Estonia in our government. Estonian affairs had been pushed up the urgency agenda.

It meant an end to my idyll with Roxanne. That was an awful disappointment. I rang her as soon as I could. I told her that the
Journal
was sending me off the next day. I could not argue about it; after all, it was my job. She understood.

‘I don’t know how long I’ll be in London,’ she said. ‘It could be that Raoul will want to be here some time. I just don’t know what his plans are. Anyway, let’s keep our fingers crossed that I’ll still be here when you get back.’

I told her that I had no real idea how long the assignment would take, although to myself I resolved that it should be brief.

‘Even if Raoul has to go to Paris, or Rome, or somewhere, he might let me stay on here for a day or two. He knows I think London swings; and he knows I’ll be safely entertained. I think he prefers to know what I get up to rather than be unsure. We’ll see.’

Naturally I hoped that would be the case. We agreed to meet in the evening. I was to go round to the Connaught again about seven, but later on in the day my mobile rang and Roxanne told me that Raoul wanted her to be with him at a dinner in a directors’ suite at a factory in Greenford. There was nothing she could do. So that was that for the time being. I told her I would stay in touch.

I thought about Tallinn and the dead American. Obviously I would start with Rovde. Anyone with US connections was likely to be known to Rovde and, in any case, he would be aware of the story on the street in Tallinn. I phoned him on his international mobile but there was no reply. I left a message to say that I would be in Tallinn the next day. What was Rovde doing? I imagined him seated at a desk in an office persevering with detailed, boring paperwork. Then again, I saw him in the English Café with Mo, daily the pair of them growing more and more intimate. It was difficult to picture Rovde as a gentle, intimate person: he was too big-boned, hefty, an American footballer. Still, I supposed he had his moments of tenderness. I hoped he would listen to my message.

Once again Lorel fixed my travel arrangements. That evening I spent with Mark. In the absence of Roxanne, I felt the need to confide, complain about my fortune, and gain comfort from someone who understood how I felt about the world. He cooked a meal – a simple but delicious prawn and mushroom risotto – in his house not far from the river. He showed me the draft of a poem that he thought was almost finished and which he had promised to submit to the
London Review of Books
. It had been inspired by some rare, red kites that he had watched one weekend hovering above beech trees on the Chiltern ridge. They had soared and swooped, deadly accurate, magnificent, dangerous, themselves endangered. I gave the poem, without hesitation, the imprimatur. He decided to send it off.

Mark understood how I felt about not seeing Roxanne that evening and tried his best to console me. He presented the philosophical case for accepting the fact that I would never achieve her on a permanent basis. With calmness and equanimity I should accept her absence and make the most of her when I was fortunate to be with her. He recommended a stoicism that was sensible but difficult to practise. At five to eleven, just as I was about to leave him, my phone rang. To my utter surprise and delight it was Roxanne.

‘Pel, it’s me. Where are you? What are you doing? Can you meet me?’

Naturally, I was thrilled and excited. ‘I’m at Mark’s place, just about to leave. Where are you?’

‘Raoul suddenly had to leave the after-dinner drinks. He was in a bad mood. Something had cropped up. He was whisked off by someone to meet one of his associates who had flown into Heathrow. It was urgent, but he was pretty annoyed. He has told the chauffeur to take me back to the Connaught. But I thought we could meet briefly. What do you think?’

There was nothing I wanted more. I suggested I took a taxi and met her in Waterloo Place. She could send the chauffeur for a walk. That was what happened. When I arrived, the chauffeur diplomatically said he would walk in the Mall and smoke a cigarette or two: he needed the exercise. I sat next to Roxanne in the back seat of the Jaguar and as soon as the chauffeur was out of sight she put her hand high on my inside thigh and started caressing me. I turned and kissed her, unzipping the back of her dress. We were in semi-darkness. Waterloo Place was empty, just full of shadows and deep yellow light thrown at angles by the street lamps. The inside of the car was warm and comfortable: outside it was damp and chill.

We lost ourselves in that tryst. It was a better farewell than I had ever expected. She was quickly responsive to all my physical demands. For some twenty minutes we literally lived in each other’s arms.

The chauffeur discreetly reappeared out of the gloom at the top of the Duke of York’s Steps and at a few yards’ distance from the car, again discreetly, coughed, made sure that we knew he was there, and opened the driver’s door.

‘It’s OK, Hamilton. I think we should get back to the hotel,’ Roxanne said.

I hastily tidied my ruffled appearance, tucked my shirt into my trousers, grasped my jacket and started to get out of the car. Roxanne caught my hand and said they would drop me off; but I thought it best to break with her there for the time being.

‘I’ll take a taxi. Don’t worry. Otherwise it’s miles out of your way. There are always masses of taxis racing along Pall Mall. It’s best we part here.’

She kissed me and held me close to her. She was reluctant to go. I walked away and waved. The Jaguar slid out of Waterloo Place and immediately was lost in a surge of traffic. I hailed a taxi and within twenty minutes was back in my house. There was no difficulty in sleeping: the long evening with Mark and the eventual surprise climax with Roxanne had tired me. I woke at seven and prepared myself for Tallinn.

This time I caught the Heathrow Flyer from Paddington and boarded a Finnair flight to Helsinki. There I took the hydrofoil to Tallinn. The journey was easy and without incident. I did notice on the hydrofoil the heavily set man in the Russian hat who had rudely pushed past me in the English Café. He registered with me because I saw him unscrew the cap of a hip flask and take a tot of whatever was inside. If he were a Russian, it would certainly have been vodka. He engaged my curiosity because he carried no baggage. He wore an old, heavy, camel hair coat. He had no newspaper, no document case, nothing. I wondered what he was doing. I could not imagine what his profession was. In the States he might have been a private detective. In the Baltic, that was unlikely.

In Tallinn he walked off into the dismal business district. He was not met by anyone: he was on his own, a loner. He did glance round once as I watched him and I fancied he knew I was looking at him. He pushed his hands down in the pockets of his coat, hunched his shoulders and walked into the distance. I took a cab to the Gloria.

In the cellar, I ordered a late lunch, wild boar, red cabbage and mashed potato. In Russian style, I drank vodka from a small earthenware jar with it. Afterwards, I felt well set up to face the unfamiliar world of Estonia, and I rang Rovde. He answered his mobile and suggested we met at the English Café later in the afternoon. That gave me an opportunity to take a sauna and do some solitary thinking. So, well fed and rested, I met Uri at five in the café.

He looked different. He was less monolithic, less physically intimidating. He had softened. The American footballer’s physique that had given him a powerful, almost threatening air, had transformed into an expansive, teddy-bear image. He looked positively welcoming, someone you could confide in, someone you could trust. I knew what it was. It was the effect of Mo on him. She had a civilising influence. I also knew that I should not be fooled, that I could not fully trust him. There was no possibility of me confiding in him. He worked for a different outfit: his allegiances were basically different from mine. He was not like Mark. With Rovde I had to be careful. Each of us knew that the practical limits of our friendship were determined by our peculiar kinds of work, his intelligence work, mine investigative journalism. Both required secrecy, evasion, and, above all, the practice of irony. Nevertheless, in most matters I could rely on Rovde. At least, I felt, we were allies fighting, for the most part, in the same struggle.

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.