The Red King of Helsinki Read online

  The Red King of Helsinki

  Lies, Spies and Gymnastics

  Helena Halme

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

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  Also by Helena Halme

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Iain watched on the snow-covered jetty as a small tugboat slowly piloted HMS Newcastle into Helsinki South Harbour, frozen but for a jagged shipping lane cutting between thick sheets of ice. He’d been following the gradually expanding navigation lights for over an hour while the faint winter sun rose above the Gulf of Finland.

  The snowfall had made the day’s copy of Helsingin Sanomat folded under his arm limp. Iain shivered as he placed the paper inside his thick winter coat and pulled the collar further up around his ears. A glance at his watch showed 08:06. They were on time at least. He stamped his feet. The Finns say the coldest winds blow from Siberia, and this morning Iain understood what they meant. Even the weather from the mighty Soviet Union was a bully to its small neighbour.

  Finally the ship docked and Iain climbed onboard. He nodded at a Sub Lieutenant, who bounced down the gangway and told Iain to follow him. He looked like a child, with a freshly scrubbed pink face, and at the last minute Iain remembered not to salute him. He kept forgetting he was a civilian now. But the ship, with its musty smell, a combination of salty seawater and diesel oil, made him feel at home. ‘Good passage?’

  ‘Yes Sir,’ replied the officer, showing Iain into a small cabin.

  The Colonel was bent over a tiny desk in the corner, his back to Iain.

  ‘Welcome to Helsinki, Sir,’ Iain said. Again the desire to stand to attention overtook him, and he half lifted his hand, but placed it down before it reached the side of his head.

  ‘Ah, Collins. You look cold and wet. Is it really that bad out there?’

  Iain ignored this jibe and looked around the cabin. It was a small space, but a luxury for any officer onboard. There was a small porthole, ‘heads’ and crisp white linen on the bunk. The Colonel nodded towards a chair and Iain sat down.

  ‘Well?’ the Colonel said. His cheeks had broken veins and in the harsh overhead light of the cabin he looked old and weary.

  ‘Sir, page five, bottom right-hand corner.’ Iain handed the Colonel the damp Helsingin Sanomat. The short article was buried amongst domestic news.

  ‘A woman, aged 29, was found dead on Tehtaankatu late yesterday morning. It has been confirmed as the body of a Soviet citizen, employed as a temporary administrative assistant at the Embassy. According to the official source the woman died of natural causes.’

  The Colonel considered the page. Iain watched his eyes as he scanned the print and spotted the small, insignificant notice. After a brief moment, he handed the paper back to Iain without saying a word. He crossed his hands over his considerable belly and leant back in his chair. Iain wondered if the Colonel’s Finnish was sufficient for him to understand the meaning of the words.

  ‘Don’t know if it’s significant, but brought it along in case.’

  ‘Hmm, well done,’ the Colonel said.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if I should have contacted the paper?’

  ‘No, of course not. We’ll look into it.’ The Colonel looked at his hands, then up at Iain, ‘How’s the surveillance going?’

  ‘Well, Sir.’

  There was a silence and Iain wondered if he was supposed to make a move to leave the cabin and the Colonel. But the Colonel handed Iain a green folder.

  ‘Try to find out more about this man, Jukka Linnonmaa. He’s just come back from Moscow and we need to know how active he is. He might get in the way.’

  Iain opened the file.

  ‘Take it home and read it. There’s the address, wife’s name, any family connections, that sort of thing. Have a little look at his place, see where he goes.’

  ‘Yes Sir,’ Iain said.

  ‘You’ll soon get the hang of it. Report back to me daily.’

  The Colonel got up, and Iain followed his example.

  ‘And Collins,’ The Colonel said when Iain was at the door, ‘try not to come onboard too often – once more to welcome us into town on behalf of the British Council, and perhaps when we leave to wave us goodbye, is the norm.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ Iain said. The Sub Lieutenant had reappeared outside the cabin.

  ‘Goodbye, Sir,’ the young officer said and saluted Iain as he made his way back down the gangway.

  The city was quiet – only the noise of the tram trundling down from Ullanlinna broke the downy silence that the freshly fallen snow had created. Iain sighed and stuffed the folder inside his coat. With hands deep in the pockets, he walked briskly up the South Esplanade. People were hurrying to work, huddled against the cold wind. It was already ten o’clock and still not full daylight. The Esplanade Park looked grey. The bare trees were heavy with last night’s snowfall. Only a narrow path in the middle of the park had been cleared and sanded. He wondered if the sun was going to show itself today. It was February. At least the days were slowly growing longer, though in this kind of morning twilight, midnight sun seemed impossible.

  Iain wondered what the hell he thought he was doing. Had it not been for the money, he’d never have accepted a job like this. But he now realised he’d also fallen for the flattery. The Colonel had been complementary when they met in a stuffy office at the British Embassy in Helsinki. Iain had never been inside the Embassy before. It was a beautiful white house on a leafy street in Ullanlinna. Had it not been so cold, Iain would have walked there, up the hill from the Council. But it had been a dull January morning, with a bitter northerly wind. So Iain rode the tram up three stops from Erottaja to Puistotie. The meeting was arranged to discuss the forthcoming British naval visit to Helsinki. Iain assumed he’d be told to arrange the appropriate, low-key publicity in the Finnish press. He’d wondered if the visit was organised to silence the reports running in the Western press about planned Finnish joint military exercises with the Soviet Union. Even the long-standing President Kekkonen, who was rarely directly quoted in the press these days, had given a televised interview just before Christmas to counter the press reports. Political and military neutrality was taken very seriously in Finland.

  The Colonel had offered him a drink, ‘Whisky and soda?’

  It was barely eleven o’clock.

  ‘So, how long have you been in Helsinki?’ the Colonel had sat down heavily opposite Iain.

  ‘Just over five months.’

  ‘Your wife was born in Finland?’

  ‘Yes.’ Iain looked down at his hands and added, ‘ex-wife.’

  ‘I see.’

  There was a brief silence. Iain had studied the Colonel closely on that first meeting. Mrs Cooper at the Council had hinted he was an important man in Helsinki. His build was heavy and he was in his late forties, or perhaps early fifties. His fair hair was thinning at the top. He wore half-moon glasses and was softly spoken, with the kind of low, commanding voice you’d expect from an Army officer.

  A voice that would c
arry far on the parade ground.

  He was studying a black file.

  ‘Now then,’ he began, ‘you’re ex-Navy, fairly recently retired?’

  ‘Six months February.’

  ‘Her Majesty must be sorely missing you already,’ the Colonel looked up and smiled, ‘we could use more officers like you.’

  Iain had felt his cheeks redden. When he resigned, no one had asked him to stay. The Colonel was reading from his file. First Iain felt the flattery, then something else. Like a noose tightening around his neck. What was this all about?

  ‘You ex-wife, she would have no family or friends in Helsinki?’

  ‘Of course she does,’ Iain said, his voice rising when he didn’t want it to. Didn’t the Colonel know, or hadn’t he bothered to find out, that most people in Finland had a relative – aunt, uncle or brother – who had moved to Helsinki in search of work?

  The Colonel sighed and looked down at his hands, ‘Your Finnish language skills are quite unique.’

  Everyone, particularly Virpi’s parents, had been stunned Iain mastered the language – which they’d told him was the most difficult to learn after Chinese – so quickly.

  ‘It’s love,’ Iain had joked, squeezing Virpi closer to himself. The embarrassed silence following the comment reminded him how private and serious the Finns were. That was in the early days, on his first visit to see her parents near Joensuu.

  When he left, and the break-up was obvious, Virpi had wanted to stay in their end-of-terrace house in Old Portsmouth, which Iain had painted pink in happier times. The house had become too small for the two of them. As long as Iain was away at sea for long parts of the year, Virpi was happy. She couldn’t cope with Iain at home. After six months of constant rows, Iain jumped at the chance of a job in Whitehall, only to regret it weeks later. He should have stuck it out in Portsmouth, worked on his marriage. But Iain had never been a match for Virpi, her determined voice, deadly looks and icy conviction. So instead he’d moved on and taken the job in Helsinki. In search of what? Escaping what?

  ‘Thank you,’ Iain said and smiled at the Colonel.

  The Colonel made it all sound so easy, yet honourable. And Helsinki was so much more expensive than Iain had remembered. He couldn’t understand how one could live on the measly British Council pay in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Had he been earmarked from the start? No, Iain couldn’t believe that. The Colonel told him they’d found out by chance he was ex-Navy.

  ‘Handy for the Official Secrets Act,’ the Colonel had said, then continued, ‘What I’m getting at, old boy is…’, the Colonel glanced at Iain over the top of his glasses. The leather chair squeaked as he moved his leg on top of the other.

  ‘I understand. You’re right. No one from my past knows I’m in Helsinki,’ Iain said. And he was right. In the six months he’d spent in the small Finnish capital he’d not bumped into any of Virpi’s relatives or friends. Iain smiled. Perhaps they’d seen him first and were avoiding him. Or they didn’t expect to see him there without Virpi. Just as well, he thought.

  The Finns liked to think Helsinki was a big city. Iain assumed that in a country with a population smaller than London’s, the largest centre would seem substantial to its inhabitants.

  * * *

  Hurrying along the sanded Esplanade to return to the warmth of his office at the British Council, Iain nearly collided with a woman in high-heeled boots. First he thought it was Maija. She had the same direct gaze, and the same colour eyes. Her fitted coat tied neatly around the waist reminded him of Maija too. He nodded to the woman and smiled. She hurried past him, not returning his smile. Iain was reminded of one of Virpi’s anecdotes about Finland.

  ‘In winter only drunks, lunatics and foreigners smile at strangers. And none of them can be trusted.’

  Waiting for the traffic lights just outside the Council building to turn green, Iain decided he’d give Maija a call. He thought of her soft round breasts, her uncomplicated attitude to sex. As long as he remembered not to smile to strangers, life was uncomplicated here in Finland. No ex-wife, no long-lost naval friends reminiscing about the good old times, which never were so very good. So why did he complicate it by doing a job for MI6 of all things? Was he bored by his job at The British Council? Most days he sat in his office, on the fourth floor of a stone office building in the centre of the city, reviewing papers, planning cultural events. Not much different from driving a desk in Whitehall. Except there were no pubs, no English beer, no banter. Just drunks on street corners; even at well below zero temperatures they were there, singing to themselves, or shouting abuse at passers-by. Then there was his twice-weekly English night class at the Workers’ Institute, where he’d met Maija three months ago. She had sat at the front, her blue eyes watching him intently. After class she’d hung back and Iain felt like a school teacher, embarking on an illicit affair with a teenage student. Except Maija was by no means a teenager. She was divorced, like him, but unlike him had a seventeen-year-old daughter. That had scared him a bit, a complication he didn’t need. They used his small flat on Laivurinkatu, only a few streets away from Maija. Though it was up the hill to get home from her place, it could not be more convenient. Iain smiled. There was something about Finnish women that he still couldn’t resist, even after the divorce from Virpi. The blue eyes, the pale skin, the easy nakedness. This time, though, there wasn’t going to be a marriage. He wasn’t that stupid. His divorce from Virpi had come through just over a year ago.

  Iain decided to skip the creaky old lift and walk up the stairs. He needed the exercise. On the fourth floor he was hopelessly out of breath. Surely spies were supposed to be fit? He smiled at the absurdity of the thought. Who did he think he was, James Bond?

  Mrs Cooper greeted him with a quick, efficient smile. She smoothed down her skirt and opened the door to the stuffy offices. It always smelled of old books and the air hung heavy with dust. A man in a brown jacket sat reading a book in a corner where a few low-slung chairs were arranged around a table. Iain nodded to him and thought how rare it was to see the Council actually used as the library it partly was meant to be. He walked past the rows of ceiling-height bookshelves and opened the door to his office. His vast steel desk was covered with a pile of newspapers and a few letters. Iain sat down and sighed. The only good thing about his office was that it overlooked the Esplanade Park. Although on a grey day like today it might have been better not to be able to see out into the cold street.

  Iain considered the green folder for a moment. Did receiving this file from the Colonel mean that he had an additional brief? Did he get it because his work had been satisfactory? Or just because he was already involved? Perhaps MI6 was short-staffed in Helsinki. That wouldn’t surprise him, though the Colonel had said this place was one of the most active Cold War cities.

  The file contained only three type-written pages. Jukka Linnonmaa, 42 married to Beta (born Segerstram) for 19 years. They had a daughter, Anni. Iain noticed they lived just a few streets from Maija, on Tehtaankatu 48. There was a bunch of keys. Mr Linnonmaa’s career had taken him from Helsinki University, via Vaalimaa border station to Stockholm, Paris, London and lastly Moscow. He was fluent in Swedish, French and Russian. Beta’s profession was housewife, though she too studied French at the University of Helsinki. Iain ran down the list of Mr Linnonmaa’s titles and made a note of his present one, Special Counsellor, as well as the address at the Department of External Economic Affairs where he’d worked since September last year. So he’d been back in Helsinki for just over five months. Though brief, the file was comprehensive. There was even a picture of the family. It was taken in a traditional pose in front of a vast Christmas tree lit with candles. Iain looked closely at the faces. This was not a poor family. Mrs Linnonmaa’s smile was warm, though a little put upon. She was seated next to a serious looking blonde girl with long hair tied up in a bow. Mr Linnonmaa was standing behind his wife, with his hand on her shoulder. Iain turned the picture and noted the date, 2
4 December 1974. When he closed the file a piece of paper dropped out. It was a hand-written note dated ‘September 1978, Anni Linnonmaa enters Helsinki Lyceum.’

  2

  Pia had never met a real life Russian before. Not that she would dare to call the blond man standing next to the headmistress that to his face. Pia wondered if the word was really banned in Finland. You weren’t allowed to use that word for the country, although everybody did, secretly. Even the right-wing Mrs Härmänmaa, or the Old Crow as everybody called her because of her harking voice, never spoke badly of the Soviet Union. She stood a little apart from the man and watched him suspiciously. When she first introduced him, she’d tried to smile, forcing the corners of her mouth up.

  ‘Mr Kovtun has come from the Soviet Embassy to talk to you this morning.’

  Pia smiled and turned her head towards her best friend Anni, who was sitting in the desk next to hers. But Anni was facing the front, with her back straight. Usually, she’d rest her elbow on the desk and let her long blonde hair fall on her face. It was a trick. That way the Old Crow could not see what she was whispering to Pia. Today Anni actually seemed interested in what Mrs Härmänmaa was saying. Sitting like that, she looked even taller than usual, with her arms crossed under her breasts. Anni was really slim. While Pia was always on a diet, Anni didn’t need to cut down on her eating – she had whatever she wanted and still wore jeans the size of a child’s. And she was the most popular girl in the school. She had the best body and the coolest clothes. Today she was wearing her dark-blue Levi’s with platform boots. Pia sighed and turned her head back towards the Old Crow.