Allan Martin - Death in Tallinn

There was a big wooden table in the middle of the room, and he sensed rather than saw the two people hiding beneath it.

“Police. We are armed,” he said firmly, “Come out, please, very slowly, hands first.” Four hands appeared from behind the table. Then their owners, a middle aged woman and a girl of perhaps twelve. The woman regarded them impassively, the girl wide-eyed, wondering.

“Who are you?” asked Hallmets.

The older woman answered. “Veera. I’m the Baron’s cook. This is Katja, my grand-daughter.”

“Two men came in the back door a few minutes ago. One was wounded. Where did they go?”

She gestured towards a door half way along the inner wall of the kitchen. “The Baron and one of his Germans. They went through there. It’s the service stair, goes directly to the dining room.”

“Which one was wounded?” asked Lesser.

“His Lordship. But the German is armed. Be careful.”

Hallmets opened the door and they made their way up the narrow staircase, dimly lit by tiny windows. He imagined how difficult it must be for the baron’s servants bringing full dishes of soup or roast meat up here without tripping on the steep wooden steps. They tried to minimise the noise, but several of the stairs squeaked painfully. Hallmets reached the door at the top, turned the handle and peeped into the room. It was empty. Guns first, they moved in and circled the large dining table towards the closed double doors that formed the only other exit.

“Look, on the table,” whispered Lesser, “A bloodstain.” It was near the edge, staining the dark wood a darker purple, the imprint of a right hand. Someone had clearly leaned on the table as he passed, taking his hand off a bleeding wound in order to support himself.

Hallmets turned the handle of the double doors. Immediately a shot rang out in the next room and the bullet thumped into the stout wooden door. If it had been one of those hollow doors made of plywood they were putting into new houses, he’d have taken the bullet in his chest. But the old carpenters made doors to last.

He moved to the left side of the doors, signalled Larsson to his side and Lesser to the other, then gestured to Hekk to open the right hand door. Hekk dropped to his knees, turned the handle gently, and, keeping behind the door, swung it open. Instantly a barrage of fire erupted from the next room, shattering an elaborate ceramic lion sitting on the mantelpiece at the end of the room.

“Someone’s got one of those sub-machine guns,” muttered Lesser.

“Keep quiet!” hissed Larsson.

A second burst of fire sprayed bullets across the dining table, sending brass candlesticks flying, and ricocheting into the ceiling, tossing down fragments of plaster. At the end of the shooting came a small click. Instantly Larsson stepped into the door way, levelled her pistol and fired two shots in rapid succession. “OK,” she said, and stepped into the room, swinging her pistol around to cover the corners.

As Hallmets followed, he saw a tall well-built young man with close-cropped blonde hair standing behind a leather-clad armchair. His right arm hung useless at his side, the fingers still clutching the sub-machine gun. He put his hand to his chest, where blood was beginning to seep into his shirt. “ Ich verstehe nicht, ” he gasped. He was beginning to understand that the members of the master race were still mortal. He shook his head in puzzlement and collapsed behind the chair.

“Hold your fire,” called Hallmets, “Ilmar, check him out. I think I saw this fellow last time I was here, pretending to be a servant. Neat shooting, Eva, I’m glad you’re on our side.”

Hekk cautiously approached the armchair, weapon at the ready, then knelt down. “He’s dead, chief.” He searched his trouser pockets, then flourished a small card. “ID card. Hans Schriff. German citizen. Nazi party member. SS Truppführer .”

They approached the next set of doors. Once again, they prepared for shooting, but when Hekk opened the door there was no response. Larsson swung into the open doorway ready to fire, then, after panning her weapon round the room, stepped inside, the others following.

The room they entered was a smaller sitting room. Comfortable sofas flanked a fireplace on the inner wall. A writing table and chair sat under one of two windows looking to the front of the house. Under the other was a green-painted wooden chest.

On the sofa to the left of the fireplace lay Heinrich von Langenstein, clearly badly injured. Laura Vaher sat with one arm round him, the other pressed to his lower abdomen, trying to staunch blood flowing from a wound. She had pressed a scarf into the wound, and was holding it down. She simply said, “Heinie’s dying. Please help him.”

Hallmets told Lesser and Hekk to check the rest of the building and get an ambulance for the baron. He guessed that several would already be on their way after the battle at the stables. “Eva, can you wait here, with these two,” he said, “I don’t think they pose a threat.”

Hallmets told von Langenstein the ambulance would be arriving soon, and they’d get him to hospital.

Heinrich waved Hallmets closer. “ Vielen Dank, Herr Hauptkomissar . Please, you must believe me, Laura has nothing to do with all this.”

Hallmets thought that highly improbable, but answered, “If you want me to believe that, Herr von Langenstein, I think you should tell me everything. If we know all the facts, it may be clear that she is not involved.” It was clear to him what was happening. Heinrich was offering a deal: a confession in exchange for Laura’s freedom. Hallmets assumed Laura was at least a competent actress, and would therefore probably be able to convince a jury she was just a simple woman, who was horrified when she found out what was going on. But Heinrich didn’t want to take a chance on that.

Laura was holding the packed cloth firmly on the wound, there was only a little blood seeping out between her fingers. But how much internal damage had been done wasn’t clear. The baron coughed and went on. “We were caught out when your people started firing down from the distillery. God knows where this bullet ended up. I’m not hopeful, Chief Inspector, I saw wounds like this in the war, they don’t usually turn out well.”

“You’ll be surprised how much surgery has advanced since then, Herr Baron .” He could see the man was dying, now was not the time to begrudge him his title. “But you’re right, this is not a good one. I think you need to talk to me now.”

Hallmets sat himself at the bottom end of the sofa, by Heinrich’s feet. Larsson sat on the other sofa. They put their guns away.

“We lost a lot in the land reform after the war, but our father was determined to stay here. ‘This is our ancestors’ soil. One day we’ll reclaim it all,’ he used to say. We worked hard to develop the farm, the horse-breeding.”

“Yes, you mentioned that last time I talked with you.”

“Of course. Anyway, Father died in ’22. We had things running very efficiently, but it wasn’t enough, not if we wanted to buy back some of the land that had been handed over to the peasants. That’s when we came up with the idea for the distillery. We knew someone in another estate who’d built a legal distillery, but what with all the regulations and taxes, he wasn’t making much out of it. It was Krummfeldt who suggested we do it illegally. He’s a rather unpleasant little man, isn’t he? He suggested he could help with the distribution, and no-one need even know where the stuff came from. We needed the money, so we took the risk. And indeed, it paid off. When we Germans do something, we do it well, eh?” He coughed and gasped, Hallmets could see the pain etched on his face. “Rather than just producing cheap hooch, we went for a quality product. We called it Leikari so people would think it came from Finland. You’ve tried it?”