Allan Martin - Death in Tallinn

Beneath the other papers was a cutting from today’s Pealinna Uudised describing the discovery of the body. It was the one he had read in the car, but it was useful to have a copy to study at greater length. He noticed that the article was written by Jaan Kallas, head crime reporter at the paper.

There was a polite knock at the door connecting his office to the workroom, and Marta told him the post-mortem would be that evening at six. He asked her to go the Personnel Department and borrow Vaher’s file.

As they spoke, there was a pounding at the door leading to the corridor, and without waiting for an invitation, a man burst into the room and strode towards Hallmets. A large man in a dark suit with a fleshy face, a protruding lower lip, black hair and a drooping moustache. The man lurched towards Hallmets, breathing heavily, and leaned over his desk. Hallmets was engulfed by a smell of sweat and cheap fruit brandy.

“Listen, big shot,” growled the man, “We don’t need you here to sort out Vaher’s death. We can take out all the crime bosses in the city right now. One of them must have done it and no-one’ll miss the rest. So just bugger off back to the countryside. Someone’s probably stolen a pig by now, so you’d better…”

He did not get the chance to finish his sentence. In a swift movement, Hallmets grabbed the hair on the left side of his head and banged it down onto the desktop. Then he lifted it up and did it again. The man slumped onto the desktop, dazed. Hallmets got up, walked behind him, twisted the man’s arm behind him, and heaved him up. He marched him through the open door into the workroom, and pushed him onto a chair that stood by the window. Then he opened the window, grabbed the man’s ear, and thrust his face into the chill breeze that swept into the room. The man gasped.

“Now, my friend, who might you be?” Hallmets asked, as he pulled him back inside.

“Sõnn. Inspector Sõnn. Who do you think you are, let me go,” he wailed.

“I’d like to talk to you, Härra Sõnn, but not just yet. First, I don’t believe it’s a good idea to be rude. People will just think you’re a thug, and treat you like one. Second, I don’t believe it’s a good idea to drink lots of cheap alcohol when you’re supposed to be working. People will just think you’re a drunkard, and treat you like one. Now I’d like you to leave my office and sober up. Get some fresh air, have a wash and drink some coffee. Then come back and see me at half past four, so that we can discuss your report.” Hallmets moved him towards the door, which Marta swiftly opened for him, and shoved Sõnn into the corridor. He staggered a few steps before one foot tripped over the other and he fell onto the lino with an audible thump, hitting his head on the floor. Groaning, he crawled off, and Hallmets shut the door.

“You should have thrown him out the window,” said Marta, “I can tell you, there are too many of his type in this building. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but Vaher encouraged them. You did well to put him in his place, Sir.”

“Thank you, Marta,” said Hallmets, trying to calm himself down, “Can you note in the diary that I have an appointment with Inspector Sõnn at four thirty. I’m going to go out now to have another look at the site.”

There was another knock at the door.

“Don’t say he’s back again!” muttered Hallmets, and flung open the door. “Yes!” he snarled.

Kadakas stood there at attention. “I’m really sorry to disturb you, Sir,” he gasped. “Colonel Reinart asked me to report to you.”

“All right, Lieutenant,” said Hallmets, “You’d better come with me then.”

Hallmets led Kadakas at a brisk pace; he needed to get the adrenalin out of his system. They headed up Pikk Street and into Nunne Street then back to the kiosk where Vaher’s body had been found. There was still a big crowd there – the death was doing wonders for Kaarel Rebane’s business. Beyond the kiosk they came to the Patkuli Staircase, a narrow stone stairway that zigzagged up the cliffside to the viewpoint at the top, and Hallmets led the way up. When they reached the top, they found about a dozen people staring out over the Old Town, and taking photos of the view and each other. Hallmets found a spot at the railing, and looked out for a couple of minutes over the Old Town towards the harbour and the bay, and then down towards the hexagonal roof of the kiosk below, in the centre of which a dark smudge was still visible.

“Well, Kadakas, what do you think happened? How did Vaher get down there?”

Kadakas looked puzzled. “I don’t know, Sir.”

“Good start. Best not to jump to any conclusions to begin with. That’s ruined too many investigations. The first thing to do is to consider the possibilities. What do you think they are?”

Kadakas thought hard. “Maybe he jumped. Climbed over the railing then threw himself off.”

“Good. That’s number one. Next one?”

“If he didn’t jump he must have been pushed.”

“OK. That’s number two. What exactly do you mean, though?”

“Well, he was up here, like we are, and someone crept up on him and pushed him.”

“Stand still, Kadakas!”

Kadakas froze, standing about an arm’s length from the railing. Hallmets turned rapidly behind him and pushed him towards the edge, but Kadakas instinctively grabbed the railing. “Hey, what’s going on?” he gasped.

“If you were Vaher and somebody pushed you, you did what he’d have done.”

The light dawned on Kadakas’ face. “Ah, I get it, Sir. It needs more than a casual shove to get someone over the edge here. But what if he were drunk?”

“Yes, you’d think it would be easier, but a drunk would still grasp hold of the rail. It’s an instinctive reaction.”

“So he can’t have been simply pushed. He must have been manhandled over.”

“Yes. That’s option two, he was bundled over. Alright, what else is possible?”

“Hmm. Talking of drunk, maybe he was drunk and climbed over for some reason, then lost his footing and fell. So then it would be an accident.”

“That’s scenario number three. But not an accident. There is no such thing as an accident. Talking of accidents diverts us from an important truth: everything has a cause. If he had drunk a bottle of vodka, he had a reason. If he clambered over the railing, there will be a reason. If he let go of the rail, there will be a reason.”

“What can we call this, then, if we can’t say it’s an accident?”

“We’ll call this option ‘death by misadventure’, in other words, doing something that wasn’t sensible. Is that it, then? Is there another possibility?”

“If he didn’t jump, wasn’t bundled over, and didn’t just fall off, no, I can’t think of anything else.” Kadakas looked satisfied with his concise summing up.

“What if he wasn’t here at all?”

“But he was. He must have been. Otherwise how did he get onto the kiosk roof?”

“I would do it this way. I would shoot you in the chest with a large bore shotgun. Then I would take a ladder and lift you onto the kiosk roof, then lower you onto the flagstaff, so that it poked through the entry wound and out the exit wound in your back. Then I would remove my ladder and go away.”

“Clever. So that’s how it was done?”

“No, probably not. I suspect he did come off here. But we mustn’t assume that he did.”

“So option four is that he was killed first, then put on the roof?”

“Exactly. But there is a simple way of testing option four. This evening at six there will be a post-mortem. That will tell us whether he fell onto the kiosk or was placed on it. But, for the moment, we must assume both are possible. So, we have four options, but each could have occurred in different ways. For instance, option two, that he was bundled off. The simplest scenario is that he was up here looking out when some men come from behind, grab him, and manhandle him over the rail.”