Helena Halme: The Red King of Helsinki: Lies, Spies and Gymnastics

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, 24 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.’

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.