Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(38)

All of that had changed when Toomas decided to turn the Park into a sovereign nation. Rudi had missed the violent end to that particular scheme, but he knew Toomas had been unceremoniously dumped out of Lahemaa in the aftermath. Some of his mates in the folk song community had crowdfunded a flat for him in Rakvere, and cobbled together a small stipend to replace the pension which the government stubbornly refused to pay him on the grounds that he was lucky not to have been jailed for treason. He still had fans among the Rangers, though, and in spite of an order banning him from ever setting foot in the Park again he spent most of his time there, happily doing the things he had been doing for almost thirty years. Including riding quadbikes all over the Park in spite of being in his eighties, until one day the throttle and steering of his bike had jammed and he had driven off a promontory into the Gulf of Finland. When he heard the news, Rudi had imagined his father clinging to the handlebars like grim death, afraid to jump in case he got hurt, and simply sailing into the void, and he had giggled.

It was less than half a kilometre’s walk along the main road to Liiva and St Catherine’s Church, a black and white building which looked like several pointy-roofed structures of varying size stuck together. A number of mourners were standing outside, and even from the other side of the church grounds Rudi could separate them into two groups. The really old people who were standing in a loose bunch near the door of the church were the folk song guys, and he wanted nothing to do with them because that would mean having to listen to their stories about how great his father had been. Everyone else was... well, just everyone else. He looked around the mourners, but he didn’t see his brother’s widow. Frances had had a complicated relationship with Toomas – everyone did – but her relationship with Rudi was more straightforward. She had never forgiven him for missing Ivari’s funeral, and he had judged that telling her the truth – that he had been unable to attend because he had been kidnapped by English special forces and held prisoner in London – would be unproductive at best.

“Hey, boy.”

Rudi turned and found himself looking at the deeply seamed and florid face of Juhan, infamous rocker, bass player with any number of catastrophically self-destructive bands, and his father’s oldest friend. He felt his heart sink in his chest.

“Juhan,” he said.

Juhan was wearing skinny black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a massive black leather jacket with jangly silver zippers, which hung from his shoulders like the wings of a pterodactyl. In appearance, it was as if Somerset Maugham had, in the final years of his life, decided to take up death metal.

“You came, then,” Juhan said, peering myopically at him.

“Yes,” Rudi said. “I came. I cannot deny that. Here I am.”

Juhan tipped his head to one side; he looked so frail that Rudi wondered how he intended to return it to its upright position. “Don’t be smart with me, boy,” he snapped. Rudi waited for a follow-up along the lines of ‘I was wrestling alligators when you were still soiling your nappy,’ but none came.

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“You hated the old bastard.”

“Yes, I did.” It was hardly confidential.

“So what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to check out P?daste’s new chef and I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone,” Rudi deadpanned.

“Cheeky little cocksucker,” said Juhan, who was at least a foot shorter than Rudi. “Don’t you have a hug for your Uncle Juhan?”

“Firstly, you’re not my uncle,” said Rudi, “and secondly, I’d be afraid of snapping you like a dry twig,” but he hugged the old man anyway, and discovered that Juhan was considerably stronger than he looked, and determined to prove it.

“So,” Juhan said when he had finished compressing Rudi’s ribs, “you’re in Poland now?”

“Sometimes. I get about a lot.” Rudi wondered if Juhan hadn’t actually broken something. He squirmed discreetly to try and return some of his internal organs to their original positions. He looked over Juhan’s head and saw someone walking towards them from the direction of the church, so out of context that for a moment he couldn’t work out where he had seen her before. It was her hat he actually recognised first.

“Chief Superintendent,” he said as she reached them. “Forgive me if I briefly comment on the surreal nature of meeting you here.”

Smith beamed at him. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Rudi suppressed a scowl. “Chief Superintendent, this is Juhan Salum?e, an old friend of my father. Juhan, this is Detective Chief Superintendent Sarah Smith of the EU Police.”

Juhan looked Smith up and down with undisguised lasciviousness. He nudged Rudi. “Been naughty, hey, boy?” and they all laughed except Rudi, who was staring at Smith.

Smith looked benignly at Juhan and smiled radiantly. “Mr Salum?e,” she said. “Have you ever been back to the Savoy?”

All of a sudden, Juhan seemed to be two hundred years older. “I need to talk to somebody,” he said, and he turned and walked away towards the church.

“Savoy?” Rudi asked when he was out of earshot.

“Misspent youth,” Smith said. “He still owes them four hundred quid. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m super, thank you. What are you doing here?”