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TLast Wednesday's identification of the two Russian agents responsible for poisoning in Salisbury sparked as many questions as it was resolved. Six months of judicial police work, involving the study of thousands of hours of video surveillance, had produced seemingly irrefutable evidence that men identified as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov had not made their weekend in the city of Wiltshire simply to admire the medieval spire of the cathedral. But the gaps in the story persisted. What were their real names and identities? Why had they laid out so casually their perfume bottle Nina Ricci "First Day" trafficked? And why did they – the assassins who came in the replacement bus service – trusted their strategy for the Sunday schedules of the Great Western Railway?
Although the photographs revealing the movements of the non-extraditable duo represented a major step forward in the elimination of the crime, they confirmed, in some respects, at home, and certainly abroad, that 2018 would be one of the most more surreal of the history of the British island. If you drop a Google pin on where the events most obviously disappeared in a rabbit hole, you can zoom in on the few square meters of grass in front of the Greggs Bakery and the Superdrug Chemist in the Salisbury Maltings Mall. .
Last weekend, I was standing at this place, no bigger than a modest patio, before the announcement of the latest revelations. I was there in an effort to find out precisely what lasting effects the summertime upheavals have had on the city. The parcel of land is currently circled at the height of the shin. In the middle of it is a coffin-like outline of darker grass and recently sown where was the most famous bench in the world. On March 4 this year, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia sat down after having shared a pizza at noon in the nearby Zizzi branch and had a drink at Bishop & # 39; s Mill adjacent pub . Passersby noticed that the pair was in serious trouble. In a painting now etched in the eye of the global mind, Sergei Skripal seemed to be unconscious and there were foam patches around his mouth. His daughter sank against him; his eyes were wide open but had rolled in his head.
Six months after the extraordinary network of events that began that afternoon, events led to a diplomatic crisis involving 28 countries and a first death on British soil by a nerve agent since 1945. euphemism commendable . A couple of Wiltshire council councils are tied to the low rope around the site, where decontamination specialists have been working in fluorescent suits. The notices stated: "Please move away from the grass to allow the new grass to settle. We apologize for any problem. "
Last Saturday, buyers rushed on the grass to the weekly market in Old Town Square. The parents sat on the neighboring benches while their children hunted the pigeons or played on the swings and slides nearby. A string of bright streamers had been stretched between two lampposts. Below, the family's fruit and vegetable merchant, D & A Styles, offers a fruit and vegetable sales booth at the weekend, "Stack a bowl, in whatever bowl you like". I bought a bag of English apples and asked Mr. Styles how was his summer.
"It's awful," he says. "Thirteen weeks, I was closed. I could not pay my rent, my tourist tax. They say that they have [a million quid] to compensate local businesses, but I have not seen anything yet, and you are not more local than me. He gestures to the ground behind him. "How did I make a living when they closed my way? I just want to go back to work now.
This feeling is shared by every store owner I speak to. While, from the outside, Salisbury has sometimes resembled a city behind the police band and is besieged during the summer, the reality has been frustrating for the majority of its residents. Perhaps because of its ties to the armed forces – the largest garrison in Western Europe is at its doorstep – Salisbury has not been "down to earth", I am sure. In other places, the sight of soldiers in the streets would have exacerbated anxiety; Here, it has strengthened reinsurance.
The consensus among all the people I talk to in the market is that things would have gone well if it had been the Skripals. It would have been a macabre espionage story, and moreover, when the two men would have recovered heroic care at the Salisbury District Hospital, as well as DS Bailey – who helped them with the Maltings – this would be a happy story.
The second poisoning in June of Dawn Sturgess, 44, and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, of Amesbury, changed the game. Rowley – identified as a "jumping diver" in the world press – and her seemingly random discovery of a bottle of Nina Ricci containing the substance that left her in intensive care and tragically killed her partner, confirmed initial anxieties left hanging.
Local MP John Glen described the latter as a "hammer" for the city in addition to what had happened before, but the response was further evidence of Salisbury's resilience. His very long summer began with a text that he received that night in March, suggesting that there had been reports of an incident involving two people. A few days later, he was sitting next to the prime minister and secretary of foreign affairs, explaining to the world that the ancient city of the cathedral that he had represented for seven years had been the target. a neurotoxic agent. The word Novichok – the name of a group of such undetectable agents developed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War – suddenly appeared in Salisbury. And everyone, of course, had a theory about what happened. "It was hard for people to envision that another state would somehow send someone here to do this outrageous act," Glen suggested, "but there was still extremely compelling evidence accepted by governments of the whole world. Even if Russian propaganda became very active, arguing otherwise.
While the police and counterterrorism units were doing their first jobs in the Salisbury Mall, this story was booming. In his endless account of how Russia has adopted a public policy of "false information", the journalist Peter Pomerantsev described the Kremlin's strategy as "nothing is true and everything is possible". Salisbury seems to have provided a school case. The revelations of this week and the denials of the "Kremlin" "So what?" Are the last chapter.
While the British government expelled 23 Russian diplomats and another 27 countries followed suit, more than 30 different explanations of events on the bench outside Greggs were offered to the Internet by Russian sources. Sergei Zheleznyak, deputy speaker of the parliament, hinted that the British authorities had concocted the case to eliminate any positive effect on the image of Russia while the country hosted the World Cup. Nikolai Kovalyov, former director of the Russian security services, said it was clear that a rogue scientist from the Porton Down laboratory near Salisbury was conducting private experiments on the local population. The Russian envoy to the UN Security Council has meanwhile referred to Murders of Midsomer suggesting that the British could have come up with a more plausible crime story. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the event was created as a smokescreen to avoid the embarrassment of negotiations on Brexit.
This blizzard of the competing theory itself seems to have been designed to probe and exaggerate the vulnerability of a Britain that was moving away from the European Union. And if you were looking for a bastion of English to denounce this insecurity, you could well climb into Salisbury Cathedral, the inward-facing square that surrounds the cathedral, originally designed to keep all the squalid citizens at bay. outside. examples of all English vernacular architectural styles. Close's internal policy was the main source of inspiration for Anthony Trollope's novels. In one corner is the great residence of the current bishop, the very reverend Nicholas Holtam, who came here seven years ago from a contrasting central London ticket to St Martin-in-the-Fields.
In talking to him in his study of the last six months, I suggested that a symbolic conclusion of the Skripal case was that, even if a large part of Britain wished to withdraw from the world, wider world currents would encroach on always.
He admitted that Salisbury is a very traditional place, with a large retired population who "moved here because they love them, and do not want that to change." This is not the whole story of Salisbury however – the people who sleep on the streets and the "street community" represented by the unfortunate Dawn Sturgess were also part of the life of the city. In addition, despite appearances to the contrary, Holtam pointed out that Salisbury is intimately linked to larger global events because of the presence of military and intelligence services here. "One thing that has been revealed is that this community knows a lot about the kind of world that has only been opened in the world now."
The bishop's poisoning raised this very contemporary question: how can we build trust between ourselves when we do not have a reliable story we can count on?
Part of this difficulty was to establish a consistent emotional tone. "Before Dawn Sturgess dies, he said, it was possible to develop jokes about it. I would say, "It's a leap of faith that you came to Salisbury today," and people understood, they laughed. "After the murder," he says, "the challenge was how to develop a language that is both truthful and we do not know but it gives people confidence." He had his first attempt at one of the foreign ceremonies he presided over: the blessing of the plots outside Greggs once decontaminated.
"At Easter, we want to have a new life and a new resurrection," he said on this occasion. "A crisis is both a moment of judgment and an opportunity. We should not waste a crisis, we should use it to make sure the good comes from it … "
He reiterated this feeling last week. One of the positive things is that people have understood the value of getting together in public. For a royal wedding, there were 3,000 people on the west lawn of the cathedral. A similar number came to the fireworks that opened the new arts festival during the holiday. Salisbury also took advantage of this moment to talk about himself, to galvanize his goal, which he was less inclined to do in the past.
Holtam is delighted with this conversation and all his contributions, although he must have smiled at a recent report on development, which presented his findings in the shadow of the great spire of Salisbury Cathedral, the tallest in Grande Britain completed in 1320. According to the report, the needs are an iconic public artwork to put on the map.
If the bishop attends the spiritual resurrection of the city, Alistair Cunningham, of Wiltshire County Council, must assume much of the recovery work. On March 4, it turned out that Cunningham was the "gold commander" of the board, in charge of the crisis, a post that is split between the advisers. "We are all trained in the local forum on resilience, but it was up to me to intervene," he says with a dry air.
The day before the Skripal poisoning, he thought the worst that post could throw him was probably over. South Wiltshire had been hit by a "big snow event" and Cunningham had tried to help a few hundred people whose boilers had failed. That night, however, he was in the main room of the police incident as the new situation unfolded. He felt like one of those extreme exercises in role play that you do during the days of workout. "War games." An airplane landed on Porton Down, that sort of thing.
Six months later, it can indicate the first phase of the process – the reaction – hoping to be about to be completed and phase two – the recovery – in full swing. The core of its mission has been to support the most affected individuals and businesses with direct assistance to ensure that no one is a victim of the events. After perhaps a 15% drop in the number of visitors, people are returning to the city, he suggests. "The number of US visitors is up year on year." This is the national market of more than 50 years that has disappeared. Given the lesser perception of risk, local people might rather choose to go to Bath or Winchester for their day. "It's not fear, it's partly because they just think things are closed," says Cunningham, who is desperate to announce that they are not. And most importantly they have never been. "It's a very irrational event, so it's more important that the answer be as rational as possible."
Councilor Pauline Church, who grew up in the city and previously worked as a banker for JP Morgan, is a member of the Economic Development Board. She sees her role as eliminating bureaucracy and delays. "When people had to be moved from their homes, we did not want to use them as a process," she says. "We wanted to try to treat people decently – people lost their clothes and furniture."
To underline the feeling that everything may seem very close to home, she points to the fact that the firefighter in the Hazmat suit that was at the front of the Telegraph almost every day was his neighbor. "We all talk about the main global impacts, but small things matter a lot to people. The long-term closure of Queen Elizabeth Gardens was a major psychological barrier for those who felt safe, "she says. "It's fantastic, it's open again and the ice cream van is back."
The gates and the gang went down to the downtown park on the eve of the holiday. The councilors did not know how the public would react – if they thought the park was safe now. In this case, "it would not be an exaggeration to say that people flood their dogs and their children," says Cunningham.
Two enterprising boys walked past the gates with fishing rods, believing the creek was to be stored during the closing.
Perhaps with the brief shortcomings of the council around Grenfell, local Wiltshire leaders seemed anxious to keep the public informed. After the death of Dawn Sturgess, three large public meetings were held in Salisbury and Amesbury to allay fears. The first of these was pronounced by Neil Basu, the new commander of the metropolitan police counterterrorism unit, who emphasized the scale of the operation. In some parts of the city, it literally spared nothing, an operation involving 100 counter-terrorism inspectors and 24 "specially trained finger-tip research officers."
Most people seemed immediately reassured by the directness of this performance. Inevitably, there were also one or two Miss Marple or two who thought they could see flaws in the Basu team's efforts. One resident insisted that the city dam should be drained, believing that a glove that the attackers were inevitably carrying could be accommodated. Another wanted to know what the police were doing about her friend's observation of a Mercedes car with Romanian license plates in the city the week before the poisoning. Another wanted to know if it would be prudent to buy a bottle of perfume at the village party.
The meetings have also proven to be a golden rule of all British civic rallies: there is no forum that is ultimately attracted to the issues that really matter: the queues for prescriptions at the local chemist and scandal collection.
The security slogan that said "If you do not let it fall, do not pick it up" required, according to many, a second line if the city should not be submerged by waste: "If you let go, choose it. up ".
A local man with strong views on the time needed to put together a protective suit against hazardous materials also proposed a radical suggestion for stimulus efforts in the tourism sector. He had spoken with contacts in Beijing who followed the story greedily in the news. "We can not bury the association," suggested the man. "As part of the new marketing plan, you may want to consider visiting the sites involved."
John Glen MP rejected the suggestion to take advantage of the assassination of one of his constituents – and noted that the Skripals' neighbors had already suffered enough disruption without tour buses appearing on their streets.
People are going to the battlefields in Flanders, the speaker suggested – what's the difference?
During my few days in Salisbury, I traced the route of this potential guided tour, which could be sold as a short quest for incongruity. Thomas Hardy once observed Salisbury – in his imaginary form of Jude the Dark Melchester – that it was "a calm and soothing place, almost entirely ecclesiastical". This element would be opposed to more disturbing notes. A visit to the Queen Elizabeth Gardens public toilet, probably used by the Moscow duo as "Novichok Lab", could be the starting point for a walk in the floating meadows from which John Constable captured its famous view of the cathedral. Vantage until last week behind a police cordon. Or a visitor could, by a quiet summer evening, as I did last weekend, look for the little church of the devout poet George Herbert in Bemerton, then cross the A36 up to # At the corner store, recognizable by one million YouTube visitors. bought their shopping.
At dusk, at the cul-de-sac of Skripal itself – an impasse of indescribable semi-finals with armed policemen patrolling the fenced house – then heading towards the city, following the red light at the top of the spire of the cathedral acting as a warning to fighter jets flying at low altitude, it has proved difficult to hold together a frame of reference. The events of the summer seem so incongruous to the scenery. You are seizing the arcane language: what is all this announcing?
Until Neil Basu's Wednesday statement, there had been no official update on poisonings for six weeks. As public meetings have shown, the local population had the greatest respect for the institutions that were looking for answers. They are skeptical about the media and what I often hear as "his insistence on creating a negative image, which does not help recovery".
"We had unscrupulous parts of the press who gave money to people with very serious problems, addictions, to have a story," says Cunningham, a counselor. "One of the results has been that heroin prices have gone up in the city because dealers know there is more money to pay for it."
The part of the fourth estate that was mostly exempted from criticism is the Salisbury Journal, which reports in the city since 1729. Rebecca Hudson, who was the first journalist at the scene of the crime, became editor of the newspaper in the summer. At 23, she had six months of the most accelerated media training among young journalists in the country.
Hudson spoke to me in a cafe in front of the cathedral. She arrived on the bench just after the Skripals left for the hospital and has been watching since. "At first, it was just normal equipment for the police out there," she said. "The firefighters came three hours before starting to decontaminate. As soon as they put on those white suits, they started to look like everything I had seen in Salisbury or elsewhere. "
The week had been slow because the office was snowy. Stuck for a lead story, Hudson originally pursued the line that it was an overdose of fentanyl, the first evidence of opioid in the city. Then the hospital was suddenly cordoned off. Then, someone who was waiting at the press conference, which was always postponed, said the victim was a Russian spy. Hudson went back to the newsroom and got up all night to watch agents of the germ war snatch Zizzi. The next two weeks were a sleep blur.
She may have had three days off later. One of the problems was the amount of news that the local paper could take. They did eight pages the first week, six the next week and the third week, people wanted local news, school parties and saved cats. "I feel really strangely connected to this story, not just because I work here, but because I have lived here all my life," Hudson says. "It was horrible in some ways. When the police helicopter goes up, people still think: is this number three?
Hudson caused some local consternation at the end of last month by interviewing the Russian ambassador. Speaking at his official residence at Kensington Palace Gardens, Alexander Yakovenko made it an unlikely proposition: "We are together with the people of Salisbury," he insisted, "to find the truth and protect the lives of citizens. Russian. . "He continued with the line that has resurfaced in recent days, according to which the inference that this was done by the Russian government was false news and" completely unacceptable to us ".
The comments of the readers who followed this interview revealed some of the polarities that are now so familiar. The majority suggested that readers should not believe a word from the ambassador, and that the newspaper should not have given it a platform. But others seemed to strive to put the story in a different way. "It's not that Russia was not responsible for novichok poisoning, but that poisoning did not happen," argued a reader, "as a toxin from Vox neurotoxic gas or more has never been present in the Salisbury environment "leaving only the button on the entrance door of Skripals …" Others have taken up this feeling and the l & # 39; have amplified, leaving the readers attentive with a singular question in their head: the trolls and robots of Russia they monitor and intervene they Salisbury Journal? That says something about our driving times that you can not help feeling.
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