High by Andrew Osmond
Chapter Nineteen
The Pyongyang police report on the death of Garnet G. Wendelson makes for confusing reading; a jumbled file of witness statements and forensic reports offer conflicting evidence as to the manner of the multi-millionaire’s end. CCTV images of the ancient wheelchair and its familiar occupant’s plunge from the rooftop of his own newly constructed building, on the very day of its inauguration, in front of a massed and horrified crowd of international VIPs, make for morbidly fascinating, compulsive viewing, but do not throw any light on the as yet unexplained events which led up to the great man’s death dive. The written testimony of the one, genuine eye-witness to the tragedy remains enigmatically incomplete, although whether some documents have been removed from the police files subsequent to the end of the criminal investigation, or whether the full account was never admitted in the first instance, will perhaps always be shrouded in mystery. The statement of that key eye-witness - Martin Meek - Mr. Wendelson’s carer, at the time of his death, is reproduced in full below, with only one or two minor embellishments for the sake of clarity and continuity of reading.
I was exhausted by the time we eventually reached the roof of the building, understandable if you consider that I had scaled the equivalent of a minor Lake District mountain, whilst all the time pushing a conveyance as unwieldy as the worst of supermarket trolleys. I remember climbing Haystacks in the Western Fells when quite a small child, and standing at the summit looking down upon calm Inominate Tarn, where the great man of the Lakes Alfred Wainwright’s ashes were scattered, and thinking, at the time, what a tremendous height I had achieved, and then realising that I had actually scaled an equivalent vertical height, by walking in eternally reducing concentric circles, up, up, up the outside of the Wendelson Building in Pyongyang. It was perhaps not such a picturesque walk as that in my childhood memory, but the feeling upon reaching the summit was no the less exhilarating for that. I could tell that Mr. Wendelson was equally excited, more so, I think, although it was rare for him to display any great emotion.
I do not know if you have seen the roof of the Wendelson Building? No. Well it is quite something to behold. Whether you gain access to the rooftop by the pedestrian walkway, as we had, or by the express lifts, which will surely be the method the majority of the future visiting public will prefer, you arrive on the circular roof terrace at approximately its most southerly point. You also arrive at the highest point of the roof, and thereby the whole building, since the viewing terrace slopes away very gently - although nevertheless at a sufficient degree to be perceivable, and to my mind slightly disorientating - from this point, affording a wider view, to more spectators, of the broad sweep of the river to the north, and the numerous monuments and epic buildings of the city centre. The actual area designated as a public viewing platform only extends to approximately halfway across the total expanse; the remainder of the roof is a shallow pond of water, pumped up continuously from the river below, and culminating in the spout of the Chin Cascade. The pool is actually something of a visual illusion. At first appearance it seems as though there are no barriers to corral the water; nothing to prevent the pond from draining away off the sides of the building, but this is not actually the case and I think this may be an important point, if there is still any suspicion that Mr. Wendelson’s death may have been an accident. There is, in actual fact, a low, reinforced Perspex wall around the complete northern circumference of the roof, made effectively invisible where the water of the pool laps against it - the viewing terrace itself is, of course, protected by a similar, although considerably taller, barrier. This low transparent lip that confines the water of the pool would be no defence against a vertically upright man from toppling to his death, should he have the inclination, but it would prove to be a sufficiently impassable obstacle for someone confined to a wheelchair to hopefully dispel any suggestion that Mr. Wendelson’s death was anything other than a deliberate act. But I am getting ahead of myself. The first sign that something was not quite right came when we arrived at the rooftop monument.
Our reason for journeying to the roof of the building, as well as being ceremonial, did have a genuine purpose. Mr. Wendelson was planning to attach a plaque - the finishing touch, he called it - to a plinth on a small dais, that was located in the centre of the viewing terrace. He showed me the plaque during the walk up, well no, actually now I come to think about it, he didn’t actually show it to me, but he told me what he had had inscribed on the plaque. What were his words? ‘In commemoration of the opening of the Wendelson Building by Garnet G. Wendelson on 1st May 2009’, something like that, you know the kind of thing. It wasn’t very large, perhaps twelve inches by nine inches, a small brass plaque that could be fastened on by simple screws. Personally, I had my doubts how long it would remain in place once the public were allowed access to the roof, it sounded just the sort of thing that some opportunist would remove as a souvenir of their visit, but then was not the day for voicing minor concerns. I know that Garnet - Mr. Wendelson - was very proud to be able to complete this last, small corner of his building. I think that perhaps if he had been a younger, more physically able man, he would have wanted to have been more hands-on with the whole construction, but his disability, of course, made this impossible, so to be able to fix the final plaque to its plinth was a genuine big deal for him. Anyhow, I knew that something was not quite right as soon as I started to wheel him across the terrace. The small monument was directly ahead of us, and the view beyond, where the roof sloped away, was truly breathtaking. I don’t know if I mentioned before but the weather could not have been better that day, well you’ll know that of course, but the sky was blue and the sun was beating bright, and what we both noticed, was the way the sunlight was reflected off a metal panel that had already been fixed to Mr. Wendelson’s plinth. I heard Mr. Wendelson curse when he saw it, but it took me a few more moments to realise the implication of what we saw: someone had beaten us to it, and had already fastened the final shiny brass plaque to the stone base. Mr. Wendelson was furious, cursing the construction manager, cursing Chin, the architect, saying that he had given clear instructions that he intended to complete this task personally. All this time, I was still wheeling him towards the dais, attempting to placate him, saying that we would remove the plaque and replace it with the one he had brought with him, but it was clear that the moment had been spoilt for him. The real shock came, though, when we stood next to the small monument and could read the inscription in place. You’ll have seen it, of course. I think I am accurate in saying that Mr. Wendelson’s surprise was no less than my own when we read at the same time, ‘To commemorate the suicide of Garnet G. Wendelson from the roof of the Wendelson Building this day of 1st May 2009’. And that, as I have told you before, is the last thing that I remember before waking up in the back of the ambulance.
A further witness statement contained within the police files which, from our point of view, rather neatly dovetails with Martin Meek’s account, takes up the events of 1st May 2009 from the point where Mr. Meek is unable to supply any further information. Leyton Drisdale, Mr. Wendelson’s lawyer and also executor of his will was one of the many stunned onlookers on the ground, who looked on in amazement as the wheelchair and its disabled occupant plunged to earth. Mr. Drisdale’s statement is clear and precise, as is befitting of someone in his profession.
I had arrived in Pyongyang the day before the inauguration and although I had managed to speak to Garnet Wendelson briefly on the telephone that evening, he had been too busy with preparations for the following day to be able to meet me. On the day in question, I had arrived early at the reception point, hoping to be able to catch a word with Garnet before the formalities began, but I was informed that he was already engaged in a personal ascent to the roof of the new building, and that he would not be available until later on that day. There was little else for me to do but accept the situation and enjoy myself as best I could. In actual fact, it
It was pure chance that I should happen to be looking in the right direction when the main entertainment of the inauguration day occurred. I apologise for sounding flippant, but there can be no argument that if Garnet had wanted to have a spectacular stunt to mark the opening of his building, something that would ensure that the Wendelson Building and its owner would be remembered for ever more, he couldn’t have come up with anything better. I realise that you are only interested in the facts, but I knew the man, and I can’t help but offer an opinion, and it is my view that Garnet Wendelson’s death is a case of suicide, plain and simple; it would have been entirely in keeping with everything I know about the man. The pursuit of building the tallest building in the world was his whole life, once that objective had been achieved there was nothing else to live for.
The first sign that something unusual was about to happen was the sound of what I first thought was an approaching rain storm. My head was not the only one to turn in the direction of the river at the sound of the water, and it was then that I saw that the waterfall that I had understood was to be switched on later that evening was actually in full flow; a powerful chute of water spurting from, I presume, the very top of the building - it was impossible to see the exact point of origin - out in a wide arc so that the droplets fell to earth in a wide crescent across almost the complete width of the Taedong River. The effect was more like that of an inverted fountain than of a genuine cascade, but it was nonetheless a magnificent spectacle. There were exclamations of surprise all around me, but they were nothing to the cries of horror which followed. I wasn’t the first to spot him: I just remember someone pointing upwards and screaming, and even then, attempting to follow the direction of the spectator’s gaze, it must have taken me several seconds before I noticed the falling object. It was the wheelchair that I recognised first, and then the crumpled figure falling almost alongside it, looking more like a rag doll than a human being, still so high up that it was little more than a black dot against the vast structure.
I knew it was Garnet instantly, don’t ask me how, I mean, I know the wheelchair was something of a giveaway, but it was more than that. It was just so entirely the kind of thing he would do. Perhaps I had even half been expecting him to do something like this. Perhaps that was why I had been particularly anxious to see him the night before. Perhaps I could have persuaded him to change his will if only I had seen him. I keep asking myself these questions now, but, of course, it is so easy to be wise after the event. Not that it matters now. And realistically, I don’t think he would have listened to me even if we had had the opportunity to meet: he was a stubborn man; the damage had already been done, long ago.
The only newspaper report that was filed alongside the other dossiers was a brief article that had appeared in the Washington Post the day after the tragedy. Representing the major, daily newspapers from Garnet’s homeland, it was only the correspondent from the Washington Post who had been officially invited to the inauguration day ceremonies; the New York papers having been deliberately snubbed by Garnet, who had still harboured a grudge about the negative way they had reported his attempts to build his first skyscraper beside the Hudson River more than thirty years beforehand.
International News: Pyongyang
The reclusive multi-millionaire* Garnet G. Wendelson has fallen to his death from the roof of his own building on the day of its inauguration. The Wendelson Building, at 555 metres the tallest building in the world, has been acclaimed as a wonder of modern construction engineering. Wendelson’s death and a related attack upon his male nurse are being treated by the local police force as suspicious assaults by person or persons unknown.
Part Two: Beloved Immortality