The Hummingbird

by Kati Hiekkapelto

  ‘Right now?’ asked Anna. Annoying. The shift would go into overtime.

  ‘Be in the car park in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Anna and hurried towards the showers.

  ‘Anna, wait. Bihar and her family are coming in for an interview on Friday. Can we go through the details of the case tomorrow? I want to talk about it before they come in,’ said Sari.

  ‘How about lunch and a meeting at twelve?’

  ‘It’s a deal. See you.’

  9

  JERE’S APARTMENT WAS SITUATED near the city centre in a stale-smelling, 1970s block of flats on Torikatu. On this spot there had once been a beautiful old wooden house with good ventilation and free of mould. Anna had seen photographs of the city taken at the turn of the century; it had changed a great deal since then. In the name of progress, quaint wooden areas of the city had been torn down to make way for concrete boxes, and cobbled streets were covered with tarmac. The remaining art nouveau buildings in the downtown area still exuded a bygone, bourgeois elegance, but only a very few wooden houses had been spared the cull. There were still a few former working-class areas complete with small wooden cottages in and around the city centre. These properties were highly desirable for the rich and famous, who spent hundreds of thousands repairing and extending them.

  The door to Jere’s apartment block stood anonymously between a local pub and a second-hand store. The caretaker was waiting for them with a set of keys. The lift creaked and rattled as they went up to the second floor. He opened the door and would have followed them into the apartment had Esko not raised a hand in front of him.

  ‘Hey, this is our territory now,’ he said and the caretaker retreated into the corridor, disappointed.

  On the doormat were a pile of flyers, a bill and a couple of free newspapers; the lowest in the pile was dated 21 August. Anna’s letter box bore the words NO FLYERS. She couldn’t stand it that in a matter of days the hallway was filled with rubbish. In an investigation, however, rubbish often provided crucial evidence.

  The spacious one-bedroom apartment was dim. All the curtains had been pulled shut. The rooms were large, the ceilings high, and the scarcity of any furniture made the place seem almost deserted. A bachelor pad, par excellence, thought Anna.

  They looked round the apartment, sizing it up. At first glance, everything seemed perfectly normal. Shoes were arranged in a tidy row on the hallway mat and coats hung on a rack. A T-shirt and a pair of socks lay on the floor next to the bed, but the bed itself had been made up neatly. There were no dust bunnies cowering beneath the sofa. On the coffee table was a pile of magazines and a coffee cup with a dried, brown oval at the bottom. Even the bathroom was clean. There was a tangle of hair in the plughole in the shower cabinet, but there were no layers of limescale around the toilet bowl or dried toothpaste stains in the sink. The kitchen looked as though it had recently been cleaned. The rubbish had been taken out and the dishes washed, and there were no crumbs on the worktop. The metallic draining board gleamed when Anna switched on the lights. There was nothing fresh in the fridge. It seemed that Jere hadn’t wanted to leave anything behind that might start smelling or grow mouldy.

  It’s a pain coming home when the first thing you have to do is start tidying up, Anna heard the voice of her mother. Was that why she always left a mess behind whenever she went on a trip? Was Jere planning on coming back? Hadn’t he run away after all? Anna had almost been hoping to encounter something sick and perverted, something that would have struck them the minute they walked in the door and revealed Jere’s guilt in an instant, but if there was such a thing, it was well hidden.

  ‘He certainly didn’t leave in a hurry,’ said Anna.

  ‘Hmph,’ Esko snorted.

  ‘He’s taken out the rubbish and everything,’ she continued.

  ‘And maybe there was something in the rubbish that needed to be disposed of,’ said Esko, his enunciation deliberately exaggerated. ‘You sure you understand everything I’m saying?’

  Anna tried not to rise to it.

  ‘Yes, I do. What about Riikka? Wasn’t she supposed to be living here? There are no signs of another occupant here – and certainly not a woman.’

  ‘Maybe that’s all been disposed of, too – Riikka included.’

  Esko spoke each word slowly and carefully and looked at Anna with mischief in his eyes.

  ‘Well, no point standing around, is there?’ said Anna, trying to control her irritation as she pulled a pair of gloves from her pocket. ‘If there’s something here to find, we’ll find it.’

  Esko scoffed again.

  They started in the living room. It was an oblong-shaped room with a window looking down on to the street. The few pieces of furniture were second hand but in good condition. Beneath the window was a white melamine desk that looked like it had been taken from his childhood home; one of its drawers featured a Turtles sticker. The old brown leather sofa was worn but looked comfortable. A shallow bookshelf featured a television and DVD player and a few books, but no ornaments. Mathematics, physics, Chandler, Nesser and Åsa Larsson. The boy certainly had good taste in crime fiction. The Hunter’s Cookbook, The Deer Hunter’s ABC, A Guide to Hiking and Fly Fishing: Baits and Lures. The outdoor type, no doubt about it. There was a shelf of CDs and DVDs, cheap American entertainment for the masses. The belongings of a pretty average young man. On the desk there was a relatively new laptop and a fancy calculator. There were box files full of marked essays and sheets of squared paper covered in complicated formulae. No diaries, no letters, nothing particularly personal except a passport.

  ‘He hasn’t gone abroad, at any rate,’ said Anna. ‘Here’s his passport.’

  ‘Just think for a minute, eh? You don’t need a passport to get to Sweden.’

  True. Or Norway, thought Anna but didn’t say anything.

  ‘We’ll have to ask Virkkunen for a warrant to confiscate the laptop, see what the IT boys can find on it,’ said Esko. ‘Kids’ private lives are on computers these days, private information posted on Facebook for all and sundry to read. You must have hundreds of dago friends online,’ Esko chuckled as though he’d told a particularly witty joke.

  Anna counted to five before responding.

  ‘I’m not on Facebook.’

  ‘Well! So we do have something in common. Who’d have thought?’

  Esko stared at Anna for a moment, a seedy smirk on his ruddy face. Anna looked away.

  ‘If Jere had posted online where he was going, one of his friends must surely know where he is,’ she continued.

  ‘Fancy that. So you can think, after all.’

  ‘I don’t get the impression that Jere fled on the spur of the moment. By the looks of it, he planned his departure very carefully,’ Anna carried on regardless of Esko’s tone.

  ‘This Jere is one cold-blooded character. See, that’s why men make better police officers. You women are too vulnerable to fluctuations in your emotions, you southern types probably more so than Finnish women.’

  Menj a picsába, Anna cursed to herself and decided not to exchange another word with him.

  If this had been a treasure hunt, the door into the bedroom would have been signposted Getting Warmer. The room itself was large. Anna opened the dark-blue curtains. A sudden light glinted against the white walls. From the window she saw the wall of the house opposite and looked down into the concrete courtyard, featuring a handful of parking spaces and a wooden seesaw with a small shrub sprouting beside it.

  In the middle of the room was a double bed. Even the bedspread was blue. Anna turned up the hem. It was hand made. Riikka? His mother? And why do I automatically assume it was made by a woman, she thought angrily. The boy could just as easily have made it himself.

  Esko gave a whistle. He had opened the double doors of a walk-in closet. There was nothing inside that might have suggested that Riikka lived there. Instead, there was a gun cabinet, locked according to official regulations. Anna felt her pulse quickening.
/>   ‘Well, well, let’s see what skeletons this model student has in his cupboard. Try and keep schtum for a minute, eh, so I can concentrate,’ said Esko rudely and knelt down in front of the cabinet. He slowly turned the dials of the combination lock, his ear close to the cabinet. In under a minute the door gave a quiet click and swung open. Wow, thought Anna. This is just like in the cinema. Naturally, she didn’t say this out loud.

  The cabinet contained a Marlin .45-calibre rifle, an old single-barrelled shotgun, a 16/70 Baikal and several drawers full of rounds and bullets.

  ‘There’s one rifle missing,’ said Esko.

  Anna was forced to open her mouth.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I’m getting vibrations; it’s as if the cupboard’s trying to tell me something,’ he said and stuck his head inside the cabinet, closed his eyes and listened.

  Anna waited.

  ‘There should be a .12-calibre Remington pump-action shotgun in here,’ Esko surmised as he crawled out of the cupboard. ‘Which, as you can see, is missing.’

  Anna stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘I checked out his licences before we left – just a few clicks on the computer, that’s how easy it is these days. Besides, if Little Miss Senior Detective Constable would like to take a closer look, she’ll find two packets of 12/70 steel shots. You wouldn’t put them in that monster, and certainly not in that rifle over there.’

  Anna felt ashamed. And furious at herself. Why hadn’t she thought of this? Checking a suspect’s licences is an elementary step.

  ‘Something for you to shove up your arse then, now you’ve come out the closet.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, gagging for it today, eh?’ he replied and gave her a dirty wink. Now there wasn’t even a flicker of a smile on his face.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Call the station, tell them he’s armed,’ Esko ordered her. ‘I’m going out for a cigarette and a snoop round the yard. My sense of smell isn’t what it used to be. Blame the fags.’

  Anna remained in the apartment, waves of disappointment pressing sweat into her armpits and on to her brow. I’ve completely cocked this up, she thought. Now that drunken git’s got one up, he’ll be able to laugh at the dago bitch who hasn’t got the first clue about police work. She called Virkkunen and told him what they’d discovered – or rather, what they hadn’t found. She didn’t mention who had checked Jere’s licences and who had not. Virkkunen thanked them for their good work and added the words ARMED and POSSIBLY DANGEROUS to the arrest warrant.

  Anna went round the rooms one more time, listening carefully to see whether the silence might tell her something as to the whereabouts of Jere and his rifle. If only these walls would reveal their secrets, the stupidity of moments ago would be erased. What’s the use of walls having ears if they don’t have a mouth too, she thought.

  That evening Anna finally called Ákos. She had been avoiding her mobile phone on the kitchen table, trying to think of something else to do, and even picked up the phone several times only to put it back down again. She’d gone out to the balcony a couple of times for a cigarette. What would she say? How would she start the conversation? Eventually she plucked up the courage and made the call.

  Her brother answered immediately. In the background she heard voices, laughter and the thump of music. Ákos was in a bar somewhere.

  ‘Anna, hogy vagy? Baj van?’ There was a crackle, a clatter, then everything fell silent. Ákos had moved somewhere else, outside perhaps, maybe into the gents.

  Anna took a deep breath and counted to three.

  ‘Jól vagyok, köszönöm. És te?’ she said eventually.

  ‘Hát én is jól vagyok.’

  A second’s silence. Anna tried to bolster her courage. Then she told him.

  ‘I moved back a week ago. We’re almost neighbours now.’

  ‘A kurva életbe, Anna. Why didn’t you say anything?’ her brother hollered down the telephone.

  ‘Haven’t had a chance. I started work yesterday. I’ve been rushed off my feet finding a flat and everything. I wondered if you’d like to come round on Sunday?’

  ‘Sunday? Why not? The Depraved are playing at Mara’s pub on Saturday night, I can’t miss that, but Sunday’s free. What time?’

  ‘Valamikor délután.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Have you heard from Mum?’

  ‘Not a peep.’

  ‘I spoke to her last week. She wants to talk to you. You could chat on Skype.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘She misses you.’

  ‘A faszom, Anna, you could have told me you’d moved back,’ Ákos tried to change the subject.

  ‘How have you been?’

  ‘You haven’t been in touch much.’

  Anna said nothing, but felt a sting of guilt beneath her skin. It was true. For the last ten years she hadn’t had much to do with her brother. They’d called each other occasionally, and seen each other even less. Anna hadn’t wanted to. She hadn’t had the energy. Neither have you, she felt like snapping.

  ‘Hey, I’ve gotta go. Zoran and Akim are waiting. Shall I say hello? Zoran will be happy, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Okay. Szia.’

  ‘Szia.’

  Anna ended the call.

  Zoran. Damn it, so he was still around.

  Anna recalled the last time she’d seen her brother. It had been a few years ago, at the end of a bitterly cold February. Ákos had called her on the verge of death and begged Anna for help. Throwing aside all her principles she had gone to him. Anna cleaned the bedsit, which was swimming in vomit and empty beer cans, and fetched her trembling brother food and sedatives. On the way home she’d hated herself. Thank God I don’t live any closer, she’d thought.

  And now she was here again. Less than a kilometre away.

  10

  ORIGINALLY, WHAT HAD FASCINATED ANNA about police work was its dynamism and variety, and in those respects she had not been disappointed in her choice of profession. Still, she was always surprised at how much paperwork was involved, how much sitting at a desk it entailed. Back in patrol, she’d always rounded off her shifts with paperwork, but here it seemed there was even more of it. Her third morning as a senior detective constable began by switching on her computer, and she would sit working at her desk for most of the day. A surprisingly large amount of her investigative work took place indoors, sitting by her computer, because the police force’s intranet provided access to all manner of information and registers. The world of television drama series, with detectives running along the streets with a gun in their hand, was a far cry from the calm atmosphere in the station’s offices.

  She wondered how long it would take before they started to get some results. She hoped they’d find Jere quickly.

  At twelve on the dot Sari knocked at the door and fetched Anna for lunch. They decided to go to a wine bar that had just opened up in town and that served lunch during the day. It was a pleasant place with dark wooden fittings and velvet finishings; the ambience was intimate and dusky, even in the middle of the day.

  ‘We should come here some evening, too,’ said Sari. ‘The wine list looks excellent. Should we have a glass now, wave goodbye to a sober afternoon,’ she giggled.

  ‘I’ll have one too. The Australian Chardonnay sounds nice and fresh,’ said Anna.

  ‘Oh. I wasn’t being serious.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean, I wasn’t serious about ordering a glass. Not while we’re on duty, surely? It was a joke.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, right. Sorry,’ said Anna. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get my head round the strange alcohol etiquette in Finland. I suppose I’m just too foreign. I’ve never understood what could possibly be wrong with a glass or two, on duty, morning, evening, whenever.’

  ‘You don’t go out on the piss, then?’

  ‘Sometimes, if I feel like it – there’s a little bit of the Finn in me, after all. But that’s exactly what I mean: if you have
one glass, it’s automatically synonymous with going out on the piss. The way people talk about alcohol here is so strange and hypocritical. Back home only being clearly drunk is frowned upon.’

  ‘Funny you should say back home, though you’ve lived here since you were ten.’

  ‘I go back a couple of times a year, and I spend all my holidays there. Maybe that’s why. Though generally I feel like I’m somewhere in between, neither here nor there.’

  Anna could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. She’d had to go and put her foot in it.

  ‘Have you got a man?’ Sari asked with a cheeky grin. She didn’t appear to notice that Anna thought this a very intimate revelation.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Haven’t found the right one?’

  ‘I don’t know. Suppose not.’

  ‘What about in your other homeland?’

  ‘No, not there either.’

  Anna felt embarrassed. Her mind was flooded with thoughts of the sweltering heat two summers ago, the shadows on the banks of the Tisza, the 30-degree water in the river that had seemed almost cool. She’d been back home for over a month in a single stretch and had enjoyed her time there more than ever before. This summer she hadn’t managed more than a week there. It had passed in a flash as she’d gallivanted from village to village and obligatory meetings with relatives. Only one evening had she been able to sit down at a járas with her childhood friend Réka, a couple of cans of beer in a cool box, and sit in peace watching the glowing red sun sink into the open, comfortless embrace of the hills. It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t know when she’d next have a holiday.

  ‘You really do seem to be somewhere in between.’ Sari’s voice was gentle, but her gaze bored deep into Anna’s dark eyes. ‘You know what, we’re going to order that wine. Jesus, I couldn’t agree more. Finns’ relationship with alcohol is crazy.’

  They ordered two glasses of Chardonnay to accompany their lunch of mushroom soup and salmon. There was a buffet with four different side salads. Excellent, Anna enthused, no more lunch in the staff canteen, and definitely no more quickly gobbled trans-fat meals from petrol stations and hotdog stands. She had finally reached a stage in life when she had the time to eat healthily.