The Hummingbird

by Kati Hiekkapelto

  ‘I’m so slow.’

  ‘Well, I’m off. See you on Monday.’

  ‘See you.’

  Anna slowly sipped her pint and peered from behind her fringe at the man in the wheelchair. He had noticed her gaze and was returning her glances, staring almost. Without a second thought for the situation or the potential repercussions, Anna stood up and walked over to the man’s table. Sitting around the same table we are equal, she thought as she sat down opposite the man.

  ‘Hi. I’m Anna,’ she said and held out her hand.

  The man gripped Anna’s hand firmly. ‘Hello, Anna. You look stunning. I noticed you the moment I arrived. I’m Petri. Petri Ketola.’

  I noticed you too, she thought.

  ‘Fekete Anna,’ she said, her hand lingering in the man’s powerful grip.

  ‘Ah, you’re Hungarian? Cool. She doesn’t look at all Finnish, I said to myself. I’ve always wanted to visit Budapest.’

  ‘Yes, I’m Hungarian. But I don’t like Budapest: too big, too dirty. And the people are so uptight.’

  ‘Were you born here? Your Finnish is so good. You haven’t even got an accent.’

  ‘Thanks. I wasn’t born here. But I’m not from Hungary either – well, at least not from modern Hungary. I’m from the Hungarian minority in the former Yugoslavia. My home town is in the north of Serbia, very near the Hungarian border.’

  ‘Fascinating. I didn’t know there were Hungarians there.’

  ‘Well, nobody really knows,’ she laughed. ‘It’s not all that interesting.’

  ‘Yes, it is. It’s really interesting. When did you come to Finland?’

  ‘1992. I was almost ten.’

  ‘Was it because of the war, the break-up of Yugoslavia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How bad was it? Is it okay to talk about this, or…?’

  ‘There was no fighting where we lived – or in the Serb area, for that matter. In the north things were relatively calm, in a way. But we Hungarians were sent to the front. Those that happened to live in Serb territory were sent out with the other Serb troops, first to Croatia, then Bosnia and finally Kosovo, and those that lived on the Croatian side were conscripted to the Croatian army. So, at least in theory, it was entirely possible that two Hungarians could have been fighting against one another. And I have an older brother. Well, two actually. Both of them were a prime age for the army back then.’

  ‘I see,’ said Petri.

  ‘It was a crazy time. The Hungarians couldn’t care less about all that Serbian nationalist chest-beating. And Belgrade isn’t our capital city, and the names Kosovo Polje or Republika Srpska don’t bring me out in patriotic goosebumps. But what can you do if you just happen to live there? If someone simply drew the border in the wrong place?’

  ‘I remember watching it on the news. Srebrenica and Kosovo. Still, I was only a kid back then. There were a couple of documentaries on TV about it. It must be twenty years since the war broke out.’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t really understand it much back then. But I remember what it felt like, like the world was coming to an end. It seemed as though nobody had any future.’

  Petri gave Anna an inquisitive glance.

  ‘You have amazing eyes,’ he said, a twinkle in his own eyes.

  The man’s flirting and flattery felt better than the glow of the sunshine; Anna wasn’t the least fazed by it. She sipped her beer, which by now was like lukewarm tea. She felt relaxed and self-assured.

  ‘Can I pry a little?’ she asked.

  ‘You may.’

  ‘What put you in that chair?’

  ‘My dad was drunk and crashed the car when I was five. I was in the car.’

  ‘Shit. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’m glad you asked. Normally people are too embarrassed.’

  ‘Maybe I don’t have normal inhibitions.’

  ‘I noticed that already, saw it in those dark eyes,’ said Petri, staring at her intensely. ‘What are your plans for the evening?’

  Anna smiled. ‘Well, first I thought I’d have another beer and chat with you for a while, then I’ll go home.’

  Anna was quiet for a moment and looked teasingly at Petri. He could barely hide his disappointment.

  ‘And then I thought I could get to know an interesting man in my apartment a bit more closely. Quite a lot more closely, actually. If that man wanted to join me, that is.’

  Petri swallowed and nodded, then laughed out loud. Anna fetched them another couple of pints.

  After finishing them off, they headed off along the gravel path, away from the park and towards the taxi rank at the end of Aleksanterinkatu, Petri’s head at the level of Anna’s chest.

  ‘You smell of beer again. For God’s sake, can’t you come home without having a drink first?’

  Nina Forsman was standing in the hallway blow-drying her chestnut hair. She was a short, slender woman. In the past, Rauno had always felt a desire to protect her. Recently he had been tempted to hit her on more than one occasion, to slap that chiselled face, that small nose and full lips, to shut the infernal mouth that spouted words that crushed him and made him feel worthless, words that he was unable to answer in the same way, in any way.

  ‘I went for one drink with the new detective. We need to show we’re there for her. It must be terrible turning up for a new job and getting Esko as your partner. Sari and I agreed to be supportive friends to her.’

  Why the fuck do I have to explain myself, Rauno cursed under his breath. Why can’t I say to her face that I’ll drink as much as I damn well please?

  ‘I doubt that’s much of an imposition. She’s a good-looking young woman, apparently, an exotic foreigner. Sari told me. I’m sure you’re drooling after her already. Where did you go? Why did it take you so long? Have you shagged her yet?’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘You never go anywhere with me.’

  ‘You always want to go out with the girls and let your hair down. I’m not one of the girls.’

  ‘Hah, you could’ve fooled me these last few weeks.’

  ‘Give it a bloody rest,’ Rauno raised his voice.

  Two small children pattered into the hallway shouting for Daddy. Rauno picked the girls up, one after the other, trying to disguise and swallow his anger. He pressed his nose into their clean heads of fine hair, the grip of their chubby arms all but strangling him. At least someone in this household is happy. Perhaps I’m a happy man after all, he thought. Somebody loves me.

  Nina dabbed foundation on her face, her brow almost touching the mirror, pencilled on some eyeliner, puffed her eyelashes with black mascara and powdered her cheeks with blusher. She’s pretty, no doubt about it, thought Rauno as he felt a twitch at his left trouser leg.

  ‘What are you staring at? Go and play with the girls; they’ve been waiting for you all day. I’m calling the taxi now. I’ll try not to be late, but you know Jenni and Mervi. A night out with them always drags on. See you. There’s liver casserole in the fridge.’

  Rauno stood there sniffing the air that Nina had left behind her, and he didn’t feel the slightest sense of longing or sorrow. He felt indifferent, almost relieved that she was gone. He went to the living-room window, carefully pulled back the curtains and secretly watched her as she nattered into her mobile, relaxed and carefree. A taxi pulled up in front of the house and his wife disappeared inside it. The taxi drove away leaving the driveway empty once again. Does Nina feel more at ease when I’m not here, Rauno wondered. He put the casserole in the microwave and went into the children’s bedroom to build Lego towers.

  14

  BY MONDAY MORNING clouds had drifted back across the city, just as the weather forecast had promised. They seemed to be waving a grey calendar in people’s faces, one that foreshadowed heavy rain, forcing people to look around and to accept that August was over. Autumn was now on its way.

  Anna had spent Sunday on the balcony with Ákos. She had been nervous at the prospect of her brother’s visit
. She had anxiously paced back and forth through her apartment, finally trying to unpack the remaining boxes of clutter and put everything in its place. She had thought carefully about where to display the old family photograph: on the bookshelf or on the bedside table. What would Ákos say when he saw it? Did he have a single photograph of any of them, she wondered. Eventually she had slipped the photograph back into its box, and was just wiping her sweaty palms on her trouser legs when the doorbell rang.

  But Ákos had been in a good mood; straight away he’d seemed close and familiar again. The gig the previous night had been amazing, the pub filled with youngsters. It had made him believe in the future once again. Punk hadn’t died, after all, and the sun was shining – it warmed the shaded balcony to almost tropical temperatures. They had rolled csevap sausages from mincemeat, cooked them under the grill in the oven and eaten out on the balcony. The heat had made the atmosphere languid; they felt relaxed and lazy. At one point they had felt like going for a swim but couldn’t find the energy. Their bellies were full of raw onion, csevap and cold beer. And Ákos hadn’t overdone it on the drink. Perhaps her brother had finally settled down a bit, finally grown up.

  They had reminisced about the baking summer days of their childhood, days when the entire family, the entire town had escaped the sun and sat in the shade of the poplars and weeping willows along the banks of the River Tisza. Their tall boughs provided more shade than the whitewashed clay walls of the houses and the tightly fastened shutters across the windows. They had cooked fish soup and gulyás on an open fire; Anna could still recall the smell of smoke and paprika. They hadn’t gone home until well into the evening, as the crickets and frogs began their nocturnal concert once darkness had fallen. Even at night, the humidity never let up.

  The Tisza was a magnificent river in shades of grey-green and brown, sometimes almost black, flowing all the way from Romania through Hungary and northern Serbia, past Anna and Ákos’s former hometown and merging with the Danube just outside Belgrade. There was a mystical beauty about that river. Its silence and calmness were treacherous, as the current was strong. The river was the first thing that came to mind whenever they thought of home. Uncovering this shared memory had felt somehow significant. The Tisza, a river flowing thousands of kilometres away, brought them together here, far away in the north where they had ended up as the result of a string of coincidences. It felt as though the river were flowing within them, in their veins. It was in the Tisza that they had learned to swim, and on those riverbanks that they had spent their childhood and Ákos his teenage years. The river had been important to their father, and their mother still swam there all summer long.

  They had planned a trip home together as soon as Anna could get some time off work. She assumed she would have to pay for the flights, but it didn’t matter because Ákos had only visited once since they had left all those years ago. Anna was prepared to pay whatever it took to get her brother back home to see their mother.

  Ákos hadn’t agreed to a Skype call. Maybe next week, he’d said, and Anna hadn’t wanted to push the matter. Not now, not when they’d just had such a nice time together and even the sunshine seemed to warm their frosty relationship.

  *

  It was spitting with rain. The temperature had dropped and Anna shivered as she cycled into the city centre. She had decided to cycle after missing her planned runs over the weekend. It was a mistake. Her hair was damp and her ears felt chilled, and she was afraid she might catch a cold. The people walking past her bore an expression of disappointment. Where had the sun disappeared to? Where on earth had those nasty clouds come from to taunt us, and why?

  Her working week started with a long meeting in the auditorium on the fourth floor. The entire Violent Crimes Unit had assembled along with representatives from the analysis team. Domestic violence, accidents in the workplace, assaults, and the cases of Riikka and Bihar were all on the agenda. They certainly had plenty to be getting on with, Virkkunen commented from beside the projector. Its bright light was reflected in his glasses so powerfully that Anna couldn’t make out his eyes at all.

  ‘We’ll have our work cut out until the human race dies of extinction,’ Anna whispered to Sari, who was sitting next to her on the sofa. Sari nodded and yawned absent-mindedly, then gave Anna a wry smile and whispered back that her husband had been home for the weekend.

  Anna glanced around the room. There was no sign of Esko.

  The analysis team gave a rundown on the most important events of the previous week, and when it was time to discuss the case of the murdered jogger the door at the back of the auditorium opened and Esko crept inside. His eyes seemed even more swollen than before – if such a thing was possible; his face was ashen and pink, and his hair tangled. Virkkunen looked furious.

  ‘I think he’s in for a talking-to,’ Sari whispered to Anna. ‘He’s clearly hung-over.’

  Virkkunen gave a short summation of the facts surrounding the discovery of Riikka Rautio and the cause of death. He then placed a topographical map of the area around Selkämaa on the projector so that those present could get a grasp of events as a whole. Then he asked Senior Detective Kirsti Sarkkinen from Forensics to say a few words. Kirsti stood up from her seat in the front row, twiddling a memory stick in her fingers.

  ‘We didn’t really find anything at the scene,’ she began. Anna could sense a sigh of disappointment sweep across the room, or perhaps she only imagined it. Perhaps it was only in her head.

  Kirsti inserted the memory stick into the laptop on the table, pushed the projector’s mirror to one side and clicked on a photograph from the scene of the murder. Once again the blood and spatter hit Anna’s eyes and she began to feel sick. She turned away and looked towards the front left-hand corner of the room. Thankfully Kirsti quickly changed the image on the screen. Now the screen showed a close-up of the surface of the track; only in the corner of the picture could you make out a bit of blood.

  ‘It’s impossible to discern any individual shoeprints in all that sawdust; the material is too soft and pliable,’ she explained. ‘Besides, even if we had been able to identify something, it would be impossible to enter it into evidence as the track has obviously been used by plenty of people other than the killer. Still, it was interesting to examine. In a thousand years scientists will be able to use our material as an archaeological investigation into the development of Gore-tex. Decade upon decade of rubber and exercise fabric is layered among the sawdust. It’s fascinating.’

  Sari gave Anna a look of amusement. ‘We’ve always said that Kirsti is a good archaeologist going to waste,’ she whispered.

  ‘Good job for the police,’ Anna whispered back.

  ‘In the car park, however, it would have been possible to distinguish tyre tracks and even shoeprints had the heavy rain that night not washed everything away. So that’s that. And we can’t be sure that the killer arrived by car, though the old man living in the vicinity said he heard the sound of a car at around the time of the shooting.’

  ‘There are three primary ways of reaching the location,’ Rauno interjected. ‘Along the track through the woods leading from the new detached houses or through the scrubland from the shoreline. But, of course, the easiest way to get there would be along the path coming from the main road. I think we can assume the killer arrived at the site by car. The running track is so out of the way that someone walking or cycling there would likely attract more attention.’

  ‘Does the missing boyfriend own a car?’ asked Sari.

  ‘Yes,’ Anna replied. ‘Former boyfriend, actually. He has a blue Renault Laguna from 2004. It’s currently parked in the yard behind his apartment. The keys weren’t inside the flat.’

  The image on the screen changed. Riikka Rautio lay on the sawdust, her head blown off. Anna gulped back a wave of nausea and forced herself to look at it. A fene egye meg, I’d better get used to this if I’m going to survive this job, she berated herself.

  ‘The autopsy report has been availab
le for everyone to read since last week, so I won’t go into that any further. In the victim’s sock we found a very long, blonde hair, which cannot belong to the victim because her hair was dark.’

  ‘It must belong to Virve Sarlin,’ said Anna. ‘Riikka’s best friend. Virve told us that Riikka had been living with her all summer.’

  ‘That would explain things.’

  ‘Virve seemed agitated during our interview – and she doesn’t have an alibi for the evening of the murder.’

  ‘Let’s keep that it mind,’ said Virkkunen.

  ‘That brings us to the ballistics report,’ Kirsti continued.

  The officers in the auditorium appeared to sit up straighter, as though this was the bit they had been waiting for. If they could isolate and identify the murder weapon, at least they’d have something concrete to go on, something to find, to use as evidence when the time came.

  ‘At the scene we found a total of 181 3.5-milligram steel pellets with a combined weight of 32 grams. In plain English that means we’re looking for a .12-calibre smoothbore rifle with room in the barrel for at least 70 rounds. This is one of the most common rifles among game hunters in Finland. There are hundreds of thousands of them in circulation. In theory, the round that killed Riikka Rautio could have been fired by any one of them. The only way to identify the individual firearm would be if there was some damage to the barrel that might leave striations on the pellets. In this case, needless to say, there were no marks. The firearm could also be a 12/76 – a magnum, that is – or a 12/89, a super magnum, making the range of possible murder weapons even larger. Judging by the plug found among the brain matter, we can identify the round as one produced by a company called Armusa – a widely used manufacturer. So there’s nothing to get your hopes up. With such paltry information, we won’t get anyone – I mean, anyone – up on charges for this.’

  ‘Jere owns a 12/70 Remington,’ Esko piped up. His voice rattled with the sound of the booze and cigarettes he’d got through that weekend. ‘And it’s missing from his gun cabinet, just as clearly as the boy is missing from the flat.’