Where Have All the Young Girls Gone

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “There isn’t anything all that special about these. It was just a slow news day.”

  Koivu, who had just walked through the door with a sheaf of papers under his arm, said, “Yeah, but Ruuskanen is spitting mad because he’s being accused of being a raghead ass-licker. And, of course, us cops are all the same. I’ll probably have to start recusing myself from investigating immigrant crimes because I’m married to a Vietnamese Chinese woman who moved here when she was two. You got the request to come to the meeting at nine, right? Samir’s family is pretty popular around here right now. Yesterday a fax came from the Bosnian police with Sara Amir’s interview word for word.”

  “Fax? Don’t they know how to use e-mail?”

  “They’re probably afraid that the Swedish Security Service will intercept the message,” Puupponen said with a smirk. “Is there anything interesting in it?”

  “Don’t rush me—I’m reading.” Koivu poured coffee into his stained mug, added two sugar cubes, and dug for his reading glasses in his jacket pocket. I flipped through one of the tabloids, realizing that I didn’t know half of the people the gossip columns were talking about. Luckily the reporters had been kind enough to add descriptive titles: “familiar from Big Brother,” “contestant on The Apprentice,” “of Bachelor fame.” Maybe it was high time for me to start updating my TV knowledge.

  Koivu read with intense concentration. His reading glasses slipped down a little on his nose, and he pushed them back up. His wedding ring looked tight, and his gray corduroy jacket was worn at the elbows. Of all the men in the world, Koivu was the dearest to me after Antti—he was the brother I’d never had. I saw his eyebrow raise half a second before he opened his mouth.

  “Well, well, well! I think we just cleared up why Sara is happy to be in Bosnia. Apparently, her brother had been molesting her and sometimes hitting her. Sara’s parents thought it would be best for her to return to Bosnia so that her brother wouldn’t lose his residency permit in Finland. Samir has a panic attack and hides in the corner and rocks back and forth—that’s what it says here in the English translation—whenever he thinks that he’ll have to leave.”

  I remembered what Samir had said about the “wrong boys” Sara had been spending time with. Had he come up with that explanation himself, or had it been fed to him? It would be up to the forensic psychiatrists to figure out how delusional Samir was. It would probably be my job to question his parents, which would help us determine who was ultimately responsible.

  And that was precisely what Ruuskanen suggested when we sat down for our meeting. Because Samir Amir and the Girls Club staff were connected to the missing young women, our cell would add the rape case to our task list. It was an open-and-shut case, so all we’d have to do was get it ready for the prosecutor.

  “But I’ll handle the media myself. Is that clear, Kallio?”

  “Crystal.”

  After the meeting, I contacted Jorvi Hospital to ask how Samir was doing. A nurse promised that the attending physician would call me back when he finished his rounds. Koivu contacted Samir’s parents. They’d been extremely concerned when they hadn’t heard from their son on Friday night. Samir was an adult, so no one had been obligated to notify his next of kin, but I had still assumed that the hospital would have contacted the parents of a psychiatrically ill patient. Based on Koivu’s repeated sighs, the conversation was arduous.

  “I’ll contact you again. Samir is not in any danger. You don’t need to go to the hospital. We will come to see you with an interpreter.” Although Koivu’s voice was calm, and he was speaking slowly and clearly, his face was getting red.

  “I’m not sure Samir’s father understood even half of what I said,” Koivu said after hanging up. “He seemed to think that Samir had been in some sort of accident. We’re going to need a Bosnian-speaking interpreter; apparently the mother doesn’t speak a word of Finnish, even though the family has lived here for ages. Supposedly she knows English, but it seems a little dodgy to go talking to them in a language no one involved with this case speaks fluently. Where is our list of official interpreters?”

  Heini Korhonen’s name was on the list, but naturally Koivu had skipped over it. In the meantime I called Heini again. This time she answered her phone.

  “Hi, this is Heini.”

  “This is Maria Kallio. How are you coping?”

  Heini didn’t answer for a long time. Her breathing was a little raspy, but I didn’t hear any sounds of crying.

  “Nelli called yesterday,” she finally said. “She claimed I’d written some nonsense on the Girls Club e-mail list. It wasn’t me.”

  “So, you didn’t write about the rape online?”

  “Why on earth would I do that? This is already hard enough without everyone finding out about it. I never could have imagined how terrible I’d feel. Never.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “At Kimmo’s place in Lippajärvi.”

  “Alone?”

  “My brother’s wife and kids are here. Väinö is three and Aino is six months. What has Samir said? Why did he do it?”

  “We haven’t been able to interview Samir yet.”

  “But he’s locked up, right?”

  Heini’s voice was shrill. In the background I could hear a child singing, “Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool,” and another child yelling out infant babble, mimicking the one singing.

  “Yes,” I answered, even though I didn’t actually know what kind of room Samir was in—but I did know he was under guard. “Have you been in contact with any sort of support group?”

  “Nelli stopped by yesterday. But no one can really help.”

  This made me even more concerned. Her reaction to what had happened was normal, but she shouldn’t be left alone. I asked her about the security on the e-mail list, and she said that only Nelli and she knew each other’s passwords and were able to remove messages from the discussion board. Heini didn’t have any idea who could have gotten her password.

  Her brother, Kimmo, had been furious about what had happened to his sister and had apparently managed to squeeze the details of the rape out of her. Could he have gotten her passwords too? When I asked where Heini kept her passwords, she answered that she memorized them.

  “And they aren’t just your birth date or phone number or anything like that?”

  “Of course not! They’re just random words.”

  Telecommunications fraud and identity theft weren’t our responsibility, so I’d have to leave that for others to investigate. Still, I wasn’t totally confident that Heini was telling the truth. What if she’d written the messages while in shock and didn’t remember? The emergency room doctor had prescribed a week of sick leave, but Heini said she was going to the Girls Club that afternoon.

  “I won’t let what that bastard did destroy me. I’m going to continue with my life.”

  I didn’t ask whether Sara had told Heini that Samir had molested her. That would have been too cruel. Instead, I told her I’d come by the Girls Club if I could.

  Koivu announced that the Bosnian interpreter’s child was sick, and the earliest we would be able to get her would be Tuesday afternoon, when her husband would be free to provide childcare. I had to laugh about how the simplest delays could make an investigation drag on endlessly. The physician attending Samir didn’t have much to report: Samir was still in a psychotic state, and they hadn’t been able to get through to him. He just lay there, so they’d been forced to put him on an IV. He wasn’t even using the restroom, the doctor said.

  “We’re trying another medication now.”

  “Is there anyone in the hospital who speaks Bosnian or something related? That would be good if the hospital staff wants to contact Samir’s parents,” I said.

  “The pediatric ward has a nurse who knows Serbo-Croatian. I’ll see if she has better luck with the patient than the Finnish speakers have had.”

  Koivu and Puupponen left to continue interviewing the Ezfahanis. I poisoned my mind b
y reading the online discussion the username HeiniK had set off, until the mental nausea began to turn physical, and I realized I was hungry. I called Taskinen and asked him to lunch, but he was in Vantaa in a joint Helsinki-Espoo-Vantaa metro area coordination meeting. So, I went down to the cafeteria alone and ended up slurping my bowl of vegetable soup with the white-collar crime investigators and barely escaped being dragged into their Tuesday night hockey betting pool. The Blues were in danger of being knocked out of the playoffs, which seemed to be a catastrophe for two of the detectives but gave Kantelinen, who was from Turku, the opportunity to give the others a good ribbing.

  On the bus ride to Tapiola I talked with my mom on the phone—she would be coming on Wednesday. My sister Helena’s husband, Petri, had offered to outfit his van so Dad could lie down in it to travel home, but my mother was doubtful that the vehicle’s suspension was good enough to transport someone with a back injury.

  The door at the Girls Club was unlocked, even though the activity groups wouldn’t be starting until four o’clock. I stepped inside and heard two women having a heated discussion.

  “But that’s what Ayan’s mother told me!”

  “Should we tell the police? She told them she didn’t know anything about Ayan.” I recognized the second speaker as Nelli Vesterinen.

  “Hello,” I said loudly and then stepped into the room like a deus ex machina that shows up at the end of the play to turn the situation on its head. “What should you tell the police?” The first speaker was Miina, who jumped when she saw me. She had on a white knit dress that went all the way down to her ankles, with a hood that she’d pulled over her head, covering her hair. She tugged the hood back from her forehead before answering.

  “I met Ayan’s mother yesterday by chance at the Cello Mall. I asked her if she’d heard anything about Ayan. She yelled at me and told me to go away and that she never wanted to see me again. She said Ayan had left because of me, because I’m evil and dirty. But I have no idea what she was talking about.”

  18

  “So, you weren’t lovers?” I asked Miina, who had fallen silent as she considered what Ayan’s mother’s words could have meant.

  “No! Though you can love friends too.” Miina’s pale eyes looked at me pleadingly; her eyelashes were so white they were barely distinguishable from her skin. “Why would someone have told Ayan’s mother we were in a relationship? Who would do that?”

  “Maybe Aisha misunderstood. Did she say that she knows where Ayan is?”

  “No, but she said that Ayan left because of me.”

  To me, Aisha had claimed she didn’t know anything about Ayan. That had obviously been a lie. I thought back to our conversation. When she’d asked if Ayan had been found, she’d looked hopeful, and after I’d asked whether one of the male members of the family could have killed her, she’d clammed up entirely. Then we’d forgotten about Ayan in the aftermath of Noor Ezfahani’s murder.

  “Did she say that Ayan left or that Ayan was sent away? And by leaving, did she mean leaving the country—or dying?”

  “I don’t know. Ayan’s mother—Aisha—doesn’t speak Finnish very well, like you said. I can’t be sure what she really meant.”

  “I’ve met her. Did you talk to her for long?”

  “No, it was more like she was trying to brush me off.” Miina had been in the big supermarket at the Cello Mall buying dish soap when she saw Aisha Muhammed Ali with her shopping cart. Miina had met Ayan’s mother a few times when visiting her friend’s home; Ayan only took her there when all of the men of the family were away. During her visits Aisha had been friendly and served tea, so Miina had no reason to expect her outburst of anger at the store.

  “She only stopped yelling when she noticed that people were staring, and one man came to ask if I needed help. He probably thought that Aisha was attacking me. What on earth could she have been thinking? I’m no lesbo, even though some of the guys say that all of the girls in the club are.”

  I laughed. It was the same thing everywhere. Whenever women formed their own communities, close-minded men labeled the groups as breeding grounds for lesbians, but no one would dream of calling the Finnish Club a homosexual society because women were only allowed there on certain evenings.

  The door opened and a cold blast of air swept through the room, followed by Heini Korhonen. She was walking strangely, stooped over and with her eyes flitting from side to side. The clothes she had on were the same ones I had taken out of her closet on Friday night. They stank of sweat. Nelli rushed over and hugged her, but Heini didn’t respond. She just stood with her arms hanging at her sides, staring at something the rest of us couldn’t see. Miina looked at me aghast.

  “Hi, Heini. Is it wise for you to be here right now?” I asked. Nelli let go of her colleague, realizing the state she was in.

  “You really don’t look well,” Nelli said. “You’re on sick leave. Go home and get some rest! We’ll manage just fine. I was just saying to Miina that she could lead your book group—she was going to use Merja Virolainen’s new poetry collection, I’m a Girl, Wonderful!”

  “No need. It’s the same as when you fall off a horse. It’s best to just get back in the saddle.” Heini tried to smile, which looked even more dreadful than her previous apathetic expression.

  “Have you spoken with Sylvia? She must not have read the message on the e-mail list, or else we would have heard from her.”

  “No. Why would I? This is personal business.”

  “So, Sylvia doesn’t know anything?” Nelli asked.

  I interrupted. “She’s probably still in Hamburg with her friend.”

  “Friedrich Wende,” Nelli said. Heini didn’t react. She just sat down on the nearest chair and didn’t say anything. The smell of sweat grew stronger. Forensics had finished their work on Saturday, so Heini could have gone home to change clothes by now.

  “Sylvia won’t like it if we don’t tell her. Especially since you’re on sick leave . . . ,” Nelli continued.

  “But I’m not going to take it,” Heini muttered. “I’m safe here. The book is in the lounge. I need to make copies of the poems.” She still didn’t get up, though. She just sat there in her chair, eyes staring away from us like a blind woman’s.

  “Listen, Heini,” I said, trying to put as much energy as possible into my voice. “How about I take you home? I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you stink.”

  When Heini didn’t answer, I told Miina that I’d picked out the clothes for Heini on Friday. Heini claimed again that she was fine, then stood up slowly and walked to the back of the club. If her strategy for getting through this was returning to work, that was good enough. Nelli and Miina would be able to handle her.

  I didn’t want to torment Heini with any more questions. Miina promised to escort her home after the book club and then stay with her if she needed the company. As for me, I said I was going to have a chat with Ayan’s mother, Aisha, to find out what she’d meant in the cleaning supplies aisle at the supermarket at the Cello Mall.

  Nelli walked me out. She closed the outer door to the club behind her before saying, “I’ve been thinking and thinking about that e-mail on the list. Heini was at her brother’s house overnight. Her brother is a bit . . . skeptical of immigration. Maybe he stole Heini’s password somehow. He doesn’t really like Heini’s job. They’re pretty different people.”

  She stopped and dug in her jacket pocket. “Damn it, no gum. I stopped smoking when I started working here. Sylvia said I was the right woman for the Girls Club otherwise, but that she wouldn’t hire a smoker, because I had to set a good example for the kids. Sometimes I just want a cigarette so damn bad. You don’t have any gum, do you?”

  “Would salmiakki work?” I still had the candy Iida and I had bought in Kauniainen the day before.

  “Yeah, that’ll work.”

  I fished the box of Panther licorice out of the nether regions of my bag and told Nelli to take two. She threw one into her mouth and put the other in her
pocket. “Or Heini wrote it when she was still a basket case and doesn’t remember or doesn’t dare admit it. Either way, it was one hell of a mistake. We’ll see if she gets through the night without us having to call the men in the white coats. Later!”

  Nelli went back inside, and I started walking toward the center of Tapiola. As I waited at a traffic light, a bus pulled up to a nearby stop. I watched the people stepping off, and among them was Tuomas Soivio. He blushed when he recognized me, but he still walked up to me, and together we set off across the street after the light turned green.

  “How’s it going, Tuomas?” He looked like someone had turned out the lights behind his eyes.

  “Terribly. I never would have believed I could really feel like . . . this.”

  His words sounded familiar; Heini had used almost the same expression. I didn’t tell Tuomas that time heals all wounds, because he wouldn’t have believed me.

  “My lawyer, Ljungberg, said that you’re one of the biggest motherfucking bitches he’s ever met,” Tuomas continued, his voice shrill. “He says you’ll try to nail me to the wall and maybe even put me in jail if you can.”

  “You have a really bad defense lawyer if he thinks your first offense could get you a prison sentence. Maybe it’s time for a change?” We passed a kebab-pizzeria that was giving off a scent that would have had Koivu inside ordering a double döner already. “Besides, I’m not the one who decides what the charges are—that’s the prosecutor. I didn’t even handle that investigation, as you know perfectly well.”

  “It was Miro Ruuskanen’s dad, right? He was in charge?”