Where Have All the Young Girls Gone
Page 29
Despite the uplifting message of the article, I walked home that night feeling despondent. I hadn’t had time to tell Sylvia Sandelin about Heini’s scheme yet. Koivu had been in touch with the Muslim communities in nearby countries, and I had checked possible human traffickers. After she ran out of money, Ayan wouldn’t have anything to sell but herself. There certainly wouldn’t be any shortage of buyers.
My mother had arrived, and when I walked in the door she was in the middle of giving my dad a lecture about how stupid he was. He just had to go lifting heavy things at his age, didn’t he? Listening to her tone of voice was a trip back to my childhood. My parents had often said that constant nagging was just a way of speaking—“just sayin’,” as Iida’s generation would have expressed it—but I hadn’t understood that as a child, so it still bugged me. The kids had their grandparents to keep them company, so I spent the evening doing laundry and mending the hanging loops on some of our hand towels. I would have liked to put my brain in the washing machine too—maybe the permanent-press cycle would work.
I drove my parents to the airport on Thursday. It wasn’t possible to get to Joensuu or Kuopio, the larger towns near Arpikylä, by sleeper train anymore, so my parents would be flying with special disability status. My dad’s back was still sore, but it hurt the least when he was either walking or lying down. The doctor had prescribed some strong pain medication, so Dad could get through the flight, though after taking a pill he could barely talk.
Helena was the only one of my sisters who still lived near our hometown. Eeva’s husband’s job had forced her family to move to Tampere. Helena’s husband Petri’s van would be waiting in Joensuu, outfitted with a bed. It felt eerie to me, watching the airport employee push my father in the wheelchair with my mother following forlornly after them. It was as if the scene was giving me a glimpse of the frailty and incapacity that would be coming for my parents over the next ten years.
Because I’d built up so much overtime, I didn’t rush to work, instead sitting in the airport with a cup of tea, contemplating the hustle and bustle surrounding me. A gaggle of Japanese tourists, all wearing the same dark-blue sport jackets and red-and-white-striped scarves, was listening to their guide’s instructions. Their money was more than welcome in Finland. A spaniel nearly had a seizure from happiness when its master entered the arrivals area. People shook their heads at its frantic barking. I read the list of departing flights and thought about where I’d like to disappear to right at that moment. Rome was the most tempting, since it would already be spring there.
The next clot of arriving passengers must have come from somewhere sunny, given that their faces ranged from a bright red to deep brown. A good number of them were dressed for entirely different weather, not mid-March in Finland, where temperatures were still well below freezing at night. Some of them looked like they didn’t have the slightest desire to return to their normal lives, but others had clearly been missing their children or partners.
At first, I didn’t pay any attention to a young woman in a headscarf with no luggage other than a Marimekko Arkkitehti shoulder bag. I had looked past her, shifting my gaze to the famous film actor who happened to be walking behind her. Everyone else was staring at him too. But then my brain registered what I’d just seen. I’d been staring at that scarf-framed face on the wall of our case room for the last couple of weeks. Aziza Abdi Hasan had just walked by.
I stood up so fast that I almost knocked down the plastic chair I’d been sitting on. Where had she gone? I couldn’t see her in the terminal anymore. I ran outside. The line for taxis was only a few people long, and she wasn’t in it. Had there been someone waiting for her? Bus 615 was at its stop. I ran to the door.
“Police,” I said and showed the driver my badge. “I’m looking for someone.” I climbed onto the bus, but there was no sign of Aziza there either. One of the blue local Vantaa buses was just starting up at the next stop over. If Aziza was going home, there wouldn’t be any sense in her taking that one. I exited the bus and scanned the bus stops. No Aziza. Maybe she’d gone into the airport restroom.
I contacted the airport police and border guard officials. It took almost an hour to determine that no Aziza Abdi Hasan had entered Finland from outside the Schengen Area. The flights Aziza could have arrived on were from Las Palmas, Stockholm, Frankfurt, and Athens. I asked them to send the passenger manifests to the Espoo Police Department. I borrowed a border patrol computer in the airport just long enough to log in to the department intranet and check Aziza’s headshot. The expression of the girl in the picture had been vivacious, happy, lightly reddened lips smiling slightly. The girl who had arrived at the airport had looked frightened and hadn’t been wearing any makeup, but it had clearly been the same young woman.
I called Puupponen and asked him to send out an alert to all of the buses and taxis that had left the airport between noon and one, and gave as detailed a description of Aziza as I could. Then I retrieved my car, which had managed to rack up a respectable parking fee in the short-term lot, and took off for Leppävaara. The drive took a painfully long time, because there was only one westbound lane open on Ring I due to an accident in which a car had rear-ended a semitrailer. Some of my colleagues from the Helsinki PD and the highway patrol were doing their best to direct traffic. The snowfall had escalated to near-blizzard conditions, and the ruts in the snow felt dangerously deep under my tires.
Aziza’s family had paid the rent on their apartment through the end of March, and even though it had been practically empty the last time I had been there, perhaps the family had returned. There hadn’t been any response to the official letter I left. Aziza would not turn eighteen until the end of December, so she was still under her parents’ guardianship. Her family’s residence permit was temporary but would last until the end of next year.
I pulled into the familiar parking lot, rudely leaving my car in the handicapped space and walking up the stairs to Aziza’s door. No one answered when I rang the bell. I rang the doorbells of the neighbors living on the floor, and on my third and final try my luck turned.
An old woman opened the door. According to the plate on the door, her name was Mukhortova. I asked if she’d seen her Afghani neighbors recently.
“No one there for long time. Maybe traveling. Lady sometime drink tea with me. Not speak much Finnish, a few words Russian. Learn during war. Say we not need hate, even though countries then at war. Drink tea together. You want tea too?”
“Thank you, but no, Mrs. Mukhortova.” I gave her my card and asked her to notify me if she saw the residents of number thirty-one.
“They haven’t done anything wrong. I just want to talk to them.”
I dropped my card through the mail slot at apartment thirty-one too. I saw it fall onto the stack of free papers and advertisements that had spread across the floor. I sat for a while in my car waiting for Aziza, but she didn’t appear out of the driving snow. Maybe I’d just been seeing things.
However, at the station a message was waiting for me saying that a woman fitting Aziza’s description had gotten onto Vantaa bus 61 at the airport. The driver had said he wasn’t able to tell one headscarf from another, but had contacted us anyway. Maybe my eyes had been playing tricks on me. Maybe it hadn’t been Aziza at all. I was probably just hoping too much.
I chatted with an agent from Security Intelligence about the video, which I’d copied and sent over to them, but he didn’t think it provided cause for action since the cases had been solved. A few of the people in the group were already on their surveillance lists, including Kimmo Korhonen. I asked again if they had any information about the drug lord Omar Jussuf’s son Issa Omar’s connections to Finland, but of course I didn’t get an answer, even after quoting Uzuri’s e-mail message.
“I already deleted it from my computer,” I lied when the investigator asked me to forward it to him.
The feeling of emptiness was still plaguing me. It was like I was grasping for birch branches waving in the wi
nd but was only able to graze them before they escaped my reach. Home felt downright deserted because my dad wasn’t lying on the hard mattress on the floor of the living room anymore, commenting peevishly on the day’s events. I hunted for the thumb drive I’d used to store the pictures I took at my Police University College course and in Afghanistan. Uzuri reciting her poem, Muna smiling, me, Ulrike . . . That was the last picture taken of Ulrike. Vala’s profile was visible in one of the snapshots. I was glad that he’d finally left me alone. I’d just breathed a sigh of relief when my phone rang. And who else could it be but Vala.
“Howdy, Kallio. I just wanted to tell you that I’m leaving tomorrow, back to Afghanistan via Frankfurt. Will you see me off at the airport?”
“I think I’ll have to pass.” I thought for a moment about whether to tell Vala that I’d imagined seeing the woman who was believed to be Issa Omar’s bride earlier that day at the airport. But Issa Omar couldn’t just waltz into Finland with the intelligence services of several countries on his tail.
“Too bad. Maybe we’ll run into each other sometime. Or then again maybe not. Since I don’t believe in life after death. They’re rebuilding the police academy over there, the idealists. And we’re going to try to give them a little protection. Command is transferring some of the Finns from Mazar-i-Sharif to the southeast, closer to the school. I’m going to be with them.”
“Try to stay alive.” My voice shook even though Vala didn’t have any place in my life.
“That’s the idea. Take care of yourself,” Vala said and then hung up.
I gave up looking at pictures and went to roast the salmon that Antti had bought at the market the day before. Iida protested about my using pink peppercorns to season it, and Taneli told her she was being stupid. I threw a couple pieces of salmon skin to Venjamin and Jahnukainen, who then proceeded to drag them around the kitchen, playing roughly enough that scales got spread all over the floor. Time to mop again.
Because there was a good amount of commotion over all of this, I didn’t hear the text message notification on my work phone, which I’d left in the bedroom. I didn’t see the message until later when I was putting on my pajamas. The sender’s number didn’t show up on the screen, but the message was signed.
I got your messages. Home empty. I’m afraid. Can Finnish police help? Aziza
21
It was pointless trying to call Aziza, because she’d texted from an anonymous number. She must have dropped by the family’s apartment and seen my note and calling card. It was already after ten p.m., but I still started to pull my clothes back on. Antti was reading in bed and didn’t comment when I said I was going to go check on something.
While I drove, I tried to get in touch with Koivu, but he didn’t answer his cell phone, and I didn’t want to call his home phone so late in case it woke up the children. I left a message saying I was coming his way and would be in the building next door.
Of course, at that time of night the downstairs door of the building was locked, and there was no buzzer. I tried to figure out which window would be Aziza’s family’s. Then I thought of calling Information for Mrs. Mukhortova’s number, but before I could, the light in the entryway switched on. A young man came out of the building, lighting a cigarette as soon as he got outside. The city building authority did not allow smoking inside rental units anymore, which the smokers probably saw as discrimination. The young man looked at me curiously but let me in anyway.
I rang Aziza’s family’s doorbell, and it seemed like the sound echoed through the whole building. I didn’t hear any footsteps inside. The door opened immediately, as if someone had been waiting behind it. The same girl I’d seen at the airport now stood in the doorway. She had on a different headscarf than the one from earlier in the day. It was violet, and a dark curl had escaped behind her left ear.
“Are you Aziza Abdi Hasan?”
“Yes.”
“Detective Maria Kallio, Espoo police. A missing person report was filed for you, and the police have been looking for you for over a month.” I stepped into the apartment without being asked and closed the door behind me.
When I’d visited the apartment before, it had smelled of emptiness. Now there was a peppery smell, as if someone had just finished fixing food.
“Where is my family? What has happened to them?” Aziza asked.
“I don’t know.” I walked into the living room, but then I stopped in my tracks. I hadn’t expected to see anyone else in the apartment, but on the couch in front of the bare window sat Major Lauri Vala.
“Well now, look at this, Kallio. I know you better than you know yourself. I guessed you would get your ass in gear if a damsel in distress called for help. And Aziza will be in distress soon if we don’t help her.” Vala leaned back, relaxing. The expression on his face was more contented than any I’d ever seen on him before. When he moved, I caught a glimpse of a shoulder holster strap. Vala was armed.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, I’ve been sending you texts for one. I’m not on my way to Afghanistan after all. The purpose of that call was just to test whether you would be reachable later tonight. If you wouldn’t have come, I would have had to go it alone. But it’s better for there to be two of us who’ve stared death in the face before. Have you done that too, Aziza? How were you lured into this? Money or threats? Or do you love Issa Omar?”
Aziza didn’t answer. She just stared at Vala. Did she understand more of what he was saying than I did?
“What exactly are you up to, Vala? How did you end up here, in this apartment?”
A smile spread across Vala’s face.
“Did you think that it would be hard for me to find the building where Issa Omar’s fiancée lived? It was almost too easy. And then I just started keeping an eye on her. This girl is going to lead us to Issa Omar. As soon as she gets what Issa wants here, she’s going to go deliver it to his sidekicks in Malmö, and we’re going to follow her.”
Vala had clearly lost his mind. I would have liked to talk to Aziza in private and leave Vala to his secret agent games.
“Did you break in here by threatening Aziza with that gun?”
“I imagine showing her my revolver may have increased her desire to cooperate. But she’s a good girl. She wants to get out of this mess and back to Finland for good, as soon as we’ve made our little trip to Sweden. You want to get Omar Jussuf too, don’t you? He almost killed us, and he did kill dozens of people in the police academy explosion.”
“Listen, Vala, even if you believe that one Finnish soldier is worth ten Russians, I think we’re in deep enough water here that we should leave this to the real spies. What are they bringing Aziza, drug money?”
“No, but she does have jewels bought with drug money that are meant to be used for payment. You can get anything with money—falsified Finnish passports for example. I’m just dying to see what alias Issa Omar chose this time.”
“How do you know all this?”
“The girl told me herself. She even showed me the Quran with the hollowed-out space the jewelry is hidden in and how she plans to smuggle the passports out. Even though no one is going to check a cruise ship passenger’s luggage.”
“Did Aziza tell you this after you threatened her with a weapon?”
“As I said, her knowing that I have a weapon increased her desire to cooperate.”
“That’s aggravated assault, Vala. I suppose you have a permit for that gun?”
Vala didn’t answer; he just laughed. Aziza was listening to our discussion impassively. I asked her where she’d been the last two and a half months.
“In Sweden and Denmark,” she answered quietly.
“In Malmö?”
“Malmö, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. There.” Aziza obviously hadn’t used Finnish while she had been away, and now it came out clumsily. I asked if she would rather speak Swedish, but she shook her head. “Nej prata svenska.”
“What did you do in Sweden?”
I sat down on a sleeping mat rolled up on the floor and crossed my legs. My phone jingled. A text message from Koivu: Sorry, I was in the sauna. Are you still over there? Should I come? I started keying in a response, a YES in all caps, but then Vala was at my side, grabbing the phone away from me. He had pulled the revolver out. He was pointing it at the ground, but only two feet from my right leg.
“Who were you texting?”
“A coworker. Police business. Give it back!”
“Let’s concentrate on Aziza for now, and Issa Omar’s passport.” Vala calmly slid my phone into his pocket. I tried not to panic. Vala clearly hadn’t deluded himself into thinking I was a subordinate who would humbly obey his commands.
“Give me my phone back. Do you want more charges piled on with aggravated assault?”
Just then some other cell phone started to ring, and Aziza pulled a small blue Ericsson out of her skirt pocket. She looked at the number and silenced the phone.
“Need to throw key down,” she said quietly. “Can I open the window?” She was asking Vala for permission, not me, and Vala nodded. I thought about what he might have said to Aziza, who he was claiming to be. Aziza opened the window and threw the keys out, and a cold blast of air whipped in. The wind grabbed her scarf, nearly tearing it off her head, and she slammed the window shut hard enough to make the glass shake.
“Now the dude’s on his way up. Let’s go hide in the kitchen, Kallio. Then I’ll surprise him. And you, Aziza, if you don’t do what I tell you, things will go badly for your family.” He added a few words in Persian, which of course he had picked up in Afghanistan. That was apparently the tool he’d used to get Aziza to let him in.
I followed Vala into the kitchen. I still had on my winter coat and felt hot. I just had time to take it off and throw it on the kitchen counter when we heard a key in the door. How long had Vala been in the apartment? Had he searched it thoroughly and found the bread knife I remembered seeing in the drawer on my previous visit? If not, I might be able to surprise him.