Palm Beach, Finland

by Antti Tuomainen

  3

  Chico caught sight of an ancient lawnmower. It was right behind the door they had broken. He inhaled the smell of cut grass and petrol. Robin was behind him at the door of the small shed.

  They had taken a different route from last time, waited hidden among the trees and watched Olivia step out of the house, take her bike and cycle off. It had all happened in a matter of seconds. Olivia’s movements were quick and expressed a sense of purpose.

  They’d waited almost another half an hour, though the house had remained dark since Olivia had left. But you could never be too careful; Chico had learned that much. He wasn’t necessarily worried about the prospect of there being an insane burglar in the house again, but caution was everything. And the foundation of success in business was to avoid any conflicts of interest. Chico wasn’t entirely sure what this meant, but he’d once heard a man in a suit saying so at a vitamin sales event.

  Chico stepped aside and Robin slipped in. Chico aimed the beam of his torch at the lawnmower.

  ‘Over there,’ he said.

  Robin said nothing.

  Chico explained the plan: lawnmower into the middle of the yard, match into the petrol tank and run. The message would be loud and clear and, even better, it would be only a warning. Not a catastrophe like a trashed kitchen or a murdered hippie. A clear message. And the money would appear in their account. Well, not exactly in their account. Chico didn’t want to have to explain the sudden cash injection to a beady-eyed official at the social-security office; they always took more than a passing interest in his financial affairs, one devious way or another. And all because he…

  Chico stopped himself before his thoughts became too agitated.

  He always seemed to get himself worked up if money was close at hand, if there was even the idea that he was about to get his hands on some, if he’d been promised it or at the mere sight of cash. His heart began to pound and his whole body broke out in a sweat; his face and the top of his head started to burn up.

  Chico took a deep breath, inhaled the pungent odour of the shed – a mixture of mildew, old equipment and something else he couldn’t identify – and shuddered as he thought about the vole fever you could catch in sheds just from breathing in mouse shit; well, not the shit itself, not the actual faeces but the … What was it? Not the smell but the little specks it gives off – things that float in the air. What was it you even called something like that? A faecal molecule…?

  He had to pull himself together, focus his thoughts, regroup.

  ‘Do you understand?’ he asked both Robin and himself.

  ‘Good plan,’ said Robin.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Chico. He was beginning to think so too now he could see more clearly.

  Chico let the beam of his torch pan across the shed: everything from canoes and wheelbarrows to rakes and sleds, every imaginable form of clutter accumulated over the decades. Chico moved the light back to the lawnmower. He crouched down, unscrewed the cap on the petrol tank and nudged the lawnmower with his foot. Good, he thought, plenty of gas. In his left hand he held the cap, in his right the torch.

  ‘Okay,’ he said to Robin, still looking around in the torchlight, scanning the dark recesses and the piles of junk to locate any rodents, any evidence of poo. ‘Take the matches out of my pocket.’

  Whatever happened next happened so fast that Chico didn’t have time to open his mouth. Robin’s fingers moved with the dexterity of a pianist. The fingers slid into Chico’s front pocket and pulled out the box of matches – everything happening in the same seamless, lightning-quick movement. Why right now, Robin? His fingers opened the matchbox, struck the match and chucked it into the petrol tank. It all happened so smoothly that though Chico saw it happening out of the corner of his eye, he didn’t have time to utter a single word.

  For a brief, whooshing moment he saw everything in the shed illuminated in bright light. He made a mental inventory of its contents. It was understandable, as his feet were glued to the spot. He guessed that what he was looking at now would be the last things he saw in the world. The heat was unbearable.

  Finally he moved.

  The world was whirring.

  He felt his face burning up as he collapsed in the yard. The firm, recently cut grass felt cool – so wonderfully cool – against his face, and by now he didn’t care how much rodent poo entered his lungs, it was much better than…

  He rolled onto his back as soon as he could.

  At some point he might even have lost consciousness.

  The entire shed was in flames. From the angle at which Chico was watching events, it could have been a large house on fire. It was disappointing to note that the shed truly was the size of a small house. The flames reached up to the edge of the sky.

  4

  ‘Dreaming,’ said Olivia. ‘At some point it starts to feel harder than actually doing something.’

  Nyman had asked what had made Olivia decide to stay here, to take on the task of renovating the dilapidated old house. And as he’d guessed, it wasn’t just about the house and its plumbing.

  ‘I mean the kind of dreaming that says everything is possible, that it’s just a matter of time before something amazing happens or something inside you changes,’ said Olivia and shook her head. ‘That there’s plenty of time and all doors are still open to you. They’re not.’

  ‘I’m slowly beginning to learn that.’

  ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Thirty-nine.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Nyman didn’t plan on asking how old Olivia Koski was. He already knew: thirty-nine. Three months younger than Nyman, to be precise. Instead he asked quite what she meant.

  ‘Either you know what I’m talking about or you’ll never know,’ she said. ‘When you think about it, how many times can you start over? How many times will you get another chance? I don’t want to be cynical or pessimistic, but the answer is: not many. But really, I can only speak for myself. I don’t know if it’s the same for you. If you’re a happy, recently divorced maths teacher who just wants to learn to windsurf, then you’ve already achieved everything you set out to achieve. But I haven’t. And time seems to be speeding up. Only yesterday I was twenty. I’d better get a grip.’

  Olivia sipped her wine. The soul classics continued: now the same soft-voiced man was singing about how he wanted to get it on. With these songs in the background Nyman felt an element of awkwardness when he looked deep into Olivia Koski’s brown eyes. When the man with the velveteen voice started singing something along the lines of understand me sugar and stop beatin’ round the bush, Nyman had to avoid direct eye contact. And not just because Olivia Koski seemed natural and attractive in an unapologetic way, as if she felt at home here – as if she felt at home wherever she went. That’s it, he thought. You can see the life in her; you can sense how alive she is. Exactly. But the real reason for his awkwardness was that…

  ‘This is pretty heavy stuff,’ said Olivia, bringing him to. ‘Maybe it’s just the effects of what happened today, what happened recently…’

  Nyman shook his head.

  ‘I’m happy to listen as long as you like,’ he said. ‘I can’t exactly claim I haven’t been thinking the same kind of the things recently.’

  ‘Do you ever dream of being something other than a maths teacher?’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Nyman.

  ‘What then? You must have goals and dreams?’

  ‘Can I tell you a story about my ex-wife?’

  ‘Who could it possibly hurt?’ said Olivia.

  ‘We were getting married either that day or the day after,’ Nyman began. ‘She said something to the effect that one dream was about to come true and there were still so many wonderful dreams waiting their turn. Something like that. Then she asked what my dreams were. I thought about it for a moment and told her I didn’t have any dreams. She said she’d never heard anything so depressing. We could have signed the divorce papers there and then, filled them out in adva
nce. But the point is I didn’t mean anything bad by it, and I didn’t even consider it a very depressing thought. Quite the opposite, actually.’

  Nyman took a sip of beer. Olivia Koski watched him, fascinated by what he was saying … maybe.

  ‘I’d just come back from Afghanistan,’ he continued. ‘I thought to myself, I’m privileged: I’m a white man, I’ve still got both arms, both legs, a brain of some sort, I was born in Finland, I live in Finland. I was only talking about myself and the point I’d reached in my life, but I couldn’t dream about anything. When it came to myself, I thought everything was about action. I tried to explain the difference between these two concepts. I tried to explain I was in a position where dreaming was just about putting things off and constantly coming up with new excuses, and said that if I really wanted to do something, I could start working towards it there and then if I wanted to.’

  ‘What did your wife say?’

  ‘My future wife,’ Nyman corrected her. ‘She said that maybe she didn’t know me as well as she’d thought, then asked if I could set off that very minute to a paradise island somewhere in the Pacific and lie down on a white sandy beach.’

  ‘And you answered…?’

  ‘I’d just wiped the last remnants of Afghan sand from my eyes. I told her I never wanted to see another grain of sand again and that as a free man in his twenties I didn’t find the idea of lying on my back in the sun much of a dream, let alone a life goal, something to strive towards, and that I never wanted to lie in the sand again, no matter whether it was white, red or brown – unless it was to avoid machine-gun fire. My wife-to-be – my ex-wife-to-be – said maybe we should have had this conversation earlier.’

  Olivia looked him in the eyes. Nyman couldn’t quite read her expression.

  ‘You said what you thought.’

  ‘I don’t know if it was worth it. But it was the truth.’

  Olivia tasted her wine, replaced her glass on the table.

  ‘Do you always tell the truth?’ she asked.

  Nyman was about to answer, was about to open his mouth – to say what, he didn’t yet know – when Olivia Koski’s phone rang. It buzzed against the table. Olivia picked it up and answered. Nyman turned towards the bar, to give her a sense of privacy.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Nyman heard Olivia say. ‘Yes … What? Excuse me, what? Right away. Yes, right away.’

  The call ended, Nyman could sense it though he didn’t hear anything resembling a goodbye. He turned to Olivia, but she was already on her way to the bar. She said something to the waitress, who gave an affirmative nod. Olivia returned to the table, looking both agitated and as though she was lost in thought.

  ‘I’ve ordered a taxi. It’s on fire.’

  Ten seconds later they were standing in front of the bar waiting for the taxi. Silence. Once both of them were sitting in the back seat of the taxi and the journey was sufficiently under way, Nyman plucked up the courage to speak.

  ‘Where is the fire?’

  ‘At my place. In the yard.’

  Nyman knew of dozens of cases of a washing machine or dryer catching fire and gutting entire apartments in Helsinki.

  ‘Did you leave any appliances switched on?’

  Olivia shook her head.

  Nyman recalled the photographs of the house and the garden.

  ‘What about the sauna?’ he asked. ‘Were you heating the stove?’

  Nyman instantly realised he’d made a mistake. Of course, he thought, how am I supposed to know she has a sauna in the yard?

  Olivia turned slightly. The evening sun lit one side of her face, while the other remained in shadow. Nyman decided not to say anything else. He was certain he could feel Olivia’s gaze on his face.

  They arrived at the end of the path leading up to the house, and the taxi slowed.

  A fire engine had parked sideways across the path; the taxi stopped ten metres behind it. Olivia dashed out of the taxi, leaving the door open, and disappeared behind the fire engine. Nyman stayed behind and paid. The taxi driver said something about smoke detectors. Nyman closed the door. He walked around the fire engine, and at that moment saw a local police patrol car and two men in police T-shirts and baseball caps standing in the middle of the yard.

  In the bright flashing lights of the fire engine, the police stood staring at the smoking ruins, watching the firefighters at work. The air was acrid, bitter, as though the embers of a thousand bonfires lay smouldering all at once.

  The firemen then sealed off the area and made sure there were no isolated fires that might cause the blaze to spread into the woods or the house itself, which Nyman now saw for himself for the first time. It really was impressive – and in a truly terrible condition.

  Olivia was already talking to the chief of the fire department, who was gesturing towards the pile of charred ruins. From the photographs in the case file, Nyman knew that only a moment ago on that same spot there had been a rectangular, red-painted wooden shed, which, judging by the hefty brick chimney stack, probably included a sauna big enough to fit an entire family. Nyman wanted to speak to the fire chief too.

  Having said that, he wanted to avoid the police officers, but it seemed he might be too late. One of them – grey beard, metallic-framed glasses, blue eyes, fifty years old, give or take – had already spotted him and was walking slowly but surely in his direction.

  ‘Seen anything of interest?’

  Nyman glanced at the policeman. Play dumb, he told himself.

  ‘Has there been some kind of fire here?’ he asked.

  The policeman did not respond.

  ‘Got any ID on you?’

  Nyman pulled his passport out of his back pocket and handed it to the man. The policeman looked at him and opened the passport. ‘Mind if I take a picture?’ he asked.

  ‘No problem,’ said Nyman and the policeman took out his phone and snapped a photograph of Jan Kaunisto’s new passport.

  ‘I know everybody else here,’ he said as he handed Nyman the passport.

  ‘I’m with her,’ said Nyman and nodded in Olivia’s direction.

  The officer paused for a moment.

  ‘Holiday,’ he said eventually.

  Nyman guessed it was probably a question.

  ‘Yes, got here yesterday.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you found yourself a woman straight away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A woman whose house burns down almost immediately.’

  Nyman looked to his right.

  ‘The house seems fine, thank goodness.’

  ‘Is that what it looks like to you?’

  Nyman thought he understood the man. They were local police officers who still hadn’t got to the bottom of the homicide in Olivia’s house. Which, in turn, was why he had been sent to wrap up the matter. And here he stood, outside that very same house, being informally interviewed by that very local officer, unable to tell him just what an extraordinary set of coincidences was at play here.

  ‘Looks like it could do with a bit of sprucing up,’ said Nyman.

  ‘A bit of sprucing up, that should do it,’ said the officer.

  ‘Can I go?’ asked Nyman, already taking a step forwards.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘Palm Beach…’

  ‘The holiday resort,’ said the officer. ‘If we have any questions, we’ll find you there, I take it?’

  ‘Unless I’m out windsurfing.’

  The officer looked him up and down. ‘A windsurfer.’

  That was a question too, it seemed.

  ‘Not properly,’ said Nyman. ‘I’m a beginner.’

  ‘And a pyromaniac? Beginner or professional?’

  Here we go.

  ‘I was with her,’ said Nyman, nodding again towards Olivia, and thought of the man in the adjacent cottage with his microscopic swimming trunks. ‘And there’s a witness who will tell you I was at my chalet before that.’

  ‘A witness?�
��

  ‘Isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘If we suspect you of committing a crime, we might talk about witnesses.’

  Nyman didn’t reply. The officer stared at him for a moment longer, then turned his head, which Nyman understood as permission to walk away.

  The officers of the Violent Crimes Unit at the Helsinki Police also investigated arson cases, and sometimes his own investigations had involved establishing where a fire had started. It had been a while, but the nature of fire hadn’t changed, and Nyman had experience with many different kinds of fires.

  The chief fire officer was a dark-haired, chubby-cheeked man with short, powerful limbs. He looked like an energetic young wrestler. Nyman came to a stop beside him. They were standing approximately in the middle of the yard, facing out to sea, with the house behind them and the soaked, gleaming, smoking ruins in front of them.

  Nyman glanced around.

  Olivia had gone inside the house, the police were standing by their patrol car at the edge of the yard, and the senior constable still had an eye on him. Nyman looked at the chief fire officer. He was clearly a man of action. With a man like that Nyman decided he could be direct.

  ‘Looks like a powerful blaze,’ he said. ‘If she wasn’t heating the sauna, the source of the fire must be elsewhere. Any electricity cables running out to the building?’

  The fire officer gave a matter-of-fact nod. ‘There’s electricity in the sauna changing room, over there,’ he said and pointed to the right-hand edge of the foundations. ‘But electricity doesn’t catch fire by itself. You need an electrical appliance too. And there weren’t any. You’d be able to see where it melted. Over there is what’s left of an old motor, and that means there might have been petrol in it. But petrol doesn’t catch fire by itself either. And the other factor is how quickly the fire spread.’

  Nyman knew what that meant. ‘It wasn’t smouldering for hours, like a cooker or a coffee machine might – warming things evenly over time.’

  The fire officer shook his head. ‘No, a sudden explosion, more like,’ he said. ‘And it happened right there in the middle where there’s neither a sauna stove nor electrical appliances. It seems odd.’