She tried to guess Jorma Leivo’s age. Fifty-five, perhaps. If she, at the age of thirty-nine, was prepared to do everything she’d managed to achieve so far that day, what did that say about an easily agitated man in a Sonny Crockett outfit who’d sunk his last dime into a failing beach resort?
Olivia took a deep breath.
She would continue her investigation. She wasn’t afraid. She would not shun her own dreams or those of others. She’d survived before, and she would survive this too. Jesus Christ, she lived in a house with no running water and where a man had recently been murdered; she had survived the strange deaths of her parents, which had so fascinated the entire village; she had survived two men who had taken her to the cleaners; and yet here she was. Slightly cold, that went without saying, but otherwise ready for anything.
She didn’t believe Leivo, and at the same time she did. When it came to Palm Beach Finland, it was easy to imagine that Leivo believed his own words. On the other hand, she didn’t think that he would hire the best man possible to undertake their little investigation. He almost certainly didn’t know a man like that. A man like that was hard to imagine.
Olivia laughed.
Even more incredible was the notion that a detective could work undercover in a place like Palm Beach Finland. The idea was utterly inconceivable.
Many things happened, had happened and would happen in the future, but that wasn’t one of them.
20
Nyman liked the police station. Situated in a wooden building, it was small and quiet, and the windows in the interview room looked out into the park. The park wasn’t especially big, but it was well looked after: the flowerbeds were in neat, straight rows bursting with yellow, blue, violet and pink, the tidily mown grass glowed a vivid hue of green and the elms invited people into their shade. The room itself was oblong, the ceiling high. The walls were white and empty. Opposite the door was a window, in the middle of the room a birch-veneer desk with four chairs, three of which were currently occupied. The police officers were sitting in a row on one side of the table, Nyman on the other. The floorboards creaked whenever they moved their chairs or adjusted their positions.
In other circumstances Nyman would have enjoyed the situation. But the phone call he’d had with Muurla a moment ago only made him feel more insecure. That sense of insecurity was heightened by the clock above the door and the slow progression of its hands.
Upon arriving at the station, two matters were at the front of his mind: he must make a phone call to Muurla and he must get to his dinner date with Olivia Koski. The call to Muurla was granted, as Nyman had first asked the officers whether he was suspected of a crime and whether this was an official interview. No, came the answer from the front seat of the car, they only wanted to chat to him, so Nyman knew this was only an informal conversation. That made things easier from Nyman’s perspective. In that case, he replied, it’s probably alright if I call my colleague to let him know I won’t be able to spend the afternoon with him.
Once they arrived at the station, the officers courteously left the room for the duration of his phone call. Muurla picked up right away. Nyman explained where he was, apologised for calling and said that his phone was about to run out of battery. He spoke quickly.
‘I’m in a hurry. Olivia Koski mustn’t find out that the police picked somebody up outside her house this afternoon. We need a media blackout. Effective until further notice. Other than that, things can wait. This is a perfect opportunity. I want to talk to these local officers. But there’s one appointment I’ve got to keep, so make sure I’m out of here by seven thirty.’
Nyman gave a brief description of the wooden building, the park, the silence and the friendliness. Then he waited.
And eventually Muurla spoke: ‘Reminds me of the nudist colony I found in Ibiza last summer, when I decided to broaden my—’
Nyman interrupted him. ‘Sorry, I haven’t got time for this. I’m at work and…’
‘Right,’ said Muurla and again paused before replying. ‘We’ve got a problem.’
Nyman waited.
Muurla continued. ‘You’ve asked an investigator from the fraud office to look into the accounts of certain persons who are not directly under investigation.’
‘You weren’t supposed to know about that.’
‘Neither was the head of the fraud office, or his boss, or his boss.’
Nyman said nothing.
Muurla continued. ‘As you know, what you’ve asked for is completely illegal. Everyone here is treading carefully after what happened with a few cases in the narcotics department. Now all requests for information under the radar have to been double- and triple-checked.’
‘That means all our investigations would be a matter of public record, which kind of goes against the whole undercover idea.’
‘I know. But my hands are tied.’
‘In what way, exactly?’
‘You’re on your own. If you decide to continue.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘There’s nothing I can do. I can’t hold things up at that end. I can’t even contact them without first reporting the matter here and asking for permission. And once I have permission, there’s nothing I can do without blowing your cover. And if I blow your cover, the investigation will be over as far as you’re concerned and you’ll have to come back to Helsinki.’
Nyman looked out of the window. He didn’t need time to think. Muurla fell silent too. Nyman understood what that meant. He was on his own.
‘I’m going to continue,’ he said and ended the call.
Murder. That’s what this was all about. Forget all the initial niceties and the ‘friendly chat’. The senior constable already seemed familiar. Grey moustache, metallic-rimmed glasses, blue eyes. Beside him sat a dark-haired man with a ruddy face, significantly younger than his colleague, who was taking notes for both of them. Nyman remembered this man too, from Olivia’s yard. On that occasion he had observed keenly, stared even, without saying much.
‘It’s a busy yard,’ said the senior constable. ‘It’s like Central Station, people in and out, dead or alive. What were you doing there this afternoon?’
‘I believe that’s between me and the owner of the property.’
The officer shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s just a question,’ he said. ‘This is just an informal chat. Were you on foot?’
‘I cycled some distance, then started walking. It felt better, and you see so much more. It’s a beautiful peninsula.’
‘Why didn’t you cycle down to the yard and enjoy the view from there?’
‘It’s a bit embarrassing.’
‘Don’t mind us, we’ve heard it all.’
‘It’s to do with my backside.’
The deputy looked up from his notepad. ‘We’re listening,’ he said in a soft voice.
‘I’ve taken up windsurfing, and I haven’t cycled in a while. My muscles are aching in places I didn’t even know existed. Even sitting down feels like being punched. I couldn’t sit on the saddle a moment longer.’
Both officers looked at him.
‘Let’s assume that to be the case,’ the senior constable said eventually. ‘There are a few other matters…’
Nyman also wanted to get on to the subject of the homicide. He wanted to find out, by reading between the lines, exactly what these officers thought about it – hear the things they hadn’t written in the case file.
‘Let’s start from when you arrived here,’ said the senior constable. ‘How do you like the resort’s new look?’
‘I suppose I’m getting used to it.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’m thinking of staying on a bit longer.’
‘People to kill? Saunas to burn down?’
‘I did neither of those things.’
‘You’re living in one of the chalets, yes? Alone?’
‘Tubbs, the bright-green one. And yes, I’m there by myself.’
‘On the night of the fire, y
ou said there was a witness who could place you elsewhere, earlier that evening.’
‘My neighbour. Drives a BMW. Why do you assume it was an outsider?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Couldn’t it be a local behind these crimes?’
‘Are you one of these wannabe detectives?’
‘Absolutely not. What’s wrong with local crooks?’
‘Cruelty, that’s what,’ said the deputy. ‘We haven’t seen this level of cruelty and malice.’
The senior constable looked at his deputy.
‘That happens sometimes,’ said Nyman before the constable could get a word in. ‘Things get out of hand, as it were.’
The constable turned to look at Nyman. ‘You say you’re a maths teacher.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Where?’
‘Nowhere at the moment. If I get a call, I’m always ready to teach. But surely cruelty itself doesn’t rule anybody out? As far as I know, crimes of this magnitude are generally rare.’
‘We know everybody round here,’ said the deputy. ‘The ones with brawn haven’t got any brains. And the ones with brains, they’re war veterans. The youngest is eighty-seven years old and in round-the-clock care. And as for people my age – those who haven’t already moved away and who don’t work for the council – well, the less said the better.’
The constable nodded and straightened his back. ‘If you ask me, they’re a bit too stupid,’ he said. ‘There are a couple of guys we might have considered, but we can’t think what would motivate them. These guys can barely change their underpants without a financial incentive. It would take one hell of a dictator to get them off their backsides.’
‘I might know who you mean,’ said Nyman. ‘I think I saw them on the beach; am I right?’
‘That’s where they tend to gravitate,’ said the deputy. ‘It’s a force of nature.’
And just as Nyman was beginning to think they were making progress, the senior constable leaned forwards and stared Nyman right in the eyes.
‘And that brings us to you. An outsider.’
And so the game of cat and mouse continued. It continued going round in circles for hours: Nyman didn’t make any progress in his own investigation and couldn’t help the police in theirs. All the while he was conscious of the passing of time. He took a deep breath and tried time and again to bring this lengthy, entirely voluntary conversation to a natural end. But there seemed to be no end in sight. Every now and then one of the officers went to the bathroom, fetched a drink, read through his notes, his colleague’s notes, and returned to something they’d already discussed hours ago.
The closer the clock came to half past seven, the more agitated Nyman became.
And finally the clock reached half past seven.
Nyman had to get away.
He had a murder to investigate.
He had a date.
21
Jorma Leivo closed his eyes and again saw the other side of the world. It was hot there.
Leivo recalled his own discomfort: the tingling in his nose and cheeks, the slow but no less agonising sunburn on his arms and legs, the shirt clinging to his skin, his underwear rubbing and chafing against his groin, loose on one side, ever tightening on the other, gradually working its way deeper and deeper down his crevice before eventually turning into a wet rope that he had to disentangle from his body whenever he visited one of the filthy public toilets. Toilets where there was never any soap, leaving his hands unnaturally sticky and odorous. It was bad enough when he was eating and made him feel distinctly uncomfortable shaking hands with new acquaintances. He couldn’t bring himself to apologise, saying the gunk between his thumb and forefinger probably started life in his pants.
Was there a single tourist destination in Asia or southern Europe where he hadn’t felt uncomfortably hot and bothered? No. He had always set off with great expectations, trying to convince himself that this time things would be different. But things were never different. It was always the same. Until just over a year ago, on a particularly clammy day to the east of Phuket, his skin positively sizzling with sunburn, and he felt like he’d been driven into a corner, when he experienced nothing short of a religious awakening.
The moment was so clear that Leivo would have praised the Lord for giving him this business idea, if he had been one of the faithful, like his mother, who only a month before had passed away in the presence of Jesus. His mother was a cleaner by profession, and even after retirement she had continued working for the church in a voluntary capacity. Her jobs included making sure the altar in their brand-new place of worship was kept spotless. And so one morning, as she was dusting the holy accoutrements, his mother had stumbled or somehow misjudged her body weight and, unaware of an inherent design flaw in the cross, set in motion a chain reaction ending with the Lord himself falling down from his tall plinth. Perhaps she had seen it coming, and perhaps she had tried to catch the falling bronze statue, but it turned out the Messiah weighed more than a tonne and Leivo’s mother had ended up crushed beneath the body of Christ, legs and arms akimbo.
The business idea that Leivo hit upon on that tropical, white sandy beach was simple: what if you could have all of this, palms and everything, but without all the unpleasant parts? Without this heat, for one, which he found utterly unbearable. Without having to change your clothes three times a day, without roasting your skin, without suntan lotion that stings your eyes. That same evening, once Leivo had returned to the air-conditioned sanctuary of his bedroom, opened a bag of crisps and sat on his bed to flick through the myriad TV channels (fair play, tourist hotels did this best: the endless stream of TV channels, especially those that showed reruns of the old classics), Leivo had come across an episode of his favourite show of all time and had the second revelation of the day. The theme music and the opening credits descended on the room like an omen. His favourite show from all those years ago. This couldn’t be coincidence. And with that, the two ideas collided, combined, became one. He jumped up from the bed, spilling bright-yellow energy drink across his pyjamas in the process, switched on his computer and started searching for holiday resorts for sale in Finland. He found a grand total of one.
Leivo had invested every last penny of his inheritance in the property. Almost every penny. He still had enough left over to buy Olivia Koski’s unique strip of land. After that he would have enough collateral to offset new loans and take the next step. He was taking a considerable risk, but couldn’t help thinking that he was following his destiny. Why else would his mother have given him two lives: first as the happy-go-lucky Leivo, and now as the proprietor and manager of Palm Beach Finland? Besides, his inheritance came with great responsibility. In the eyes of his mother, Jesus and the bank, the one thing Jorma Leivo could not afford was failure.
He opened his eyes and looked at the papers in front of him.
It was a challenging scenario.
Olivia Koski had said she was prepared to sell the property if the matter of the homicide could be brought to a conclusion. But if it happened too easily, the price would still be a problem. Even if Leivo were to hand Olivia Koski the two good-for-nothings, he still might not be able to acquire the plot for himself. That meant he still needed the pair of idiots: to make life at the house uncomfortable and to make Olivia Koski even more desperate. On the other hand, there was the offer of ten thousand euros from the suave investor (the Executive Investment Manager, according to his business card) for the identity of the culprits. That would help him make up the difference between his naturally low initial offer and Olivia Koski’s presumably much higher asking price. It might just be enough. He needed both; he needed everything. He needed the Chuckle Brothers as part of his plan, then, in order to hand them over – twice; both to Koski and the investor and to whatever fate awaited them. He needed ten thousand euros and a lower asking price.
Jorma Leivo cracked open a can of energy drink. He took a long sip.
It was quite a puzzle.
But Leivo guessed he was already through the worst of it. He had guts. He was the founder of Palm Beach Finland. And Palm Beach Finland was something that soon the whole country would thank him for; something for which he would be remembered.
22
Chico had to find a beer. A fresh beer, not the same swill he usually drank, clouded with plankton and other small creatures, but real beer, frothing like a brook – beer that clears your thoughts and steadies your nerves. Chilled beer from a real tap. He downed half of his pint in one go and lowered the glass to the counter. Just as he’d feared, it instantly started feeling expensive. It was expensive: six euros fifty. For one measly pint. What was this stuff made from? Liquid gold collected by maidens straight from a mountain spring while unicorns watched over them? It felt as if this too was a plot in which someone else was pulling the strings. Chico didn’t want to think about it. Life was mostly a string of disappointments, and he already had plenty of other things to think about. Chico carried the rest of his pint to the table in the corner where Robin was waiting for him.
Chico had to admit that in some miraculous way Robin seemed to be taking control of matters. It was bewildering. Where had Robin suddenly found the determination, the strength of character, the new vocabulary? Words like perspective, regaining control and procedure. He looked at his old friend and wondered whether this really was his old friend at all. Robin had always opened his mouth before engaging his brain, letting out a stream of consciousness that sounded like random material on a cassette, and had a habit of repeating things with a surprising degree of accuracy. But the things he was talking about now, Chico had difficulty following, and it wasn’t just because of the words. Robin looked as though he was chairing a meeting. And even more unheard-of, he wasn’t drinking beer.
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