‘This is still work in progress, of course,’ said Grönholm. ‘We’ll start from the day when she was found and keep working our way forward and back. Chronologically, I mean. It could take us some time.’
Chronologically, thought Joentaa.
Sundström nodded, and Nurmela came into the room. With a spring in his step, as usual. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then carefully closed the door, turned to those present and asked Sundström not to let him disturb them. ‘Just carry on,’ he said, staying at the side of the room.
August, thought Joentaa.
And he thought that he must soon speak to August.
‘Well . . .’ said Grönholm.
‘The picture in the newspaper,’ said one of the uniformed officers.
‘Yes?’ asked Sundström.
‘Well . . . I think maybe we ought to publish a better one.’
‘A better one?’
‘No one’s recognised her. She looks like everyone and no one.’
Several officers nodded, and it occurred to Joentaa that his had been the same impression. A woman with a face from which all expression had been lost.
‘Er . . . suppose we publish one with her eyes open?’ asked the young officer. Sundström looked at him for a long time, and seemed to be waiting for the young man to look away.
In the end it was Sundström who looked away. ‘The fact is, we don’t have a picture of the woman with her eyes open,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said the young officer.
‘That’s right,’ said Sundström.
‘But I thought patients in a waking coma . . . I mean, usually their eyes are open.’
‘I didn’t say the woman kept her eyes closed all the time, I only said we don’t have a photo of her with her eyes open.’
‘Ah. I get it.’
‘The photo we do have was taken on the day she was found in the ditch at the side of the road. At that point she was unconscious.’
‘Okay,’ said the young officer.
‘Although that’s definitely a relevant aspect,’ said Grönholm. ‘Kimmo talked to Rintanen, the doctor treating her at the university hospital. About the medical details, so to speak.’
Silence filled the room, and when Joentaa finally began to speak his tongue felt coated. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he agreed.
The phone call to Rintanen, the doctor, at the end of a sleepless night that had felt like the night, years ago, when Sanna died. Rintanen, who had stroked Sanna’s shoulder and asked him if he would like to be alone with her for a little while. It had been hard for him to concentrate on what Rintanen was saying on the phone.
He had made the phone call from home before leaving. Had looked out at the lake where Larissa had played ice hockey and where Sanna used to swim. Had listened to Rintanen patiently and gently explaining the difference between a coma and a waking coma, and why it was likely that a severe traumatic brain injury, taking immediate effect, had caused first the coma and then the waking coma into which the unknown patient had fallen in the course of her time in the hospital.
‘That’s right,’ Joentaa repeated, and he cleared his throat. ‘What happened is that the woman came out of the coma after a few weeks, but she was still in what they call a waking coma or persistent vegetative state, meaning she was living in a rhythm of sleeping and waking, but was unable to react to her surroundings . . .’ He cleared his throat again, and wondered why he sounded so stilted. ‘Rintanen can’t say for certain what event was the root cause of . . . I mean, what prompted the coma. An accident can lead to a coma, of course, but as we know, when the woman was found in summer our colleagues couldn’t find anything to indicate that she’d been in an accident.’
‘So we don’t know who the woman is or what really happened to her,’ said Sundström, getting to his feet, as if this summing-up was something they could live with. ‘Some of the information coming in has already been checked. Questioning will continue at nine in the hospital. You will see who’s assigned to what job from the—’
‘Sorry to bother you,’ said Kari Niemi, appearing in the doorway.
‘Kari,’ said Sundström. ‘Cheer us up with the findings of forensic science, will you?’
‘We actually do have something,’ said Niemi. ‘Whatever it may mean.’
‘Yes?’ asked Sundström.
‘Lysozyme,’ said Niemi.
‘What?’ asked Sundström.
‘We found quite large amounts of a fluid on the sheet and the blanket under which the dead woman was lying. And a first analysis shows that this fluid contains lysozyme as well as . . .’
‘Lysowhat?’ asked Sundström.
‘. . . as well as a large amount of water, along with mineral substances and salts, indicating that . . .’
Sitting on her bed, thought Joentaa.
‘Hm?’ asked Sundström.
Smoothing out the sheet. Stroking the cold, soft blanket with his hands until he touches her shoulder and her face, very lightly so as not to wake her.
‘Lacrimal fluid,’ said Niemi. ‘We established that quite large quantities of lacrimal fluid were present on the sheet and the blanket.’
‘Ah,’ said Nurmela, who was leaning against the window wall in the sunshine.
‘And what does that tell us?’ asked Sundström.
Niemi shrugged his shoulders. Niemi, whose hug he still remembered very well, although it was so long ago. The day after Sanna’s death.
‘A murderer who was shedding tears,’ said Kimmo Joentaa in the ensuing silence.
16
KALEVI FORSMAN EXAMINED the name on the business card again. And the design, which had been on his mind all this time. So plain yet so effective. The lines curving harmoniously, the colours seeming to flow gently into each other.
He couldn’t remember ever seeing such an attractive business card before.
He crossed the lobby and went up in the lift. The man was as good as his word. A picturesque view of the city and the bathing beach to the west of Helsinki, in the distance several of the huge ferries lying in the water like optical illusions. Women from the hotel or the catering service, in black dresses and white tops, setting up a buffet with drinks, coffee and cakes. He watched them for a while, then turned back to the window and stared out at the sunny sky. The steps behind him sounded soft and springy.
‘How do you do?’ said the man, already holding out his hand and smiling as he turned round.
‘Hello,’ replied Forsman.
‘Come along,’ said the man, going briskly ahead.
‘Er, where to?’
‘Out,’ said the man, walking on.
‘Where are the others, then?’
‘You’re the first,’ said the man, opening a door that led out to the roof terrace. In the background the clatter and clink of crockery and the soft, quiet women’s voices could be heard.
‘I’m the first?’ asked Kalevi Forsman.
‘You are,’ said the man.
‘I see.’
‘I think your program is interesting. I really do,’ said the man.
‘Good,’ said Forsman.
‘It’s not . . . not polished, it lacks a certain finesse, but one could look at it the other way around and describe it as absolutely reliable. Your program gives the user a sense of always being on the safe side. Being in control. Do you see what I mean?’
‘I think so, yes,’ said Forsman. ‘Indeed, that’s the basic idea of our differential system.’
‘Exactly. Well put. After all, that’s what we all want. To be safe from danger. Even if it’s only the danger of shares losing their value.’
‘Which is not the least of life’s dangers,’ said Forsman.
The man looked at him enquiringly, and smiled.
‘I mean . . . well, lives depend on that sort of thing,’ said Forsman.
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘No, with our system you can calculate the value of your fund at any time, literally in real time. You can access it with
in seconds.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said the man.
They were standing in the gentle wind; from time to time a dull thumping could be heard. Ocean-going steamers were probably being loaded up.
Forsman wondered what to say next, and the man said, ‘There’s something wrong with the weather.’
Forsman nodded, and followed the direction of his gaze out to sea.
‘I . . . of course I’m glad to hear that you are thinking of acquiring our software,’ he said, as the pause dragged on. His mobile vibrated in his trouser pocket.
‘Oh, yes, yes, we are,’ said the man. ‘You’re on our shortlist.’
‘Excuse me.’ Forsman took the mobile out of his pocket and looked at the number on the display. Jussilainen. Couldn’t wait patiently. Presumably wanted to ask how things were going.
The man never stopped smiling.
‘Nothing important,’ said Forsman. ‘Well. When . . . when will the others be arriving?’
He felt hungry; he would like a biscuit. One of the chocolate biscuits that a lady from catering had put on the conference table below.
The man said nothing, and Forsman felt the smooth surface of the business card against his hand as he put the mobile away in his jacket pocket. He took the card out, with a feeling that it was something he could hold on to. Although the name was very unusual. Norwegian maybe, or Latvian, although the man spoke Finnish without any foreign accent.
‘Do you like it?’
‘Hmm? Yes, I do. Plain but attractive. We do a little in the way of design ourselves, especially my partner . . .’
‘You could almost call this a one-off,’ said the man, taking the card from his hand.
Forsman looked at him with a question in his eyes, and the man looked over his shoulder as if there were something important there.
‘Do you remember Saara?’ asked the man.
‘Sorry?’ said Forsman.
The man looked past him, with great concentration, and Forsman turned round. The hotel employees were sitting on chairs at the edge of the buffet area, laughing and deep in conversation, and on the conference table there were black and yellow bottles of drinks and plates of the kind of biscuits he liked and hadn’t eaten for a long time.
‘Saara. I asked you about Saara,’ said the man with the strange name, and just before Forsman was lifted above the balustrade and fell to the depths below there was an answer on the tip of his tongue.
17
JOENTAA DROVE TO the hospital with Grönholm. The bed that the dead woman had occupied was empty and made up with clean sheets. The number of forensics officers around the place had been considerably reduced.
Grönholm, deep in conversation with Rintanen, was drinking coffee, and Joentaa went to the cafeteria to look for the police officer who was coordinating interviews with the hospital staff. He couldn’t find him.
Rice pies with egg butter under the plastic covers. Coloured pictures on the walls. Pictures that Sanna had mentioned a few days before her death, but he couldn’t remember her exact words. Turku lay in the sun beyond the glass wall, and the woman behind the counter asked what he would like.
He asked for a camomile tea, closed his hands round the hot cup and sat down at one side of the room. His mobile vibrated in his jacket pocket. Sundström’s number. He waited until Sundström gave up, and put the phone on the table in front of him. He closed his eyes and tried to think, but failed because he didn’t know where to begin.
Then he picked up his mobile and wrote an email to Tuomas Heinonen:
Dear Tuomas, hope you slept well. Please don’t forget what I said about the tennis. Will come and see you at the weekend.
He sent the message and then stared for a while at the text of it. Then he tapped in Larissa’s number and quickly wrote:
Dear Larissa, hope you slept well, how about ice hockey or doing something else nice this evening?
He sent the message, and waited to hear back that it could not be delivered. He looked at the message telling him that the recipient was not known, and he should check his details.
Recipient not known. Check the details.
Ice hockey in summer. But it was really autumn.
He drank his camomile tea and followed the arrows pointing the way to Intensive Care. Grönholm was still deep in conversation, but with someone else this time. Kari Niemi, head of Forensics, smiled at him, and Joentaa asked Grönholm whether his mobile had Internet access.
‘Yes, sure, why?’ said Grönholm.
‘I have to look for something,’ said Joentaa.
‘I see.’ Grönholm took the phone out of his trouser pocket and handed it to him.
‘Thanks,’ said Joentaa, and he went down the corridor, following the arrows to the exit. When he was in the car he began looking for the pictures that he had found online. He needed only a few minutes.
Larissa’s face was unrecognisable in the photos, but everything else was on view. Her naked body in assorted unnatural positions. The tattoo on her upper arm. Some kind of fabulous creature, she had said. Behind the disguised eyes and the disguised face, he guessed at the trace of a smile. He tried to imagine the person behind the camera getting her to give that smile. Larissa, teens, dream body, top service. 84 Satamakatu. Ring bell for Nieminen.
He closed the Internet browser and dialled Grönholm’s number. It took him a while to realise that he was holding Grönholm’s phone in his hands. Then he started out. The police car had a satnav system. He tapped in the address and was reminded of the arrows in the hospital as a soft, strange female voice guided him to his destination. He parked the car and looked in vain for her moped as he went up to the house. Nieminen, whoever that was, lived right at the top. He rang the bell.
‘Hello,’ said a woman’s voice.
‘Hello,’ said Joentaa.
‘Up at the top, sixth floor,’ said the woman.
Joentaa took the stairs. The building was in a good state of repair, inside as well as out; the white paint on the walls looked fresh. The door on the sixth floor was not locked. He waited for a while, and then it was pushed open. In the doorway stood a red-haired woman wearing a white bathrobe.
‘Come in, darling,’ she said, beckoning him in.
Joentaa nodded, and stepped into the corridor, lit by a faint lilac-tinted light.
‘Been to see us before, darling?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll introduce the—’
‘I’m looking for Larissa,’ said Joentaa.
‘Larissa . . .’ said the woman.
‘I saw the ad.’
‘Oh,’ said the woman. Joentaa got the impression that she had lost a good deal of her interest in him.
‘The advertisement. On the Internet.’
‘It’s not right up to date,’ said the woman. ‘Larissa doesn’t work here any more. But we have two lovely girls who are very like her—’
‘I want to see Larissa,’ said Joentaa.
‘Like I said, she doesn’t work with us these days.’
‘Jennifer,’ said Joentaa. Her colleague who sometimes came to pick her up in the morning, before Larissa got the moped.
‘Jennifer’s here,’ said the woman, her tone a little friendlier again.
‘Good,’ said Joentaa.
Then he stood in a dark room waiting for Jennifer. He had spoken to her only a few times. Hello and goodbye. Jennifer usually gave a wry smile when she saw him. Supercilious. Ironic. Or insecure. He didn’t know which, and it hadn’t interested him. This time she didn’t smile when she came into the room. She looked rather confused.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Larissa has gone,’ said Joentaa.
‘Yes,’ said Jennifer.
‘Do you know where she is?’
‘No idea,’ said Jennifer. ‘She hasn’t been here for several days.’
‘But you two are friends,’ said Joentaa.
‘Yes,’ said Jennifer. ‘Of course. Sort of.’
‘Sort of,’ s
aid Joentaa. ‘Of course.’
‘I like her a lot,’ said Jennifer.
‘So do I,’ said Joentaa. ‘That’s why I want to find her. As quickly as possible.’
Jennifer did not reply.
‘What’s her real name?’
‘Whose?’
‘Whose? Whose? Larissa’s, of course.’
‘You don’t know?’
Joentaa waited. She spluttered with laughter. Then she fell silent again and looked at him for a long time.
‘I don’t know either. We probably none of us talk about ourselves much, but she’s . . . she’s rather peculiar,’ she finally said.
Top body, thought Joentaa. Dream service. The tattoo on her arm, the mole on her breast. He felt dizzy, and Jennifer fidgeted with her panties as she thought.
‘Yes, rather peculiar. She always had pay-as-you-go mobiles and never topped them up – she threw them away instead – and when I told her she ought to sign a proper agreement she said she never writes her name on forms of any sort, on principle.’
Recipient unknown. Check the details.
‘But I know she really likes you. If that . . . if that’s any help,’ said Jennifer.
‘Where could she be?’ asked Joentaa.
Jennifer shifted her weight to her other leg and seemed to be thinking again. In the end she shrugged her shoulders. ‘We sometimes went for a drink, or to a club. But if I had to look for her I’d probably begin with you.’
Joentaa nodded, and thought of the giraffe under the apple tree.
‘Could you please call me if you hear anything from her?’
‘Yes . . . I think so . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes . . . of course. Why not? But you’re a cop, you’ll probably—’
‘Good, then let’s exchange phone numbers, okay?’
‘Give me yours, that’ll be enough,’ she said.
The dizzy feeling grew as Joentaa scribbled his number on a supermarket receipt. Jennifer took the scrap of paper and seemed to be wondering where to put it.
Light in a Dark House (Detective Kimmo Joentaa) Page 5