‘Thanks,’ said Joentaa, going past her to the door.
‘I’ll show you out,’ she said.
‘Right,’ he said.
‘Good luck,’ she said, giving him a wry smile before she closed the door. Ironic. Or insecure. He didn’t know which.
The sun was on his back as he drove away.
He was thinking vaguely of August, and the broad white bed in the small dark room, and the note with his telephone number that Jennifer, or whatever her real name was, had after some thought stowed away in her panties.
18
MARKO WESTERBERG SUPPRESSED a yawn and a vague sense of sadness.
He leaned over the balustrade and looked down at the dead man on the ground. Fourteenth floor, his young colleague from Forensics had said, with a gleam in his eyes that Westerberg didn’t understand.
Kalevi Forsman had fallen fourteen floors down. From the roof terrace of a hotel with an extremely fine view of the sea.
A long queue of cars had formed in front of one of the big steamers. The passengers were now sitting in a café in the sun, or leaning against their cars drumming their fingers on the paintwork, waiting impatiently to get away from Helsinki at last. For whatever reason, and wherever they were going. The sun was a little cold, and Westerberg thought, with a satisfaction that he didn’t entirely understand, that autumn would come after all.
He turned and saw his young colleague Seppo, still busy questioning the smartly dressed waitresses, although by now it had become clear that they had nothing to contribute apart from the little that had already been said. Westerberg was reminded of Hämäläinen, the talk-show presenter who had been stabbed not so long ago on the premises of a TV station, and not a soul had noticed.
Obviously violent death had a certain casual look to it these days. Nothing that would strike anyone as particularly unusual. And anyway, the TV show host had survived, and according to the ratings was now more popular than ever as a result. Kalevi Forsman the software adviser hadn’t been so lucky.
Westerberg looked at the young women helplessly shaking their heads, and Seppo, patiently nodding and taking notes, and he wondered what a software adviser actually did. At some point he had missed out on this terminology. Software adviser, account manager, help-desk administrator. What the hell did all that guff mean?
A forensic officer in white was leaning over the conference table, apparently looking for the particle of dust that would identify the murderer. Seppo thanked the smart young ladies and walked briskly towards him, but only to say that nothing new had turned up. Westerberg nodded.
‘But at least what we do have is a start,’ said Seppo. ‘Two men. One rather short, wearing a striking sky-blue bow tie and a crumpled suit. That was Forsman.’
Westerberg nodded.
‘And a second man who was already here before Forsman arrived. Not tall, not short. Well, if anything quite tall. Between one metre eighty and one metre eighty-five – perhaps, because one of the waitresses thought he was taller than that.’
‘So quite tall,’ said Westerberg.
‘Not fat, not thin. Just normal,’ said Seppo.
‘Didn’t one of the ladies say he was wiry?’
Seppo nodded. ‘Yes, but the others couldn’t confirm it. Good-looking, they all said that. But in an everyday kind of way. And in all seriousness they mentioned three different hair colours.’
‘Three?’
‘Fair, brown, grey.’
‘Oh,’ said Westerberg.
‘He even said a friendly good morning to them, all the ladies agree on that.’
Friendly, thought Westerberg.
‘He was standing on the roof terrace and seemed to be enjoying the view while the women set up the buffet,’ said Seppo. ‘The waitresses assumed that he and Forsman both belonged to the company that had hired the conference room. A chain of fitness studios, or more precisely two fitness studios that could be merging.’
Fitness studios, thought Westerberg, and he noticed that Seppo said the word as if it were perfectly normal.
‘Forsman is not on the list of participants, and as matters stood has not the slightest . . .’
‘This is getting me down,’ said Westerberg.
‘. . . not the slightest thing to do with the studios,’ said Seppo.
‘This is getting me down. Fitness. Account. Software adviser. Flat-rate surfing.’
Seppo didn’t seem to understand him.
‘All that shit,’ Westerberg specified more precisely.
Seppo nodded.
‘Never mind. So Forsman has nothing to do with the conference. In all probability the murderer won’t be on any list either, but of course we’ll have to work through the names.’
‘Interviews are already in progress,’ said Seppo.
Westerberg was about to say something else, but stopped and watched the forensic officer lying on the floor and feeling the underside of the table.
‘Yes,’ said Seppo.
‘What actually happened here?’ asked Westerberg.
‘Well . . .’ said Seppo.
‘A man calmly goes up to the fourteenth floor of a hotel, says good morning to the catering ladies – in a friendly way, of course – stands on the roof terrace and enjoys the view. Then a second man comes along, the two of them talk. Then one of them falls off the roof and the other goes home. The end.’
Seppo nodded to himself, but then raised his hand. ‘Not quite,’ he said.
‘Not quite?’
‘No, he said goodbye as well. To the women.’
‘Right. He said goodbye. I forgot that bit. In a friendly way, I assume?’
Seppo nodded. ‘We’re getting each of the women to put together a picture of him,’ he said. ‘Independently of each other. Although they all said they didn’t feel able to do that.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘One of them asked if she had to paint it herself.’
Westerberg shook his head. ‘I hope you told her that all that is done by software these days.’ He emphasised the word software, but Seppo didn’t seem to get the joke.
They heard a uniformed police guard at the door telling someone, ‘You can’t come in here.’ Westerberg took several steps into the room and saw a muscleman standing by the lift.
‘The conference is cancelled,’ said Seppo.
‘Why?’ asked the muscleman.
‘Please go to the breakfast lounge on the first floor and you will be interviewed there,’ said Seppo.
‘I’ll be what?’ asked the muscleman.
‘Please go to the breakfast lounge,’ said Seppo, and the man actually went.
‘There,’ said Seppo, who cut a small and slightly built figure, not without pride.
Breakfast lounge, thought Westerberg.
19
15 September now
It’s evening. Dear diary. Olli spreads the cards and shuffles them vigorously. His eyes sparkle as he tells me to throw the dice. I throw, and move my counter into the first square. Sunset outside. All an illusion that the sun is moving. The outcome of imagination and limited vision. The earth rotates. Olli and I are passing the border between day and night. Olli wins the game.
‘Yes!’ he cries triumphantly. And then, ‘Another game!’
‘Time to get some sleep, don’t you think?’ I say.
‘Another game!’ says Olli.
Leea scurries by like a shadow. Sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another. She is talking on the phone. Her voice is always there, sometimes near, sometimes far. Although I can hear only her and not the person at the other end of the line, that tells me what they’re talking about.
Henna, Leea’s best friend, is having a baby. Her first. Now, at this very minute. She’s in the hospital – another hospital – and has been walking up and down for hours, waiting for her labour pains to get intense enough. When that moment comes the doctor is going to carry out a Caesarian at once.
Kalle, Henna’s husband, is standing in the corridor ou
tside the operating theatre, waiting to be let in and phoning Leea to calm himself down.
But now they are both agitated and in no condition to keep each other calm.
Olli throws the dice and comments on his move in the game.
At forty-two, Henna is quite old for a first-time mother.
The baby will be called Valtteri, always assuming that, as the doctor has told them, it is a boy.
Leea is on the phone, Olli is throwing the dice, Henna is bringing a baby into the world. I find it difficult to keep those events related to each other.
It’s warm in this house.
‘You’re not paying attention,’ says Olli.
‘Sorry.’
‘You’re not playing properly,’ says Olli.
I stroke his head, my hand passing over his hair. I feel how soft it is. Leea says nothing. She puts the phone back on its charger and looks at me.
‘Your turn,’ says Olli.
‘Henna’s baby is coming,’ says Leea.
Kalevi Forsman. Adviser for software solutions.
‘It’s your turn,’ says Olli.
I throw the dice.
A man dies, a boy begins to live.
20
IN THE NIGHT, Kimmo Joentaa called Police Chief Nurmela. On the TV screen, a scantily clad presenter was in search of animals with the initial A, and Nurmela’s voice seemed to surface from deep sleep.
‘Kimmo here,’ said Joentaa.
‘Yes . . . Kimmo . . . just a moment . . .’
‘Hello?’ said Joentaa.
‘Yes . . . is there . . . anything new?’ mumbled Nurmela.
‘I have to ask you something about Larissa,’ said Joentaa.
Nurmela did not reply.
‘Hello?’ asked Joentaa.
Nurmela still did not reply; there was a crackle on the line.
‘Alligator. Alligator. That’s not it, Ari-Pekka, that’s not it,’ said the TV presenter, gesticulating.
‘Are you crazy?’ said Nurmela.
‘Thanks for calling in, Ari-Pekka.’
‘What?’ said Joentaa.
‘Look, it’s three in the morning. I’m asleep. My wife is asleep.’
‘She’s gone,’ said Joentaa.
‘Who?’
‘Larissa.’
‘Kimmo, I’m going to—’
‘I have to find her,’ said Joentaa. ‘Do you know—’
‘Stop going on about that damn woman.’
‘I went to the house where she was working, but she isn’t there any more, and I thought you might have another number or address where she . . .’
‘No, darling, no, no, go back to sleep.’
‘. . . where she worked.’
‘Hamster, no, that’s not it. No, the first letter of the name is A. The initial is A.’
‘Yes . . . lie down, darling, I’ll be right back.’
‘Are you listening to me?’ asked Joentaa.
There was more crackling on the line, and then Nurmela’s whispering voice came through quite close. ‘Now then, listen to me, Kimmo, you arsehole. I want to get some sleep. I don’t know the woman, and she doesn’t interest me either.’
‘I have to find her as soon as possible,’ said Joentaa.
Nurmela said nothing.
‘Like now,’ said Joentaa.
‘Kimmo, I’m hanging up,’ said Nurmela evenly.
‘She left the key,’ said Joentaa.
‘Ape, no. Ape isn’t the answer,’ said the presenter, who had now lost her bra.
‘She never did that before.’
Nurmela had hung up, and for a while Joentaa watched the TV presenter.
Then he rang the number flickering on the screen. He waited for the now familiar message that he had been hearing for hours when he tried it, to the effect that all the lines were in use, and advising him to try again a little later.
Instead, another voice informed him that he was in luck and would be put straight through.
He waited.
The woman on the screen bobbed up and down on tiptoe and asked him his name.
‘Er, Kimmo,’ he said.
‘Kimmo, lovely to talk to you.’
‘Thanks. The same to you.’
The woman on the screen laughed, and Joentaa bent forward and narrowed his eyes to see her better.
‘Kimmo, dear, are you still on the line?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have a lovely voice.’
‘Do I? Thanks.’
‘What is the right answer?’
‘Giraffe.’
The woman laughed, a sudden, shrill laugh. ‘The initial is A, sweetie-pie. The name begins with A.’
‘I’m right, all the same.’
‘I’m inclined to think our friend Kimmo isn’t totally sober.’
‘Are you hanging up on me now?’
‘Thanks for calling in, Kimmo.’
The sports channel was showing a tennis match. He sat on the floor, leaning back against the sofa, and followed a few rallies before his head fell to one side.
One of the players served an ace. Applause.
Just before darkness came down on him, he asked himself, with remarkable clarity, whether he was falling asleep or falling unconscious, and what the difference really was.
21
11 August 1985
Dear diary,
Saara laughed because I played all the wrong notes. I hadn’t practised the piece, but I didn’t want to admit it. I think I sat there stiffly and tried to press the right keys, but it sounded terrible.
Saara laughed, and suddenly stroked my hair very lightly. It felt incredibly good. As if she was petting me. Then she said we’d better play something else, and I could choose the piece, and then Risto was standing in the doorway asking what there was to laugh about.
‘Nothing,’ said Saara, quick as a shot.
‘Oh, nothing?’
Saara shook her head, and Risto asked what the idea of the boy was supposed to be. I think he meant me, and Saara didn’t get round to answering because Risto took a couple of quick steps our way and hit her.
Just like that.
She sat there, and I think she started trembling.
Risto went away and came back after a while, and he said we could play football.
Saara looked at the floor and didn’t move at all. She was breathing very fast.
Then we played football. I chased every ball as if I was running for my life. In the end Risto praised me and clapped me on the shoulder, and then he put his hand on the back of my neck. Exerting pressure. It almost hurt. I can still feel it now, although it was quite a while ago, and then I got on my bike and went home.
Lauri rang, but I don’t want to see him at the moment.
I’m going to have to cry now, I don’t know exactly why.
22
KIMMO JOENTAA WOKE early in the morning with a headache and thinking of Sanna, who used to make the pain better. She would massage his head for hours when he woke up at night and woke her too, because the tablets hadn’t worked and the pain was unbearable.
That had been when he first joined the Turku police force and wasn’t getting on with the police chief of the time, Ketola. With Ketola’s aggressive and remote stance.
It was a long time since he’d had one of those severe headaches, and he wondered for a while why. Maybe it was because he now thought of Ketola as a friend whom he hadn’t seen for a long time. Or maybe it was because Sanna was no longer alive, so his head had burst apart long ago. As a matter of course and without his noticing it.
So the headaches had come back – look at it that way, and everything was all right. His tongue felt coated and dry, there was football on the TV screen, a series of goals being scored. The morning sun stood bright and clear over the lake outside.
He took last night’s leftovers into the kitchen, put everything on the counter top next to the sink, went back into the living room, turned off the TV and got out his laptop. Sitting on the sofa, he log
ged in and wrote a message to [email protected]. He decided not to spend long thinking about the right words, because he had a feeling that no words would be right anyway. He quickly typed:
Dear Larissa,
I hope you’re well. Please get in touch. I miss you, and I’m worried because you left the giraffe here. It’s lying in the grass under the apple tree, and it will stay there until you come back.
Love from
Kimmo
He sent the message, took two painkillers, showered and thought of Sanna as he rubbed his scalp dry.
He switched the light on before he went out.
23
ONCE AGAIN MARKO Westerberg was standing far above the ground of Helsinki, in a penthouse with a roof terrace, thinking that in all probability Kalevi Forsman the software adviser had been a lonely man.
The apartment lay bright and empty in the sunlight. Empty except for a narrow bed, a silver TV set, a scarlet sofa and an elaborately equipped computer terminal, as well as a designer kitchen, and a broad, varnished wooden table in the middle of the living room.
‘No chairs,’ Seppo had remarked perceptively.
He was right, there was a distinct shortage of chairs. And of everything else that could have made the apartment look inviting. A broad, long table just right for a pleasant evening with friends, but no chairs. Cream for coffee and several boxes of chocolates in the fridge, along with a few slices of ham past their use-by date.
In daylight the whole place looked even more peculiar than the evening before, but Seppo, not to be deterred, kept informing him, unasked, that this was the way such people lived nowadays.
‘Such people?’ asked Westerberg.
‘Software advisers. IT nerds. Too busy earning money to do any living.’
‘Forsman had debts,’ said Westerberg.
‘That doesn’t make it any different,’ said Seppo.
Westerberg sat down on the only chair, the one at the computer terminal, and picked up the photograph of Kalevi Forsman again. The photo on his company’s home page. Well-pressed suit, neatly arranged tie, and a smile that Westerberg thought would last only fractions of a second after the camera flash went off.
Light in a Dark House (Detective Kimmo Joentaa) Page 6