44
KIMMO JOENTAA DROVE down a long, narrow road that night. The dazzle of headlights came towards him less often, and the lakes hidden behind the snow-laden trees to left and right drew in on the road, until at last it became a long bridge leading over the water.
Soon after that, early in the morning, he arrived in Ristiina and parked the car outside the hospital from which the interview with the reference number 1,324 had come.
He was feeling tired, and knew at the same time that he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he tried to now. He had often felt like that in the first weeks and months after Sanna’s death.
The hospital lay in the dark, surrounded by a large garden. A massive building like a villa, it seemed to consist of a main house and several subsidiary structures. Lights were on here and there. Behind one of the windows Kimmo Joentaa saw a young woman and a young man. The woman was sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen, the man was talking and didn’t seem to notice that the woman wasn’t listening to him.
Within minutes, a sharp breath of cold air filled the interior of the car, and Joentaa reached for the file lying on the passenger seat.
Anita-Liisa Koponen. Believes she recognises the unidentified dead woman as her piano teacher. Can’t remember her name. Played Sibelius like an angel.
He leaned back and thought of Larissa. Tried to imagine where she was. Probably asleep. Breathing, dreaming, weeping. She wouldn’t be able to remember her dream when she woke up.
The woman on the other side of the window began to laugh, and the man shook his head and went over to the computer. The woman pointed to the screen and laughed again, and once more the man shook his head, presumably to show that he couldn’t share the woman’s amusement.
Joentaa watched the two of them engaged in their silent dialogue. How far away from him they were, although only a few metres separated them. A low wall, part of the garden, a windowpane.
He looked down at the file without reading it. Angels have no names. His thoughts began circling round memories that faded before he could grasp them. Only to come back again. Sanna swimming in the lake and laughing, although she was mortally ill. Larissa trudging through the woods ahead of him, telling stories from the novels she read or the films she saw, or about the children with whom she played ice hockey.
He closed his eyes and felt sleep approaching after all. For a while he imagined letters emerging from all the stories, all the words he had heard, single letters that began to form a name.
Just as he was thinking he could read the name, a repeated knocking brought him back to reality. He was looking at the face of a bearded man who was knocking on the window of the driver’s door.
‘Excuse me,’ he called through the glass.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine.’
The man nodded, turned up his thumb and went towards the hospital building. The cold inside the car had spread, and the darkness was giving way to a touch of daylight. Cars drew up and parked near his own, people climbed out, ran stooping past a porter’s lodge into the courtyard beyond and disappeared into the main building. Room after room was flooded with electric light, and the snowfall setting in made the morning look brighter than it was. The room where a young woman and a young man had been bending over a computer screen some time earlier was empty.
Kimmo Joentaa put the file, which had slipped down between the seats, back on the passenger seat and waited to feel the impulse to get out. His mobile, lying beside the file folder, was blinking at him. He picked it up. A call that had come in at 5.30. He imagined hearing Larissa’s voice as he tapped in the number to bring up his mailbox.
Then he heard the tired, distant voice of Tuomas Heinonen. ‘Kimmo, Tuomas here. Call me, please . . . when you have time. I have . . . a few difficulties.’
Joentaa lowered his mobile and thought of Tuomas, sitting in a room in another hospital. Tennis, he thought. Good quota, wrong tip. He almost felt as if he could hear the rhythmic sound of a rally in the background, behind Tuomas Heinonen’s soft voice.
He ought to call Paulina and ask her how it was possible for her husband, during a stay in hospital to cure his gambling addiction, to bet on tennis matches. And first he would call Tuomas and tell him he really must stop all that nonsense at once.
He slipped the mobile into his coat pocket and got out of the car, leaning forward as he ran to take the edge off the cold. He showed his ID to the porter, who was sitting upright behind his little window, and explained that he urgently wanted to talk to Anita-Liisa Koponen.
‘On what business?’ asked the porter.
‘On what what?’
‘On what business?’ repeated the porter.
‘Oh, I see. Angels,’ said Joentaa.
The porter gawped at him, and seemed to have another question ready, but Joentaa didn’t let him get it in.
‘Angels, devils. Life, death. Summer, winter, fire, water. The usual thing, you know what I mean.’
The porter nodded, and hesitated briefly. Then he rang a number, had a conversation on the phone, and told him – it sounded rather ambiguous to Kimmo Joentaa – that one of the hospital staff would be along right away to take care of him.
45
THE BREAKFAST BUFFET in the Karjanhovi Hotel was surprisingly lavish. Apart from a very old man who was stoically reading a newspaper at the side of the room without ever turning the page, Westerberg and Seppo were the only guests there. Seppo ate a hearty breakfast: scrambled eggs, sausages, cheese, salmon, and he finished with some curiously multicoloured muesli flakes.
Career portal, thought Westerberg as his young colleague shovelled the colourful muesli and milk into his mouth like a child.
‘Looks delicious,’ he said.
‘Absolutely. Have some yourself,’ said Seppo.
‘Tomorrow, maybe,’ said Westerberg.
Seppo nodded, pushed his dish aside, and went on from where he had left off before the muesli. ‘Right, about Happonen, the dead man in Tammisaari . . .’
‘Mhm,’ said Westerberg.
‘What I don’t understand is that neither we nor the Tammisaari investigators have managed to get hold of a usable picture of that man . . . I mean the journalist who, of course, wasn’t a journalist at all.’
Westerberg nodded, and raised his coffee cup to his mouth. He thought of Kirsti Forsman, the software adviser’s sister, who hadn’t rung back. When he tried to reach her again this morning it had gone straight to voicemail.
‘Tammisaari,’ said Seppo. ‘A man saying he’s a journalist arranges a meeting over the phone with Markus Happonen, a local politician, pegging it to Happonen’s ambition to make a career nationwide.’
Westerberg nodded.
‘Helsinki,’ said Seppo. ‘A man arranges a meeting with Kalevi Forsman and speaks to him during a computer fair on the pretext of being interested in buying one of his software systems.’
Westerberg nodded.
‘In both cases the man suggests a meeting place that is publicly accessible, at a time when there will certainly be people on the spot.’
Westerberg nodded.
‘In both cases, despite the public nature of those meetings, no one is able to sketch a picture of the man afterwards that tells us anything about him, and in both cases no one registers the moment when the crime is committed.’
‘Perhaps that’s why,’ said Westerberg.
‘What?’
‘Perhaps the fact that it was done so publicly, all out in the open, covered up particularly well for the crime,’ said Westerberg, feeling rather philosophical.
‘Hm, yes, if you look at it that way,’ said Seppo.
‘Because no one is expecting it, no one notices it,’ said Westerberg.
Seppo looked at him for a long time, but seemed to be pursuing his own train of thought. ‘All the same . . .’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t understand how it can have been so e
asy,’ said Seppo.
‘It was easy because the man succeeded in making it look easy,’ said Westerberg, and as soon as he had spoken those words he stood up, suddenly feeling they had been tossing words back and forth long enough. ‘What’s more, we still don’t know whether all this really hangs together.’
‘Two murder victims who both went to school in the same dump in the back of beyond and took their school-leaving exams in the same year,’ said Seppo.
‘How would I know if that’s it? You have that date at the Town Hall at ten, and I’m going to the neighbouring village to see Happonen’s parents.’
Seppo nodded, and Westerberg stood waiting for a while, hoping that Seppo would finally get to his feet. But he was sitting there lost in thought.
‘Seppo?’ asked Westerberg.
‘Hmm? Oh, yes, sorry. Quarter to ten in the lobby?’
‘Right. See you then.’
Westerberg walked across the room, and turned round before getting into the lift, stood there for a moment, and watched Seppo pouring milk and more coloured flakes into a glass dish. Tomorrow, he decided, he would try that multicoloured muesli himself.
46
THE YOUNG WOMAN who collected him outside the porter’s lodge was the one who had been looking at a computer screen early in the morning, laughing heartily at something.
She wasn’t laughing now, but looked at him with a neutral expression, introduced herself as Arja Ekström and asked what this was about.
Arja Ekström, nice name, thought Joentaa.
‘You must be freezing,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Sorry, I just thought . . . in this cold . . . with only your white coat on . . .’
The woman laughed at that, but only briefly, and Joentaa got the impression that she felt embarrassed by losing control.
‘Why don’t we go in and discuss it in peace?’ suggested Joentaa.
‘Of course,’ she said, going ahead. He followed her across the courtyard and over to the main entrance. Warm air met him as they went in.
The woman walked purposefully down a corridor lined with potted plants, and finally knocked on the door of an office at the end of the long passage.
Joentaa heard the muted call for them to come in, and he recognised the man who rose from behind a broad desk and came towards them – the tall, bearded man who had knocked on his car window and asked whether he was all right.
‘We have a visitor,’ said the young woman. ‘Police. Mr . . .’
‘Joentaa. Kimmo Joentaa,’ said Joentaa.
The woman nodded, and introduced the bearded man as the director of the hospital, Stefan Holmgren.
‘Good morning,’ said Joentaa.
‘Police . . .’ said Holmgren, and Joentaa had the impression that he was lost in thought, fitting the face he saw before him into this morning’s situation. Possibly the way Joentaa had been lounging in his car didn’t match the psychologist’s idea of a police officer.
‘I’m from Turku, and I’d like to speak to one of your patients, a woman,’ said Joentaa. ‘It’s in connection with our inquiries.’
‘From Turku,’ said Arja Ekström. ‘That’s a very long drive.’
‘Turku. That rings a bell with me,’ said Holmgren.
‘It’s about Anita-Liisa Koponen. Is she still being treated here with you?’
Holmgren nodded. ‘Yes. I remember that case myself . . . she thought she recognised the dead woman who couldn’t be identified.’
Joentaa nodded.
‘I spoke to one of your colleagues about it,’ said Holmgren.
‘I know,’ said Joentaa. ‘The lead she gave us was checked, and initially classed as not very important. But now I would very much like to speak to Ms Koponen again.’
‘Yes . . . of course,’ said Holmgren. ‘If it seems necessary to you. Do you ascribe any . . . real significance to what she said, then?’
‘I’d like to talk to Ms Koponen, and then I’d be able to assess that better.’
‘Yes.’ Holmgren nodded to himself, and seemed to be thinking, as if he wanted to formulate some distinct idea. ‘And you drove here . . . from Turku? At night?’
Joentaa nodded.
‘Without arranging an appointment, and without knowing whether Ms Kaponen is still having treatment here?’
At that Joentaa laughed. ‘Does that tell you something about my psyche?’ he asked.
‘Yes, to some extent,’ said Holmgren, ‘but don’t worry. Not everything that’s significant can be interpreted immediately. I’m sure that’s much the same in your profession as in ours.’
Joentaa wondered how he could have given a rational explanation of his impulsive decision to take to the road at once, just like that. Probably by saying: I couldn’t sleep anyway, so why not drive to Ristiina? Or something like that.
Holmgren looked at Joentaa and seemed to choose his words carefully for what he said next. ‘Anita-Liisa Koponen has been with us about seven months, with a few short breaks. But she kept coming back because she – well, she can’t get her bearings in everyday life. She suffers from bipolar disorder, accompanied and possibly set off by the consumption of drugs that in the long run alter the personality.’
‘Yes,’ said Joentaa.
‘So if you are asking our opinion of the credibility of—’
‘I’d really like to speak to Ms Koponen first,’ said Joentaa.
Holmgren looked at him for a long time. Then he nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. He picked up the phone, tapped in a number and had a short conversation. ‘Arja will bring her here,’ he said when he had hung up. He turned to his young colleague. ‘I think the ergotherapy room is free.’
Then Joentaa was following the purposeful Arja Ekström again, fighting off an impulse to ask her what she had been laughing at this morning.
She led him into a large, bare room that smelled of lemon. The snow was coming down harder beyond its windows. A lavishly made-up, red-haired woman and a corpulent young man were waiting for them.
‘Thank you, Tarmo,’ said Arja Ekström, and the young man stood up and shuffled away. Joentaa looked at the woman, who was sitting very upright at a long table against the background of the winter landscape, and looked lost.
He went up to her, offering her his hand. ‘I’m Kimmo Joentaa,’ he said. ‘From the police in Turku.’
The woman’s hand lay softly in his. ‘It’s good that you’re here,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Joentaa, and he turned to Arja Ekström. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll look in on you again before I leave.’
Arja Ekström stood there for a little while in silence, then she nodded and went away. Joentaa sat down opposite the woman.
‘Ms Koponen, I’d like to talk to you about a lead you gave us some time ago. It’s about the body of a woman whom we hadn’t been able to identify yet . . .’
‘I know,’ she said.
‘You told a colleague of mine that you recognised the woman in the photograph.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘She was our music teacher at school. And I also . . . I had piano lessons with her. One summer.’
‘One summer?’
She nodded.
‘Do you know what summer that was? What year?’
‘She offered to do it. She was there for only that one summer, as a supply teacher, because Irmeli Nikola was so ill.’
‘Do you remember what summer that was?’ asked Joentaa again.
‘I’ve been thinking of that,’ she said.
Joentaa waited.
‘I didn’t really want to play the piano at all. But I went . . . because my parents were so keen for me to be able to play something. Because they’d bought the piano, and my brother couldn’t play it.’
‘Can you remember the year?’ asked Joentaa.
‘And I liked going to the lessons because she was so nice. A really nice person.’
‘Can you remember her name?’ asked Joentaa.
‘It was in 1985,’
she said.
‘1985 . . .’ said Joentaa.
‘Because after that everything was different.’
Joentaa waited.
‘Different from before,’ she said.
‘What happened then?’ asked Joentaa.
‘She was ill too,’ she said.
‘The piano teacher?’
‘Just like Irmeli Nikola. But Irmeli Nikola had cancer, and she . . . I mean the other teacher, after a while she didn’t come any more. No one ever said why.’
‘Can you remember the woman’s name?’
Anita-Liisa Koponen said nothing, and looked at him as if she didn’t understand the question. Behind her, the snow and the morning sky were merging into an expanse of grey. The make-up that the woman in front of him was wearing began to run, and Joentaa thought what a strange contrast she presented – on the one hand the calm voice, the controlled gestures, on the other the mysterious tenor of her words. And a clear, regular face hidden behind a mask of make-up.
She said, ‘Angels have no names.’
‘That’s what you told my colleague,’ said Joentaa.
‘Because that’s how it is.’
‘Can you tell me what happened at the time?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean what happened then.’
She looked at him for a long time. ‘Oh, that,’ she said at last.
Joentaa waited.
‘Do you really want to know?’ she asked.
Joentaa nodded.
She picked up her handbag, took a handkerchief and a small mirror out of it, and examined her face for a few seconds before carefully wiping the handkerchief over it. Then she seemed to pull herself together, and smiled. ‘You could have told me my make-up was running,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ said Joentaa.
‘We played a duet, four hands on the keyboard. I don’t remember what it was. And she played really well. I thought for the first time that it might be good to be able to do that . . . do you understand what I mean?’
Light in a Dark House (Detective Kimmo Joentaa) Page 12