‘Why in hell’s name did you let that lunatic escape? You’re supposed to have solid brick walls and locks on the doors in your place, and yet you let people walk out just as they please. You’d do better to keep a closer eye on your inmates!’
The hospital official retorted coldly that the mental patient was not from Oulu, he was a resident of the police chief’s canton, a place where it appeared madmen occupied positions other than just that of miller, and consequently it was the police chief’s job to detain him. Acid and fruitless comments were then exchanged at length on the subject of who was responsible for Huttunen’s capture until the police chief finally slammed down the receiver in exasperation.
Huttunen did not howl the following night, but instead went to the village. He stole through the houses to the Suukoski rapids where he picked a few root vegetables – turnips and carrots – from his garden to stave off his hunger. He didn’t go into the mill because he was afraid it was guarded.
The Siponens’ foul-tempered spitz did not wake up when Huttunen sneaked round to the back of the farm through the forest. Everyone was asleep on the ground floor, but there was a light shining on the floor above. The horticulture adviser was still awake then. Huttunen threw a pebble at the window and ducked into some currant bushes to wait. The light soon went out. The window opened and the adviser’s curly hair appeared. She peered out into the garden, her eyes swollen from crying. Huttunen came out of the bushes and softly called up to his beloved, ‘Did you get my money out of the bank, Sanelma darling? Throw it down to me!’
The young woman shook her head sadly and whispered a reply. Then, seeing that Huttunen couldn’t hear, she dropped a small piece of paper down into the garden. Huttunen grabbed it, and saw written:
The Cooperative Bank regrets to inform you that it can only pay out your savings and accumulated interest to you in person.
Respectfully yours,
A. Huhtamoinen, Manager
* * *
Huttunen couldn’t understand a word of it. Gesticulating indignantly, he fired off questions in a furious whisper until the Siponens’ dog woke up with a start by the front door and began barking in a sleepy voice. Sanelma Käyrämö took fright, scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper and threw it down to Huttunen. He read:
Dear Gunnar,
Meet me tomorrow evening at six in the forest, behind Vittavaara’s milk shed.
The hermit retreated into the forest to consider the situation. The dog’s barking had woken Siponen. In his underpants, rifle in hand, he came out into the garden, checked the woodshed and sauna, looked at the forest where the dog was staring and then, when the hound had stopped barking, scolded the creature and went back into the house in his stockinged feet.
Huttunen ate a few turnips, cutting thin slices with his knife. He tried to understand why on earth the bank manager had refused to give his money to the adviser. What gave Huhtamoinen the right to act so maliciously? Huttunen was seized with fury at the man. He hid the rest of the turnips in a hole in the moss and ran off through the woods to the bank.
The Cooperative Bank occupied the ground floor of a stone building. The manager lived on the first floor with his wife and children, and probably one of his employees as well: it seemed far too big for just one family. Huttunen studied the building housing his worldly fortune, and wondered how he could get in and retrieve his property. Clearly the only key to that safe was a few sticks of dynamite. The sensible course of action, therefore, would be to settle his business during opening hours. But there was no point going there empty-handed. A plain old axe seemed too far too humdrum a weapon for the situation. A rifle would be a more reliable guarantee at the counter to get what he was owed.
Huttunen remembered Ervinen’s magnificent gun collection. He could easily pinch one from it. The doctor would still have plenty for his own purposes, especially since the hunting season hadn’t yet started.
The following evening, Huttunen met the horticulture adviser in the woods behind Vittavaara’s milk shed. She was so scared she was trembling. Huttunen whispered lovingly in her ear, put a protective arm round her shoulders, reassured her and asked her how she was bearing up. Sanelma Käyrämö recounted all the terrible things that had happened since their last meeting. She tried to give Huttunen money but he refused.
‘You get paid such a pittance, my poor sweetheart, you keep it. I’ll work out a way to get some myself.’
Huttunen asked the adviser to ring Dr Ervinen that evening and tell him he was urgently needed fifteen miles away at Lake Kanto.
‘Tell him a doctor’s needed for a forceps birth at Puukko Hill farm, for the maid.’
When the adviser asked why she had to tell the doctor such a pack of lies, Huttunen explained that he wanted Ervinen to be out of his house for a while. If he were called out to somewhere remote, Huttunen would have enough time to explore the doctor’s surgery.
‘I need some of Ervinen’s pills. He’s got some sedatives in the cabinet near the fireplace. I saw him take them out of there last time.’
Sanelma Käyrämö could see that Huttunen might need a tranquilliser. But that didn’t make her the less afraid.
‘It’s still stealing … and it’s not right to make anonymous calls to the doctor. Anyway, no one’s expecting a child at Kanto Lake, they haven’t even got a girl working on the farm.’
Huttunen convinced the young woman to do as he asked. Wasn’t it, indirectly, a form of medical care? He was ill, after all; no one could deny that. Obviously it wasn’t entirely legal, but the end justified the means. His head wouldn’t be able to take the pressure much longer. And if he went to the chemist to buy medicine, they’d throw him in a cell straightaway and send him back to the asylum by the first train, wouldn’t they?
Sanelma Käyrämö promised to call Ervinen that evening. She was afraid the doctor would recognise her, but Huttunen assured her that all women could disguise their voices, since even most men could do at least a couple of different accents.
‘OK, I’ll call. I wouldn’t dare say Puukko Hill farm, but there is a Leena Lankinen at Kanto Lake who is pregnant. I’ll say it looks as if she might miscarry.’
The horticulture adviser described her visit to the bank and said that the police chief had interrogated her and harried her with questions and threats. Huttunen was furious; this was an abuse of power too far.
‘Why do they have to take it out on an innocent woman? You haven’t escaped from a mental hospital. You’re perfectly sane. Can’t they at least leave women in peace? Isn’t it enough hounding me day and night?’
As the couple parted, the adviser gave Huttunen a kiss and half a pound of smoked bacon. Huttunen remained in the forest in transports of happiness, the delicious piece of bacon in his hand and the memory of the adviser’s warm kiss on his lips. After Sanelma Käyrämö had ridden off on her bicycle, the hermit took the meat out of its greaseproof paper and ate it all, including the rind, such was his hunger.
CHAPTER 26
Huttunen’s pocket watch showed eight o’clock. The hermit was lying in wait in the woods behind Ervinen’s house, from out of which the doctor should rush out at any moment, urgently required for a possible miscarriage at Kanto Lake.
Sure enough, just after eight the doctor left the house, looking hurried and annoyed. He was carrying his doctor’s bag and wearing gumboots. The horticulture adviser Sanelma Käyrämö had raised the alarm then. Ervinen cranked up the starter handle of his car and sped off towards Kanto Lake. As soon as he was out of sight, Huttunen tried the front door of the house. It was locked so he had to climb in through the cellar window.
Once inside, he went straight to the back room to choose a good hunting gun. He was spoilt for choice: hanging on the wall were a shotgun, a precision rifle, a rifle for shooting elk, a hunting rifle and a combination gun, one barrel for cartridges and the other for bullets. Huttunen decided to take just one, the hunting rifle. He found plenty of ammunition in the desk drawer. A light rifle was p
erfect. He could shoot an elk with it if he had to, but it wasn’t too powerful for game birds either.
Huttunen decided to take some other things while he was at it. He would compensate the doctor for his loss one day, he thought, but for the moment, needs must, because he couldn’t survive in the forest without the right equipment. Well, here it all was, and who was going to stop him? The police chief and the villagers – with Ervinen leading the way – had taken everything he owned. He was just paying them back.
Ervinen had a superb rucksack, far superior to the one seized from Huttunen. It made sense, he supposed, that a doctor would have a better rucksack than a simple miller. His fishing tackle also passed muster. There could have been more flies, but the collection of spinners was fantastic. There was so much camping equipment that it was hard to choose. Huttunen crammed it all in, and then went into the bedroom and got a thick blanket, which he rolled up and tied on top of the rucksack. He took a pair of new, high-magnification binoculars that were hanging on the wall. A compass and map bag containing topographical surveys of the area added to the hermit’s haul.
When he’d packed everything he needed, Huttunen had a last look around, as one does before leaving one’s home to make sure one hasn’t forgotten anything. He thought it might be polite to leave a note on the table, explaining what had happened in the house and why. But then he remembered the systematic destruction of his camp and furiously dismissed the idea.
No one left a note of apology at Reutu Marsh. Now it’s this quack’s turn to suffer! Why did he have to go and certify me in the first place anyway?
Huttunen left the house the way he had come in. He passed silently from the garden to the forest and, skirting the village, headed towards the banks of the Kemijoki. It would be sensible to spend the night west of the river: they’d be looking for him out in the isolated country around Mount Reutu.
His days of taking the public ferry across the Kemijoki being over, the hermit had to borrow a boat moored by the bank, which he rowed to the other side and hid under some trees at the mouth of a stream. A mile or so from the river, he found a dense fir forest where he spent the night wrapped in Dr Ervinen’s blanket. In the morning, he went back to the boat, this time only taking the rifle and a couple of handfuls of cartridges. He pushed the craft into the water.
Time to go to the bank.
The hermit slipped through the woods like a ghost to the rear of the village bank. It was so early the branch wasn’t even open. Huttunen decided to wait for office hours and loaded his rifle.
As soon as the bank opened, he went in holding the gun. The staff panicked: the cashier flew like an arrow into the backroom, calling Huhtamoinen the bank manager, and leaving one deathly pale teller at the counter convinced he was about to die. A mentally ill person entering the bank with a gun in his hand seemed justifiable cause for alarm. But rather than riddling the place with bullets, Huttunen calmly informed the clerk, ‘I have come to withdraw my savings. The full amount, including interest.’
The bank manager Huhtamoinen rushed to the front of the counter. Beside himself with anxiety, he protested, ‘Mr Huttunen, you, here … The money in your account is on the premises, of course, in our safe, but I shouldn’t pay it out to you, in fact …’
Huttunen made as if to cock his rifle.
‘That money’s mine. I don’t want anybody else’s. I’ll just take what I’m owed.’
Terrified, Huhtamoinen stammered, ‘I don’t in the slightest dispute that you have a savings account with us and that there’s money in it too … but … but it’s been sequestrated. The commune’s guardianship board has transferred it to its own account. We received notice from Oulu that you had been put under guardianship … You have to obtain the farmer Vittavaara’s consent to withdraw your money. Why don’t I telephone him? Perhaps he’ll authorise the payment.’
‘No one’s ringing anyone. You’d just ring the police chief anyway. And what the hell has Vittavaara got to do with my money, in any case? Isn’t the revenue from his forest enough for him?’
The bank manager explained that Vittavaara was the president of the commune’s guardianship board and hence took the decisions concerning the financial affairs of the people under its guardianship.
‘Other than that, all this fuss over accounts leaves me completely cold,’ swore Huhtamoinen.
‘I’m still taking my money,’ Huttunen said. ‘Where do I sign?’
With a trembling hand, the teller slid a receipt over the counter. Huttunen signed and dated it. Huhtamoinen counted the money out on the table. It wasn’t much, but it would do for a few months.
The cashier’s voice could be heard in the back room. Huttunen went to see what he was doing and found him talking on the telephone. This wasn’t the ideal time to make a call, Huttunen pointed out. The terrified employee hung up.
Having sorted out his financial affairs, the hermit told Huhtamoinen that if he had any spare money in the future, he’d put it in Government bonds rather than give it to a bank.
‘I don’t trust institutions that only allow you access to your savings if you’ve got a gun.’
Huhtamoinen sought to play down the incident.
‘On no account can the bank be considered at fault here. We are merely obliged to observe the law and follow the authorities’ instructions, however harsh and disagreeable an obligation that may be … This whole business has mainly been a question of misunderstandings. But you mustn’t lose your trust in us, Mr Huttunen. I wouldn’t even go so far as to call this intervention of your’s armed robbery, it’s really something quite different. When this matter is cleared up, I hope you’ll come back and conduct your finances through our bank. We think of all our old clients as friends, I can assure you. I feel we could even discuss the possibilities of a loan … in the future, of course.’
Huttunen slipped back into the forest.
Everyone in the bank was frozen in shock for a moment, and then the cashier ran to telephone the police chief. The bank manager reported the crime in person. Gunnar Huttunen had just forced his way into the bank, armed with a rifle, he said.
‘He robbed the bank. He didn’t get away with a big haul – his savings should cover it without difficulty – but holding up a bank is a serious crime, and I trust you will mount a search party and go after him. Huttunen has only just vanished into the woods.’
CHAPTER 27
The hermit ran through the woods behind the village to the banks of the Kemijoki. He jumped into the boat and, oars flying, launched out into the turbulent river. The police chief was bound to organise a huge manhunt; he had no time to lose.
The news of Huttunen’s visit to the bank had already crossed the river, as the line of cars queuing for the ferry testified. A dozen or so men were already on board with their bicycles and most of them had a gun over their shoulders. Huttunen came level with the ferry two hundred-odd yards downstream.
‘Hey there, mate!’ the passengers shouted at him. ‘Come to the village with us. Kunnari Huttunen has robbed the bank and stolen Ervinen’s fishing tackle and rifle!’
When Huttunen continued pulling hard on the oars without replying, someone said, ‘He can’t hear. Shout louder.’
The passengers bellowed so loud that Huttunen was forced to stop rowing and give them an answer. He pulled his cap over his eyes and yelled, ‘I’m off to the station, then I’ll be with you!’
This was enough for the men; Huttunen was able to make his getaway. He pulled the boat up onto the banks of the stream and raced into the woods. Time was short. It was lucky no one from the ferry had recognised him. The hermit collected his rucksack, studied Ervinen’s maps for a moment and then plunged into the tall trees west of the Kemijoki in the direction of Puukko Hill. Surrounded on three sides by vast expanses of marshland, with a little stream at the foot of one of its slopes, Puukko Hill was a good eight miles away. Huttunen thought he’d be safe there, at least at first. The police chief would have to recruit hundreds of men if he w
anted to comb all the forest between the village and Puukko Hill. Beside, he’d look east of the Kemijoki first, in the wilds of Reutu Marsh.
Huttunen spent the day lazing on Puukko Hill. As its name – Knife Hill – suggested, it was a tall hill covered with slender firs, their crowns tapered like sharpened blades. From time to time, Huttunen trained his binoculars east, past Puukko Brook and the great marshes, to see if his pursuers had picked up his trail.
Huttunen counted and re-counted his money. To the last penny, it was the exact amount he had saved over the years, plus interest. The hermit thought he’d buy a few things in the neighbouring canton when the forest calmed down. Ervinen’s fishing gear would do for the moment, and, all things being well, he should be able to bag a few birds for the pot. He examined the gun. What a beautiful rifle: high quality workmanship, with a five-bullet magazine and a telescopic sight. But now wasn’t the moment to try it; any shooting would put the trackers in the forest on his tail.
Towards evening, Huttunen started: his binoculars had caught a glimpse of someone moving. A hunched little man had suddenly popped up on the other side of the peat bog with what appeared to be a heavy load on his back. Huttunen focused on the figure. What was he carrying? The man seemed to be bowed under the weight of a huge container, a sort of black barrel. It was at least a mile from the edge of the marsh to the hill, so it was difficult to be sure. But the man was evidently in a terrible hurry. He was running along, sinking into the shifting bog at every step, barely stopping to take a breath despite his burden. He was heading straight across the marsh to Puukko Hill. Huttunen loaded his rifle and waited. If the man was alone, as he seemed to be, there was no need to make a run for it immediately. Nonetheless he still hid his rucksack among some rocks on the banks of Puukko Brook.
The man drew nearer, half running. Huttunen saw through his binoculars that he was carrying a pitch-black drum, with a capacity of at least ten gallons. A muffled metallic clinking echoed up from the marsh in time with his steps. The man seemed to have some sort of poles or pipes under his arm. Eventually the fellow stopped within firing range of the hill, set down his load, took a few deep breaths and then ran back in the direction he had come from. With nothing to carry, he fairly shot along. Oh, he was in a hell of a rush, this little chap.
The Howling Miller Page 13