Nights of Awe

by Harri Nykanen

  “Ari!” Simolin called from the doorway.

  I handed the wallet back to Manner and went over to Simolin.

  “Looks like the employee lived here. We found a back room.”

  Calling the nook a room was a slight exaggeration. A sofa that seemed to double as a bed, a small table and a chair had been jammed into the tiny space. On the table there was a bag of bread, a bottle of water and a few cans of food. Next to the wall stood a metal locker containing a pair of belted jeans, a sweater and a padded nylon windbreaker.

  Two receipts, one for groceries from a nearby store and one from a petrol station, were found in one of the jeans pockets. There was a mobile in the inside pocket of the jacket. I handed it to Simolin.

  “Have it checked, although it doesn’t look like the most urgent thing. But we need to find out who the loved ones are anyways and let them know what’s happened.”

  Beneath the bed there were two cheap plastic suitcases. I opened them. All they contained was clothes.

  Stenman swept in.

  “There’s someone in that RV out there.”

  The mobile home was at the edge of the car park, only twenty yards from the body shop. A piece of paper covered in plastic wrap had been taped to the door. It read JÄPPINEN in stick letters.

  The door was opened by an elderly man who looked half-asleep and hung-over. His grey hair was sticking out all over the place, and there was some cream-coloured gunk in the corners of his eyes. I could make out the stench of stale booze from a yard off.

  He was dressed in old-fashioned polyester trousers and a moth-eaten flannel shirt that spilled out over his waistband. His shoulders were so narrow that his faded grey braces barely stayed up.

  “Jäppinen,” I guessed.

  “What do you want?” he asked crankily, licking his dry lips. His gaze was unsteady.

  I showed him my police ID.

  “From Criminal Investigations. So’s she.” I nodded in Stenman’s direction. “You live here?”

  “A person’s gotta live somewhere. It’s not a crime to not report your address, is it? Besides, I work here.”

  “Where here?” Stenman asked.

  “Around… As much as a person on disability is allowed to, building maintenance and stuff like that. I fill in over at the body shop if they need me. Had my own for thirty years, but it was too hard on the joints. I’ve had both knees operated on, and my back—”

  I interrupted Jäppinen’s recitation of his medical record. “Were you home last night?”

  “Home last night? Probably.” His gaze brightened. “Yeah, now I remember for sure. I was watching TV.”

  “You mind if we come in?”

  He backed up and sat down on a sofa bed that had seen better days; a tangle of bedclothes was heaped on it. The RV stank of ingrained filth. Scraps of food and empty beer bottles littered the table. Not the slightest hint of a woman’s touch to be seen anywhere.

  “Did you see anyone visit Hamid’s body shop last night?”

  “Last night? There’s always people running in and out of there. Customers and Hamid’s and his helper’s friends. There were always folks dropping by.”

  “Did Hamid work a lot of overtime?”

  “Almost every day… Haven’t seen him today, though. A couple of customers came by asking for him. Didn’t answer his phone. Kinda strange, Ali’s a conscientious guy… Did something happen to him, a break-in at the shop?”

  “Who did you see enter the shop last night?” Stenman demanded.

  “Show me that cop card again. My eyes are just starting to clear up.”

  He eyeballed my police ID right up close.

  “Kafka… Back in the Sixties I bought a good wristwatch from the Kafka pawnshop on Pursimiehenkatu, the good old-fashioned wind-up kind, a steel Zenith Star. Then I left it on at the Harjutori sauna once when I was drunk. Got water inside and that was the end of it,” Jäppinen said ruefully. “Related to you, by any chance?”

  After about my hundredth enquiry about my relatives, I had come to learn that people from Helsinki only know two Kafkas. One is the author; the other owns a pawnshop.

  “No relation. What happened last night?”

  “Why don’t you ask Ali himself? He’s a nice guy for a Muslim. Wouldn’t have sold my shop to some prick.”

  “The body shop used to be yours?”

  “Mine all mine. Ali’s from Baghdad, from Iraq. Came here to Finland as a refugee and worked for me for years. Seemed like an honest fella to me, so I didn’t see any reason not to sell it to him when I went on disability. We agreed that I can keep this RV here.”

  Jäppinen noticed a beer bottle on the table that still contained a few millimetres of liquid and tossed it back.

  “They were working late yesterday… I went down to the Teboil around eight to buy sausages and milk and a little beer. At that point the lights were still on over there.”

  “Did you go into the shop?” Stenman asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you see Hamid or the other repairman?”

  “Wasi? He’s from Iraq too. Nope.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Nope.”

  “Just a minute ago you said a lot of people were in and out of there, customers and Wasi’s friends,” Stenman reminded him.

  “I meant during the day, not at night… I meant in general a lot of people came by.”

  “But you didn’t see anyone last night, huh?”

  “No.”

  Stenman took a long look at Jäppinen. Jäppinen picked up rolling gear from the table and began rolling a cigarette.

  “What about any cars?”

  “Ali’s Volvo and Wasi’s Beemer were there. He just got it a couple of weeks ago. Bought some new doodad for it every day. Had prayer beads hanging from the rear-view mirror and so many dice that he was lucky he could see the road.”

  “The red BMW?” I offered.

  “Yeah.”

  Both cars were still in the yard. They were being checked at the moment and would soon be moved to police premises for even more thorough examination.

  “What kind of man was Wasin Mahmed?” I asked.

  “Hard-working, good kid. I gotta hand it to the Muslims, they respect their elders. Always calling me papa: papa this and papa that. Wouldn’t get me booze, and believe me, I asked.”

  “Did you see any other cars?”

  Jäppinen’s eyes searched around for something else to wet his whistle but came up empty.

  “Last night, you mean?”

  “Right.”

  “No, but I was down at the Teboil station for a while.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “As best as I can recall, I had a beer and then came straight home. About half an hour.”

  “You have the receipt?”

  “The receipt?” he repeated, perplexed, but then he fumbled around the table for his glasses, which were missing one arm, stood, and went over to the coat rack near the door. He fished his hand into the side pocket of the old-fashioned leather jacket and carried his catch over to the table. A broken cigarette, a six-millimetre bolt, a couple of small coins and a few slips of paper tumbled from his fist. I picked up the slips and found what I was looking for.

  According to the receipt from the petrol station, he had bought sausages, milk, bread and a six-pack of beer. The sale had been made at 8:05 p.m.

  Jäppinen looked outside through his teetering, one-armed spectacles and saw the police officers moving around the yard.

  “There’s cops out thicker than blueberries in a bog. Were those devils dealing drugs or selling stolen goods or something?”

  I didn’t answer, I just asked: “Do you remember anything else about last night? What did you do when you came back here?”

  “I guess I watched the news… and knocked back a few beers. Then I went to bed.”

  “Do you have a prostate problem?” Stenman asked. I glanced at her, slightly taken aback.

  “I’d wa
ger at this age, just about every man does.”

  “You drank a beer at the Teboil and more when you got back. Where did you do your business?”

  “Out back, behind the RV.”

  “And you didn’t see anything then either?”

  “I was looking at the stars, it was a clear sky, and the moon, there was a fine moon. And I was a little tipsy, I guess.”

  The apartment building was one of those well-built ones from the 1950s, four stories of plastered brick. The stairwell smelt of food and floor wax and I knew that the basement smelt of lime wash. These kinds of buildings always make me feel cozy and safe. Maybe it was because I had lived the first ten and happiest years of my life in one. I was positive this had the same kind of chicken-wire walk-ins as in the basement of my childhood home. In one of them, on a foam mattress laid out on the floor, I had done my damnedest to try and get into the pants of Karmela Meyer, my girlfriend who lived in the same building. Although Karmela breathed promisingly in my ear, I had to work at it for almost a year before I succeeded.

  I studied the name board in the lower lobby, the same kind where as kids we used to move the letters around to make up new, better names for the residents. Hamid lived on the third floor. There was no elevator.

  I had asked Stenman along. I wasn’t eager to face the wife and four kids whose husband and father had been killed all alone. Besides, you never knew what you’d find waiting for you in someone’s home.

  “Who breaks the news?” Stenman asked, when we reached the second floor.

  “You do, if you don’t mind.”

  “That’s fine. You know if they speak Finnish?”

  “Pretty sure. They’ve lived here eleven years already.” I had called HQ from the car and got the stats on Ali Hamid and his family. Aged forty-six, wife and four kids, a girl and three boys. The oldest fourteen, born in Iraq, the youngest five. Hamid and his wife had been granted Finnish citizenship four years ago.

  We stopped at the fourth-floor landing. I caught my breath before I rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a boy of about seven.

  “Is your mum at home?”

  “Who are you?”

  The boy’s mother came to the door. I showed her my police ID.

  “Police, Criminal Investigations. Good afternoon.”

  Panic flashed in her eyes, but she forced herself to stay calm.

  “May we come in?” I asked.

  The woman moved aside and allowed us to enter.

  “You’re married to Ali Hamid?”

  The woman ordered the children to their rooms.

  I glanced around. The living room was decorated in the Arab style: plump leather chairs, dark wood, sickly-sweet glass and porcelain objects by the dozen, ornately framed photographs and lush cascades of drapes. Actually, it looked like the room hadn’t been decorated, like each object had just been set down in the first available spot.

  It was only after the most curious child had exited that the woman asked: “What’s happened to him?”

  “Unfortunately, he’s dead,” Stenman said.

  “When?” the woman asked, as if she hadn’t understood the words.

  “Last night, apparently.”

  “He didn’t come home last night and I tried to call him… he didn’t answer.”

  Her voice faltered and she turned her head aside.

  Stenman went over and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “We’re sorry. We need your help to catch the person who did this. Your husband’s employee Wasin Mahmed was also killed.”

  The woman clumsily wiped away her tears with her knuckles and let out a loud sob. The oldest child peeked out from his door, frightened. She immediately snapped: “Out! Go back to your room!”

  The boy’s head disappeared and the door closed.

  “I was always afraid something would happen to him.”

  “Why?”

  “I told him not to get mixed up in anything.”

  “What did he get mixed up in?”

  Stenman guided the woman over to the sofa. She collapsed onto it.

  “We need your help, do you understand?”

  “Ali was a good man, a good father, why did they do it? He didn’t do anything bad to anyone.”

  The woman pressed her fist to her mouth.

  “They made orphans of my children… my four children.”

  Stenman took the woman’s hand between hers.

  “Who was he afraid of?”

  “I don’t know… My husband told me that they came to his work… Someone had given them his name… They asked for help, they said he was a good Muslim and that he should help them… that they were all doing Allah’s work.”

  “Help with what?”

  “A car, they needed a car… I begged Ali not to get mixed up in it.”

  “Did you see them?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Why did they do it? They made orphans of my children,” the woman repeated in despair.

  “Do you know how many of them there were or what their names were?”

  Stifled crying began to be heard from the oldest boy’s room.

  “We need to know everything that your husband told you about them.”

  “One called here last night, angry, and asked why my husband wasn’t answering his phone.”

  “What was his name?” Stenman demanded.

  “He didn’t say his name, he just asked why Ali wasn’t answering and said that Ali needed to call him as soon as he came home… he spoke English at first and then Arabic.”

  “Did your husband give them a car?”

  “I don’t know. I heard him call somewhere and ask about renting one.”

  “Didn’t you ask him anything about it later?”

  “I could tell that Ali didn’t want to talk about it.”

  The crying boy rushed out of the room and straight into his mother’s arms.

  The woman stroked the boy’s hair and cradled him in her arms. Then she gently pushed him away.

  “Go take care of your little brothers and sister.”

  He obeyed with a sob.

  “What were you afraid of, that something bad would happen to your husband?” Stenman asked.

  “He was afraid… He didn’t say it, but I know him and I know he was afraid of those men. That they would do something to us…”

  She burst into tears.

  “We thought we’d be safe here… that we could raise our children without fear here… that we could give them a good, safe childhood… my husband didn’t want to get mixed up in anything bad… he was a good man, a good father to our children.”

  Stenman let the woman vent her anguish for a moment before continuing: “We don’t believe that the caller killed your husband. We believe someone else did, someone who wanted information about the caller. We think that the caller is also dead. Do you have any idea about who could have killed the man who your husband was supposed to arrange a car for?”

  “No.”

  “Did your husband have any idea why they asked for his help specifically?”

  “Because he was a Muslim and they were Muslims.”

  “There are a lot of other Muslims here. Why him?”

  “I don’t know, maybe because he had an auto-body shop.”

  “Did your husband have any relatives or good friends in Finland?”

  “One cousin.”

  “We’d like the name and address.”

  “Tagi, he studies at the restaurant school in Helsinki. I think he lives in Kannelmäki, at least he used to.”

  I glanced at Stenman.

  “The photos.”

  Stenman took the photos of the deceased from one of her inside pockets and showed them to the woman.

  “Do you recognize either one?”

  The woman’s gaze locked in on the victim who had lost his nose and ears. The retouching had been a success. The photo looked almost normal; the eyes of the deceased were open, if slightly drowsy. But it couldn’t have been
unclear to anyone that the man in the picture was already off in another dimension, well beyond consciousness.

  “Tagi… That’s my husband’s cousin. Is he… also…”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Was your husband in close contact with his cousin?”

  “Tagi moved to Finland last year. At first they met often, because my husband gave him advice on all kinds of things. He even worked for my husband for a while and lived here. Then Tagi got into school, and they didn’t meet very often after that.”

  “What about recently? When did you see Tagi last?” Stenman asked.

  “He came here three days ago.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Want? He ate here and then he went with my husband to the mosque to pray. My husband went there three times a week.”

  “Did anything special happen to him that evening?”

  “He didn’t mention anything, at least.”

  “What time did he come home?”

  “Nine-thirty, like usual. He went straight to bed.”

  The woman looked at me, eyes clouded over. I could see that she had reached her limit. Stenman saw it too. She left her card on the table.

  “Please call us if you remember anything,” I said.

  “Would you like us to arrange some company for you before we leave?” Stenman asked.

  “Could you please just go now,” the woman pleaded.

  Four bodies in one day was a lot, so much so that the Violent Crimes Unit was being pushed into overdrive. That meant a total of about ten detectives assigned to the case, only half of whom made it to the evening briefing. Also present were Huovinen, Deputy Police Chief Leivo, Lieutenant Toivakka from narcotics and Inspector Sillanpää from the Security Police.

  Huovinen straightened his snazzy Italian tie and stepped over in front of the flipchart.

  “It looks like everyone’s here, so let’s get started.”

  Huovinen collected his thoughts for a moment or two.

  “We’re starting from a pretty massive bloodbath, four dead, three killed in cold blood and one who apparently did himself in trying to escape from the killers. All of the deceased appear to be of Arab origin. The identities of three have been confirmed. One is an Iraqi who has been granted Finnish citizenship, one a fellow Iraqi who worked for him, and the third the first man’s cousin, a citizen of the UK who has lived in Finland for about a year. None has a criminal record, at least in Finland, but we do have some information on them.”