Nights of Awe

by Harri Nykanen

  “Silberstein’s. He was certain that the deaths were related to the foreign minister’s visit. He doesn’t believe in coincidences.”

  “I suppose he had some theory to support his suspicions?”

  “We’ve received several threats in Arabic. They say the synagogue is going to be blown sky-high.”

  “Letters?”

  “And a videotape. We turned it over to the Security Police.”

  “What was in it?”

  “An armed man with a scarf around his face holding a sign that read ‘Free Palestine’ in English. He spoke Arabic and said that Jews are not safe anywhere in the world and that we had been selected as the target of a strike by al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade unless we publicly denounced Israel’s policy of occupation.”

  “Al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade. Almost sounds like we’re part of the big bad world that’s out there. Little Finland has finally had the honour of making it onto the terrorists’ hit list.”

  “Are you making fun of this?”

  “No, I’m surprised.”

  “When we heard about the killings at Linnunlaulu, Silberstein said that al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade had planned a joint attack during the foreign minister’s visit, but then the organizations had had a falling out over something and started killing each other.”

  I had no doubt that Silberstein had a taste for fabricating conspiracy theories, but his theory tasted too ready-digested, just like Meyer’s explanation of his and Weiss’s cooperation in the fur trade.

  “Pretty bold conclusion from so little information,” I said. “What’s it based on?”

  “I don’t know, but Silberstein and Meyer have good contacts in Israel.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But I know that Silberstein went and visited Meyer a few days ago, even though they’re not on speaking terms. Meyer’s son-in-law is in the Israeli army.”

  “Meyer’s son-in-law is a pilot. How the hell would he know what al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade are up to here?”

  “Maybe he has connections in Mossad.”

  “And Mossad would tell Meyer’s son-in-law, ‘Now be sure and warn your father-in-law that al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade might attack in Finland’?”

  “I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “How does Weiss fit into the picture?”

  Eli shook his head.

  “And what about SUPO, what did they do when you told them about the threats?”

  “They promised to organize security for the synagogue for the duration of the visit and protect the foreign minister.”

  “Was Sillanpää the one you talked to?”

  “Yeah, Inspector Sillanpää.”

  “Have you guys been in touch with the Israeli embassy or has anyone from there been in touch with you?”

  Eli gave me an irritated look.

  “Are you interrogating me? Even though you’re a cop, you’re still my little brother.”

  “I want to know what you’re mixed up in and how deep. Have you been in touch with them?”

  “Silberstein and I met the ambassador and the embassy’s head of security once.”

  “Why?”

  “We were discussing the foreign minister’s visit and the related arrangements.”

  “Did the ambassador mention anything about risks related to the visit?”

  Eli thought for a minute. He was by nature timid and satisfied with his lot; he didn’t want to put what he had achieved at risk. And now we were talking about matters more significant than screwing a female client on his desk or on the oriental rug in his office.

  He had told that story once when he was with me and my subordinates in the sauna at the police-guild cabin. He didn’t do it because he was drunk; he did it to spike his status among the coarse, crude police officers. He had later regretted his revelation so much that he had gone to synagogue every night for two weeks to ask God for forgiveness – not for what he had done, but for the fact that he had blabbed.

  “Silberstein told me that Mossad had provided intelligence – or I mean he didn’t talk about Mossad, he said the Security Police – indicating that there were several Arabs living in Helsinki who had connections to terrorist organizations, two of whom were suspected of participating in multiple bombings against Jewish targets. So you can understand why we were worried. The foreign minister of Israel was coming here on a visit, and at the same time hard-line terrorists with false identities who were known to have procured explosives and weapons from Russia were hiding out here.”

  “If Mossad knew that there were terrorists here, why didn’t they just go ahead and tell us who they were?”

  “Maybe they did, but only to SUPO.”

  Eli looked at his handsome watch. He had received it as a birthday gift from his wife. It cost twice as much as Lieutenant Toivola’s Toyota.

  “I promised I’d be home before ten.”

  I knew I’d been a little rough on Eli. I still wanted to know one more thing, though.

  “When were you tapped for the congregation’s security gig?”

  “It’s been a couple of months already.”

  “The decision about the Israeli foreign minister’s visit had already been made then, hadn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It takes months to organize a visit like that, because…”

  Eli wasn’t an idiot. He turned to me.

  “Why are you asking me that? Are you saying that the whole thing was planned so…”

  “Goodnight, Eli.”

  I got out of the car and shut the door.

  I had only slept a few hours the previous night, and those few poorly. I was bushed.

  I made myself an egg sandwich, listened to Billie Holiday for a minute, and then fell asleep. That night I didn’t play table tennis with a beautiful Israeli soldier, but with Karmela Meyer. She was naked and played a lousy game. I hit a sharp backhand and the ball got caught between her melon-sized breasts. Right when I was dislodging the firmly trapped ball, my phone rang. I had just got my hands full of Karmela and I didn’t want to wake up. But the caller was sadistically persistent.

  I glanced at the clock as I answered. It was already ten past seven. I felt like I hadn’t slept a wink. It was Simolin.

  “Got a good tip-off about Hamid’s cousin. According to the caller, Tagi was renting a studio apartment in Kallio. The caller was Tagi’s landlord. He read this morning’s paper and ID’d him from it. I promised I’d come by right away.”

  “What’s right away?”

  “I could pick you up. I’m at HQ.”

  “Thanks. In half an hour in front of my building.”

  “See you then… and sorry I woke you up.”

  14

  Tagi Hamid’s apartment was in an old building on Toinen Linja, across from the Kallio municipal centre. The landlord – a skinny guy, about seventy – was waiting in his car out front. The car was a brand-new, silver-grey Volvo. He eyed us but didn’t get out until we parked. He was wearing a tracksuit that rustled as he walked; it was in stark contrast to the status projected by the car. He was carrying a plastic folder under one arm.

  “Harjumaa?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “That’s right, and I assume you’re from Criminal Investigations… I trust you, but I’d still like to see that badge if you don’t mind.”

  I showed him my police ID, and so did Simolin.

  “There’s so much at stake here you can’t afford to take any of it lightly.”

  He clenched the folder under his arm as if it were full of top-secret information.

  I conceded that he was right; there was no call for lightheartedness.

  Harjumaa began flipping through his folder, intermittently wetting his finger in his mouth. He evidently had psoriasis, because the nail was as hooked as an eagle’s talon. He showed the rental agreement, holding the contract at a safe distance. I did manage to note that Hamid’s rental agreement wasn’t the only one. He was clearly
a wealthy man who raked in sizable sums through his property rentals.

  “Here it is,” he said, his hand and voice trembling. He took a step backwards when I reached for the folder.

  “Could I get a better look at it?”

  Harjumaa hesitantly stepped closer.

  I examined the contract. It had been signed a little over two months ago, and the rental period had been noted as “month-to-month, with a two-month notice period”. Harjumaa had demanded three months’ rent in advance – 1,350 euros.

  The apartment was not even two hundred square feet.

  “This is what you get for being a nice guy and trying to help someone out. That’s the last time I ever let to a foreigner. I’m losing out on a month’s rent here.”

  He looked at me as if seeking sympathy for his tragic fate.

  “Don’t you get to keep the deposit?”

  “That won’t go far if I have to clean up after him and fix the place up. If I could start over, I’d become a plumber. They really bleed you dry.”

  “How many apartments are you renting out?”

  Harjumaa considered for a moment whether this information was classifiable as a trade secret.

  Wiping his brow, he confessed: “A few… but the taxman makes sure that you can’t get rich off of being a landlord. First headaches and worries keep you up all night and then you barely break even. And the renters… they’re real troublemakers these days, they complain about everything. It’s never warm enough, or it’s too hot, or then the soundproofing’s bad, or the toilet’s broken. Nothing’s good enough. And of course they ought to get hardwood floors and triple-glazed windows for free.”

  Harjumaa’s dramatic gestures and the greed emanating from his voice made him seem like the prototypical bloodsucker.

  I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him throw himself to the ground and shower himself in ashes in the throes of rent-loss agony.

  “Isn’t 450 euros a pretty decent return on 190 square feet?”

  “You have to take into consideration all the trouble I go through. Plus the expenses. And the money invested in the apartment. I could get more out of it elsewhere, and with less effort, too. But someone needs to put a roof over people’s heads.”

  “I’m taking this, it’ll be returned to you in due time,” I said, showing him the rental agreement.

  The apartment was on the second floor. The window looked out onto the dumpsters in the courtyard.

  “Nice view,” Simolin remarked.

  The furnishings were sparser than sparse: a small table and two flea-market chairs.

  The bed also looked like a flea-market acquisition. A grey blanket had been tossed across it.

  On the floor there was a stack of books, a cassette-player boom box and a portable TV, but the apartment still didn’t look like a student shack.

  I held out my hand to Harjumaa.

  “I’d like the key please. I’ll get it back to you as soon as the apartment has been searched.”

  “It’s the only key and I need it. There’s someone coming to look at the place this evening who wants to move in right away… every day it’s empty ends up costing me.”

  I snatched the key.

  “How did Hamid hear about the place?” Simolin asked.

  “I had an ad in the paper.”

  “Did he speak Finnish well enough?”

  “No, he had someone with him, some relation, an older man who spoke Finnish. When I wondered whether or not I dared to rent to a foreigner, he said he lived in Finland and had his own company. Promised to back his relative.”

  “Was his name Ali Hamid?”

  “Ali something.”

  “Is this where you met them?” I asked.

  “Right here. I was getting the place ready.”

  In the kitchen there was a newish refrigerator and a mustard-yellow stove with a frying pan and a small steel pot on top. The tap was dripping. Harjumaa noticed and rushed over to turn it off.

  “Always leaving the tap running… as if water didn’t cost anything.”

  The dripping didn’t stop in spite of Harjumaa’s efforts. It was the seal that leaked.

  “Just had this fixed a year ago. Plumber just about robbed me blind, too.”

  “Did you see whether they came in their own car?”

  “No, there was someone else coming to see the place and I stayed here to wait.”

  “And it was just the two of them?”

  “I guess, at least no one else came upstairs.”

  Simolin measured the apartment with his eyes.

  “Does the place come with basement or attic storage?”

  “There’s a walk-in and a potato cellar in the basement. The attic is for drying clothes.”

  “Thanks for your help,” I said. “I’ll let you know as soon as you’re allowed to enter the apartment again.”

  “What about tonight?” Harjumaa nagged.

  “Not a chance. I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  Harjumaa was an obstinate soul. He still wouldn’t leave.

  “It wouldn’t take more than ten minutes. I’d just give them a quick tour. Remember, I was the one who was prepared to help out the police here…”

  Simolin took Harjumaa by the shoulder and escorted him brusquely into the entryway.

  “We’ll let you know.”

  “If I had known—”

  Harjumaa’s words were cut off as Simolin pulled the door shut behind him and snapped: “I would have whipped out the tear gas next.”

  Our preliminary investigation of the apartment was soon completed. In the wardrobe there were a few shirts and pairs of underwear, a couple of pairs of trousers, a grey jacket, a hooded nylon parka and an empty plastic suitcase. There was nothing in the pockets, not even a bus ticket. In the entryway there were dark-brown shoes and a ski cap, in the kitchen just the bare necessities.

  Simolin looked around in wonder.

  “How can anyone live without collecting the tiniest slip or scrap of paper? Trouser and shirt pockets totally empty. Even the garbage was empty.”

  “Maybe he was anticipating that the place would be searched.”

  “He didn’t have anything on him when he was found, either, not even keys or a mobile. Where are they?”

  “Let’s take a closer look,” I said.

  Twenty minutes later, we had examined the bottoms and backs of the wardrobes, gone through the clothes once more, the air circulation vents, the food supplies and the insides and backs of the fridge and the oven. Simolin also cracked open the backs of the television and the boom box and peered inside. It wasn’t until we got to the combined toilet-shower space that we scored. When I lifted up the drain cover, I spotted a plastic bag. I pulled it out into the light. Inside there was a small wad wrapped in plastic, a roll of cash as fat as my forefinger, and a Yale key.

  The cash was hundred-dollar bills.

  I carried our find into the kitchenette and poured the contents out onto the counter. I took the wad and made a small incision in it. White powder drifted out.

  Simolin glanced at me: “Maybe this is a drug thing after all.”

  I considered this for a moment and then rejected it. The packet weighed ten grams at most. The substance might have been for Hamid’s own use, or for a little income on the side. Business of that scale doesn’t involve murders.

  Simolin counted the cash.

  “A thousand dollars.”

  “Should we call in a dog?”

  “Let’s go down to the basement first.”

  The basement smelt of mouldy clothes and mothballs. We found the right walk-in, but it was empty and there wasn’t a lock on the door.

  We went back out into the corridor. I noticed a grey door on the opposite wall. Behind it, a hallway stretched back. It was about ten yards long and lined with rows of numbered doors on either side.

  I looked for number five, which was the number of Hamid’s apartment.

  I fitted the key into the lock and turned it.
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br />   On the floor there was a long nylon gym bag. I yanked down the zipper and saw half a dozen bricks, slightly larger than a cigarette carton, wrapped in brown resin paper. It took a second before I realized what they were.

  On the other hand, the dark-green metal tube was a cinch to recognize. It was a disposable grenade launcher. The bricks wrapped in paper were plastic explosives. Next to them lay a gleaming black machine gun, a dozen electric blasting caps and a device that looked like a delayed detonator.

  “If you want peace, prepare for war,” Simolin muttered. “Looks like this guy was planning a little military campaign.”

  The bag also contained an English-language pocket calendar. I took it and locked the door. We went back up to Hamid’s apartment, where I called the police bomb squad. I didn’t believe that the explosives were dangerous, but I didn’t want to transport a loaded launcher and dozens of kilos of bombs to HQ in our car.

  As I waited, I studied the calendar. Simolin was curious and squeezed in behind me.

  The calendar had been primarily used to make notes on meetings, phone calls and other everyday things. I searched for the day when Hamid and Harjumaa had signed the rental agreement. The meeting place and time had been marked in block letters. The calendar also contained Arabic notations.

  As I browsed through it, a piece of paper that had been folded into quarters fell out. Simolin picked it up, studied it for a minute, whistled softly, and handed it to me.

  A rough map had been sketched on it in ballpoint pen. The place was easy enough to identify. Lapinrinne, Malminrinne and Malminkatu.

  The location of the synagogue had been circled.

  I opened the calendar again and looked up 3 October.

  A small Star of David had been scrawled there.

  On 3 October, the foreign minister of Israel would be visiting the synagogue.

  15

  From the masses of clutter in the window of the pawnshop, you would have imagined that it was the owner’s life mission to collect stuff, not sell it. We stepped in, and I introduced Stenman and myself.

  “You called in a tip-off about the Kerava homicide,” Stenman said.

  “Kafka, was that the name?”