Dark As My Heart

by Antti Tuomainen

  In addition to gates, some of the nearby buildings had ramps leading to lower level entrances. I was nearly back to the end of the street when I got a bite. I passed a ramp and thought I could see the shining back end of the Lexus in its depths. I parked the Volvo on the street fifty metres away and got out of the car.

  It was a three-storey building that looked as if it was built in the 1980s, judging by its crumbling windowsills, the pale concrete used for the structure and surface, darkened in places, and its general boxiness. The poor construction showed in the ever so slight slant of the walls. The front of the building was unkempt, the strip of muddy, greyish lawn half filled with old appliances. The corpses of a refrigerator, washing machine, and microwave oven seemed to still cling to a hope of something better. Between them were boxes full of old hoses and cords. From the looks of them, the boxes had been outdoors for a number of winters.

  The ramp led steeply into the building interior. I waited a moment, looking and listening. I didn’t see anyone on the street, and a quick glance showed no one in the windows. I walked down the ramp and was surprised how dark and cold it was under the building. I felt as if I’d stepped into a cave. I let my eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. I didn’t want to stand in silhouette against the bright morning, so I moved closer to the wall. After a while I thought I could make out the shapes of several vehicles. I didn’t hear any sounds of cars or people. I could smell petrol and some other sharp, industrial smell. I was annoyed at how slowly my eyes adjusted to the dark. Finally I was able to see better. I had been right that the shapes were cars, but I hadn’t realised that they really were only shapes. Many of them were at least partially disassembled. Harmala’s Lexus was easy to pick out from the group. It was the only entire car in the garage.

  I could see a grey steel door at the back of the space, partially opened. I headed towards it, and soon heard Harmala’s voice through the crack. He sounded upset. I made my way closer, keeping near the wall. To get to the door I had to squeeze between two car bodies. It was a tight space and there were car parts strewn all over the floor, so I had to watch my feet, just when I should have been looking ahead.

  The steel pipe struck me in the diaphragm. The blow was a powerful one, and I immediately doubled over. The pain spread inward and I couldn’t get any air.

  In front of me was a pair of distressed jeans tucked into combat boots. I lunged at them.

  I couldn’t quite reach the legs. They dodged out of my way. The second blow of the pipe struck me on my right arm, which I’d lifted to protect my head. I turned and lunged again.

  This time I didn’t miss. I was bent over facing the ground but I managed to wrap my arm around the pipe-wielder’s waist. I’d moved with enough force to drive both of us against the junked car. The crash sounded like a bomb going off in the low-ceilinged room. I let go and rolled to the side.

  The pipe was on the floor.

  I grabbed it with both hands and swung it with all my strength in the direction of my attacker, and thought I grazed someone’s side or back. I heard a cry and another crash against the side of the car.

  In the same motion I got up from the floor and took off at a run towards the light. The blow to my gut had made my eyes water. I couldn’t get a breath. I came to the ramp, pushed myself up and out of the building in two running strides, and rolled away from the entrance and out of view.

  I stood up on the lawn and ran as hard as I could with a nearly ruptured diaphragm and no oxygen. I reached my car, which I’d left on the street in front of a blue-sided delivery van. The van served as a screen.

  I threw myself behind the wheel, started the car, and drove away. The seatbelt reminder beeped for a couple of blocks before I was able to raise my right hand high enough to fasten it. I came to the traffic light and panted, bent over the steering wheel. Only then did I start to really feel the pain in my arm. The blow had struck me under the elbow and the pain buzzed in both directions. My fingers were stiff, partially numb. I couldn’t touch my abdomen. I heard a car horn behind me. I realised the light was green and I hadn’t moved. My eyes were dim. It was hard to breathe. I drove over the bridge past the Siilitie metro station and continued toward Viikki. I looked in the rearview – no one was following me.

  The straight section nearly a kilometre long between open fields proved challenging. I didn’t want to attract attention so I made myself drive at the speed limit, which felt too fast. I held my right arm against my side. I sat upright, my back as straight as I could make it, though my solar plexus and stomach wanted me to put my head down on the steering wheel. I came to a roundabout.

  I went nearly all the way around it, drove into the Viikki test gardens, found a car park, and a space at the far edge to pull into. I went to sit in the shade of the autumn trees, looked at the gold-brown leaves and felt the cold stone beneath me. I checked the clock on my mobile phone.

  Still a few minutes.

  A little bird flew among the branches in a precise trajectory, without hesitation, without a single unnecessary movement of its wings.

  A moment later I was driving towards Eira.

  Henrik Saarinen was nowhere to be seen. That was a good thing, and to be expected – it was only ten to nine. I could stroll up and down the pavement and shake out my arm and let the Disprin take effect. I’d stopped at a chemist’s to buy some painkillers and swallowed two tablets on the spot, washing them down with cold, fresh water from the dispenser. Four cups. I was thirsty.

  The wind blew such a strong smell of the sea that you’d have thought the middle of the ocean was right around the next corner. It was actually half a kilometre to the shore. The sparse leaves on the trees rustled and clicked in the morning wind like cut paper. The blanket of autumn was spread over everything.

  The feeling had returned to my arm and the pain in my abdomen was lessening. I walked back to the building.

  Henrik Saarinen opened the door at exactly nine o’clock.

  ‘The car’s in the basement,’ he said.

  The red carpet in the stairwell was soft as fresh-cut grass under my feet. We walked in complete silence. We came to the basement door. Saarinen opened it with a key and let me through. I went down the stairs. I could hear Saarinen’s feet on the stone steps and feel him behind me, his presence, which was so familiar to me now that its nearness felt both suffocating and oddly natural at the same time. I came to a low, grey fire door, pushed it open, and smelled a garage, a smell that’s always and everywhere the same. The combination of rubber, petrol, dirty metal and stale air was the same whether you were in Kuala Lumpur, San Francisco, or an upmarket residential area in Helsinki. I was heading automatically towards the grey Mercedes-Benz at the back of the garage when I heard Saarinen speak.

  ‘The Land Cruiser.’

  There were around sixteen parking spaces in the garage. A steel-grey Land Cruiser was parked in the middle on the right.

  ‘You drive,’ Saarinen said.

  I turned and caught the keys he tossed me. I found and pressed the button on the keychain to open the doors. The car lights flashed, the doors unlocked, and we got in. Saarinen sat next to me in the front seat. It wasn’t enough that we were in a different car, he also wanted to sit in a different way from usual.

  The Land Cruiser was nimbler than you would guess from its appearance. It turned in the tight space without a problem and bounded into the street like a smaller, low-slung car.

  ‘Head toward Kalmela,’ Saarinen said.

  ‘All right,’ I said, and turned left towards the shore road.

  I tried to watch him from the corner of my eye. His face didn’t tell me anything, he gazed straight ahead. He was dressed in a way that was no doubt as ordinary as he could manage. Light blue jeans, a red sweatshirt, and a black training jacket. His shoes were a different matter – they looked like tough safety shoes, with thick soles and steel reinforcements; the kind of shoes construction workers wear.

  ‘So you didn’t have any problem getting here,’ Sa
arinen said as we came to the tree-lined end of Mechelinkatu.

  ‘No trouble,’ I answered. ‘Harmala’s day off must have been a surprise, then?’

  ‘Yes and no. The way surprises sometimes happen. A surprise I had expected.’

  We passed the hospital. The traffic lights were green as we rolled down the hill, turned onto the highway, and accelerated to a hundred kilometres per hour.

  ‘I’m not certain of the exit, so be ready to turn when I tell you to,’ he said.

  ‘Got it.’

  I could feel him looking at me.

  ‘You haven’t asked anything,’ he said.

  ‘What should I ask?’

  ‘That depends on what you want to know. To be honest, you look like a man who doesn’t really have any questions. A person like that is always interesting. It’s either due to a complete lack of interest, or to the fact that you already know what you want to know. I’ll bet that in this case it’s the latter.’

  ‘True. For your needs, anyway. I have the car keys, and clear directions.’

  I glanced at Saarinen. He had a tight little smile on his face. He was a large man. His face was about ten centimetres above mine.

  ‘Fantastic,’ he said. ‘Just fantastic. Better than I expected. We’re going to have a wonderful day.’

  I didn’t ask what he meant, and he didn’t say anything more. He didn’t speak again until we were in Espoo.

  ‘Turn here,’ he said, pointing at an exit.

  I drove to the intersection and chose the direction and lane according to his instructions. When I saw a large lit sign I knew instinctively that we would end up under it. Saarinen gave single-word directions – left, right, straight, park – until we were in the car park of a large hardware store. I turned off the engine. Saarinen took something out of his pocket and handed it to me. A folded piece of paper.

  ‘Shopping list,’ he said.

  He didn’t look as if he was planning to go in the store. Or anywhere. His eyes behind his glasses were serious.

  ‘Evidently you want me to go in alone,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  I looked at him for a moment. Then I got out of the car and headed for the store entrance. I didn’t look behind me. When I got inside, I unfolded the list:

  50 metres 5mm rope

  garbage bags (3 rolls)

  steel shovels with pointed tips (2)

  light chainsaw

  hunting knives (2)

  nail gun, 30° Paslode IM350+ (with storage case)

  compressed air (4 cartridges)

  90mm nails (to fit the nail gun – 10 packs of 53)

  protective gloves (5 pairs)

  protective goggles (2 pairs)

  I got one of the large, blue shopping carts and gathered the items, walking at a steady pace down the long aisles of the warehouse. There weren’t many customers, and I made quick progress. I’d found everything in fifteen minutes. I paid with the credit card he’d given me, and rolled the cart out to the car. Saarinen was sitting motionless in the front seat.

  ‘Marvellous,’ he said when I’d put everything in the car and was once again behind the wheel.

  I assumed that we would head to Kalmela now. When I approached the highway again I looked both ways and noticed a slight smile on Saarinen’s lips, a kind of smile I hadn’t seen on him before. It made something scratch at me from inside, made the gall rise to the back of my throat, sent a cold wind blowing through me.

  I looked straight ahead again and let my foot fall on the accelerator with its full weight. The Land Cruiser leapt forward. Saarinen’s neck jerked and his head rocked backwards, the smile disappearing from his suntanned face.

  Bright sunlight bounced off the bonnet and wing mirror into my eyes. The landscape changed yet remained the same: autumn colours at their most red, yellow, and gold. I kept my eyes on the road and the traffic, in spite of my awareness that Saarinen’s head was making tiny sideways movements as he glanced in my direction at regular intervals, nonchalantly.

  After fifteen minutes of silence he opened his mouth. He didn’t look at me as he spoke. Quite the opposite. He behaved as if he were counting the trees or watching the rise and fall of the cut rock that lined the right side of the road.

  ‘Is it all right if we drop formalities and titles today?’ he said, then answered himself. ‘Of course it is, since we’re on unofficial business anyway.’

  I didn’t know what about our business was particularly unofficial, but I wasn’t going to ask, either.

  ‘Do you remember when I asked about your family?’

  I remember very well, I thought, because I was afraid I was being exposed.

  But I just said, ‘I remember.’

  ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘How does what feel?’

  ‘Being alone in the world. Not having anyone who needs to be notified if anything happens to you. I don’t mean to pry. You don’t have to answer.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You can get used to anything.’

  ‘I thought you would say that. In those very words. So I don’t believe you. Or I only partially believe you.’

  I held the steering wheel tightly and moved into the left lane to pass a tall, white bus, which seemed to grow longer as we came abreast of it.

  ‘I’m sure you can get used to anything,’ Saarinen said. His voice was clear, without emotion, the words precise. ‘But that’s not the whole truth. I assume I can be direct with you?’

  I shrugged my shoulders. My back was wet with sweat. My heart pounded in my chest as if in an empty box, hollow and aching. Until now I’d thought I could maintain my composure and certainty, but the situation was becoming more uncomfortable by the second, and I wasn’t sure why. Of course being near someone whom you suspect of murdering your mother is stressful, but there was something else, too.

  ‘It must be very liberating in some ways,’ he said, still not looking at me but straight ahead, maybe at the old blue Saab in front of us. ‘Liberating in the sense that you can do as you see fit. You don’t owe anything to anyone, and you won’t be judged no matter what you do. You can behave as if you know what’s best. You can take things on and get them done. Set goals and commit to them and not care about anything else, or anyone else, just about getting results.’

  My mind turned cooler than the air conditioning. Saarinen’s hands lay in his lap, palms up. He opened and closed them as if calling down rain from the sky.

  ‘When I look at you, Aleksi, it seems to me that you have a job to do. I’m rarely wrong about these things. I trust my instinct. I’ve used it to make quite a bit of money. And to do everything else. As you know.’

  Breathing was getting harder. My dry throat needed me to swallow, but made it difficult.

  ‘I mean things like acquiring Kalmela. Some people might have thought the old house and grounds would be nothing but a burden, but I saw it as a possibility, a way to have something whose value would only increase as the years went by. That’s what I mean about you. Don’t think that I see you as nothing but a caretaker, a maintenance man.’

  As he spoke he turned his head like a machine, precise as a clock, level and sure. I looked at him. Our eyes met. I turned my gaze back to the road, his glistening eyes were oppressive.

  ‘I see potential,’ he said. ‘Possibilities. Maybe something that even you aren’t aware of. Do you think I’m going too far? That I’m jumping to unfounded conclusions?’

  I shrugged again.

  ‘Of course not. Of course not. I’m not mistaken. I’m sure that you’re capable of anything,’ Saarinen said, no longer looking at me. ‘The question is, are you ready for anything?’

  That’s an easy question, I thought, as long as I don’t have to explain my answer.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘That’s why I brought you along today. And to get to know each other better, of course.’

  Having said this, he fell sil
ent. Neither of us said anything for several minutes. I thought of turning on the radio, to hear the sounds of the outside world, other people’s voices. Anything. I settled for silence.

  ‘Naturally I have to ask you about some things that might seem personal,’ Saarinen said, as if there had been no break in his talk. ‘And of course you in turn can ask me questions.’

  Where did you bury my mother?

  It wasn’t yet time for that question. I wanted to get closer, to know more about him.

  ‘We’ve got twenty minutes,’ I said.

  Saarinen was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘What do you remember about your father, Aleksi?’

  I was about to open my mouth when he answered his own question.

  ‘Not very much. Otherwise you would have mentioned him in your interview. Don’t be alarmed if I know everything that was asked in your interview, and all of your answers. It’s all confidential.’

  ‘I promise not to be alarmed,’ I said.

  ‘You have a sense of humour, too. That’s wonderful. I remember my own father all too well. I don’t know whether to hate him or thank him. I hope this isn’t getting too personal.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said.

  I’ve worked for twelve years to get to this place.

  ‘My father was a man who was never satisfied with anything.’ He sighed. ‘That dissatisfaction applied to me, as well. It made me try harder. Not that trying did any good. I don’t remember him ever giving me a word of praise for anything or ever showing me any recognition. Which in hindsight is actually the secret of my success.’

  I waited for him to continue. I glanced sideways, straight into his eyes.

  ‘I hate him, and I’m grateful to him,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t truly free until after he died.’

  I looked at the road again. We passed the kilometre mark. We would soon turn in at the estate. Or not.

  ‘When did your father die?’ I asked.

  ‘May the fourth, 1983.’

  ‘Then what happened?’