Dark As My Heart

by Antti Tuomainen

  ‘Do you feel as if you’re close?’ he asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I know how it feels to be close. To be so close that it feels as if what you want most is no more than an arm’s length away. That the only thing you have to do is hold out a few more moments and then all you need is to accept your share, receive what justly belongs to you. With a big smile, your face glowing, your hands held out. And inside, a certainty that this is what will happen, what is supposed to happen, what was supposed to happen. That the universe has finally adjusted itself a few millimetres in the right direction, even though it hasn’t.’

  He shot me a quick glance.

  ‘Aleksi, I know who you are.’

  I kept my hands on the steering wheel.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I forgive you. Your intentions have been good, and we have the same goal.’

  How quickly could I get my seatbelt open, get my hand on something? Saarinen was agile and quick for his age and size.

  ‘Stay on this road, Aleksi Kivi.’

  I looked in the rearview mirror. We would stay on this road.

  ‘Do you know what separates expectation from fulfilment?’ he asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’ve waited for years,’ he said, his voice a mix of sincerity and exaggerated surprise. ‘You know something about that. And I do, too. I’ve learned to like the waiting. It makes a person do his best, reach his potential. The tougher, the more challenging it is to wait, the more ready you become. Waiting makes us vigilant, attunes us, prepares us for what we have to do in order for the waiting to end one day.’ He licked his lips as if he’d just eaten. ‘Waiting has its good side. You can imagine the fulfilment of your desire. The more deliciously you build it up, the more you put into it, the more enjoyable the waiting becomes. I’m sure you feel the same way.’

  ‘And what about fulfilment?’ I asked. ‘You must have experience with that, too.’

  I could feel his gaze on my cheek, my temple. My foot was still on the accelerator. I was obeying the speed limit.

  ‘In many ways,’ Saarinen said.

  We crossed the third ring road and kept going. I could hear Saarinen’s breathing beside me, shallow and tremulous. Minutes passed. The dark autumn woods crowded closer towards the road on either side.

  ‘We’ll turn left about half a kilometre ahead,’ Saarinen said.

  If he hadn’t warned me I would have driven past it. It was a narrow opening in the black wall of forest leading to a small gravel road. The headlights swept over tree trunks and undergrowth. At the end of the road a lone outdoor light shone. Several hundred metres on we came to an ordinary sixties or seventies-era building, a combination of a house and some kind of garage. The building was dark except for an outdoor light on the brick wall. The road seemed to lead straight towards the house, but it veered left at the last moment and continued up a steep incline behind the building. Motion detectors lit up the yard with two bright lights.

  I stopped the car. The house seemed fairly well-kept. The windows were dark. I turned off the engine at Saarinen’s request and we got out. The evening chill went straight for my bare neck and fingers. It was so quiet that our steps on the gravel and the tiled porch sounded as if they’d been fed through a loudspeaker. When we got to the door at the back of the house Saarinen waved me aside, turned the lock, and beckoned me in.

  The air was musty and mildewy. I put my hand on the light switch and said, ‘Shall I?’

  ‘Of course,’ Saarinen said. ‘We’re here for a good cause.’

  I turned on the lights. At the same second, Saaarinen reached for something on a table in the corner. He unwound a cord. The nail gun. The one we bought. The movement itself frightened me. The same trajectory that I’d recognised, or thought I recognised, a long time ago.

  A dim hallway stretched ahead of us into the house. On the right was a living room, on the left a kitchen. There were only a few pieces of furniture. It looked as if no one lived there. I didn’t have to ask who owned the house. Saarinen did, no doubt, or more likely one of his companies.

  ‘The end of the hall,’ I heard him say behind me.

  The darkness wasn’t inviting, but I was in an abandoned house with a man holding a nail gun behind me. I took a few wary steps and saw that there was an empty shelf at the end of the hall with a closed white door on either side of it. The only difference between the doors was that one had two locks. The upper one was a padlock, new and shiny. The door looked as if it were reinforced as well. I heard Saarinen rummaging in the pocket of his leather jacket.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and handed me a ring with three keys on it. ‘It’s only fitting that you should open the door.’

  I took the keys and found the right one on the first try. The padlock was heavy in my hand, foreboding. It didn’t offer safety. I put it on the empty shelf. I opened the door and took a breath. What was I thinking about? Surprisingly simple things – the door opening; the couple of metres between me and Saarinen with the nail gun; the flood of stuffy air from the room behind the door, a mix of sour human exhalation, nights spent in a too small space, and other body odours – sweat, urine, fear, waiting; and the house’s own unlived-in smell of mildew, damp, and mould.

  The room was pitch dark. If there was a window, it was tightly covered.

  ‘The light switch is on the right,’ Saarinen said.

  I fumbled on the wall and turned it on. The light was agonisingly bright, an unshaded bulb, and there was no furniture in the room except for one old wine-red fake leather armchair. In the chair, tied with a variety of ropes and shackles was an old, obstinate, retired – or forcibly retired – former police detective. Ketomaa. His mouth was taped and his eyes blinded by the sudden light. His head flinched, his eyes strained, trying to see in the change from cellar dark to dentist’s chair bright.

  The former bedroom had been made into a cell. The window was boarded over. The walls were covered in sheets of grey soundproofing. The location of the house hardly made this necessary. The floor was original, spinach-green vinyl.

  ‘All the way in, Aleksi.’

  I took three short steps. The room was about twenty-five metres square. Ketomaa sat in the chair near the farthest wall. He was trying to say something. I couldn’t make out the words; the tape barely let him get any air even through his nostrils. I heard Saarinen’s steps behind me, then beside me. He chose his position strategically. He was between me and the door, an equal distance from me and from Ketomaa. My muscles were trembling. What had I expected? Not this, anyway.

  ‘Are you ready to take the next step?’ Saarinen asked.

  Ketomaa stopped moving. He tried again to open his eyes. I didn’t know what to say. Or what to say first.

  ‘Are you going to put down that nail gun?’

  I looked at Saarinen and then at the hardware store bag lying on the floor. There was a knife in it, at least.

  Saarinen didn’t seem to hear my question. Instead he slipped out of his coat one sleeve at a time, switching the nail gun from his right to his left hand and back again in a quick, rhythmic dance. Finally he hung the coat on the door handle. He looked at Ketomaa.

  ‘And tell me where this is going?’ I said.

  He seemed to be able to hear me again.

  ‘This man,’ he said, waving the nail gun in a wide arc at Ketomaa’s head, ‘has been meddling in my affairs for twenty years.’

  ‘For no reason?’

  Ketomaa blinked, shaking his head back and forth again. He recognised our voices. I turned to look at Saarinen. He looked at me. I don’t think I was too far off when I thought that we were finally seeing each other.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Saarinen said.

  ‘Put down the nail gun and we’ll talk,’ I said.

  He did the opposite of what I asked. He gripped the gun tighter.

  ‘Aleksi. I don’t understand. This is what’s best for you and Amanda, it’s for your sake.’

  I didn’t know what he was ta
lking about. He seemed to be surprised and angry. His posture straightened. He pulled his shoulders back as far as they would go. For the first time all evening I felt pure, undiluted fear.

  ‘I’ve made an investment in you,’ Saarinen said quietly. Though he was talking to me, his eyes were on Ketomaa.

  A large man with a nail gun in his hand. A man tied to a chair. A room with a lock.

  ‘Amanda,’ I said. ‘You just said something about her and me, about what’s best for us.’

  Anything to defuse the situation, ease it enough to give me time to think of my next move. I saw three possibilities: the light switch, a knife, maybe a hammer, in the bag, or a direct attack. That was the least tempting. I could almost feel the nails sink into my flesh, my muscle, my stomach, which was aching with tension.

  Saarinen seemed to be thinking. That was new, too. The big man was unsure. Ketomaa had got his eyes open. He answered my gaze with surprising calm.

  ‘Can I depend on you?’ Saarinen asked.

  ‘Of course,’ I said as quickly and reassuringly as I could. ‘It’s just that this has come … sort of out of the blue.’

  ‘This is all new to you, of course,’ Saarinen said, as if we were talking about taking up a new hobby. ‘To both of us. A new, bewildering situation. I’m sure you remember when I said that I saw something more than a handyman in you.’

  I nodded. I noticed that Ketomaa kept his eyes entirely on me. He didn’t seem to be interested in Saarinen at all.

  ‘I see a man who would make a perfect husband for Amanda. The kind of man she needs. Someone with his feet on the ground. Someone who can make her give up … make her stop …’

  I remembered Amanda’s eye swollen shut, her lip ripped open. Every idea, every word I could think of to say was wrong. I couldn’t rattle Saarinen. He was between me and the door, as well as the light switch.

  ‘What about Amanda? Does she know about this?’

  Saarinen looked at Ketomaa.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘And she can’t know. That’s why it’s important that we find some solution when it comes to Ketomaa.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I tried to talk to him,’ Saarinen said, as if Ketomaa weren’t right in front of him but somewhere far away. ‘I tried to explain to him how damaging it would be if he kept up his pestering, spreading lies. And I’m not just talking about myself. I’m used to his annoyances, used to him pestering me with his ridiculous accusations, but this affects other people, too.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should try again to talk to him? Wouldn’t that be a better option than this?’

  Ketomaa’s eyes stayed locked on me. His demeanour was calm, dignified. He seemed to approve of my play for time. On the other hand, he didn’t have much choice, under the circumstances. Saarinen didn’t answer right away. I looked at him. Would it be possible to knock him down before I got half a dozen nails in my face?

  ‘I tried. I tried all the way here to convince him that he was wrong about me, once and for all. That he had nothing to gain by spreading his lies, that he was only hurting people. Then we got here. We had a bit of a confrontation. He’s quick for an old man. I got a chisel through my hand.’

  He lifted his bandaged hand as if in salute. With the nail gun in his other hand he looked like a member of some militant sect.

  ‘In my opinion we have just one choice,’ he said, bringing the nail gun closer to Ketomaa’s head.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said.

  ‘Aleksi, you have a wonderful future ahead of you. The only thing you have to do is help me with this.’

  I took a breath. The nail gun was pressed against Ketomaa’s temple.

  ‘I want to ask you something,’ I said.

  Saarinen looked at me. He didn’t look uncertain or angry any more. He looked kind. I didn’t know what was more frightening, the steel nails, now aimed at my head from ten centimetres away, or the warm half smile, also aimed at me, filled with fatherly approval.

  ‘Of course,’ he said quietly.

  ‘If Ketomaa has been after you for twenty years, there must be some reason.’

  ‘Aleksi, if you knew detective Ketomaa you would know that he is an obsessive, deluded person, and the longer he dwells on something the more convinced he is that he’s in the right.’

  ‘Twenty years ago …’

  ‘I lost someone I loved, but I had nothing to do with it.’

  Saarinen looked at me. I wasn’t sure what passed between us. He tilted his head.

  ‘Can we get started?’

  ‘No,’ I said. It was the first, the most natural word that occurred to me.

  ‘No? Aleksi, you can change your whole life tonight. Your whole life. I know how you covet Amanda, how much you want her.’

  Did I? Did I want her? Why had the idea even occurred to me? Why was everything so complicated? Why was nothing clear? Even my certainty of Henrik Saarinen’s guilt was gone, just when it would have been most useful to me.

  ‘This is your chance,’ Saarinen said. ‘I need your help, but not until later. If you don’t want to watch the action, you can close your eyes.’

  ‘How about I turn off the light?’ I said, ignoring the conflicting thoughts struggling in my mind.

  ‘All right,’ Saarinen said, patiently, as if he was on his best behaviour, talking to a troubled friend. ‘The nails will hit their mark just as well in the dark.’

  I took a step towards the switch and made my decision. At the same second, Saarinen realised what I was doing.

  ‘I can turn them off –’

  His sentence was interrupted.

  I sprang forward, struck his side with my shoulder. I took him down with me and tried to reach the hand that held the nail gun. We hit the wall to the right of Ketomaa and fell on the floor, my legs trapped under him. I tried to stop his hand.

  It was too late.

  I heard the nail gun fire at least three times. Ketomaa let out an animal sound. Saarinen turned quickly, trying to stand up, was able to rise almost to his full height. I got hold of his shoulder and managed to trip him. He started to fall. I threw myself at his back with all my weight. He made it to the door. He either fell against the light switch or turned it off on purpose. The room went dark.

  Through the crack of the door, from down the long hallway, a weak glimmer of yellow light shone. Saarinen fell on the floor. Again I was unable to get a firm grip on the large man.

  The gun spat out nails.

  One, two, three, four, five.

  Some of them hit Ketomaa. I got hold of Saarinen’s hand and aimed the gun at the ceiling. I lunged forward on all fours. I was a little too fast, went past my target, but I hit his chin with my knee. The nail gun skidded across the floor into the shadows somewhere in the corner of the room. I struggled after it.

  Saarinen spun in the other direction, stood up, swung back, and kicked me in the stomach. The pain was paralysing. I slid my hands over the dark floor, looking for the gun. Saarinen kicked me again. Could he see where the tool he’d made his weapon was?

  ‘Aleksi,’ he said in a breathless voice. ‘This. Is. A disappointment.’

  A weak, narrow beam of light came from behind him.

  ‘If you (kick) Only knew (kick) What I’ve done (kick) For you (kick).’

  I tried to get away. I’d lost my sense of direction. The light was growing even dimmer, or I was starting to lose consciousness. It was impossible to breathe. The attempt no longer seemed worth the oxygen. The vinyl floor beneath my hands was rocking like the open sea.

  Finally my hand touched something. It seemed too good to be true. I couldn’t understand why Saarinen wasn’t trying to get hold of the nail gun. I took one more kick, in the leg. I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the gun and rolled onto my back. I aimed at the ray of light.

  It seemed Saarinen hadn’t thought I would make it that far. I saw a darkness flash in front of the beam of light, then the door opening and the shape of a man against the doorway. I fi
red nails towards the door and heard them hit the wall. I got up onto my knees.

  Saarinen took a few running steps. I scrambled to my feet and made it to the doorway. I leaned on the handle and let the nails fly down the hallway. I heard a car start. I saw lights outside as I stumbled against the walls all the way to the back door.

  I came to the yard and saw the Land Cruiser pull away. I took a breath and the cool autumn air filled my lungs and cleared my head. Then I went back to the room and turned on the lights, afraid of what I would see.

  The nails had hit Ketomaa in the chest and face. His head was flopped back, his face shining red with blood. He looked dead. I got the knife from the hardware bag, went over to him, lifted his head carefully, and listened. I thought I could hear a weak, barely perceptible breath from his nostrils. I let his blood-wet head rest against my stomach, and took firm hold of his face. I could feel one of the nails in his cheek, long and firm and unyielding against my hand. I put the knife against the side of his mouth.

  The tape wouldn’t break. There was blood coming out everywhere, making it hard to hold onto his face, his skin sticky and slippery. I pulled the tape off. His chin dropped and I heard him breathing. I took a step towards the door, went through Saarinen’s coat pockets, and found a mobile phone. It was the most basic of models, the cheapest you can buy. A strange choice for a man with expensive tastes.

  I called the emergency number, told them there’d been a work accident, and didn’t stay on the line although they asked me to.

  I turned off the phone, wiped it, and threw it in the corner.

  My thoughts were confused, as were the words I said to the old man. I cut him free from the chair and laid him on the cold floor. He was unconscious, limp and covered in dark blood. He was thinner than I remembered. He felt as if he didn’t weigh enough to produce the pool of blood that surrounded us as I knelt down beside him and heard an ambulance siren.

  The woods were dark. I ran hard. My shoes were wet and cold, my trousers covered in dirt and blood. The woods went on further than I’d thought.

  When I’d heard the ambulance approaching I’d pressed my ear close to Ketomaa’s mouth and heard him breathing. Then I stood up and waited for the ambulance to come around the house and stop at the back door, which I’d left open. I went down the stairs to the ground floor, opened the front door and left, walking along the side of the house into the nearby, dense forest.