A little below us was an area of black earth about the size of a tennis court, tilled and levelled by the excavator. It was quiet. The sun came out from behind the clouds.
‘We weren’t far off,’ Ketomaa said, as if guessing my thoughts.
‘I suppose not,’ I said, and looked at him standing beside me. My shoulder hurt, as did my hand.
‘In a way we were on the right track all along.’
We were about half a kilometre from the shore. The trees had dropped all their leaves. The spruces stood out like bright green spots and the further away they were the more they looked like cut-outs, paper air fresheners stuck onto the grey landscape.
The black patch, the excavated area, was below us. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I’d wanted to be here, wanted to see this place. Now I was ready to turn back. The wind blew against my face. I buttoned my coat again.
Ketomaa suddenly lifted his right hand and pressed it against his side, over his kidney.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
‘Like a cancer patient with nails shot in him.’
‘Should we sit down?’
‘It will pass.’
I edged closer to him, ready to support him if he stumbled.
‘I’ll ask for help if I need it.’
‘Of course,’ I said, and stepped away.
The wind went through my coat. It was the same as it had been up on the ridge, a steady freezing wind going through one layer of clothing, then the next.
‘It’s actually all just as I thought it would be,’ Ketomaa said. ‘Hindsight is easy but sometimes it’s all you’ve got. I read that somewhere.’
I had to ask.
‘Why did we come here?’
Ketomaa turned and took a moment to focus his blue, wind-moistened eyes on me.
‘How does this feel?’
‘It’s hardly what my mother would have wanted …’
‘I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant,’ Ketomaa said quietly.
I looked at him. He seemed sincerely sorry. His face looked sad anyway. Or maybe it was just an old man’s chilled face.
‘I remember something I once heard in the public sauna in Harjutori. There was a man in his fifties whose mother had just died and he came in to take a sauna. When the subject came up, the old guys confessed what a hard time they’d had when their mothers died. Then it got quiet and somebody said: Fathers come and go but you only have one mother.’
Ketomaa looked at me. I think we both smiled, as much as the place and the weather allowed.
‘I’m sorry for you, of course, but I thought it was important to come here and see what there was to see. That we both see it.’
He turned around. I turned too.
There were no cars. Just trees and land. We’d come further than I’d thought.
‘What I meant was, how does it feel to stand here, physically,’ Ketomaa said. ‘How does it feel in your feet? What if you had to carry an unconscious person, even a light one, up here, and down to that spot, and dig a hole a metre and a half deep?’
He turned again, I did the same, we looked at the black burial site.
‘The forest is bulldozed, the land trodden down,’ he continued. ‘It’s daytime. The sun is shining. And even now, it’s hard going. What would it be like in the rain and dark, looking for the path, your feet sinking into the mud, tripping, slipping?’
In profile, Ketomaa looked like an old bird. A long, dry beak, a face shaped by thousands of spells of bad weather.
I remembered Enni’s powerful physique, the sharp, quick movements of her hands. Sure, she was as burly as a circus strongwoman, but even she couldn’t have done all that. Not even when she was young. Not on a soaking wet, dark October night.
‘Even a strong woman couldn’t manage it alone,’ I said. ‘She would have needed help.’
Ketomaa nodded.
‘Tanja Metsäpuro’s case comes to mind.’
‘How so?’
‘Tanja was carried a long way. There were signs on the body that someone’d had to work hard to tip her into the sea. That was never publicised. It just occurred to me again, standing here.’
He took a deep breath.
‘And another thing,’ he said. ‘Her left earring had been torn out.’
‘Are those things related?’
He shrugged his thin shoulders.
‘Maybe. Who knows.’
‘You think they are,’ I said, looking at his furrowed brow and puckered mouth.
‘I believe they’re both related to the fact that Tanja’s case was entirely different from what people thought. The earring, for instance. If someone had wanted to show their strength or demonstrate their cruelty, they would have torn both of them out. I’ve seen it in more than one case. But only one of Tanja’s was removed. And another thing: if you were given a chance to murder someone, would you do it far away from where you planned to hide the body, or would you do it as close as possible to the place you planned to put it, to minimise your risk of getting caught?’
Ketomaa looked at me. His eyes were damp. He wiped them with the back of his glove.
‘So, ten years after my mother,’ I said, continuing his thought, ‘almost the same pattern. Some woman Henrik Saarinen admires, or falls in love with, or whatever. She disappears. Then the body is found, and both the body and the place indicate that the murderer didn’t act alone. We also know that Henrik Saarinen could very well be innocent. Maybe what Saarinen told us was true. All of it. Maybe it means that what happened to Tanja did have something to do with drugs, just as the police suspected. In fact I have reason to believe that drugs were a factor in Henrik Saarinen’s inner circle.’
Ketomaa nodded. He might have even smiled.
I could see that he was cold. It was time to leave.
‘Maybe we really weren’t so far off after all,’ I said, and took his arm, although he tried to protest a little.
OCTOBER–NOVEMBER 2013
AMANDA SAARINEN’S NECKLINE had deepened and widened. Her lipstick was the colour of a ripe cherry just fallen from the tree.
‘I’m a little disappointed,’ she said. ‘I always thought you were one of those guys who I’d only need to get rid of once.’
Her black hair was shining, her breasts pressed up against one another. She folded her hands in her lap and looked as displeased and impatient as you would imagine a restlessly waiting millionaire heiress would be.
‘Nice to see you, Amanda.’
I sat down across the table from her. The sofa she sat on was shiny and new. It didn’t look cheap.
‘I’m glad to see you’ve had a chance to blow your nose,’ I said.
She looked at me as she would at a pile of old rubbish.
‘I know you use cocaine,’ I said. ‘But so what? So did Tanja, before she met your father. I’m sure you remember Tanja Metsäpuro, Henrik’s girlfriend?’
There was no change in Amanda’s expression. Her eyes remained impenetrable and indifferent. I started to wonder if I should be there, with my undeniably flimsy speculations, the way things had taken shape in my mind, fallen into place. The certainty I’d felt on the way was punctured. Doubt flooded through me like cold water. I reminded myself why I’d come. This wasn’t over yet.
‘Tanja had a bit of a police record at one time,’ I said. ‘Nothing serious. Criminal use. It means she was caught using cocaine. The interesting part was who else was charged at the same time. Your husband. Surely you remember.’
Amanda smiled. There was nothing friendly about her smile.
‘You’re all mixed up, Aleksi. I’m sure it’s tough to be so alone. I opened my door to you because your mother died. I felt sorry for you, to be blunt.’
She put her hands together like a teacher or childminder and leaned forward to indicate that she was getting up, that the lesson or story time, though certainly interesting, was over now. But I was just getting started.
‘Amanda, you don’t pity anyone. You asked me to k
ill your father. You opened your door to me because you’re scared. And for good reason.’
Maybe she was considering this. Or maybe she was just looking at me. Nothing in her face or her eyes told me which. She leaned further forward.
‘Who are you? What are you? How dare you?’
I was the caretaker. My mother’s son. I’d waited twenty years to do what was right.
‘I’ve sometimes wondered how Henrik met Tanja. It was kind of a surprising attraction, an older millionaire and a single mother the same age as his daughter. It makes you automatically question how they knew each other, where in hell they could have met. Enni’s photo album was invaluable in answering that question. I’m sure you know how Enni liked taking photos. It was understandable, since you were her family. In a way.’
I took a photo out of my pocket that I’d removed from Enni’s album. It was a picture of Henrik Saarinen’s yacht, taken sometime in the early 2000s, maybe the summer of 2001 or 2002. Suntanned couples, the hull of the white boat, in the background the sea glittering in the sunlight. I scooted the photo across the table as far as I could reach.
‘At first some of these people were strangers to me, of course,’ I said. ‘I had to get some assistance from your previous caretaker, the one who was fired. He was happy to help, as I’m sure you can imagine. You know them, of course. That’s you and your husband on the left, and another couple on the right: Tanja Metsäpuro and her husband. Cocaine. Not that Henrik knew that. There he is on the right. He met Tanja a few times, and he was smitten. Pretty ironic, isn’t it? You practically introduced them.’
Amanda leaned back in her chair and put her left leg over her right. She placed her elbow on the armrest and leaned a temple on her fingers. She looked amused.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I’m almost done.’
‘And then you’ll tell me how much.’
‘How much what?’
‘How much money you want.’
I shook my head. I looked at her, and I understood something. I would never again lust after a woman like her. I really should have thanked her.
‘I’ve told you before. I don’t want your money. I don’t want you, and I don’t want your money.’
‘Everybody wants something.’
‘On that we’re in agreement.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to listen and tell me whether I’m right.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘That’s up to you. You can listen first and then decide.’
She didn’t say anything. I took that to mean she was ready to listen. That was enough for me.
‘My guess is that quite soon after this photo was taken, after their first meeting, Henrik got in touch with Tanja. Or maybe they met some other way. It doesn’t really matter. Tanja divorced her husband. Henrik and Tanja started seeing each other. One day Henrik tells you about their relationship, and naturally it’s quite a shock.’
Still no reaction.
‘You know Tanja from very different circles. You’ve done coke with her, gone dancing, maybe had a little group sex, as sometimes happens. But you can’t tell your father that. You don’t like Tanja. The very idea of Tanja, the greedy social climber, infuriates you.’
Amanda’s face might have flashed a brief sign of life. Maybe a memory. Or maybe she was just annoyed, or bored.
‘So you start threatening her,’ I continued. ‘Any way you can. Until finally she backs off. It’s hard for you to believe such a thing could happen. That there’s a person who isn’t as greedy, as ruthless as you are. A person who backs off, who gives up. Henrik and Tanja have already broken up, when one evening you and Tanja meet again.’
I took a breath. I was coming to the weakest point in my flimsy construction. I was a man trying to round up a herd of wild horses into a pen made of matchsticks.
‘Maybe you’d arranged to meet someone there in the car park at the nightclub, or maybe somewhere else. In any case, there you are, and you still hate Tanja, who has the nerve to come to this meeting because she thinks you’ve both put all that behind you. And there in the car park or wherever, things get out of hand. You’re high on coke and maybe you get a little carried away, and you kill Tanja.’
Amanda opened her mouth a little, the ripe cherry splitting down the middle as her lips parted.
‘All that from one photo,’ she said. ‘Congratulations.’
I laid my hands down on the arms of the chair. My hot, damp palms felt uncomfortable against the leather, but I left them where they lay. I answered Amanda’s gaze and let the comment hang between us. I’d made my way this far across my shaky bridge, and if she was willing to meet me halfway I would gladly wait for her.
‘Do you want me to say something?’ she asked.
I waved a sweaty hand to indicate encouragement. She flicked her black hair away from her face and smoothed the loose strands into place. Her nails were long and shining.
‘Anybody can make up anything they want,’ she said. ‘You’ve had your say. All I’m willing to tell you is that Tanja Metsäpuro wasn’t any good at renunciation or struggle. She didn’t give anything up.’
‘And then what?’ I said, trying to hide my surprise.
‘She wanted her life to go on as before, that’s all. She couldn’t give anything up. She was the lowest of the low. She didn’t understand anything else.’
‘Unlike you.’
‘Look at where I live, and look at where she lived.’
‘Did you have a fight?’
Amanda didn’t answer right away. Then she smiled. I’d seen that smile before, on Henrik Saarinen’s face. A mocking, superior, almost derisive smile.
‘I just had a crazy thought,’ she said. ‘I thought you had figured something out, but you haven’t. You’re Aleksi Kivi, a soon to be unemployed maintenance man, a total loser. As soon as I get my hands on my inheritance, suddenly you’re not on the payroll any more. And you can’t prove any of this.’
‘Why is that funny?’ I asked, watching as her smile widened.
‘You’re so close and yet so far off the mark. All you have is your story. We didn’t fight. There was nothing to fight about. That whore’s earring just got stuck in my coat zipper. Maybe that torn ear made somebody think there’d been an altercation, but that’s not what happened. Tanja came to pick up some coke. She was on the wagon for a long time, but then she called this person she knew and said she had to have some. She came to the car park and I saw her and I grabbed a taser.’
This person she knew.
I took another reckless step across that rickety bridge, shored up my matchstick fence, but with a surer hand.
‘What happened then?’
‘Nothing terribly surprising,’ Amanda said, shrugging her delicate shoulders. Her breasts pressed tight together for a moment. ‘I got rid of her. But like I said, this is just a chat. You can’t prove anything.’
‘No, of course.’
I didn’t need to prove anything to anyone. Except myself.
‘This little moment is over,’ Amanda said, putting both feet on the floor again. She braced her hands on her knees so that her shoulders rose up like a wild animal’s and the line between her breasts darkened almost to blackness and her face looked hard, shadowless. ‘I guess you know that this is definitely the last time we’ll see each other.’
I didn’t speak. I got up, glanced towards the bedroom.
I could see the table next to the bed, next to it a chair with a pair of jeans on the back. Men’s jeans. Light blue, ‘distressed’. A recognisable style for a man with a deep tan, toned body, gelled hair. I remembered what Ketomaa had told me, the reason Henrik Saarinen had wanted to get rid of him.
I also remembered footwear lying on the floor when I came in the door. Combat boots. The ones I’d seen in that dark garage in Roihupelto.
As these thoughts came together in my mind I remembered other things as well: the meeting on the dock at Kalmela, the loading
of the motorboat; that time I heard steps in this apartment from outside the door and no one answered my knocks; what Henrik Saarinen said about Amanda …
Someone who can make her give up … make her stop …
I’d once heard that when a person has an epiphany about a problem he feels as if he’s risen above it and can see it all, every bit of it, more clearly than ever before, if only for a moment.
Amanda didn’t deserve to be left unaware. I turned. We stood facing each other.
‘Say hello to Harmala,’ I said, ‘but I’m sure you call him Markus. Tell Markus that I know he was there when my mother was buried, and when Tanja Metsäpuro was killed, or at least when her body was dumped in the sea.’
‘Like I told you,’ Amanda said, and stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the perfume that once, a long time ago, had made me tremble in anticipation, excited about what would happen next, aroused. Now it was rancid, revolting. ‘This is just a little chat. Maybe it happened like you say, or maybe nothing happened the way you think it did. Or it could be anything in between. In any case you can’t prove it.’
I looked into her icy eyes.
‘You lied to me, beat me with a pipe, tried to get me to murder your father. You deserve what you’ve got. Going to bed every night with your brother.’
Still no reaction. At least not on the surface. But I was certain that she’d stopped breathing. Her face was made of stone. She was made of stone.
‘Why do you think your father took such a personal interest in hiring an eighteen-year-old?’ I said. ‘He was stuck. Markus is his son. One old policeman figured it out and almost lost his life for it. Henrik didn’t want Markus to know, and he couldn’t exactly tell you, either, since he knew you were screwing Markus. Of course now that everybody knows about it, it will be clear that Markus is the rightful heir.’
I was quiet for a second. Yes, she had stopped breathing, and her icy eyes no longer saw anything.
‘Good luck to you both,’ I said. ‘You deserve each other.’
Dark As My Heart Page 20