He crossed the road and made his way towards Suonionkatu. A shudder ran through him as he passed the house of priests, but once at the corner he could see Moisio again: he was already halfway down the hill. He was a writer, and he began to wonder whether a writer – an artist – would produce a swirl different from those of other people as the spirit left the body.
And despite his initial hesitation he now felt more strongly than ever before that, in good time, all this would become clear to him.
35. Meeting
They had all crammed into Mäki’s office. Mäki himself was sitting at the edge of his desk and for once even he seemed uncertain as he flicked distractedly through the Statute Book. Onerva, Piipponen and Harjunpää were all present, as was Rantanen, the new chief of the Violent Crimes Division. He was a youngish man, apparently the youngest chief the Crime Squad had ever had, but in a short space of time he had achieved a great deal - solving a few old stagnating cases, and without stepping on anyone else’s toes in the process. To everyone’s astonishment he had even got the old screws to put in a bit more effort.
‘These are the facts,’ said Rantanen, absent-mindedly scratching his chin.
‘And there are still two conflicting witness-statements regarding the first case?’
‘Yes. One says the woman barged into the victim, the other says the exact opposite.’
‘Whichever way you look at it, it seems to me that everything points towards it being an accident.’
‘Then why didn’t the woman come forward?’ exclaimed Piipponen, exasperated. Harjunpää rubbed his eyes. From the outset he had sensed that, of all of them, Piipponen was the one who most wanted to turn these cases into murder investigations.
‘And what if she quite simply didn’t see the headline? She may not have noticed what happened in the slightest.’
‘Or she noticed but felt too guilt-ridden to come forward.’
Harjunpää half closed his eyes. He was certain that what little information they had was not enough to start investigating these deaths as homicides. Their only hope was to try and obtain more evidence, but he didn’t have the faintest idea how. The investigation had come to a standstill, all they could do was go over the same information time and again, just as they had done the day before, and Harjunpää suddenly had the feeling that even Rantanen was at a loss. Given the circumstances this was no great surprise.
‘It can’t just be a coincidence that we have two very similar fatalities and a woman fitting the same description present on both occasions,’ said Piipponen emphatically, and Harjunpää remembered what Onerva had told him earlier: year after year Piipponen was always at the top of the overtime list.
‘That is a point worth noting,’ said Rantanen. ‘But even that doesn’t bring us close to what might be considered “reasonable doubt”. Timo, what’s your honest opinion of our witness?’
‘You mean Kallio? I do believe we should take him seriously. He’s got all his marbles about him, but as we mentioned yesterday, and as he himself said, he does have compulsive spasms that affect his head, and that’s why he can’t maintain eye contact for long.’
‘We’ve arranged another interview with him later on today,’ said Onerva. ‘We’ll show him some photographs. And just for the record, I checked our databases with a number of different word combinations but there doesn’t seem to be any woman matching this description on file.’
‘OK,’ Rantanen sighed. He looked each of them in the eye in turn. ‘As far as I can see we don’t have enough evidence to turn this into a murder investigation at the present time.’
Piipponen drew a sharp, hissing breath through his teeth, showing his disbelief at the stupidity of this decision.
‘But let’s keep our options open,’ Rantanen added. ‘We need to approach this on two fronts. First we need to try and get more evidence of any potential crime, let’s not rule anything out just yet. That might mean talking to people travelling on the underground during rush hour, but I’ll leave that up to Mäki.’
‘So it’s full steam ahead?’
‘Yes. The other line of enquiry is to ascertain who this woman is. And if it turns out she was at the scene then we get her in for questioning, at the very least as a witness. That way this case should start opening up.’
‘So that means we can put in for overtime?’
‘As Mäki sees necessary at this point.’
‘Yes!’
‘But if I find out who leaked unsubstantiated information to the press, I’ll skin him alive. You can imagine the flood of calls I’ve had to deal with this morning…’
No one said a thing. Not even Piipponen.
36. Choice
Every time he stepped into the underground station the same smell wafted towards him - damp stone, like something ripped apart - and he didn’t like it. For Mikko it signified the journey to his strange workroom, the smell of hopeless attempts at writing and constant failure. But this time he barely noticed it. A dilemma spun through his mind: should he call them or not? And as he was already halfway down the clunking escalator at Hakaniemi station, on some level he had already decided not to make the call.
It simply wasn’t the done thing to pop round to his parents’ apartment. He had to be invited, or rather summoned: “Come round for coffee tomorrow at two.” Mikko had never been able to say no; at most he may have mumbled something indistinct about having something else to do, but it was useless – by the appointed time he would always be there. Whenever he turned up of his own accord, uninvited, he was always chided for having upset their ‘schedule’ or their ‘timetable’. This despite the fact that his parents were both retired.
His journey to Kontula was hampered by an inexplicable anxiety – all he could do was try, try, try, churning out first one page, then another; a third, a hundredth, a thousandth. Yet not a single one of them could he accept, for they all had the same fatal flaw: they lacked rhythm. They were nothing but lists of words, one after the other. They didn’t ring properly, they lacked that sense of smoothness, like when you run your hand along a steel bar: it slides seamlessly. Never before had he churned out as many empty pages as now; so many thousands of pages that he had stopped counting them over two years ago.
The handrail was moving marginally faster than the escalator itself and his body stretched forward awkwardly. He adjusted his position and switched his satchel to his other hand. It was the same satchel that years ago he had taken to school, it even had an old-fashioned buckle. Another reason to make the call and go to Eira was because he simply couldn’t carry on like this, living between two expensive apartments, neither of which was conducive to doing any work. It was a cold fact, but he had no other option. The bank had refused him a loan, the manager’s argument being that his artistic funding was not considered sufficient income, let alone the fact that it was only temporary and would run out in less than a year’s time. Even his wages from the post office had been considered too meagre.
According to the screen the next train would be arriving in four minutes: this gave him another moment to think things through. On the down side, going to Eira always unnerved him well in advance, and this time he had been nervous from the moment he had promised Kikka he would do it. After every visit he felt depressed, humiliated even, to the extent that he was unable to write anything. All he could do was sit slumped at his desk, his forehead resting against the cover of the typewriter.
Three minutes until the train arrived. Almost without realising it he slipped his hand down to the mobile phone case on his belt, but he didn’t open it yet; and just then he sensed it more strongly than ever: it was as if someone were staring at him. Watching him, observing him, standing too close. He took a few steps to one side and slowly turned around. No, there was no one looking at him, everybody looked just as closed and indifferent as always. But still the feeling wouldn’t go away. It brought with it a fear, almost like when as a child he needed the toilet in the middle of the night but was afraid the Cupboard Monst
er was lurking behind him. What was going on? It startled him: on top of everything else - the writing, the loneliness - was he now becoming paranoid?
After all, he was utterly alone. He didn’t have a single colleague, no boss or staff, no one with whom he could discuss the problems of writing and how he could make it flow better. He had never belonged to writers’ cliques, it was as if he dared not feel part of such a thing; on the other hand, the other post office workers had always considered him first and foremost a writer. Kikka was all he had, and he knew all too well that dumping his problems on her day after day would ultimately kill their relationship.
According to the screen there was now only a minute until the train arrived and he moved closer to the edge of the platform, perhaps even dangerously close, though he always moved back in time. He stretched out his neck and stared in the direction of the train. He wanted to see how beautiful the lights looked as they shone yellow against the tracks long before the train itself came into view. Even the sound of the wheels was pleasant: a steely cry like that of a frozen lake as a crack kilometres long sears through the ice.
Still he had the feeling that he was being watched! He spun around sharply, but didn’t catch anyone looking at him. Close to him stood a woman rather like Kikka, who looked back at him, slightly taken aback, and beyond her a dishevelled old man with glasses. There were lots of others too, dozens of people in a jostling crowd just like every morning at this time, but none of them were looking in his direction, let alone openly staring at him. Seeing the woman reminded him that he had promised Kikka to deal with the problem that same day. He absent-mindedly pursed his lips together, reached for his mobile and reluctantly began walking back towards the escalators. He dialled the number.
‘Moisio,’ his father answered the way he always did, making certain it sounded like the name of a manor house or a royal court.
‘Good morning, it’s Mikko.’
‘Good morning indeed. You haven’t called us for a while.’
‘I’ve been working really hard. And there are so many other things going on too… Can I come round?’
‘What day?’
‘Well, now if that’s OK…’
‘Your mother and I are going to the market for some caviar. Why don’t you come over this evening and join us for some blinis?’
‘No thank you. It’s actually rather important…’
‘We would have to change our plans entirely, of course. Wait a moment.’
He heard his father cover the mouthpiece with the palm of his hand – everything softened – but Mikko could still hear him shouting to his mother, who was clearly in another room. ‘Mikko’s insisting on coming round. Do you mind?’ His mother replied, and although he couldn’t quite make out the words he detected her familiar, somewhat irritated tone of voice. He began to feel uncomfortable, as though he were wearing a shirt that was too tight, making it hard to breathe, and he could feel his armpits dampening, streams of sweat trickling down his sleeve.
‘Come if you must,’ said his father. ‘But we can only wait an hour. Your mother has a hair appointment at ten.’
‘Thank you… Can I bring you something?’
‘No, don’t bring anything.’
‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’
‘That’s a quarter past eight.’
‘Yes, thanks again,’ he said and decided to walk to Eira so that he wouldn’t have to wait in the stairwell. He decided to go past the Market Square and buy some flowers, even though last time his mother had simply left them unopened on the draining board and the time before that she had inexplicably had a severe allergic reaction to them.
37. Waiting
‘Arberata et constatellum,’ he thought, somewhat amazed, for surely no penniless folk could afford to live in this part of the city. What could an impoverished writer living in a tiny flat in Kallio possibly be doing in a place like this? He stopped at a pedestrian crossing at the intersection of Kapteeninkatu and Tehtaankatu and looked carefully to the left. From this vantage point he could see that Mikko Matias went into the fourth door along. The place had to be a familiar one, as he had clearly known the door code.
Who could he have been visiting? His parents, he guessed straight away. And if only one of his parents were still alive then it was his mother, as no man would take his own father a bunch of flowers. It must have been something very important – he had seen on the platform how the writer had hesitated and changed his mind at the last minute. There was something almost amusing about the whole episode – he would never know quite what a lucky decision that had been, for although Maammo had not appeared to him that night, he sensed that the situation was so critical for the Coming of the Truth that it was nothing less than his duty to carry out the sacrifice.
He stepped closer to the wall and only then did he realise why the place made him shudder: this was the same street corner where several years ago two police officers had been murdered. He felt something more, someone else had died at this crossing too, and the image of a little girl and a tram flashed through his mind, followed by a strip of pitch-dark night and bright explosions. Perhaps someone had died here in the bombings during the war, but the matter did not interest him any further.
He was only interested in Mikko Matias. Primarily this was because never before had he managed to build up such a complete picture of a sacrificial victim. For him they had been nothing but a blurred mass of greed and filth. However, Mikko Matias was gradually becoming a person to him. Nonetheless, he too lived in sin and lechery, so this would not affect his plans in any way.
In some ways Mikko Matias had the same amenable nature as his former son. He had clearly felt the presence of Maammo, but had not been able to say where it had come from. Every now and then he had glanced around as if he were looking for something, and on the Esplanade he had even popped into a pharmacy, pretending to buy something, when in fact he had simply stared out of the window to see if anyone walked hesitantly past the door, or if someone might follow him inside.
And that sensitiveness had produced a very rare phenomenon. At several points the writer’s hands had been surrounded by an aura, a bright shining like those in Kirlian photographs. He had only seen this once before. He had met a shrivelled old woman who was able to cure people’s ailments with herbs, or by touching them with her bare hands. Perhaps Mikko Matias’ aura was somehow linked to his profession – after all, writers quite literally work with their hands.
For the boy, the death of the man who was once his father and this sudden change of plans might be difficult at first. But he would soon recover; more than ever before he would need a father figure in his life, and he knew exactly how this could be achieved. In any case the boy would not be able to grieve the death of his former father for long. His feeling that the boy’s own sacrifice would be very soon indeed strengthened with every minute that passed. He was still only missing one thing: a location, a stage. Maammo had not yet given him the smallest clue as to where it should take place. Unless this too were some kind of test through which Maammo wished to shore up his loyalty.
He leisurely walked the twenty or so metres to the tram stop and waited, looking every now and then at his watch. He was good at waiting, experienced. Nothing could be more demanding than standing in a draughty station for hours on end handing out leaflets, waiting to see an expression of interest – let alone thanks – spread across those impenitent faces.
And what he was now waiting for was something very interesting indeed: how fascinating would the swirl of the spirit be as it left the body of a writer.
38. Visit
The brass letter-box was embossed with the word ‘LETTERS’. As a child Mikko hadn’t understood what it meant, but now he realised that the gap was too narrow for the newspaper and that was why the delivery boy had always stuffed it beneath the door handle. The letter-box had been polished so that it shone like gold, and so had the handle and the bell. It had always been like this, and seemed like it always wou
ld be. How strongly that same letter-box was associated with Mikko’s earliest memories.
He glanced at his watch – it was exactly quarter past eight – and quickly ran through how he should broach the subject of money. It occurred to him again that they were after all his own mother and father, not gods who decided who could and could not live.
He knocked on the door, instinctively so that it sounded neither too strong and arrogant nor too timid and quiet, and through the door he could hear his father clearing his throat and getting up from his armchair. The floor creaked beneath his feet the way it always did. Then came the sound of his father’s heavy footsteps approaching the hallway. His father had always been an imposing man, and he still was; not only because of his size and manner, but because of his status too. He was an economist by trade and had spent his entire working life in the service of numerous banks, in positions so important that his word alone had been crucial in devising income strategies and even in finalising the details of the national budget.
His father pressed down the handle of the inner door. It still made that strange metallic creak which aroused an old, indistinct sense of fear in Mikko. As a child perhaps he had associated this with coming home, late for dinner yet again, and being forced to fetch the belt hanging in the kitchen doorway. The sound was also associated with his mother or father returning home; he could never tell what mood they were in, he had to read it from their gestures, their expressions. A certain type of expression could mean another night of hell, a night spent prying his father’s fingers off his mother’s neck, or keeping him away from the gun cabinet – or even wrestling him off the window ledge. Would he jump this time? None of their relatives or neighbours had suspected a thing, the façade had been immaculate.
‘Well well,’ said his father – he always said that – and proffered his massive fist. They shook hands like strangers, but still it was the closest contact they ever had. ‘Come in. Dear, Mikko has arrived.’
TH02 - The Priest of Evil Page 16