Of course. Finger on the sore spot right away. And still considerate about it. He was going to miss Kimmo.
‘We never found the car. A witness saw it, a little boy. Back then, I mean. Today he’d be … oh, in his forties. It was odd, somehow. But the whole thing didn’t really mean much … I don’t know what put me in mind of it. I haven’t thought of that girl for decades. Or the mother either.’
‘The murdered girl’s mother?’
‘Yes, it was … it was a strange experience, you might say, breaking that news to the woman. I’d started work here only a few months before.’
Kimmo nodded, and Ketola ended the conversation with a dismissive gesture. He didn’t want to start getting loquacious at the last minute. ‘Do you know what’s happening today?’ he asked instead.
Kimmo looked enquiringly at him.
‘I mean the goodbyes. It’s my last day, see?’ Perhaps the jokes were getting out of hand, he thought.
‘Oh, we’ve got this and that ready,’ said Kimmo.
‘Come on.’
‘Let it be a surprise,’ said Kimmo and he actually smiled.
Then they went on sitting there in silence. Kimmo was sorting papers that had nothing to do with Ketola any more. Ketola was looking out of the window after brushing the snow off the pane. So now he was watching the snow start to cover the pane again, and trying for the last time to find a good way of mentioning Kimmo’s wife and asking how he was doing these days, but of course he didn’t, because it would just have been ridiculous, and then Tuomas Heinonen came into the room anyway and asked Kimmo to come with him, they had something ready. Winking. Obviously Heinonen had also gone off his rocker.
So he sat there without thinking of anything in particular; now and then he took phone calls, which proved to be not very important, and around midday Nurmela knocked on the door and came in wearing a chef’s hat and an apron, and balancing an enormous tray.
Nurmela was followed by the entire team, they really were all there, even Petri Grönholm had come to Ketola’s goodbye party, although Petri Grönholm had been off sick with flu for several days.
There were little sausages in tomato sauce, Ketola’s favourite. Nurmela served the lunch in cheerful mood. Kari Niemi, head of forensics, poured champagne, also in cheerful mood, but that was nothing unusual in Niemi. Ketola’s successor Sundström shone with a number of particularly pointless puns and the entire team sang the Finnish hit that Ketola must have hummed quite often over the last few years – ‘Oh, all the time, my dear fellow, all the time,’ Nurmela insisted – when he was thinking, or when he gave the impression of thinking.
The performance was very good, his colleagues had obviously worked hard on it, and just as Ketola was wondering when they could have rehearsed, Nurmela wound things up by launching into his eagerly awaited speech, and instead of dropping off to sleep as he had originally intended, Ketola stood there feeling the words take shape before his eyes, come together in a blur and concentrate into a feeling, the feeling that Nurmela was making a very well prepared speech, a speech praising him from the heart and, if he was honest, a positively touching speech, but it was no more than a feeling, because when Nurmela had finally spoken the last sentence Ketola couldn’t have repeated a word of it. The one thing Ketola still had to say in these circumstances was, ‘Thank you.’ And as they stood there and seemed to be waiting for more, he said again, making it rather more specific, ‘Thank you all.’
A little later Ketola set off. Kimmo, Niemi and Tuomas Heinonen had driven away to investigate the death of an old lady found at the foot of the cellar steps in her building. Ketola left with Grönholm, who was on his way back to his sickbed.
‘Good of you to come,’ said Ketola. He felt dizzy. It was snowing as hard as ever.
‘Well, of course I did,’ said Petri Grönholm. And when they had reached Ketola’s car, he added, ‘We expect you to come and see us regularly.’
Ketola nodded. ‘Get well soon,’ he said, climbed in and started the car. He really did feel dizzy, but of course he’d drunk a fair bit of champagne and it had made him a little tipsy, which was surprising, because it was a long time since vodka and whisky had been able to do that.
Ketola went the long way home. To his surprise, he could still remember the road precisely, a road with very little traffic on it even today, a road he hadn’t driven along for many years. There was a cross at the place where they had found the girl’s bicycle all that time ago. It had been standing there for some thirty-three years.
As Ketola got out of the car and walked towards the cross, he was trying to remember that day, to bring the whole thing back, the image of the woman in whose eyes he had seen something extinguished and who had then suddenly walked away, carrying the cross, which had been waiting as if ready for her in a corner of the coat stand, like an umbrella. He and his boss had followed the girl’s mother, and after a while the woman had started running until she reached this very place, hardly five minutes from the house where she had lived with her daughter and her husband. The man didn’t often put in an appearance. What Ketola remembered about him chiefly was that he had left his wife a few months after their daughter’s body was found.
So the cross was still there. Carefully, Ketola brushed aside the snow and read the name. Pia Lehtinen. Exactly, that had been her name. He had been thinking about it briefly in the car and could come up only with the surname. Yet her first name was very simple and easily remembered, and it had been a common one at the time. Pia Lehtinen, murdered 1974, said the wording on the cross.
And five minutes from here, five minutes’ walk from the place where they had found the bicycle at that time, the girl’s mother lived. Or rather she had lived there, because very likely she didn’t live there any more; how could she still be living there after that …? But now Ketola even remembered talking to her briefly on that subject at the time, in the months when the investigation was still in full swing and they’d assumed that their enquiries would be successful. The woman had told him she had no intention of moving, she would leave this house, at the earliest, after the murderer was caught. And he never had been caught, so maybe the woman was still living there. For a moment Ketola wondered whether to visit her, tell her that this was the day of his retirement from the police, and for reasons he didn’t understand today, of all days, he had been thinking of her and her daughter.
Of course he rejected the idea and instead went straight back to his car. If the woman did still live here he didn’t want her seeing him.
He drove home. It was still afternoon, but beginning to get dark. The snowfall was slackening.
He left the car under the projecting roof, took the newer of his two shovels and dug the snow out of his entrance.
He greeted the married couple from the house next door, who were walking past him, in a clearly audible voice. They both looked surprised, presumably because Ketola sometimes forgot to say good day at all. The couple’s daughter, so Ketola thought, would be about the same age now as the dead girl had been back then.
After finishing his work, Ketola put the shovel back in its place and went up to the house. Unlocked the door, knocked the snow off his shoes and went in. He headed straight for the kitchen and made coffee, adding a shot of cognac.
Then he sat down on the living-room sofa, switched on the TV set, put his cup on the table and, for the first time in a very long while, and with a sense of decided relief, began shedding tears.
8 JUNE
1
Timo Korvensuo felt the evening sun resting on him, warm and high overhead.
He quickened his pace, took the three wooden steps up to the front door in a single stride, and gave the woman another smile before he opened it.
‘I thought you might like this,’ he said, and left the view to do its work.
The woman stayed in the doorway, because even from here she could see the sun over the lake through the living-room window and Timo Korvensuo knew that during these weeks of the year,
in this weather and at this time of day, it always stood at an unusual angle, flooding the lake with almost improbably beautiful light.
He had shown the house to eight potential buyers so far and, although none of them had yet decided to clinch the deal, this image never failed to impress clients. Korvensuo stood beside the woman as she admired the view and thought that he liked this house, and in spite of its structural deficiencies might perhaps have wanted to buy it himself except that, as it happened, he already had a weekend house on this same lake, only a few minutes’ drive away. Later, after this last appointment of the day was over, he would go there at his leisure and have a little while to himself before Marjatta, the children and their guests arrived. He might even manage a sauna and a swim.
‘Shall we take a look inside this gem?’ he asked the woman.
‘Yes, let’s,’ she said. ‘I think I really like it.’
Korvensuo nodded and took her round the rooms, which as usual he had had cleaned and furnished in a style that was bound to appeal to viewers.
In the course of his guided tour he never failed to mention every single flaw in the house to interested parties, but at the same time he took care that the properties he was selling showed their best side. And if the owners of a house themselves were not in a position to make sure of that, he would lend a hand himself. No sellers had ever yet complained.
‘It’s … yes, attractive, in spite of the drawbacks. I’ll think about it,’ the woman finally said and Korvensuo nodded.
They shook hands, and he waited for her to get into her car and drive away before seating himself in his own. He was satisfied. He lingered for a little while, looking at the house in the red glow of sunset. It would soon find a new owner.
Then he started the car and drove round to his own place on the other side of the lake. As he had hoped, he still had a little time left before all the noise and racket started. The kids would be in high spirits today, the first day of the long summer holidays.
He was looking forward to a family weekend together, the first in a long time – he’d been travelling a great deal these last few weeks. But yesterday he had finally found takers for two properties that were really beginning to feel like a burden on him, and now he felt liberated. He decided not even to go indoors first, or take a sauna, he would just jump straight into the lake.
He got out of the car and went down to the landing stage, stripped off his clothes, put them all together in a neat rectangular pile, left his shoes at a right angle to it, put his watch in his left shoe, then decided on the right shoe after all, and jumped into the water. He let himself sink to the bottom, catapulted himself back to the surface and swam far out to the middle of the lake.
Only now did he really feel how those two properties had been weighing on his mind, and what a great relief it was not to have to drive to that Helsinki suburb again at long last, to offer two more flats in dire need of renovation, as if tempting someone to have a sour beer. It had been a mistake to take on those properties in the first place, particularly as the seller had expressed unrealistic ideas of the price he could get and had been a prickly character in general, but in view of the present financial situation Korvensuo hadn’t had much choice. And ultimately it had been worth while, because thanks to a builder who would undertake to renovate the two flats himself and was obviously glad of the job, those properties were off his hands.
He swam back to the bank, swung himself up on to the landing stage and dressed. In half an hour’s time Marjatta and the children would be arriving. And another half an hour later so would their guests. Johanna and Arvi Mustonen with their two daughters. And Pekka, his young colleague, a man he really liked. Pekka did good work, he was a quiet, decent man.
It was going to be a fine evening. He draped his jacket and tie over his arm; he had a T-shirt in the car boot. He felt good. He turned round once and after a few seconds turned again in the opposite direction. Then he ran up the slope to his car.
2
The children were chasing back and forth between the sauna and the lake, never tiring. Aku, Laura and the Mustonens’ daughters. Timo Korvensuo watched them, and felt nothing but pleasure, relief and a sense of agreeable emptiness after several days of hard work.
The Mustonens’ younger daughter was wearing a pink bathing suit, the older girl wore red bathing trunks with a green and white striped bikini top. He liked the look of that, it didn’t trouble him, he talked to his guests in relaxed mood and merely took in the details out of the corner of his eye. The drops of water on the girls’ skin, the older girl running her hand through her hair in a certain way, the water spraying on his arm when the girls ran round the table.
They were playing Catch, and Aku was always It and had to be caught. The girls got him down, swarmed over him and tickled him, and Aku laughed, otherwise not bothered, and was already jumping back into the water. The girls followed. They swam far out, their laughter dying away in the distance.
‘Please take care!’ Marjatta called.
‘They’ll be all right,’ said Arvi.
‘Anyone like a second helping of meat?’ asked Korvensuo.
Johanna and Marjatta waved the offer aside. Arvi raised a hand.
‘You too, Pekka?’ asked Korvensuo.
‘Well, yes, just a little more,’ murmured Pekka. Korvensuo was mildly amused by his young colleague. When it came to selling houses, Pekka Rantanen wasn’t half as diffident as now, sitting carefully motionless on his chair, saying hardly a word and eating little. People acted so differently in various situations.
Korvensuo served meat on to the guests’ plates, turned round, which the others didn’t seem to notice, sat down, began eating heartily and let Arvi muse on the state of the national Finnish football team.
‘They have good players, but they just don’t make the best use of them. You can bet we’ll be left nowhere again,’ he said, and Korvensuo nodded as the children’s laughter came closer again.
‘Terrible luck with injuries,’ murmured Pekka.
‘While we’re talking about football, why not switch on the box? The Under-21s have a game today.’
‘Sure, if the ladies don’t mind,’ said Timo Korvensuo, but the ladies were deep in discussion of second-hand shops. Korvensuo smiled to himself as he carried the little portable TV set out on to the terrace. He placed it on a chair, switched it on and fiddled around to find the best position for the aerial.
‘You even watch the juniors playing?’ asked Pekka somewhere in the background.
‘We won’t ever really be up with the best if we don’t have promising youngsters coming through,’ replied Arvi.
The picture wasn’t particularly good, but it would just about do.
‘You might get yourselves a new set some time,’ said Arvi. ‘This one’s out of the Ark.’
‘We don’t really watch TV much here … and look, it’s okay,’ said Korvensuo, pointing to the screen. Sure enough, the picture was clearer now and the Finns had possession of the ball.
Korvensuo turned away and looked at the lake. The girls were standing in the evening sunlight, jostling one another about until Laura, screeching, fell into the water. Aku had put his clothes on again now and came running towards them shouting that he wanted ice cream.
‘Coming in a moment,’ called Marjatta.
Korvensuo sat down and let Arvi’s ramblings about the Finnish team lull him almost to sleep. From time to time Pekka added a comment. The game on the screen was soporific too, and the warmth of the evening enveloped him like a blanket. Now and then his eyes closed.
Marjatta brought out ice cream, the children chattered to each other and reached for the dishes that she was handing them. The sun had gone down now, but he almost felt the air was getting warmer and warmer. He saw a newsreader on the screen. He was about to ask Arvi whether the game was over or if this was half-time, but Marjatta asked him a question that he heard only indistinctly, because he was looking at something that had caught his attention.
>
‘What?’
‘I asked if you’d like ice cream too, or what little they’ve left,’ Marjatta repeated, holding the dish in front of his face, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the picture he was looking at, the picture that … And the girls were chattering away all round him, and Aku had started to cry.
‘I’ll just go and get another pack out of the fridge, then everyone will be happy including our little Aku,’ he heard Marjatta say, and he realized that he had risen to his feet and was on the move. ‘What’s going on there?’ he asked Arvi as he went past, but Arvi, deep in animated discussion with Pekka, didn’t hear him.
Aku had stopped crying.
‘I want some more ice cream too,’ said Laura.
Korvensuo knelt down in front of the TV, never taking his eyes off the screen, and tried to concentrate on the words coming out of the set. He groped for the volume button.
‘Anything special?’ he heard Marjatta ask. She was standing right behind his back as he carefully turned up the sound.
Marjatta put a hand on his shoulder.
He listened to the newsreader’s matter-of-fact voice.
‘Tum it up a bit louder, sounds like something’s happened,’ said Arvi.
There was a bicycle on the screen. A field. A field in the sunlight. Korvensuo made out a cross beside the bicycle. A cross standing just outside the field, and beyond it, in the field itself, was a bicycle. The bicycle lay there in the sun. The newsreader’s voice spoke of the cross and a similar case that was now thirty-three years in the past. A girl’s photograph came up on screen. The voice gave her name and age, and said the girl had been murdered thirty-three years ago.
‘How awful,’ he heard Johanna saying and then he saw a red car on the screen, not a photograph but a drawing of a small red car. He sat up abruptly. Something was trickling through his body. A warm feeling. Dry. Like sand. He moved past the others and back to the chair where he had been sitting, The rest of them were standing around the TV set talking, but he heard only Arvi’s voice as the dry, warm sand trickled through his body.
Silence Page 3