Silence

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Silence Page 10

by Jan Costin Wagner


  ‘Yes. It’s repeating itself. When I saw the police officers I wasn’t surprised. Because I’d always expected it to happen again, somehow. Do you understand?’

  Joentaa didn’t answer. He didn’t know whether he understood or not.

  ‘I always knew that couldn’t have been all, because some time everything comes to an end, but this never really did. I’m afraid I can’t explain it any better.’

  Joentaa nodded. ‘Can you think of any possible connection? The missing girl is called Sinikka Vehkasalo. Does the name mean anything to you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Of course we’re looking for some such connection, with luck someone who lived near you at the time and now lives near the Vehkasalo family.’

  ‘No, the name means nothing to me.’

  ‘We can’t assume that there is such a person. There’s much to suggest that whoever we’re after is not someone from the … the victim’s immediate environment. But all the same …’

  ‘That was just the problem at the time,’ she said. ‘Your colleague spoke to me about it, I remember that now. I had a feeling he wanted to apologize for not making any progress, he said exactly what you did just now: it was difficult to find out about the murderer because he very likely wasn’t someone from our immediate environment.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘And of course there were no clues that were any use, because Pia had been in the water for so long.’

  Joentaa nodded.

  ‘What I always kept wondering later, when I was a little further from it, was what goes on inside a person … I wanted to know what he looked like, who he was, but most of all I wanted to understand what went on inside him, how it was possible for such a thing to happen at all. Do you understand?’

  Joentaa nodded.

  ‘Have you found out anything yet? Back then your colleague was always talking about hoping to bring the enquiries to a successful conclusion. That’s the way the police put it, I think.’

  ‘Yes, I mean no, I’m afraid we’re only just at the start. It was hardly two days ago. But I’d like to ask you something, I’d like to ask whether, even going against all probability, you would try to think of any possible connections. Any contacts you have, maybe from back then until the present day. Places, localities you visit, then we can compare them with a list made by the Vehkasalos. I know it’s a long shot. Oh, and do you have the present address and telephone number of your divorced husband?’

  She nodded, stood up and Joentaa saw her searching a drawer in the living room. She came back with a business card.

  ‘It’s his private address as well. He was already working from home when it happened. But I’m not sure that the facts are still up to date; he sent me that card by post years ago. We exchange birthday cards now and then. And by the way, we’re not divorced, just separated. That mattered to him at the time, and I had no objection.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  She laughed. ‘Nothing to apologize for.’

  Joentaa read the information on the card, which identified Hannu Lehtinen as representing a well-known insurance company.

  ‘Thank you.’ He put the card in his pocket.

  His glance fell on a football lying in the middle of the garden. He had been vaguely aware of it all this time, but now he wondered what the ball was doing there.

  ‘My neighbours’ grandsons kick a ball around here now and then,’ said Elina Lehtinen, who had followed his gaze. ‘Because my garden’s bigger and I don’t mind if my flower beds get knocked about a bit. And because I like to see children playing in the garden.’

  She smiled.

  Joentaa nodded. ‘Thank you. The cake was excellent.’ He was going to get to his feet, but sat there for a few more seconds looking at the ball on the lawn.

  Then he let Elina Lehtinen lead him through the shade of the living room and the hall to the front door. As he stepped outside, he collided with Ketola.

  ‘Oops!’ said Ketola.

  ‘Ouch!’ protested Kimmo.

  ‘Watch where you’re going!’ Ketola’s eyes were reddened, and seemed to Joentaa to be unnaturally wide and restless.

  ‘I … excuse me, you probably won’t remember me,’ Ketola said, addressing Elina Lehtinen, as if Joentaa’s presence were to be regarded as a matter of no importance.

  ‘I remember you very well,’ she answered slowly. ‘You’re a bit older now. And we were talking about you only a moment ago.’

  ‘Ah. Do you have a little time? This won’t take long, just a few minutes.’

  ‘Of course.’ With a gesture she invited him in.

  ‘We’ll be in touch,’ said Ketola to Kimmo Joentaa. He seemed to be in a hurry to get inside the house before Joentaa started asking any questions, but he did turn back for a moment. ‘And do you have any news? Can I call you, this evening or tomorrow morning? Is that okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Joentaa. ‘And you should call Sundström as well, he wants to speak to you and rope you in on this case. I told him you’d suggested it yourself.’

  ‘Yes, good, I’m glad. See you, then. I’ll call.’

  ‘Two odd police officers,’ said Elina Lehtinen, almost imperceptibly wrinkling her brow.

  ‘Hm, well,’ Joentaa muttered.

  As he got into his car he was thinking that Elina Lehtinen was a nice woman, and Ketola would always be a riddle to him.

  4

  Timo Korvensuo reached Turku about midday, but he went on driving. He drove around the city in circles. Again and again. He felt it was important to keep moving. He saw the cathedral towering to the sky from various different angles. When he used to live here it was quite close to the Faculty of Mathematics, and now and then he had gone to sit in the cool of the cathedral for a while, between lectures or in the evening, without thinking of anything much.

  He drove around in circles again and again, until in the early afternoon the petrol gauge started blinking red. He made for a petrol station, and then drove straight to his destination.

  He knew the way. Along the urban motorway towards Tampere, into the small suburb surrounded by tall trees.

  The grass by the roadside was yellow and dry. The supermarket stood where it always had, but the sign over it was a different colour and bore the logo of a well-known chain. There was a kiosk in the adjacent building, which had once been the only bar in the area. He drove slowly past, his eyes passing over strangers’ faces.

  The sports field was still there too. The running track looked new; the red of it caught his eye. On the grass, three boys were kicking at a goal. The indoor swimming pool beyond was gone. It didn’t exist any more, nothing existed there. All gone, with nothing to replace it. The swimming pool was now an asphalt surface where cars could park.

  Korvensuo felt his stomach lurch, and for seconds had a vague sense of relief. He had often been there on winter evenings because Susanna, the girl from the next-door building, used to train in the pool. She always wore a green swimsuit and sometimes smiled at him because they lived in the same housing complex, and he used to lean back at the edge of the pool, feeling the water getting colder round his legs, and staring for all he was worth, as inconspicuously as possible.

  He remembered that perfectly. It had been the time when everything began, whatever ‘everything’ was, although he couldn’t pinpoint the real beginning, the exact moment in time. There probably wasn’t one. No beginning and no end. And no reason. None that anyone could have understood, none that he understood himself. There was nothing of that kind, and the pool where Susanna from the next-door building used to swim was gone as well.

  The boys on the football pitch were arguing about the score. Korvensuo got into his car again and let it coast down the slope.

  He passed the bus stop.

  Then he turned left into the narrow drive and up to the building where he had lived.

  Everything he had thought of as he drove from Helsinki was cancelled out. He’d planned to leave the car sooner
than this, at a safe distance. Not to arrive until evening, under cover of dark, which anyway would be only a slight twilight. An absence of sunlight, achieved with difficulty and never complete, lasting for several hours.

  It was cancelled out; he didn’t think of these things any more. He was shaking, but at the same time felt perfectly calm. He didn’t see any small red car. Of course not. He got out. The sun warmed him and brought out gooseflesh on his back. The garbage container stood where it had always been, although now there were several of them. For recycling. A middle-aged man in tracksuit bottoms was just putting bottles into the bottle bank. They smashed to pieces: a hollow shattering sound. The man folded up the bag that had held the bottles and passed him without looking up. Korvensuo didn’t know him. Of course not. The man would have been a small child when Korvensuo lived here. And had studied mathematics, for reasons he couldn’t put a name to now. Everything was different. An eternity had passed. He turned away his eyes and looked at the playground. Different rides, brightly coloured and new. An engine was humming. Pärssinen was sitting on a bright red mower, cutting the grass.

  Korvensuo watched him. It relaxed him. Pärssinen rode regularly up and down the lawn. Carefully, meticulously, he also trimmed the edges of the grass. He was older now. An old man, but he hadn’t looked young even then.

  Korvensuo wondered whether Pärssinen had chosen that colour. The red of the mower. Very likely these models were always red. He felt the sand trickling through him again. Slowly and steadily. Pärssinen raised his head and lowered it without showing any sign of recognition.

  Korvensuo started walking. Metre by metre. He was freezing, and he felt the sand inside him.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, when he was close enough, and Pärssinen raised his eyes from the lawn, looking at him questioningly, merely shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his ears, to indicate that he couldn’t hear him. The engine was roaring.

  ‘Hello!’ Korvensuo called again.

  Pärssinen turned off the engine and said, in the silence, ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘It’s me. We know each other,’ said Korvensuo.

  ‘We do?’ asked Pärssinen.

  Korvensuo nodded.

  Pärssinen stared at him. ‘Ah. Yes,’ he murmured.

  Korvensuo was shaking. He had the shivers. And gooseflesh on his back. A hot day. Timo,’ said Pärssinen and Korvensuo felt himself nodding.

  Pärssinen adjusted a few things on the mower and got off. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said, taking Korvensuo’s hand. His own was sweaty and had blisters and weals on it. Korvensuo felt them on his skin.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s have a drink.’ Pärssinen went ahead and Korvensuo followed, thinking he would drive home. At once. To the people who were his life.

  ‘Well, fancy seeing you,’ said Pärssinen. He looked almost happy as he opened the door of his apartment. Venetian blinds drawn down. Dappled sunlight on the floor.

  ‘A beer?’ Pärssinen asked.

  Korvensuo nodded.

  Drive away. Just get in the car and drive away, he thought.

  ‘Sit down, do,’ called Pärssinen from the kitchen.

  Korvensuo sat down in one of the two soft, shabby armchairs where he used to sit all of thirty-three years before. The sofa was also the same, but where the screen used to be there was now a large TV set. A new, expensive model.

  ‘Not bad, eh?’ said Pärssinen, following his gaze. Korvensuo nodded.

  ‘Brand new.’ Pärssinen handed him one of the bottles. ‘Cheers!’

  Korvensuo took a sip.

  ‘To our reunion,’ said Pärssinen.

  Korvensuo looked at the floor. The sense of trickling sand was dying down, his headache had come back. Dappled sunlight. A DVD player and video recorder stood under the TV set; the cases for the discs and cassettes were neatly arranged on a shelf.

  ‘like to watch a film?’ asked Pärssinen.

  Korvensuo looked at the bottle in his hand and was surprised, for a moment, to see that he had apparently half finished it already. Then he began to laugh. At least, it sounded like laughter. It broke out of him and lasted only a few seconds. The sand had stopped trickling. He felt nothing except for his headache. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  Pärssinen was sitting there as relaxed as ever. ‘Nothing to apologize for. ‘So you don’t want to see a film?’

  ‘No,’ said Korvensuo. ‘That’s right, I don’t. No, I wanted to ask you something. I’d like to know … why?’

  Pärssinen put the bottle to his lips and seemed to be waiting for him to ask his question more precisely.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ asked Korvensuo.

  ‘Why did I do what?’ Pärssinen asked.

  ‘The girl who’s gone missing right where we … where back then we …’

  ‘Oh, you mean that,’ said Pärssinen. He seemed to be smiling.

  Korvensuo stood up. The bottle felt cold in his hand. Chilled beer. I’ll go home now, he thought. ‘Why did you do it, you bastard?’ he screamed, throwing the bottle at the patch of sunlight in front of his feet. As hard as he could. Then there was silence. The shards of broken glass were lying all over the room. A trickle of beer was making its way towards Pärssinen’s shoes. Pärssinen still sat there looking relaxed.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said.

  Korvensuo stared at him.

  ‘Do sit down again,’ said Pärssinen. ‘Please.’

  Korvensuo sat on the arm of the chair.

  ‘I have nothing to do with it,’ Pärssinen continued. ‘I heard about it only yesterday evening. By chance. I don’t often watch the news … I’m not interested in all the crap that happens. It’s all just shit, that corrupt stuff.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Korvensuo.

  ‘I’ve got better things to do.’ Pärssinen waved the subject away and put the bottle to his mouth again.

  Korvensuo thought of Marjatta and the children. Marjatta going for a walk, the children in the rowing boat. Laura rowing, Aku dipping his hand in the water.

  ‘Yes,’ he said and saw Pärssinen sitting there in an armchair, relaxed. It hadn’t been like that thirty-three years ago. On the day when … on that day Pärssinen had seemed distraught, panic-stricken, as he had never seen him before. ‘Yes,’ he repeated.

  ‘Understand? I have nothing to do with it. You don’t either. I’d never have thought of suspecting that you … it’s just coincidence, that’s all.’

  ‘Coincidence?’

  ‘Yes, coincidence. Something happened. We don’t know what. We have nothing to do with it. And it’s of no interest to us.’

  Korvensuo nodded.

  ‘You have nothing to do with it. I have nothing to do with it. Understand? Timo, our … what we did once, it’s an eternity ago. Understand?’

  Korvensuo nodded. What we did once, he thought.

  ‘After all, it’s in the past,’ said Pärssinen.

  In the past, thought Korvensuo. Past and over. Nothing happened, he thought. Nothing, nothing. Pärssinen smiled and looked friendly. A kindly old caretaker.

  Silence reigned for a while. Then Pärssinen said, ‘Well, Timo, good to see you again.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I often thought of you … back then, the way you went off, that was odd, of course. For a few days I was worried, thought you might maybe go to the police … it was like the earth had swallowed you up.’

  Korvensuo nodded.

  ‘You always were an oddball,’ said Pärssinen, laughing.

  Korvensuo nodded to himself again.

  ‘So how are you doing these days? Got a family, that son of thing?’

  Korvensuo tried to meet Pärssinen’s glance and saw only eyes looking past him, looking into nothing. Nothing, he thought. Nothing, nothing. Aku is dipping his hand in the water and asking Laura if he can have a go at rowing too.

  ‘I’m going now,’ said Korvensuo.

  Pärssinen nodded. ‘Always on the move, eh?’

  K
orvensuo started walking.

  ‘Oh, one more thing.’ Pärssinen got to his feet and went over to the shelf with the discs and cassettes. Korvensuo stood still. Waited. Don’t move, he thought.

  ‘You liked one film specially, your favourite film,’ said Pärssinen. ‘With the girl you fancied so much. The slim girl with the dark hair, she’s doing it with two men in the film and she has kind of a birthmark on her shoulder. Remember?’

  Pärssinen went on searching; he wasn’t expecting an answer. He found what he was looking for and came towards Korvensuo with a case.

  ‘I managed to transfer it to DVD, simply filmed it again with a new camera. The quality’s really good … particularly the girl. I’ll make you a present of it.’ Pärssinen smiled and held out the case to him. A neutral white case, with a few letters written on it, denoting some kind of classification known only to Pärssinen. And a date, the date of the year when the film had been made: 1973.

  ‘Here you are,’ said Pärssinen.

  Korvensuo took the case.

  ‘Drop in any time you like,’ said Pärssinen.

  Korvensuo walked over the carefully mown lawn to his car. He would call Marjatta, tell her he’d arrived safely. And had a good meeting. About terraced houses. His body was a heavy weight of emptiness, heavy as lead.

  He put the DVD case on the passenger seat and started the car.

  5

  Sundström was looking confident. Inclined to make jokes that no one understood. Heinonen was sitting deep in thought, Grönholm was tapping out a monotonous rhythm on the tabletop, and Kari Niemi was telling the core group of the investigating team the results that forensics had come up with. They seemed to lead nowhere.

  ‘There’s very little,’ he concluded.

  Various fingerprints had been found on the bicycle; only one could be identified. Ruth Vehkasalo had touched her daughter’s bike.

  ‘The husband was rather annoyed when we asked him and his wife to come in for fingerprinting,’ said Heinonen. ‘Although we said right away we always do that, it’s only so as to compare their prints with those we find. So that we can spare ourselves unnecessary work, but he didn’t entirely understand that.’

 

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