‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t either, in his position,’ said Grönholm.
‘I felt sorry for him,’ murmured Heinonen.
‘The man’s had all he can take,’ added Grönholm.
‘Kalevi Vehkasalo,’ said Sundström. ‘Say the father’s been abusing his daughter for years, the daughter grows up to be a big girl, then a bigger girl, and a time comes when she threatens to tell Mama some funny things when she gets a chance. Her father comes home from the office early on the afternoon in question, because his daughter calls him, says she’s just quarrelled with Mama again and now she’s going to tell her all. Her father’s panic-stricken, he sees his daughter on the cycle path, gets out of his car, stops her, they argue for a while, she hits out at him, calls him names, threatens him again with telling her story. The father goes off his head, throt-tles his daughter …’
‘That trace of blood,’ said Heinonen.
‘… okay, stabs her with some unknown weapon, probably a mortal injury, puts her in the car, sinks her in water or buries her somewhere.’
‘No traces of anything of that kind in Vehkasalo’s car,’ said Heinonen. ‘He was angry with us for checking that too, which I can understand better.’
Sundström nodded.
‘There’s nothing and no one so far to suggest that Vehkasalo and his daughter … had a secret,’ said Heinonen carefully.
‘And several employees in Vehkasalo’s company confirm that he was there all day,’ Grönholm added.
‘Which is why that scenario is nonsense,’ agreed Sundström. ‘Just wanted to run it past myself.’
Joentaa looked at the photograph he was holding. Sinikka Vehkasalo. A serious-looking girl, with hair cut short and tinted black. She was pressing her lips firmly together, but Joentaa thought he could trace a smile. The lurking possibility of a wide, happy smile. In her eyes … yes, a hunger for experience. For beautiful things, important things, serious things …
Very likely he was making all that up. What does a photograph tell you? And what use would it be even if his impressions were correct?
Joentaa lowered the picture and tried to concentrate on Sundström’s curiously ironic remarks. Presumably he was trying to keep them awake. Or keep himself awake. They had finished discussing everything long ago. No suspicious factors in her immediate environment. At least, nothing really tangible.
Outsiders had considered the Vehkasalos the perfect family; the Vehkasalos themselves had made it clear, unasked, that they were having problems with their daughter. That they never met her friends and had no basis in common for conversation these days, that Sinikka had been out all night several times staying with girlfriends, or maybe even boyfriends, but the Vehkasalos knew nothing in more detail, because Sinikka refused to talk about it. It was much like that with many parents and many children.
In an interview with Heinonen and Grönholm, however, Vehkasalo had admitted, or rather had said of his own accord, that he had struck Sinikka twice in the weeks just before her disappearance; then he had begun shedding tears and saying, on record, that he wished he could undo that now, he’d give anything in the world if only he could undo that. Joentaa thought about this statement as he looked at the photograph again. All children wanted to be left alone. At some point, anyway Wanted to break free of their parents and make their own way. Or so he supposed, although of course he had no idea what it meant to have children, or how to deal with them. Sanna had wanted children, he himself hadn’t thought much about it. Later, he had thought, and sometimes said so when they discussed the subject.
Joentaa remembered his own childhood. Soon after finishing at school he had moved away from Kitee, leaving his mother but at the same time always feeling how much the link with her mattered to him. Knowing that she was there. It seemed to be different in Sinikka’s case, at least at the first superficial glance. Why had Sinikka wanted so persistently to get away from her parents? Joentaa stared at the photo as if the girl in it could answer and tell him.
‘Everything clear, Kimmo?’ asked Sundström.
‘Yes, sure,’ said Joentaa.
‘What does that photo tell you?’ Sundström asked.
‘Hm … what’s your impression, everyone?’ Joentaa held up the photograph so that they could all see it. None of them said anything for a while.
‘In a word,’ said Joentaa.
Still silence.
‘Likeable … I mean, she looks nice,’ said Heinonen at last.
Grönholm nodded. ‘Mysterious? Kind of as if she’d like to look mysterious.’
‘I don’t see that at all,’ said Sundström. ‘No, reserved, sort of shy, but then again no …’ He suddenly darted forward, reached for the picture and held it close to his face. ‘I think she makes it look as if she’d … oh, I don’t know.’
‘Sad,’ Niemi observed.
They all turned to look at him.
‘That girl is sad,’ said Niemi, with his eternal smile.
6
Timo Korvensuo was sitting on a chair in a hotel bedroom, looking out of the window at the city where it lay in the evening sunlight. The window was tilted open and a breeze blew in over his shoulders.
He heard the muted siren of a police car. A little later its blue light flashed near the marketplace. He couldn’t see what was going on, but it was almost soundless, just impacts now and then like someone kicking dustbins. Presumably drunks, waking from last night’s stupor and rampaging around a little more before going home. Nothing too terrible.
The room was well situated; the sun fell right on his body, warming him. Relaxing him. The shivers were dying down. He had begun shivering so hard as he drove that he could hardly use the gear shift, but it was better now that he was here in this room, looking down on the city. It was going away.
He felt he was getting back a certain amount of control. The glimmerings of a certain order. Reducing things to essentials. A sheet of paper lay on the desk, along with a folder telling guests about the hotel’s room service and the price list for the minibar. And the DVD lay there as well. In a white, neutral case.
Nothing, he thought. Nothing at all. In the end there was nothing left but memories, vague notions that might just as well have been fantasies. Or dreams that you had dreamed and then forgotten, seeing them resurface later in a blurred image at a certain and entirely random moment.
Perhaps he had just spoken to Marjatta on the phone. In a firm voice. Telling her all she needed to know and hoping she’d have a nice evening. Perhaps Pia had been lying in that field. Perhaps the girl’s voice had begged Pärssinen to stop, a strangely calm voice that came through to him only now and then, because Pärssinen was holding the girl’s mouth closed and drowning out her voice with his groans. He thought he could still hear that voice in his ears. He might be wrong. He let himself drift.
Two young women in smart uniforms were standing down at reception, smiling at him in their professional way as he went past. His car was in the underground garage. The laptop was in the boot and weighed light in his hand as he stood beside an old man in the lift.
The DVD was still on the desk when he came back into the room. He inserted it into the computer drive and heard the gentle whirr of technology at work. A window opened. A button to be clicked.
A small, black-haired girl between two men. The picture slightly blurred and wobbling. Korvensuo let the film run as he fetched toilet paper from the bathroom. When he returned, the girl was staring at the camera, and one of the men announced that he was going to come. Timo Korvensuo clutched his crotch and leaned against the desk, groaning quietly.
Later, he sat on the bed for a long time, waiting for the picture he had seen to lose itself again in the void from which it came.
7
Kimmo Joentaa read the old files. Pia Lehtinen was found, the number of investigators stepped up. Joentaa read interviews, word by word, forcing himself not to skip anything.
The circle of the victim’s relations, friends and acquaintances, people
who could be shown to have had the slightest connection with Pia Lehtinen, had been drawn ever wider. Interviews with men already in the files as known sex offenders. These led nowhere. One of the men burst into tears and blurted out that he was sorry for the girl, which made him a suspect until it was established without the slightest doubt that he had been on holiday in Greece on the day of Pia’s disappearance.
There had been no useful clues in that old case either: prints on the bicycle that couldn’t be matched with any known to the police and the search for a small red car that led nowhere. The boy who had seen it couldn’t say what make of car it was.
Hundreds of small red cars were investigated. Hundreds of interrogations leading to dead ends. Reading between the lines, Joentaa sensed the frustration of the detectives of the time. An internal memo finally raised the question of whether the boy could be regarded as a reliable witness and suggested that if the small car did exist it need not necessarily have belonged to the murderer.
Joentaa passed his hands over his face, feeling the weariness that he knew would be gone as soon as he lay down to sleep.
He switched on the TV. On the screen, Ketola was sitting on a chair, leaning forward and talking insistently to the presenter of a talk show.
Joentaa stood there for a few seconds, then sat down on the sofa without taking his eyes off the screen. It was some time before he could concentrate on what Ketola was saying. The presenter, Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen, was nodding the whole time as if he understood it all. Beside Ketola sat Pia’s mother, Elina Lehtinen.
It went through Joentaa’s mind that half Finland was probably watching. Hämäläinen was the new star among home-grown entertainers. He had originally been a sports commentator, had then successfully moved into light entertainment and had scored a big hit with his new talk show.
Joentaa watched Hämäläinen, Ketola and Elina Lehtinen, and he simply could not focus on the words they were exchanging. Ketola on the screen, Elina Lehtinen; he had been sitting opposite her only that morning. So that was why Ketola had wanted to speak to her, about an appearance on TV at short notice. But what was the purpose of all this?
‘Of course he must expect to be caught this time. And I wonder whether he even wants, somehow, to be caught,’ said Ketola. Hämäläinen nodded. Elina Lehtinen was sitting lost in thought and looked pale, not at all the way she had been that morning in her house.
‘I’d say … I’d almost like to appeal to the man to take that possibility into account. Just reveal himself, in whatever way he can,’ said Ketola. The camera moved close to him until his face was almost filling the screen. He was perspiring, his face looked even craggier and more angular than usual, presumably because of the TV make-up. He was wearing a dark green jacket and appeared both calm and agitated. Joentaa couldn’t pin down his mood precisely.
What Ketola was saying sounded as if he’d worked it all out and was trying to give an impression of calm, to speak with composure. But it was as if his own voice were urging him on; he spoke faster and faster, raising his voice more and more, then he slumped when he had followed an idea to its conclusion.
Now and then Hämäläinen turned to Elina Lehtinen, who described, in clear and quiet tones, how she managed to live with her daughter’s death. Hämäläinen nodded. Ketola was breathing deeply, looking at the floor, and Joentaa felt Elina Lehtinen’s words like snowflakes cooling him for a while, before they began to melt inside his head.
The audience was silent. Hämäläinen became tangled up as he asked his next question. A woman scurried across the picture and mopped the sweat from Ketola’s face with a cloth.
The telephone rang. Joentaa went to pick it up without taking his eyes off the screen.
‘Switch your TV on,’ said Sundström.
‘I already have.’
‘Then I guess you’ll agree with me when I say he’s gone right round the bend,’ said Sundström.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. He’s interfering massively in our enquiries while they’re still in progress, and now he thinks it’s his business to offer the murderer good advice.’
Joentaa was trying to listen with half an ear to what Ketola was saying now. He was talking about how he had felt as an investigator during the search for Pia Lehtinen.
‘Hello?’ asked Sundström.
‘Yes. You’re right,’ said Joentaa.
‘What’s he after? What does he think he’s doing? You know him well, what does he think he’s doing?’
‘Yes …’ said Joentaa.
‘Yes what?’
‘I think he’s … well, convinced that the murderer of thirty-three years ago is back. And he wants to lure him out of hiding.’
‘Ah.’
‘Or that’s what I assume, at least. I don’t really know either, the programme’s still going on.’
‘I can see that,’ said Sundström and fell silent for a while. They both listened as Elina Lehtinen appealed to the murderer to give himself up.
Joentaa thought that once again, Elina Lehtinen looked very like her daughter at this moment, and Sundström said, ‘This programme is a bloody bad joke.’
Hämäläinen was nodding in agreement.
‘All we need now is for them to run a number at the bottom of the screen for the murderer to call,’ said Sundström.
Hämäläinen was just explaining that it was sometimes difficult to make a link between items on the show, so this time he wasn’t even going to try it; then Ketola and Elina Lehtinen went off and an actor replaced them on the set, a man with a drink problem who nonetheless was getting himself established in Hollywood.
Joentaa stood there with the telephone in his hand and watched the actor, who was doing his best to be both amusing and profound. The audience applauded a short film clip, the actor smiled.
‘Right, goodnight, then,’ said Sundström and broke the connection before Joentaa could say anything.
8
The children were asleep. Probably. At least, all was quiet. The weekend by the lake had tired them out, and now they were asleep and contented, looking forward to the long summer holidays.
Marjatta Korvensuo sat on the sofa with her arms clasped round her knees, thinking of the pale woman on the TV screen.
She had really switched on the Hämäläinen show to relax, but then that woman had been a guest on the show, the mother of the girl who had been killed thirty-three years ago, Pia Lehtinen. She had said things that Marjatta Korvensuo couldn’t get out of her head. She wouldn’t have been able to repeat a word of it, but the sound of the woman’s voice had made a deep impression on her, and so had the silence of the studio audience, the long silences that had followed what she said.
The TV was still on. The late news. The photograph of the missing girl came on screen, and for a few moments pictures of a press conference.
Marjatta felt an impulse to go and look in on the children, but she made herself stay where she was. The children were asleep in their beds. Briefly, she wondered whether to call Timo again and talk to him for a few minutes about the TV interview she had seen. Timo was a very good listener, and often things looked different to her after he had cast a new light on them in his quiet way.
But Timo was very probably asleep by now.
The President of Finland was still on her state visit to Germany. She was standing in front of a speaker’s lectern in a storm of flash photography, smiling.
Marjatta got up and checked once again that the front door was bolted on the inside. She always did that when Timo was away. Then she found herself a blanket and decided to go to sleep on the sofa with the TV still running.
9
Timo Korvensuo was sitting on the bed. His eyes were burning; he had to keep opening and closing them quickly, at intervals of a second.
The clock on the television showed nearly one in the morning. There was faint twilight outside the window, a touch of blue and a touch of pink.
He wished for deep, dark winter. And
sleep, and a dream. A dream of a deluge washing everything away. This whole mess. All the filth that didn’t interest him any more.
He went into the bathroom and checked his eyes in the mirror. They felt reddened, but they didn’t look red. They looked the same as usual and the face in the mirror was the face of a man in his mid fifties who had kept his youthful looks.
He went back to bed. He thought of Marjatta and the children. They were home again and asleep. Everything was fine with the exception of the warning lights in Marjatta’s car Marjatta had told him on the phone that they had begun blinking halfway through her drive home from the weekend house. The blinking had worried her, and Korvensuo, who knew a little about these things, was able to reassure her: the lights on the dashboard would probably need attention, but it wasn’t urgent.
Earlier in the evening it had occurred to him that this was Sunday, and Marjatta was sure to be watching Hämäläinen’s talk show. For Marjatta’s sake he had sat beside her on the sofa every Sunday for months, watching that programme. Marjatta would lie with her head on his lap, and he would stroke her back, very gently.
He had thought briefly of switching on the TV in the hotel bedroom. To watch what Marjatta was watching. But he hadn’t. He had gone straight to bed and his thoughts had stood still, until after a while it occurred to him that tomorrow he was going to call Marjatta again. Tell her that he would have to postpone coming home, for good reasons.
Pekka was holding the fort at the office.
Marjatta was with the children.
The children were on holiday.
He had wondered for a while what to do tomorrow, without coming to any conclusion.
He sat on the bed. The midnight sun shone outside. A shower started running in the room next door.
He closed his eyes. The pillows felt soft and cool as his head lay down.
Nothing, he thought. Nothing.
The water in the next room rushed and splashed.
Just before he fell asleep he thought of Pärssinen. Kindly old caretaker.
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