‘No, of course not. Forgive me.’
‘However, I think that she … I thought she was a remarkable woman.’ Joentaa was surprised by his own words.
Lehtinen stared at him for a while, then nodded almost imperceptibly and said, ‘I’ll call Elina some time soon.’
‘Yes. I’m here to ask you whether you think there’s a possible connection,’ said Joentaa.
‘Connection?’
‘The girl’s name is Sinikka Vehkasalo. Does that mean anything to you? We’re looking for some kind of connection.’
‘Connection?’ Lehtinen repeated.
‘Between Sinikka Vehkasalo and your daughter Pia. There are thirty-three years between the two incidents, but as we see it there has to be a connection.’
Lehtinen thought about that for a while. ‘Why?’ he finally enquired.
‘What do you think?’ asked Joentaa. ‘What did you think when you first heard about it?’
‘When I heard about what?’
‘The girl’s disappearance. At the very place where your own daughter went missing in the past.’
Lehtinen looked at him and seemed to be seeing past him at the same time. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No.’
‘But you must … maybe we’re talking at cross purposes.’
‘No,’ said Hannu Lehtinen. He got to his feet. ‘I’d like you to leave now.’
‘I … listen, we could perhaps be looking for the man who killed your daughter.’
‘I’d like you to leave,’ Lehtinen repeated.
Joentaa rose to his feet. As he walked out, his legs were shaking.
‘I don’t know anyone called Vehkasalo,’ Lehtinen added as they reached the door. ‘And I can’t talk about the rest of it. I ask you to understand that.’
Joentaa nodded and Hannu Lehtinen closed the door.
9
Timo Korvensuo went to the cinema. He saw the film that Marjatta and Aku had seen.
It was cool and dark, and the pain was beginning to wear off. His head felt light. The cinema was almost empty, just a few young people sitting in the front row, laughing at moments that Korvensuo didn’t find funny.
He sat in the back row, and thought that he was seeing the same images as Marjatta and Aku.
Marjatta had been surprised when he called her again just now, and had given an uncertain laugh when he said he only wanted to hear her voice.
The witch really did cackle like Aku’s imitation.
He had stood for a while within sight of the house where Elina Lehtinen lived. He had not seen Elina Lehtinen herself, but there had been an old man watering flowers in the garden of the house next door and, unless he was mistaken, the old man had been weeping and shaking his head, and watering the flowers.
Timo Korvensuo had looked from the man to the house where Elina Lehrinen lived and back again, and after a while the man put down his watering can, went over to the house and rang Elina Lehtinen’s bell.
The man had waited with his head bowed, and a woman opened the door. A slender woman with a strikingly round face. She took the weeping man in her arms and closed the door, and Timo Korvensuo went to the cinema.
On the screen he saw the fountain running with blood that Marjatta had mentioned. The young people in the front row laughed. The witch spoke with Aku’s tone of voice, he had broken off his mathematical studies early, there was an empty lemonade bottle lying on the seat beside him.
The film ended happily, with the death of the witch.
As Timo Korvensuo drove around the city again the evening sun was shining, and his headache returned.
10
Kalevi Vehkasalo had put words together. Even whole sentences.
He had sat in his office, watching Ville and the rest of them working, and wondered what he would say to Ruth, what they would talk about that evening when he came home. He had thought so many thoughts, all to do with Sinikka.
For instance, he had decided to thank Ruth again, with all his heart, for going through with her wish for children in spite of his initial opposition, because Sinikka had been the best thing ever to happen to him.
Even if he hadn’t always shown it. Even if Sinikka certainly hadn’t known it, but it was the truth, and if he could never tell Sinikka herself again, at least he would tell Ruth.
He had gone home that evening and when he tried to kiss Ruth’s cheek she had flinched.
Then he had said there was chaos at the firm, sheer chaos, but it was all going to be sorted out.
Then he had sat opposite Ruth and felt there was no more to say.
Ruth had peeled and eaten an apple.
After a while she had gone over to the TV set and switched on the news. She had knelt on the ground in front of the set, and he had sat at the table and thought that he wanted to put his arms round Ruth, but he hadn’t been able to move.
They had waited together.
After a few minutes Sinikka’s photo came up on the screen. From the start, she was at the centre of the programme, presumably because there weren’t any fresh headlines.
Ruth had turned off the TV again and looked at him with an expression that he had never seen before, and he hadn’t been able to hold her gaze. She had said she was going to lie down and he had nodded, but all the same he had got to his feet and held her close.
‘I’d like us to face this together,’ he had said, trying to meet her eyes, and Ruth had removed herself from his embrace and gone out without another word.
Kalevi Vehkasalo hoped she was asleep.
That was the only thing to do. Sleep for a long time, sleep until it was all over. He didn’t know how much time had passed since Ruth left the room. Presumably hours. Or minutes. He had no idea. He just knew that he wanted to sleep. Until the moment when it would be possible to breathe again. Breathe out and breathe in.
He switched on the television set once more and read the brief report on teletext. His glance lingered on the name. Sinikka. His daughter was called Sinikka too. He heard water running. Ruth was awake.
He stood there motionless for some time, as if he could create a silence that would let Ruth get some rest at last.
He went downstairs to Sinikka’s room. He stood in the doorway for a while, staring into the darkness. Then he switched on the light. For the first time it struck him as a beautiful, warm light.
Raising his eyes to the lamp, he saw that it had been carefully shaded with paper and fabric of different colours. Sinikka had made her own lampshade and her own light, and he admired it. He decided to tell her so at the first opportunity.
‘I would like us to separate,’ said Ruth, behind him. He hadn’t heard her coming. He turned round and saw her standing in the doorway.
‘I thought you were asleep,’ he said.
‘Sinikka was all that still kept us together,’ said Ruth. ‘Or isn’t that how you see it?’
He saw her pale face. He felt dizzy. He stood opposite her and saw a beautiful woman, and Ruth came up to him and started hitting out. He waited, motionless. Ruth flung her arms round him and pulled him down on to Sinikka’s mattress. The pillow was soft. Ruth lay on top of him; he felt her tears on his cheeks and his tongue.
After a while Ruth got up, went over to the little stereo system and switched on some music. ‘The last thing Sinikka listened to,’ she said.
He nodded. He didn’t know the song. There were no lyrics, it was a tune played on two acoustic guitars. He liked it, and was surprised that Sinikka had liked it too.
Ruth had closed her eyes. He let his head rest on her shoulder, and only now did he remember that he had shouted at Sinikka. When he last saw her. Only a few days ago. Sinikka had preserved an iron silence and gone to her room when he had finished shouting. There had been fury in the last glance she gave him. He couldn’t remember what it had all been about.
He would ask Ruth later, as soon as she opened her eyes again.
11
Timo Korvensuo
was driving. Keep moving. Round and round the city. He couldn’t decide whether to go back to the hotel. Eat supper. Watch old films. Or go and see Pärssinen. Ask one last question. Sit on the swings, swinging over the top of the frame. Stand up and laugh with the boy. Laugh his head off. Say goodbye. To the boy and to Pärssinen.
Finally he drove back to Naantali, parked at the same place as before, where the field ended and the estate of small houses began. There was a light on in Elina Lehtinen’s window. The field lay pale in the midnight sun. He called Marjatta to tell her that he had seen the film. Marjatta didn’t know what he was talking about.
‘The witch talks just like Aku,’ he told her.
‘You’ve been to the cinema?’ asked Marjatta.
‘I mean Aku talks like the witch. He imitated her very well. Tell him I said so.’
‘I thought you were meeting your client about those terraced houses,’ said Marjatta.
‘I did. But I had some spare time first.’
‘Will you be home tomorrow?’ asked Marjatta.
‘Yes. Or the day after tomorrow at the latest.’
Marjatta did not reply to that.
‘I miss you all,’ he said.
‘We miss you too.’
‘Tell Aku what I said about the witch. I mean that he imitated her well. He’ll like to hear that.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ said Marjatta.
‘And give them both my love, of course.’
‘Will do.’
‘Sleep well.’
‘You too.’
He opened the window on the driver’s side and heard voices. One agitated male voice, one calm, quieter female voice. The voice of Elina Lehtinen, Pia Lehtinen’s mother.
Elina Lehtinen and her visitor were sitting in the garden. He heard their voices, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He just heard the peaceful calm of Elina Lehtinen’s voice.
His mobile signalled an incoming text message. Aku was pleased, wrote Marjatta.
He put the mobile down on the passenger seat and listened as the man, Elina Lehtinen’s visitor, uttered suppressed cries. Elina Lehtinen said nothing for a while, then he heard her quiet voice again. Pia had tried to cry out too. Lying under Pärssinen. He had seen only her legs. And her arms. And the bicycle.
He had sat in the car while Pärssinen sank the body in the lake. He had watched him through the windscreen.
Through his windscreen now, he saw a man coming out of Elina Lehtinen’s house. The man’s head was still bowed.
Elina Lehtinen watched him go until he had disappeared into the house next door to hers. A small, slender woman. She closed the door.
Another text message from Marjatta. Aku is wide awake, she wrote, badgering her about the witch, but when you’re away I can’t sleep anyway.
He turned off his mobile, started the car and drove. Around the city. Several times he was about to follow the sign pointing to the city centre, towards the hotel, but then he went on driving round in circles, until finally, with the last of his strength, he found a car park, put his head on the steering wheel and was asleep within seconds.
12
Kimmo Joentaa looked at the stack of paper on the table in front of him. All the information gathered in the last few days by some forty officers investigating the case.
He passed his hand over the sheets of paper. Hundreds of them, crammed with writing. He thought of the others now sitting at home reading them too. Heinonen, Grönholm, Sundström.
He concentrated on statements concerning Sinikka Vehkasalo. He read, picked up the photo and imagined himself slowly becoming able to see through those eyes as he examined marginal notes.
He didn’t know why he was doing that, it made no sense, because very probably Sinikka Vehkasalo had been the victim of a criminal whose actions were subject to chance and instinct, and had nothing at all to do with the girl Sinikka Vehkasalo herself. All the same, he was concentrating just now, for reasons he couldn’t explain, on the factors that made Sinikka begin to take shape as he read between the lines.
Most of the interviews ended nowhere. Dealt with and summed up in well-rehearsed phrases that were meant to show accuracy and efficiency, and in reality were always just beside the mark. Or, at least, that was his impression.
Interviews with boys and girls at her school. She didn’t seem to have any close girlfriends, but most of them had liked Sinikka. She had always known everything but never put up her hand in class because she didn’t like to show off, said one of the boys who had been interviewed, in a throwaway comment.
One of the girls mentioned a birthday party when Sinikka suddenly disappeared. She had come back hours later, lost in thought, smiling in a mysterious way, and wouldn’t answer when asked where she had been.
Magdalena, the girl who had originally been going to volleyball training with her, said she had been very surprised when Sinikka didn’t turn up. She had always been there. And it for once, she was unable to keep a date she would certainly have said so. Magdalena had tried to reach Sinikka several times on the day she went missing, but her mobile had been turned off.
Joentaa nodded. They had found Sinikka’s mobile in her room at home. Sinikka had obviously forgotten it when she went to volleyball.
There had been three messages from Magdalena in her voicemail, never listened to, and seven from Ruth Vehkasalo. Where was she, Ruth Vehkasalo had asked. At first sounding cross, shouting now and then, and finally, late in the evening, just before her husband Kalevi had recognized his daughter’s bicycle on TV, she had begged Sinikka very quietly please to get in touch, because she was beginning to worry.
Recently, Sinikka Vehkasalo had been elected Years Seven to Ten delegate at school. She had won against another girl, a considerably older candidate, and that had attracted some attention. She hadn’t told her parents about her election.
A male teacher described Sinikka as a brilliant personality; a female colleague of his called her inconspicuous and silent. Joentaa highlighted these remarks, although they were just marginal notes, random assessments of her character.
It was really all about something else. About Sinikka’s body and where it was. And her murderer. And about the fact that, three days after Sinikka’s disappearance, they still had not the slightest idea of what had happened. The search for Sinikka’s body now involved more than a hundred police officers and volunteers, and two dozen divers.
Joentaa looked at the time. Three minutes after midnight. He hadn’t called Sanna’s parents. He hadn’t called his mother Anita. Tomorrow.
Someone rang the bell. Joentaa knew who it was. He went to open the door, thinking of another man who had come to his house on another night, in winter two years ago. He opened the door.
‘Hello,’ said Ketola. ‘I thought you’d still be up.’
‘That’s right.’
Ketola came in and said, ‘By the way, it’s my birthday.’
‘Oh.’
‘Since a few minutes ago.’
‘Many happy returns,’ said Joentaa.
‘Thanks,’ said Ketola and went into the living room, swaying slightly.
‘Sit down.’
‘Thanks.’ Ketola looked at the stack of notes and asked, ‘Champagne on ice?’
‘What?’
‘That was a joke.’
‘No, no, in fact I do have some in the cellar,’ said Joentaa. ‘It’s been there for some time, but … well, not champagne, of course, just sparkling wine.’
Ketola stared at him and Kimmo went down to the cellar to fetch the ancient bottle of sparkling wine. Bought by Sanna for reasons that never materialized. He opened the bottle in the kitchen. The cork hit Ketola, who happened to be standing in the doorway at the wrong time.
‘Ouch,’ said Ketola.
‘Sorry.’
‘Never joke with Kimmo Joentaa. For a moment I forgot that iron rule.’ Ketola rubbed his forehead.
Joentaa poured the sparkling wine into two glasses that he and Sanna had
bought together. ‘Cheers,’ he said, handing Ketola a glass.
‘Thank you,’ said Ketola.
‘Are you all right?’
‘What?’
Joentaa pointed to Ketola’s forehead.
‘Oh, not so bad.’ Ketola was standing uncertainly in front of the sofa. ‘Well, cheers,’ he said, clinking glasses with Joentaa.
‘And happy birthday again,’ murmured Joentaa.
The sparkling wine was warmish, had an odd aftertaste and fizzed like mineral water.
‘Delicious.’ Ketola drained his glass and sank into the sofa.
‘Do you like the glasses?’
‘Nice, very nice,’ said Ketola.
‘Sanna had set her heart on them. As far as I’m concerned, to be honest, one glass is much the same as another.’
‘No, no, these are really beautiful,’ said Ketola. ‘Reading, I see?’ He indicated the stack of paper. Joentaa nodded. ‘Anything new?’
‘Not much. Possibly another case involving a small red car. In May 1983. It could get us a little further on, but of course it has nothing directly to do with Sinikka Vehkasalo.’
‘A murdered girl? In 1983?’
‘Missing. Missing to this day,’ said Joentaa.
Ketola nodded.
Joentaa refilled their glasses. ‘We’re really just clutching at straws with this one,’ he said, ‘But we don’t have much else.’
Ketola nodded. His glance fell on the cardboard carton standing next to the table. The old files that Joentaa had cleared away for the time being. Ketola’s files.
Ketola picked out one of the yellowed folders and leafed through it. After a while he smiled as he read. Then he closed the folder and put it down carefully on the table. He said nothing for some time, then he remarked, ‘Interesting, all the same.’
‘What’s interesting?’ asked Joentaa.
‘This carton standing here. These files lying around. With you. Who’d have thought this carton would ever leave Päivi’s room in the basement again? What was that boy’s name?’
‘Hm?’
‘The boy who took us down to the basement. On my last day at work’
‘Oh yes. Antti.’
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