Cold Trail (14 page)

“H
uh. Doesn’t it annoy the police when the prison authorities
let prisoners escape like that?”

“W
ell,” Takamäki measured his words. “The prison authorities do their job and we do ours. It’s not any more complicated than that.”

J
uvonen laughed. “Okay, so the search is on, then?”

“Y
es.”

“W
here?”

“I
’m not going to reveal that now.”

“B
ut raids are taking place?”

“O
f course we continuously conduct searches of residences in cases like these,” Takamäki said, a little tiredly.

“T
he SWAT team is on the move?”

“
We haven’t called them.”

“B
ut you will if necessary?”

Takamäki
considered how he could answer this one. If he said no, he’d be lying, because of course the SWAT team would be used if a dangerous situation arose. If he answered yes, the following sentence would appear in the paper: “The police are ready to call in the SWAT units,” which was an overstatement. But Takamäki didn’t want to lie.

“I
f necessary, of course, they’ll be called in.”

“
Could we come along and get some footage of a SWAT operation?” Juvonen tossed out.

“N
o.”

“J
ust thought I’d ask.”

“W
as there anything else?” Takamäki asked.

“Y
es,” Juvonen answered. “A photo of this Repo? Just email it over.”

“N
o can do,” Takamäki said. “We decided we’re not going to distribute it yet.”

Juvonen was irritated.
“What the hell? Why not?”

Takamäki
paused for a moment. “If I say no, it means no.”

“A
re you serious? You don’t want to catch him even just a little bit?”

“T
his is the decision I made in this case. I don’t need to justify it to you.”

“W
ho do you think you are?” Juvonen continued. She was upset that there would be a huge gap in the photos now. “We’d print it in the paper for free. Next time you guys can buy ad space when you want us to help you find someone.”

Takamäki
smiled. Mary J. Juvonen hadn’t changed a bit. “All right, talk to you later,” he said, and hung up.

CHAPTER 9

TUESDAY
, 5:10 P.M.

TOPELIU
S STREET, TÖÖLÖ, HELSINKI

Repo was standing at a bus stop on Topelius Street, watching the traffic headed toward the Women’s Hospital. He was still wearing the black suit and the gray coat he had stolen from the restaurant. He had taken an old-fashioned cap from Karppi’s house and pulled it down over his forehead.

Darkness
had already fallen. Half a dozen people were waiting at the bus stop. None of them appeared interested in him. His father’s documents were in a plastic bag, as was the Luger, now wrapped in newspaper.

B
us number fourteen thundered up and everyone else boarded, but Repo just kept waiting. He wasn’t interested in buses. What he needed was a car.

Karppi
didn’t have one, so Repo was going to have to get one by other means. He had concluded that he didn’t have the know-how to steal any of the cars parked near Karppi’s place, so he needed not only a car but the key to it as well. Repo knew how to jack an old-fashioned Saab 99, because all you needed to do to start them was to yank off the lock mechanism and stick a screwdriver into the exposed screw. Saab 99s, popular in the ’70s, were extremely rare these days, though.

Repo
had left Karppi’s house an hour ago and travelled to Töölö by bus and tram. He had been standing at the stop for about ten minutes, but not a single suitable person had shown up yet.

One of the cars
headed in the direction of the Women’s Hospital braked, and the driver smoothly backed his Nissan into a parking spot. A man of about sixty in a blue peacoat stepped out and took a gym bag from the trunk. This guy might work, Repo thought, and started following him.

The man in the pea
coat walked across the street toward the Töölö swimming pool, which was located in the basement of the Occupational Health Institute. It was ten yards or so to the door. Repo noted the sticker indicating surveillance cameras and held his head down so the brim of his cap shaded his face. A dozen or so stairs led downwards.

The man in the peacoat
was about five yards ahead of him and was standing at the cashier by the time Repo made it through the lower-level door. He felt the pool’s warm, chlorine-laden
air, but he kept his coat on, and didn’t even remove his cap.

The e
ntrance to the cashier was perched on a little balcony, and Repo could see the swimming pools down below him. The cashier gave the man in the peacoat some sort of card.

Repo
stepped up to the counter. “Hi. I’d like to go for a swim.”

“W
ell, you came to the right place. Four-sixty, please,” said the cashier, a brunette with a long face.

Repo
handed the woman a five-euro bill from the money Karppi had given him, and she gave him the change and a piece of plastic the size of a credit card.

“I
’m sorry. Is this a key, or?” Repo asked. The last time he had been to a public swimming pool, the cashier had given him an old-fashioned metal key for his locker.

“N
ever been here before? No worries,” the brunette explained. “Use that card to get through the turnstile. Just swipe it across the reader and the turnstile will let you through. You need a fifty-cent coin for the locker. Drop it into the slot inside the door and that’ll release the key. You’ll get your money back when you leave.”

The system sounded complicated to
Repo, but everything seemed to have moved in that direction in the last eight years. Just like the card system in the buses, but luckily he had still been able to pay the driver with cash.

“G
ot it, I guess,” Repo said. He went to the turnstile but couldn’t see the man in the peacoat anymore. He was probably already in the locker room.

Repo
swiped the card across the reader and was allowed to pass. The first door led to the women’s locker room, the next two to the men’s. Repo took the middle door. The locker room smelled like a strong cleaning agent and was relatively empty. It contained four or five rows of lockers about thirty or so feet long. There was no one in the first row.

In the second
row, there were two older men getting dressed. They were discussing the politics of the ’70s. Repo heard the names Sorsa and Sinisalo, the social democratic and communist bigwigs of the era.

Repo
continued down past the rows of lockers. He didn’t find the man in the peacoat until the last row. He had already hung his coat in his locker and was taking off his sweater. Repo walked past him and made a mental note of the locker number: 78. Repo rounded the corner, opened a locker and hung his coat inside. He stood there, as if absent-mindedly waiting for something.

Five minutes later
, Peacoat Man sailed past Repo naked. He was carrying his swim trunks and towel in his hand.

Repo
waited another minute before putting his coat back on. He walked back to the rearmost row and up to locker 78. He quickly scanned the area. There was no one around. He drew a spike from his pocket and pulled the door back with his fingers as far as the lock would give. Repo slid the screwdriver-like tool in through the crack and forcefully pressed the tongue of the lock inwards. The lock struggled for five seconds, and then gave with a snap.

Repo
pulled the locker door open.

The man in the
peacoat had tidily hung his clothes on the hooks, and Repo hastily searched the coat pockets for his keys. He removed the car key from the ring and pressed the locker door shut. He also tried to twist the tongue of the lock back far enough that the door wouldn’t open by its own weight, otherwise someone could steal the guy’s clothes, too.

You couldn’t tell
from the outside that the lock had been forced open. The entire process had taken about thirty seconds.

Repo
put the car key in his pocket and calmly walked out of the locker room. The brunette at the register gave him a vaguely surprised look, but he mumbled something about a meeting that had slipped his mind.

Once o
utside the building, Repo made a beeline for the car. It took him a second to figure out that he needed to open the doors remotely. He sat in the driver’s seat and thought for a moment before starting up the engine. He hadn’t driven in eight years. He checked the emergency brake. It was off. Gas, clutch, brake, turn signals. Repo pressed the clutch to the floor and tested the gear box by shifting from gear to gear. It all started coming back to him.

He
turned on the ignition and nosed out into the traffic. The clock on the dash read 5:20 p.m.

* * *

Pulling the first shift on the tip line, Joutsamo had forwarded the incoming calls to her desk phone. She was browsing through media websites, and, based on what she saw, most had quickly picked up Takamäki’s release. The majority had used the headline “Murderer Escapes.” The articles were pretty sparse in terms of content. So far, none of the newsrooms had found Repo’s photo in their archives. It was unlikely that they would have sent photographers to cover the original court case anyway.

The two first calls had come from
known troublemakers, who always called the police with their so-called
“info.” The phone rang a third time. Joutsamo’s phone had a display that should’ve revealed the number of the caller, but now it read “Blocked.” She turned on the recorder.

“H
elsinki Police Department, Violent Crimes Unit,” Joutsamo answered, marking the time of the call in her notebook: 5:47 p.m.

“H
ello,” said the caller, her voice tentative.

“H
ello,” Joutsamo responded.

“I
just heard about that prison escape on the radio,” the woman continued, her tone now more animated. “They read the description, and a man who looks just like that just went into that building.”

“W
hat building? Where are you?”

“I
’m here in Bear Park. The address of the building he entered is 18 Fifth Street. I followed him into the stairwell, and it looked like he climbed up to the top floor, or maybe the second to the top.”

“Y
ou didn’t follow him any further, though?”

“I
didn’t dare to, because it looked to me like he pulled a gun out of his pocket right there in the stairwell. I’m not positive, but that’s what it looked like.”

“G
ood. Do you know Repo from before?”

“W
hat?” the woman gasped. “How would I know a convicted felon? He just looked like the description. He was walking through Bear Park with this evil glare in his eyes.”

“
Could I get your name, please?”

“N
ot a chance,” the woman huffed.

“W
hy not?”

“Y
ou’ll try to put me on the witness stand. I thought long and hard about whether I should even call, but I figured it was my civic duty.”

“W
ell, thank you,” Joutsamo said, ending the call and the recording. She wondered whether the press release could produce results so rapidly. The description was generic enough to fit many men, of course, but the caller seemed sane enough. Joutsamo wondered where Repo would have obtained a gun.

Joutsamo
walked down to Takamäki’s office, where the lieutenant was just pulling on his overcoat. “You headed out?” Joutsamo asked.

“Y
up, I figured I’d spend some time with the family for a change.”

“O
kay, we’re going to go see if there’s anything in a tip that just came in,” Joutsamo smiled.

“W
hat tip?”

“
A helpful member of the public called in and said that she saw a man matching Repo’s description
entering a building on Fifth Street.”

“I
s that so?”

“A
nd she said she saw a gun, too.”

Takamäki
looked intently at Joutsamo. “Reliable?”

“I
really don’t know. But for the time being, it’s the only thing we got. I was thinking Suhonen and I would go check it out.”

“W
hat did she say about the weapon, word for word?” Takamäki asked.

Joutsamo
checked her notes. “The caller thought the man pulled a gun out of his pocket in the stairwell.”