Light in a Dark House (13 page)

Which I ought to have realised, because no one goes out in the garden in weather like that, and I couldn’t see into the house, it was too far away, and the windowpanes shone like mirrors.

Darkness fell quickly, and all the time I was just thinking that I couldn’t tell her all I wanted to tell her. Then a light was switched on in the house, and I went closer. I thought it was dark enough, but I was also terrified, it’s difficult to describe how bad that was. When I saw Risto’s face at the window I fell down or I threw myself on the ground, I don’t know which for certain, but anyway I was lying on the ground and I couldn’t breathe properly. I got back into taller grass and lay flat there, waiting for him to come out. I was sure he would come out, but I was trying to persuade myself all the time that he couldn’t have seen me.

Then, funnily enough, I wondered how he would kill me. And what he would do with me when I was dead.

I think I was talking out loud to myself, and I stared at the house and waited for him to come through the garden towards me. But he didn’t.

I did see Saara for a moment, she appeared at an upstairs window like a ghost.

I thought of that as I rode home.

I thought of Saara being a ghost.

And Risto killing me and hiding me away so that no one would ever find me.

36

THE TEAM IN
Helsinki who had been investigating the case of the murdered software adviser Kalevi Forsman over the last few months had concentrated on the dead man’s firm, and any progress they made simply led them into a blind alley.

Marko Westerberg was sitting at his desk on the morning of 13 December, studying the file summing up the case so far. All sorts of salient points, no solution.

Forsman had forged balance sheets, thus incurring the righteous wrath of several employees and getting two major customers into great business difficulties, because there had been an error lurking in what he boasted was his infallible system.

He had spent the days just before his death covering up for this error instead of eliminating the problem.

In other words, Forsman was finished; he had steered his firm straight into a brick wall, and soon Forsman’s partner Samuli Jussilainen found himself the focal point of the investigations again. At first he offered no alibi and then he gave a dubious one, assuring the investigators that he knew nothing about the full extent of the bankruptcy threatening the firm and the demands of angry customers.

Marko Westerberg was leafing through the records and reports, feeling tired and uninspired, when Seppo came into the room, striding out with verve as usual, a mug in each hand and balancing his briefcase so that he was holding it steady in his mouth.

Seppo mumbled something incomprehensible, presumably because of the briefcase between his teeth, and Westerberg replied, ‘Yes, good morning.’

Seppo handed him one of the hot mugs of coffee and immediately went into dynamic mode, switching on his computer and drumming his fingers on the table while the system came up.

‘Seppo?’ said Westerberg.

‘Hmm?’

Westerberg sipped his coffee and mentally composed a scenario. ‘Maybe we ought to consider those fitness studio guys.’

‘Hmm?’

‘You know, those two fitness studios that were planning to merge. The conference in the hotel when Forsman fell off the roof terrace.’

‘Yes,’ said Seppo.

‘Maybe Forsman had done deals with both fitness centres, I mean sold them his software at an inflated price, so they finished him off.’

Seppo stopped drumming his fingers and frowned. ‘Why would fitness studios want software meant for bankers and fund managers?’

Westerberg sighed. ‘It was a joke, Seppo.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘A joke,’ Westerberg repeated.

‘Yes, okay, I get it.’

Seppo went back to drumming his fingers, while the fax machine squealed and rattled in the background. Seppo typed on his keyboard, and then jumped up to collect the fax.

‘Ah,’ he said as he took the paper out of the machine. ‘Mhm. Aha.’

‘Something important?’ asked Westerberg.

‘The list,’ said Seppo.

‘Oh, yes, the list.’

‘The list I asked for. From Karjasaari and the school that Forsman went to.’

‘Ah,’ said Westerberg.

‘On account of that photograph. We still can’t identify the other people in the picture that Forsman kept.’

‘The one that was under the mattress,’ murmured Westerberg.

‘Exactly,’ said Seppo, and Westerberg, who had been suffering from leaden exhaustion all morning, felt something else stir in him. An idea forming. He remembered the conversations that had got them nowhere at an early stage of the investigations – with Forsman’s sister and with the headmaster of the school, who was far too young to have known Forsman as a pupil there. Their colleagues in Karjasaari, Forsman’s home town, had sent various items of useless information. Forsman’s parental home had been occupied for some time by a young family who had not known the dead man.

‘Let me have a look at that, please,’ he said.

‘Just a moment,’ said Seppo, without taking his eyes off the sheets of paper. He chuckled. ‘There they go, sending us a list of a hundred and twenty-seven names without any comments.’

‘Seppo, please give me that list.’

‘Yes, in a moment . . . now that’s a . . . a kind of funny coincidence . . .’

‘Seppo.’

‘ . . . or not, as the case may be,’ said Seppo.

‘What is?’

‘Markus Happonen.’

‘What?’

‘Quite an ordinary sort of name, I guess,’ said Seppo.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Markus Happonen, the local politician. The case was quite high-profile because he was standing for office of some kind.’

Westerberg nodded. Their colleagues from Tammisaari had circulated an email asking for cooperation. Which was something of an illusion, because every police force had to see to its own business. But the dead man had been a fairly prominent figure. And the circumstances of his death were a little . . . bizarre. Westerberg had skimmed the newspaper reports as well as the email from Tammisaari. Struck down by massive blows inflicted by three bottles of whisky, the first of which had probably been fatal. On the beach in broad daylight . . . In a hotel in broad daylight. Falling fourteen floors. In both cases people had been in the immediate vicinity and had failed to notice anything.

‘Yes,’ said Seppo. ‘He’s on this list. A Markus Happonen went to school with our murder victim Forsman.’

37

KIMMO JOENTAA SPENT
the morning in the shadowy domain of Päivi Holmquist, the friendly archivist.

He looked at the carefully stacked file folders, and vaguely heard the voices of Päivi and her young colleague Antti Laapenranta in the background. Päivi laughed, and Antti chuckled. Joentaa hadn’t caught the joke.

He was trying to summon up an inclination to begin, but something deterred him. Maybe the number of files in which the leads provided in the last few months had been stored. He had half-heartedly begun to read, and stopped after a few pages because he had a feeling that he wasn’t ready to tackle the job yet.

‘Getting on all right?’ asked Päivi behind him.

He raised his eyes and looked at her. She was smiling, and as always there was an aura of calm around her. He thought about that, and came to the conclusion that he had really never known Päivi Holmquist to be anything but calm. Always calm and smiling.

‘I think so,’ he said.

‘There’s not so much coming in now, but all in all it’s a huge amount,’ she said. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had more feedback in such a short time.’

Joentaa nodded. A huge amount of information. And not the faintest trail leading anywhere.

‘There are 2,711 files,’ said Antti Laapenranta, who had come up to the table. He put a bottle of Coca-Cola to his mouth, and Joentaa thought of the first time he had seen Antti at the reception desk of the archives. The shy, insecure trainee Antti, who had long ago become an able and self-assured colleague.

For a moment his memory went back to his own early days in this building, the cold manner of his boss at the time, Ketola, and once again he thought he would go and see Ketola soon.

Maybe he could talk to Ketola about Tuomas Heinonen, maybe Ketola would know how to help Tuomas. On the other hand, Tuomas had of course told him about his addiction to gambling in confidence, and Joentaa would have to ask him before passing it on to anyone else. But how was he going to help Tuomas if he couldn’t ask anyone’s advice? The number mentioned just now was echoing in his mind.

‘How many did you say?’ he asked.

‘2,711,’ said Antti Laapenranta.

Joentaa nodded.

2,711 leads. 2,711 people who said they had known the dead woman. And 2,711 people who were wrong. Probably.

He nodded again, and began leafing through the files and reading. He wondered what Larissa had been trying to tell him when she said it was male violence.

2,711 leads, male violence.

Larissa who wasn’t really called Larissa.

A dead woman who wasn’t telling anyone her name.

‘Like a Coke too?’ asked Antti.

‘Hmm? Yes . . . thanks,’ said Joentaa.

He looked down at the first file, a statement taken in the autumn on the day the photograph had first been published in the media. It was made by a girl of twelve who had recognised the dead woman as her mother. The transcript of the interview presented the girl’s conviction, her refusal to admit that she could be wrong, and had a note in bold added by the officer recording it to the effect that ‘the mother in question, first, was a good deal younger than the unknown woman, and second died in 2003’.

Antti brought the Coke.

Another 2,710 to go, thought Joentaa, hoping as he leafed on through them that the girl had a strong, loving father.

38

IN HELSINKI, WESTERBERG
and Seppo were busily making phone calls. Westerberg deliberately kept pausing for effect in his remarks, because he knew from experience that at moments when the investigation of a case took a new turn, it might focus on something forgotten that was the crux of the matter, enabling them to make a breakthrough.

He kept yawning, as he always did when he was nervous, which irritated Seppo, who was young and hadn’t worked with him for very long.

‘Not bored, are you?’ he asked.

‘What? No, not at all,’ said Westerberg.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Seppo.

‘Quite the contrary, in fact,’ said Westerberg.

Seppo went on phoning, and Westerberg tried to concentrate on that crux.

Kalevi Forsman, software adviser. Markus Happonen, politician. Both murdered, both in daylight, both in a relatively bizarre manner with a short interval between the two murders. As if committed casually, thought Westerberg, and the word haunted his mind as he rang another number and tried to get a sensible conversation going with his agitated colleague at the other end of the line in Tammisaari.

‘Yes, yes, Kalevi Forsman, I get that. But surely he has nothing at all to do with what we’re investigating in the case of our politician?’ said the officer in Tammisaari, and Westerberg thought. Casually. Falling fourteen floors. A bottle of whisky smashed against a head. No, not one. One, two, three bottles. Accurate blows, he thought. The murderer was well prepared.

Murders committed casually by a murderer who was well prepared.

‘Not a bad idea once you think of it,’ he murmured.

‘What?’ asked his colleague from Tammisaari at the other end of the line.

‘A bottle of whisky as a murder weapon. In fact three, just to make sure.’

‘Three what?’

‘Bottles of whisky. The murder weapons.’

‘When is that photo of your man Forsman coming through?’ asked his colleague.

‘Ought to be with you by now,’ said Westerberg, but he was only half-listening.

He ended the conversation with his colleague, and searched for a contact number for Forsman’s sister. A mobile number. He rang it, waited, and heard Kirsti Forsman’s voice on a recorded message. Curiously stilted, giving her full legal qualifications.

He saw her in his mind’s eye, in the pale blazer that she had worn when, stooping slightly but then standing upright, she had looked at her brother’s body in Forensics. He broke the connection without leaving a message.

‘Over in Tammisaari they’re asking when they’ll get Forsman’s photo and our data on him,’ said Seppo. ‘Surely it ought to be there by now.’

‘Yes, sure,’ said Westerberg.

‘Well, it’s not waiting on the mail server, and everything from Tammisaari gets through,’ said Seppo, handing him a pile of printed-out data files. On top was a photo of the dead politician, which immediately rang a bell with Westerberg. It had been in the media for several days, but Westerberg had paid it no special attention.

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ asked Seppo.

‘What?’

Three bottles, fourteen floors, thought Westerberg. And the photo under the mattress. Forsman’s sister who had turned the picture this way and that, only to say finally that she didn’t know anything about it.

Seppo put the photograph on his desk, the picture that had been under Forsman’s mattress. For how many years?

‘I think he could be this other boy,’ said Seppo, putting the photo on Westerberg’s desk.

A radiant blue summer’s day. The boy on whom Seppo’s finger was resting stood turning away, in a clumsy, defensive attitude, and seemed to be looking out of the picture into a distance that he hoped to reach. But he was also smiling, faintly, indecisively.

‘If you ask me, that could be our Markus Happonen,’ said Seppo again.

Our Happonen, thought Westerberg, nodding.

Our Happonen, our Forsman.