Light in a Dark House (16 page)

‘Looks delicious,’ he said.

‘Absolutely. Have some yourself,’ said Seppo.

‘Tomorrow, maybe,’ said Westerberg.

Seppo nodded, pushed his dish aside, and went on from where he had left off before the muesli. ‘Right, about Happonen, the dead man in Tammisaari . . .’

‘Mhm,’ said Westerberg.

‘What I don’t understand is that neither we nor the Tammisaari investigators have managed to get hold of a usable picture of that man . . . I mean the journalist who, of course, wasn’t a journalist at all.’

Westerberg nodded, and raised his coffee cup to his mouth. He thought of Kirsti Forsman, the software adviser’s sister, who hadn’t rung back. When he tried to reach her again this morning it had gone straight to voicemail.

‘Tammisaari,’ said Seppo. ‘A man saying he’s a journalist arranges a meeting over the phone with Markus Happonen, a local politician, pegging it to Happonen’s ambition to make a career nationwide.’

Westerberg nodded.

‘Helsinki,’ said Seppo. ‘A man arranges a meeting with Kalevi Forsman and speaks to him during a computer fair on the pretext of being interested in buying one of his software systems.’

Westerberg nodded.

‘In both cases the man suggests a meeting place that is publicly accessible, at a time when there will certainly be people on the spot.’

Westerberg nodded.

‘In both cases, despite the public nature of those meetings, no one is able to sketch a picture of the man afterwards that tells us anything about him, and in both cases no one registers the moment when the crime is committed.’

‘Perhaps that’s why,’ said Westerberg.

‘What?’

‘Perhaps the fact that it was done so publicly, all out in the open, covered up particularly well for the crime,’ said Westerberg, feeling rather philosophical.

‘Hm, yes, if you look at it that way,’ said Seppo.

‘Because no one is expecting it, no one notices it,’ said Westerberg.

Seppo looked at him for a long time, but seemed to be pursuing his own train of thought. ‘All the same . . .’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t understand how it can have been so easy,’ said Seppo.

‘It was easy because the man succeeded in making it look easy,’ said Westerberg, and as soon as he had spoken those words he stood up, suddenly feeling they had been tossing words back and forth long enough. ‘What’s more, we still don’t know whether all this really hangs together.’

‘Two murder victims who both went to school in the same dump in the back of beyond and took their school-leaving exams in the same year,’ said Seppo.

‘How would I know if that’s it? You have that date at the Town Hall at ten, and I’m going to the neighbouring village to see Happonen’s parents.’

Seppo nodded, and Westerberg stood waiting for a while, hoping that Seppo would finally get to his feet. But he was sitting there lost in thought.

‘Seppo?’ asked Westerberg.

‘Hmm? Oh, yes, sorry. Quarter to ten in the lobby?’

‘Right. See you then.’

Westerberg walked across the room, and turned round before getting into the lift, stood there for a moment, and watched Seppo pouring milk and more coloured flakes into a glass dish. Tomorrow, he decided, he would try that multicoloured muesli himself.

46

THE YOUNG WOMAN
who collected him outside the porter’s lodge was the one who had been looking at a computer screen early in the morning, laughing heartily at something.

She wasn’t laughing now, but looked at him with a neutral expression, introduced herself as Arja Ekström and asked what this was about.

Arja Ekström, nice name, thought Joentaa.

‘You must be freezing,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Sorry, I just thought . . . in this cold . . . with only your white coat on . . .’

The woman laughed at that, but only briefly, and Joentaa got the impression that she felt embarrassed by losing control.

‘Why don’t we go in and discuss it in peace?’ suggested Joentaa.

‘Of course,’ she said, going ahead. He followed her across the courtyard and over to the main entrance. Warm air met him as they went in.

The woman walked purposefully down a corridor lined with potted plants, and finally knocked on the door of an office at the end of the long passage.

Joentaa heard the muted call for them to come in, and he recognised the man who rose from behind a broad desk and came towards them – the tall, bearded man who had knocked on his car window and asked whether he was all right.

‘We have a visitor,’ said the young woman. ‘Police. Mr . . .’

‘Joentaa. Kimmo Joentaa,’ said Joentaa.

The woman nodded, and introduced the bearded man as the director of the hospital, Stefan Holmgren.

‘Good morning,’ said Joentaa.

‘Police . . .’ said Holmgren, and Joentaa had the impression that he was lost in thought, fitting the face he saw before him into this morning’s situation. Possibly the way Joentaa had been lounging in his car didn’t match the psychologist’s idea of a police officer.

‘I’m from Turku, and I’d like to speak to one of your patients, a woman,’ said Joentaa. ‘It’s in connection with our inquiries.’

‘From Turku,’ said Arja Ekström. ‘That’s a very long drive.’

‘Turku. That rings a bell with me,’ said Holmgren.

‘It’s about Anita-Liisa Koponen. Is she still being treated here with you?’

Holmgren nodded. ‘Yes. I remember that case myself . . . she thought she recognised the dead woman who couldn’t be identified.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘I spoke to one of your colleagues about it,’ said Holmgren.

‘I know,’ said Joentaa. ‘The lead she gave us was checked, and initially classed as not very important. But now I would very much like to speak to Ms Koponen again.’

‘Yes . . . of course,’ said Holmgren. ‘If it seems necessary to you. Do you ascribe any . . . real significance to what she said, then?’

‘I’d like to talk to Ms Koponen, and then I’d be able to assess that better.’

‘Yes.’ Holmgren nodded to himself, and seemed to be thinking, as if he wanted to formulate some distinct idea. ‘And you drove here . . . from Turku? At night?’

Joentaa nodded.

‘Without arranging an appointment, and without knowing whether Ms Kaponen is still having treatment here?’

At that Joentaa laughed. ‘Does that tell you something about my psyche?’ he asked.

‘Yes, to some extent,’ said Holmgren, ‘but don’t worry. Not everything that’s significant can be interpreted immediately. I’m sure that’s much the same in your profession as in ours.’

Joentaa wondered how he could have given a rational explanation of his impulsive decision to take to the road at once, just like that. Probably by saying: I couldn’t sleep anyway, so why not drive to Ristiina? Or something like that.

Holmgren looked at Joentaa and seemed to choose his words carefully for what he said next. ‘Anita-Liisa Koponen has been with us about seven months, with a few short breaks. But she kept coming back because she – well, she can’t get her bearings in everyday life. She suffers from bipolar disorder, accompanied and possibly set off by the consumption of drugs that in the long run alter the personality.’

‘Yes,’ said Joentaa.

‘So if you are asking our opinion of the credibility of—’

‘I’d really like to speak to Ms Koponen first,’ said Joentaa.

Holmgren looked at him for a long time. Then he nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. He picked up the phone, tapped in a number and had a short conversation. ‘Arja will bring her here,’ he said when he had hung up. He turned to his young colleague. ‘I think the ergotherapy room is free.’

Then Joentaa was following the purposeful Arja Ekström again, fighting off an impulse to ask her what she had been laughing at this morning.

She led him into a large, bare room that smelled of lemon. The snow was coming down harder beyond its windows. A lavishly made-up, red-haired woman and a corpulent young man were waiting for them.

‘Thank you, Tarmo,’ said Arja Ekström, and the young man stood up and shuffled away. Joentaa looked at the woman, who was sitting very upright at a long table against the background of the winter landscape, and looked lost.

He went up to her, offering her his hand. ‘I’m Kimmo Joentaa,’ he said. ‘From the police in Turku.’

The woman’s hand lay softly in his. ‘It’s good that you’re here,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Joentaa, and he turned to Arja Ekström. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll look in on you again before I leave.’

Arja Ekström stood there for a little while in silence, then she nodded and went away. Joentaa sat down opposite the woman.

‘Ms Koponen, I’d like to talk to you about a lead you gave us some time ago. It’s about the body of a woman whom we hadn’t been able to identify yet . . .’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘You told a colleague of mine that you recognised the woman in the photograph.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘She was our music teacher at school. And I also . . . I had piano lessons with her. One summer.’

‘One summer?’

She nodded.

‘Do you know what summer that was? What year?’

‘She offered to do it. She was there for only that one summer, as a supply teacher, because Irmeli Nikola was so ill.’

‘Do you remember what summer that was?’ asked Joentaa again.

‘I’ve been thinking of that,’ she said.

Joentaa waited.

‘I didn’t really want to play the piano at all. But I went . . . because my parents were so keen for me to be able to play something. Because they’d bought the piano, and my brother couldn’t play it.’

‘Can you remember the year?’ asked Joentaa.

‘And I liked going to the lessons because she was so nice. A really nice person.’

‘Can you remember her name?’ asked Joentaa.

‘It was in 1985,’ she said.

‘1985 . . .’ said Joentaa.

‘Because after that everything was different.’

Joentaa waited.

‘Different from before,’ she said.

‘What happened then?’ asked Joentaa.

‘She was ill too,’ she said.

‘The piano teacher?’

‘Just like Irmeli Nikola. But Irmeli Nikola had cancer, and she . . . I mean the other teacher, after a while she didn’t come any more. No one ever said why.’

‘Can you remember the woman’s name?’

Anita-Liisa Koponen said nothing, and looked at him as if she didn’t understand the question. Behind her, the snow and the morning sky were merging into an expanse of grey. The make-up that the woman in front of him was wearing began to run, and Joentaa thought what a strange contrast she presented – on the one hand the calm voice, the controlled gestures, on the other the mysterious tenor of her words. And a clear, regular face hidden behind a mask of make-up.

She said, ‘Angels have no names.’

‘That’s what you told my colleague,’ said Joentaa.

‘Because that’s how it is.’

‘Can you tell me what happened at the time?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean what happened then.’

She looked at him for a long time. ‘Oh, that,’ she said at last.

Joentaa waited.

‘Do you really want to know?’ she asked.

Joentaa nodded.

She picked up her handbag, took a handkerchief and a small mirror out of it, and examined her face for a few seconds before carefully wiping the handkerchief over it. Then she seemed to pull herself together, and smiled. ‘You could have told me my make-up was running,’ she said.

‘Sorry,’ said Joentaa.

‘We played a duet, four hands on the keyboard. I don’t remember what it was. And she played really well. I thought for the first time that it might be good to be able to do that . . . do you understand what I mean?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘It was hot. All those days were very hot, the whole summer. Then the lesson was over, and I was about to go. I’d packed up my things. The book of music, and the thing that my parents had given me, that device for setting the time . . . do you know what it’s called?’

Joentaa waited for her to go on, but she seemed to be expecting an answer.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Well, we didn’t use it. She just laughed when I took the thing out of my bag, but I had unpacked it, so I packed it up again at the end of the lesson.’

He tried to meet the woman’s eyes, but as she spoke she was looking at the door through which Arja Ekström had disappeared a little while ago. She spoke thoughtfully, and seemed to be concentrating entirely on her memories.

‘Then I went out, and I’d reached the front door, and just as I was going to open it that man came in from outside, her boyfriend. He smiled at me and said something, and pushed me ahead of him into the living room. Then everything happened very fast. I think it only lasted a few minutes. Maybe five.’

The woman turned her eyes away from the door and looked at him, and for some reason Joentaa thought of Christmas. Warm white light, parcels carefully done up with ribbon bows which came undone when you pulled gently at the ends.

‘I remember going home. If I hadn’t known what the man had done to me I could have sworn it hadn’t happened. It was very quick because of the difference in strength between us. And because it was such a surprise.’

She looked at him as if expecting confirmation.

Joentaa nodded.

‘He’d pushed up my skirt and pulled my panties down. I can’t remember the feeling any more. I only know it happened. What I always wondered later was, where was she?’

‘Your . . . piano teacher?’

‘Yes. She’d gone. She had been in the living room just a moment before, and then she’d gone. I wonder where she was. Do you understand?’

Joentaa nodded. Christmas, gift parcels, he thought.

‘I couldn’t ask her. I didn’t go back for any more lessons, and she didn’t come back to the school. I once asked another student who had lessons with her too, but he didn’t know anything . . . she just never came back . . .’

‘Did you . . .’

‘When he let go of me, I left. I ran out and went home.’

‘Can you tell me . . .’

She smiled. ‘I’ve never told anyone what happened before.’

‘I—’

‘I’d like to stop now,’ she said.