Light in a Dark House (32 page)

That’s my sister Leea.

Her son Olli will amount to something one of these days.

I don’t mind that you mention in your diary my failed attempt to kiss fat Satu Koivinen. You’re right, it really was a failure, but that was partly Satu’s fault, honestly.

I’ve always wondered what you were doing, and when I read that you have been at sea all those years it seemed to me convincing. Logical in the best sense of the word. Travelling over the water back and forth, there and back, without ever coming to your journey’s end.

In all these last eighteen years I have practised any number of professions, all of them ultimately stupid stuff. Recently I’ve been working for a news agency, writing things about the Stock Exchange. An absurd but lucrative job, although only if you go about it circumspectly.

This is where boarding ends. Passengers are standing in line waiting. A funny thing happened just now, while I was writing this. A name was called, telling its bearer that the gates would soon be closing, and I wondered how often they would have to call that name before the right person finally reacted. And then, finally, I realised that it was my name. My new name, mine from now on, so I still have to get used to it, although it’s very memorable, and I’ve already used it on various business cards.

So I’m going now. I can see the ground staff at the boarding desk getting impatient. I’m looking forward to the flight and my arrival, perhaps because I have never been in that city, and I left the choice of place to chance. A few weeks ago I asked Olli to tell me the name of a city beginning with S, not in Finland. It’s compulsive. The initial S. And the silly name I’ve given myself, and that in fact is already on a passport that I can use for travelling. I can’t travel everywhere on it, there are places I shall avoid, partly on the advice of the odd but friendly man who prepared the document for me. And I wouldn’t have thought that, ultimately, it would be easy to travel with an invented name. It somehow makes me hope that the world is really in order.

Araas Aluviok.

Leea thought it sounded Norwegian or Latvian. Olli thought it sounded Greek. They both asked whose name it was, and I almost laughed.

I know it’s silly, really, but I’ve always liked pseudonyms, names behind which people can hide. Not just any old invented names, but names that make sense, and this one makes sense, even if it’s simple and slightly pathetic.

An ananym is always simple and pathetic, perhaps even childish, but I like this one, perhaps that’s what it’s about, Teuvo – about our childhood. I just wanted them to have to read Saara’s name once more, although they didn’t understand what they were really looking at.

I spent a day and a night with you, Teuvo. You sat leaning against a tree, not alive any more, and no one had taken any notice because no one ever seems to walk in the part of the forest just beyond Saara’s house.

I left you sitting there – telling someone might have endangered my plan to bring this all to an end, and I also felt that you were in the right place.

I gave you back the diary, because it’s yours. I made a copy for myself, because it seemed to be important to you for me to have it.

Well, now they are about to close the gate.

Dear diary, 25 December.

I don’t know what will happen next.

Contrary to all logic, that’s not a bad feeling.

79

THAT AFTERNOON WESTERBERG
stood beside Seppo in an office with large glazed windows providing a good view of Hall A of Frankfurt airport, looking alternately at the passengers hurrying by and the names coming up on the small monitor.

Lauri Lemberg.

Next to the names, they could see a cross-section of the aircraft and seats in various different colours, occupied and vacant, and the seat that had been occupied by Lauri Lemberg a few hours ago was highlighted in a different colour again, orange, close to the front of the screen.

‘Actually he was sitting right behind you,’ said the friendly man from the German airline in English, a comment very much to the point, and Seppo tilted his head to one side as if he hoped he would understand it all better if he read Lauri Lemberg’s name at a different angle.

‘Yes,’ said Westerberg, and he thought of Kimmo Joentaa sitting in a forest, leafing through an exercise book and coming up with names that were hard to grasp.

Lauri Lemberg, Helsinki to Frankfurt. A one-way ticket, so no return journey, just like Risto Nygren several months earlier. Lauri Lemberg had arrived in Frankfurt, but he had booked no flight back or onward. At least not for anyone bearing that name.

‘Thanks,’ said Westerberg, and Seppo still had his head on one side, but tilted the other way. Their German colleague’s handshake was firm as they finally parted between Arrivals and Departures, wishing each other luck, assuring each other of close cooperation, and then Westerberg and Seppo flew back to Helsinki early in the evening.

At least the investigations in Finland had swiftly come up with results. The last privately registered residence of the wanted man, Lauri Lemberg, had been in Naantali near Turku, but he had been staying recently with his sister in Helsinki, in Länsisatama to be precise, a prosperous residential district in the west of the city.

They arrived on time, the snow was whiter, the street lighting brighter and the evening darker than in Germany as, led by the woman’s omniscient and gentle voice, they drove along the street to Länsisatama.

There was a light on in the house where Lauri Lemberg was staying, and as Westerberg followed Seppo up the drive he thought for a split second that Lauri Lemberg would open the door, smile and ask them in.

Seppo rang the bell and a boy opened the door, flinging it wide. He had been expecting someone else.

‘Oh. Who are you?’ he asked.

I’m beginning to ask myself that question, thought Westerberg, and then a young woman appeared behind the boy. Seppo asked her name, got an answer, showed her his ID and hummed and hawed for a while, because he wanted to let her know their business without upsetting the boy.

‘Lauri . . . isn’t here,’ said Leea Hankala-Lemberg.

Westerberg nodded.

‘But do come in,’ she said.

An aroma came from the kitchen that, curiously, reminded Westerberg of his childhood, although he couldn’t have said what his memory consisted of. Leea Hankala-Lemberg took them into the living room, suggested that they should sit down, and then asked if everything was all right . . . with Lauri. There was a Christmas tree with real candles against the wall with the windows in it. Westerberg liked that.

‘We’d like to talk to him. Do you know where he might be?’

She seemed to be thinking about it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s made an office for himself in the loft here, and he has another at the Stock Exchange in Helsinki. He works for an online investors’ magazine.’

‘Aha,’ said Westerberg.

‘He’s been away a good deal recently. Olli, go to bed, please.’

The boy was standing in the doorway.

‘I’ll come and see you in bed in a little while,’ said Leea Hankala-Lemberg.

Olli rolled his eyes and put his head on one side, just like Seppo that afternoon at Frankfurt airport.

‘Say goodnight to these gentlemen,’ said Leea Hankala-Lemberg, and Olli lingered in the doorway for a few moments, then said, ‘Goodnight,’ and went away.

‘Can’t you tell me what’s . . . what’s happened about Lauri?’ asked Leea Hankala-Lemberg.

‘Do you know whether he was planning to fly to Germany? To Frankfurt?’

‘What?’

‘Then the answer is no.’

‘Of course not. Why would he do that?’

‘In fact he did fly to Frankfurt today.’

She gave Westerberg a long look. ‘It could have been on business,’ she said at last.

Westerberg nodded. ‘Do you have a photograph?’

‘Of Lauri?’

‘Yes,’ said Westerberg.

She went away and came back with an iPhone. ‘There are a good many here, I think,’ she said. Concentrating, she searched what was obviously an extensive picture library and handed him the device. ‘Here, this is Lauri,’ she said, and Westerberg looked at the smiling face of the man who had cut Risto Nygren’s throat that afternoon. Seppo leaned down to him, and gave a start of surprise on seeing the picture. Lauri Lemberg in front of a wintry scene, pulling a sledge behind him.

‘Can you show us his office here, please?’ asked Westerberg.

‘Yes, of course.’

They followed her up to the top floor of the house. The room looked like a hotel room that had just been cleared; the narrow bed was made up, the desk uncluttered by anything.

‘Does he have a PC?’ asked Westerberg.

‘A laptop. But he always takes it with him when he . . . goes away.’

‘Did you speak to him this morning?’ asked Westerberg.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes? And what did he say?’

‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘Nothing at all?’

‘He didn’t say he was flying to Frankfurt. I thought he was simply going away and would be back. He said he had to go to the office, and I did think that was funny. On Christmas Day. But as I said, he’s been away a lot. Particularly over the last few days, when he seemed to have . . . something important and time-consuming to do.’

‘Yes,’ said Westerberg. And someone to shadow, he thought.

The boy Olli appeared in the doorway.

‘I’ll be with you in just a minute,’ said his mother.

‘Is something the matter with Lauri?’ he asked.

‘No. We’re going to talk a little longer up here, and then I’ll be with you,’ she said.

Olli left them, and they stood in the empty room, rather at a loss. Another empty room, thought Westerberg.

Lauri Lemberg’s sister opened the wardrobe. A single jacket hung in it. ‘Most of his things have gone,’ she said. ‘And his travelling bag, but he usually keeps that in his car. As if he were somehow . . . always on the move.’

Westerberg looked at the freshly made bed. Neat and clean.

‘Can’t you please tell me what’s going on?’ asked Lauri Lemberg’s sister.

An investigation full of empty rooms.

‘Your brother . . .’ Westerberg began.

‘Yes?’

‘Tell us something about him. Anything that occurs to you.’

‘Anything?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘He’s the dearest, craziest person I know,’ she said.

Westerberg tried to meet Seppo’s eye, but Seppo was looking at the woman and seemed to be waiting for her to go on. He looked strangely sad.

‘Lauri is . . . special. Very clever. Top grades in his school-leaving exam, top results in his university studies.’

‘Please go on.’

‘What am I to tell you? He’s a dear. He seldom does anything you’d expect. In fact never. But he’s always there when I need him. He has four university degrees, all with distinction. Since my husband died he’s been living with us, helping out. He does relatively odd things that no one else understands. For instance, he once spent a year working as a waiter at an igloo hotel in the north of Finland – with his four brilliant degrees.’

Westerberg nodded.

‘I don’t suppose you can understand that, can you? I can’t either. But that’s how he’s always been.’ She looked at him enquiringly, in search of help.

‘Do you remember a friend of his, a school friend? Teuvo Manner?’

‘Teuvo . . . yes, certainly.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes, they were close friends, but that was ages ago. As you said, when they were at school. I was Lauri’s little sister, but I do remember that Teuvo sometimes visited us.’

‘Yes?’ asked Westerberg.

‘In retrospect, they were an odd couple. I remember they once let me play Monopoly with them, and Teuvo made sure that I could go safely down Lauri’s streets on the board. In the end, thanks to Teuvo, I even won the game, and Lauri’s feelings were slightly hurt, but not for long.’ She smiled, and Westerberg could see the scene before his eyes. Teuvo Manner, Lauri Lemberg, Lauri’s little sister Leea and a board with small green houses and red hotels, and a Lauri who didn’t want to lose.

‘If your brother comes back or gets in touch with you, please let us know at once,’ said Westerberg.

‘I really would like to know what’s going on,’ she said.

‘I can understand that. Your brother is suspected of killing a man today in Frankfurt. And that’s linked to further investigations on which we’re working at the moment.’

She said nothing. He thought he could see how hard she was trying to understand that, but she didn’t. Of course not. Westerberg walked a little further into the room, looked round him, and sensed that they were not going to find anything here. Although of course they would try.

‘Is your son on holiday?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ she said.

Of course. Christmas. ‘I’d like you to take him out on some kind of excursion tomorrow. A team of forensic officers will have to spend a few hours in your house, and there’s no need for him to see that.’

She nodded.

‘I’ll call you at about eight, and we’ll discuss the details then. Is that all right? And I’ll need this iPhone, with the photos on it. You’ll get it back tomorrow,’ said Westerberg.

She nodded.

They went downstairs, and when they were finally trying to find words to say goodbye, Westerberg had a feeling that Olli was with them. Standing in a doorway somewhere, making no noise, trying to hear words that were left unspoken.

80