Silence (25 page)

‘Go on,’ said Kimmo, when Ketola leaned back again.

‘I stayed sitting out here on the terrace for quite a long time. That evening I put the model away down in my basement. In my own lumber room. In the furthest comer.’

Ketola raised his eyes and looked Joentaa in the face for the first time since the beginning of this torrent of words.

Joentaa avoided looking back. ‘What else?’ he asked.

‘Nothing else,’ said Ketola.

‘Nothing else.’ He looked at Ketola and felt like laughing. Laughing out loud. Instead, he stood up and went over to the model standing on its worn wheels beside Ketola.

‘What do you mean …’ he began, but then he heard a rushing sound in his ears, a sound drowning out his own words, and he swung his leg back and kicked the model as hard as he could. It hit the terrace door, came off its wheels and fell into a flower bed. ‘What do you mean, nothing else?’ shouted Joentaa. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Ketola looked at the model in the flower bed.

‘Where’s Sinikka Vehkasalo?’ shouted Joentaa.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Sinikka Vehkasalo … is alive,’ said Joentaa.

‘Of course she’s alive,’ said Ketola.

Of course …

‘She simply did what she said she was going to do. I couldn’t grasp it myself. I thought it out this way and that, wondered how I ought to react, then I decided to give her a fair chance.’

‘A what?’

‘Well, I did my best to carry on with what she’d begun. Like the TV interview with Elina. All the time I was trying to … to hint all of you in the right direction.’

‘Hint us in the right direction?’

‘Yes. I mean, I knew Sinikka was alive, that’s why I wanted you to concentrate on Pia, so that you’d really look into that old case again.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘What?’

‘I said, are you out of your mind?’ Joentaa repeated.

Ketola did not reply.

‘How could you face Sinikka’s parents knowing that their daughter is still alive?’

‘It wasn’t easy for me. You know that. I’m … it tormented me. Don’t you remember, when we went to see the parents together …?’

‘Yes. I do remember.’

‘I thought it over for a very long time, and I was on the point of telling the whole story on the very first day, but then … well, something kept me from doing it. It’s hard to explain why. I probably made a mistake.’

‘Yes. That is perfectly possible.’

‘But look at what’s happened. That’s the crazy part of it. Sinikka was right. That’s the craziest part of the whole business!’

Joentaa nodded.

‘It’s over, Kimmo,’ said Ketola.

Joentaa nodded.

‘The girl, Sinikka … she’ll come back.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘Soon,’ said Ketola.

‘Sure,’ said Joentaa, suddenly feeling very light-headed and very tired. ‘Sure,’ he said again.

Then he went over to the flower bed, bent down, picked up the model and anchored it back on its wheeled base. He stood it beside Ketola.

‘Thanks,’ said Ketola.

Joentaa sat down. ‘Sure,’ he said again.

He was a little cold, and remembered a night when he had not slept at all and a morning by the sea. In a Dutch seaside resort, he had forgotten its name. Sanna had been lying on the sand beside him asleep, and her little snores had risen above the sound of the waves breaking.

‘Sundström will wring my neck,’ said Ketola. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll speak to him. We’ll put this behind us. I’ll take the consequences if there are any.’

‘Yes, fine,’ murmured Joentaa. He was hardly listening. He was thinking of Sanna. Of the moment when her pulse had stopped. He had felt it fail against his fingers. The moment marking Sanna’s death. He had sat up night after night to be with her at that one second.

He thought of Sinikka Vehkasalo and tried to imagine a day when Sanna would be standing at the door, telling him that it hadn’t been like that at all.

He sought Ketola’s eyes, but he couldn’t meet them.

Soon, Ketola had said.

The word echoed in his thoughts as they sat there together, staring straight ahead.

13 J
UNE

1

S
undström called just after six in the morning. ‘I’m here outside your house. Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Out,’ said Joentaa.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s not developing at all as we expected,’ said Joentaa.

‘What?’

‘I’m just leaving here. I’ll be with you in half an hour, and then we can talk.’

‘Where are you, then? Hello?’

‘See you soon.’ Joentaa cut the connection and rose laboriously to his feet.

‘Sundström?’ asked Ketola.

Kimmo nodded. ‘We were going to drive to Helsinki. Well … we’ll be in touch.’

‘We’ll be in touch,’ Ketola agreed.

Joentaa walked over the lawn that swallowed up his footsteps, feeling weightless. As he drove, he thought vaguely about what he ought to tell Sundström. Probably nothing at all. He would tell him that he had to sleep for a couple of hours, then they’d see.

He drove the long way round.

Silence lay over the pale green clapboard house.

He didn’t know what he would tell them. All he knew was that he had to speak to Sinikka’s parents. At once.

He was about to get out of the car when he saw the girl in the rear-view mirror. Some way off. She was walking very slowly but easily, almost with a spring in her step. Her head was bent, and she seemed to be concentrating on counting her own footsteps.

She came closer. Now Joentaa saw the backpack over her shoulders, and the sleeping bag and mat under her arm. For a moment he wondered why her parents hadn’t noticed that these items were missing. But if he had assessed Sinikka correctly, she would have bought them new and hidden them well while she waited for the right time.

She had been well prepared for this … this venture.

She stopped outside the pale green house. After a while she sat down on the bottom step of the flight up to the front door.

She seemed to be waiting. For her parents to wake up. Or for the impulse to ring the bell herself. Or for something quite different.

Joentaa too waited for a while, but then he turned the car and drove towards a day that looked like being as summery as the day before.

2

R
uth Vehkasalo lay awake. Kalevi hadn’t fallen asleep until morning either. His face looked relaxed, but at the same time marked by pain.

Ruth Vehkasalo turned over and lay on her back. She was relieved to be alone at last. Really alone at last. She had pretended to be asleep during the night, so as not to have to talk to Kalevi. Because she simply had not felt strong enough to exchange another word with him.

Kalevi had paced restlessly round the house. He lay down in bed, jumped up again a few minutes later, left the room, came back again, went out and came back once more. Then he had sat upright in bed, breathing in and out very deliberately and with great concentration, leaning over her from time to time to reassure himself that she was asleep. He had caressed her shoulder very gently for a while, and he never stopped concentrating on the regularity of her breathing.

The TV news had shown a lake that evening, and the car of a man who had died in that lake, in that car. Ruth Vehkasalo had knelt down in front of the TV set, Kalevi had sat on the sofa, leaning forward and murmuring words that made no sense. About how he was going to murder that bastard. A man who was no longer alive and whom they didn’t know from Adam. Not even his name.

After a while Kalevi had stopped cursing this unknown, nameless man and had called the police to find out more news. But there was no more news. Or at least, they hadn’t told him anything more.

Then he had sat down on the edge of the sofa again and started talking about Sinikka. Had simply started and didn’t stop talking about Sinikka, digging up memories from the deepest crannies of his mind, speaking in a voice that seemed to come from a distance, from another room, and she had concentrated on not listening.

She had waited for the torrent of words to ebb away.

A quiz show had begun on television, and Kalevi had brought up films from the lower ground floor and connected the camera to the video recorder, taking no notice of her protests.

‘Let’s just try it,’ he had said. ‘If it’s no good we’ll simply stop. But I think it will do us good,’ he had added, red in the face as he sometimes was when he ate too fast, or came back from jogging on a Sunday.

The on-screen quiz had given way to a wintry Alpine panorama.

‘Austria,’ said Kalevi. ‘Four … no, five years ago. In winter. As we can see. Sinikka was having her first skiing lessons.’

She had seen Sinikka skiing down a slope. Towards the camera and past it. At high speed. Doing the snowplough. Unsteady on her legs, but confident.

‘You remember,’ Kalevi had said, winding forward as if he had to find something in particular, but there hadn’t been anything specific, just his compulsion to bring Sinikka to life on a screen.

‘Kalevi,’ she had said, but it was no use talking to Kalevi, he was aimlessly winding the film forwards and backwards, and saying constantly, ‘Just a minute. I’ll soon find it. Wait.’

After a while she had got up and gone to bed. She had taken two of the tablets that the doctor had prescribed for her. Sinikka’s voice could be heard downstairs. And Kalevi’s. And her own. A little tinny, but distinctly audible.

She had sat there in bed.

Later Kalevi had come in, taking off only his jacket and trousers, and lay down beside her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he had said. ‘I was probably a bit hysterical.’

‘You don’t have to apologize,’ she had said.

Then they had lain side by side waiting for sleep, which finally came for Kalevi, if not for her. Although she had taken two of those tablets that were supposed to be so strong, and later on two more.

She looked at Kalevi, saw his face marked by pain and exhaustion. Even in sleep he still looked exhausted.

She got up, taking care not to wake him, and went down to the kitchen. She boiled water. She felt thirsty and wanted some tea. Camomile tea. When you were ill camomile tea was soothing, so her mother had taught her. She had died a few years earlier. Ruth Vehkasalo was relieved to think that her mother didn’t have to know about what was going on now. The water came to the boil. She chose a large white cup. She sat down at the kitchen table. The steam from the hot water rose to her face. She would have to wait a few minutes before she could drink the tea.

She looked out of the window.

Sinikka was sitting on the steps outside. Not really Sinikka, of course. She had just briefly had the impression that she was looking at Sinikka. It was because of those tablets. So they did have some effect after all, even if not the intended one.

She went over to the window and looked more closely at the girl. She was looking at the road, and Ruth Vehkasalo hoped she wouldn’t turn round, because then of course she would notice her curious glances. The girl did look very like Sinikka. She even had the same short hairstyle, the boyish cut that had annoyed Kalevi. The two of them had had an almighty battle over it, and she herself had even taken Kalevi’s side in the end. Although it was an attractive style. What Kalevi had said wasn’t true … that she wouldn’t be recognized as a girl any more, she’d be taken for a boy, and was that what she wanted? What nonsense. Ruth Vehkasalo had seen at once that it was a girl sitting on the steps in front of their house. In spite of the short hair.

The girl had a sleeping bag with her. And a backpack over her shoulder. And a rolled-up mat lying on the ground beside her. That was why it wasn’t Sinikka, because Sinikka didn’t own those things. And anyway, it couldn’t be Sinikka.

She would have to send the girl away. It wasn’t right for a girl who looked like Sinikka to be sitting there. Of course the girl couldn’t help it, but it was too painful for her to bear, it was just too much. She would tell the girl to go away, she would very calmly just ask the girl please to go.

She went across the hall to the front door and felt something in her throat, a sense of constriction that made breathing difficult. She opened the door and was going to close it again at once, because she couldn’t breathe and she was afraid she couldn’t speak.

The girl turned and said, ‘I’m back, Mama.’

The hairstyle, she thought. A lovely hairstyle. The pain in her throat seemed to be spreading. Up into her cheeks, down into her chest. She walked backwards. Step by step. She was already in the front hall again and the girl was coming towards her, looking unsure of herself.

‘Mama?’

She groped for the banisters. That was better. She could hold on to them. She heard Kalevi’s voice. Upstairs. He was standing in the stairwell, at the top of the stairs.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

She felt something gathering in her throat. It was insisting on breaking out. And she felt something else, she felt everything fizzling out into nothing within seconds. That wasn’t bad, quite the contrary. She clung to the banisters and thought that for those things, those things from the past, they had Kalevi’s camera and photo albums to look at. When there was a good moment, in fact, they must do that, but only when there was a good moment and it could be some time in coming, she would have to tell Kalevi so. Kalevi, who was just coming downstairs looking at her enquiringly, uneasily.

Kalevi came down, step after step, then he saw the girl in the doorway and stopped.

And stood there.

‘Sinikka,’ he said.

She heard the name, she felt it sinking in. And now she also felt the scream in her throat slowly moving upwards, and that too would pass over.

Kalevi was beside her. She felt his tears on the palms of her hands and a scream in her throat, and she saw Sinikka standing in the doorway, both strange and close.

Everything else would have to wait, because life, real life, had only just begun.

3

S
undström couldn’t grasp it. Simply could not grasp it, although Kimmo Joentaa had felt his account of the situation was accurate. He had put it into simple, cogent words. But Sundström said nothing; then, after a long pause, he asked, ‘So if I understand. you correctly, that means that Sinikka Vehkasalo … that possibly … she may still be alive?’