TH02 - The Priest of Evil (13 page)

The escalator came to an end and they reached the gates. Leena stopped sharply, as if something had startled her, and those coming up behind bumped into her. She took Matti by the elbow, dragged him to one side and whispered, ‘Over there. That’s him over there.’

‘The one handing out those leaflets?’

‘Yep.’

The man was standing at the centre of the compass mosaic on the floor, in such a way that everyone walking past was forced to notice his presence. No one took any of his leaflets, dodging instead to one side and walking around him as if they hadn’t seen him. He was standing with his back to Leena and Matti. From beneath his cap flowed wisps of grey hair. He clearly wasn’t a down-and-out, but his clothes were worn and made him look poor. He certainly didn’t look like the guru Leena had described.

‘Wait.’ Leena yanked at his sleeve and held him back. ‘He knows we’re here.’

‘What, even though he can’t see us?’

‘Yes, look at his hand.’

The man raised his free hand level with his shoulder, pressed his thumb and forefinger into a circle and began to turn, very slowly, as if he too were part of the compass. He stood sideways to them, brought his hand across his face, turned some more, stopped and stood there staring at them through the telescope formed by his fingers. He was wearing thickrimmed glasses, his face was wrinkled and strangely pale. Matti suddenly felt rather odd, as if he were trapped in a dream, unable to escape. His feet seemed stuck to the ground.

‘I don’t like this,’ he whispered. It felt somehow terrifying that the man knew they had come up behind him, unless he merely did this same trick every now and then.

‘Keep your hat on,’ said Leena; she too was clearly nervous. ‘It’ll be OK. Look at his hand! When he does that it means he wants us to go over by that pillar.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I just do. Come on.’

They walked towards the left corner of the compass, where there was a thick glass pillar with a bench around it. This often served as a meeting place, but now the only person there was a gnome-like tramp rattling a stick and gathering up his bags, ready to leave. The man in the glasses didn’t follow them or watch them, he just carried on handing out leaflets. Still Matti couldn’t rid himself of the feeling of the man’s eyes on his back. The throng of people seemed blurred and the noise had subsided, as if someone had turned it down with a remote control.

‘Come round the back,’ said Leena, and he did as he was told. Her closeness felt reassuring.

‘Leena, I really don’t like this. What if he’s some sort of perv?’

‘Him? He’s never tried anything on. I reckon he really is a priest, but he’s just gone a bit schizo and got himself kicked out of the church. You get these amazing vibes when he looks you in the eyes. It kind of makes you respect him or something.’

‘But what if he…?’

‘Hello,’ said the priest. He had appeared out of nowhere, though only a minute ago he had been standing at the centre of the compass, and he greeted them as if he had known Matti for years. His voice creaked like a new pair of shoes. He was about the same age as Grandpa Onni, and close up he didn’t look as past it as he did from a distance; he was even wearing a black bumbag. He was staring Matti in the eyes, and though Matti tried to avoid his gaze it was no use: he felt compelled to stare back. It was almost as if through the priest’s eyes he could see far off into the void beyond. His face began to tingle the way his leg did when he had been sitting in an odd position for too long.

‘You do not seem too well,’ said the man, more as a statement of fact than a question. ‘Are you having problems at school? Or at home perhaps?’

‘At school mostly,’ Leena began, but the priest lightly moved his hand – his fingers seemed to have a life of their own, like the fingers of a musician or a blind person – and Leena immediately fell silent and lowered her eyes, almost in shame.

‘I believe your parents are divorced and you are suffering because of it.’

‘Yes…’

‘Is there perhaps someone you miss?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

‘Sanna. My sister,’ Matti added, and now he knew precisely what Leena had meant by ‘amazing vibes’. Matti felt as though he were standing in front of the president, or a bishop, or even the Pope. It was as if the man with the glasses were connected to him through an invisible channel of light.

‘
Sabra laude scolae
,’ muttered the priest. ‘And are you being bullied at school?’

‘Yes,’ Matti gulped, and all at once he was deeply ashamed of the bullying and of the fact that it showed like an enormous boil on his forehead. He tried to lower his eyes but simply could not; he was transfixed by the priest’s gaze.

‘And you wish you were strong enough to put an end to it?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘But you are not a body builder.’

‘And I’m always the last to be chosen for the sports teams.’

‘Would you believe me if I told you it is still possible?’

‘I know, but…’

‘I shall ask you again. Do you believe that there exists a force that can help you?’

‘Well… if you say so.’

‘Do you believe me?’ asked the priest. He all but commanded Matti to concede, and at this he became even more distressed. He felt the same as when, in a recurring nightmare he had, the house was on fire, he tried to call 999 but always dialled the wrong number; and whenever he did manage to dial correctly the person who answered spoke a language he didn’t understand.

‘Do you believe me?’

‘I believe you,’ Matti uttered, for there was nothing else he could say. The edge of the priest’s lips crept into a smile, not a triumphant or cunning smile, but a perfectly normal, kind smile.

‘What have we here?’ he said, and thrust his hand into his jacket pocket – it was made of a small checked material that would have shimmered terribly on a television screen. He rummaged in his pocket for a good while, as if he were looking for something specific amongst an array of different objects. When he finally pulled his fist out of his pocket he opened his fingers, and there in the palm of his hand lay a pebble. It was a perfectly ordinary, little grey pebble, the size of a lump of chewing gum.

‘What do I have in my hand?’ the priest asked as if he were talking to an idiot.

‘A stone. A small stone.’

‘Really?’ he smirked, as he closed it in his fist and said something in a foreign language. Then he cast the pebble to the floor and asked:

‘What is it now?’

Matti flinched and took a step as if to run away, but Leena grabbed him by the wrist; and though he was terrified he was forced to look down at the floor. And there was the pebble! Just a moment ago it had been a frog, he could have sworn it, and it had been alive because he had seen the underside of its jaw moving as it breathed.

‘Calm now,’ said the priest. ‘Pick it up.’

‘No. What if it’s something else…’

‘It is a pebble,’ said the priest, and with that Matti crouched down and reached towards the stone. Fumbling tentatively he picked it up, and sure enough it was a hard little pebble, ordinary except that it was slightly warm from being in the priest’s pocket.

‘It is your pebble now,’ said the priest, and spoke once again in that strange language. ‘It is your magic pebble. Keep it with you always, in your pocket.’

‘Thanks…’

‘And if anyone bullies you again…’ he continued, raising his hand aloft. ‘First, tell me what is happening at this very moment.’

‘We’re here, now.’

‘And my hand is raised,’ added the priest, lowering his hand once again. ‘And what is happening now?’

‘Your hand’s down again.’

‘Precisely. And if you are bullied, squeeze the stone and think of what the moment truly means - the bullying will have already stopped; you will have won.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘I shall require something in return.’

‘What?’

‘You must tell me,’ said the priest, and now his gaze was once again so intense and strong that it felt as if their eyes were connected by a steel pole. He began to speak the priest-language again, and this time it sounded as if he were saying a prayer. He continued to stare at Matti, his eyes in some strange way holding him prisoner. He then raised his hands and quickly prodded him on the forehead, and Matti could feel himself falling to the ground.

It was an ordinary wooden rowing boat, except that the bottom was painted red and the sides white, and it had a name too:
Summer Idyll
, painted in black across the bow. Matti was alone in the boat, sitting on the middle seat, rowing occasionally, allowing the boat to drift gently forwards. The lake was so wide that he could not see the shore, and the surface of the water was so calm that he could hear bubbles bursting at the bow. He stopped rowing and, as if by a miracle, he was able to see deep within himself, into the back of his head, at the centre of which was a vault of dazzling light leading into the unknown. In the middle of the vault stood a motionless golden figure, with its hands clasped in prayer. Matti realised that it was an angel, his very own guardian angel, or else it was Jesus, and just as he was about to ask everything disappeared, and all at once he found himself sitting on the bench at the foot of the pillar, on the underground level of the railway station, and he could feel someone holding his arm tightly.

It was Leena. She looked confused and even somewhat shocked.

‘You were out for at least half a minute,’ she said, but when she realised Matti didn’t understand she began to explain. ‘He pushed you over. You know, the way they do at church meetings. I held on to you, so you just slumped down here and didn’t fall and hurt yourself.’

‘Come on…’

‘And I could see your eyeballs moving even though your eyelids were shut.’

‘What did you see?’ asked the priest, kneeling down closer to him. It was as though the priest were stalking him, watching his every movement.

‘A kind of golden figure…standing with its hands clasped…in the back of my head.’

‘Hands clasped?’ urged the priest. ‘In what way?’

‘Like praying.’

‘Was it a man or a woman?’

‘I think…it was a woman’

A wrinkle twitched rapidly on the priest’s cheek. He then lowered his eyes and for a moment he stood staring blankly at the floor. Finally, his voice hoarse, he said: ‘You are mistaken, son. You saw wrong.’

He said nothing else, and neither of them could make out the expression on his face; except, perhaps, that he was not overjoyed. Then he simply turned and walked away, and after only a few steps he had vanished into the mass of people – they could no longer make out as much as his cap.

‘I wanted to thank him,’ said Matti. He was still dizzy and tired. ‘What if I want to see him again?’

‘He’ll find you,’ said Leena, suddenly almost bitter. ‘You can be sure of that.’

‘Yes, that’s perfectly understandable,’ Harjunpää said into the telephone, realising that he had already succeeded. All he wanted was to bring matters to a swift conclusion. He had been right not to force the issue, or to try to call all the shots – as things were he had no grounds on which to do so – instead he had decided to listen, and gradually steer the caller at the other end.

A little red wooden spinning top whirled on the desk next to the telephone. He had picked it up a while ago at the market hall in Hakaniemi. One spin was enough to send it travelling in a circle about thirty centimetres in diameter a dozen or so times before slowly falling on its side. Harjunpää dearly wished that the present telephone call would end before the top stopped spinning.

Onerva was standing behind him by the door, he could sense it, perhaps simply from the faint, barely perceptible smell of her perfume, the one that Harjunpää thought suited her best. The window was ajar and he could hear the same kind of scuttling sounds the bugs had made in Lauttasaari: he had attached Rastas’ printed video frames to the wall, but because he had only taped them at the top edge the breeze caught them and they fluttered like snakes, rustling against one another. His work phone started ringing in his jacket pocket – typically, the previous owner had set its ringtone to some ridiculous
diddly-dee diddly-day
– and from behind a closed door further along the corridor came the sound of inconsolable weeping.

‘Let’s say one o’clock. Come down to the police station. On the right there’s a reception desk where you can tell the duty sergeant you’ve arrived. He’ll call me down to fetch you. And if I’ve had to go out for some reason, I’ll leave the keys at the desk in an envelope with your name on it,’ he explained in such a way that the person listening couldn’t possibly disagree. He listened to the caller repeat his instructions, agreed that the matter was now settled and hurriedly replaced the receiver.

‘Harjunpää,’ he snapped into his mobile.

‘Hi, it’s Piipponen.’

‘Morning.’

‘I hear you’re in charge of the Hakaniemi incident.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘If it’s alright I’d like to have a few words with you about it.’

‘Come over now if you want, we’re just about to sit down and try to work out what this is all about.’

‘Great.’

Onerva approached him, her shoes delicately tapping the floor, and the scent of the perfume he had sensed a moment before intensified, but not a bit too much. Onerva knew the bounds of good taste. Mäki walked in behind her. He had undergone only three years’ training as superintendent and was considerably younger than Harjunpää, but he was certainly no rookie – neither were any of the younger officers for that matter. The new generation was calm and collected; they knew how to run an investigation
and look at matters from all perspectives, and most of them had excellent people skills to boot.

‘Right, looks like the Lauttasaari case is going to sort itself out,’ Harjunpää said to both of them. ‘The closest relative I could find for Jari was a cousin. Thankfully he’s a lawyer.’

‘What about the mutt?’

‘It gets better. This lawyer cousin’s got some friend who’ll take it in until Jari gets out of the mental hospital.’

‘Have they opened up the mum yet?’