TH02 - The Priest of Evil (23 page)

Harjunpää crouched down and picked up the beret. He knew that he ought to have been carrying a plastic bag in case of finding any potential forensic evidence, but on this occasion he didn’t have one. Instead he carefully folded the beret –it might contain strands of hair, some of which could still have their roots attached, and these could then be used to determine the DNA of the beret’s owner. He put the hat in his pocket.

Which direction now? At a loss, he stood there listening for a moment. A distant humming could be heard, like the sound of a large machine, as
though the earth itself were drawing breath, and from the left he could hear something else. A scraping sound perhaps? The crunch of gravel beneath someone’s feet? He decided to follow it. But before leaving he lifted the edge of his jacket, flicked open his revolver case and pulled out the gun inside; its rubber handle fitted his hand perfectly, and had a strangely calming effect on him.

A moment later and he was on the move again, sprinting forwards, the light from his torch caressing the ground and walls in front of him. Along the left at ground level ran a concrete gully containing a number of pipes and possibly a cable, while along the ceiling ran a set of even larger pipes which shone dimly in the torchlight. He recalled that this communal tunnel was used for almost everything: water and drainage, heating, electricity, telephone cables. It also occurred to him that he ought to be wearing a hard hat, as the rock faces hadn’t been secured with concrete, but had instead been left just as they were after quarrying – a large rock could easily have fallen on any unlucky person passing through.

The tunnel veered round a corner and the distant light from the station disappeared entirely. Harjunpää was enveloped by the darkness, which was lit only by the weak beam of light from his torch. Something began to puzzle him. How had a beret that was pulled so tightly round her head simply fallen off? And how could a frail old thing like her have jumped down on to the tracks so easily, not to mention climbing down the ladder? His mouth felt dry and he wet his lips. Had he been lured into a trap? In such thick darkness the light from his torch made him a sitting duck. He held his hand to one side and covered the lamp, allowing only thin filaments of light to trickle between his fingers.

He pointed the light towards the ceiling. Fluorescent light strips dangled at regular intervals, but he couldn’t see a switch anywhere. He focussed once again on the ground and something at the side of the tunnel suddenly caught his attention. Had the old woman dropped a scarf perhaps? Or was it something else? He listened carefully for a moment, but still could make out nothing but a distant humming, and the sound of his own rasping breath. He began slowly making his way towards the object; he stopped and crouched down – and at first couldn’t quite understand what he saw.

In a neat row on the ground in front of him lay a collection of dead pigeons. There were probably a dozen or so altogether; some already shrivelled and decomposing, though a number of them looked fresh. Each one of them had had its throat slit, and when he turned one of them over he saw that its chest had been cut open too, exposing the bloody innards.

‘Good God,’ he stammered, and wondered how the pigeons had ended up so far underground. There was no way they could have flown down here, that much he realised at once; something or someone must have brought them here. It couldn’t have been an animal? What animal could have gone outside to hunt them and then returned down here? And what about the cuts?

It had to be a person. But what sort of person? A wizard, involved in some evil form of witchcraft? The thought was a disquieting one, and Harjunpää had the inexplicable feeling that that same person was very close indeed, watching him – if not preparing to attack.

He spun around, but he must have been imagining it: there was no one behind him. Again he thought he heard something, this time from the opposite direction, and he turned back around – but still he saw nothing. He could have sworn he’d heard the gravel crunch beneath someone’s cautious feet.

‘Come out! Police!’ he shouted. His voice echoed against the rock, stretching further and further into the depths of the tunnel before finally disappearing as though the rock had swallowed it. A fear grew within him, the terrifying thought that the rock would swallow him too. He sensed something dark and malevolent about the place, and wanted desperately to return to the surface.

He had spun around so much that he could no longer remember which direction he had come from. About ten metres behind him he could make out the opening of a subsidiary tunnel. Was that the right way?

‘Calm down,’ he told himself, but it didn’t help. On top of everything else some sort of claustrophobic angst began to overwhelm him, though never before had he been affected by anything like it.

He could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead and he wet his lips once again. And of course, the light in his torch began to falter; it
glowed dimly, like the setting sun. Now he was in a hurry. Still he managed to concentrate: he had first noticed the pigeons on his right and now they were on his left, so all he had to do was carry on straight ahead.

He bent down and grabbed one of the dead birds with the same hand his torch was in – and only then did he notice that something had been sprayed on the rock in front of him. There was not very much of it, only a few droplets, forming small rivulets, and he realised that it must be blood.

‘Ugh,’ he spat, and broke into a run. He suddenly felt that the hunter had become the hunted, and that something was right on his heels. Just then a familiar buzz could be heard from above: the fluorescent lamps began to flicker, and a moment later they shone fully and Harjunpää was forced to shut his eyes. He could hear heavy steps approaching, perhaps the steps of several people, then he felt the powerful beams of two lamps shining directly at his face. Through his blinking he could see that the men were wearing the familiar helmets and reflective black jackets of the fire brigade.

‘Put the gun down! Now!’ shouted one of them. Another exclaimed: ‘Harjunpää! What the hell’s going on?’

Harjunpää recognised the voice. It was Eki Tattari from the fire station downtown.

Although spring was well on its way, the mornings were still cold and bracing. The wind almost burned into the knuckles of cyclists, and because of this Harjunpää was wearing a pair of leather gloves. He was on his way to work in Pasila, peddling towards Masala station as fast as he could. He had left the house in a rush, unable to find his keys – he had later found them in his trouser pocket.

He sped past the kiosk at Masala Station and continued for about another twenty metres before he fully understood what he had just seen. He braked suddenly; the wheels screeched and the bicycle lurched forward. He jumped from the saddle, letting the bike fall to the ground, its mudguards rattling, and ran back to the kiosk.

‘Christ Almighty,’ he seethed; he had seen correctly after all. The headline of one of the tabloids read:
COPPER BRINGS TUBE TO STANDSTILL.
Another read:
FIRE CREW SAVES POLICEMAN FROM PIGEONS.
The first one came complete with a photograph of a fireman standing on the platform holding out his hand, and Harjunpää himself standing on the tracks looking bewildered by all the lights and fuss. He was carrying one of the dead pigeons, its wings dangling sorrowfully towards the ground.

‘Christ Almighty,’ he sighed once again, and he suddenly felt a wave of nausea wash over him. He recalled his possible infection too, how he hadn’t dared kiss Elisa that night, and for a moment he had to lean against the wall of the kiosk, supporting himself with both hands. He vaguely remembered the flash of the cameras, but he had thought the photographer was just another fireman.

Onerva hadn’t been sure that the next train would stop at all, leaving her unable to warn the driver – it could have been a service train rattling through the station without stopping – and so she had pulled the emergency communication cord on the platform, cutting off the flow of electricity to the trains throughout that whole sector of the network; and because one sector was down the entire network had had to be closed.

Outside the Central Railway Station a sea of blue emergency lights had been flashing in the dusk. There were two ambulances, a SWAT team, a fire engine and two squad cars. Central had reported the incident to the division responsible for the downtown area, but Harjunpää still didn’t know whether charges would be brought against him. He wasn’t particularly well acquainted with the laws on matters of this nature, but jumping on to the tracks might well come under ‘causing rail traffic disturbance’.

From the sound of the engine and the screech of the tracks he realised that his train was just pulling out of the station – the next one wouldn’t be along for at least another half hour – and for a moment he seriously considered returning home, going to bed and huddling under the covers. He was only too aware of what would be awaiting him at work.

‘It’s Tunnel-Boy Timo!’

‘Since when is it our job to investigate animal deaths?’ 

‘Screw that poor pigeon to death, did you?’

‘Christ Almighty,’ he sighed for a third time and trudged back to his bicycle. As if to cap it all off, the glass in the front lamp had shattered when the bike hit the ground.