TH03 - To Steal Her Love (9 page)

His home was his castle – not one other police officer had even set foot inside it. Perhaps it would have been more correct to call it his warehouse: he had sold off some of his furniture and replaced it with shelves reaching up to the ceiling. He even had three fridges, and each of them was full. He kept a meticulous log of everything he acquired, though even without this he would have been able to list that he had seventy-nine bottles of whisky, sixty-five bottles of Cognac and exactly forty bottles of gin; then there were the cured sausages and rounds of cheese, stacks of preserves and cans of beer, washing powders and toothpastes. It might have been easier to list the things that were not in his flat – babies’ nappies were missing from the collection.

All this was the result of years of hard work and saving. He felt this same joy almost every day upon coming home. More than anything, it made him feel that life hadn’t been wasted after all, and now he was untouchable. And the feeling became stronger every time he took out his
bankbooks and looked at his balance, and no one who knew him would have believed that he was the happy owner of a fortune just shy of
six-hundred
-thousand marks.

Kontio walked up to the Lada, put the bags in the rear foot space so that Hämäläinen couldn’t see them properly, though Hämäläinen had learned years ago not to snoop, then he sat down in the passenger seat and sighed heavily as though he’d just brought difficult negotiations to an end.

‘It’s a good job you don’t smoke either,’ said Kontio once they were back on the road. ‘There’s nothing worse than getting into a car full of smoke. But let’s go via Paloheinä on our way back to the department. I’ve got to stop in at the house for a moment.’

‘OK.’

‘So what did Harjunpää do when the knickers fell out of his pocket?’

‘He was so embarrassed that he got off at the next stop.’

‘I see,’ said Kontio, not in passing, but weightily, as though something had just fallen into place.

‘Should take about five minutes,’ Tweety lied, because he knew it would take at least ten. But he wanted her to stay, he wanted to mend her shoes. He loved mending ladies’ shoes.

He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye; he couldn’t look anyone in the eye. He was afraid that people’s eyes would betray that they knew what he was and that they wanted to blow the whistle on him. He’d always been afraid of this, even as a little boy when he was supposed to go to school, so he looked at the counter instead. Beneath the glass stood bottles of polish; they were clearly male and at night they doubtless crept up to the second floor and kissed the mannequin wearing the
three-hundred
-mark lace corset.

‘Well, that isn’t long at all.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That’ll be fine. I’ll wait.’

‘OK,’ Tweety mumbled and glanced up at the woman; she had delicate, feline features and in his mind he christened her Pussycat. Another reason he couldn’t look at her was that her hair was almost the same colour as Wheatlocks’ hair, and he missed Wheatlocks, yearned for her, and his yearning wasn’t merely the taste of mint in his mouth but a throbbing in his neck and joints, and at once he knew where to go for his lunch break.

‘Do sit down,’ he said, and the woman smiled: she was already sitting down. He had her shoes. It was the greatest flirt he was capable of with women who were still awake. He’d never kissed anyone or danced with
anyone. And whenever he wished to try, he’d been consumed by a
crushing
fear that he might die or that the woman might die – but he didn’t want to think about that now, his curse. For that was what it was: a curse.

The shoes were brown suede loafers decorated with small, green leaves and black silk roses in the middle. He thought of Soot Rose, but
immediately
slammed the door on the fourth deck of his mind, shutting Soot Rose inside, and it served her right. He turned back to his workbench and slid his hand inside one of the shoes, and it was warm with women’s warmth and slightly damp, and he thought of how her foot grew into a slender shin, then came the knee, which curved into a firm thigh; he gently rubbed his shoulder and imagined that his fingers were beneath Pussycat’s skirt and spread out across her soft skin.

‘Is there something else?’

‘What?’ Tweety gave a start; his heart was pounding, kicking spitefully. The woman looked at him inquiringly; Weckman looked up from his work but didn’t say anything.

‘Is there anything else wrong with them?’

‘No… well, the inner is a bit frayed in this one, but there’s no need to change it right now,’ Tweety replied, his voice like plastic warped in the sunshine, and he got to work, removed the worn heeltaps, started up the cutter and smoothed the surfaces, took out a pair of harder heeltaps – he always put those on women’s shoes, he wanted to hear the clip-clop as they walked – spread the glue in place, quickly put them in the press and tidied up the edges, and with that he was finished. He was quick. He was very quick and did good work, that’s why Weckman kept him on, though he would have preferred a chattier assistant.

‘Quite a cutie,’ Weckman remarked once the woman had left. Tweety nodded and wandered round the back of the counter pretending to be lost in thought, and through the shop window he could see her again: there she was, skipping across the Railway Station towards the
underground
, her almond-coloured thighs flashing and her hips swinging. Tweety put his hand on the stool where she had been sitting and it was warm, and the warmth had radiated from her bottom, and there it swished in front of him, and it felt as though his hand were almost touching it.

‘Would it be all right if I took my lunch break now?’

‘It’s pretty quiet at the moment.’

‘There’ll be a rush on in the afternoon…’

‘Go on then. But fix those boots when you get back. The lining’s come loose on both of them.’

‘It won’t take long,’ said Tweety and took off his red overalls, and although he wiped his hands they were still covered in glue, as though they were afflicted by a terrible blotchy disease, and he wondered how Wheatlocks would be wearing her hair that day. He hoped she had it in a French plait as this always left little wisps of hair falling across her ears like curls of light.

He made his way round the front. In his haste he hit his hip on the corner of the counter and almost fell over, but somehow managed to keep his balance and staggered to the door. Weckman shouted after him. Sometimes he could be really mean, almost let you go to lunch, then call you back while he went off instead.

‘Yes?’

‘You must be pretty damn hungry.’

‘No… I mean, yes.’

‘Well, enjoy your break, eh?’

‘Thanks…’

Outside it was the height of summer: the air shimmered above the tarmac, and although Tweety could have gone through the underground passage to Aleksanterinkatu, he decided to walk along Mannerheimintie instead. He enjoyed summer. Everywhere you looked there were only beautiful things: brown, tanned legs and thighs, miniskirts and buxom tops and see-through jumpers, but when autumn came raincoats appeared like jellyfish, sucking everything inside themselves, making even the most beautiful women seem ugly; fog came in from the sea and engulfed the city, and the darkness was desperately long.

He rushed through the square by the University Pharmacy, then he could see the big clock above the entrance to Stockmann’s department store in front of him. Tweety slowed his step; he was almost there. Again he thought of Wheatlocks and how she often slept: rolled up with the pillow in her arms, like a little child, and his mind was suddenly filled with memories of when he was very young and they all still lived in Kallio. The walls of the courtyard had been covered with long-legged spiders. His pet spider was called Hissu and his friend Pekka’s was Hessu. One day Pekka got angry at Hessu and squashed him, and that same autumn his mother had died.

Tweety stopped hesitantly beneath the clock with a group of people standing waiting. He should never have thought about Hissu and Hessu, or rather Asko shouldn’t have done so, because already the thought was digging something out of him. That was it: Mother Gold was in danger that very minute. Tweety moved restlessly. Was her cottage on fire? Apparently so. She was inside and couldn’t find her way out because of the smoke, flames grabbed at her hair and crackled wickedly, she started to scream but her clothes were already ablaze, then she slumped to the floor and lay there in a black heap. And all the while Reino and Lasse had been in the workshop and hadn’t noticed a thing.

‘Is something the matter?’

‘What?’

‘Can I help you at all?’

‘No,’ Tweety rebuffed the man; it was the Salvation Army man who was always standing there holding a collection tin and a handful of leaflets, and now his eyes were like balls wide with concern, his mouth set in a smile. Tweety didn’t like being looked at like that so he pushed the door open and stopped inside the entrance hall. There he slowly began to calm down. This happened every time he visited Stockmann’s; it was as though Mother Gold were trying to stop him going in there. The first time it had happened he’d been so afraid that he’d had to call the house and Reino had wondered whether he was high on something.

He remained in the entrance hall and dried his face, and the scent of wealth and good people came wafting from inside. He slowly began to feel normal again, and he turned and pushed open the glass doors, and there in front of him lay a marvellous and wonderful world and the opening bars of
Carmina Burana
began to ring distantly in his mind.

He was in the cosmetics department. Tweety held his breath and he simply couldn’t understand how it was possible to build something so beautiful: the surfaces were all rose pink or light shades of wood, and in between them stood mirrors and glass panels and pictures glowing with inner light, and in those pictures were dark, painted lips and stiff, jutting lipsticks, and the counters weren’t arranged conventionally in a row, but formed small fortresses and together the fortresses made up a town that filled the entire ground floor, and through the streets of that town people could wander bathed in a shadowless light shining from all around and yet from nowhere. And above it all a column of light rose into the air, high
up above where there must have been a heaven and a God who blessed with his beauty all those who bought something from this
cherry-blossom
paradise.

But it was the sales assistants who crowned it all. They were angels: young and dainty and pretty-faced with hair that looked as though it had been touched by the hands of the most skilled hairdressers. It didn’t matter that deep down he knew they probably had to sit in front of the mirror for hours every morning in order to recreate themselves again and again. They were all indescribably beautiful, stunning women, and the fairest of them all was Wheatlocks. Among the others, she was the queen.

She was there now, under a sign reading
Rubinstein
. She was standing alone, her hands relaxed on the countertop, and staring into the distance, her head tilted to one side. She didn’t have a French plait after all, she was wearing a thin, black velvet Alice band that perfectly set off the soft corn tinge of her hair, and Tweety was filled with a strange hallucination. He was standing outside on a mossy tussock, it was early summer and
everything
was still light green and fragrant; the grass was dotted with yellow stars and swallows piped through the air. Then he was back inside the department store and he felt a profound tenderness and love for Wheatlocks and wanted her to become his wife.

She needed a good man. And he needed a good woman. She was the only one of his women whose workplace he had visited and whose home he’d visited during the daytime. He’d been compelled to find out
everything
about her: he knew she was a widow and that her late husband was called Simo. And he realised that, although in her sleep she seemed to love her dead husband, it was him she really loved in the form of her husband. It was him she hugged with a pillow in her arms, his hand she fumbled for, and if her sleep ever became restless she calmed down in a few moments if he whistled to her, and this too proved that she loved him.

Tweety could feel the temptation drawing nearer, the almost irresistible temptation to walk up to Wheatlocks and say: ‘It’s me, my love. I’m the one you love at night.’ And he was certain that, if he did it, she would reach out her delicate hands and place them on his neck and lean closer, a single intoxicating scent, and they would have kissed.

Tweety sighed. Then he took a decisive step, then another, but Wheatlocks had a customer. It was a man, of course, a swanky-looking foreigner, swaggering about, boastfully speaking English, and Wheatlocks
melted into a single, broad smile and it made Tweety feel bad; he turned his back to her and a black dog started howling within him.

He was both shocked and moved at the thought that occurred to him, but it was true nonetheless: if Wheatlocks didn’t care for him, or if she fell in love with someone else, he would never be able to let her go. Never. He would marry them himself. And he knew exactly how he would do it: he’d marry them with Lasse’s revolver – he could see it now as if it were on film! He’d come in wearing his small-checked suit, walk right up to Wheatlocks and hand her a bunch of purple roses and say: ‘I love you…’ Then he’d fire, without a moment’s hesitation, and she’d die happy, her last memory being the roses and the knowledge that somebody loved her, then he’d shoot himself and fall down next to her and one of her colleagues would come over and join their hands and scatter the roses over them, and somewhere in the distance would come the sound of sirens approaching.

Tweety gave a sigh, his shoulders shuddering, and he turned to leave but his eyes were so full of tears that he couldn’t go anywhere, and all the while he repeated to himself that he would have done it out of love, of
love
; someone like Soot Rose he could have killed out of hatred or disgust if she’d woken up, but not Wheatlocks, for he loved her.