The Defenceless (15 page)

‘
YES
. It’s my father.’

Anna looked carefully at Juha Karppinen as he stood in the morgue next to Vilho’s body. He looked sad and shocked. His hair had thinned on top and it had been a while since his last haircut. He was wearing a suit that, though not bespoke, fitted him well. His grey tie added to the business-like, inconspicuous impression. The epitome of a tax officer going to work, a pen pusher. From his hands Anna could tell he didn’t do physical work. They were too smooth, his fingers long and slender, almost feminine. It looked as though he wanted to touch his father, to take him by the hand and caress him. Anna noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. She looked for signs of a hangover, but there was nothing. Maybe he really had been skiing after all. Because of Ákos, I look for signs of alcoholism in everyone, she thought, maybe because of Esko too. I’m turning into a cynical woman, an uptight cow. This weekend I’m going to drink myself blind drunk, that’s settled, and I’ll smoke as many cigarettes as I want.

‘What happened to him? Why does he look like that?’ asked Juha Karppinen.

‘He was run over by a car. According to an eyewitness and judging by his injuries, he was lying on the road when the car hit him.’

‘Somebody saw it happen?’

‘Well, the driver,’ Anna clarified.

‘Who was it?’

‘A young girl, a foreigner. She was within the speed limit and hadn’t been drinking, but the road was very slippery. We’re pressing charges for reckless driving and causing death by dangerous driving.’

‘And he was just lying there?’

‘Yes. Did your father have any underlying illnesses?’

‘He had this and that, but nothing serious. For his age he was in pretty good shape.’

‘Dementia?’

‘No, he was sharp as a tack. Sometimes a bit too sharp,’ said Juha Karppinen with a stifled chuckle. ‘For his age, I mean. He was eighty-two,’ he continued.

‘Any heart problems?’

‘Probably. Don’t all people that age have something? I have to admit, we weren’t very close.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

Juha Karppinen thought hard. ‘I’m ashamed to say it, but probably three or four months ago.’

‘Any phone calls? Were you in the habit of calling one another?’

Juha looked even more uncomfortable. ‘Not really. I think I called him at Christmas.’

You think you called him, thought Anna. That means you didn’t.

‘Do you know whether your father had any friends that we could ask about him?’

‘I don’t really know them either, I’m afraid. He had a few friends. Just a minute … I remember one of them. Niilo Säävälä was his name.’

Anna wrote down the name.

‘Where is your mother?’ she asked.

‘Mother died when I was twenty. Aggressive pancreatic cancer. My father never remarried, and as far as I know he didn’t have any serious friendships with women after that. Of course, I can’t be certain. As I said, we weren’t very close.’

‘And you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Do you have a family?’

‘I have two children; they’re adults now. Their mother and I divorced years ago.’

‘And are you close to them?’ Anna couldn’t help asking.

‘That has nothing to do with this,’ he replied. ‘My father has died. We weren’t the best of friends, but he was still my father. I’m upset. Can I be alone with him for a moment?’

‘Of course,’ said Anna and left the room.

Linnea Markkula was waiting outside the morgue and gave Anna an inquisitive look. Anna gave an affirmative nod; the body had been identified.

Linnea seemed relieved. ‘It’ll save us a fortune not having to get the dentist involved.’

‘Quite. What about Marko Halttu, the junkie kid?’

‘You won’t believe how much work I’ve got. It’s as though the whole city has decided to kick the bucket in suspicious circumstances this week, so I haven’t got round to him yet. He’s on my list for tomorrow. Coming to watch?’

‘I haven’t been assigned the autopsy.’

‘It was an overdose, right?’

‘Most likely, but there could be something else too. The kid had a gaping wound in his head. You’ll have to find out for me.’

‘And I will.’

‘It’s a strange case though. Somehow there’s an illegal immigrant and a criminal gang mixed up in all this too.’

‘That was quite a seizure you pulled off.’

‘I know. Of course, the case will eventually be handed over to the NBI, but we’re doing our bit.’

‘I’ll email you by ten tomorrow with my preliminary findings. I should be done by then.’

‘Good.’

The stairwell was tagged with graffiti; the broken window in the door was patched together with duct tape. If possible, the suburb of Vaarala was even more destitute than Rajapuro or Koivuharju. The houses were older, and no new houses had been built in the vicinity. The suburb had sprung up in the early 1970s, when people leaving
the countryside needed cheap housing, and factory workers needed homes, a place to sleep between shifts. A few decades ago the gardens and playgrounds of Vaarala had been filled with kids of all ages; nowadays the place looked more like a large-scale immigrant reception centre. Women in burqas hauled shopping bags back home, dark-skinned children clinging at their skirts. A few trendily dressed black guys loitered around in the car park and in front of the houses, but for the most part the suburb seemed quiet and deserted.

Esko rang the doorbell. There was no name on the letterbox. The interpreter, a young man in spectacles carrying a fake-leather briefcase and wearing a badly fitting suit, stood next to Esko with an air of importance. The young man told Esko he studied economics and that he’d come straight from a lecture. That’s right, Esko had thought. You come here to study courtesy of our taxpayers, and once you’re finished you’ll probably disappear and help develop your own country. He managed to quell his desire to comment on the matter out loud.

The door opened. The woman from the online news item Esko had found stood in the doorway. Her black, heavily made-up eyes looking at Esko unblinkingly; her cheerless, beautifully shaped mouth asked the men to come in. The woman had made coffee in a small, decorative tin pot. She was quite tall and slender, and was wearing a pair of loose black trousers and a tunic embellished with sequins. A beautiful, embroidered scarf was wound round her head, though it didn’t cover everything, as it had in the photograph. An attractive woman, Esko had to admit. The woman introduced herself as Naseem, placed coffee cups on the table and asked them to sit down.

‘Why do the police want to speak to me? Have I done something bad?’ Naseem asked in a low, pleasant tone. Esko listened so intently to the exotic cadence of her voice that he almost forgot the presence of the interpreter.

‘Your telephone number appears regularly in calls made by a person we are investigating,’ Esko explained. ‘That’s what I’d like to ask about.’

‘It must be Reza. He’s my son.’

Esko’s heart gave an extra beat. The mother. How the hell was there no mention of Reza’s mother in the paperwork he’d received from the NBI? Having said that, the documentation hadn’t told him much about Reza either. That’s why he’d been given the assignment in the first place. His job was to dig up that information.

‘Where is he now?’

‘If only I knew.’

‘Doesn’t he live here, at home?’

‘No. Well, officially, yes, but he’s not here very often.’

The woman’s face was taut with anxiety. Her beautiful black eyes were overcast with a shadow of fatigue.

‘But he still phones you,’ Esko stated.

The woman smiled joylessly. ‘He tries to be a good son. He calls and asks how I’m doing.’

‘When did you last see Reza?’ Esko asked.

‘Yesterday.’

Esko sat upright. The boy had been on the police’s radar for weeks, and now it turns out he’d been here only recently.

‘Why are the police interested in my son?’

Esko could hear the distress in the woman’s voice, though he didn’t understand the words until the interpreter spoke.

‘We believe he may be mixed up with a criminal gang. Do you know anything about that?’

Naseem shook her head and nervously glanced in turn at the floor, the interpreter and Esko.

‘What did he do when he visited? What did he say?’ Esko asked.

‘He fetched some clean clothes and brought his dirty laundry. He ate, slept for a few hours. He didn’t tell me anything about himself.’

‘Didn’t he tell you where he’s staying? Who he’s hanging out with? What he’s up to?’

‘He doesn’t tell me these things. He turns up out of the blue and disappears again.’

‘Does he call before he turns up?’

‘Sometimes. Not always.’

‘Are you worried about him?’

‘I’m very worried. Reza dropped out of school. No good will come of that.’

This woman can help me, thought Esko. Keep focussed, man, for crying out loud. This is your opportunity. He forced a friendly expression on to his face and began asking about the woman’s family, her life, her past, her work in Iran, life as a refugee, about how her son, Reza, had come to Finland by himself as a minor years ago. She spoke beautifully. Her face was expressive; delicate hand movements paced her speech. Esko noticed that her nails were long and painted red. After a while Esko had to admit to himself that he admired her powerful narrative. Her speech, its rhythms, inflections and choices of words revealed the kind of education that you rarely encountered in Finland; she spoke in a manner profoundly different from most Finns. She didn’t seem embittered, though she had been through a lot. Her husband had been killed, and her son had fled soon afterwards. She had stayed behind to work for her women’s organisation, putting her own life at risk. Eventually she too had been forced to head to a refugee camp when the danger became too great. Through the family reunion programme she had come to Finland to be with her son. Esko began to ask her about conditions in the camp, almost forgetting the reason for his visit. The woman told him how she had organised lessons for the little children every morning, how she had taught them to read and write, and how in the evenings she had seen patients – all for free, of course. She didn’t stay there very long, unlike many others who spent their entire lives in refugee camps, who were born and died there. Esko was astonished to learn that some people truly spent their whole lives moving from one refugee camp to the next, that only a tiny fraction of people in camps ever managed to get away.

Pull yourself together, he commanded himself. We’re supposed to be talking about Reza, I’m supposed to be shrewd. This woman is the key to finding Reza, and I’m damn well going to unlock that door.

‘I’m afraid I have to tell you straight up that I think your son is in grave danger,’ said Esko.

‘Really?’ Naseem looked shocked. ‘Why?’

‘These gangs are violent. Life with these people is dangerous and presents a lot of potential threats, including drugs.’

‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to my son.’

‘Perhaps you can help me.’

‘How?’

‘For instance, you could tell me when you know he’s coming home. If he calls, you could ask him where he is, who he is with and what he is doing.’

‘He won’t tell me things like this.’

‘Think about it. Your son really is at risk. The police want to help him.’

Naseem said nothing. She looked hesitant and nervous. Esko gave the woman his card and asked her to call him through the interpreter if she heard anything from Reza. It must be difficult, thought Esko. What must it feel like for an adult, a highly educated and intelligent person, to have to conduct even the simplest matters with the help of someone else? And how much do all these interpreters cost the taxpayer? It’s crazy.

As Esko was in the hallway pulling on his coat and the interpreter was standing in the doorway ready to leave, Naseem came up to Esko and handed him a crumpled scrap torn from a pad of squared paper.

‘I found this in the pocket of Reza’s jeans when I was loading the washing machine.’

On the scrap of paper was scribbled a standard mobile-phone number. Esko felt his arms tingle. There was a pinch in his chest. The interpreter tried to peer over at the number, but Esko folded the piece of paper and put it in his wallet.

Anna called Niilo Säävälä soon after Juha had left. An old man with a pleasant, deep voice, he was clearly shocked to hear of his friend’s
death. He fell silent for a long time, and Anna could hear the sound of suppressed sighs on the phone. Then the man briefly explained that he and Vilho were former work mates and had known each other since they were young men. Nowadays they tried to meet once a month at the local swimming baths, where they would sit in the sauna, catch up and reminisce about the past. In the pool they stretched their frail bodies and looked at the women, Niilo explained with a weepy chuckle. Vilho had quite an eye for female beauty. They’d last met only three days before Vilho’s accident. Vilho had been in good shape and high spirits. Niilo knew that Vilho collected knives but couldn’t say what kind of knives were in the collection. He wasn’t the sort of person to show them off all the time, said Niilo. He told her that there was often a third old friend at the swimming baths, Hermanni Harju, who was an enthusiastic knife collector. He’d be able to tell you something about Vilho’s collection.

Anna took down the man’s contact details, but apparently Hermanni would be in Spain until the beginning of May and might have switched off his Finnish phone. When Anna asked about Vilho’s son, Niilo fell silent. He said all he knew about Juha was his name and profession. Vilho hadn’t often spoken about his son – or his grandchildren. It was a bit strange, but what of it? Each to his own, said Niilo. ‘We don’t poke our noses into other folk’s business. Plenty of men my age have a difficult relationship with their children. We worked ourselves into the ground, so we didn’t have time to look after the kids like young men these days.’ Anna could hear a new sadness in Niilo’s voice; he was clearly talking about himself too. She remembered reading research about what dying people regretted most in their lives. At the top of the list was the lack of time spent with their children.