The Defenceless (24 page)

‘Something terrible is happening in this building,’ said Sari. ‘It’s very important that you tell us everything you know.’

‘Something terrible has been going on in this building for a long time,’ Mrs Lehmusvirta snapped.

‘What do you mean?’

‘That Vehviläinen woman was knocking around with Vilho like a brazen little girl.’

Anna looked at Sari. Were Riitta and Vilho having a relationship, her eyes tried to ask.

‘It serves them right, the both of them,’ said Mrs Lehmusvirta and stared at each officer in turn. Though her eyes were small and wrinkled, her gaze was hard as steel.

‘That’s a very harsh thing to say,’ said Sari. ‘Why would you think a thing like that?’

‘What they were up to was sinful. This place is full of sin. Drugs, sex, the lot. It’s a good job it’s finally come to an end.’

‘Were Vilho and Riitta involved with drugs too?’ Anna asked, incredulous.

‘For goodness sake, no,’ said Mrs Lehmusvirta. ‘But what would I know? Perhaps they were. What they were up to was filthy enough.’

‘What’s filthy about that?’

‘At their age! It’s ridiculous.’

‘Maybe they were just lonely,’ Anna hazarded.

‘What they were doing was sinful. That’s all there is to it. I won’t allow something like that in this building, right in front of my eyes.’

‘And what exactly were they doing?’

‘Cavorting. Spending the night together, fornicating. Kissing each other goodbye.’

‘But that’s wonderful,’ said Sari and attempted a smile.

‘It’s disgusting.’

‘What were you doing on the twelfth of March?’

The woman’s expression sharpened. She vigorously rinsed the kitchen cloth under steaming hot water and placed it over the tap to dry, wiped her hands on the hem of her black dress and stood stiffly by the kitchen table.

‘I was here.’

‘Did you see Vilho and Riitta that day?’

Mrs Lehmusvirta’s eyes narrowed into two cruel slits. Her thin lips tightened even more, pinching her mouth into a set of deep, angry furrows.

‘Am I supposed to remember that? Well, I doubt it. I despise that man.’ Mrs Lehmusvirta spat the words from her mouth.

‘Why?’ asked Sari.

‘I despise sin and sinners.’

‘Do you despise them enough to kill them?’ asked Sari.

Air hissed between Mrs Lehmusvirta’s lips. She took a glass from the drying cupboard, filled it with water and drank slowly until the glass was empty.

‘Of course not. Though I might have been tempted.’

For a moment Anna and Sari were silent. There was something intimidating about Toini Lehmusvirta. The old lady stood stock still in front of them, gripping her glass.

‘And do you know the caretaker for this building?’ Anna asked, as if to lighten the mood.

‘No.’

‘Have you ever heard noises from your pipes?’

‘No.’

‘Did you notice anything untoward going on during the pipe and window renovations?’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, like something that didn’t quite go as planned?’

‘The renovations went perfectly well. Horrid waste of money, if you ask me.’

Anna and Sari left Leppioja somewhat baffled. If Vilho and Riitta had found out something involving the caretaker, they were the only
people in the block to do so. The matter now seemed clear. The caretaker wouldn’t have needed to get his own hands dirty; he probably got one of the Angels to take care of the elderly couple. These building renovations involved such large sums of money that the lives of two pensioners would mean nothing to ruthless criminals like this. People were murdered for far less. But what exactly had Vilho and Riitta discovered and how? Had they seen something they weren’t supposed to see?

Later that afternoon the police received two important pieces of information. According to the forensic tests, the blood found in Ketoniemi was a match for Riitta Vehviläinen, and the knife belonged to Vilho. Nils had been in touch with Hermanni Harju’s relatives and tracked him down in Spain. He had emailed the man a photograph of the knife and Hermanni identified it without hesitation.

Anna telephoned Hermanni to ask about Vilho and Riitta. The man was excited; he was clearly enjoying being able to help the police.

‘Vilho and I belonged to the Finnish Knife Club. Well, I still do…’ explained Hermanni.

‘That’s interesting,’ said Anna.

‘I can’t for the life of me remember where he found that knife. It must have been on a trip abroad.’

‘I don’t think that particularly matters,’ said Anna. ‘We need to establish who could have used the knife to kill Riitta Vehviläinen.’

‘Terrible things going on back home. Poor old Vilho, and Riitta. I had to go to the doctor’s yesterday when I heard about all this,’ Hermanni’s tone became more sombre. ‘There’s a Finnish doctor here, and Finnish shops too with Karelian pies and liver casserole. It’s mighty handy.’

‘That sounds nice. Do you know whether Vilho and Riitta were … involved in any way?’

‘Blimey, you didn’t know about that? They were very involved.’

‘Could you tell me about it?’

‘It was very passionate,’ Hermanni chuckled. ‘Would you believe me if I told you people my age can have a passionate love life?’

‘Absolutely. In what way was it passionate?’

‘Jealousy, you name it. It’s only a shame Riitta was so frail. They wanted to travel together. I invited them out here.’

‘Why were they jealous of one another?’

‘Because Vilho had another woman before Riitta. She lived in the same block. Toini, her name was. I can’t recall her surname. It started with an L, I think.’

‘Lehmusvirta?’ asked Anna.

‘That’s right. Toini Lehmusvirta. I never met her, but Vilho told me she could be terribly jealous.’

Anna had a frightful hunch. Could Mrs Lehmusvirta really have killed Riitta? How could she have lured Riitta out to Ketoniemi? Anna recalled Mrs Lehmusvirta’s figure. She was a relatively large woman, but still. Did she own an SUV? Surely an old woman wouldn’t be able to drag a body in a bin-liner and throw it into a bin – even though Riitta was small and thin. Could Toini have an accomplice and, if so, who could it be? The caretaker? Anna wondered where to look next and what to look for. It was as though the answer was right in front of her but her eyes couldn’t focus on it. It was like firing arrows into the fog. All she could do was hope that one of them hit their target.

THEY DON’T BELIEVE ME.
That woman officer doesn’t believe me at any rate. What can I do now? Sammy was frantically pacing round his small cell, up and down, round and round. He had lied about everything, that was true enough, but you’d think someone like him would be the perfect scapegoat, a real treat for the police, who could now take all the credit for getting to the bottom of these brutal crimes. No, it wasn’t all lies. Everything he’d told them about home was true. If they don’t believe him, he’ll have to go back. It would be his final journey. Perhaps he should at least try to be grateful. He had spent two years in a reception centre, free from persecution, he hadn’t once fallen ill after going underground, he didn’t have children to look after, he hadn’t ended up in one of the polluted immigrant concentration camps in Greece and hadn’t drowned in the Mediterranean. He was alive, he had almost completely kicked the drugs and he was young. He would be able to live in this cell by himself for at least a while yet. The pretty nurse visited him again, caressed him. Should I try and convince myself everything is fine? What should I do?

Just then Sammy remembered seeing a man in the stairwell the night he had gone to Macke’s place, the same night Vilho had died. That man could prove Sammy had been there. Maybe then the police would believe him. I’ll have to tell the policewoman about it. She can find him. Maybe there’s still hope, Sammy thought.

Sun and ice, the glare of bright piles of spring snow like a flame burning into her eyes, a hint of the approaching summer warmth in the wind from the south. Anna skied slowly, following the horizon.
The wind tickled her cheeks; it no longer bit into her skin. The willow trees along the shore had finally thawed and jutted leafless from amid the snow verges like brooms. Anna skied up to them to see whether they already bore soft, white pussy willows. The snow was hard as stone; it crunched beneath her skis. Firm snow, finally. She headed along the shoreline towards the woods, zigzagged between the trees and thickets as quickly as she could, and felt the wild joy that freedom brings. Since the snow had fallen, the woods had been virtually inaccessible, and now the melting snow would soften the terrain so much that skiing would soon be impossible. Firm snow was a rare pleasure, something she couldn’t enjoy every year. Now the string of cold nights had been sufficiently long, and they too would soon be gone.

After half an hour Anna realised that she was lost. She had never skied so deep into these woods. Where was it she had veered off the ice? She took her bearings from the position of the sun, turned and began slowly retracing her own tracks, which she could just make out on the rough surface of the snow. The snow protected everything living beneath it: new shoots, moss, moles’ warrens. She could feel the wordless anticipation of spring melting the snow from beneath, struggling to keep up with the sun. Here and there her tracks disappeared, but she always found them again. Anna wasn’t frightened. She quite enjoyed the feeling of not knowing where she was, the feeling that she had to find her way home, that she couldn’t simply follow her tracks, that there was a protective layer of dimmed light between the snow and the earth. Sometimes she got lost on purpose. Sometimes she felt like she was constantly lost. Perhaps that’s why the sensation of being lost felt so liberating.

Finding the car wasn’t quite as easy as she had imagined. She had accidentally started following someone else’s tracks – how could she have lost concentration like that? – and ended up doing an extra hour’s trek through the woods. Eventually she found her way back to the shore and the rest of the journey passed smoothly. Navigating out across the sea only required knowing the points of the compass.

By the time she got home Anna was tired and hungry, but there was nothing to eat in the fridge. Will I ever learn to fetch at least a week’s worth of food at once, she wondered as her stomach rumbled, and realised it was unlikely. I could eat at Hazileklek, ask how they are getting on, check that everything is okay with Maalik and Farzad.

But Anna didn’t make it to Hazileklek or anywhere else that day. She forgot her hunger and her fatigue and couldn’t get to sleep without taking some pills. Her mother called. Anna’s grandmother had died that morning; her heart had simply stopped beating. Could Anna come to the funeral on Tuesday? She would have to book tickets straight away. Réka could pick her up at the border, or she could rent a car, as she normally did. Grandma had been in a lot of pain, so in that respect death had been a relief; now everything was well, now she could finally be with Grandpa once again. I’ve cried and I’m going to miss her, said Anna’s mother, but no one can live forever.

Why not? Anna thought. Grandma should have been allowed to. I need her; we all need our own grandmothers, someone who represents continuity, someone who never leaves us.

Anna lay on the sofa for the rest of the day and felt the emptiness digging into her skin. She wanted to listen to Delay’s
Tummaa
album, its melancholy sounds, comforting in their darkness, but she couldn’t even bring herself to get up and put the CD on. Where do I belong, she wondered. Where is my home? Is it here in this almost unfurnished one-bedroom apartment where the walls echo and the floors are cold, in this freezing country where I’ve spent the majority of my life? Or is it there, Serbia, the place I still called Yugoslavia when I left, and if so, where? My mother’s house? The rooms filled with the ghosts of my father, Áron and now my grandmother, rooms in which the presence of the dead is greater than that of the living in the memories, objects, photographs on the mantelpiece? Is that where my home is? Is a home a building? A city? A country or family? A person?

A person. At that moment Anna felt with chilling certainty that
Ákos would never return to Finland and that she’d be left here all alone. It was a strange feeling, as she and Ákos hadn’t been close for years. Anna had studied on the other side of the country and hadn’t wanted anything to do with her alcoholic brother. Let him drink, she’d thought, let him ruin his life and his opportunities by himself. Once Anna had moved back north, where the family had settled after fleeing from Yugoslavia, they had become closer again. And though Anna reluctantly looked after some practical matters for her brother, they had become friends, more even. Ákos was the only person in the world who shared something with Anna, something that words could never describe. I can’t bear the thought of having to lose Ákos too, she thought. She buried her face in a cushion, but the tears would not come. They hardened into a lump in her chest where years of unwept tears rattled against one another like stones.

‘
I SHOULD HAVE BOOKED TICKETS
there and then and gone to the funeral,’ Anna told Sari.

‘Why is the funeral so soon? In two days’ time?’

‘I don’t know. They tend to bury people quickly there. Maybe it has to do with the climate or the Catholic church. I don’t know.’

‘But how do relatives have time to find out about it and make travel plans?’

‘They just do. I suppose.’

‘Oh, Anna, I’m so sorry.’

‘Thanks. The worst of it is that I can’t get there.’

‘You can visit her grave in the summer, and tomorrow you can have a private remembrance service all of your own,’ Sari comforted her and gave her a hug.

Anna pressed herself against Sari’s sturdy yet slender body, holding back her tears. How was it possible to feel so miserable? So empty and so wretched all at once, as though a limb had been violently ripped off. Anna swallowed back her sobs, let go of Sari and said she’d be fine, though she knew that none of her ghost pains would ease up or disappear. Her dear, eternal grandmother had died. Her visits home would never feel the same again.

‘I’ve got my suspicions about Lehmusvirta,’ said Anna, trying to return to the protection of her working persona and push the grief aside.

‘She’s a terrible piece of work. And what a relationship drama was going on in that building! I just had a chat with Niilo Säävälä.’

‘Did he know anything?’

‘Yes. He told me that Vilho and Riitta started seeing one another
years ago. At first it was all quite innocent, having coffee together, going for walks, that sort of thing, but after a while they’d become closer. Apparently they hadn’t wanted to tell their children.’

‘Did you ask him why?’

‘Of course. Niilo said that children often react strangely when they hear about their elderly parents’ love lives. They think they’re going to miss out on their inheritance.’

Anna involuntarily thought of her grandmother. It would undoubtedly have been a bit strange if she’d been having a passionate love affair in the last years of her life. But why should it have been strange? Isn’t it wonderful to be able to enjoy the closeness of another person, no matter what age we are? Sometimes Anna thought young people were far more stuck in their ways than the elderly.

‘Lehmusvirta had apparently tried to disrupt their relationship in every conceivable way, ringing the doorbell when Riitta was visiting Vilho, telephoning him, trying to stop them spending time together, dropping religious leaflets through their letterboxes,’ said Sari.

‘Perhaps she lost her mind.’

‘She lost her mind a long time ago, there’s no doubt about that. But is she capable of murder? I can’t say.’

‘She has no alibi,’ Anna pointed out.

‘You’re right. And she has a motive,’ said Sari and took Anna by the hand. ‘Don’t be sad, my friend. I mean, be sad, grieve, but remember that it will get better.’

Anna hugged Sari. At least somebody cares about me, she thought, holding back tears once again.

Reza hadn’t been seen at any of the addresses Naseem had given. Neither had any other members of the Cobras. Esko had visited all four locations several times, sat in his car staking the places out for hours at different times of day, waiting for something to happen, but there was nothing. Nothing at all. It was odd. He entered the addresses into the police database and confirmed the gutting news that he had begun to suspect. There were no immigrants registered
at any of these addresses. The residents at all four of the addresses had everyday Finnish names. One was a family with children, one a retired couple, one a student at the city polytechnic college and one was a single, middle-aged woman who worked as a cook at the primary school in Rajapuro.

Esko tried to call Naseem, but her telephone was switched off. What the hell did this mean? Naseem had deliberately misled him. Esko felt a sense of rage boiling within him. He’d trusted her. He had believed every word that had passed those beautiful red lips, and now it turned out to be nothing but a pack of lies. He should have guessed; liars and con artists every last one of them, even the beautiful, smart, educated ones. He pulled on his coat, switched off the lights in his office and headed for Vaarala. You and I are going to have a little talk, he thought agitatedly. Damn it, I’ll charge you with giving a false statement.

But there was nobody home in Vaarala. Esko repeatedly and angrily rang the doorbell, put his ear against the door and listened for any movement coming from inside the apartment, but everything was quiet and the door remained shut. Fucking hell, Esko cursed out loud. He heard the front door click, the sound of footsteps. Someone was coming up the stairs; footsteps echoed round the stairwell. I hope it’s Naseem, he thought as a woman dressed in a black burqa appeared on the landing. The woman’s skin was dark and gleaming; her eyes looked frightened.

‘Do you speak Finnish?’ asked Esko.

‘A little,’ the woman replied nervously. A bright-yellow supermarket carrier bag dangled from her hand.

‘Do you know the lady who lives here? Naseem Jobrani?’

‘Yes, a bit.’

‘Where is she? I must talk to her urgently,’ said Esko and showed the woman his police badge.

The woman gave a start and seemed even more worried. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen Naseem many days.’

‘Where has she gone? Did she tell you her plans?’

‘I don’t know where Naseem is,’ the woman repeated.

‘Very well,’ Esko muttered. ‘Here is my telephone number. Call me if you see her. Is that clear? This is a police matter.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said the woman and took his card.

Right, you’ll never call me, thought Esko, and he ran down the stairs, got into his car and drove back to the police station with no regard for the speed limits.

‘Vilho Karppinen’s case just got a bit more complicated,’ said Linnea Markkula on the telephone as she tried to catch her breath.

‘How so?’ asked Anna.

‘We got the results back from the NBI’s forensics lab today. The old man’s bloodstream contained an incredible amount of propranolol, almost five milligrams per litre.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a beta-blocker used to regulate blood pressure. It’s actually quite common in suicide cases. The name of the drug is Propral.’

‘What does this mean?’

‘Remember when I said the victim’s heart was slightly enlarged? Well, he probably had a blood-pressure condition. You’ll have to see what medication he was on.’

‘I’ll get on to it. Could he have taken a dose like that accidentally?’

‘I doubt he could have taken this much. Unless he was demented, but he wasn’t. The amount in his blood is over ten times the normal dose.’

‘Could he have tried to kill himself before going to complain about the music?’

‘Sounds a bit unlikely. I doubt the music would have bothered him if the intention was to die rather than sleep.’

‘This doesn’t make sense.’

‘But the fact remains that Vilho’s blood contained a deadly amount of the stuff.’

‘Is there any way you can establish the order that these events happened? Did he die from the car crash, from being beaten up by Sammy or from the drugs?’

‘It might be impossible. All three factors overlap one another so much.’

‘Can you come to any conclusions?’

‘Propranolol starts to take effect about an hour after ingestion. So he must have taken the drugs either around the same time he went to Halttu’s apartment or just before.’

‘Could Sammy and Marko have administered the drugs?’ Anna wondered out loud. ‘Sammy hasn’t said anything about that. Only that he smashed the victim’s head against the corner of the table. This doesn’t add up. I’ll have to interview Vilho’s son again. Maybe he knows something about his father’s medication.’

Juha Karppinen arrived at their meeting ten minutes late. Anna put it down to indifference, though he seemed genuinely apologetic and complained of a traffic jam in the city centre. It could be true; it was late afternoon.

‘We have some fresh information regarding your father’s death,’ Anna began.

‘Really? What?’

Anna watched his reactions but couldn’t see anything flicker in his calm exterior.

‘His blood contained a lethal dose of Propral.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a blood-pressure medication. He had it on prescription.’

‘Did my father have problems with his blood pressure? Well, it doesn’t really surprise me – he was quite old. Didn’t a junkie immigrant already confess to beating him up or something?’

‘Yes, he did. And with that in mind, this new information doesn’t fit what we already know about his death and the circumstances that led to it.’

‘The boy must have given it to him. Drug addicts can get their hands on all kind of substances, can’t they?’

‘I doubt he would have used this particular drug. Of course, it’s possible. In any case, we now have to investigate your father’s death from a rather different perspective.’

‘Of course, I appreciate that.’

‘Did you know your father’s neighbour, Mrs Riitta Vehviläinen?’

‘No. Well, I remember seeing that name on the letterbox, but I don’t think I ever laid eyes on her. Why do you ask?’

‘She is dead too. She was murdered.’

‘Goodness. Did the immigrant boy kill her too?’

‘The immigrant boy doesn’t know anything about Riitta. To be perfectly honest, I don’t believe he’s telling the truth.’

‘But he confessed. Surely nobody is crazy enough to confess to a murder they didn’t commit.’

‘Could your father have committed suicide?’

‘How should I know? I haven’t had anything to do with him for years. But why not? It sounds like the only plausible explanation. Perhaps he was depressed. He never really got over the death of my mother. Maybe things like that start to bother you in old age, start to feel closer as you reach the autumn of your life.’

‘We’re going to be looking into your father’s movements in the last few days and weeks before his murder. Telephone calls, bank details, purchases, friends, everything. I’m sure things will soon become clear.’

‘Good. I want to know what happened to my father.’

Juha buried his face in the palms of his hands. Anna could hear his stifled sobs. Why don’t I feel remotely sorry for that man? she wondered. I’m becoming a hard, cold, cruel person.

Anna left the station to call Juha Karppinen’s former wife. She needed to move, having sat at her computer all afternoon. Her back was stiff and her neck ached. The temperature was around zero. Droplets of water trickled from the gable of the police station into a puddle on the street. The sky was bright, but dark-grey clouds seemed to be rolling in from the northeast – snow or even rain. If only it would rain, thought Anna. The snow will melt faster. Though the skiing season seemed to get shorter every year – snow stayed on the ground much later than before and the biting, sub-zero temperatures arrived
later in the spring, only to end like a slap in the face some time in April as warm air blew in from the south – she yearned to go running on the bare earth, to pack her skiing equipment away in the basement until next winter.

Anna walked briskly to the area of parkland by the mouth of the river. Over there the sound of traffic wouldn’t disturb her telephone call and the air was cleaner. Anna liked the park. It was so big that you had to leave at least ten minutes to walk from one side to the other. Hidden in the garden were old greenhouses, each with exotic plants that used to form part of the city’s botanical garden. Now they were empty. During the summer months one of them housed a nice little café that served enormous butter buns. The snow-covered paths were pretty. The trees in the park were mostly tall maples and birches, interspersed with a few thick spruces and lindens. Anna could hear the twittering of a bird in the treetops. Could it be a chaffinch?

Juha Karppinen’s ex-wife, Sirpa Heikkilä, lived in the south of Finland with her new husband. Anna began by explaining the circumstances of Vilho’s death and said that she needed some information about Juha.

‘Do you think Juha could have murdered my father-in-law, my former father-in-law, that is?’ the woman asked, shocked.

‘We are still working on a number of lines of enquiry, and we don’t have a suspect,’ Anna explained.

‘What do you want to know about Juha? I’m not in contact with him at all these days, now that the children are grown up and getting on with their own lives.’

‘Tell me what kind of man he is. Generally speaking,’ said Anna.

‘I doubt I know him well enough these days to say anything at all. When I first met him he was wonderful, then little by little he turned into a thoroughly nasty person. Well, I think I did too.’

‘In what way was he nasty?’

‘I don’t think he’s a murderer, if that’s what you mean. He was never violent or anything like that. He just got caught up in gambling.’

Anna sat up, alert. ‘What kind of gambling?’

‘Cards, roulette, horses, you name it. I imagine in the age of the internet he’s up to his neck in online gambling.’

The veins in Anna’s temples started humming. She remembered something. How could I have dismissed it, forgotten the matter altogether, she berated herself. I wasn’t at work, she conceded in her own defence. I was drunk. At some point I lost my memory. And I was playing too.

‘I once saw him at a roulette table,’ said Anna, instantly deciding to ask Virkkunen for a warrant to seize Juha Karppinen’s computer and search his house.

‘I saw him quite a few times. That’s what eventually brought our marriage to an end. Juha screwed up our finances, he was always on edge, everything was going to pot. Thank God we had a prenuptial agreement, or I would have ended up having to pay his debts. Still, he might have changed, come to his senses. I really don’t know what he gets up to these days. Thankfully.’

‘Thank you for this information, thank you very much,’ said Anna and ended the call. The twittering of the bird could be heard again. Yes, I think it is a chaffinch. I hope it doesn’t die of hunger out here; it’s still so cold.