The Defenceless (8 page)

His fingers trembling, Sammy opened one of the packets, pressed a pill from its plastic bubble and felt its light touch against his palm. The familiar insignia of a sword looked like a cross, the tablet like a small tombstone. Sammy groped in his pocket for a syringe and other equipment and laid everything out ready. Macke had quietened down on the sofa, his eyes pressed shut. Again Sammy hesitated. Maalik would be waiting for him. They were supposed to
sort out his appeal together. He could win this, easily. All human rights reports showed that his situation back home was untenable. If only he had the paperwork to prove it. Here you needed paperwork for everything. Surely people here knew about the situation facing Pakistani Christians – the erosion of their rights, the harassment and persecution, the cooked-up blasphemy charges. Surely people here had to know? His chances were good, he’d be granted asylum instantly. He would leave this shit behind, get himself clean and become an upstanding citizen as soon as the appeal was submitted. But his application for asylum had been rejected. And he had fled. If people really did know something about his situation, they didn’t give a damn. He looked at the mountain of pills. He would never have an opportunity like this again. Nobody would notice a few missing tablets. He could pay Macke later, if he ever mentioned it. He wouldn’t. Sammy glanced at Macke. He was asleep; he looked almost dead. The blood had started to congeal on his face; the can of lager had fallen to the ground, small bubbles lazily forming at its mouth. Sammy pressed another tablet from the packet, and a third, and ground them into a fine powder with experienced hands. Amazing, absolutely amazing, was all he could think, nothing else. Finally a decent trip.

MONDAY MORNING DAWNED
as brightly as the day before. Anna woke up early, stretched her legs, still stiff from sleep; she had no desire to get up, but her sodden sanitary towel forced her out of bed. The sheet was stained too. Anna hated her period, the fatigue and stomach cramps in the first few days, the moodiness and pads that started to smell no matter how regularly you changed them. Anna took a shower, put on some music – AGF’s classic album
Westernization Completed
– changed the sheets and made some coffee. A leisurely weekday morning was a luxury, period or not.

Gabriella had called that evening. One of her friends was interested in coming to Finland and wanted some advice. What did Anna think she should do? Could Anna help her? Anna had been perplexed. She had suggested the friend ask an EU officer at a local employment agency or contact the Finnish embassy. She couldn’t help with a matter like this. She had no idea how nurses were recruited to Finland from abroad or whether they were recruited at all. The things people imagined she knew…

The coffee tasted good. Anna sipped it slowly while reading the morning paper. The news reports were a bit thin; Anna wanted more in-depth information about many things. Maybe newspapers can’t afford decent journalists any more, she thought. People can’t afford anything these days, and still there seemed to be more of everything than ever before. Humans will soon choke on their own impossibility; we’ll gobble everything up and regurgitate it at our feet. Anna closed the newspaper and listened to the music for a moment, her eyes shut. Strange sounds. Noise. AGF’s singing, their dreamlike poetry. Whenever people asked her, she could never really describe
electronic music. She knew this, because Béci had asked her. The black waters of the Tisza had flowed before them, the early morning and the onset of a hangover had pressed the cold beneath their clothes. They had left the swings, walked hand in hand to the old jetty and sat down. Béci had hugged her and asked what kind of music she listened to. Anna had tried to explain. Music made by computers, music that doesn’t always sound like music, sometimes it’s just sound, it has a weird sense of flow and you can lose yourself in it. Béci had looked at her nonplussed. What flow, he’d asked. Anna pressed a kiss against his lips and changed the subject.

Since then Béci had sent her at least ten emails that Anna had systematically deleted without even reading. Even now she banished him from her mind, stood up and pulled on her clothes. She would go for a pizza today, she decided, and for the first time in ages say hello to Maalik and Farzad.

The phone vibrated against Esko’s chest. He was lying on the sofa in yesterday’s clothes. It was early morning and still dark, six o’clock perhaps. He forced himself to pick up the phone, open his eyes and answer. It was Virkkunen. The big bosses had decided to carry out a raid later that day on the other address Esko had been given and they wanted him to take part – if he was up to it, Virkkunen added pointedly. Of course, Esko stammered into the telephone, no problem. How the hell did Virkkunen seem to know everything? Esko clambered to his feet and shuffled into the kitchen. There were no flowers on the windowsill. He opened the fridge and shoved his hand into the torn cardboard box inside, gripped a frosted aluminium can and imagined a cold beer rinsing away the taste of shit in his mouth. I’m definitely going to sell this place, he resolved as he stared at the microwave standing on the worn kitchen counter, the curtainless windows and the bag of empty beer cans. What the hell have I been doing here all these years? Waiting for things to go back to how they were before?

Two hours, then I’ll have to go to work, Esko thought, reluctantly
let go of the can, deciding instead to take a few Buranas and a Diapam, which the police nurse had prescribed him years ago for his anxiety. Renewing the prescription was as easy as harvesting hay, as people used to say. What kind of a proverb is that, he wondered. Harvesting hay only became easy in the 1990s after the EU donated hundreds of tractors to Finland, and by that time the expression had already begun to disappear from everyday use. Nobody knew anything about harvesting hay these days, of scythes and poles and rakes, of the straw and dust beneath your clothes, the heat and the horseflies. Esko undressed in front of the hall mirror but avoided looking at himself. Half an hour’s sleep in a real bed, just until the painkillers started to kick in, he thought and climbed under the sheets.

His half an hour seemed like ten minutes, and he couldn’t sleep. Get the porridge on to boil, cigarette, shower – did he have any clean shirts? He’d have to do the laundry that evening. Christ, one for the road would sort me out, there are still a few in the cupboard, but no. After a bowl of porridge and another cigarette he began to feel normal again. He could do this. It was as easy as harvesting hay.

The raid was scheduled for two-thirty that afternoon. By then the last remnants of his hangover would be gone and he would be back on form. He had to prepare, go through the sequence of events with Virkkunen and the team. The meeting was at nine. Then they’d have to fetch their equipment, maybe visit the shooting range, eat something before the show started. They were in for a great day, the noose was tightening round the necks of these towel heads. You had to admit, the NBI really knew their stuff. And so did he. As he left, Esko glanced in the mirror. Jesus, I shouldn’t have bothered, he thought as he locked the front door and felt his chest tighten again.

Virkkunen divided assignments in characteristically reserved fashion. Establishing the origin of the knife and the cloakroom ticket went to Nils; Esko and Sari were to take care of the raid. Preparations for the raid were rehashed in such detail that Anna felt bored. She was
to spend the afternoon at the autopsy of the man in the traffic accident. She glanced over at Esko, who looked like he was in bad shape. The bags under his eyes were darker and more swollen, his cheeks were riddled with a web of burst blood vessels. Every now and then he had a fit of coughing, though as soon as the meeting ended he headed straight for the smoking area outside. Anna retired to her office to catch up on paperwork; she still had to write up a few old investigations, and she had a niggling feeling that these new cases would soon eat up all her time.

Hazileklek was almost empty. Anna recalled her previous visits when there hadn’t been a seat in the house. I hope Maalik and Farzad are coping, she found herself thinking and wondered when she had turned into such a worrywart.

‘Anna! How are you?’ Both men dashed out to hug her. They smelt good, as always, helped her out of her coat, hung it in the cloakroom and ushered her to a table.

‘I’m fine. But how are you two? I haven’t seen you for ages.’

The men quickly looked at one another. Anna couldn’t help notice the worry in their eyes, worry that melted into happy smiles as soon as they turned back to her.

‘Lot of work. Lot, lot of work,’ said Farzad.

Anna looked around the empty dining room.

‘It will be busy soon,’ Maalik explained. ‘And Friday, Saturday, we are here until morning.’

‘No time for holiday,’ said Farzad. ‘But that is good, no?’

‘Everyone needs a holiday some time,’ said Anna. ‘You have other staff. Surely they could look after things for a day or two?’

Again the men glanced at one another.

‘Well, we talk about it, but is difficult to arrange.’

‘Nonsense,’ Anna chuckled. ‘You really are workaholics. It’s not good for you, you know.’

‘What else you do except work? Who you are with?’

Though Farzad asked this with a friendly chuckle, without the
slightest trace of sarcasm, his questions felt like a punch in the diaphragm and knocked the air from her lungs.

‘I go skiing.’

‘The skier should not ski alone.’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve read Eino Leino?’

‘What? Me?’

‘Do you read Finnish poetry?’

The men burst into laughter.

‘Yes, if Rumi is a Finn.’

‘Or Nazo Ana.’

‘Who are they?’

Again the men laughed.

‘You can look it up on Google,’ said Maalik. ‘But yes, I know my Leino. And my Edith Södergran and Aale Tynni. Difficult poets, but good for practise Finnish.’

Anna felt ashamed. She was well aware that Farzad and Maalik were highly educated university lecturers, intellectuals forced to flee from Kabul, and that they knew about many things besides grated cheese and tomato purée. She too was regularly considered a pitiable imbecile as soon as people found out about her Yugoslav past. Still, she didn’t want to tell people about her father’s aristocratic background or the fate of her mother’s wealthy industrial family after they lost their entire fortune to the communists at a time when most Finns were still trying to eke out an existence ploughing stony fields for a landlord. Anna was actually grateful to the communists. She had been able to live a normal life as the youngest child of a normal family; they weren’t rolling in money and they didn’t worship the family coat of arms, but they never wanted for anything. The coat of arms existed only in a photograph in a drawer in her father’s desk. Anna, of all people, shouldn’t have been surprised by Maalik’s reference to the national poet. But that’s what had happened.

‘What you like to eat?’

‘What delicacies do you have for me today?’

‘I’ll make anything you want.’

‘What was that amazing meat stew I had last autumn?’

‘Oh, let’s make that. Restaurant is quiet, and we are hungry too. We eat together.’

Anna was happy; it was nice to have some company. This would give her the chance to ask why they seemed so concerned.

Soon the table was filled with rice, sauces and salads. The dizzying aroma of spices filled the restaurant. Delicious, thought Anna and sighed yet again that you couldn’t find food like this back home. Of course, her mother made good
pörkölt
and
paprikás
, but restaurants in Vajdaság were monotonous and often sub-standard. The food was heavy and greasy, nothing but traditional Hungarian dishes, Serbian
ćufta
meatballs, white bread that always tasted amazing at first, because it was warm and fresh from the bakery, but made her feel bloated after a few days. Anna admired the Hungarians’ unflagging belief in their own tripe and pig-trotter casseroles; there was something noble and persistent about it in an age of pizzas, hamburgers and sushi, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch them. Traitor.

Maalik and Farzad asked after Ákos and Anna’s mother. They asked Anna to give Ákos their greetings and tell him to pop in one day. It was through Ákos that she’d first met the men. Ákos had done a few months’ work placement at the pizzeria and become friends with the owners. Once the formalities were out of the way, Maalik spoke up.

‘Anna, we know we can trust you. We have problem.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘We must make an appeal about asylum application, but we don’t know how. You know how is done?’

Anna realised instantly what their concern was about. They had a friend whose asylum application had been rejected and whom they wanted to help. Were they hiding their friend? More than likely. Anna felt a sense of pride, of satisfaction. She was a police officer. How much do people who had fled from Afghanistan trust the police? She had all the necessary powers to get a warrant to search the men’s apartment. The mere suspicion of harbouring an illegal immigrant would be enough, one phone call was all it would take.
These two men knew it, and still they had asked her for help. And she would help them as much as she could.

‘You’ll need a lawyer,’ she said without asking any details. ‘A qualified, experienced lawyer. What chance do you think your friend has?’

‘He will die if he is sent home. He’ll be killed. No doubt about it,’ said Farzad.

‘But the immigration office doesn’t believe it,’ Maalik continued.

‘Of course not,’ said Anna and felt thankful once again for the emergency law enacted by Finland during the conflict in the Balkans. Their arrival in Finland had been quick and easy, everything had been almost shamefully simple. First, transportation to Munkkisaari, then to the reception centre outside the city, and before long they had an apartment – all this in just over six months.

‘I’ll find you a good lawyer. Keep him hidden until then.’

‘There’s another problem.’

Yes, she thought. There always is.

‘He disappear again, we cannot find him. I don’t want to say his name, but he is a young man. Could you see if someone like this has been picked up?’

Anna thought about this for a second at most.

‘Of course I can,’ she said. ‘But first I have to visit the morgue regarding another case.’

‘Anna, haven’t seen you in ages. How the hell are you?’ Pathologist Linnea Markkula stepped out of the autopsy room just as Anna arrived at the forensics department. She wanted to discuss any findings and a possible ID with Linnea face to face; this was always better than over the phone or via email. Linnea had left her scrubs in the changing-room laundry basket and looked like the stylish, attractive, self-assured doctor she was.

‘Coffee? Let’s go to my office so we can talk in peace.’

‘Thanks.’

Anna followed Linnea up the stairs. Are autopsy rooms always in the basement, she wondered but decided against asking out loud.

‘How are things on the boyfriend front?’ Linnea quipped over her shoulder with a smirk.

‘Not much to tell,’ Anna replied spiritlessly.

‘You’re such a prude, Anna. You’re probably still a virgin,’ Linnea teased her.

If only you knew, thought Anna.

‘I had a free weekend for once. I’m still exhausted. You’ve got to come out on the town with me some time. We’ll find you a bloke. I can help.’

‘Maybe…’

‘Maybe, maybe. At this rate you’ll die a spinster.’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Anna and tried to smile. ‘So, what do we know about the victim?’

‘He took a battering. His torso was completely crushed. Have we located the next of kin?’