The Hummingbird (22 page)

‘Well?’

‘A pendant on a leather strap.’

A shiver ran down Anna’s spine and she felt the hairs on the backs of her hands stand up.

‘What kind of pendant?’

‘One with the image of a man in a feathered cap. Exactly the same as the one we found in Riikka’s pocket.’

Anna crouched beneath the yellow tapes and stepped on to the running track. She took a deep breath as she approached the man lying dead on the ground. He was relatively young, not yet thirty, and was wearing a blue tracksuit. He was lying on his back, his arms and legs outstretched; he looked like a stickman against the golden yellow covering of sawdust. In the man’s chest, right around the heart, was a large, bloody hole. His strong, masculine chin was covered in blood spatter.

Linnea was packing up her equipment and stood up with a groan.

‘Judging by the body temp and degree of rigor, I’d say between seven and nine yesterday evening,’ she said, stretching her limbs. ‘Christ, your muscles get so stiff at this age.’

Anna looked at the dead man and felt the nausea in her stomach increasing. She had to turn away. She couldn’t deal with this. Not now. Not today.

‘I’ll let you know before I do the autopsy. You can come and document it. This case is clearly linked to Riikka’s death. Similar surroundings, similar victim profile, similar MO, and the boys from ballistics said the rounds from the rifle will probably be a match too. Almost certainly the same killer. Pretty shocking,’ Linnea nattered on, but Anna couldn’t concentrate. She felt faint.

Anna set off anti-clockwise along the track without saying a word to Linnea. She had to get away; she’d seen too much. The woods seemed to be swaying around her. How had she managed to
drink herself into this state? She tried to remember what had happened the previous night and tried to count how many drinks she’d had. At home she’d had only one beer, because she hadn’t wanted to tempt Ákos unnecessarily. Then she had gone to the bar where Akim, Zoran and a Bosnian guy Anna had never met were waiting for her. There she’d downed at least another four pints. Full pints. At midnight they’d moved on to a nightclub on Hämeentie, which was pretty full for a Thursday evening. Anna stopped counting at the point when Akim had brought ten whiskies to the table.
Pičku mater,
she thought, and she would have laughed if she hadn’t felt so horrendous. The situation had got fairly out of hand, but at least Anna’s Serbian had started to come back to her. Her old friends were genuinely excited about her return. And so was Anna – last night, at least. Now she wasn’t so sure. She was probably still over the limit. Even the fresh air didn’t seem to be making her feel any better. Quite the opposite; it was making matters worse.

Then there was Nataša.

Why the hell hadn’t Zoran brought his wife along with him? Why was it that Serb men never went anywhere with their wives?

Zoran.

Just when Anna thought she’d finally got over him.

The running track shimmered in front of her like a river. The clear light of autumn made it shine in a myriad shades of yellow. The air betrayed a hint of the winter chill. Anna listened to the fluttering of the birds in the boughs above, chirps here and there, warning calls. The summer chattering had come to an end. The swallows were leaving. She had seen them perching in flocks on the electricity cables.

On any other day she would have enjoyed the beauty of watching nature prepare for the winter. Now a young man lay dead in front of her, her head was thumping and woozy, the inside of her mouth tasted of cat’s piss and her legs could barely carry her. She forced herself to do something. First she walked slowly round the length
of the track; it was only a few kilometres long, winding but not too hilly. Her heart was racing as if she’d just run a marathon. After this she began investigating the scrubland around the track. She zigzagged in and out of the trees along the edge of the track without knowing what she was looking for.

At the start of the track, the woods were a tangle of thicket bushes that soon gave way to birch trees covered in lichen. The lingonberries were a deep shade of red. Anna knelt down to pluck one. It was bitter, still needed a few frosty nights to bring out the full flavour. I’ll have to come out and pick some, she thought, and picked up a sweet wrapper lying among the berries. It’s terrible that people litter the woods. When she raised her eyes, she saw a dark figure about a hundred metres away behind the thicket.

It was Esko. He had hidden himself in the bushes like a hare. Anna pressed herself tightly against the nearest birch tree and watched him pull a hipflask out of his jacket pocket, its silver edges glinting in the sunlight. Esko took a long swig, and again Anna felt a wave of nausea rising from her stomach as she tasted the imaginary kick of alcohol in her mouth. Thankfully she didn’t vomit this time. She felt better as soon as Esko put the hipflask back in his jacket. Then he fumbled in his trouser pocket and popped something in his mouth. Chewing gum or a mint, she thought, something to mask the smell. What a drunk – boozing at work!

‘Esko!’ she shouted.

He gave a start and turned round, instinctively touching his jacket pocket as if to make sure the flask was back where it should be and not still in his hand.

‘Find anything?’ he shouted back, lit a cigarette and began walking towards her.

‘A sweet wrapper. Should I give it to Forensics?’

‘Why not? You never know.’

‘What about you? What are you looking for?’ she asked.

‘Nothing in particular. Thought I’d come out here for a piss. Wanna watch?’

‘I’m going home and back to sleep.’

‘Of course. Some dago lover boy there waiting for you, is there?’

Anna pretended not to hear.

‘I wasn’t really needed here at all. And I don’t feel very well either.’

‘I heard – and I can see for myself.’

‘At least I sort myself out with ibuprofen,’ she said and looked at him fixedly. Esko blew smoke in her face.

19

THE
FOLLOWING
MORNING
Anna was at the station before seven. After returning home the day before, her head about to explode and her body feeling like she had been beaten up, she had resolved to quit smoking and get back into active training. In the last few weeks she’d drunk more beer than was good for her, and she decided to swap her daily can of beer for a cup of rooibos tea. Anna had snapped her remaining cigarettes and put them in the bin, taken another painkiller and gone straight to bed. She had slept almost thirteen hours straight.

In all its brutality the second murder was shocking, but it had brought a new sense of energy to the investigation, which had started to stagnate. Perhaps it would be wrong to say that Anna was excited, but she felt a certain agitated tension as she stepped through the door of the Violent Crimes Unit, the same kind of tingling she felt before a running competition.

As always, Chief Inspector Pentti Virkkunen had arrived well before anybody else and asked Anna into his office.

‘How do you explain what happened yesterday?’ he quipped from behind his desk.

Anna felt a wave of irritation rising within her. If there was one thing she disliked, it was a snooty boss – and she made it clear in her voice.

‘It was my day off. It’s been marked in the rota since August. Surely I don’t need to be ready to come in on my day off? Or do I?’

She remembered that she was supposed to buy herself some new work clothes, which she realised she’d totally forgotten about. She gave her trousers a quick glance: the same pair of jeans she’d worn
two days ago. And the same hoodie. Maybe life would be easier if she stopped comparing herself to the endlessly stylish Sari. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for power dressing.

‘Of course, we can’t demand that you make yourself available, but it’s still rather disappointing,’ said Virkkunen, and for a moment Anna thought he was talking about her work clothes. ‘It would have made a great deal of difference if you’d joined us first thing in the morning. To be perfectly honest, I’m counting on you for the success of this investigation. Anyway, I wasn’t referring to your obvious hangover. I want to know what you think about the new case.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she laughed, embarrassed. ‘Well, I haven’t really had time to give it much thought yet. But it doesn’t look good. The cases are so similar that we must assume it’s the same killer. We didn’t pay much attention to the necklace we found on Riikka. Of course, anyone could have pieces of jewellery in their pockets. But now that we’ve found an identical piece on the second victim, it seems important. It’s as though it has some special significance. It’s like a message.’

‘That’s what I thought too. It can’t be coincidence that two victims, killed in the same manner, are carrying identical necklaces. That pendant means something – but what? We have to find out. Fast.’

‘We’ll do our best. But there are very few officers on this case, and especially given that our workload has just doubled.’

‘What about Esko?’

‘What about him?’ she started, taken by surprise.

‘How are you getting on? Together?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I was thinking of your first day here. The meeting you didn’t attend.’

‘Esko didn’t tell me about that meeting!’ Anna could feel herself losing her temper. She didn’t understand the point of continually talking about this. Let bygones be bygones.

‘So you’re accusing Esko?’

‘Accusing him? I’m not accusing anyone. But it wasn’t a very nice thing to do.’

‘I noticed the two of you don’t exactly love one another. But are there any problems between you that might hamper this investigation?’

Anna thought about her reply. She looked at Virkkunen’s stern face, a face that seemed so ageless. Now was the chance to tell him what Esko was really like when they were alone, let him know about Esko’s racist attitudes. She thought of the altercation when they were outside smoking: lack of confidence in her work, spying on her, indirect communication, direct snide insults. Now she had the opportunity to explain why she didn’t want to work with Esko a day longer.

‘Nothing in particular,’ she said.

Virkkunen stared at her, the beginnings of a smile on his face. Anna had the strange feeling that this was some kind of test.

‘Do you think Esko has a drinking problem?’ he asked suddenly.

Anna was taken aback. What was this all about?

‘I don’t know. We don’t see each other socially. He does his work well enough.’

‘Does he drink at work?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

Anna felt uncomfortable. If Virkkunen knew as much as he seemed to, why didn’t he confront Esko directly?

She thought of Esko’s breath, which always stank of old booze in the mornings. The sip from the hipflask in the bushes. Still, for all she knew, it could have been fruit juice.

‘So everything is okay?’

‘Nothing to worry about. Except for the bumpy start, things have been going fine.’

Virkkunen gave Anna a sceptical, inquisitive look.

‘We’re drawing up the new rota this morning. Can we give you the same shifts as before?’

Anna squirmed in her chair. Virkkunen’s voice sounded as though this wasn’t a question; it was an order. Anna had a hunch – no, she
was certain that if she now asked for the rota to be changed, that she was no longer prepared to work with Esko, she would be taken off the investigation altogether. Two days ago she had been frustrated with the case, but this new turn of events had aroused her interest. She was forced to admit that, more than anything else, she was determined to catch the bastard running around with a shotgun. Regardless of Esko.

‘I don’t see why not,’ she replied and was unsure whether she might live to regret those words. She glanced at the smiling face of a fair-haired woman in a tin frame on the desk. The woman appeared to be warning her of something.

‘Excellent, that’s what I thought, too. Now we can get started on establishing whether there was any connection between Riikka and this Ville Pollari. Did they know one another?’

Relief at the change of subject wiped away Anna’s sense of unease.

‘There must be a connection somewhere.’

‘We need to warn the public, give a statement. Citizens out on a run need to know that a madman with a shotgun might be lurking in the woods.’

‘It’s not just citizens that might be out running.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘There could be asylum seekers, Nokia employees transferred from abroad, an international ice-hockey player. They’re not all necessarily Finnish citizens…’

‘That wasn’t exactly my point…’

‘I totally agree. We could ask the public for information, anything people might have seen. The killer has to move around somewhere. Someone might have seen a car, a bike or something.’