The Winter of the Lions (18 page)

‘This gentleman is from the police,’ said the woman.

Koivikko sat there motionless.

‘I won’t take much of your time,’ said Kimmo.

‘Right,’ said Koivikko. ‘Yes, thank you, Sonja. We’ll do this on our own.’

The woman nodded and left. Joentaa went in and closed the door.

‘Police,’ said Koivikko.

‘Nothing that need disturb you,’ said Joentaa. He went closer and handed his police ID to Koivikko. He had deliberately not called in advance to say he was coming. He was pestering a man who had presumably been given news of his daughter’s death fifteen years ago by a police officer. He felt a pang in his stomach and watched for Koivikko’s reaction, waiting to hear what he would say.

‘Forgive my … slight surprise. It’s not every day that a policeman turns up in my office.’

‘It’s about your daughter Maini,’ said Joentaa.

Koivikko did not reply. A powerful man, sitting there looking relaxed, surprised but otherwise in perfect control of himself.

‘I know that she died in an accident fifteen years ago,’ said Joentaa.

Koivikko nodded.

‘At the time you did something that occupied the minds of my colleagues here in Salo for a while.’

‘You’re talking in riddles, but I think I know what you mean,’ said Koivikko.

‘You threatened the man running the funfair that day. He was suspected of contributing to causing the fire through negligence.’

Koivikko nodded.

‘You offered him violence during a confrontation after the trial.’

Koivikko nodded.

‘The man was found not guilty.’

‘I still think he was guilty,’ said Koivikko. ‘It wasn’t done on purpose, of course. Negligence, as you put it. An idiot. One idiot too many. And I needed to blame someone anyway, so the court’s decision carried no weight with me. I knew he was guilty, I didn’t need any evidence.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘Not back then,’ said Koivikko. ‘It’s a long time ago.’

A long time ago, thought Joentaa.

‘I gave the man a black eye. It swelled up in seconds, it really did. He got off with a black eye. Unlike my daughter.’

A long time ago, thought Joentaa. Koivikko sat there unchanged, focused but calm.

‘I was questioned about the incident at the time. It didn’t come to charges or a court case. The man who had killed my daughter was kind enough not to take it to court.’

‘I know,’ said Joentaa.

‘However, here I am today, working at my profession. I expect my colleagues out there are already gossiping. Koivikko … wasn’t there something, back in the past? That terrible case. And now here’s a policeman in his office again. How did you know where to find me, by the way?’

‘It’s part of our job,’ said Joentaa, and thought of Patrik Laukkanen, who was dead and whose life was laid out in detail, in impersonally bureaucratic language, on his desk.

‘I’d be interested to know why you are here,’ said Koivikko.

Joentaa nodded. He forced himself to hold the man’s gaze and asked, ‘Do you know the
Hämäläinen
talk show?’

Koivikko still sat there looking just the same, with his eyes narrowed. ‘Who doesn’t?’ he asked.

‘Did you see the programme when the puppets were used as models for bodies?’

‘You surely don’t think …’

Joentaa waited.

‘You surely don’t think I … you don’t think Hämäläinen’s show of dead bodies interests me personally?’

‘Did you see that programme?’

Koivikko looked at Joentaa. He seemed to be concentrating, and almost imperceptibly shook his head. ‘Interesting,’ he murmured.

‘Did you?’

‘This’ll make you laugh; yes, I did. With my wife. We like that talk show. Well, we did like it.’

‘Not any more?’

‘We watch only occasionally,’ said Koivikko. ‘We didn’t like the way it put those puppets on display.’

‘Exactly what didn’t you like?’ asked Joentaa, and after a couple of seconds Koivikko began smiling to himself.

‘When the trailer said there would be bodies specially made for films in it, my wife said at once that she didn’t like the idea,’ he said. ‘But I thought it was an interesting topic. Then, when they talked about a fire on a ghost train and the camera moved to a puppet modelling a dead body, my wife began crying, and I went into the bathroom and threw up.’

He said no more for a while.

‘Then I went back and watched the rest of it. In principle, a fascinating subject. I soon got over my first reaction. My wife had already gone to bed, and next morning she said she thought it was tasteless and she wasn’t going to watch the
Hämäläinen
show any more.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘Although, incidentally, she does still watch it now and then. Has done for some time. Is that what you wanted to know?’ asked Koivikko.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘I don’t know exactly what you suspect, but I think there’s one thing you should know.’

‘Yes?’

‘Our daughter’s death is fifteen years in the past. And the charred plastic figure on the stretcher in that TV show was male.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘Do you understand me?’

‘Yes. Thank you very much.’ He got up, and offered Koivikko his hand. Koivikko shook it.

‘Good luck,’ said Joentaa, removing his hand from Koivikko’s.

Then he quickly walked down the corridor and out into the fresh air, feeling a little better when he was surrounded by the biting cold.

KAI
-
PETTERI
HÄMÄLÄINEN LEFT
the hospital under cover of darkness, through a side entrance.

The young doctor with the peculiar name had shaken hands with him, keeping hold of his hand for a long time, and asked him once again to take it easy in the coming days and weeks. The nurses and patients had stared at him as he went down the long corridor towards the lifts. Now, flanked by two police officers, one of them tall and the other very tall, he and an anxious-looking Tuula Palonen were walking through the cold air to a limousine. The police officers wore long coats; their faces were expressionless. Tuula peered to left and right, and seemed relieved when they were in the car and the very tall man threaded his way into the evening traffic.

‘It worked,’ said Tuula. ‘No one saw you.’

Hämäläinen nodded, and thought of the conversation he had had that afternoon, a discussion over the phone with Tuula and Raafael Mertaranta, the TV station’s controller, who had congratulated him on his imminent discharge from hospital as if it were a major achievement.

He had been sitting on his bed, with one of the nurses
watering his flowers, and Tuula and Mertaranta had agreed to pick a good moment to smuggle him past the waiting cameras and back into everyday life unseen, so that his reappearance on the screen would be all the more effective and make a lasting impression. On New Year’s Eve. Back to health, in cheerful mood, to present a retrospective look at the past year to viewers.

Phoenix from the ashes, he thought, and the car, driven by a silent giant, rode smoothly through a clear winter night. They left the city behind them, and he closed his eyes for a while.

When they came to a halt, the officer on the passenger seat spoke for the first time. ‘We’re here.’

Hämäläinen looked out of the window in search of his house. The big garden, the terrace surrounded by tall fir trees, the swimming pool with its plastic cover, the warm, muted lighting behind the windows. Irene. The twins. ‘We’re where?’ he asked.

‘Your home,’ said the very tall officer who had been driving.

He looked out of both side windows again.

‘We’re going to approach from some way off, making for the back of the house,’ said the other man. ‘Come along.’

He got out.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness. They were standing on the outskirts of a wood rather rocky in places.

‘Haven’t you ever walked home through this wood?’ asked the very tall man, and Hämäläinen shook his head.

‘The path is quite steep, but it’s a nice walk,’ said the not so tall man.

Hämäläinen nodded and gritted his teeth as the others walked easily ahead of him. Obviously no one seemed to remember that he had been the victim of an attempted murder only two days ago.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Tuula, as the façade of the house emerged from the darkness some way off.

‘Fine,’ said Hämäläinen, and the very tall police officer opened the little gate that was always kept locked.

‘I didn’t even know we had a key to this gate,’ said Hämäläinen.

‘It was hanging on a board with the other keys,’ said the tall man.

‘I see.’

‘Your wife gave it to us,’ said the very tall man.

Hämäläinen nodded. They were standing in the far corner of the large garden. Beyond the white fir trees were the windows, behind the windows there was light. Irene, he thought. He had spoken to her on the phone at midday, feeling that she was a long way off.

‘We’ll go over to the terrace,’ said the very tall man. He hunched his shoulders as he walked. Tuula followed, and the other police officer came behind Hämäläinen. He suddenly took Hämäläinen’s arm and held it for a few seconds. But there was nothing in sight; it was only wind rippling the plastic tarpaulin that covered the pool.

The very tall officer had reached a window in the façade and tapped the glass. Irene’s silhouette appeared behind the pane. A door opened.

‘Welcome home,’ said the tall officer, with a gesture inviting him into his own house.

KIMMO
JOENTAA SAT
at his office desk in the neon lighting for a long time, studying the notes made by Heinonen and Grönholm on their research, reading the newspaper
reports that Päivi had left in neat piles ready for him. Each of the disasters, to a greater or lesser extent, had provided material for columns in the press, many of them mainly objective, some lurid. Columns well or badly written.

A local paper in Savonlinna had dwelt for weeks on the subject of a young family who died when a passenger plane crashed over Russia. Pictures of the young father, the young mother, even a picture of the still unbaptised baby, pixelated to obscure the face. An interview with the parish clergyman. One with the husband’s sister. Another with his colleagues at work. All the articles were by the same journalist. Joentaa made a note of his name.

Finally the front page of the newspaper published a picture of the house where the family had lived. In the foreground stood a smiling, middle-aged man who had bought the house to live there in future. The man had been interviewed. He was asked if he didn’t feel it was uncomfortable to be living in that house, knowing about the tragedy, and he had said no, adding that he was a widower himself and used to tragedies.

Kimmo Joentaa looked at the picture of the smiling man for a little longer, then he put the report down and picked up the next one.

He made notes, drew up lists, arranged the relatives of the dead in order, rummaged around in other people’s grief, and brought nothing to light but names. Names like the name of Erkki Koivikko, father of a daughter, a bank manager. There was something Koivikko had said that he couldn’t get out of his head. Fifteen years ago. And it hadn’t been his daughter on the stretcher, but …

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on what Koivikko had said, but it was no use. He looked at the names on the white paper a little longer, then put the list back with the newspaper reports on the rest of the files that Päivi
Holmquist had brought up, and switched off the light. He drove home.

On the way he thought of Erkki Koivikko getting out of his chair, going to the bathroom and throwing up in the washbasin. A strong man who looked as if he was in control of himself. He had said that on the stretcher in the TV show … no, he’d lost it.

He thought of the smiling man who had bought the empty house.

A widower.

Used to tragedies.

He felt as if he were floating over the road; now and then his eyes closed for a second or so. Fresh snow had fallen. Once he was on the woodland track the tyres spun, and he had to turn the wheel to avoid ending up in the ditch. He switched the engine off and went the last hundred metres on foot, as so often at this time of year. He thought of Sanna, who had liked that. When they had first found out that it was often impossible to drive right up to the house in snowy winters, he had stomped through the snow in a bad temper, and Sanna had laughed.

There was a light on in the kitchen; he saw the silhouette of a naked woman behind the windowpane. He stood outside the window for a while, watching as she made the lasagne he had promised her several days before.

Then he moved away from the window, took the few steps to the front door and opened it. The warmth came to meet him, and Larissa called, ‘There you are at last. Supper’s nearly ready.’

He stood in the doorway.

‘You look pale,’ she said.

He nodded.

‘Midnight feast,’ she said, taking the bubbling dish of lasagne out of the oven.

‘Looks delicious.’

‘It tastes delicious too,’ said Larissa. Or whatever her name was.

‘Nice that you’re here.’

She took two plates out of the cupboard, cutlery out of the drawer, and asked, ‘Why?’

Kimmo Joentaa looked at her.

‘Why is it nice that I’m here?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Joentaa.

They ate in silence.

After they had finished, she undressed him, got on top of him, and moved in what seemed a practised, rhythmic way until he came.

She went to shower.

‘Twenty-five,’ she said when she came back.

Kimmo looked at her.

‘I’m twenty-five years old. Grew up in a conventional household. My father raped me over a long period, and my mother never noticed, so I moved out when I was sixteen.’

‘I see,’ said Joentaa.

‘Actually that was all lies.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘I’ll tell you another tomorrow, if you like,’ she said.

THAT NIGHT, ON
the news, she sees the smiling man. A photograph of him. He has left hospital, no one saw him leave, but he is said to be getting better.