The Winter of the Lions (3 page)

Joentaa sat down opposite him and waited.

‘If you …’ he began, but Heinonen interrupted him. He was talking at a frantic pace now. ‘It’s like this, I’d like to tell you about it but I don’t know if I can. It’s … it’s, well, difficult.’

‘You don’t have to …’

‘It’s like this, Kimmo, the twins, they were just too much for me.’

Once again Heinonen slumped back as if that told the whole story.

‘Twins?’ said Joentaa.

‘Yes, you know we have twins, don’t you? Tarja and Vanessa.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘Of course they’re great … great little girls. Sorry, I’m sure this is all nonsense I’m talking. I’m so sorry …’

If you say sorry for no reason once again, thought Joentaa vaguely.

‘It was too much for me, I could have done without it,’ said Tuomas Heinonen. ‘I could have done without all that, I never wanted kids. I love them, of course, but I didn’t want to have them. Do you understand?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Joentaa, seeing pictures in his mind’s eye. Pictures of the twins’ christening. Joentaa had been there, and had felt out of place, because he hadn’t known anyone apart from a few colleagues. Heinonen carrying the two little girls under his arms like rugby balls, laughing as he ran with them.

‘It’s all too much for me. We don’t have any time these days. Nothing happens any more, it’s the kids all the time.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘The problem is … well, it’s like this,’ said Heinonen. ‘I … I looked around for some kind of, well, compensation.’

Joentaa waited.

‘I … I’ve been gambling.’

‘Gambling?’

‘Gambling money away. A lot of money. Almost everything we’d saved up for a rainy day.’

Joentaa nodded, wondering what to say.

‘Internet betting,’ said Heinonen. ‘On sporting events. Virtual poker. But the money is real enough, you could say. If you … I lost control of myself and it came out. Paulina discovered what was going on, I don’t know how. But this evening she suddenly started on about it.’

Joentaa nodded.

Heinonen stared at the table, then at the sleeve of his Santa
Claus coat. ‘Oh … sorry, I’ve only just noticed I still have this stupid costume on,’ he said in surprise.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Joentaa.

‘Hm …’ Heinonen began to chuckle. ‘Kimmo, how do you do it? I mean, how do you manage it, keeping perfectly straight-faced in the most outlandish situations?’

‘Well, it was obvious that you’re feeling sad.’

‘Yes,’ said Tuomas Heinonen. He seemed to be thinking. ‘What I’d like to ask you, Kimmo, sorry if I’m bothering you, but anyway I’m really sorry about turning up here like this …’

‘You don’t have to keep saying sorry.’

‘But how … how have you managed over these last few years, since your wife’s death … how have you managed living like this for years, I mean, on your own? I’ve often wondered. I’m sure it sounds silly, but I do kind of admire you for having this … this world of your own to live in, so peaceful, at least that’s the way you …’

Joentaa wondered what Tuomas was getting at. He looked up into the eyes of the woman he didn’t know. She was standing in the doorway, sleepy and naked.

‘What are you two talking about all this time?’ she asked.

Heinonen turned to look at her.

There was silence for a while, then Kimmo said, ‘Tuomas, may I introduce you to … this is …’

‘Names don’t matter, but you can call me Larissa,’ said the woman.

Larissa, thought Joentaa.

‘That’s what the others call me,’ she added.

There was a long pause.

Heinonen stared at the woman in the doorway. The woman in the doorway did not seem to mind either the silence or the way Heinonen looked at her.

Larissa, thought Joentaa, suddenly feeling his heart lift.

‘I … I think I’d better be …’ Tuomas Heinonen began, then broke off. Kimmo Joentaa concentrated on the silence.

An easy, a different silence. A new silence.

Names don’t matter, he thought.

‘I really didn’t want to barge in on you two … I mean I didn’t know that … that you … well, Paulina will be waiting, and there’s the twins …’

‘Let’s get some sleep,’ said Joentaa.

TUOMAS
HEINONEN SLEPT
on the living-room sofa, the woman whose name he didn’t know slept beside him in his bed in the bedroom, and Kimmo Joentaa lay awake.

Again, he concentrated on the woman’s quiet, regular breathing and the silence in the background. A clear day was beginning to dawn outside.

He still felt light. Tired and light and thirsty. He went about on tiptoe so as not to wake his guest. Tuomas Heinonen was sprawled on the sofa. Judging by the look of him, he was fast asleep. The bottle and the milk carton stood on the kitchen table.

Joentaa drank a glass of water and watched the morning turn bluer and brighter and whiter and sunnier, until it filled the rectangle of the window like a perfect picture postcard. He thought of the silence, and at almost the same time heard the telephone ringing and a heavy thud. ‘Shit … what’s that, then?’ muttered Heinonen, who was lying on the floor.

‘You all right?’ asked Joentaa.

‘I fell out of bed … I mean off the sofa,’ said Heinonen, as Joentaa searched about for the phone. He couldn’t find it. Heinonen scrambled up and asked vaguely if he could help.

‘It must be here somewhere,’ said Joentaa.

‘These cordless things … I can never find ours either, and then there’s a twin in each arm and I’d need a third hand to find the phone,’ said Heinonen sleepily.

The phone stopped ringing, and a few seconds later the ring tone of Joentaa’s mobile sounded out in the corridor. He went and got it out of his coat pocket.

‘Joentaa.’

‘Kimmo, Paavo here. Christmas is over. I came back on duty early. The crime scene is in the forest. Go out of town down Eerikinkatu right to the end of the road, then turn left, keep going up the rise for quite a while and then along the forest track until you get there.’

‘Right, I’ll …’

‘Are you with me so far?’

‘Yes, sure … have Laukkanen or his colleagues been informed yet?’

‘Laukkanen is there already. He’s the victim.’

‘Right, I’ll just go and get …’

‘Are you awake yet? I said, Laukkanen is the victim.’

‘Laukkanen …’

‘Our forensic pathologist Laukkanen is lying out there in the forest. He’s wearing cross-country skis and he’s dead,’ said Paavo Sundström.

Joentaa said nothing.

Silence is easy, he thought.

‘What is it?’ asked Heinonen behind him.

‘Will you call Heinonen? I’ll inform Petri Grönholm. As far as I know he should have been back from the Caribbean yesterday,’ said Sundström.

‘Yes, I’ll …’

‘Kimmo, get moving, please!’ said Sundström, cutting the connection.

‘What’s up?’ asked Heinonen again.

‘Laukkanen …’ said Joentaa.

‘Yes?’

‘Paavo Sundström says he’s dead,’ said Joentaa.

‘Oh?’ Heinonen looked at him like a question mark personified.

‘Paavo’s there already. He said Laukkanen was the victim.’

‘But that’s crazy,’ said Heinonen.

‘Let’s get out there,’ said Joentaa.

‘He’s taking the piss. These practical jokes are getting to be a pain,’ said Heinonen.

‘Let’s get out there,’ said Joentaa again.

Heinonen nodded. ‘Of course. But there’s something wrong about this. I mean, it’s crazy,’ he said, reaching for his clothes, which he had left draped over the armchair. ‘Oh … sorry, I’m afraid you’ll have to lend me something. I had that Santa Claus outfit on.’

‘Just a moment.’ Joentaa went into the bedroom and put on a pair of trousers and a pullover. The woman had wrapped herself up in the duvet and was fast asleep. He looked at her for a while. Then he took a shirt and a pair of trousers for Tuomas Heinonen out of the wardrobe, carefully closed the bedroom door, and went back into the living room.

Heinonen had the clothes on within seconds. ‘Shall we go?’ he asked.

‘Wait a moment.’

Joentaa found a piece of paper and a pen, and stood there, wondering what to say.

‘Er … Kimmo?’ said Heinonen.

‘Sorry,’ said Joentaa, and he wrote:
Dear Larissa, I have to go out on a case. Hope you slept well. Would be nice if you were still here when I get home. Kimmo
.

He put the note and the spare front-door key to the house on the living-room table, where she would be bound to see them. The winter day was yellow and blue, and gave him a prickling feeling behind his eyes.

Heinonen called his wife as they drove off, and Kimmo Joentaa thought of coming home to an empty house in the evening. And then he thought that he didn’t know her address, or her date of birth. All he knew was that her name was not Larissa.

THE SNOW CRUNCHED
underfoot. Heinonen muttered something incomprehensible, and Joentaa thought this wasn’t real. A picture, a staged scene outside the context of reality.

The dead man lay on his back, one of his skis sticking vertically up in the air. His pale blue sports jacket was drenched in blood. The scene-of-crime officers, in their white overalls, merged into the snow.

Kari Niemi, head of the forensic unit, was giving instructions in his calm way. The cross-country ski trail lay behind and in front of the body on the ground, disappearing into the forest on the right and going all the way to the horizon on the left. The winter sun hung over the horizon. Paavo Sundström came to meet them, saying, ‘That was quick.’

Heinonen said something or other, and Joentaa walked past them both and round the dead man. A pointed woollen cap, the same light blue as the sports jacket and the sky, lay beside the man’s head, which was turned to one side and
away from them. Joentaa crouched down and looked at Patrik Laukkanen’s face.

‘Two boys and a woman found him. He must have been taken by surprise. Presumably attacked from behind, seems to have been stabbed with a knife. At least, that’s what Salomon thinks,’ said Sundström.

Joentaa looked up and saw Salomon Hietalahti sitting on a bench a little way off. Hietalahti had worked more closely with Laukkanen than anyone else at the Forensic Institute. Joentaa himself hadn’t known Laukkanen well, but he did know that he and Hietalahti had worked very harmoniously together. Perhaps they had even been friends.

He stood up and went over to the bench, which offered a picturesque view of the snow-covered city. ‘Salomon,’ he said.

‘Hello, Kimmo,’ said Hietalahti abstractedly.

Joentaa sat down on the bench beside him.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t … maybe you shouldn’t be working on this case,’ said Joentaa.

‘Maybe not,’ said Hietalahti.

On the periphery of his vision, Joentaa saw Heinonen and Sundström deep in energetic conversation. Petri Grönholm was near the police barrier that had been put up. Beside him were the two little boys who had found Patrik Laukkanen, and who were now following what went on wide-eyed and with mixed feelings. They looked horrified and at the same time excited. Down below, in the city, church bells were ringing.

‘Did you know he’d only recently become a father? Patrik, I mean,’ asked Hietalahti.

‘No.’

‘Old to be a father for the first time. In his early fifties. He never said much about himself, but then this happened. He thought he might be too old, he might die before his son was grown up … that bothered him a good deal.’

Joentaa nodded, and sought for words.

‘She doesn’t know yet. Leena …’ said Salomon. ‘I mean, Leena doesn’t know that Patrik … that he’s dead. Will you see to it? Tell her?’

‘I don’t know … look, I’ll discuss it with Paavo Sundström.’

‘It might be a good idea to do it soon.’

‘Yes, sure. You’re right.’

‘They’ve been a couple for quite a long time. At least thirteen years, all the time we’ve been working together, and back then, when I was just beginning here, Patrik was already with Leena. I sometimes went round to their place for a meal … not all that often, but it was always very nice. Patrik told me Leena was incredibly happy about the baby … he never said so straight out, but I think they … they’d been trying for some time before it worked.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘They live quite close to here. Two or three kilometres away,’ said Hietalahti.

In the distance, Sundström was gesticulating. Joentaa watched the show for a while before he realised that Sundström’s gesticulations were for him. He got up and went over to Sundström.

‘What is it?’ he called before he got there.

‘We ought to let his wife know,’ Sundström called back.

‘Girlfriend,’ said Heinonen, when Joentaa had joined them.

‘Hm?’

‘Girlfriend. Laukkanen wasn’t married. I’m fairly sure he isn’t married to Leena,’ said Heinonen.

‘Makes no difference, we have to inform the woman Laukkanen was living with … Hang on a moment. Number 17 Yriönkatu. Do you two know her?’

Joentaa and Heinonen nodded.

‘So?’ asked Sundström.

‘You know her too. She was at the Christmas party two weeks ago,’ said Heinonen.

‘She was?’ said Sundström.

‘She’s a good deal younger than Patrik. Late thirties, I’d guess,’ said Heinonen. ‘Sandy hair.’

‘Ah,’ said Sundström. ‘Yes … yes, I remember. I was afraid Laukkanen would make advances while he was pissed, I felt ashamed for him.’

‘Well …’ said Heinonen.

‘Or … or maybe I was just envious because it did look as if Laukkanen was getting somewhere with his silly advances.’

‘Well …’ said Heinonen again.

Joentaa looked at the dead man in the snow, and remembered talking to Patrik Laukkanen only a couple of days ago.

In a down-to-earth tone, about death.

They had both been bending over the body of a young woman presumed dead from an overdose of strong sleeping tablets.

‘Leena, did you say? Damn good-looking woman,’ said Sundström.

Laukkanen. He had always seemed to be bustling about, his restlessness in curious contrast with the silence of the mortuaries where he worked.

‘Kimmo?’ said Sundström.

‘Hm?’

‘Shall we go?’