Black Noise (14 page)

Auni Nurmi and Johann Gerber were especially interested in the education of exceptionally gifted children. In particular in the findings that gifted children often became bored in large classes when forced to adapt to the pace of slower students, which could lead to the brightest turning into underperformers who hid their talent to avoid arousing jealousy in their peers.

‘Auni and Johann believed in home schooling. They thought it allowed them to train children as elite individuals from the beginning. Their intent was good, in a way, although the idea that almost anyone could be groomed into a top performer was somewhat… foolish. It set such demanding goals for the children.’

Mari’s mother tried the method at home, on her own children. There were two main principles: perfect focus on continuous education and the elimination of all activities that were too emotional or distracted from learning.

The experiment got out of hand, Mamia said.

‘It wasn’t a family. It was a laboratory test.’

Lia listened in shock to the events Mamia described.

Mari was the family’s third child. When she was born the experiment was already well underway and family life had adapted to it. Her father went to work, supporting the family financially and participating in teaching at home in the evenings. The mother was responsible for the children’s education during the day and kept precise diaries of her research.

‘At first they called it Dedication,’ Mamia said. ‘Dedicated education.’

‘I’ve never heard of it,’ Lia said.

‘Neither has anyone else. My husband and I only heard the term years later when everything came out. They had different names for it and were always coming up with new ones. I guess the idea was that if it had the right name somehow it would gain more respect.’

The children weren’t allowed to stay in contact with people outside the family. All their energy was focused on acquiring knowledge. They didn’t watch television because it was too entertaining. Sometimes they listened to radio programmes if they related to topics they were learning about. At that time, in the 1980s, they didn’t have the Internet, Mamia reminded Lia.

Every day they studied for ten hours, although Sunday was shorter. Schedules and subjects were planned based on pedagogical research: Finnish, foreign languages, lots of maths, science. Not much art, mostly just listening to music and sometimes a little drawing. They memorised information at a tremendous pace from
books and encyclopaedic summaries their parents went to libraries to write up.

Lia devoured every strange detail of Mamia’s tale as it shed new light on sides of Mari she had never known and explained the ones she did. Mari’s loneliness. Her desire for control, her overwhelming need to master her environment. Her constant assimilation of information. And her ability to recognise other people’s thoughts.

At the same time in Germany, Johann Gerber’s family’s three children were going through the same thing. The experiment was meant to demonstrate that children raised exactly the same way in two different countries would all become geniuses. Mari’s mother and Gerber had agreed that if she had better educational outcomes in Finland, they would publish their findings under the names Nurmi and Gerber. If Germany did better, it would be Gerber and Nurmi.

‘There was something attractive in the idea that anyone could become exceptional. In a way it was splendid. Very democratic,’ Mamia said.

Their family had always been for equality, she said. Lia nodded, remembering what Mari had said about her extended family. She had been tight-lipped, only speaking about her father’s side, never about her mother or childhood.

‘We called it the Laboratory,’ Mamia said. ‘What they had to endure.’

The children were unequalled in the masses of facts they could recite, but socially they were very reserved.

‘And serious. So much so it was hard to understand,’ Mamia said.
‘They were physically healthy, but it was like something was missing from them.’

The children always attended to their basic daily chores, as if they had grown up in a young offender institution.

‘But even in reform schools the children are always surrounded by other children,’ Mamia pointed out. ‘Mari’s family lived in their own little world. The children were so hungry for the companionship of other people.’

In order to maintain even the weak connection they had with their grandchildren, Mamia and her husband never reported them to the authorities. At her workplace in the magistrate’s court, Mamia
did investigate the legality of this sort of childrearing: the country’s constitution and primary education laws at the time gave parents the right to decide how their children would be educated.

Whenever Mamia saw the children, she tried to give them a glimpse of a more normal life. At their grandparents’ house the children could try things that were forbidden at home: using the telephone, reading picture books, watching television.

‘Mari suffered the most,’ Mamia said. ‘She was the quietest and most withdrawn. She was also the best in her studies and always had the best exam scores. Auni expected Mari to be her shining piece of evidence that would bring notoriety to her research.’

Their mother frequently told the family that the results of the study would reward all their hard work. They just had to work hard enough.

‘Sometimes when Auni and Mikael weren’t around to hear, I would tell Mari that one day she would get out of it. That someday it would end and they could live like other people.’

Mari never replied to that. She didn’t dare, Mamia said.

Lia felt so sick she could barely speak.

Mari spent her childhood thinking of escape.

Nurmi and Gerber’s experiment failed horribly.

The children in both families started showing maladaptive symptoms. Mamia had heard that one of the Gerber boys in particular rebelled aggressively. Gerber had treated his children much more harshly than the Rautees and sometimes disciplined them physically. Mari and her siblings became fearful and hypersensitive. They were always watching other people’s reactions, Mamia said.

And Mari started focusing on interpreting other people. As a child she had to struggle to know what her parents and siblings and other people were thinking and feeling, and that became her means of survival.

But that didn’t completely explain her ability. There had to be something else to it.

Auni Nurmi and Johann Gerber wrote one report on their study. In it they included the children’s learning outcomes but didn’t deal with their development in other areas. When Gerber presented
the report to experts in his faculty in Germany, the reception was one of dismay. Germany looked with suspicion on any educational programme that trained elite groups. The burden of National Socialist education was still too close, and after the war any theories that stressed discipline and leadership tended to be rebuffed.

In Finland the whole experiment was never addressed in any university or by the educational authorities. Officially it didn’t even exist.

‘Mikael also suffered from it,’ Mamia said. ‘He still hasn’t recovered, just like the children.’

Mari’s parents divorced when she was a teenager. Up until that point the family had soldiered on together. It was no coincidence what professions the children ended up in, Mamia said.

‘I think they’ve always been trying to fix what happened to them.’

Mari left Finland immediately after graduating in record time with a degree in psychology. Her big sister became a teacher whose philosophy was completely the opposite of her parents’. Mari’s little brother had cut off all contact with his parents.

Mamia had lost contact with Mari for years. She didn’t even know precisely where she had been living. After settling in London, Mari had started calling Mamia now and then, but she only heard from the other siblings occasionally.

‘They meet sometimes,’ Mamia said. ‘No one talks about the past. Theirs is a family without memories. The children grew up very fragile in a way. Which is why I’ve always feared something would happen to one of them. Especially to Mari.’

Mamia fell silent. Everything had been said.

Lia weighed what she had heard. Inside her, pity and indignation roiled. How could anyone have done this in 1980s Finland, which was so proud of its democratic education system, one of the best in the world? What trials and tribulations had Mari endured as she grew up?

Dedication. The Laboratory.

In a way her mother’s goal had been realised, Lia thought: Mari was exceptionally gifted. But not just at the things her mother had intended, also in her strange, sometimes painful tendency to observe
others and see what they were thinking. How could she ever talk about all this with Mari?

‘You said Mari is lying at home alone now barely able to speak,’ Mamia said.

This had happened before. At the time of her parents’ divorce and when Mamia’s husband, Mari’s grandfather, died.

‘I suppose Mari thought she should have been able to prevent what happened.’

The children had been raised to think that they were chosen to live an exceptional life where they were personally responsible not only for their own success but for how everything played out in the world.

Once Mari went mute at a Rautee family reunion, Mamia said.

‘It was one of the rare times when Mari and her sister were allowed to see that many people at one time when they were children.’

Lia was surprised.

‘At Vanajanlinna Estate? Near Hämeenlinna?’ she asked.

‘Has Mari talked about it?’ Mamia asked in amazement. ‘It’s been so long. It was a rather unpleasant situation. After the party she had to stay in bed for several days.’

Once Mari had confided in Lia how at the age of eight, at this very party, she had first understood her ability to read people. But in Mari’s version of events, the reunion had sounded different, not at all dark.

‘Tell me about it,’ Lia said.

Mamia looked away.

‘It’s a long story,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to talk about it another time.’ Fatigue shadowed the old woman’s face.

‘We’ve been talking a long time. It’s almost night here,’ she said. ‘Are the nights very different in England than in Finland? It’s been ever so long since I’ve visited.’

Lia thought.

‘They are a little different.’

The night felt different since there were more people around, she said.

‘Yes, you’re right,’ Mamia said. ‘You’re right. The world always feels different depending on how many people you think you’re sharing it with. Goodnight. Please ask Mari to ring.’

They had to go to the police.

Lia was the first to say so out loud, in a meeting at the Studio. Rico, Maggie and Paddy’s expressions showed that the same thought had been running through their minds.

It was afternoon. After doing a short work day at
Level
, Lia had rushed to the Studio. The previous night she had heard Mamia’s bewildering tale of Mari’s childhood. The rest of the evening she had spent at home pondering how to lure Mari back to the land of the living. And the whole time her grief over Berg flickered in the background.

Everything that had happened since had clouded the fact that the man who killed Berg and four other people was still free. The police certainly would have announced if the man had been captured – even the tiniest details about the video killings were being endlessly rehashed in the news media. More and more politicians had taken up the issue too. The actions of the police were still under harsh scrutiny, and some were calling for them to be given more resources and leeway.

Apparently, the pictures of the killer dragging Brian Fowler’s body hadn’t led to any detentions or arrests. But at the Studio they still had Rico’s calculations of the places the man might strike next.

‘I can’t give my program to the police,’ Rico said.

In it he had used so much information acquired illegally from official and private databases that the police would realise immediately that the programmer was a hacker. And Rico couldn’t risk police interviews: he broke British and international law every day. But he agreed with the rest of them about the goal in general. They had to use every expedient, and they had already tried all of their resources.

Receiving the results of Rico’s program wouldn’t help the police much if they couldn’t also know how the calculations were made, Paddy pointed out. ‘They might have information they could add to improve the results.’

‘We could maybe give them the variables. In theory they could dig that up themselves. And the results of the calculation,’ Rico said. ‘But not the program or any information about who made it or how.’

‘I could ring Gerrish,’ Lia said.

She had been thinking about this all morning, delaying the obvious solution. Lia never wanted to see Detective Chief Inspector Peter Gerrish of the City of London Police ever again given the doubts he must harbour about her based on their previous meetings. But she had once supplied Gerrish with information and he had done the same in return. The DCI would probably at least answer her call.

Rico, Paddy and Maggie considered the idea possible. If any of them wondered at the least experienced member of the Studio taking the initiative, it didn’t show.

‘It could work,’ Rico said. ‘But how are you going to get the police to believe that you did the calculations yourself?’

‘Maybe I don’t have to,’ Lia said.

The previous time Detective Chief Inspector Gerrish had grudgingly accepted that Lia wasn’t going to reveal all of her sources. He had tried to look into Lia’s background, but when nothing suspicious came up, he concentrated on the main issue, solving the crime.

‘Five dead, the killer free and the media waging open war on the police,’ Paddy said. ‘I’m thinking that in this situation the police are going to appreciate any kind of help they can get.’

Lia had prepared herself to meet DCI Gerrish. She was not expecting a warm reception.

Gerrish walked down the steps of the City of London Police headquarters on Wood Street and looked at Lia curiously. After they shook hands, he told her why.

‘It was high time for us to meet again.’

One year earlier they had met three times. Each had heard things from the other that helped them investigate a crime. But in Gerrish’s eyes Lia had to be a strange case: a civilian who intervened in police business, and in only the most shocking crimes no less. Still he had agreed to the meeting without hesitation.

Gerrish led her to the Major Investigations Team offices. Lia remembered the narrow corridors, and the piles of paper on Gerrish’s desk had not grown shorter since her last visit. As she was sitting down, Gerrish motioned to one of the piles.

‘That case from last year,’ he explained. ‘It isn’t over.’

Because several things about the case remained unsolved, the police had not completely given up their investigation. All unfinished cases in the police division were taken up for evaluation once a year. They reviewed the evidence, seeing if anything new had come to light about the parties or facts involved.

‘We don’t reopen them completely, but someone approaches them with fresh eyes,’ Gerrish said. ‘We’ve been meaning to get in touch with you.’

Lia shook her head.

‘I don’t have anything new about that case.’

‘You didn’t come because of that?’

‘No. I came because of the video killings.’

The police detective’s gaze turned penetrating.

‘Are you serious?’

Lia ignored the question.

‘I have information that might help you.’

‘Then I have to tape this conversation,’ Gerrish said quickly, leaning towards the digital recorder at the edge of his desk and turning it on.

‘Is that necessary?’

‘Apparently it is.’

The recording made Lia more nervous, but she couldn’t take time thinking about it.

‘I have a sort of calculation for you,’ she began, spreading out a map of London marked with the places indicated by Rico’s program.

She explained how a computer program had been tasked with analysing probable future locations for more killings in the video series.

Gerrish listened to her account in silence.

‘We came up with twenty-three places. One of them is where the latest murder, the one with the two victims, Brian Fowler and Bertil Tore Berg, happened,’ Lia said in conclusion.

She had memorised what to say. She used Berg’s full name, as a stranger might.

‘We?’ Gerrish asked.

Lia was prepared for this. With Paddy she had practised responding to the questions Gerrish might present.

‘I did the calculations with a friend. He knows computer programming.’

‘And your friend’s name is…?’

‘That I’m not going to say.’

Gerrish stared at the map.

‘You got one right,’ he said.

Lia nodded. Quickly he snapped up his mobile and made a call.

‘This is Gerrish,’ he said when someone answered. ‘I have a civilian here who claims her computer program guessed Rich Lane right. In advance. Before the shooting there.’

Lia didn’t hear the answer, but she could tell its tenor from Gerrish’s face.

‘I don’t know how it’s possible. But the results are right here in front of me,’ Gerrish continued.

He clearly didn’t like the instructions he received, but he didn’t start arguing.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to Lia after ringing off.

‘Where?’

‘You want to get mixed up in a police investigation?’ he said coolly. ‘Well, you are now. My colleague wants to see you. His calculations didn’t get any streets right.’

The drive was only five kilometres but the afternoon traffic made it feel much longer.

Sitting in DCI Gerrish’s car, next to him, she tried to keep calm in a situation that was out of her control. She glanced around the car. Gerrish’s office was cluttered, but the car was spotless, without a single paper or drink can. Either he loved his car or one of his subordinates cleaned it regularly.

‘Why are you drawn to cases like this?’ Gerrish asked.

‘That thing a year ago was mostly a coincidence,’ Lia said. ‘It just… came into my life. This one I wanted to intervene in myself.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I can. And because I don’t think the police are completely handling it the way they ought to be.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, that you’re concealing the fact that this is anti-gay violence.’

Gerrish fell silent for a moment.

‘We are investigating the gay aspect,’ he finally said. ‘We have a lot of resources on that. What we say in public is a different matter.’

‘Why?’

Gerrish suddenly turned the wheel and overtook two cars by veering into the oncoming lane.

‘That’s a pretty big question,’ he said.

When Gerrish pulled out onto Victoria Street, and Lia saw that they were approaching New Scotland Yard, her breathing quickened. The headquarters of the entire Metropolitan Police Service.

Gerrish noticed her gaze.

‘We aren’t going there,’ he said.

New Scotland Yard was an administrative centre, and that was where Operation Rhea had begun, he said. The investigation quickly moved into another space when it became clear how big the case would be. Such large investigations required dozens of rooms, which the police rented in buildings where they could proceed unnoticed.

They passed the tall, shining mirrored towers of New Scotland Yard. Gerrish changed lanes and turned onto Artillery Row. A couple of corners more, and on Francis Street he pulled into the underground car park of a large, red brick building.

Gerrish flashed his badge at the security guard and stopped the car where the ramp widened. As they hurried to the lift, Lia saw one of the guards climb into the car and drive it off somewhere into the bowels of the car park.

Second level, entrance checkpoint. Gerrish swiped himself through the electronic gates with his ID. To the officer at the reception desk he said, ‘We’re going to the incident room. She’s with me.’

Gerrish only paused for a moment to write a name on the guest register lying on the counter: Lia Pajala. Lia noticed that he spelled it right from memory. The officer behind the desk handed Lia a visitor pass, and Gerrish hurried her on through the network of corridors.

Their arrival silenced several small groups of police investigators, who stopped working to stare at Gerrish and Lia. This was the room
from which the operation was run around the clock. Next door Lia could see into a windowless hall where twenty or so police officers sat answering phone calls in hushed tones.

‘Brewster,’ Gerrish said, nodding to the head of the investigation. ‘Here she is.’

Keith Brewster was a tall, impatient seeming man, who eyed Lia closely.

Lia ignored his look. She glanced around nervously at the large space. The incident room was full of tables, chairs, computers and information. Here and there stood tall notice boards with lists of things, place names and small pictures. Even in the age of computers they wanted to keep all of this out where the investigators could see it. Some items on a side table were completely foreign to Lia: electronic devices, small glass bottles and strange words written on a whiteboard.

Enlargements of images from the video killings dominated the walls of the entire space. They made the place creepy. The pictures were all too familiar to Lia. Rico had enlarged many of the same ones at the Studio for them to look at, but here their dreadfulness was eye catching.

Two pictures showed Berg. Something ripped inside Lia. Crime scene photos of their Berg. Blood, so much blood. Berg’s position unnatural. The other picture showed how the force of the shot had ripped his head apart. Berg was a broken, mangled, dead creature.

Lia couldn’t scream. She couldn’t cry. All she could do was stand and stare. Her throat hurt, and she had to swallow. In these pictures was all the sorrow of the world, but she couldn’t let it loose.

‘Who is she?’ Brewster asked Gerrish, nodding towards Lia.

A Finnish graphic designer, he replied. A civilian who had provided information about a previous criminal case and now possibly about the video killings.

‘She says she got Rich Lane right,’ Gerrish said.

‘Not possible,’ a young male police officer said from the side of the room. ‘How the fuck is that possible!’

At Gerrish’s signal, Lia spread her map out on one of the tables. The ten or so officers in the room regarded her with conspicuous
suspicion, but when they saw the map, the entire mood in the room changed.

The lead investigator, Brewster, quickly scanned the bits of street marked on the map.

‘Twelve of the same places we had,’ he counted. ‘All the other entries are in entirely different places. How did you come up with these?’

Lia listed the same variables she had to Gerrish earlier. The young officer was dumbfounded when he heard that Lia had precise information about the businesses at specific properties and the location of CCTV cameras at her disposal. The police had more comprehensive records than any other official agency, but the details in them were often out of date or otherwise deficient.

‘How can you get even partially accurate information about so many properties?’ the man demanded.

‘We combined several different databases,’ Lia said. ‘Including commercial business directories.’

Brewster straightened up from the map.

‘Yes, you must have, since this information is impossible to get from any one source,’ Brewster said. ‘We have SCAS to help us, but even they haven’t been able to get all this.’

Gerrish noticed Lia’s questioning look. The Serious Crime Analysis Section was a service of the National Crime Agency that specialised in identifying serial rapists and killers, he explained. Its analysts and databases were located in Bramshill, in Hampshire, but it helped out police forces across the country on request. They had been involved in Operation Rhea from the beginning.

What information did the police have in their program? Lia asked.

Gerrish conducted a short, hushed negotiation with his colleagues. As the product of this discussion, Brewster called Lia over to look at a printed table on the wall.

‘Here is a list,’ Brewster said.

The information in the table was mostly familiar to Lia: Underground stations, the proximity of bars…

‘How did you choose the clubs?’ Lia asked.

They had to be known gay gathering places that had been open for a while, Brewster explained. The name of the club could have
changed over the years, but it needed to have been in business for more than two. Before Rich Lane, each kidnapping and discovery of a body had happened near an old, established bar.