Black Noise (17 page)

Sitting by the tall window with her best friend, Lia felt as though she knew too much about things it wasn’t good to know anything about, and she thought that the only thing in this situation that might help was for Mari’s strength to return.

We need her.

Mari looked at her, a warm memory in her eyes.

‘When you came to the Studio the first time, you were so confused,’ Mari said. ‘I felt like saying, calm down, girl, I’m about to show you things you’ve never even dreamed of before. But I couldn’t say anything like that. You were so panicked.’

‘Well, you did show me things I’d never dreamed of,’ Lia said.

‘Yes, I did.’

Mari’s eyes began to water, and she choked up.

Lia knew what Mari was crying for, for what they had had at the Studio. And Berg.

When she had cried that out, she poured them more wine and said one of their Finnish words, the words that English couldn’t quite match.

‘
Perkele
.’ Yes, it was the name of the Devil, yes it was an expletive, but it was also so much more.

Mari was coming back.

By eleven o’clock they were seriously tipsy. Mari had turned off the music, which was too fraught for them now.

Lia could feel it was time for a small confession.

‘I’ve been talking to your grandmother,’ she said. ‘Online.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Mari said. ‘I saw on the computer that she had called.’

‘She told me… about your childhood,’ Lia said.

‘Ah.’

Upon hearing this, Mari looked aside.

‘She told me about the Laboratory,’ Lia said.

Mari sipped her wine. Her expression revealed absolutely nothing.

‘That means you’re the only one outside my family who knows,’ Mari said.

That was enough. A desire to protect the woman in front of her filled Lia, a need to show she was worthy of trust.

‘Mamia just asked me to tell you that I know,’ Lia explained.

‘Mamia is a dear old lady who always thinks she knows what’s right for other people,’ Mari said. ‘In that sense I take after my family perfectly.’

An awkward silence fell. In order to fill it, Lia started talking about
Level
, little things that were happening at work. Mari wasn’t listening.

‘We were like caged animals,’ she suddenly said.

Mari and her three siblings had believed that life was supposed to be as limited and regulated as it was in their childhood home. Their mother convinced them they were different from other children because they got to have school at home and they had their own special way of learning. When they saw pictures of big school classes, it felt strange: did everyone else really have to sit and read in such big groups?

Mari’s big sister was the only one of them who sensed that something was wrong with the way the family lived. But even her sister didn’t know how many things in their severe upbringing were so unusual. Over the years of visiting their grandparents they began to understand.

‘We could see it in their expressions. When our own grandmother looked at us that way. Shocked at how we were. Caged animals.’

The neighbours thought the family must belong to a strange religious sect, Mari later learned. Intense religiosity was typical of families who home schooled.

‘There was also something very Finnish about the way our neighbours let us isolate ourselves,’ Mari said.

Lia understood. In Finland people didn’t assume everyone had to be social all the time. Keeping at a distance a family who had chosen an idiosyncratic way of life was just as well.

Over time the four siblings developed a strong sense of community. Even though they didn’t keep in touch as adults, trust was
always their bedrock. Their relationships had already been tried so thoroughly in their childhood. It was as if they owed each other something – what, Mari wasn’t sure.

‘All we had was each other. And Mom, in the beginning. Mom, who wanted us to be quiet and sit still and concentrate on our studies all the time every day. We tried to be the best at knowing things.’

The days of home school melted together. The schedule was always the same. Up at seven, morning chores and then studying by eight. Breaks only for eating and once a day for time outside. On outings they avoided meeting other people. Instead, while they walked their mother quizzed them on what they had been reading.

‘Sometimes when people stared at us outside, I thought it was because they were jealous. That other people knew we were special.’

There was always the feeling that they were supposed to be. A feeling of constant, absolute necessity to be better than others.

They studied enormous amounts of material. Speed reading was one of the first things their parents trained them in. And constant testing: their mother was always assessing how well they were learning what they were reading.

‘Information was our escape. If we knew things, we felt safe.’

Afterwards, as an adult, Mari thought that her mother had really been incapable of treating children like children. Perhaps Auni Nurmi had started her research project partially so her children would grow up to be like her as quickly as possible.

Lia could hear from Mari’s voice how hard this was on her. Lia felt like interrupting the story, but she didn’t have the nerve. She had always sensed something almost manic in Mari’s appetite for information. Now she knew why.

Mari’s parents ended up having a series of serious rows with the children’s grandparents, who at one point threatened to go to the authorities, to report the family to the district child protection officers. Mari’s mother threatened to move the family out of the county and cut off all contact with the grandparents. She also pointed to the children’s exceptional test results.

Twice a year the headmaster from the local secondary school visited them. They didn’t tell him exactly what kind of pedagogical
experiment the family was running, but the headmaster was very impressed with the children’s knowledge and their mother’s focus on discipline.

‘I always made up these complicated imaginary stories about that old man,’ Mari said. ‘About him and everyone else we met.’

Of course the children wanted their mother’s approval. They did everything, and sometimes their mother was satisfied.

‘Whenever one of us got good marks in a test, she always said the goal wasn’t here in this moment and place. The goal was always somewhere ahead of us.’

The most important thing was always the research, Nurmi and Gerber’s experiment, and the whole family was responsible for making it a success. They were the Nurmi and Gerber experiment.

In a way they never terminated the experiment, it just sputtered out as the family broke up. Mari’s parents were fighting more and more, and the children began to realise how odd their lifestyle was and became ashamed of it. When their parents split, their mother moved to Germany to continue her research. None of the children went with her.

‘Then Mamia let it all out at once, years later. She said our family was a laboratory. That was the moment I started hating my childhood. And Doctor Auni Nurmi.’

Lia swallowed her discomfort at the words Mari used to describe her mother.

‘I don’t want anyone knowing anything about this,’ Mari added.

Lia nodded.

They talked for a while longer. Mari asked about Lia’s meeting with Detective Chief Inspector Gerrish, but Lia noticed Mari wasn’t concentrating on their conversation.

In the end they just sat quietly, sipping their wine and looking out. Only a few lights were on in the neighbouring windows. The street stayed mostly deserted, with only the occasional pedestrian this late at night. Really there was nothing to look at. It was peaceful. It felt sufficient.

When Lia left for home in the small hours of the morning, she looked out of the taxi window at London, Islington, Chalk Farm,
and Belsize Park. She thought of the killer who somehow had become even stranger now. She thought of the stacks of books and papers in Mari’s flat and the moment during the evening when Mari had sworn.

Mari was still living in the Laboratory. But she was coming out.

The police didn’t announce the connection between the snuff videos and Queen.

Lia waited for it to appear in the news at any moment, and all day at
Level
she kept an eye on the wires. Not a word.

She texted Mari about it. Why were the police concealing it?

The police were probably researching their violent crime databases for anything related to Queen, Mari guessed. The investigators were combing the Queen forums online, sifting through Queen fan videos, interviewing people who knew the subject.

‘The police don’t want to let it out because as long as only they have it, the murderer might make a mistake and do something on one of these forums,’ Mari wrote.

During the day it occurred to Lia that maybe
Level
should write about it. The strange connection between the killings and the band would be an amazing scoop for any news outlet. The print run would sell out, and the website would probably crash under the traffic. They would be the envy of everyone in the media.

But the thought of leaking something to her own magazine was too difficult. Lia would have a hard time doing it without revealing she knew something about it, and, above all, the news could hurt the police investigation. The whole idea made her more and more ashamed as the day wore on. How could she even have considered something like that, treating it like news to sell?

She spent the last two hours of the day plugging away harder than usual, assuaging her conscience by agreeing to some extra work for the next week and making a couple of calls to arrange something for the evening.

Before her appointment in Hoxton, she stopped in Harrow at the shooting range. Paddy had arranged for Bob Pell to take over supervising Lia so that she could come and practise if Pell had space on the range. Pell tried to offer additional instruction, but Lia declined.

She shot for an hour. She was getting better all the time. Her Heckler & Koch P7 did get hot quite quickly, but that forced her to take breaks and focus more on her performance.

At the end of the hour, she rang Mari to announce she was coming soon. This time she didn’t use her key to Mari’s flat, she rang the bell. Mari came to open immediately.

‘Let’s go out,’ Lia said.

Mari’s guard went up instantly.

‘I don’t want to go to the Studio right now,’ she said.

‘Who said anything about the Studio?’ Lia asked and made Mari grab her coat.

Lia had found an appropriate place within walking distance of Mari’s home. Not right in the neighbourhood, because she guessed Mari wouldn’t want that.

When Mari saw the name on the door, Anga Yoga, she stopped.

‘I don’t want to do yoga,’ she said.

‘Of course you don’t,’ Lia said and dragged her in.

She had reserved them their own small room where an instructor was waiting, a woman with strong Caribbean features.

Although the serenity of the yoga studio was in complete contrast to the noise of the half illegal shooting range Lia had just left, the places also had an absurd similarity. Both demanded perfect focus. Both had strong effects on the mind and body.

The instructor looked at Mari’s reluctant stance for a moment and then pulled Lia aside.

‘Your friend doesn’t want to do yoga, and she isn’t really in the right shape for it now anyway,’ the woman said.

‘She’s in fine shape. And she needs something like this,’ Lia said.

‘I don’t mean physical shape,’ the woman said quietly. ‘If a person is spiritually weak, yoga can be too much effort. It can trigger too strong emotions.’

‘Let’s take it easy then,’ Lia said. ‘And stop immediately if she starts feeling bad.’

Mari agreed to come into the dressing room, where they changed into the loose clothing Lia had brought. She agreed to sit on the floor in the small practice room.

When the instructor asked them to slowly lower themselves into a supine position, tears began running down Mari’s face.

The hour was an intense experience for all of them. The instructor and Lia guided Mari through a gentle series of movements, watching
as she cried and feeling their own eyes water as well. It was as if they were watching someone close to them lying down on a hospital bed for a frightening test no one could know the results of.

But at the end of the hour, Mari stood up and, after hopping in the shower and some cold water, she could talk again without getting emotional.

‘That was good,’ she said to Lia. ‘That was really good.’

They grabbed food on the way back to Mari’s flat.

Lia noted that apparently Mari wasn’t in the habit of chatting with the staff at the Co-op down the street.

She wondered to herself why Mari lived here in particular. Hoxton had long been one of the more threadbare areas of East London, but it was changing rapidly. Especially at the southern end, more creative people and IT professionals had moved in, and some blocks were already among the most stylish in the city. But Mari lived in the part of Hoxton bordering on Islington still dominated by old housing estates populated by families of humble means. Tiny grocery shops gave the streets their colour, and languages other than English were common. Mari’s building was on the edge of Shoreditch Park and a few other similarly handsome buildings stood around, but otherwise the area was rather shabby. Although restaurants that looked insignificant from the outside might have the praises of big-time food critics pasted in their windows, Lia noticed: maybe looks were deceiving.

Mari sensed Lia’s meditations.

‘I like these streets,’ she said.

If you looked closely you could see signs of wealth and need, like nests of different cultures living side-by-side. The Hoxton Square area a little further south was already quite smart, but here a person could still be themselves.

Upstairs in the flat, Mari locked the door behind them and sighed.

‘Alcohol.’

Lia opened a bottle of wine, and, while Mari sorted out the food in the kitchen, made two quick calls. First she checked with Rico that all was well at the Studio and nothing new had come out in the news about the police investigation. Then she talked to Mr Vong to make sure he wouldn’t mind Gro staying with him again.

‘Not at all,’ Mr Vong said.

They got along very well, he assured her. They had even seen a hare on their walk on Hampstead Heath that day. That had been very exciting for Gro, Mr Vong related enthusiastically.

Lia and Mari didn’t talk about difficult things. Not a word about the video murders or Berg. Lia could see from the stacks of books spread around the flat that Mari was continuing her investigation, but they didn’t talk about that.

Mari did ask whether the Studio had heard anything from Craig Cole, but so far as Lia knew, Cole hadn’t been in contact.

They ate the supper Mari had made and then sat in the same place as the previous night. Lia talked about
Level
. She had the feeling that the others at work had started evaluating her more closely, as a possible future Art Director. Mari talked about things she wanted to change about her flat some day. She had been thinking about building a sauna, but that would require quite a battle of papers and planning permission, not to mention the renovation itself.

Mari had her computer next to her, which gave Lia an idea.

‘Have you been in touch with your grandmother?’

Mari shook her head.

‘Not yet. All in good time.’

‘Let’s ring her now,’ Lia suggested.

She could see from Mari’s face that at first she meant to refuse but then changed her mind.

‘I’ve never rung her with anyone else,’ Mari said.

They moved to sit side-by-side. They were a little crowded on the windowsill. Lia had to lean on the windowpane, and Mari set the computer on a bench in front of them. But once they got the VoIP program open and saw themselves in the picture onscreen, the situation amused them both.

‘Should we hide our wine glasses?’ Lia wondered.

‘From Mamia?’ Mari snorted. ‘Hardly.’

Mamia answered after just a few rings. They saw concern on her face. Her breathing was raspy over the audio connection as she squinted at their picture.

‘Well now,’ Mamia said.

She was clearly delighted to see Mari after so long.

‘Hi Grandma,’ Mari said.

‘Hi you two,’ Mamia said.

She asked after Mari’s health and wouldn’t believe a bit of it when Mari assured her she was fine.

‘Even an old lady like me can see you aren’t,’ Mamia snapped.

But if Mari was up to sipping wine with a friend, she had a good enough grip on life that her grandmother didn’t need to worry about her, Mamia said.

‘Have you watched the news from Finland? We’re having demonstrations here, in three cities. Young people protesting over growing income inequality. One of the marches is happening in Turku!’

Mamia thought Turku was a lethargic, sleepy place where nothing real ever happened, Mari explained to Lia.

‘In that city it’s impossible to have an opinion,’ Mamia huffed.

‘And that galls you,’ Mari said, laughing. ‘But you want to join in.’

‘I might even,’ Mamia said.

As they chatted, the evening darkened around them. The glow of Mari’s computer screen lit up her and Lia’s faces. They looked white and unreal and hopeful.

No one talked about Mari’s other family members. Lia felt like she wasn’t supposed to ask about them or Mari’s background in general. They had plenty to talk about anyway. A couple of thousand kilometres separated them from Mamia, along with about fifty years, but she still felt like one of them.

At some point Lia realised that she had never had such long phone conversations with her own relatives. Not even her parents. Lia rang them maybe once a month. Usually she didn’t use the computer so she wouldn’t have had video. Although it was nice seeing her parents, video calls were often a bit irritating when you thought about it: it was so easy to see when the other person’s thoughts started to wander and the novelty of seeing you wore off.

When Mamia announced she was going to bed, they wished her goodnight several times, and after the call ended, Lia moved over to face Mari again.

They sat there in silence for a long time.

After opening another bottle, Mari asked how the others were holding up at the Studio.

Maggie was doing well, Lia said. She had been in contact with Berg’s relatives in England, saying she was his friend and wanted to help with the funeral arrangements if they needed assistance. She hadn’t been coming to the Studio every day. She needed to take a little distance.

‘Rico – Rico is still Rico,’ Lia said with a smile.

Rico was always doing something. Out of all of them, staying busy was easiest for him. His machines and programs always needed updating and tweaking. Only recently had it dawned on Lia how deeply Rico was mourning for the other victims besides Berg. Rico had only known Mike Cottle distantly, but even a distant personal connection made him more sensitive to what was going on.

‘And Paddy misses you,’ Lia said.

This was a cheap shot, she knew. But Lia wanted Mari back at the Studio soon, and Paddy did too, for his own reasons.

‘Did he say something?’ Mari asked.

‘No, nothing in particular. But I can tell.’

‘I’ve been thinking about ringing him.’

Lia didn’t understand what she meant until Mari’s face eased into a smile.

‘You want to ask him out?’

Mari nodded.

‘You want to ask him out now when you’re both…’ Lia said, searching for the words.

‘Out of our minds with grief,’ Mari said.

She looked at her phone.

‘This doesn’t have much to do with logic.’

Berg wasn’t even buried yet. Mari had been huddled at home in a state of near paralysis and only just set foot outside for the first time in days. Paddy probably blamed himself for everything that had happened just like all the rest of them.

‘This is the worst moment to be thinking about anything like this. But I’m still basically a coin toss away from ringing him.’

Lying on her bed at home, Mari had worked through a lot of things. Such as the fact that none of them had unlimited time.

‘You forget that at the Studio,’ Mari said.

Lia knew what she meant. At the Studio their work always demanded commitment. You felt like you always had to be on your toes to manage such important things. They often rode the high that came from a feeling of power. That was why it was easy to put off things like thoughts of dating, since you could never be sure what would come of it.

Mari and Paddy had known each other for several years. The whole time they had both known that one of them would make a move at some point. Waiting had been fun in some ways too, Mari noted. It had been a sort of long-term flirtation.

Paddy had been with other women. Mari had seen a couple of men during that time too.

‘Pretty short-term stuff though,’ she admitted. ‘But this Mr Moore – I’ve always known something more could happen with him.’

Lia smiled. ‘Ring.’

‘Now?’ Mari asked, surprised.

‘Now.’

A smirk spread across Mari’s face again.

‘That would serve him right.’

Lia poured them both more wine and handed Mari her glass.

‘I want to listen.’

Mari laughed. They drank. The temptation to shrug off the anguish of the past days by acting silly was overwhelming in their drunken state. Instead of living in the shadow of grief and fear, it felt good to be light-hearted and irresponsible for a while.

‘This is almost like being a kid,’ Lia said. ‘A teenager. Daring each other to ring a boy.’

‘It wasn’t like that for me,’ Mari said. ‘My childhood was a fucking freak show.’

She took a swig of wine and started looking for the number in her phone. Paddy answered after three rings.

‘Mari?’

‘All right, Paddy?’ Mari said.

Lia leaned in, almost placing her ear to Mari’s to hear every word. The situation was at once extremely comical and extremely serious. They felt reckless. Anything could happen.