Cold Courage (38 page)

My friend. Everybody wins.

Elza said she would not be reachable on that number after that day.

‘It isn’t a good idea for me to keep this one, and I’ll be getting another number in Canada anyway. Actually, your friend has already arranged it all.’

My friend has already arranged it all.

The next morning, the Fair Rule party secretary, Tom Gallagher, called a press conference in London. The agenda contained only one item: Gallagher announced that the party office staff had decided unanimously that they could not continue working under Arthur Fried’s leadership.

‘The work of the party has experienced such significant setbacks over recent months that simply surviving has been an enormous task. The news we all heard yesterday made continuing impossible,’ Gallagher observed.

Fried was still party leader, because only an official party
conference
could make a change in leadership. However, the message was clear: the party’s other officers no longer stood behind Fried.

One hour after the press briefing, Gallagher announced that he had received a communication via telephone that Fried intended to resign his position in the party effective immediately.

‘In our conversation we did not discuss yesterday’s news or the video that has received so much attention,’ Gallagher wrote in his release.

Most people interpreted this to mean that their conversation had dealt with precisely that, but that whatever they said they did not want made public.

The video was still gathering views on The Wall’s website. Based on the newspaper reports, no one believed any more that Arthur Fried had a political career ahead of him. His chances of receiving any sort of public position whatsoever were considered nonexistent.

The police had announced that because they could not locate the woman in the video, they would investigate the matter by calling Fried in for questioning. However, they had not been able to reach him yet.

Lia went to the Studio around midday.

She first glanced into the Den and a few other rooms, but could not find anyone. She did know that Mari would be at work.

‘Hi,’ Lia said as she entered the room.

‘Well hello,’ Mari said in delight.

Lia headed directly for the couch. It felt as though an awfully long time had elapsed since they last met. The Christmas party in Lia’s flat and then a quick meeting at the Studio after Arthur Fried had succeeded in cowing Sarah Hawkins.

‘Tell me why Fried won’t come out in public,’ Lia said.

The answer came with lightning speed.

‘Fried doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t dare deny that he hit a prostitute named Daiga Vītola, because he’s hit so many
prostitutes
in his life. He doesn’t remember them all, and never knew their names. He’s afraid that if he starts issuing denials and evidence crops up somewhere, he’ll end up in court for the abuse. And he can’t tell the truth. Nothing could sound worse right now than for him to say:
I don’t believe I hit that woman.’

Lia nodded.

‘So you gave everyone else the day off. Since the Fried job was basically in the bag,’ she said.

Mari’s gaze was very sharp.

‘No one needs me to give them days off. Maggie, Rico and the others can decide perfectly well for themselves when to take rest days and when to come to work.’

Lia thought for a moment.

‘Are you satisfied?’ she asked.

‘With what?’

‘You know with what.’

‘Yes, I’m satisfied. Very satisfied. We won.’

‘I’m not satisfied,’ Lia said.

‘I can tell.’

‘Doesn’t that matter to you?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Mari said. ‘But I have no intention of allowing it to ruin my own satisfaction.’

‘There’s a cold side to you too. You separate everything into such nice, tidy boxes. And then you go on acting as if those things aren’t connected, even though they are.’

Mari considered this for some time.

‘True,’ she said. ‘Sometimes that’s necessary. But luckily that isn’t the only side to me.’

‘The video was marvellous,’ Lia said.

‘Thank you.’

The mood, the rhythm of the speech and some of the words had been taken directly from Sarah Hawkins’ exposé. That was why it felt like a real victim’s story. It did a wonderful job of combining Daiga Vītola’s story with references to the sad experiences of other real people. Feeling anything but strong emotion towards the woman talking on the video was almost impossible. Pity, admiration,
empathy
. It was a masterpiece of planning.

‘Arthur Fried will never talk his way out of this,’ Lia said.

‘Indeed.’

‘That video is a lie.’

‘Indeed.’

They were both silent for a second. The conversation was starting to feel dangerous. As though they might say something irreversible.

‘I wanted to be part of this when it was true,’ Lia said. ‘I can stand bending the rules. And altering circumstances. I can survive being afraid. I don’t know if I can survive lies.’

‘We only lied about one thing,’ Mari answered immediately.

Their lie was that Arthur Fried had never hit Daiga Vītola or Elza. Mari had used Daiga Vītola’s name because Arthur Fried was so close to escaping. Her plan had been in danger of collapse. They had needed something sufficiently big.

‘You exploited the shock value of Daiga’s fate.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘It’s insulting.’

In what possible way? Mari objected. According to her friends, Daiga Vītola had been a woman of exceptional courage and strength of will. She had been held in sexual slavery for years. She had endured the abuse of her customers. Then she had been shot and driven over with a steamroller. How could a person like that ever be insulted by her name being used to expose a violent misogynist?

‘Elza absolutely wanted to do the video, and Daiga probably would have too,’ Mari said. ‘And you should have heard what they said about it at The Wall.’

‘Don’t think you know what everyone else wants. You don’t. You don’t know what I want.’

Mari looked at her long and hard.

‘Actually, I do know what you want,’ she said. ‘You want to be a part of this, and you also want out. And right now what you want most is out. And that’s… sad.’

Something was moving in Lia’s throat.

‘It was a big lie,’ she said.

‘Yes, it was,’ Mari said. ‘And it was worth it.’

Lia left Mari’s office. She went along the Studio corridor to her own office, but stopped at the door.

On the desk were her papers and files. Daiga Vītola and Arthur Fried. She wanted to stack them and put them away somewhere, but she could not help staring at the large, orange circle on the floor.

She knew that when she stepped on it, news of her movements would travel to the Studio’s computers. And to Mari.

Lia switched off the lights and walked out of the Studio.

Lia goes to work. The mood at
Level
is good: on 7th January, Timothy Phelps is chosen as permanent editor-in-chief, and at long last everyone has the feeling that the magazine is doing well. Lia’s work is more relaxed. She knows that she is in no rush and that her most important work, thinking, will sort itself out if she just gives it time.

Lia visits the psychiatrist. She has not had any more panic attacks, and after four meetings they decide that the need for
treatment
has passed.

Lia is still waiting to receive a summons for more police
interviews
. It doesn’t come. One morning she receives a telephone call from Detective Chief Inspector Peter Gerrish. He asks whether the Latvian prostitute speaking in the sensational video published by The Wall, Elza, is the same woman from whom Lia received her information. Lia thinks for a moment and then replies. ‘Yes.’ Gerrish asks whether she knows where Elza is. Lia thinks for a moment and then replies. ‘No.’

Sometimes she thinks of the women’s life in Latvia. At other times she thinks about Fair Rule, the party that has fallen off the British political map.

Lia runs almost every evening. She knows which streets will be slick in Hampstead at any given time, and she likes her winter
running
shoes’ grip on the road. It is different from other times of the year. She feels like a cat. A feline whose footfalls never fail.

She travels London by bus, train and Tube. Almost she feels as if she has moved to a new city. She has come to know a new side of Londoners: even amidst the throngs, they are calm and usually polite. She lives in a metropolis where people can still be at peace.

She does not go to bars at night for men. It’s no time for that. Perhaps the time when she went looking for one-night stands has passed entirely.

She does not go to the Studio. She misses Rico, Maggie, Berg and Paddy.

She misses Mari unimaginably, but that feeling mingles with a gnawing indignation, and that is why she does not go to the Studio.

She misses what she was at the Studio.

Her weekends are empty, and that emptiness is difficult to fill. She decides that it is not particularly worth trying to fill it anyway. Often at these times she goes to sit in the sculpture garden.

Lia talks to her favourite sculptures. She reminisces about the past with St Luke and talks about the future with Florence Nightingale. She does not imagine them answering. She answers for herself.

Lia adjusts to life without the Studio.

An evening comes when she realises that she has to decide. She has been living without being able to make any decision, she cannot continue evading the issue eternally.

That night she stands next to Poundy the Dog, the most faithful listener of the lot. The sculpture shines in the winter night. During the day it rained, and now the crystallising moisture is creating a thin, resplendent coat of fur on the dog.

Lia has become accustomed to this life, but it lacks something. She has to choose.

She looks at Poundy the Dog expectantly. She has probably talked to him dozens of times. High time for him to say something. Poundy doesn’t say anything.

Lia stands in the park staring at the silent dog. In that moment, she knows at least one thing she wants: a pint. Perhaps two or three.

Removing her mobile phone from her coat pocket, she sends a message containing a single word. ‘
Janottaa
.’ I’m thirsty.

Only thirty-eight seconds elapse before Mari’s reply arrives, and during those thirty-eight seconds Lia thinks about how she is not sure what she is choosing but knows that she could not choose otherwise.

Pekka Hiltunen is a Finnish author, whose debut novel in 2011 immediately became one of the most acclaimed first novels in Finnish literature. The psychological thriller
Cold Courage
was nominated for the
Helsingin Sanomat
Prize for Best Debut of the Year, a rare feat for a thriller. It won three literary prizes in Finland, including the Clue Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year, and it has been nominated for the Scandinavian Glass Key Award 2013.

Critics have pointed out that Hiltunen’s thrillers, called the Studio-series, started a whole new phase in Finnish crime lit. They combine global political topics with a smart urban setting and a nod to classical trickster novels.

Hiltunen also writes in other genres, and his books have been translated into six languages, including French and German. His forthcoming work
BIG
deals with the tricky problem of the
worldwide
obesity epidemic. Following a twenty-year career as a
journalist
in 2010 he received the Best Writing Editor Prize for his magazine articles. He specialises in extensive articles tackling social and political topics

Hiltunen is a keen traveller, and most of
Cold Courage
was written on a year-long trip around the world. He loves the monthly supplements of quality British newspapers and devotes any free time to his two hobbies: holidaying away with his partner at a summer cottage by a small Finnish lake and inventing themes for imaginary surprise parties he wishes he could throw.

by Jonas Jonasson

Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, Allan Karlsson is waiting for a party he doesn’t want to begin. His one-hundredth birthday party to be precise. The Mayor will be there. The press will be there. But, as it turns out, Allan will not …

Escaping (in his slippers) through his bedroom window, into the flowerbed, Allan makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, Allan’s earlier life is revealed. A life in which – remarkably – he played a key role behind the scenes in some of the momentous events of the
twentieth
century.

‘Arguably the biggest word-of-mouth literary sensation of the decade’
The Independent

‘A mordantly funny and loopily freewheeling debut novel about ageing disgracefully’
The Sunday Times

‘Imaginative, laugh-out-loud bestseller’
The Telegraph

‘Fast-moving and relentlessly sunny’
The Guardian

‘It should carry a health warning for spouses or partners who are easily irritated by the sounds of helpless chortling’
The Irish Times

‘First-rate’
Der Spiegel
, Germany

‘Completely crazy, an incredibly funny story’
Aftonbladet,
Sweden

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