Helsinki Blood
ALSO BY JAMES THOMPSON
Helsinki White
Lucifer’s Tears
Snow Angels
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2013 by James Thompson
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Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thompson, James, date.
Helsinki blood / James Thompson.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-60929-3
1. Police—Finland—Fiction. 2. Homicide investigation—Fiction.3. Helsinki (Finland)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3620.H675H43 2013 2012039842
813'.6—dc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This novel is dedicated to the team at G. P. Putnam’s Sons. They’ve worked tremendously hard to make the Inspector Vaara series a success, are an extraordinarily talented group, and they have my profound thanks, both for their efforts on my behalf and for sharing their knowledge and seeing to my education in the publishing industry. Here, I cite only the people I work most closely with at Putnam, but there are employees who have moved on or changed jobs within the company, and many others are behind the scenes, too many to list. They know who they are. Special thanks to editor Sara Minnich, marketing manager Lydia Hirt, and senior publicist Victoria Comella. And also to president Ivan Held, because he has done me some good turns.
And, as always, for Annukka.
J
uly eleventh.
A hot summer Sunday. All I want is some goddamned peace and quiet. Now my house is under siege, I have an infant to both care for and protect, and I’m forced to do the last thing I wanted to do: call Sweetness and Milo, my colleagues and subordinates, or accomplices—the definition of their role in my life depends on one’s worldview—and ask them for help.
I’m shot to pieces. Bullets to my knee and jaw—places I’ve been shot before—have left me a wreck. Only cortisone shots and dope for pain enable me to get around with a cane, speak and eat without wanting to scream. I’m still recovering from a brain tumor removal six months ago. The operation was a success but had a serious side effect that left me flat, emotionless.
My feelings are returning as the empty space where once a tumor existed fills in with new tissue, but I only feel love for my wife and child, and intermittent like for one or two others. My normal state and reaction toward others is now irritability. My wife, Kate, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has run away from home, out of control of her own emotions, and abandoned me.
These combined problems, any one of which would drive a person to distraction under the best of circumstances, cloud my judgment and affect my behavior. My judgment and behavior were already clouded. I feel so certain it will all end badly that it seems more a portent than an emotion. Auguries and omens of catastrophe seem all around me, just out of sight, but every time I turn to face them, they disappear like apparitions.
J
une had come to an end. I seldom went out, mostly because mobility was so difficult, but it had been such a bad day—Kate had been gone for around two weeks. I was depressed and in awful pain—that I thought fresh air and sunshine might be good for me, help me gain some perspective. Mental health care workers often recommend just getting out and about to raise spirits. Dumbfucks.
I hadn’t had a haircut in a couple months, went to the barber around the corner and got it cropped military short, as it’s been for more than thirty years. It revealed the scar that runs four inches across the left center of my head to the hairline over my eye. The ugly gunshot wound on my face was no longer bandaged but not healed. Looking in the barber’s mirror, I thought of my severe limp and knew all I needed was a long black leather trench coat to look like a cliché Gestapo torturer in a B movie.
Afterward, I went a little way down the street to Hilpeä Hauki, my favorite bar. I believed it might be therapeutic for me. It’s a cozy, quiet place—they don’t even play music—that specializes in imported beers, and the same faces appear almost daily. Conversations went on around me, but speaking wasn’t required. People often just have a beer and browse through the daily newspapers or sit in silence if they don’t feel chatty.
The patrons almost all know me, or at least of me, and wouldn’t ask questions about my injuries, so I felt comfortable being there. I sat in “the dogs’ corner,” so called because customers are allowed to sit in the squared-off area near the L-shaped bar with their pets. A water bowl was under a side table next to the door. The staff even keeps dog treats handy. I ordered a beer and a
kossu
—the colloquial for Koskenkorva, a kind of Finnish vodka—and sat on a stool at the bar.
A young drunk guy came in. He was loud, attention-seeking. The bartender, a half Finn, half Brit named Mike, refused him service. He called Mike a
vittu pää
—a cunt head. Mike is a big guy and used to dealing with such behavior, but I stuck my nose in anyway. “Shut the fuck up,” I said, “or I’ll come over there and beat you to death.”
The asshole was four paces away from me. He checked me out and laughed. “Listen, crip, the only thing you’re going to beat me in is an ugly contest.”
I felt myself seething. Mike leaned over the bar, looked at me, shook his head no. I saw that I had reached down and was going for my backup piece, a Colt .45 with a three-inch barrel in an ankle holster. I didn’t realize I was doing it.
“Bad day?” Mike asked.
I came to my senses and pulled the cuff of my jeans back down over my .45. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Why don’t you come back on a day when you feel better.” It wasn’t a question, I was being kicked out. “I’ll buy you a beer the next time I see you.” He said it in a caring way, I couldn’t be mad about it. And besides, he was right.
I got up to leave.
Without deigning to look at me, Asshole said, “See ya, Frankenstein.”
I stepped toward the door as if leaving, but turned and swung my cane two-handed like a bat. Scored a perfect kidney shot with the back of the gold lion’s head handle. Asshole went down like a rock, screamed and curled up into a ball. I gave the folks in the dogs’ corner a small salute, wished them pleasant evenings and hobbled home.
On the way, I decided that in my current emotional state I was dangerous, not fit company for other humans. I decided to go into self-imposed isolation. It didn’t last long.
