Helsinki Blood (27 page)

October 1, 2011

I sit down at the Hotel Kämp bar. “And for the commissioner?” the bartender asks.

I’m now the commissioner of the National Bureau of Investigation. They put my knee back together well enough so that I can drive again. The pain is and likely always will be constant, but it’s bearable, and one learns to live with such things.

“A martini. You know how I like it.”

“The commissioner has made an excellent choice.”

Loviise Tamm brings clean glasses from the back and puts them in their proper places behind the bar. Since the moment Yelena walked in and found her on her knees in front of Sasha Mikoyan, she has never been in any danger. Yelena demanded Loviise be handed over to her, and her husband, as always, acquiesced. Yelena hid her in Hotel Marski, dropped a credit card, told the staff to cater to her every whim, gave her my phone number and ordered her to remain in her room and live on room service until she saw me on TV. Then she was to call me and tell me her whereabouts. Which she did.

Yelena’s faith in me must have been great, to believe I would succeed and be on television because of it. Perhaps, like me, the idea of saving one person caused her to imagine the thundering of hooves and the blaring of trumpets. I hope she heard them as she died. Perhaps she felt her sacrifice would raise her from chattel to savior, a Jeanne d’Arc. If so, in my eyes, she succeeded.

Loviise didn’t get her promised secretarial job, but seems happy busing tables and doing menial kitchen tasks here in Kämp.

When I introduced her to Kate, I heard no trumpets or thundering of hooves, but felt satisfaction nonetheless. Sweetness was right, saving Loviise and those other more than a hundred girls didn’t cause Kate to come running into my arms, proclaiming all was forgiven, but it certainly didn’t hurt my cause either. Slow but sure, our marriage is getting back on track.

It seems we’re all healing an inch at a time. Sweetness is attending the police academy. He likes it, although it put a stop to his morning-to-night boozing. It was harder than he thought. Last week, Milo managed to move the tip of his index finger a fraction. That brings hope that he may regain some use of his right hand.

The Finnish recipe for a martini is three parts gin and one part vermouth. It sucks the mop. The vermouth overpowers the gin. The bartender makes a double with Bombay Sapphire and a hint of vermouth, rubs a lemon peel around the edge of the glass, gives the shaker a couple swirls and pours. In addition to two olives in the drink, she puts a few on top of crushed ice in a second martini glass.

The bartender is Kate. This is her first day back at work after maternity leave. She’s giving the bartender on duty a break.

“Anything else for the commissioner?” she asks.

I take a sip. Perfect. “Such a well-made drink deserves a generous tip.” I slide a gift-wrapped box across the bar to her. She opens it to find diamond earrings and a matching necklace with a diamond pendant.

She gasps. “Kari! Why?” It’s all she can get out of her mouth.

“I just felt like it.” It’s true. I bought them on impulse this afternoon. “Want to stay here after work and have dinner?”

“We need a babysitter for Anu.”

“I already took care of it.”

“Then yes,” she says, “let’s have a date. Maybe catch a movie afterward.”

“Sounds great,” I say, and admire her smile as she serves the next customer.

ALSO BY JAMES THOMPSON

Helsinki White

Lucifer’s Tears

Snow Angels