Light in a Dark House (7 page)

Rice pies with egg butter under the plastic covers. Coloured pictures on the walls. Pictures that Sanna had mentioned a few days before her death, but he couldn’t remember her exact words. Turku lay in the sun beyond the glass wall, and the woman behind the counter asked what he would like.

He asked for a camomile tea, closed his hands round the hot cup and sat down at one side of the room. His mobile vibrated in his jacket pocket. Sundström’s number. He waited until Sundström gave up, and put the phone on the table in front of him. He closed his eyes and tried to think, but failed because he didn’t know where to begin.

Then he picked up his mobile and wrote an email to Tuomas Heinonen:

Dear Tuomas, hope you slept well. Please don’t forget what I said about the tennis. Will come and see you at the weekend.

He sent the message and then stared for a while at the text of it. Then he tapped in Larissa’s number and quickly wrote:

Dear Larissa, hope you slept well, how about ice hockey or doing something else nice this evening?

He sent the message, and waited to hear back that it could not be delivered. He looked at the message telling him that the recipient was not known, and he should check his details.

Recipient not known. Check the details.

Ice hockey in summer. But it was really autumn.

He drank his camomile tea and followed the arrows pointing the way to Intensive Care. Grönholm was still deep in conversation, but with someone else this time. Kari Niemi, head of Forensics, smiled at him, and Joentaa asked Grönholm whether his mobile had Internet access.

‘Yes, sure, why?’ said Grönholm.

‘I have to look for something,’ said Joentaa.

‘I see.’ Grönholm took the phone out of his trouser pocket and handed it to him.

‘Thanks,’ said Joentaa, and he went down the corridor, following the arrows to the exit. When he was in the car he began looking for the pictures that he had found online. He needed only a few minutes.

Larissa’s face was unrecognisable in the photos, but everything else was on view. Her naked body in assorted unnatural positions. The tattoo on her upper arm. Some kind of fabulous creature, she had said. Behind the disguised eyes and the disguised face, he guessed at the trace of a smile. He tried to imagine the person behind the camera getting her to give that smile.
Larissa, teens, dream body, top service. 84 Satamakatu. Ring bell for Nieminen.

He closed the Internet browser and dialled Grönholm’s number. It took him a while to realise that he was holding Grönholm’s phone in his hands. Then he started out. The police car had a satnav system. He tapped in the address and was reminded of the arrows in the hospital as a soft, strange female voice guided him to his destination. He parked the car and looked in vain for her moped as he went up to the house. Nieminen, whoever that was, lived right at the top. He rang the bell.

‘Hello,’ said a woman’s voice.

‘Hello,’ said Joentaa.

‘Up at the top, sixth floor,’ said the woman.

Joentaa took the stairs. The building was in a good state of repair, inside as well as out; the white paint on the walls looked fresh. The door on the sixth floor was not locked. He waited for a while, and then it was pushed open. In the doorway stood a red-haired woman wearing a white bathrobe.

‘Come in, darling,’ she said, beckoning him in.

Joentaa nodded, and stepped into the corridor, lit by a faint lilac-tinted light.

‘Been to see us before, darling?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’ll introduce the—’

‘I’m looking for Larissa,’ said Joentaa.

‘Larissa . . .’ said the woman.

‘I saw the ad.’

‘Oh,’ said the woman. Joentaa got the impression that she had lost a good deal of her interest in him.

‘The advertisement. On the Internet.’

‘It’s not right up to date,’ said the woman. ‘Larissa doesn’t work here any more. But we have two lovely girls who are very like her—’

‘I want to see Larissa,’ said Joentaa.

‘Like I said, she doesn’t work with us these days.’

‘Jennifer,’ said Joentaa. Her colleague who sometimes came to pick her up in the morning, before Larissa got the moped.

‘Jennifer’s here,’ said the woman, her tone a little friendlier again.

‘Good,’ said Joentaa.

Then he stood in a dark room waiting for Jennifer. He had spoken to her only a few times. Hello and goodbye. Jennifer usually gave a wry smile when she saw him. Supercilious. Ironic. Or insecure. He didn’t know which, and it hadn’t interested him. This time she didn’t smile when she came into the room. She looked rather confused.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Larissa has gone,’ said Joentaa.

‘Yes,’ said Jennifer.

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘No idea,’ said Jennifer. ‘She hasn’t been here for several days.’

‘But you two are friends,’ said Joentaa.

‘Yes,’ said Jennifer. ‘Of course. Sort of.’

‘Sort of,’ said Joentaa. ‘Of course.’

‘I like her a lot,’ said Jennifer.

‘So do I,’ said Joentaa. ‘That’s why I want to find her. As quickly as possible.’

Jennifer did not reply.

‘What’s her real name?’

‘Whose?’

‘Whose? Whose? Larissa’s, of course.’

‘You don’t know?’

Joentaa waited. She spluttered with laughter. Then she fell silent again and looked at him for a long time.

‘I don’t know either. We probably none of us talk about ourselves much, but she’s . . . she’s rather peculiar,’ she finally said.

Top body, thought Joentaa. Dream service. The tattoo on her arm, the mole on her breast. He felt dizzy, and Jennifer fidgeted with her panties as she thought.

‘Yes, rather peculiar. She always had pay-as-you-go mobiles and never topped them up – she threw them away instead – and when I told her she ought to sign a proper agreement she said she never writes her name on forms of any sort, on principle.’

Recipient unknown. Check the details.

‘But I know she really likes you. If that . . . if that’s any help,’ said Jennifer.

‘Where could she be?’ asked Joentaa.

Jennifer shifted her weight to her other leg and seemed to be thinking again. In the end she shrugged her shoulders. ‘We sometimes went for a drink, or to a club. But if I had to look for her I’d probably begin with you.’

Joentaa nodded, and thought of the giraffe under the apple tree.

‘Could you please call me if you hear anything from her?’

‘Yes . . . I think so . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes . . . of course. Why not? But you’re a cop, you’ll probably—’

‘Good, then let’s exchange phone numbers, okay?’

‘Give me yours, that’ll be enough,’ she said.

The dizzy feeling grew as Joentaa scribbled his number on a supermarket receipt. Jennifer took the scrap of paper and seemed to be wondering where to put it.

‘Thanks,’ said Joentaa, going past her to the door.

‘I’ll show you out,’ she said.

‘Right,’ he said.

‘Good luck,’ she said, giving him a wry smile before she closed the door. Ironic. Or insecure. He didn’t know which.

The sun was on his back as he drove away.

He was thinking vaguely of August, and the broad white bed in the small dark room, and the note with his telephone number that Jennifer, or whatever her real name was, had after some thought stowed away in her panties.

18

MARKO WESTERBERG SUPPRESSED
a yawn and a vague sense of sadness.

He leaned over the balustrade and looked down at the dead man on the ground. Fourteenth floor, his young colleague from Forensics had said, with a gleam in his eyes that Westerberg didn’t understand.

Kalevi Forsman had fallen fourteen floors down. From the roof terrace of a hotel with an extremely fine view of the sea.

A long queue of cars had formed in front of one of the big steamers. The passengers were now sitting in a café in the sun, or leaning against their cars drumming their fingers on the paintwork, waiting impatiently to get away from Helsinki at last. For whatever reason, and wherever they were going. The sun was a little cold, and Westerberg thought, with a satisfaction that he didn’t entirely understand, that autumn would come after all.

He turned and saw his young colleague Seppo, still busy questioning the smartly dressed waitresses, although by now it had become clear that they had nothing to contribute apart from the little that had already been said. Westerberg was reminded of Hämäläinen, the talk-show presenter who had been stabbed not so long ago on the premises of a TV station, and not a soul had noticed.

Obviously violent death had a certain casual look to it these days. Nothing that would strike anyone as particularly unusual. And anyway, the TV show host had survived, and according to the ratings was now more popular than ever as a result. Kalevi Forsman the software adviser hadn’t been so lucky.

Westerberg looked at the young women helplessly shaking their heads, and Seppo, patiently nodding and taking notes, and he wondered what a software adviser actually did. At some point he had missed out on this terminology. Software adviser, account manager, help-desk administrator. What the hell did all that guff mean?

A forensic officer in white was leaning over the conference table, apparently looking for the particle of dust that would identify the murderer. Seppo thanked the smart young ladies and walked briskly towards him, but only to say that nothing new had turned up. Westerberg nodded.

‘But at least what we do have is a start,’ said Seppo. ‘Two men. One rather short, wearing a striking sky-blue bow tie and a crumpled suit. That was Forsman.’

Westerberg nodded.

‘And a second man who was already here before Forsman arrived. Not tall, not short. Well, if anything quite tall. Between one metre eighty and one metre eighty-five – perhaps, because one of the waitresses thought he was taller than that.’

‘So quite tall,’ said Westerberg.

‘Not fat, not thin. Just normal,’ said Seppo.

‘Didn’t one of the ladies say he was wiry?’

Seppo nodded. ‘Yes, but the others couldn’t confirm it. Good-looking, they all said that. But in an everyday kind of way. And in all seriousness they mentioned three different hair colours.’

‘Three?’

‘Fair, brown, grey.’

‘Oh,’ said Westerberg.

‘He even said a friendly good morning to them, all the ladies agree on that.’

Friendly, thought Westerberg.

‘He was standing on the roof terrace and seemed to be enjoying the view while the women set up the buffet,’ said Seppo. ‘The waitresses assumed that he and Forsman both belonged to the company that had hired the conference room. A chain of fitness studios, or more precisely two fitness studios that could be merging.’

Fitness studios, thought Westerberg, and he noticed that Seppo said the word as if it were perfectly normal.

‘Forsman is not on the list of participants, and as matters stood has not the slightest . . .’

‘This is getting me down,’ said Westerberg.

‘. . . not the slightest thing to do with the studios,’ said Seppo.

‘This is getting me down. Fitness. Account. Software adviser. Flat-rate surfing.’

Seppo didn’t seem to understand him.

‘All that shit,’ Westerberg specified more precisely.

Seppo nodded.

‘Never mind. So Forsman has nothing to do with the conference. In all probability the murderer won’t be on any list either, but of course we’ll have to work through the names.’

‘Interviews are already in progress,’ said Seppo.

Westerberg was about to say something else, but stopped and watched the forensic officer lying on the floor and feeling the underside of the table.

‘Yes,’ said Seppo.

‘What actually happened here?’ asked Westerberg.

‘Well . . .’ said Seppo.

‘A man calmly goes up to the fourteenth floor of a hotel, says good morning to the catering ladies – in a friendly way, of course – stands on the roof terrace and enjoys the view. Then a second man comes along, the two of them talk. Then one of them falls off the roof and the other goes home. The end.’

Seppo nodded to himself, but then raised his hand. ‘Not quite,’ he said.

‘Not quite?’

‘No, he said goodbye as well. To the women.’

‘Right. He said goodbye. I forgot that bit. In a friendly way, I assume?’

Seppo nodded. ‘We’re getting each of the women to put together a picture of him,’ he said. ‘Independently of each other. Although they all said they didn’t feel able to do that.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘One of them asked if she had to paint it herself.’

Westerberg shook his head. ‘I hope you told her that all that is done by
software
these days.’ He emphasised the word
software
, but Seppo didn’t seem to get the joke.

They heard a uniformed police guard at the door telling someone, ‘You can’t come in here.’ Westerberg took several steps into the room and saw a muscleman standing by the lift.

‘The conference is cancelled,’ said Seppo.

‘Why?’ asked the muscleman.

‘Please go to the breakfast lounge on the first floor and you will be interviewed there,’ said Seppo.

‘I’ll be what?’ asked the muscleman.

‘Please go to the breakfast lounge,’ said Seppo, and the man actually went.

‘There,’ said Seppo, who cut a small and slightly built figure, not without pride.

Breakfast lounge, thought Westerberg.

19

15 September now

It’s evening. Dear diary. Olli spreads the cards and shuffles them vigorously. His eyes sparkle as he tells me to throw the dice. I throw, and move my counter into the first square. Sunset outside. All an illusion that the sun is moving. The outcome of imagination and limited vision. The earth rotates. Olli and I are passing the border between day and night. Olli wins the game.

‘Yes!’ he cries triumphantly. And then, ‘Another game!’