Nights of Awe (4 page)

Authors: Harri Nykanen

BOOK: Nights of Awe

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“I have a theory,” Oksanen said. He was sitting next to me in the police van, holding a to-go cup of coffee like all the rest of us except Simolin, who only drank tea, preferably green. I also had a doughnut covered with so much sugar it was impossible to keep from showering it all over the place.

Oksanen’s parka was emblazoned with the logo of a German car manufacturer. I knew that he also had a motor-oil company pen, a tyre-company key ring, a car-parts-chain pocketknife and an insurance-company fleece. Stenman and Simolin were sitting across from us.

“Or a couple of theories, actually.”

Oksanen sniffed his coffee, which Stenman had picked up for us from the Neste station at Eläintarha.

It was eleven-thirty in the morning and they had earned their combined coffee break and warm-up. A freezing wind was blowing outside; I was shivering myself.

“The first thing that comes to mind is drugs. Maybe this is a territorial war between drug gangs or something like that. No one heard the shots. Why not? Because the gun was equipped with a silencer. And right off that means we’re looking at the tool of a professional killer.”

“So where are the shells, then?” Simolin asked. “Five shots and a silencer. The shooter must have used a semi.”

“Maybe he picked them up from the ground.”

“What about the other theory?” Stenman prodded. She had opened her green oilskin coat, revealing a high-collared Norwegian fisherman’s sweater. She managed to blend the freshness of a country girl with the class of a sophisticated woman who frequented Café Ekberg. The combination had its charms, I had to admit.

“The victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something that meant he had to be killed.”

Oksanen’s theories were so obvious that I had already considered them. Like Simolin’s, though, they were nothing more than theories, and I wouldn’t promote any of them above the others until I saw a solid reason to do so. On the other hand, playing around with theories occasionally generated valuable ideas.

“If it was a coincidence, then why did they need to chop off the nose and ears? Plus, the victim would have been shot from behind as he was running away. I doubt he would have hung around waiting to be shot,” I said, before going on: “We know that there was a total of three men on the bridge, one of whom evidently fell when he was trying to escape from the other two. And yet the hands of the man who fell to the track were bloody. Based on that, it seems as if he stabbed the man on the bridge, got off a few shots just to make sure, cut off the ears and nose. What were the other two men doing on the bridge, and where are they now?”

When no one answered, I continued: “At first I thought those two unknown men showed up by accident. When they saw what was happening, they apprehended the knifeman, but he got away and fell from the bridge. Afterwards, for whatever reason, the unknown men decided not to get in touch with the police. It’s possible that… unless…”

I glanced at my subordinates.

Simolin was the first to figure it out: “A twenty-two, a knife, a nose and an ear.”

“Right. Where are they?”

The coffee cup paused on its way to Oksanen’s mouth as he stopped to consider my question.

“I have a better theory,” Stenman said. “What if we switched up roles and the chain of events a little. Two unknown men knife a third, who is waiting for his friend on the bridge, shoot him with a twenty-two, and cut off his nose and ears to desecrate the body.”

I knew where Stenman was headed before she even finished and was annoyed that I hadn’t thought of such an obvious idea myself.

“The dead guy’s buddy shows up, sees what’s happened, and rushes over to help. As he’s helping his friend, he gets covered in his blood. The killers notice him, go back and grab him. The rest goes the way Ari suggested. The motive might be simple, too. Both victims are foreigners. It might be a racist attack, skinheads or neo-Nazi retaliation.”

“That sounds a lot more realistic,” I admitted. “But according to the locomotive engineer, the men were walking together towards Kallio. Why didn’t they kill the other guy right away, and where were they taking him?”

“Maybe someone was approaching from Töölönlahti Bay and they had to keep moving.”

“In any case, by far the best theory we have. But it might be smartest to let the theories be for now. There are still too many alternatives.”

I remembered the phone.

“This was found on the guy who jumped, but I can’t get into it. It’s giving me error messages because I don’t know the PIN code.”

“Show me?” Simolin asked, taking the phone. He nimbly fingered it open, removed the SIM card, and examined it.

“Prepaid SIM. Tough to trace.”

Simolin took his own phone and switched the SIM card into the other phone. Then he powered it up and, when prompted, entered his PIN.

“At least it works.”

Simolin examined the phone from all sides.

“Brand-new, protective plastic still on the screen. In other words, it was probably bought in Finland.”

“Can you get into it?”

“Not me, but I can take it to a friend who can. After that, the phone’s memory will at least tell us the calls that were made and received.”

“Do it. I have a hunch that at minimum we’ll get the identity from the phone, maybe more.”

“Right now, you mean?”

“If it’s possible.”

Simolin looked up a number on his phone and called.

“Hey. Where are you?… Good, we need to crack a mobile PIN code… as soon as possible… OK, I’ll be right there.”

Simolin ended the call.

“We’re good to go.”

Oksanen was doubtful. “Don’t we need authorization for that?”

He was right, but I didn’t let it bother me.

“Take that phone to your friend and see what’s in it. Call me as soon as you know. Arja will take care of the photos… Make plenty of copies of both, for us as well as for the media, just in case – but we won’t be releasing the pictures for distribution yet. And while you’re at it, bring me a list of nearby security cameras.”

A State Railways van pulled up next to the cordoned area. A man in overalls said something to one of the police officers. The latter pointed in our direction. The man in overalls headed over to our van carrying a bundle of paper. I opened the door.

“This is for you,” he said, handing me the wadded-up newspaper.

It felt heavy. I unrolled a few layers of yesterday’s news and caught a glimpse of blue-black metal.

“The gun had got caught on a really weird spot on the current-collector and didn’t fall off because the train was going so slow,” he explained.

“The current-collector?”

“It’s on the roof. The train uses it to draw the current from the contact wires. No one has touched it without gloves.”

Everyone looked at the weapon, intrigued. It was a barely used nine-millimetre Beretta. There were threads on the barrel for attaching a silencer. I sniffed the mouth of the barrel, but all I got was a whiff of gun oil.

“It hasn’t been fired.”

“Besides, it’s a nine-mil, not a twenty-two,” Oksanen noted. “The guy didn’t have a holster, so he was carrying it in a pocket or under his belt, which is probably why he dropped it.”

“Either that, or he pulled it out in self-defence,” Simolin added.

I reflected on how the discovery of the weapon changed things. At least it fitted with Stenman’s theory. Plus, it also said something about the guy carrying it. No normal person in Finland goes around packing a gun. The guy was either a criminal, a cop… or afraid of something.

I handed the wad of paper to Stenman.

“Take it in for testing.”

Stenman stepped out of the van. I watched her, still holding my empty coffee cup. For a second I wondered where I should put it. I couldn’t come up with anything better, so I just left it on the floor. Oksanen wasn’t as conscientious; he crumpled his up and tossed it under the van.

“Arja!”

Stenman stopped about ten yards away.

“How are things going at home?” Stenman’s husband had spent the past two weeks in a National Bureau of Investigation holding cell on suspicion of harbouring stolen goods. He owned a construction-equipment rental business and about twenty power tools that had been reported missing had been found there. The tax authorities were also investigating the matter.

I had a bad conscience for not having offered her much support as her boss, even though I knew she was taking the whole thing pretty heavily.

“Hessu got out yesterday.”

“You need some more time off?”

“No… thanks. I think the worst is over.”

“If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

Stenman gave a faint smile.

“I will. Thanks.”

I went back to the van. I still didn’t feel like a good boss.

Oksanen was leaning against the van, twirling the keys around his forefinger. The key ring had a miniature car tyre attached to it. I pulled the plastic bag containing the Hertz map from my pocket.

“Check what this will get us. It was found on the guy who jumped.”

Oksanen eyed the map.

“You get one of these when you rent a car from Hertz. Luckily I have a friend there who can help.”

“Good. I’m going to do one more round of knocking on doors.”

I was already about to head for the bridge when Simolin stopped me with a touch to my shoulder.

“Based on what the locomotive engineer told you, you got the impression that they were taking him somewhere, in other words they wanted him alive. They must have had a car somewhere pretty close; you can’t force a struggling man very far. And those shells. The weapon could have been in a bag when it was fired. A gym bag slung over a shoulder wouldn’t arouse any suspicion, and it’d be easy enough to shoot through one, or use it for cover.”

“Good hypotheses, both of them, really good,” I said.

Simolin self-consciously hurried off. I watched my lanky subordinate retreat for a moment. For some reason I was pretty sure that Simolin was right about both of his deductions.

I crossed the bridge and glanced down. The bodies had already been conveyed to the medical examiner’s office in Ruskeasuo, and the section of track that had been closed all morning had been reopened to traffic. The bridge, on the other hand, remained closed, and the area cordoned off, because the terrain searches were still under way. A couple of journalists and photographers were doggedly hanging around on the other side of the tape at the Linnunlaulu end of the bridge. They had tried to grill me for information on the killings, but I had told them to call Huovinen. He was a natural at dealing with journalists.

I stopped for a minute to collect my thoughts. The fact that one of the men was being taken somewhere meant that they wanted something from him. It couldn’t have been drugs or some other item, because they would have just taken that from him. So what they wanted from him was something else: information, for instance. And he knew what would happen to him, and was so afraid that he attempted the suicidal escape from the bridge. You don’t pull a stunt like that unless you know your life is at stake. The fact that he was carrying a weapon implied that he had been prepared for trouble, but he had still been caught off guard.

The dog park was at the end of the bridge and to the right. There were two dogs inside the fenced area, a dirty-brown mutt that was racing around rambunctiously and a small black poodle that stuck timidly to the feet of its sixty-year-old mistress. I walked up to the owner of the poodle and introduced myself.

“Were you here with your dog this morning?”

“Yes, I was.”

“What time?”

“Eight o’clock. I always come at the same time.”

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary on the bridge?”

The woman eyed me crossly.

“Young man. If you’d be so kind as to start by telling me what occurred on the bridge, I would find it easier to decide what you mean by out of the ordinary.”

I felt like a pupil being interrogated by a stern schoolmistress. I’ve always been intimidated by loud old women. Maybe it was because of my mother. She always felt she had some eternal right, bestowed by her maternal status, to treat men like mischievous little boys.

“I’m sure you’re capable of making that distinction regardless.”

My secretiveness was met with a disapproving look.

“Should I have heard something, for instance gunshots?”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t hear any shots or anything else, such as yelling?”

“I never said that. A man did yell, but I was incapable of making it out. It wasn’t Finnish, it was some language related to Arabic.”