Nights of Awe (8 page)
Authors: Harri Nykanen
“Tagi, he studies at the restaurant school in Helsinki. I think he lives in Kannelmäki, at least he used to.”
I glanced at Stenman.
“The photos.”
Stenman took the photos of the deceased from one of her inside pockets and showed them to the woman.
“Do you recognize either one?”
The woman’s gaze locked in on the victim who had lost his nose and ears. The retouching had been a success. The photo looked almost normal; the eyes of the deceased were open, if slightly drowsy. But it couldn’t have been unclear to anyone that the man in the picture was already off in another dimension, well beyond consciousness.
“Tagi… That’s my husband’s cousin. Is he… also…”
“Unfortunately.”
“Was your husband in close contact with his cousin?”
“Tagi moved to Finland last year. At first they met often, because my husband gave him advice on all kinds of things. He even worked for my husband for a while and lived here. Then Tagi got into school, and they didn’t meet very often after that.”
“What about recently? When did you see Tagi last?” Stenman asked.
“He came here three days ago.”
“What did he want?”
“Want? He ate here and then he went with my husband to the mosque to pray. My husband went there three times a week.”
“Did anything special happen to him that evening?”
“He didn’t mention anything, at least.”
“What time did he come home?”
“Nine-thirty, like usual. He went straight to bed.”
The woman looked at me, eyes clouded over. I could see that she had reached her limit. Stenman saw it too. She left her card on the table.
“Please call us if you remember anything,” I said.
“Would you like us to arrange some company for you before we leave?” Stenman asked.
“Could you please just go now,” the woman pleaded.
Four bodies in one day was a lot, so much so that the Violent Crimes Unit was being pushed into overdrive. That meant a total of about ten detectives assigned to the case, only half of whom made it to the evening briefing. Also present were Huovinen, Deputy Police Chief Leivo, Lieutenant Toivakka from narcotics and Inspector Sillanpää from the Security Police.
Huovinen straightened his snazzy Italian tie and stepped over in front of the flipchart.
“It looks like everyone’s here, so let’s get started.”
Huovinen collected his thoughts for a moment or two.
“We’re starting from a pretty massive bloodbath, four dead, three killed in cold blood and one who apparently did himself in trying to escape from the killers. All of the deceased appear to be of Arab origin. The identities of three have been confirmed. One is an Iraqi who has been granted Finnish citizenship, one a fellow Iraqi who worked for him, and the third the first man’s cousin, a citizen of the UK who has lived in Finland for about a year. None has a criminal record, at least in Finland, but we do have some information on them.”
Huovinen indicated Lieutenant Toivakka. “Take it from here, Seppo?”
“We have a couple of tip-offs on the cousin, Tagi Hamid. One of his buddies is a Moroccan citizen who has been convicted of narcotics violations. Hamid’s name came up during routine monitoring of the Moroccan. In addition, we have an anonymous tip-off according to which Hamid brought over or had someone else bring over three kilos of hash from Morocco. Since then, we’ve been in contact with Birmingham, where Hamid has lived for over twenty years. According to the police there, Hamid only has minor convictions, but he’s considered a mid-level drug dealer. At this moment, however, we don’t have any information indicating that an Arab-led drug gang is operating in Finland. That’s it.”
“Thank you,” said Huovinen. “As far as the killers, we know that there were at least two of them. They were also dark-complexioned, meaning Arabs or southern Europeans, about forty years old and athletic. That’s as detailed as the description gets.”
“What about the security-cam footage?” Leivo asked.
“We’ve got some images from the rail-traffic-monitoring camera that most likely are of the suspects, but they don’t offer any new information. The shots are so blurry that we won’t be able to get anything close to identifying characteristics from them. The only piece of additional information is that the men approached from downtown on the path that goes past Finlandia Hall and heads along the shore of Töölönranta Bay to Linnunlaulu.”
“What about the cars?”
“The Vartiokylä Teboil security camera gave us some good footage of cars headed towards and away from the auto-body shop owned by the victim named Ali Hamid. Not all of the vehicles have been identified yet, or their owners contacted, but we believe we’ve found what we’re looking for. One was a white Nissan-make minivan with stolen plates. A similar Nissan has been reported stolen. We suspect Hamid’s killers used this vehicle, and an APB has been placed on it.”
“How do we know for certain that the Vartiokylä killings are related to the events at Linnunlaulu?” enquired Deputy Chief Leivo. He was clearly annoyed that the majority of the information he currently possessed had come from the media.
Leivo had only himself to blame. He’d been at a seminar in Lahti and unreachable all day. Besides, he was known for not developing interest in a case until the media started asking about it.
“Through the family connection, as I said,” Huovinen answered. “In addition, the person who was hit by the train had made numerous calls to the owner of the body shop, so the connection can be considered certain.”
I eyed Sillanpää. His dark eyes narrowed. Sillanpää returned my gaze with a piercing look and said: “It would be nice to know how we know about these calls to the body shop. As far as I’m aware, the only way would be accessing the caller’s info. But it just so happens that we have the phone, and it’s only now being unlocked because there’s no PIN code, at least in our possession.”
Huovinen didn’t let Sillanpää’s prickliness bother him. He was much thicker-skinned that he appeared.
“I don’t think we ought to be splitting hairs at this point. I’m not interested in where the information came from, the main thing is that we have it and that it’s been useful to us.”
“Well, we
are
interested, because—”
are
interested, because—”
Leivo started losing his patience and interrupted Sillanpää.
“Split hairs some other time. Do we have any theories as to what this is all about?”
I’d only seen him at work in a suit and tie. Now he was wearing a dark-green sweater and slacks. Apparently he’d dropped by the house on his way in.
Huovinen nodded in my direction.
“Kafka can report on developments in the field. He has by far the most accurate information on everything.”
I looked at Leivo’s gentle, unlined face. He was exactly what his previous subordinates in central Finland had warned us about: a nice guy, great company and an excellent storyteller, but totally out of place as a cop. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one of his kind.
Maybe people like him were a blessing to humanity, but they were also a hell of a burden when they wound up in positions not suited to their character. They never wanted to throw the first stone and always discovered mitigating factors, even in places where they didn’t exist. Thanks to them, the bad guys were back out on the streets faster than you could spit, realizing their true natures through foul deeds.
It was my belief that the world wasn’t ready for nice people yet. Nice people didn’t stick their noses in the business of a neighbour who beat his wife and kids; nice heads of state didn’t attack a neighbouring country, even if its dictator had butchered millions of its citizens. Avoiding inconvenience was a fundamental trait of nice people. That’s why they let unpleasant things happen rather than get involved.
Nice people were in their element as nuns, midwives, nurses, scientists, dentists or activities counsellors, but in the kind of position where you had to be capable of handling pressure and problems, they were in the wrong spot.
“None of the deceased except for Tagi Hamid have a criminal background, and all of them are foreigners from a specific region of the globe. They’re also all Muslims, and according to Hamid’s wife, the man who called Ali Hamid had stressed that Muslims here have a responsibility to aid their fellow believers. Aid them in what? We could propose a couple of theories, but for now, at least, they’re only theories.”
“Do any of the theories have anything to do with terrorism?” Leivo demanded.
Most people in the room had already seen this coming for a while. Still, the mention of terrorism silenced the group.
“If it does, I want to know how,” Leivo continued. “Everything would also fit with international organized crime and a territorial gang war. Killing and mutilating competitors as a warning, forcing compatriots to aid them. Even though most of the deceased don’t have a criminal background in Finland, they might turn out to have one back home.”
The deputy chief’s aggressive stance surprised me. It was no longer pure self-defence. Nor was it his place to offer already-digested theories to the lead investigator.
“Like Toivakka said, we don’t have any hints of organized crime of Iraqi or other Arab background,” I said. “For a territorial war, you need a territory.”
“So what about the mysterious killers? Who were they, where did they disappear to, and what was their motivation?” Leivo wondered out loud.
“Huovinen said that there were at least two of them, I’d say at least four. We know that Tagi Hamid, who was shot and mutilated on the bridge, and the unidentified man who was hit by the train approached the scene from different directions with the intention of meeting on the bridge. The killers followed Tagi Hamid. They were not interested in him, however, but in the man that he was supposed to meet. Ali Hamid, on the other hand, was killed last night, so it seems as if the information about the meeting on the bridge had been tortured out of him. He, in turn, had heard it from his cousin Tagi.”
“Where does the four come in?” asked Toivakka.
“Everyone who has ever been involved in tailing a suspect knows that in order to do it successfully, you need enough people. You have to switch roles, so the target doesn’t start noticing that the same guy is always at his heels. In addition, the killers intended to abduct the other man from the bridge. You can’t drag a man who’s struggling and afraid for his life very far without calling attention to yourself. There had to be someone there with a car. But how did the killers know that the person they were following would take the exact route he did? How did they know to have a car at the right spot? They didn’t. The problem was solved by using two cars. The killers were in telephone contact with the cars and were giving them instructions the whole time. When the target approached the Linnunlaulu bridge, one of the cars was sent to Eläintarhantie, the other to the City Theatre. With only one car, they would have lost the guy by the railway bridge at the latest.”
“Sounds like a police operation,” Huovinen reflected.
“Or military,” I said.
“Are you implying that a group of terrorists has set up shop here and some huge posse of foreign agents is after it?” Leivo snorted, an even more dubious expression on his face. “And why did it all happen right there on the bridge?”
“They were following Ali Hamid’s cousin Tagi, because they were looking for the person he was supposed to meet. Afterwards the target was no longer of any use to them, and he was killed. The victim’s face was mutilated so that he wouldn’t be identified too soon.”
“What do you mean, too soon?” Sillanpää wondered.
“Because they knew that, whether or not his face was mutilated, the deceased would eventually be identified. It’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time. So whatever they’re planning on doing here will take place within a very short time frame.”
My words were followed by a silence. It was broken by Deputy Chief Leivo.
“It seems to me that the theory cuts too many corners. The commander and I – and I have already discussed this matter with the commander – feel that you have much more plausible theories. I mean the one in which two men, potentially skinheads, kill a foreigner who’s waiting for his friend on the bridge. The friend shows up and tries to run from them, but falls in front of a train.”
“That was the best theory until we found the two new victims at the body shop,” I agreed. “After that, it was clear that this wasn’t a coincidence.”
Leivo ignored me.
“Or drugs. Maybe they simply had a drug deal that led to an argument and the murders. That would give them a good motive for keeping quiet. Drugs would also explain Hamid’s torture. He was either being punished, or they wanted information from him.”
“That’s possible, too… but I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t? Well, since you’re sure, why don’t you tell us who the killers are?” Leivo said testily.
“If we’re dealing with the kind of operation I think we’re dealing with, I can only come up with two alternatives. Either a disagreement arose within a terrorist group and the more fanatic wing killed the others, or else the killers belong to the intelligence agency of some country.”
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