TH03 - To Steal Her Love (22 page)

Retula’s chest was bare and a dressing with a faint trace of blood had been applied to the area the doctor had mentioned. His eyes were closed and his face was pale and gaunt; his chin was dotted with light stubble, and for a brief moment Harjunpää had the distinct impression that he
knew the man or that he’d seen him before somewhere. The feeling passed as quickly as it had appeared.

‘DS Harjunpää from the Violent Crimes unit. Looks like you’ve had quite a night. If you could tell us briefly what happened.’

The man didn’t respond. He kept his eyes firmly shut but his eyelids were twitching restlessly and his breathing became shallower as though he were afraid of something. The events were so fresh that trying to
remember
them could set off a panic attack.

‘Did you hear me? Was it your apartment?’

‘Yes,’ the man replied in a weak voice. ‘I woke up when the girl started screaming… And then… She said some bloke had been trying to touch her up. I thought I saw someone going towards the hallway. I went after him and… then he turned around and slashed me.’

‘Can you describe this man?’

‘Not really. It was so dark.’

‘Was he tall? Short?’

‘I don’t know,’ he panted as if he were about to burst into tears. ‘It all happened so quickly…’

‘OK,’ Harjunpää sighed. ‘So who was this girl you were with?’

‘How should I know their names?’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘I picked her up in a bar. She was a tart, if you know what I mean.’

‘Which bar were you in?’

‘That one in the park next to the parliament building. I can’t think anymore…’

‘Just bear with me a moment longer. Have you ever seen the woman there before? She must have gone by some name…’

‘What was it she called herself…? Veera. I feel a bit faint.’

‘All right,’ said Harjunpää resignedly. ‘I’ll be in touch in the next few days. Good luck to you.’

Harjunpää straightened his back and turned around. He felt strangely unsatisfied, disappointed, even though talking to victims in situations like this was often entirely futile. On top of this he had a feeling – not even a feeling, but a vague notion, like a dream that you remember vividly when you wake up in the middle of the night – a hunch that everything was not as it seemed, that somewhere a cog was turning in the wrong direction.

‘Let’s go back to the flat on Eerikinkatu,’ he said flatly.

Lampinen walked into his office, followed by Juslin, placed his radio on the desk and took off his parka. This, his jeans and his knee-high laced bovver boots were items of clothing he wore only when he was on a job at night; during the daytime he always wore a three-piece suit, a shirt and a loosely knotted tie.

He hung his jacket in the wardrobe, glanced over at his partner and gave a broad smile. He was in a very good mood; he laughed to himself, soft rippling laughter that bubbled from inside him and wouldn’t stop. It was catching; Juslin gave a quiet chuckle, then a series of chuckles, but his expression remained more serious than Lampinen’s.

‘Quite a prank,’ said Lampinen once he’d sat down, almost to reawaken his laughter. It didn’t develop further than a smile. He took out his box of Café Crèmes, carefully licked one of the cigars and lit it. It tasted slightly bitter; it was still the middle of the night. They had been out keeping an eye on key locations in preparation for the following night’s hit as part of Operation Spray, though so far this had yielded only meagre results. They hadn’t yet caught a single culprit. Still, this hadn’t been their top priority in the first place, they had merely wanted to go over the stake-out locations and check that there would be enough light.

Lampinen put his feet up on the table and sat there looking at his shoes. Society was full of people like him, men and women, accepted, intelligent, often successful and popular in their own circles. On the surface they were good people, like everyone else, like almost everyone. But there was something else about them too, or rather something was
missing, something big. They lacked the ability to feel guilt, true
attachment
and empathy, the ability to understand how other people feel. To them, questions of good and bad were simply matters of expediency: if someone ended up suffering, all too often they thought that that person had
deserved it
.

But because this deficiency had nothing to do with intelligence, Lampinen had succeeded in educating himself, taking care of his work and shadier dealings, which had accumulated throughout his career, in such a way that, if anyone had ever cottoned on to what he was up to, he would always have been able to prove his innocence, and if the matter had gone to the magistrates, he would have been the one walking out of court with a hefty damages payment.

In different circumstances he could have become a killer, a member of parliament or even a government minister. With no children of his own he could have picked on families with children, gradually doing away with all the benefits the state shelled out to them, and could have argued his point in such a way that half the nation would have clapped their hands and thought what an upright man Minister Lampinen really was.

But Lampinen wasn’t in the government; he was a detective sergeant. His cigar was almost finished and he squashed it in the ashtray. Then he remembered something and clicked his fingers.

‘What have we forgotten?’

‘To go home.’

‘No… the guy they brought in from the bar downtown. We ought to take a look at him.’

‘True.’

‘We could interview him too. You know, in a preventive sense. Just in case he’s planning anything nasty…’

The men looked at one another for a long, significant moment. In a strange, devious way they complemented one another: despite everything, Lampinen needed someone to whose stature he could aspire and whose physical presence and qualities he could assume as his own. What made it even better was that, in his own way, that other person admired him and silently obeyed his every word. Juslin had always wanted to have the gift of the gab, but he could only achieve this in certain situations, and even then he knew that it was only a façade, a bluff, something to mask his pain. Moreover, for some reason he simply enjoyed being Lampinen’s partner.

Lampinen clicked his fingers a second time, as though he were
knocking
a hammer against the table to confirm an auction sale, then he swung his feet to the floor, took his jacket, grabbed his radio from the desk and left. Juslin trudged silently behind him. They walked down to the cells and took the lift to the bottom floor where the reception for those taken into custody was situated together with a number of offices and bleak holding cells used as temporary housing for those brought to the station.

Lampinen marched up to the security guard sitting behind a computer monitor.

‘Evening all. I hear you’ve got a bloke here who was apprehended on Keskuskatu and is waiting for an officer from Violent Crimes. I’d like to see him.’

‘Hasn’t he been assigned to Harjunpää?’

‘Yes, but we’re all working the same case.’

‘He’s in number seven.’

‘Vielen Dank.’

Lampinen turned and made his way down the desolate corridor. The air was thick with the smell of people and problems. Lampinen glanced up at the numbers painted on the green steel doors. Eventually he stopped, lifted his finger in front of his mouth and pushed the cover from across the peephole to one side.

He silently pressed himself against the door, closed one eye and squinted inside. He stared at the man for a long time, well over a minute, and as he finally pushed himself away from the door he nodded to Juslin. He only spent a few moments at the peephole, straightened up and looked at Lampinen.

‘Small and skinny,’ he said quietly. ‘Grey clothes. And very scared. He’s almost trembling in there.’

‘And his face partly resembles the one in the photofit. Particularly the nose – it’s sharp as a beak. We don’t know for sure that he’s the right man…’

‘But he’s definitely done something pretty bad in his life.’

‘Right…’

The men were silent for a moment and stood looking at one another. Then Lampinen asked, ‘Just out of interest: if you’d done something, would you rather take a whipping that would be over in a few minutes or rot away for years on the inside?’

‘I think I’d go for the whip. And besides, I’d be making amends for my deeds, as the taxpayer wouldn’t have to keep me in prison.’

‘Exactly,’ said Lampinen. He walked down the corridor and round the corner, stopped, brought the radio up to his mouth and pressed the button.

‘Crime Squad, Harjunpää, this is Lampinen. Copy.’

‘Copy. We’re at a stabbing on Eerikinkatu.’

‘We were just passing through the holding cells and there’s a bit of confusion going on. There’s a bloke down here waiting for you and making a hell of a fuss, saying he’s been arrested for no good reason. If you want, we can transfer him upstairs on our way if you’ve got a warrant.’

‘No… Just let him go. And tell him I’m sorry. Give him a ride home if you can. Make sure to photograph him just in case.’

‘Very magnanimous of you. Where’s this sprung from all of a sudden?’

‘He really is innocent. Based on the descriptions we’ve got, I thought he was our intruder, but now we’ve got a fresh case.’

‘Well… As you wish.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it in the least. We’ll be happy to do you a favour.’

Lampinen turned down the volume on the radio and glanced at Juslin.

‘Let’s go through his things first, just to see if he’s got any lock-picking equipment on him. Then we’ll take him home.’

Tweety was sitting in the back of a car and he was afraid. The fear was like a hole in his head, spewing out silent, bright red screams.

The Big Man was sitting next to him. The one driving was smaller, yet he seemed somehow more dangerous. Outside it was dark. Night.

The Big Man sat with his legs apart; he smelled of sweat and unwashed clothes, the way his father used to smell when he came back from work, and didn’t speak to Tweety. Whenever they rounded a corner the Big Man leaned closer to him, sometimes shoving him with the length of his wretched side, crushing Tweety’s arm painfully against the door.

The Little Man didn’t say anything either, but every now and then he looked at Tweety in the mirror – he’d turned it so that he could see him properly – and if Tweety looked back at him the man’s eyes were like pipes with the faint glimmer of blood at the other end.

The inside of the car smelled of hotdog wrappers and farts; every so often the Little Man would raise one buttock and let off without trying to hide it in the least. Tweety wanted to open the window but didn’t dare.

He couldn’t concentrate on anything; what had happened in Alice, what it had felt like being in the police car and put in a cell. His mind was racing with the thought that he might still be caught. He’d given them false details – the details themselves weren’t false but they belonged to someone else – but he’d slipped up when they’d said they were taking him home. He realised he’d got away with it and the sense of relief was too great: he’d told them he lived at Joutsentie 3. Reino would be there, Mother Gold too. What if the two men walked him into the house and
told them what he’d been up to? He fidgeted anxiously, and more screams started showering out of the hole in his head, but the men didn’t pay any attention to them. He surreptitiously wiped the droplets from his legs.

The car slowed noticeably. It swayed as they took a sharp turning, then proceeded at walking pace. The mudguards brushed the ground and hay rattled against the chassis; branches scraped against the sides of the car. He couldn’t see the streetlamps any more, but the Little Man had put the headlights on full beam and moths glowed in the light like snowflakes. Tweety didn’t have the faintest idea where they were; perhaps the Little Man was taking some kind of shortcut.

They were soon in front of a small hillock at the top of which stood a house. It was pitch dark. Tweety looked more closely at the house and saw that it was just the body of a house, nothing but walls and a roof. Where the windows should have been there were gaping black holes, just like Brownie’s eyes, and the front door was missing altogether. The ground was strewn with pieces of wood, dead items of furniture and spiritless bottles. Tweety started to tremble. He couldn’t control it; it was as though he were filled with soft springs that had started vibrating by themselves.

The Little Man stopped the car and pulled the handbrake. He produced a long, black torch that looked like a baton, got out of the car and started walking towards the house. Tweety’s eyes followed the man as though he were the only thing in the world. He switched on the torch and walked around the building. He spent a long time behind the house, perhaps the path was blocked with bushes or rubble, but then he reappeared, walked up the steps and disappeared inside the black door-opening.

‘You’re a real pervert, aren’t you,’ the Big Man said suddenly, his voice like a cracked block of concrete, before shoving him with his elbow so that he knocked against the door. ‘Answer me! Are you a pervert?’

‘No…’

‘You’re lying! You know what happens to liars?’

‘No. I mean, yes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

‘Well, are you a pervert or not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fucking hell,’ the Big Man almost spat out the words and backed off in disgust. ‘I don’t even want to touch you…’

The Little Man came out of the house and began walking back towards the car. He’d lit a cigar; its burning end glowed in the darkness
like a dragon’s eye, and suddenly Tweety was certain he was going to die. He didn’t quite understand how he knew this, but the notion filled him with such certainty and his mind was flooded with a wave of unbearable melancholy. He’d experienced something like this before; perhaps it had been in a previous life.

The Little Man stopped beside the back door of the car and opened it.

‘Make room, please,’ he said. He was being strangely polite and he seemed somehow amused, but his politeness was a lie. It stank of lies, the Little Man was nothing but lies, through and through, and that must have been why Tweety had thought he seemed so dangerous.

He barged his way into the back seat and sat down, forcing Tweety to move closer to the stench of the Big Man who didn’t move an inch. There he was, squashed between them. It felt as though a fire was burning inside him. The decks of his mind were all ablaze; sailing boats burned so easily and nobody was ever rescued from the flames.

‘Confess to us,’ said the Little Man. ‘It’ll help.’

‘What do you want me to…?’

‘Tell us what you’ve been up to,’ the Big Man snapped. ‘Tell us, pervert!’

‘I went into the toilet and… She had such pretty hair, it was like candyfloss…’

‘Fuck that. We’re not interested in what you get up to in the toilet.’

‘Admit what you’ve been doing for the last few years.’

‘Nothing,’ Tweety gasped, and in a flash he realised that they knew after all, that he’d been caught. His veins seemed to turn to ice and he started coughing.

‘Tell us about your lock-picking.’

‘I don’t know anything… Honestly.’

‘Where’s your moped?’

‘Moped?’

‘Are you a pervert?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a fucking pervert and we know what you’ve been up to.’

‘Ever heard of the EC?’

‘No… I mean… the European Community?’

‘That’s right. They use the death penalty, you know. And it came into effect in Finland a month ago.’

‘No…’

‘Oh yes,’ said the Little Man with a chilling certainty and looked him right in the eyes. Then he got out of the car, pulled his jacket to one side to reveal a short-barrelled revolver on his belt. It looked like a rabid black dog.

‘Get out,’ he ordered Tweety; he no longer sounded polite or amused. It was as though the dragon that had lit up his eyes had disappeared inside him, and now his expression was cruel and somehow content.

‘Start walking towards the house. And just you try making a run for it, just you try,’ he said tapping his gun. Tweety stepped towards the shell of a house and both men followed behind him. A torn rubber boot and a baby’s blue dummy lay on the ground; the light of the torch hovered across the path and several times the shadow of a long baton was cast across the beam of light.

Tweety went up the steps almost in a trance. Shards of glass crackled beneath his feet; the air smelled of mould and timber and wet sawdust. Tweety stopped at the threshold. He didn’t want to step inside, it would have been like stepping into his own grave, but someone shoved his back. He stumbled forwards a few metres, regained his balance and turned around.

The men aimed the torch directly at his eyes and he wondered whether they were going to shoot him, whether he would even register the sound of the gunshot, then the Little Man shouted: ‘Take off your trousers. Lie down on your stomach over there. Arse this way.’

Tears began to trickle down Tweety’s cheeks as he took hold of his belt buckle and began fumbling to undo it.

Tweety walked out into the yard. He was five years old. He was wearing the brown breeches his mother had sewn, one of Lasse’s old shirts and the plimsolls he’d got from Uncle Eino. They were beautiful clothes, nobody else had clothes as beautiful as these, and it felt good running in his plimsolls. With them on his feet he could fly. He could fly better than all the children in the yard. He jumped around lightly, but didn’t take off. He didn’t want to do that just yet.

And he was beautiful. Marjaana had said so. He knew he was a good boy: he had a key round his neck to prove it. It hung from a piece of blue string and it was a real key, but it didn’t fit any of the doors. Lasse’s key fitted, but he was already seven. When he came home, Tweety had to knock on the door because he couldn’t reach the doorbell. If he stood on tiptoes he could only just touch it.

There was no one outside yet. It was too early. It was Sunday morning; he knew that because Mother and Father had stayed in bed and because the morning was Sunday-coloured, it even smelled of Sunday. It smelled of spring too. The trees in the park nearly had leaves on them, but he wasn’t allowed to go into the park without permission. He didn’t want to go either. There was grass in the yard too; it was growing beside the garage between the wall and the tarmac.

He ruffled his wings and flew across the yard. He flew all the way to the back door of Loviisa’s little café and landed on the ground outside. He saw a ladybird. He wanted to pick it up, he wanted to sing it into flight, but it scurried around so fast and was too slippery. And it might wee on his hand. Ladybird wee was bright yellow and it stank.

He hopped over towards the wooden barrels. They were filled with food. Any food left over from the café was brought down to Loviisa’s house and she fed it to the pigs. One time, he and Pekka fished pieces of bread out of the barrels and spread them with pigeon poo. But they only pretended to eat them.

The door opened. It was the caretaker’s door; it squealed as though someone had hurt it. Pekka lived there. Pekka’s father was the caretaker and he was a strong man. Tweety came out from behind the barrels. But it wasn’t Pekka: it was Marjaana, and she saw him straight away.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

‘What are you doing in there?’

‘There was a rat here a minute ago.’

‘No there wasn’t.’

‘But there was a ladybird.’

‘Our dad’s already seen a swallow. Lots.’

‘So’s ours. And so’s our mum.’

Marjaana walked up to Tweety. Her hair was almost white and reached down to her shoulders. She was wearing a red checked dress but no shoes whatsoever, and Tweety was a bit disappointed. He wasn’t allowed to walk around barefoot in the city, only in the countryside, but even there it always hurt at bit at first. He pretended not to notice that Marjaana wasn’t wearing any shoes. He took hold of the string round his neck and started swinging his key back and forth. Marjaana was only four.

‘What shall we do?’

‘Let’s be pigeons.’

‘I don’t like that. Let’s play house.’

‘No,’ said Tweety and started jumping up and down on one foot. He wondered whether Pekka might come out and see him.

‘Let’s be flying deer,’ he suggested.

‘I don’t know. Do you want me to show you?’

‘Show me what?’

‘The thing I promised I’d show you.’

Tweety was suddenly so happy that he clapped his hands together.

‘Look,’ he shouted and ran off towards the garage door, his hands
flailing
behind him.

‘I’ll show you my winkie if you want.’

‘OK,’ said Tweety, and he really did want her to show him. He felt a bit nervous. It felt the same as the time when he and Pekka stole a box of matches from the laundry room.

‘What if someone comes out?’

‘Let’s go in there.’

They ran across the yard and in behind the rubbish bins. It was a good hiding place, though it was sometimes a bit smelly. Marjaana lifted up her dress and pulled down her knickers. Tweety bent down and looked. Marjaana’s winkie was a short, vertical slit. It didn’t have any hair growing around it. Mother’s winkie did, and so did Auntie Liisa’s. He’d seen that in the sauna. But it was nice to look at, it made him feel funny. He was a bit embarrassed and his willy felt strange. It was jutting out. It did that sometimes.

Marjaana pulled her dress down and Tweety stood up.

‘I want to put something in it,’ he said.

‘Like what?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Go on then. That stick?’

Tweety was disappointed; he though Marjaana was stupid, but he couldn’t think of anything better and picked the stick up from the ground. It wasn’t a wooden stick but a piece from the handle of a broken rug-beater. Marjaana lifted up her dress again and pulled open the top of her knickers. Tweety dropped the stick into her knickers and it stayed there propped up against her stomach.

‘Now can we play house?’

‘Let’s be pigeons.’

‘No… It tickles my tummy when I walk. It hurts.’

‘Let’s take it out.’

‘No. I’m going home to tell Mum.’

‘Don’t do that,’ said Tweety and held Marjaana by the hands the way they always did when they played house.

‘I’m going home.’ Marjaana started to cry, ran up to the door and opened it. Tweety was scared. You weren’t supposed to play things like that. He hopped from one foot to the other, but it was no fun. Then he sprinted to the stairwell and hid in the attic doorway.