TH03 - To Steal Her Love (28 page)

Pipsa wasn’t Pipsa any more. She was Talisman. Talisman was a pony. He was the pony Pauliina looked after at the stables in Masala, and he was dappled brown-and-white like an Indian horse.

Pipsa was dappled too. She had a flowing, fair mane and a long, whisking tail, and now that she’d escaped from the stall in the back garden and ran
cantering
across the meadow they billowed as the wind whistled through them.

‘Oy! Talisman doesn’t run away all the time!’ Pipsa pretended not to hear Valpuri’s cries. She just tossed her head back and forth and beat her hooves into the ground, trampling the flowers in her path.

‘Come on, I don’t like him running away all the time.’

‘Neigh! Neigh!’

‘I mean it… I’m not playing if you’re going to run away all the time.’

That sounded more serious. Pipsa stopped in her tracks and turned to look back at her sisters in the garden. Valpuri’s lower lip was jutting out, and that meant she was serious.

‘But sometimes he just wants to run away.’

‘But not all the time. If we’re going to take him to a show, we’ll have to plait his mane and polish his hooves. He usually gets some pieces of crispbread too…’

‘But this pony would rather eat sugar.’

‘Your teeth can’t take sugar,’ said Pauliina, but Pipsa didn’t care. Pauliina was only pretending to be all grown up because Mum wasn’t at home. She hadn’t even come to play with them; she was just sunning herself and reading a book.

‘I’ll get you some,’ said Valpuri. ‘But only two sugar cubes, OK?’

Pipsa trotted towards the garden. When she reached the white willow tree she turned and looked back up the hill. An old man was doddering towards the forest. He looked almost like Grandpa, but he was walking with great difficulty as though he was in a lot of pain, and he wasn’t wearing his waistcoat. Grandpa always wore his waistcoat because he kept his watch in the pocket. It was a pocket watch. And besides, Grandpa was having a nap upstairs and he wouldn’t have gone off into the woods without her.

The man disappeared in amongst the trees and Valpuri appeared at the gate with sugar cubes in her hands. Pipsa galloped away and gently bounded across the shallow ditch that ran between the garden and the meadow.

‘Harjunpää!’ somebody shouted down the corridor. Harjunpää heard it even though he had shut his office door, but he didn’t react to it. Perhaps it didn’t register that somebody was looking for him.

His sat by his desk, his face buried in his hands, and thought of Onerva who was still in theatre, lying under the dazzling lights, covered with green sheets, people silently working all around her. Harjunpää was hoping for a miracle. He prayed for one, prayed that the surgeons would be able to fix her hand, to attach her torn finger, to do everything they could so that nothing needed to be amputated. He knew it was possible; he remembered reading that with the help of microsurgery surgeons could even reattach severed limbs.

‘Harjunpää! Has anyone seen Harjunpää?’

Every time he let his thoughts drift from Onerva, he found himself reliving the moment in the car lot again. He dashed through the door and ran after Onerva; he sensed the smell and the sounds, saw both cars; he recalled the screech of brakes and the clatter of metal against concrete, and after that… damn it, damn it, damn it.

He moved in anguish, shuffled his feet. What could he have done differently? He might not have rushed her. Perhaps. But after all the problems with the investigation, the unexpected lead had felt so
exhilarating
… Thinking about it afterwards, it wasn’t just about catching the intruder. Deep down it was about winning, beating all the Tanttus and Järvis and Lampinens of the world. Was that wrong? Was that why he was being punished like this?

‘Harjunpää! Any sign of Harjunpää?’

He rested his face on his arms, took a few deep breaths and inhaled Onerva’s smell. He was wearing the Heart cardigan. He’d picked it up off the floor along with Onerva’s gun once the ambulance crew had left. The cardigan’s sleeves were a little too short for him but that didn’t matter. The important thing was that he was wearing the cardigan. That way he would be with her every step of the way, holding her hand.

‘Harjunpää!’

Kauranen flung the door open and stood in the doorway, out of breath, an investigation bag in his hand and his legs full of impetus.

‘Henrikson and I are responding to a call-out. A man’s been shot on Runeberginkatu. I think you should come with us… There’s a Public Order Squad down there already, and initial information suggests the shooting victim might be your intruder.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘Not yet, at any rate. An ambulance has taken him to Töölö hospital. A single bullet wound to the head.’

‘How did it happen?’ Harjunpää asked and made to stand up.

‘Apparently he’d picked the lock and entered the flat – in the middle of the day… The woman seems to have suspected that someone was breaking in for a while now and she’d got a gun to protect herself.’

Harjunpää brushed the hair from his forehead; he didn’t want to leave. In a way, he was broken. He knew he couldn’t be as vigilant as he needed to be, that he’d just wander about and get in everybody’s way, and to his surprise he realised that he couldn’t care less about what had happened. On top of that, he was waiting for a call from Onerva’s son, Mikko, who had promised to let him know how the operation had gone.

‘Well… Why don’t you take a separate car and go straight to the hospital?’ Kauranen suggested. Somehow he understood the situation. ‘The gun was only a .22 calibre. He could be all right if the bullet didn’t hit him too badly. He might already be conscious… You remember the bloke that escaped from a shooting a while back and sat in the hospital waiting-room with a bullet through his head…’

‘Let’s do that,’ said Harjunpää. ‘But take Thurman from Forensics with you. He knows our man’s handiwork from before.’

Harjunpää steered the Lada into Töölönkatu and continued towards the hospital. He’d driven the entire journey amongst the other traffic and hadn’t
hurried – he’d had enough of rushing about – and it occurred to him that less than a week ago he had driven down this same street in pursuit of the same man. And just when he’d come to accept that he would probably never set eyes on the chaffinch man, now they were finally about to meet.

He rolled the car up on to the pavement and placed his parking certificate in the window, got out of the car and walked up to the door, and he was suddenly overcome by a faint sense of melancholy. He’d walked through this door dozens if not hundreds of times, and this might be the last time he did so on official business. Inside the air was pleasantly cool and smelled of treatment and pain; out of sight he could hear what sounded like a heated conversation. He produced his badge and stopped at the registrar’s desk.

‘A man was brought in from Runberginkatu with a gunshot wound to the head…’

‘That’s right. The little blighter… You’d better come with me.’

The man walked round the counter and made his way down the corridor. Harjunpää followed him and didn’t even try to guess what the man had meant. In his own mind, he was prepared for anything.

The registrar stopped beside the open door of a treatment room. This was the room the sound of conversation had been coming from. There were four nurses and a doctor in the room. A curly-haired,
frightened-looking
nurse was having her arm swabbed with a bitter-smelling liquid.

‘This man’s from the Crime Squad. He’s here about the man we…’

‘You’re a bit too late,’ said the doctor, a serious-looking woman with a tight, thin mouth. ‘He upped and left a minute ago.’

‘Meaning?’

‘According to the ambulance crew that brought him in, he must have come to in the ambulance but lain still, kept his eyes shut and didn’t respond to any questions… When we’d got him in here he sat up and tried to leave. Of course, we can’t force patients to have treatment. It’s highly possible that he was in shock from what happened, the nurses tried to restrain him but…’

‘He started thrashing about and scratching like some wild animal,’ said the curly-haired nurse and showed Harjunpää her arm. It was streaked with red scratches, like the claw marks of a large cat. ‘That’s the thanks we get…’

Harjunpää sighed and leaned his shoulder against the doorpost.

‘How serious were his injuries?’

‘According to the paramedics the bullet caught him here,’ said the doctor running a finger along the side of her temple. ‘It’s left a wound about five centimetres long in his scalp. We wanted to make sure he hadn’t sustained any greater damage to the skull.’

‘So… it’s not life-threatening?’

‘Not as far as we know. But, as I said, assuming that there are no other wounds to the skull. Still, it must have been quite a knock to the head, which would explain why he was unconscious when the paramedics carried him into the ambulance. Additionally he might have sustained some concussion when he fell. That’s another reason it would have been a good idea to take some X-rays.’

Harjunpää stood up straight. ‘I’m sure I can guess, but I’ll ask anyway: you don’t happen to have his details, do you?’

‘I’m afraid not. He wasn’t carrying any ID, just some loose change and a small bag that jangled…’

‘Of course…’

‘And to be perfectly frank, he wasn’t in a very stable frame of mind. Even his eyes were… somehow like a panicked animal. And then he started thrashing about and scratching. It’s in everyone’s best interests to locate this man quickly.’

‘Indeed. Thank you.’

‘What a lovely cardigan…’

‘Thank you.’

Harjunpää returned to the car. He sat still for a few moments, his hands folded limply in his lap, and couldn’t concentrate on anything. Finally he blew his nose and reached for the car radio.

‘Violent Crimes, Kauranen and Henrikson. Do you copy?’

‘This is Kauranen. Copy.’

‘The shooter can’t hear you, can she?’

‘No, she’s inside. I’m out in the stairwell. We’re taking the lock apart.’

‘The victim only sustained a five-centimetre wound to the temple. He did a runner from the hospital before they could examine him.’

‘Damn it… That information certainly won’t comfort our lady here. She’s in shock, I think, but not too badly. She’s worried she might have killed him. Her story makes sense though: for about a year she’s suspected that someone was coming into her flat at night.’

‘Tell her that may very well be the case.’

‘Will do. Are you on your way over here?’

‘No, I’m going back to the station.’

Harjunpää turned the ignition and steered the car out into the flow of traffic, but he had barely driven a hundred metres before he heard Control calling him over the radio. He sighed wearily, and imagining all sorts of terrible things he pulled over at the first available gateway.

‘Harjunpää. Over.’

‘You put in a request a couple of hours ago for a patrol car to
apprehend
a suspect at Sokos.’

‘Yes, and I happen to know they didn’t get him.’

‘Unfortunately not. But the officers spoke to this Backman guy and the old man that worked in the locksmith’s. It turns out the bloke you’re looking for works there too. His name’s Leinonen, Asko Leinonen. We’ve got his details and an address if you want to stop by and pick them up.’

‘Thank you,’ said Harjunpää, then replaced the radio for the second time. ‘Thank you.’

‘Lampinen… I see… Tuula, you said your name is? And does Tuula have a surname?’

‘You don’t need that, do you? Over the phone?’

‘Depends what you’re calling about.’

‘Well, because I know… I mean… I read about that bank robbery in the paper this morning. They got away with millions, right?’

‘Carry on,’ Lampinen exclaimed. His expression had changed in an instant and he swung his feet to the floor. Ash from his cigar fell on the desk and with his free hand he switched on a small tape recorder attached to the telephone. ‘So that’s what this is all about… There was such an incident.’

‘The paper said something about a reward…’

‘Correct,’ said Lampinen and tried to remember whether there was a Tuula among his regular snouts. He couldn’t think of anyone by that name, but it was no surprise that the woman had thought to call him; Lampinen was well known in the underworld. There was no doubt that Tuula belonged to that world, too. There was something slow and rough about her voice, probably from the drink or from sleeping around. Lampinen knew never to underestimate the skills of these people as sources of information; people whispered the strangest things in the bedroom.

‘But, but… Don’t you think it would be easier to talk about something like this face to face? To be honest with you, I don’t much trust phones either…’

‘Yes,’ the woman hesitated. ‘But first I want to know I’ll get that reward.’

‘The reward is for information leading to a conviction.’

‘Well, what if I said I know who did it?’

‘I’m sure that would do it,’ said Lampinen trying to sound as
nonchalant
as he could, which was difficult as his mind was racing. The case was completely dark. None of the officers working on it had the faintest idea who was behind the robbery. The same went for Lampinen’s sources: nobody in the underworld had been bragging about carrying out the job, nobody had been flashing money about or asking around for assistance in the weeks leading up to the heist – which was rare, particularly because this was clearly a highly professional job. They’d even mopped the floor before making their getaway. And now all of a sudden there was Tuula, the first ray of light they’d had, and a very promising one at that. Lampinen wanted to find out what she knew. He wanted to be the one to solve the case, and when he wanted something he generally got it.

‘I don’t want to meet you where someone might be watching…’

‘How about I stop by your house?’ Lampinen suggested. ‘I don’t even wear a uniform.’

‘You won’t be in a police car, will you?’

‘You can trust me. I’ll come in my own car. It’s a green Saab, your average civilian run-around.’

‘Don’t bring anyone else. And I want to be sure you won’t be… recording anything.’

‘Now, now… Nothing like that. Now tell me where to meet you.’

The woman gave an address and briefly described the house, and Lampinen recalled the area instantly: it was an area to the north of the city with lots of detached houses. He’d been up there a few years back doing surveillance on a group of illegal fur traders, and eventually he’d managed to wrap that case up pretty quickly. Puistola was full of good luck. That is, it would be for him, if not for the bank robbers.

‘Well,’ the woman began for the third time after much procrastination, and Lampinen was sure this was it. There was something about the way she was staring at the floor and nervously biting her lip; he’d seen the same body language before. People behaved like this just before finally
confessing
to a life of crime.

‘I know them well. I know one of them far too well… You probably know him too. It’s… Oh God!’

Again she hesitated. Lampinen shifted impatiently on the sofa but managed to keep his expression calm. That was the second time the woman had said she knew one of them too well, and that meant he was probably a former husband or boyfriend. What was driving her was perhaps not so much the reward as the desire to give payback for the knocks she’d taken during the break-up.

Lampinen glanced out of the window. The house was situated on a quiet, remote plot of land surrounded by thick birch trees. It hadn’t been taken very good care of and even the inside wasn’t as clean as he had imagined. Everything was bare. But the biggest surprise of all was Tuula herself. She was actually quite attractive: dyed red hair, a pleasant, oval face, slim legs and breasts as pert as a pig’s backside. She lived on the edge of society; she wasn’t a whore or a crook, but she clearly wasn’t an
upstanding
taxpayer either.

‘What are you so worried about?’ Lampinen chuckled as though she were a child afraid of the bogey man. ‘All you have to do is give me one name and, abracadabra, the fifty grand is yours. The bank has given me their word. Fifty thousand… You could go to the Med a dozen times with that kind of money. Or the US of A.’

‘But if only you knew… If he finds out it was me that told you, you might as well keep the money for my funeral.’

‘Listen. That’s just talk. It’s easy to control people if you can keep them scared. Fear is a great tool if you know how to use it…’

‘And you promise my name won’t be mentioned?’

‘I already said so,’ Lampinen sighed and took a swig of beer. He’d been forced to accept her offer of a drink as she might have felt uncomfortable drinking by herself. But Lampinen knew all the old tricks. He just wet his lips with froth every now and then and didn’t really drink at all.

Though then again… There was another option, and as he looked at Tuula’s nervous expression he decided to take it. He knew that he would always be able to get someone from the station to come and pick him up and take the car, or if one thing led to another he could leave the
following
morning. Tuula was a nice-looking woman and he had a packet of condoms in his jacket pocket.

‘God it’s been a rough day,’ he sighed, stretched and emptied his glass in a single gulp. ‘I’d dearly love to clock off… Sorry for being so blunt. Have you got anything other than beer?’

‘But you’re driving.’

‘I’ll sort that out when the time comes.’

They looked at one another. Lampinen saw straight away that the woman understood. That’s what she’d been waiting for all along, the slut. She licked her lips provocatively, stood up and swung her way towards the kitchen. She quite literally swung, showing off her body as she went. She had magnificent hips and buttocks. He could make out the contours of her panties beneath her skirt, and they weren’t any old underwear either, but a tiny little thong. It aroused him and amused him at the same time. He was amused at the thought of people asking how he had obtained the information, to which he would reply, ‘Fucking around’. And if he was awarded a police medal and people asked him how he had got it, he would say exactly the same thing.

An hour later Lampinen glanced at his watch and squinted his eyes with pleasure. Things were going well. They’d both drunk three whiskies in quick succession, held each other by the hand and talked about the difficulties of life and love, and gradually they’d started kissing and fondling one another, and now as he looked at his watch Tuula was taking her top off. She was wearing a beautiful, satin underwired bra and she had a magnificent chest. With one hand she was playing with his flies, and he truly hoped something would start happening down there soon; he couldn’t always perform with strange women.

But he knew how to proceed: he would keep Tuula on a high heat and bring her almost to climax, then he would pretend to turn cold, and if she asked him what was wrong he’d sigh and say something to the effect that he was upset that she didn’t trust him enough to give him the name – and he was sure that at that moment she’d lean over and whisper it in his ear.

He slipped his hand beneath Tuula’s soft armpits and began fumbling with her bra strap. It was a strange law of nature that bra straps were always different from what you expected: you had to pull the clip when you’d thought you had to push it, but he managed to undo it eventually. Tuula gave a light sigh, lay further back on the sofa and began to undo her zip. Lampinen took off his shirt and let it fall to the floor, undid his belt and his flies – and gave a sudden start.

‘What was that?’

‘Oh my God… The door!’

Lampinen jumped to his feet. The sound of someone wiping their shoes on the doormat could be heard from the hallway. Then came a dull cough.

‘For Christ’s sake… so you don’t live by yourself? Who is it?’

‘My husband,’ said Tuula, her voice suddenly frail. She crouched down and covered her breasts. ‘He wasn’t supposed to be back until the day after tomorrow. He’s… He’s terrible when he gets angry. He could kill you!’

‘Just get fucking dressed,’ Lampinen hissed. His head felt suddenly swollen; the whisky and the bitter taste of stomach acid rose up in his throat. He struggled to get his shirt on but it was useless; the damn sleeves were inside out and the fabric caught everywhere. ‘Fuck it, fuck it…’

‘Tuula, I managed to put up the…’

The man’s sentence was left hanging. He just stood there with his mouth open looking, staring at them as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. And he was built like a truck, rugged and muscular with angry, spiky hair and a lopsided face, as though it had been beaten that way in countless brawls.

‘Easy… Just take it easy,’ Lampinen managed to say, and he barely recognised his own voice. ‘I can explain…’

‘I doubt it,’ the man growled between clenched teeth and stepped closer. The floor creaked under his weight. ‘Your explanations aren’t good enough for me.’

‘Wait! This isn’t what it looks like,’ said Lampinen as he grabbed his wallet, flicked it open and showed the man his badge. ‘Police!’

‘All the more reason to rip your head off,’ said the man, suddenly so full of rage that his head was trembling. He stormed past the table, stopped by a cupboard in the corner and wrenched the door open. The cupboard was full of weapons, rifles and shotguns, and that was enough for Lampinen.

Tuula ran shrieking into the back room. Lampinen grabbed the rest of his clothes and dashed towards the hallway. He quickly glanced behind him and saw the man brandishing a bluish black shotgun. There was a click as he opened the barrel. Lampinen shoved open the door; he feared for his life and the fear had almost paralysed him. His thighs suddenly felt stiff and he almost tripped and fell on his front. He gave a faint cry and bounded down the steps.

He ran across the yard as fast as he could, expecting to hear a shot at any moment, to feel the impact of the pellets. The man was at such close
range that the pellets wouldn’t have time to separate; they’d take his head off. He hunched his shoulders and ran towards his car, all the while grappling in his pocket for the keys. They wouldn’t penetrate the body of the car, he knew that, unless the bloke got so close that he managed to shoot him in the neck through the windows.

Lampinen pulled out the keys. One of his shoes fell from under his arm; he left it behind, all he wanted was to get out in one piece, nothing else mattered! He pushed the key into the lock and fumbled, fumbled, finally managed to yank the door open, and looked behind him. The man had only reached the steps. He’d dropped the cartridges and was
rummaging
for them on the floor – either out of rage or agitation – and this gave Lampinen a few extra seconds.

Lampinen all but jumped inside the car, felt around for the ignition – it was on the wrong side, he’d forgotten he wasn’t in a police car – found it eventually, managed to get the key in and turn it. The engine roared into life. He looked behind: the man had raised the shotgun to his cheek and was aiming at the car. He crouched down as far as he could, released the clutch and the car bolted forwards, hitting the post box as it went. Still there was no shot. Lampinen swerved on to the road. Gravel crunched beneath him; it was all he could do to keep control of the car.

Tuula was standing by the living-room window. She had taken a small mobile phone from her handbag and was now nimbly pressing its buttons.

‘Police. Emergency services,’ came the voice at the other end.

‘Good evening, this is Kirsi Suhonen. I’m calling from Puistola, near the Nurkkatie junction. There’s a car been careering up and down the road for a while now; I think it must be a drink-driver. It’s a green Saab, and it looks as though he’s gone off down Puistolantie towards the city centre.’

‘Did you get the registration number?’ she was asked. She did have the registration number; she dictated it into the phone and was asked to hold for a moment. She could hear the man putting out a call over the police radio: ‘That’s the third report about the green Saab. For all patrols in the area, the registration number is…’

Tuula sighed with satisfaction and ended the call. She then took a quick swig from the bottle of whisky and started to get dressed. Mara came in holding the shotgun.

‘Jesus Christ, Jatta, he was driving fast. I was afraid he was going to run the car into the ditch, then I’d have had to beat him up for real.’

‘I really hope they catch him. He was such a nasty piece of work…’

‘There are always patrols on the move. I already called them twice.’

‘Leave five hundred in the kitchen for the rent and let’s go.’

Mara went into the kitchen. Jatta buttoned up her blouse. She didn’t have the faintest idea who she had done this favour for – the plan had come through so many different people – but she suspected it had something to do with drugs. All she needed to know was that she and Mara had just earned themselves two thousand marks each.