The Bodyguard (16 page)

“It’s a shame you’re already employed,” Cecilia continued. “I wanted to hire you to work on my mother’s murder case.”

“But I protect people—I’m not a private eye. And besides, I thought you blamed me for her death.”

“Oh, I do.” Now Cecilia’s expression did begin to resemble a smile. “That’s why I thought you’d give me a discount. Maybe I should negotiate with this Lehmusvuo woman. I’m sure I can pay more than she does. And I pay my taxes in Hong Kong—or rather, I don’t pay them.”

The look in Cecilia’s eyes reminded me of Anita’s when she’d stroked the lynx coat in the fur store, and I just wanted to get out of there. But first I had to find out what Anita’s safety deposit box contained and how David Stahl was connected to all of this.

“We could negotiate with Helena,” I responded, deliberating. “She hired me to map out a security profile for her, and that’s now done. And I managed to eliminate her most prominent threat.” I smiled when I thought of Tiku Aaltonen.

I promised to be at the funeral on Friday. Helena would be at a party meeting. I went to the apartment on Untamo Road to transform into Reiska, and on my way there I rang Mrs. Voutilainen’s doorbell. She didn’t answer. My roommates were both out, too. I’d gotten a couple of envelopes: a ballot for the upcoming election and an ad for a car. Really exciting stuff.

Everything went smoothly until Tuesday. I was almost done with being Reiska; Helena hadn’t received any threatening calls or letters, and although I hadn’t mentioned Cecilia’s proposal to her, I began to feel like I was wasting my time there. However, on Tuesday Finland imploded when a gunman killed nine students and a staff member at a vocational college in Kauhajoki. Helena was in emergency meetings for several days, and I hung around in her office in an annex to the cabinet building, where she’d arranged for me to have a temporary key card. Uncle Jari had always been against spending money on fancy offices and living spaces, but when I saw the piles of paper in Helena’s small office, I realized why she needed more space.

“Do you happen to own a gun?” Helena asked me as we were driving home on Thursday evening, accompanied by her roommate and a colleague. “We’ve spent all day talking about what we should do with the gun laws.” Helena turned her head to me from the front seat. Her colleague was driving well over the speed limit, probably thinking that the traffic laws didn’t apply to politicians.

“Yes, I do. And I have a permit.”

“Where do you keep it?”

“In a locked case, unloaded, just like the law says.”

This was only a partial lie. I had left my gun at Helena’s place in a locked box. The bullets were in another box, also locked. I had a gun cabinet at my cabin and a similar one in the Untamo Road apartment; it was like a safe that could be bolted to the wall, but a determined burglar could break into it. It was just unfortunate that I often forgot the gun in my backpack or in my holster, but in those instances I did keep a close eye on it. Helena’s colleague began to interrogate me about my thoughts on the gun law, but I had nothing to say. Some people needed guns for their jobs, and that’s just the way it was. A gun was an additional security measure; of course I didn’t want to use it, but if I had to, I would.

I put on my underarm holster and stuffed two full clips into my handbag before I left for Anita’s funeral on Friday. The yellow leaves on the trees contrasted sharply with the clear blue sky. Even the ocean shimmered in calm blue; it was almost waveless. I walked Helena to the cabinet building and then went to the nearby church. At the steps I hesitated. What was I doing at the funeral? Was I simply driven by some weird compulsion to punish myself by attending?

“Every one of you will make mistakes during your careers, even grave misjudgments. Many of you may even have to break the law, but please, try to at least follow the laws of whichever country you are in. When a mistake has been made, it cannot be undone. You can regret it, process it, but you can’t start second-guessing yourself. You have to be ready to analyze why you made the mistake and then move on. And try not to make the same mistake again. You can’t be afraid of screwing up; it will only paralyze you.” Mike Virtue’s words echoed in my head, refusing to disappear.

I couldn’t avoid walking into the church, though I didn’t especially want to hear the relentless rumbling of the organ. I’d always hated organ music. It was just a jumble of sounds that never seemed to coalesce. If there was a clear melody, it would inevitably have been taken from some angry hymn whose message was that a human being is a sinner, a miserable pawn of Satan, a lowly worm ready to turn back to dust.

The local priest had called me in New York to ask which hymns should be sung at Uncle Jari’s funeral, but the only hymns I had remembered were “Suvivirsi,” celebrating the start of summer, and some Christmas hymns. I guess I could’ve found someone in New York who had a Finnish hymnal, but I didn’t bother looking, so I told the priest to choose whichever songs seemed appropriate. I had no recollection of what he’d chosen; I didn’t even remember what the priest had said at the funeral. Uncle Jari had never been a religious man—he was a church member in deference to his parents. After the funeral and the memorial service, I sat alone at our house in Hevonpersiinsaari, downed almost an entire bottle of bourbon I’d bought at the duty-free shop on the way to Finland, and listened to ABBA. “I Can Still Recall Our Last Summer” was my funeral hymn for Uncle Jari.

Buying flowers for Anita had seemed hypocritical. I sat in the very back of the half-empty church. Cecilia Nuutinen-Kekki was in the front row along with her husband Joel Kekki. She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, which made her look like a white mushroom past its prime. The organ gave way to the violins, which made my ears ache. I scanned the backs in front of me, looking for someone who looked familiar—I wished I had sat upstairs so I could’ve observed the crowd better. Then again, I wasn’t here to protect Anita; there was nothing left to protect. She was in the coffin and would be taken to Hietaniemi to be cremated.

The priest spoke: God moves in a mysterious ways, humans do not know where their roads end. When Cecilia got up to place her flowers on the casket, she looked even more like a mushroom. She might have fallen under the weight of her wreath if Joel hadn’t pulled her up by the arm to balance her. Anita’s ex-husband, Cecilia’s father, was among the first to lay flowers on the coffin. Their divorce had been civilized, or so Anita had claimed. Monika, on the other hand, knew that Paavo Nuutinen had found someone younger and trimmer, and Anita had made out well in the divorce.

People filed past Anita’s coffin to pay their respects: business partners, friends, even a former minister I didn’t realize Anita knew. He had been at the height of his political power while I had been studying in the United States, and he was among the politicians Uncle Jari had despised. I had forgotten his name, but never his face. Uncle Jari had used it as a dartboard one summer. He’d been aggravated about a decision over EU farming subsidies that the minister had forced through the cabinet. For some reason, Anita had sold this former minister a twenty-four-acre plot in the Imatra forest near the Russian border for a ridiculously low price. There was a lot of media attention about the development plans for the land, as the intention was to build yet another shopping mall located far from a town, in this instance situated right next to the highway leading to Russia, to attract Russian tourists. If I remembered correctly, the former minister had defended the plan, saying it would help the economy of poor, impoverished Eastern Finland.

The queue of flower bearers was long. Some spoke Russian, but I didn’t see anyone who looked like one of Paskevich’s men. Anita’s maid Felicia was the most emotional; she sobbed loudly. It was quite impressive, considering how poorly Anita had treated her.

The organ started again with a familiar hymn.
O Lord, stay with me / it is already evening.
It was the same song I had heard at the first funeral of my life; the one I had desperately tried to forget. I had worn thick white tights and fancy black patent-leather shoes with gold buckles, but Grandmother had told me I better not flaunt them. The shoes were meant for mourning. My black skirt was soft, reminiscent of the dress my mother was wearing the last time I was with her, hers patterned with red flowers, or maybe the flowers bloomed afterward when Father left her to lie on the floor. The church was full of flowers, their scent intoxicating, and Grandmother wore a black veil, which I thought was exciting. I wanted one, too, but they didn’t make them for children. Grandmother had put my hair up in pigtails; it was the first time I wore pigtails, and I had wanted pretty ribbons instead of the black ones I had. Uncle Jari had tried to convince Grandmother that a child didn’t need to wear all black, but she knew best—she was Uncle Jari’s mother, after all.

My mother had been placed into a coffin that was some sort of space capsule. It would take her to heaven. The funny man with a long black dress and a white bib had talked to me about heaven.
Your cross shall light my path, O Lord / As my road takes me to the valley of death.
The church had had a wide aisle; I could have run up and down it without bothering anyone. There were pink flowers on top of Mother’s space capsule; I supposed I could take one for Grandmother so she wouldn’t be so sad. “This is a celebration, celebrating how your mother is now in heaven,” Uncle Jari had said, but Father couldn’t make it to the party, because Father had been really bad and wasn’t allowed to see me ever again.
In life and in death, you shall stay with me
. Now Grandmother and Uncle Jari got up and Uncle took me by the hand; the aisle was long and I didn’t want Mother to leave, I wanted to go to heaven with he
r . . .

I sat at Anita Nuutinen’s funeral and cried like a baby.

16

I skipped the memorial service. Instead, I headed to a restaurant on Runeberg Street and ordered a Chimay, a dark beer. And then another. I sure as hell needed to get rid of these memories. The gym would have been a better option than a beer, as would have a ten-mile run, or maybe a judo match against Vladimir Putin. Helena could fire me for not being on top of my job, and I’d be back at the unemployment office. I already pictured myself haunting shopping malls with some semi-Nazi guard—half of the time preventing him from beating up kids who were drinking beer, the rest of the time dragging drunks who’d pissed themselves away from the respectable folk and then waiting for the cops to show. What bright prospects I had!

I tried to decide between a third beer and another type of treat. I’d memorized David Stahl’s number easily, and I had also saved it on my phone. The weather outside was ridiculously gorgeous, so after a trip to the restroom, I began walking back toward Hietaniemi beach.

I hadn’t understood the concept of death when I was four, and because Father had been carted off at the same time as my mother’s body, I had thought that he’d taken the same space capsule to heaven, although nobody had told me this. Grandmother had to be heavily medicated in order to attend the funeral, and right afterward she had to be hospitalized again, leaving Uncle Jari and me by ourselves. First we lived in an apartment building in Tuusniemi, but that lasted for only a couple of months, and I barely have any recollection of that time. Then we moved to our small cabin in the woods, and Hevonpersiinsaari became our home. Uncle Jari changed our name; given my unusual surname, he didn’t want people to connect me in any way to the infamous murderer, and Uncle figured it would be better if we had the same last name. My father later attempted to gain joint custody of me, but luckily it was denied. Keijo Kurkimäki had no say in my life. At the Queens security academy, I had told people that both of my parents had died in a car crash when I was young; most strangers who happened to ask about my past heard the same story. It was the one Anita had also heard. Being a murderer’s daughter didn’t look that great on your résumé.

I walked through the cemetery to the beach. The red-and-yellow maple leaves flashed vividly and the ocean reflected the light so brightly that I had to dig out my sunglasses. I sat on a bench where ducks came over to beg for food. I crumbled up some of my energy bar for them, and its seeds attracted a squirrel, who didn’t care about the ducks—he expertly avoided their beaks while diving for seeds. Only when I was sure no one could hear the tears in my voice did I dial David’s phone number.

His voice mail launched after the eighth ring. “This is David Stahl’s answering machine. Unfortunately I’m busy at the moment, but please leave a message,” he said in Swedish, and then repeated the message in English and Russian. His familiar voice gave me goose bumps.

He wouldn’t be able to see my number on his phone. Should I risk it and leave him a message? The beer in me said yes; luckily I hadn’t had more than two.

“Hi, David, it’s Hilja. Just wondering where you might be. I’ll try to reach you later. It would be fun to see you again.” I left the message in Finnish on purpose. I still couldn’t believe that he didn’t grasp at least the basics of our language. If he didn’t understand me, at least he would recognize my voice and my name.

I felt miserable, and the only cure was to find some company. Helena wouldn’t be free before six, and after that I had plans to follow her to a taping for a TV show in Pasila, where she was taking part in a panel discussion on climate change. Did they have metal detectors at the studio?

I hated that I couldn’t stand to be alone. I wanted to be invulnerable. I’d always found company in bars, but right now I did not want to be with strangers. How about my roommates—I could always chat with them, right? Or old lady Voutilainen, next door. I decided to keep calling people. It was four in the afternoon in Mozambique, same as in Finland. I rang Monika, although I didn’t think she’d answer. After ten rings I hung up, but she called me back in a few minutes.

“Hilja, how are you?”

“Anita’s funeral was today.” Damn, I almost started crying again. Why was Monika thousands of miles away? Why did everyone important in my life evaporate into thin air: Mother, Uncle Jari, Frida, Monika, David? I would’ve even sat down for a chat with Mike Virtue.

“How was it?”

“Your standard funeral. But Monika, the thing i
s . . .
I remembered the other funeral. Mother’s funeral. Uncle Jari had always told me there was no use in trying to remember. But my father killed my mother, and I saw it. Although I’ve tried not to remember, it’s all coming back to me now.”

“That’s huge. Hilja, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I didn’t want to. It’s all in the past—I just wish the memories would disappear, too.”

“Oh, Hilja. I wish you could come over here. It would do you good to get away from everything for a while.”

“I can’t. I’m under contract with Helena. Except I just took a break in the middle of my workday to have a beer. I had to drown my thoughts. Maybe she’ll fire me.”

Over the phone, I could hear bells clanging in the background—what a strange time to go to church, in the afternoon. Or were those cowbells? I couldn’t even imagine the conditions in which Monika lived, although apparently Hevonpersiinsaari had been luxurious compared to her current home. Someone was chattering away in clipped French in the background and Monika laughed.

“Jordi says I’m slacking off, talking on the phone three times a day. I’ve told him that Finns even take their phones to the sauna, and that priests remind the congregation to turn off their phones before a sermon. Jordi won’t believe that even little kids have cell phones in Finland.”

“Who’s Jordi?” The jealousy in my voice was obvious even to me.

“A young man in his twenties. I’m teaching him how to cook. He’s got a pretty good plate.”

“What?”

“Oh, I meant
palate
! Sheesh, soon I’ll forget both Finnish and Swedish—I only speak French here. So I assume you hit a brick wall with Anita’s murder investigation?”

“Yes. Except that—” I thought about telling Monika about David, but then I decided to shut up. Having Europol on my back wasn’t something to brag about. I let Monika talk about what she had been up to, about yams and manioc and other ingredients that were only names to me. Listening to her talk calmed me down much more than alcohol ever did. I remembered the times when Chez Monique had just closed for the evening, the last plates had been brought back to the kitchen, and the dirty tablecloths had been stuffed into the cleaner’s bag. Then the restaurant changed, at least for a while, from a public place into a home. Monika would drink a glass of wine and I would have a beer, especially if it’d been a rough day. That had been a happy time, but I couldn’t go back there.

My phone beeped. Helena wasn’t supposed to call just yet—the meeting shouldn’t have been over for another couple of hours.

“I need to go now, my employer is calling.”

“Tell Helena I said hi!”

When I picked up, Helena’s voice was tense.

“Available yet, Hilja?”

“Yup.”

“Good. I’ve told the cabinet building receptionist that you’ll be coming in today. Saara slipped on the stairs over there and broke her leg. I really need to get this paperwork done. I’ve borrowed Outi’s assistant, but it’s a Friday night and she has to go pick up her kids from day care. Can you get to my office as soon as you can? Take a cab from wherever you are.”

I was indeed available, but there was this one
but
—the Glock in my underarm holster. I didn’t want Helena to know that I regularly carried a gun. I figured she wouldn’t like it.

I called a cab, asked him to drive to the train station and wait for me there. I bought a couple of newspapers from the kiosk once I got there. It was rush hour and people were scurrying through the station. All the lockers were downstairs, situated in such a way that anyone could see who was using them. I had to go to the restroom to take my gun off. I paid the offensive three-euro fee for using the restroom, went into a stall, and tried to make as much noise as I could while removing my gun and holster. I placed both of them in the newspaper.

I was sure that the stalls had security cameras, even though the law prohibited any sort of recording in restrooms. Supposedly they were after drug addicts and dealers, but I had met enough people who worked for security and surveillance companies to know that real pervs also got these jobs, and they loved watching women do their business in the toilet—and they called that working. I made myself as inconspicuous as possible, although a security guard had to be a real fool not to notice what this woman was pulling out of her armpit.

It took a while to find an available locker. I had paid for my newspapers with a twenty in order to get some change. I’d learned in New York that you always had to have change handy, or you’d be in trouble. The security cameras were aimed at the lockers, too, I bet. I could already see the scandalous tabloid headline about the politician’s bodyguard—a lesbian, according to the police—who was caught storing a gun in a locker at the Helsinki train station. I slipped the clips from my purse, placed them next to the gun, and felt a twinge as I locked the door and left my protection behind. I had brought the 9-millimeter Glock from the United States completely legally, and the accompanying red tape had made me crazy. The model was the same one the Finnish police and border patrol used. As a bodyguard I could probably obtain another pistol, no matter how much the gun laws would be tightened, but I didn’t want to give up my trusty colleague, who I’d only needed so far as a deterrent. The Glock was to me what phones or favorite hammers were to others. I thought about how I should get back to the range to practice shooting and keep up my skills.

The cab driver I approached was having a smoke, and looked annoyed when I interrupted him. My destination was the annex at the cabinet, but he wasn’t impressed by the address.

“You can’t walk a short distance like that? Or do you have some vouchers that us tax payers paid for? Jesus, you sure can spare money for vouchers and for every goddamned immigrant, but when a small business owner like myself tries to get a tax break then all I hear is
no can do, look at how much the government is in debt
. And the price of gas keeps fluctuating—at the end of the day there is nothing left of my paycheck, but my prices are controlled like in some fucking Socialist country while Russkies and Somalis drive unlicensed cabs and make three times the amount I do without paying taxes.”

I’d seen all sorts of cab drivers in NYC, but this guy was a first-class racist. Unfortunately the driver had to take a longer route in order to get in front of the cabinet building, but luckily I had the ability to tune out an idiot like him. Zen and the art of dealing with morons, that’s what my book would have been called.

I didn’t leave a tip but I asked for a receipt, on which I made a note that the trip was from Hietaniemi to the cabinet building; I didn’t need to mention that I had stopped at the train station. If Helena wondered why the cab had been so expensive, I’d tell her I had left my gloves at the cemetery and had to go back for them or something.

Helena waited for me in the annex lobby behind the metal detectors.

“You took your sweet time.”

“Rush hour. What do you want me to do, anyway?”

“Type some letters. You’ll need to make sure that the addresses are right.”

“Letters? What happened to e-mail?”

“Some news is still best delivered by snail mail. Follow me.”

The only reason why Helena’s office was in decent shape was because of her assistant extraordinaire, Saara Hirvelä, who kept the piles in check. Wasn’t it interesting that a representative of a political party focused on the environment was drowning in paper, or was the cabinet to blame for not going paperless? Wasn’t the thrifty speaker of the house able to persuade the representatives to generate less paper?

Helena worked on her opening statement for the evening’s panel discussion and replied to e-mails. She’d be safe at the TV studio—people couldn’t just slip in there unnoticed—so I decided to pick up my gun while Helena was on the air.

I finished the letters and Helena asked me to take them downstairs to the porter. It took me a while to find him. My temporary access pass was scrutinized at every turn, so I really had nothing to worry about. Helena would be safe as long as she stayed either in the granite colossus of the cabinet building or in this annex.

“Running errands for Representative Lehmusvuo?” the porter asked. “Good, she received a letter. Sign here, please.”

I stared at the letter. Express mail, straight from Moscow. I couldn’t open it on the way back to Helena’s office because I wasn’t alone in the elevator.

When I got back, I handed the envelope to her. “Helena, this came for you; it’s express mail. Do you know the sender?”

“Let me see her
e . . .
Anastasia Butyrskaya? Yes, I recognize Nastya’s handwriting. She’s an old friend of mine. I asked her to send me a collection of essays that’s secretly making the rounds—it criticizes the Russian government’s energy policies. I hope this is the collection I was looking for and that it made it safely across the border.”