The Winter of the Lions (25 page)

‘However, so far we haven’t found anyone of that name among the injured. The name of Ilmari Mattila is still in the phone book, no one else is listed there.’

Kimmo and Sanna Joentaa
, he thought. And a number at which Sanna Joentaa could no longer be reached. In autumn a woman had rung trying to sell Sanna a magazine subscription.

‘Have you called the number?’ asked Joentaa.

‘Er, no.’

‘Let me have it.’

‘Just a moment.’

Joentaa heard paper rustle, then Grönholm was back, dictating the number to him.

‘Thanks,’ said Joentaa, ‘I’ll call you back.’

‘Do we have something?’ asked Sundström.

‘A number,’ said Joentaa.

He rang it.

This is Veikko speaking. I’m not here. Papa isn’t here. Mama isn’t here either. See you later. Byeee
.

A child’s voice.

‘Well?’ asked Westerberg.

And now the message for serious enquiries
. A woman’s voice, slightly self-conscious, because she had felt it awkward to be sending a message out into nowhere. The child was laughing in the background. The woman gave the full names of the
people mentioned by Veikko only as Papa and Mama, and promised to call back as soon as possible.

Then the sound of the signal.

‘Well?’ asked Sundström.

Joentaa thought for a moment, then he typed the woman’s name into Google and looked for pictures. He recognised her at once, although she was a good deal younger in the photograph. She was wearing a fancy dress costume and standing at the wheel of a ship, with the sea and Naantali beach behind her.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Sundström.

‘Little My,’ said Westerberg. ‘Or at least, she’s dressed up as Little My.’

Joentaa maximised the picture, which was illustrating a local newspaper article. It was about the beginning of a long-forgotten summer and the introduction of new attractions to Moomin World, like the ship. The woman in the photo was laughing heartily and seemed to be turning the ship’s wheel in a direction of her own choice.

‘But that … that’s the woman who was sitting in the audience, isn’t it?’ said Tuulikki.

Joentaa nodded. He glanced at the screen on which the Finnish boy band were singing their summer hit. The catchy music seemed to be coming at them from several loudspeakers.

His mobile rang.

‘We have something,’ said Grönholm. ‘Ilmari Mattila was married, but his wife kept her maiden name.’

‘I know,’ said Joentaa.

‘You do?’ asked Grönholm.

‘Who is that woman?’ asked Sundström.

The applause was dying down. Hämäläinen’s voice came over the loudspeakers.

‘Salme Salonen,’ said Joentaa.

‘Salme Salonen,’ said Hämäläinen.

‘What?’ asked Sundström.

‘Salme Salonen,’ Joentaa repeated.

‘Welcome to our next guest, and I am particularly glad to have her here today … Salme Salonen,’ said Hämäläinen.

HE WAS SITTING
at the desk in the beam of the spotlights. The wood of the desk was exquisite and clean. He felt the smooth paper of the note in his hands. The contrast was too great. He would have to discuss it with Tuula. First the summer hit, now this. Tuula liked such extreme contrasts.

The woman was coming out of the mist towards him, to a background of applause. She had long red hair, held herself very upright, and seemed to be gliding as if on rails. She sat down opposite him and put her handbag on the empty chair beside her.

The firefighter who had been one of the first on the scene of the accident would have to put the bag somewhere else when he came on stage in a little while, because he was to join the conversation and sit beside the woman. Hämäläinen decided how to deal with that little complication smoothly.

‘It’s a wonderful step that you have taken,’ he began. ‘I think I can speak for all of us here, and for all viewers who are watching on their screens at home, when I say it is a step that we deeply respect without being at all able to imagine how …’

The woman smiled at him.

He returned the smile.

Later he wouldn’t be able to explain that moment, he could describe only what he felt, and even that only a few times.

Before the intent gaze of his hearers, which was otherwise hard to interpret, he would explain that he had been unprepared for that moment of understanding, that he had never seen the woman before, and didn’t know what impulse had set it off. That he had looked into her eyes.

And he had felt it was a perfect moment, a moment of pain and of beauty.

THE LAWYER ATE
one of Salme Salonen’s biscuits, and had just been offering them to his guests. He thought she ought to have told him about this.

She certainly ought to have told him she was going to appear on television to talk about the accident, about her husband and her son.

The biscuit was really very good. Fireworks were going off out in the garden, laughing children were whirling sparklers about, and his guests, most of them other lawyers and their wives, were all talking about cases that had turned out well and other cases that had turned out just as well, and something strange was happening on the screen.

His wife Kirsti was clearing the table, taking out the plates and the leftover food, and after a while she stopped and asked, through the buzz of voices, ‘Have we lost the sound, or are they simply sitting there saying nothing?’

ON THE SCREEN
Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen and Salme Salonen were sitting opposite each other, and Sundström, Westerberg and their colleagues were deep in phone conversations which were notable for the fact that no one understood anyone else.

‘Get her!’ cried Sundström several times, but his colleague at the other end of the line didn’t take his meaning.

‘The woman on stage seems to be the person we’re after,’ said Westerberg, and his own officer too had questions to ask.

‘What do you mean, what woman? There’s only one woman on stage,’ said Westerberg.

‘Did we post anyone near the stage?’ asked Sundström. ‘What do you mean, you don’t know …?’

‘No. No, of course the guests weren’t searched for weapons, only the audience,’ shouted Westerberg.

Joentaa sat beside Tuulikki and heard the voices of the other two as if in the distance. He didn’t understand why they were so upset. Their agitation was in stark contrast to the silence emanating from the TV screen.

There was a pause.

Hämäläinen sat there motionless.

The woman sat there motionless.

They were looking at each other, and seemed to have said everything even before the first word was spoken.

KAI
-
PETTERI
HÄMÄLÄINEN
looked at the woman, at the mist caught in the spotlights behind her, and beyond that at the silhouettes of the people watching and listening while the two of them said nothing.

Instructions came through to him from time to time by way of his earpiece. The director’s rather hoarse but loud voice asking what the hell was going on. Hello? Hello, Kai-Petteri. Can you hear me?

He looked down and let his eyes move over the questions that he wasn’t going to ask. Questions resting on the dark, smooth wood, spellbound there in cues and transitions between subjects on yellow Post-It notes. Mrs Salonen, you yourself were a victim of the accident in Turku on 17 February this year. Do you have a clear memory of what happened? How do you live with it? How long were you in hospital? How are you today?

How much time had passed? He had no idea.

Tuula was gesticulating in the mist, waving her arms in an uncoordinated way; it was impossible to work out what her signals meant.

The woman on the other side of the desk was gazing past him into the far distance. She looked neither happy nor sad. He had never seen a more neutral face. He did not know this woman.

Perhaps it was her dress. The shadow of a dress that he had seen.

Perhaps it was the silence in her face.

The very tall man appeared, emerging from the mist. He looked relaxed, and smiled encouragingly both at Hämäläinen and at the woman. He picked up her handbag and sat down on the chair which was really meant for the firefighter. Lightly, barely perceptibly he placed his hand on the woman’s left arm. The woman didn’t seem to notice it.

‘Do you have any children yourself?’ Hämäläinen heard himself asking him.

The very tall man shook his head. ‘Unfortunately not,’ he said.

Hämäläinen nodded. Advertising break, said the voice in his ear, adding that the show would go on in three minutes and fifty-eight seconds’ time.

HIS SON SAMI
and Meredith, the daughter of a woman colleague of his, were rolling about on the floor in front of him, and he wondered vaguely why the daughter of two Finns was called Meredith, and when and in what circumstances you had to trace a sexual component in this kind of childish playfulness.

He had read something on the subject only recently, an interesting article in a psychological journal, but he couldn’t remember the exact content of the article now, probably because what was happening on the TV screen was distracting his thoughts.

Now came the advertising break. A beautiful melody provided the background music for a car company’s inane advertising spot.

‘What was that about?’ asked Seppo.

He turned to him and the other guests who were still sitting at the table, dipping their fondue skewers into the hot oil.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That … that was a patient of mine.’

‘A patient of yours? On the
Hämäläinen
show?’ asked Seppo.

‘Er, yes.’

‘The lady who was sitting there just now?’ asked Sami, who was lying on the floor sweating and taking advantage of a moment when Meredith left him alone.

He nodded.

‘No, don’t! Stop! Stop it!’ cried Sami, because Meredith had begun tickling him again.

‘How did she acquit herself?’ asked Seppo.

‘Hm?’

‘Your patient,’ said Seppo.

‘Oh. I … I don’t really know,’ he said.

‘Leave the box on, will you?’ said another guest. ‘Kapanen’s going to be on next. The actor. I’d be interested to see him.’

He nodded, and decided to call Salme Salonen first thing in the morning.

Then he stood up and went back to the table.

THE INTERVIEW, WHICH
was still described as an interview over the next few days even though the two participants had not exchanged a single word, lasted two minutes thirty-four seconds. The following advertising break occupied four minutes.

While the ads were running on screen, the very tall man led Salme Salonen off the stage. Hämäläinen watched them go, and thought they looked like a couple, leaning close together, the woman seeming to place her head trustingly on the man’s shoulder.

Hämäläinen felt very calm, calmer than he had felt for a long time, and Tuula came on stage and asked what the matter was.

He shook his head and said, ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘That’s right, nothing.’

‘What … what was the matter with that woman?’

‘Nothing,’ said Hämäläinen.

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Kai?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ said Hämäläinen. ‘Who’s on next?’

‘What?’ asked Tuula.

Hämäläinen studied his notes. ‘The firefighter. And then Kapanen,’ he said. ‘Send them on.’

‘Kai, we have to …’

‘I’ve seen the Bond film. Kapanen was excellent,’ said Hämäläinen.

A girl assistant materialised out of the mist and mopped the sweat off his face with a cloth.

‘Kai, we can’t just …’ said Tuula.

‘Yes, we can. You’d better get off the stage now, we’ll be on screen again in a moment,’ said Hämäläinen, looking down at the questions he was going to ask Kapanen. One after another. He wouldn’t leave out any of them.

Tuula watched him for a little while longer. He could feel her watching, but he kept his head bent over the questions, and Tuula, weak at the knees, disappeared into the dazzling light. The voice in his ear was counting down the seconds.

SALME SALONEN WAS
taken to the police station on the outskirts of Helsinki for questioning. At no time did she offer any resistance. No knife was found in her handbag, only a photograph presumably of her husband and her son against a wintry background in Stockholm.

She sat perfectly still on a chair in a grey room while Sundström questioned her. Westerberg and Joentaa stood on the other side of the glass pane of the interview room, and Salme Salonen willingly gave answers. She spoke slowly, her voice sounded calm, soft, clear and abstracted. She seemed to be thinking very carefully before formulating a sentence. Yes, her name was Salme Salonen. She was twenty-eight years old. Born on 24 March 1980. Yes, she lived in Turku, Asematie 19. She had been married to Ilmari Mattila, she had had a son. Veikko Mattila. She was a widow.

Name, address, date of birth, thought Joentaa, and Sundström’s own voice sounded clear and gentle and curiously abstracted. A burden seemed to be weighing down on the woman as she sat very upright at the table, and a burden seemed to have fallen from Sundström’s shoulders.

‘Profession?’ asked Sundström.

Until 17 February of this year Salme Salonen had worked as a clerical assistant in the accounts department of a company that manufactured children’s toys. She had survived the collapse of a skating rink in Turku late on the afternoon of that day, but with severe injuries. She had suffered several
broken bones and trauma to the skull and brain, and she spent three and a half months in hospital.

Along with others affected, she was involved in a legal dispute with a firm that had constructed the roof of the skating rink nineteen years ago, and had renovated it a few weeks before it collapsed. The head of the firm had left the country and could not be traced. Presentation of the evidence for the causes of the accident was not yet complete.

She talked about a woman called Rauna.

‘Rauna?’ asked Sundström.

‘My friend,’ said Salme Salonen. ‘She was lying beside me when the sky fell down.’