Evil Things, page 2
And so she did. She had learned to lock her desk drawer, in which she kept her notes, her unsent letters to Steve and the yellow toy bus. She had developed a habit of scooping up everything that was on her desk and stuffing it in the drawer every time she left her office, even to go to the bathroom. Still Ranta prowled around.
With a heavy sigh, Hella fumbled in her pocket for the key to the drawer.
“Oh, by the way!” Anita again, slightly out of breath. “I nearly forgot. There’s a package for you. From Helsinki. Something heavy.”
She was carrying a sturdy wooden crate, making a big show of how heavy it was.
“Where shall I put it? Do you want a claw hammer?”
What if I don’t want to open it? thought Hella, but said nothing. Anita meant well. She motioned to her desk, and together they tore off the lid.
“Oh …” whispered Anita, disappointed. “Gherkins. Is it a gift from your grandmother?”
“Sort of.”
Hella lined up the jars on the windowsill, hoping that Anita would go away, but the girl lingered.
“Would you like me to water your plant?” She motioned to Hella’s aspidistra, a welcome gift from her colleagues, which was dying by the radiator.
“I’ll be away working on a new case, starting from tomorrow,” said Hella, just to get rid of the girl. “Could you take care of it while I’m gone?”
Anita could, of course, and would be delighted to. Absolutely. A couple of minutes later, having ensured that the plant, her closest friend in town, would survive, Hella ushered the receptionist away, mumbling words of gratitude. She shut her door and got to work.
She needed to leave everything in order. Order and method, as Eklund would say, for whom these two words took the place of a religion. Order and method. She pulled a stack of files out of her drawer and spread them out on her desk. Red was for urgent matters. The beggar Lahti urinating on Dr Gummerus’ doorstep, for example. Dr Gummerus was a pompous ass, and as far as Hella was concerned, deserved Lahti’s urine. But of course she couldn’t say that out loud. Dr Gummerus was a respected member of the local community, and as such had to be treated with deference. Therefore, she was expected to (a) investigate, (b) punish Lahti and (c) stop him from doing it again. Exactly how she was supposed to deal with the problem remained unclear. They did have a holding cell at the station, a one-room affair with a folding bed and a door secured by a bolt, which was out the back next to the neighbour’s chicken coop, but the room had no heating, so she couldn’t very well put the beggar in there, even for a couple of hours. The doctor knew that, of course. He even had a theory that Lahti only urinated on his doorstep during the cold months exactly because there was no way he could be punished. Well, maybe the doctor was right. Maybe she should threaten Lahti with a deferred arrest, if such a thing existed. Hella decided that she would discuss the idea with Eklund before she left.
She pushed the red file to one side and picked up a green one. Policies, regulations and monitoring. Eklund’s favourite, the apple of his eye. That file was bulky. Some days, it seemed to her that working on policies and regulations was all she ever did. Monitoring the evolution of the crime rate, broken down by types of crime (misdemeanours, petty thefts, serious offences), by geographic location (Ivalo, Nellim, the rest of Lapland), and its evolution quarter by quarter. Comparisons with the national statistics and those of the neighbouring regions. Beautifully typed reports that no one ever read. She was supposed to finish her latest quarter-on-quarter comparison and present it to a solemn Eklund and a sneering Ranta before the end of the following week. She sighed. Two years and counting, and she was poised to still be working on green files until she retired unless a white knight from Helsinki charged down to save her. Only Helsinki had no more white knights than Ivalo had criminals, so she’d do better to forget about it and focus on more immediate matters.
Her trip to Käärmela, for instance. Maybe she’d been wrong to have insisted on it. Still, now that she had started, she might as well do the thing properly. She leafed through the green file. Eklund had a policy for this, too. Here it was, clearly printed. Before incurring any expenses, obtain an in-principle approval from your superiors. That one was easy: she didn’t expect to incur any expenses. Next. Check the background of all involved parties with the Security Intelligence Service. The Suojelupoliisi. Another one of Eklund’s obsessions. Making sure communists, and other dangerous specimens of humanity, were properly labelled.
She wondered if this was really necessary. She was going on vacation, after all. But what if she really found something untoward when she arrived in the village? She supposed she’d better do things by the book.
Hella dutifully inserted a sheet of paper into her brand-new typewriter and typed a short letter to the regional representative of the SUPO listing the names Erno Jokinen, one Mr Waltari, Orthodox priest, and one Mrs Waltari, his wife. Then she carried the letter to the reception area and entrusted it to Anita, who was listening to the radio, her head cocked to one side.
“I’m waiting for the local news,” she explained to Hella. “They might say something about the dance.”
Hella nodded. The dance was the biggest event of the year for Anita. Her dress, a flimsy, pale green tulle affair, had been ready for months. Although Hella had never seen it – Anita was wary of actually showing the dress to anybody – she still felt she was able to describe every tiny rosebud button, every seam on it.
“I had second thoughts about my hairdo,” whispered Anita. “Should I try and wear it —”
Hella was no longer listening. The newsreader’s clipped voice cut into her thoughts.
… increasing tensions with the Soviet Union, which is protesting against what they describe as spying incidents and numerous violations on the Soviet–Finnish border. While the claim is not specific, its undertones are perfectly …
“— or even a ponytail,” said Anita. “What do you think?”
“A ponytail is a great idea,” replied Hella in a voice that left no room for further discussion. “It will give you distinction. Horses are noble animals.” Leaving Anita to ponder her advice, she hurried back to her office.
The last two recommendations in the file concerned the proper equipment to take along on an investigation, and the correct procedure when filling in expense reports. Hella closed the file and stared at the aspidistra. The plant was shedding its leaves. Maybe Anita was right. Maybe it craved water. Suddenly desperate to get at least something right, she picked up the carafe that stood on her desk and emptied all the water it contained into the aspidistra pot. She then watched, fascinated, as the cracked earth absorbed every last drop of it.
She had never regretted what she had done that day in Helsinki, and she was not going to start now. She had made the right choice, and the jars of gherkins that filtered the pale October light on her windowsill were there to prove it.
3
Once again, Irja was telling the little boy who crouched motionless next to the stove that he shouldn’t worry, that his grandpa would be back soon, any time now, really. Over the last four days, she’d kept repeating it like a mantra: don’t worry, Kalle, he went to the city, you know how it is, it takes time, and maybe he’s been hunting along the way, or else he’s bringing you something special. Kalle smiled absent-mindedly and nodded, but he clearly didn’t believe her, and she couldn’t blame him for that. What she was saying was a lie. The boy knew it, and she knew it, and all the curious villagers who stopped by her house to inquire about the boy knew it too. Old Erno was not coming back.
Irja looked at the boy, frowning. He hadn’t said a word since he’d first arrived at her house earlier that week, brought in by a sour-looking old woman who lived in a crooked little log cabin on the outskirts of the village. Irja barely knew her. Still, the woman had come in without knocking, without even taking her shoes off. She had walked over to the kitchen table, stubbornly dragging the little boy behind her, and had seated herself on the bench. The boy had sat down as well, but he hadn’t looked up at Irja nor had he answered her greetings.
Martta, that awful woman, had looked at Irja in defiance.
“You’re a priest’s wife,” she said. “You should know.”
“I’m sorry,” murmured Irja. “Know what?”
“Know what to do with him. Stubborn as a goat, that kid is. Was refusing to leave the house. Had to spank him. And now he refuses to open his mouth to eat. Cries all the time. Screams in his sleep. Wets his bed.”
“What is he doing with you?” Irja had crouched next to the boy. “Kalle? Where is your grandfather?”
“Missing,” explained the woman, matter-of-factly. “Gone. Surely dead. He” – she pointed at the boy – “he would have been dead too, if I hadn’t found him.”
“What happened to your grandpa, Kalle?” Irja had asked, ignoring the woman. “Do you know where he went?”
The boy had shaken his head without looking at her.
“But still, something happened, right? Is he …?”
She didn’t dare ask Martta outright if Erno was dead.
“He won’t say a word,” the woman had snorted. “He’s stupid, more likely than not. Just like his dear grandpa. Had to drag him out of the house, while he was screaming and trying to grab hold of the furniture. I should have just left him there, alone, but the place was freezing and there was no food.”
Irja had stared at the woman, appalled. What kind of person was she? Still, she had probably saved the child’s life. Kalle and his grandfather kept to themselves, barely venturing into the village. Apart from Timo, no one ever saw them, and even Timo didn’t see them often. Weeks could have passed without anyone knowing that the old man had disappeared.
“Do you know where Erno went?” Irja asked the woman. She remembered stories about her. Martta was a relation of the old man, but they were not close. And there were rumours of a conflict, of an old dispute, which, left unresolved, had grown out of proportion and dragged on for decades.
“Don’t know and don’t care. The Devil can have him if he wants. And you can have the boy. Maybe it’ll do you good.”
The old woman had got to her feet, straightening her grey wool skirt, tugging at her sleeves. She had barely looked at the boy, who sat like a little wooden statue, his back straight, his hands folded demurely in his lap. Only his nose, which was wet, was twitching like that of a little rabbit. Irja’s heart sank. Would she be able to take care of the child until the disappearance of old Erno had been cleared up? And what would happen next? His mother had died some months ago. Kalle didn’t have a father. Would social services take him? As if he was reading her thoughts, the little boy wriggled nervously on his bench, and a single tear ran down his dirt-smeared cheek.
“Kalle?” whispered Irja. “I’ll take care of you. I promise. And I will do everything in my power to find your grandpa, because I know how much you love him and how much he loves you.”
She had hugged the boy and held him close to her, whispering reassuring words into his ear. Her old grey cat, Seamus, had sauntered over to the boy and sniffed his hand. Seamus must have liked what he smelled because he had jumped onto the bench and settled next to the child. It was a good sign. Seamus was not the kind of cat to easily warm to strangers. If he took a liking to little Kalle, maybe it would help the boy recover. Animals are great for that sort of thing, soothing the wounded and the sad, comforting those who have lost their loved ones.
After a while, the boy’s breathing slowed. He had fallen asleep. Irja had carried him to her own bed and covered him with a bright quilt, with Seamus at his side.
Then, she had pulled a sheet of paper out of the desk drawer and had started to write her letter to the police. She had sent it the very same day, rather like a bottle that a prisoner on a desert island throws into the ocean, but she didn’t allow herself to think about that too much. Maybe in some places, in other countries, ordinary citizens could rely on the police to help them. Maybe. She was not so sure the same applied to the godforsaken strip of frozen land they called home.
TUESDAY 14 OCTOBER
4
When Hella was a child, growing up in Helsinki, her teachers had tried to teach her gratitude. They talked about it in ringing voices, like it was the most important thing on earth. Not compassion, not honesty or curiosity. Gratitude.
“You have to be thankful for what you’ve got, Hella! When you say ‘Thank you’, it should come from your heart! You are a very lucky little girl; you should count your blessings and address a short prayer to our Lord, thanking Him for all He’s done for you!”
Then, usually, seeing that she wouldn’t oblige, they’d start recounting her blessings themselves. In doing so, her teachers mixed up some really important things. The new toy she had got at Christmas was mentioned in the same sentence as her grandmother, an old woman with a moustache, who smelled of mothballs and whom Hella was afraid of and never wanted to visit. Most significantly, while they usually mentioned the fact that – in contrast to many children whose fathers had fallen in the wars that opposed the Soviet Union – young Hella still had both of her parents, they never mentioned her parents’ professions. It never failed to amaze her. Having parents, just ordinary parents, was one thing. But the family she had was something completely different. Something to be proud of, even though at that time she mostly took it for granted.
Maybe I should have done as I was told, thought Hella grimly, her eyes fixed on the desolate landscape outside her window, with its crooked yellowish shrubs and scattered stones. Maybe if she had really been grateful, things would have turned out differently for her. Of course, it was no use thinking about it now. Rearranging the past. Thinking of what she might have done differently. It was no use and it led her nowhere. She’d do better to start packing.
Her bulky pigskin suitcase stayed under the bed. It would be impossible to carry around if she ever had to cover part of the road on foot. As a result, she decided to put all her stuff into a backpack, which meant she had to drastically limit the number of things she took with her. From a pine wardrobe that stood in a corner of her room, she pulled out a couple of sweaters and a pair of trousers. She added some sensible walking shoes, and warm flannel pyjamas. And a coffee pot, adorned with the Paulig company’s Paula Girl in her traditional costume, smiling away. She wasn’t sure whether they had coffee in Käärmela. Even in Ivalo, she could only buy it with rationing tickets, and only at the beginning of each month.
She wondered where she would be sleeping in the priest’s house. Would she have a bedroom of her own, or have to doze off in the middle of the living room? It was possible. She had forgotten to ask if the priest and his wife had a big family. She had heard that the Orthodox servants of God were the ones who usually had the largest families, apparently with the idea of setting an example to their parishioners. She tried to picture herself sitting in a hot, low-ceilinged room, trying to question a suspect while little children crawled all over her, picked up her pen and tore pages out of her notebook. She sighed. What a change from her previous position in Helsinki, where she’d been the first woman ever to work in the homicide squad. Interesting, complex cases, envious glances from her male subordinates, an apartment with a sea view smack in the middle of the city. Real power. But she had decided that she would not dwell on her past. So, walking shoes then. And socks. And a notebook. A small, hand-embroidered bag into which she put her toothbrush and a small jar of face cream, her last concession to femininity. Her hairbrush wouldn’t fit into the bag, so she put it directly next to her clothes. She was ready. She had already decided that she would carry her gun on her, in the handgun holster under her parka. The armed conflict in the countryside had ended more than six years ago, but still, you never knew who you might encounter in the woods. And of course there was also the fact that she had to travel to the village with Seppo Kukoyakka. The other logging truck drivers set off early, sometimes before 6 a.m., and she would have preferred to go with one of them, but they hadn’t wanted to give her a lift and had told her so to her face. She’d had to settle for Kukoyakka. Because he had just one eye, he left the timber factory much later than the others, once the sun had risen and he could see the road properly.
Just thinking about Kukoyakka and his huge Sisu truck made her shudder. Would he try to push his luck and maybe make advances to her? She struggled to imagine how she would react if he did. She couldn’t shoot him, after all. Not after what had happened in Helsinki. But then what? She once read a book by the French writer Stendhal where the main character, a young and beautiful girl called Lemiel, had to travel in the company of lecherous men. To avoid being disturbed, Lemiel had deliberately made herself ugly. The girl had smeared her face with some sort of paste which gave her skin a sore, blistery appearance.
Hella sat down heavily and stared at the oval mirror which hung next to the wardrobe. Should she try something similar? But it was probably unnecessary. It was not like she was some irresistible beauty. A gap-toothed woman of around thirty, bony rather than curvy. Angular. All elbows and grit, as Steve would say. Freckled, too, which was really unjust because her eyes were black and her hair dark. How could anyone have a redhead’s complexion and not be a redhead? If Kukoyakka was tempted nonetheless, well, it was just too bad for him. She wouldn’t hesitate to pull out her gun. Even if it meant that he rushed off to complain to Eklund about her.
