Evil Things, page 3
This thought made her smile. If it hadn’t been for her past, she would have loved for something like that to happen. She could imagine the rumours – the plain girl from Helsinki, the police sergeant, had had to shoot a man who had tried to come on to her. It would prove to them once and for all that she was an attractive woman, that men fell for her, even if one-eyed Kukoyakka was not exactly a catch, with his large behind and his beer belly. Still, he was a man, and, as Eklund kept saying, men were scarce these days, so attention from one of them was something. That would shut them up for good, them being her landlady, Mrs Tiramaki, who had lately got into the habit of clicking her tongue with disapproval each time she encountered her, and Eklund, who kept comparing her to his wife – Mrs Eklund this, and Mrs Eklund that, as if she was a template for all women. Hella had to recognize that he was not alone in his admiration. In this town the exotic Mrs Eklund, with her pitch-black hair (which Hella supposed was straight out of a tube), her long eyelashes and her tiny, upturned nose, was the beauty queen and the trendsetter. When last spring the local dressmaker had got his hands on a stock of crimson chiffon adorned with tiny black dots, the entire female population of Ivalo, from pimply teenagers to toothless matrons, had stormed the shop, ready to pay any price, and even sell their souls if need be, for a chance to wear a flamenco dress, one of Esmeralda’s signature styles. Eklund, meaning well, had let Hella have the afternoon off that day. She’d never dared tell him that she had spent that time doing something she never had an opportunity to do when her landlady was present, which was just about always. Locked in her room, the radio set to full blast during Steve’s Music Hour, she had danced away and cried her eyes out. The swollen eyes had come in useful when she presented herself at the police station the following day, pitifully reporting that the last piece of fabric had been sold to the woman in line just before her. That Hella would rather die than look like Esmeralda Eklund was beyond the chief inspector’s imagination, and it was just as well. She had more of an incentive to make things work here than he did.
She cast her mind back to their last conversation, and once again she wondered why Eklund had decided to become a police officer. With his love of neatness and order, with his passion for regulations, he could have made a good accountant. Maybe even a corporate lawyer. But a policeman? Hadn’t he had a choice in the matter? Or had young Lennart Eklund been different to the man he had become? She decided that one day she would ask him. Not directly, of course, but she would try to find a way. Even though it was possible that he himself had long since forgotten the answer, absorbed as he was in mountains of paperwork that created for him a comforting illusion of reality.
5
Jeremias Karppinen was the tiniest man Irja had ever seen. Which was just as well, because he was also the angriest. Just under five feet tall, wiry and cadaverous-looking, he was the embodiment of pure hatred. At first, she had thought she was provoking this reaction in him. She had wondered whether maybe he was against the Church or in conflict with religion. Or maybe he had his own reasons for hating women. Then she realized that it had nothing to do with her, or with women, or with the Church. It was just the way he was. She understood this the day she saw him drowning his dog’s pups in the marsh. Here in the countryside, lots of people did it, out of necessity. But Jeremias Karppinen had taken pleasure in it. He had lingered next to the slowly sinking bag until it disappeared with a soft swish and the muffled sounds of crying puppies could no longer be heard. Then he had walked away, slowly, a large smile spreading across his tiny face.
Now he was sitting opposite her at the kitchen table, his fingers curved like claws around a glass that he had picked up without asking. His nails were black and split.
“Do you have any grog?” he asked her casually, extending the glass towards her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t.” Irja averted her eyes, afraid he would read her like an open book. For you, she wanted to say, I do not have any grog for you. He was aggressive enough already; drunk, he would become violent. She noticed that Kalle had disappeared as soon as he had heard Karppinen’s deep barking, so incongruous in a man his size. Irja supposed Kalle had climbed on top of the Russian stove, even though the flowery curtains that hid the makeshift bed above the stove were not moving. If Kalle was indeed hidden there, he was lying perfectly still.
“Or dumplings?” Karppinen cast an exaggerated glance towards the stove, the open door of which revealed a cooking pot.
“I’m afraid it’s a bit early for dinner,” said Irja drily. To her, the Christian tradition of hospitality had its limits, and Jeremias Karppinen was definitely on the other side of that division. “Did you come to inquire about Kalle’s well-being?”
Which was a polite way of asking if he had come to snoop around. That was what most villagers did. They dropped by under the pretence of asking how the boy was faring, but all they really wanted to know was gossip. Was it really possible for no one to have any information about old Erno’s disappearance? And when were the police coming? And how come her husband, Timo, who had been out and about searching for the old man, had still not found anything?
Some people, a minority, did come with good intentions. They brought her pierogies, jars of home-made lingonberry jam, and warm clothes for Kalle. The men accompanied Timo in his search. The women sat next to Kalle, caressing his hair, telling him everything was going to be all right. Yes, there were good people in the village. But Jeremias Karppinen was not one of them, and Irja doubted very much that he had come to offer his help.
“I came to offer my help,” proclaimed the little man sententiously, but just as Irja was starting to wonder if she had been wrong about him, he spoke again, shattering her illusions. “I have decided that I will buy the house.”
He smiled, baring his sharp white teeth, triangular like those of a cat, and waited for her answer. A tiny, muffled sound came from the bed above the stove.
“I beg your pardon?” Irja was not sure she had heard him correctly. “What house?”
“The boy’s house,” explained Karppinen, his eyes greedy and excited. He was starting to lose his patience. “The boy doesn’t need it; he can live with you. So I’m offering to buy the house.” He fumbled in the breast pocket of his green army shirt, then pulled out several crumpled banknotes. Six hundred markka. The price of six and a half pounds of fresh fish at Ivalo’s market.
Karppinen pushed the money towards her. He was already rising from the bench.
“Deal’s done, then,” he said. “Your learned husband” – the words sounded like an insult in his mouth – “your learned husband can do the paperwork and bring the documents to me later. I trust you.”
“Wait a minute!” Irja rose to her feet, breathless with anger. “There’s no deal. I don’t even understand what you’re talking about. Please take your money back and just … just go!”
She was much taller than Karppinen; it gave her an advantage. Since he made no move to take the money, she seized it, pressing it into a ball, and shoved it towards him.
“Please go now. It’s not a good time to discuss that sort of thing.”
Karppinen stared at her in disbelief.
“You bitch! And I thought you were a lady …” The little man was livid with rage. “You’ll regret this! You’ll come crawling back to me, licking my boots, asking me to take that house off your hands. Now that old Erno’s dead …”
“He’s not dead,” cried out Irja indignantly. She was thinking about the little boy, perched above the stove, listening to their conversation. “Erno’s not dead,” she repeated again in a small voice, tears swelling in her eyes. To hell with her education. She tried to remember the exact intonation village women had when they argued with each other, but could only come up with a weak, “You’re talking nonsense. Get out of here!”
Karppinen bared his teeth again, and instinctively Irja recoiled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the familiar glint of the samovar. She could use it as a weapon against Karppinen if he became violent. But the little man must have noticed her glance and drawn all the right conclusions. He turned towards the door.
“You’ll regret this,” he said quietly, looking down on her, which, for a man of his size, was quite a feat. “When you know what I know, you will come to me, begging, but it’ll be too late. I offered you honest money.” He pushed the door, letting in a gust of icy air.
“Too late,” he repeated, and then he was gone.
6
It was a bumpy road, and every once in a while Hella was thrown out of her seat and against Kukoyakka. Each time she composed herself immediately, but the man kept grinning, as if suspecting her of falling into his arms on purpose.
“Not the kind of roads you had in Helsinki, huh?” He half-turned towards her, even though he could hardly see her. Where his right eye had once been, the skin was sewn over an empty socket, the stitches extending downwards like eyelashes.
“How long before we reach Käärmela?”
She had got into the Sisu at the very last moment, when the engine was already running and the large wooden gates that protected the factory’s yard stood open. Hella had never seen a truck that big; the front wheel reached as high as her shoulder. She had to use a ladder to climb into the cabin, and she congratulated herself on her choice of bag. She’d rather die than ask Kukoyakka for help heaving a suitcase into the cabin. With the backpack, she could just about manage.
“The roads are bad because of the logging trucks,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Trucks are heavy even when they’re empty; but when they’re loaded with tree trunks, their weight breaks the road.” He paused, his left hand on the steering wheel, the right one resting dangerously close to her thigh. A Grundig radio was sitting on the dashboard; Hella resisted the temptation to turn it on.
“Ever been to this part of the country?” Kukoyakka said.
“No. Yes. Just once, when I was chasing that man who stole from the factory safe.”
“Ah, Laukkonen?” he chuckled. “You didn’t catch him, though, did you? He went to stay with his stepbrother, up north.”
Hella turned to stare out of the window. Helsinki was beautiful at this time of year, tree crowns like liquid gold scattered with glimpses of red, and a mellowness in the air that smelled of candied apples and mulled wine. But here … The trees were grey, all their leaves gone in one night, their naked branches twisted at odd angles. The damp soil, from which the grass had gone a long time ago, was like a fresh grave waiting for new victims to swallow. The locals seemed to find it beautiful. It was their land, after all. Soon the first snow would fall, covering the low branches like a shroud, bringing them to the ground in an ever-repeating act of submission. Snow would be everywhere, ten or twelve feet deep, and it would stay that way until the end of April, maybe even later.
That land, and that snow, were the reasons she hadn’t caught the factory thief. She had done a good job, guessing which of the tight-lipped factory workers was guilty of the crime; but then, before she could arrest him, the man had run away. She had chased him relentlessly, following the traces his skis had left in the powdery October snow, but the man was a better skier than she, and he knew the countryside. After two days of incessant pursuit, dead tired, her feet like two pieces of raw meat, she’d had to recognize that she was not able to continue any longer. She had hoped that Eklund would send a patrol to where the man was rumoured to be staying, in a small village beyond the polar circle. He never did. To him, it was an unjustifiable use of administrative and operational resources. As he pointed out to Hella, the money had probably already been spent, or else would never be found, buried deep under some tree unremarkable to a stranger’s eye. So what was the sense in pursuing it? The case had been closed, successfully solved. The fact that the criminal was never brought to trial was of minor importance. “What about justice?” Hella had cried, who, at that time, still believed Chief Inspector Eklund could be reasoned with.
“Justice?” He had laughed out loud. “My dear girl, justice in a cold climate is not a natural phenomenon. Snow is. That’s something that influences our work more than any idea of justice does.”
Since then, she had come to realize that the working methods she had acquired during her days in Helsinki didn’t apply in Lapland. To start with, there was almost no technical support – no fingerprinting, no lab technicians in white coats, no staff photographer. The sole autopsy she had seen in two years in Ivalo had been performed by Dr Gummerus, who had his practice on the town’s main street and who was at least ninety, by the look of him. Dr Gummerus had cut open the victim’s ribcage, peered inside and waved a dismissive hand at her.
“Drowned. Drank too much. It wasn’t even necessary to open him up; it was sufficient just to look at him.”
“But what if he didn’t accidentally drown? What if he was drowned?”
“How would I know?” the man had asked, looking at her in mild surprise.
She had never bothered him again.
“What are you thinking about, beautiful?”
Kukoyakka’s hand had crawled still closer to her thigh.
“I’m a police officer on duty,” she muttered through her clenched teeth. “And you’re driving the truck. Your hand belongs on the steering wheel.”
“What hand?”
But he did pull it back a little, and started humming.
Damn, thought Hella. And they were only three miles into the forest. This was not getting off to a good start. She needed to get him thinking about something else, to change the subject. Hella had decided before leaving that it was vital to keep him on her side, even if that meant smiling at him when all she wanted was to slap him. Without Kukoyakka and his truck, how would she ever get to that damn village?
“Do you know the place we’re going?” she asked him. “Why is it called Käärmela – the snake place? I didn’t think there could be many snakes up north.”
He remained silent for a few seconds, probably trying to make up his mind about her. Or maybe just pondering the question. He was a slow man.
“Yes, I’ve been there a couple of times. One of my cousins lives there. Also a man who works at the logging station with me, cutting wood. Kai. He comes over from the village twice a week. But I don’t know about the snakes. I’ve never seen any.”
“What’s it like?”
“The village? Weird. Like an island.”
“An island?”
It was not the sort of answer she had expected, not from Kukoyakka.
“In a sea of ice,” he explained, and all but blushed. “I mean, just imagine living in a place that’s cut off from the rest of the world for eight months every year. Snow that goes up to your roof, or even higher. Night all day long. We have it in Ivalo too, but it’s not the same. In Käärmela, they’ve got no bars, no shops, just a bunch of Sami, most of them old, and a church. Exactly the stuff you need to go off your rocker.”
“What do people live off?”
“The usual stuff. Hunting, fishing, tending to reindeer. Quilting and making rugs. Whatever. In the winter, when they need to buy something, they go across the border, to where the Soviets are. To Svetly. It’s just closer. They’ve always lived like that. As I said, it’s mostly like an island. I grew up in a village like that, but I left when I was fifteen. Couldn’t stay there a day longer.”
He shook his head, as if disapproving of people who did stay a day beyond their fifteenth birthday in those far-removed places that had no bars. Hella shivered. It was getting cold in the cabin, but she didn’t think that was the real reason. Suddenly, she wondered if she was being overconfident in presuming she could solve a crime for which she had no corpse and no support from her boss. And Lapland was a strange country. It was nothing like southern Finland, where she had grown up, even though the south had its identity problems too. But here! Part of the Swedish realm until the early nineteenth century, Lapland had become Oulu Province, then the Grand Duchy, an inheritance of the King of Finland, before changing its name again to Lapland Province less than twenty years ago. And this was before the Interim Peace, and the Continuation War, and Operation Barbarossa and the Nazi occupation. Hella had heard that a large part of the population had been evacuated while the Nazis, enjoying their Lapland War to their heart’s content, had scorched the earth and blown up the roads and bridges. Ivalo itself had been burned almost to the ground, and each time she gave her last name, which was decidedly ill-suited to this part of the country, people stared at her in apprehension, reliving in their minds the atrocities of the war, trying to guess her links with their former occupant. And she couldn’t very well keep telling each and every one of them that her name was just a relic of a long-gone past, that she felt Finnish to the bone, that her parents had been real Finnish patriots who had fought the Nazis and the Soviets alike. That she had been brought up on a diet of the Kalevala.
Yes, it was not at all certain that she would be welcomed. And did she really have to stay at the priest’s house? Couldn’t she find other accommodation? Not a hotel, she knew perfectly well that places like Käärmela had no hotels, but maybe the mayor’s house, if there was a mayor? Probably not. She supposed Eklund would have told her.
She turned her head to look at Kukoyakka. He seemed to be concentrating on the road, even though she couldn’t see his left eye. With his black, bushy hair, still thick for a man his age, he made her think of the Green Man, Tapio, the god of the forest who adorned Lapland’s coat of arms. Tapio was a huge, Neanderthal-like creature wielding a club, clad in only a green loincloth and a matching turban, with a beard of lichen and eyebrows of moss, and as a child, Hella had been terrified of him.
