Evil Things, page 6
Young Kai was standing by the gate, smoking. He didn’t meet her gaze. Ignoring him, Hella pulled open the door of the shed and lit the paraffin lamp. Who are you? she asked the head silently. We didn’t find a ring finger, so we don’t know if you’re married. If you have children. If they are waiting for you. The woman was middle-aged, judging by the texture of the remaining skin. The blonde hair had streaks of grey in it. Pity the ears had been chewed off. Ears were useful for identification purposes. With her gloved hand, Hella rolled the head gently to one side, inspecting the bullet wound. It had been made by a high-velocity handgun, not a rifle. That was strange. The locals usually went about with rifles.
Suddenly, Hella caught a glint of something between the woman’s teeth. Holding her breath, she leaned in closer. Rigor mortis had passed long ago, and she had no trouble unclenching the jaw. There was a sliver of curved glass in the woman’s mouth. Hella extracted it with trembling fingers and held it to the light. She could just about distinguish an inscription. Part of a word: LOROQ, whatever that meant. The curve of the glass itself made her think of a vial. Had it contained poison? Had the woman been forced to take it by her aggressor, or did she break it herself, afraid of being tortured? Hella shivered and closed her eyes. She had done this before. She could manage. She had been trained to solve violent crimes.
A smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air. Maybe it had been there the whole time, but she only noticed it now.
12
“My dear girl. A quick word with you, if I may.”
The “dear girl” was Hella, in whose memory the scene was playing. The speaker was Jon Jokela, chief inspector in Helsinki’s homicide squad.
They were standing outside a gloomy administrative building that harboured the police headquarters. Inspector Jokela was smoking. She was next to him, inhaling the smoke. She didn’t dare show that the smoke bothered her, because she was still very young, fresh out of the police academy, and the first woman ever to be admitted to a homicide squad. Besides, she was lost in admiration for this man of great experience, a veteran of the war. She would have never dared say it to him, but he reminded her of her father. He even had the same bristly white hair, combed straight back, and the same military bearing.
“How are you feeling, Hella? Are you comfortable here? With the team, with the work we do?”
As they stood, a group of mostly young men in once white coats wheeled a succession of stretchers into the adjacent medical examiner’s office. A stench of disinfectant, mingled with a sweeter, earthier smell, which Hella already recognized as that of recent murder, hit her nostrils. Jokela winced and pulled on his cigarette. The bodies belonged to a family, a mother and four children, ranging in age from two to twelve, all shot in their sleep, or so it seemed. Only one child, a three-year-old girl, had survived the massacre. She was being treated for her wounds in Lastenlinna children’s hospital.
“Because it’s not for everyone, you know,” said Jokela and blew smoke away from Hella’s face. “You need to learn how to detach yourself. How not to take things too personally.”
Hella shivered in the cold November wind, wondering why her boss was saying this. Was it because her eyes had been wet when, as first officer on the scene, she had peered through the window of a suburban house and seen a little boy cuddled up with his knitted bunny in an armchair, a piece of raw meat mixed with greyish brain where his head had once been? Wasn’t that a normal reaction?
“You should follow Mustonen’s example,” Jokela suggested gently. “Granted, he can be a brute sometimes, but he’s a fine officer, organized, meticulous and with an excellent analytical mind. And at least when he goes home to his family in the evening, he’s not haunted by visions of crime scenes. He has a normal life, which is something we should all aspire to. Because otherwise you don’t last long in this profession. Do you know the story of my predecessor, Chief Inspector Korhonen?”
Hella did.
“Delirium tremens,” said Jokela nonetheless. “And he was a good man, a splendid man. But he couldn’t bear the pressure, day after day, year after year. The strain of the work, victims crying for justice, the responsibility he felt towards them … To carry on living, he had to find an escape from his feelings. And so he did. Vodka became his best friend. At first it was only his problem, how he spent his evenings, what he did with his life. But when he started showing up at the station still half-drunk, his clothes crumpled because he had slept in them, his breath stinking like that of a goat, then it became everybody’s problem. People didn’t want to work with him any more. Officers didn’t trust his judgement, because they knew his brain was clouded by alcohol. Victims’ families shied away, thinking he was half-mad and as dangerous as the killers he was supposed to be chasing. It was a sad ending to an otherwise very promising career.”
Hella nodded. She could understand his point, of course. No one wanted a doctor who was so hysterical about what had happened to you that he couldn’t stitch up your wound. Detective work required emotional distance and steel nerves. But wasn’t there a middle ground between the compassionate but ineffective amateurism Jokela had just described and the contemptuous indifference Officer Mustonen demonstrated at crime scenes? Wasn’t their rigorous professionalism just a façade? She was too young to tell, and they never confided in her. After the day was over, they would all – Jokela included – gather for drinks in a bar on Ratakatu, while she would pack her bag and go to the sad spartan room she called home.
“Maybe you should take easier cases,” suggested Jokela. “Or at least cases that don’t involve … families. Given your past.”
“I can do this,” she said, and looked straight up at him. She had been expecting this sort of reaction, because he knew all about her. He had even known her father. They hadn’t been close friends, but they had met on several occasions. “It’s very nice of you to be concerned with my well-being. I appreciate it. But I want you to know that I’m fine, and that I’m capable of working on this case.”
“Oh, I know, I know,” he said, but his eyes were averted and his shoulders were stiff. “Just don’t overwork yourself, that’s my advice. And keep your emotions at bay. You women tend to get overexcited. Police work requires a rational brain, not an emotional one.”
She wanted to protest that she was not getting over-excited, but he had already thrown the cigarette butt in the ditch and was climbing the stairs back into the building.
Following him up the steps, Hella vowed to behave like the young professional she should be. Like a man. Not to be overcome by emotion. Eyes dry.
Which was exactly what she was trying to do now.
She slid the glass into a paper envelope. No one needed to know about it. Outside, Irja was calling her.
“Lunch is ready,” she shouted. “If you’re hungry. And then Timo can take you to see Erno’s place.”
As if in response to her words, Hella’s stomach gurgled and she realized that she was, indeed, ravenous. She covered the head with a clean towel, locked the door of the shed, and hurried towards the house for a quick lunch.
13
At first glance, there was not much to look at. The surprisingly grand log cabin, in which Erno Jokinen lived with his grandson Kalle, stood three quarters of a mile away from the village, in a no man’s land of damp soil and crooked shrubs. In the summer, thought Hella, this place must be swarming with mosquitoes. And during the polar winter … Three quarters of a mile is not a great distance to walk, but when the snow reached all the way up to the gabled roof, and one had to shovel one’s way out of the house, building crumbling tunnels like a worm in an overripe apple, socializing was not a priority. Erno and his grandson had surely kept to themselves. It was probably easier for them to go into the forest that lay to the east of the house than to the village that was uphill from the cabin.
“Did Erno build this house?” she asked Father Timo, who stood grimly by her side, his hands tucked into the belt of his black cassock.
“His father did. He owned a big chunk of land here, and this was where he built his home. It’s a bit like a local manor.”
“What about Erno’s wife? Who was she, and what happened to her?”
“I heard that she died during childbirth. After that, Erno lived with his daughter, Anna.”
“And his daughter —” Hella was about to ask Father Timo if Anna had always lived in this godforsaken place, but checked herself in time and reframed the question. “Was she never tempted to go to the city?”
“She did go to a city. Went as far as Turku, from what I’ve heard, when she was about eighteen. Came back only a year ago with little Kalle in tow. She never married, so we don’t know anything about the father. But you should ask Irja about that. She probably knows local gossip much better than I do.”
But I prefer to talk to you, thought Hella. Even though she had never liked people of his trade, she preferred him to his wife. Her unstudied perfection, her tranquillity and grace intimidated Hella. She felt awkward and vain, with her police insignia pinned to her ill-fitting, threadbare parka, her hair like straw, and her bitten nails.
Hella turned away, suddenly ashamed of her thoughts. What did it matter what she looked like? Or the fact that she couldn’t cook? She was here to do her job. She glanced at Father Timo.
“Mr Waltari, do you have any idea where we can look for the key?”
She had stupidly expected to find the front door open. In her limited knowledge of country life, no one ever locked their doors. But this house stood away from the village, which explained the huge, cast-iron lock that hung on its nail-studded front door. Or else Erno Jokinen had something to hide.
“Yes, I do.” Father Timo leaned forward and fumbled under the shutters, producing a key. “It doesn’t turn easily,” he commented, inserting the key into the lock. “Takes a lot of force to open that door.” He looked at her. “This is something I forgot to mention. When Martta brought Kalle to us, she said that the front door hadn’t been locked when she found him. The key was inside, on top of the sideboard. She’s the one who locked the door and hid the key under the shutters.”
A grey cotton runner led from the entrance to a living room-cum-kitchen, lined in pine and devoid of the usual embellishments. It was bitterly cold inside the house, and dark. But of course; there was no one to light the stove any longer. How could little Kalle have survived here alone? Hella looked around, trying to imagine what those six terrible days had been like for him. What had the boy eaten? She noticed a scattering of breadcrumbs on the dining table – he must have had some bread – and a gleaming samovar, so there had been water, too, but this must have been cold. Apart from that, no food except a garland of laurel leaves, a large glass jar full of dried mushrooms and, next to it, a smaller one that must have contained jam but was now licked clean.
A flock of paper planes sat on the windowsill, dozens of them. And a sheet of paper, folded in two, propped against the window, where one couldn’t fail to see it.
Inside it, a short, handwritten message: Erno, Kalle was afraid of being alone for so long, and he didn’t want to stay with Martta. He’s with us. You can come over to the house any time it suits you. Timo and Irja.
Strange turns of phrase, thought Hella. No We’ve been worried, no Please come immediately.
She refolded the note and put it back on the windowsill. She didn’t believe for one second that the old man was ever coming back, but you never knew.
Then she looked around, frowning.
So Kalle had spent six days all alone, waiting for his grandfather to come back. Six days is a long time, very long, for a child. Was he the one who had made all those paper planes? What else had he done? Played hide-and-seek?
Is that why the big stove, its whitewashed belly protruding into the room, was smeared with soot?
She searched a small sideboard, also pine, with its doors primly closed. The insides were empty.
To the right of the sideboard there was a narrow bench covered with cushions; the cushions were torn at the seams. Someone had taken the stuffing out, then replaced it, but hadn’t bothered to stitch the seams again. Maybe they couldn’t find a needle and thread. Maybe they hadn’t had the time.
She continued scanning the room until once more her gaze returned to the stove.
Playing hide-and-seek all alone?
Or hiding from someone?
Or – her eyes on the cushions again – looking for something?
Someone else, not Kalle.
Looking for what?
She called out to the priest, who was waiting for her outside.
“Can you come in? Don’t touch anything.”
He wiped his feet on the doormat and joined her inside the house.
“You came back here after the boy was brought to you.”
It was not a question, merely a piece of information she wanted confirmed. She had seen the message on the windowsill.
“Yes, we did. Irja and me, the day after Kalle was found. We needed to get him a change of clothes.” Father Timo thought for a second, maybe wondering whether clarification was necessary or pertinent, then added: “We also took his picture book and his mother’s photograph, because he asked for it.”
“Look around. Is anything different or out of the ordinary?”
The priest complied with the instruction, his head tilted, his clear blue gaze settling on one object after another. Taking his time.
“No, I don’t see any changes. The room was already dirty when we came in. I remember noticing the soot.”
Hella peered inside the stove. Empty. Grabbing a two-pronged cast-iron stick from a hook, she fumbled inside, dislodging more soot.
“And to your knowledge, you and your wife were the only ones who came down here?”
“Martta Jokinen also came, the day she found Kalle.”
“But if someone from the village had come by, either before you did or later on, would they know where the key was?”
“I’m not sure. The shutters are an obvious hiding place, of course, but Erno doesn’t make a habit of leaving his key lying about. He’s most particular about security, and he distrusts his closest neighbour, Karppinen. Every time he goes out, he locks his front door.”
“So how do you explain the fact that the door wasn’t locked when Martta Jokinen came over? Could she have been lying?”
“I don’t think so. There was nothing wrong in what she did, was there? Why would she lie?”
“Why was the door left unlocked, then? You said so yourself, the man locked his door all the time —”
Father Timo shook his head. “I thought about that, too. The key doesn’t turn easily; it takes a lot of force to open that door. Kalle could never have managed to open it on his own. What if Erno was afraid he’d be gone for a long time, maybe never coming back? He wouldn’t have wanted to trap Kalle inside. So he left the door open.”
Hella nodded. If that was true, then the old man was probably a murderer, not a victim. But if that was the case, who had searched his house?
“If something had gone missing, would you have noticed? Not only now, but between the last time you paid a visit to Erno and the day you came to fetch Kalle’s clothes. You can look around. Take your time.”
Father Timo didn’t need to look around to answer the question.
“Erno kept a pair of silver candlesticks on the sideboard. A Jokinen family heirloom, given to Erno’s parents on their wedding day. They were here when I played chess with Erno a week before he disappeared. But not the last time I came. So those are missing, and also the embroidered tablecloth that Erno kept on the shelf, here, for special occasions.”
“And you’re sure these things were here when you last visited to play chess but not when you came to fetch Kalle’s clothes?”
“I’m sure.”
Hella sighed and turned away. The disappearance of kitchen items was probably not meaningful. It happened all the time, of course, people being killed for silverware, but she doubted very much that it was the case here.
14
There were maybe ten books on the fitted shelf in the corner of the living room, but these were not the books Hella would have expected to find.
“Lessons in Pawn Play, by Reverend E. E. Cunnington. Ernst Brandes’ Social Problems. Wuorinen’s Finland – An Historical Survey. Rather sophisticated reading for an uneducated peasant.”
“Erno is educated,” objected Father Timo, doggedly sticking to the present tense. “Not in a university, of course, but he went to a gymnasium. He likes to read. He’s passionate about history, especially recent history. I guess it’s the influence of this place we live in. This region has changed hands with every generation, or even more often, and people have had to adapt.”
“What about this one?” asked Hella, pointing at a slim, dog-eared volume, stuck between Wuorinen’s Finland and an encyclopaedia. “The Woman’s Doctor.” She dislodged the book from its shelf. Published in 1933. “All you will ever need to know about your health and that of your baby. Whatever did he have that for?”
Father Timo took the book from her hands.
“I’ve never seen it before. Erno’s never been interested in official medicine. He uses herbal remedies, for himself and for Kalle. I don’t believe they ever saw a doctor in their lives.”
