Evil Things, page 7
He paused, thinking.
“It must have been Anna’s. Kalle’s mother. She died a year ago.”
“What of?”
“Pneumonia. She had the flu, and then … She was a sickly woman, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she took a lot of medication. So maybe that book was hers.”
Hella wriggled the volume back into its spot on the shelf. She would need to leaf through each of these books, looking for annotations or documents hidden between the pages. But she would do that when she was alone.
Instead, she went to inspect the two bedrooms at the back of the house, motioning to Father Timo to follow her.
“Kalle’s room?”
“Used to be. He shared it with his mother for a short time, before she passed away.”
So that explained the atmosphere of gloom that hung about the room, in defiance of the two matching yellow bedspreads and the handmade doll that sat smiling on the windowsill.
“Did you know Anna Jokinen?”
“Only a little. Irja cared for her when she fell ill. I administered the last rites to her. I was also the one who buried her.”
Hella pushed open the door to the other room.
“So once his mother died, Kalle started sharing a room with his grandfather?”
No matching bedspreads in here. Nothing pretty. It was a room that screamed men only. A wolfskin used as a rug. A rifle, certainly loaded, leaning casually against the wall next to Erno’s bed. A cloudy bottle on the floor. Hella bent down to smell it.
Aquavit. Home-made. Not Kremlevskaya, whatever Eklund might think. She could just about imagine the old man downing a glass or two before he went to bed.
She turned towards the priest. “Could Erno have been in need of money? Maybe for Kalle’s education?”
Father Timo considered the question. Contrary to Lennart Eklund, he didn’t make a big deal out of the thinking process. He didn’t search his memory ostentatiously, didn’t frown, affecting concentration.
“I don’t think so,” he answered simply. “He never talks about education. I think he expects that Kalle will stay here, help out, and inherit the house. They don’t seem to have any particular needs. The boy is in good health and Erno, though close to sixty, is robust.”
Hella closed the door with a soft thud.
“So except for the silver and tablecloth, probably spirited away by that great-aunt you mentioned, Martta, nothing’s missing?”
“No.”
“Could Martta have been the one who searched inside the stove? Is there, I don’t know —”
Father Timo laughed. “A local habit of hiding valuables inside stoves? Not that I know of. But Martta is a strange woman. You never know what might get into her head. Her house is full of so much junk; she just picks things up everywhere she goes. Anything she can find. Old coffee cans, glass jars, rags. So maybe she hides things inside her stove. You’ll have to ask her, though I doubt very much you’ll get a straight answer.”
“They weren’t on good terms?”
“Martta and Erno? They’re like cat and dog, with Martta being the dog. Never got along, not as children, and not as adults either. Although, when Martta sprained her ankle last spring, Erno spent some time caring for her. I doubt very much she would have done the same for him.”
“So Martta Jokinen had no reason really to drop in on her brother?”
Father Timo looked at her, his face serious.
“I wondered about that too. But when I asked Martta, I didn’t get a satisfactory answer.”
“What did she say?”
“That she had borrowed something from him and was bringing it back, as they had agreed.”
“What sort of something?”
“That, she didn’t want to tell me.”
All right, so Martta Jokinen was first on her list. She would also need to go and see the little man who lived in that house up the hill. He might believe that he was being discreet, but Hella had seen him lurking behind his hedge, binoculars in hand.
Who else?
Father Timo was standing next to the window, studying the paper planes. His black cassock inspired a new thought in Hella.
“What about religious icons, Mr Waltari? I haven’t seen any. Aren’t all Skolts devout Orthodox Christians?”
“Not Erno. He’s a non-believer. Likes nothing better than to point out God’s perceived inadequacies.”
“Doesn’t that trouble you?”
“It does.”
Hella expected him to add that, no matter what each thought about religion, people didn’t kill over that kind of thing. When talking to her, people usually felt the need to justify themselves. But Father Timo didn’t say anything. Instead, he went out into the daylight and stood with his back to the house, waiting for her to finish her inspection and join him outside.
15
“Martta Jokinen?” asked Hella, even though she had no doubt that the little witch with her curiously shaped, asymmetrical body and her mouse-grey hair through which shone a pink, crusty scalp was indeed Martta Jokinen. Behind the woman’s back, Hella could see the two silver candlesticks sitting defiantly on a table piled high with dirty dishes.
The woman didn’t answer. She just stood there, staring at her, perhaps wondering who Hella was. Her grey kaftan was stained all over, and so was her floor-length navy skirt.
“Sergeant Mauzer,” stated Hella, pointing at the badge pinned on her parka and speaking very slowly. “Ivalo Police. I’m here to investigate the disappearance of your brother Erno. May I come in?”
Still, the woman didn’t budge. She’s slow-witted, thought Hella. Or deaf. She almost regretted declining Father Timo’s offer to accompany her. She didn’t want to stroll around the village in the company of a priest, leading the good people of Käärmela to believe she couldn’t do anything on her own just because she was a woman.
Martta Jokinen mumbled something.
“I beg your pardon?” Hella was not sure she had heard correctly. Had the old witch really said “To hell with him”? It made her sound like a story-book villain.
“How do I know where he went and why?” proclaimed Martta Jokinen, louder this time. Her front teeth were still there, but almost all her back teeth were gone, which further accentuated her rodent-like features. “I don’t care, either!”
“Is this your brother we’re talking about?” asked Hella in her nicest voice. “May I come in, Miss Jokinen?”
“Do I have to talk to you?” asked the woman, not yet ready to give in.
“Yes, you do.” Hella wondered what Ranta would have done if he was in her shoes. Or Eklund. Would they patiently wait on the porch? She put her foot between the door and the jamb.
“And how exactly do I know who you are?” the woman said. “That trinket on your coat doesn’t mean a thing to me. What if you’ve come here to steal my silver spoons?”
Coming from someone who had spirited away a pair of silver candlesticks from her missing brother’s house, that was a bit rich.
“Miss Jokinen, do you want me to handcuff you and take you over to the police station for questioning? Or are you going to let me in, like the lovely hostess that you are? I can already see evidence of one crime, over there on your dining table. Do you want me to add obstruction of justice to the list?”
The woman glared but stepped back, finally allowing Hella access to a living room which, like its owner, reeked of decay and acrid perspiration. The priest was right; Martta Jokinen was a hoarder. The insides of the living room made Hella think of a junkyard.
“Haven’t done anything,” muttered the woman grimly, while Hella stood in the middle of the room, not daring to sit anywhere because of the risk of staining her clothes. “Those candlesticks are mine. Father told me so on his deathbed. I was his favourite, too. Erno’s been scheming behind my back all my life, trying to rob me of my inheritance.”
“Is that so? And, understandably, you felt entitled to recover what you were due as soon as you had the opportunity. Do you think your brother’s dead?”
“He is,” replied the woman. “One knows such things.”
“By reading tarot cards? By having prophetic dreams? Or perhaps by observing someone stalking an old man into the woods?”
“Like you said, I saw it in a dream.”
“Tell me about it exactly.”
The woman raised her eyes to the ceiling, searching for inspiration. “I just saw something like a shroud, and a coffin, and then an angel with wings and curly hair, telling me my time had come to go and get what was owed to me.”
“And so you bravely did as the angel asked?”
The woman nodded.
“You told Father Timo that you went over to Erno’s house to give back something that belonged to him.”
“He’s lying,” declared Martta Jokinen, unblinking. “They all do.”
“All priests?”
“All men.”
“Was the front door locked?”
“It wasn’t.”
“What about the child? Did the angel mention what you were supposed to do with him?”
The old woman sneered. “That child is a bastard. Why do you think an angel would bother with such a thing?”
Hella clenched her fists, but managed to keep her voice calm. “But still you took him with you.”
“Didn’t want to be accused of murder, did I? And that little bastard would have died in that house had I not taken him. I deserve a medal for that. Or a reward. You think you can ask about it in Ivalo?”
Hella bared her teeth. “You despicable sleazy scum of the earth. You stole from an innocent child, and you’re boasting about saving his life? Give me those candlesticks. Now! And the tablecloth. No, not that one. The embroidered one.”
Having stuffed Kalle’s rightful inheritance into her backpack, Hella made her way out of the room, while the old woman screeched, cursed and called all of hell’s fire on her.
16
When Hella returned from her interview with Martta Jokinen, the evening prayer had already started. Kalle was perched above the stove together with the cat, and he was repeating every word. He signed himself at appropriate moments, without being prompted. Yet his grandfather was strongly opposed to religion. How could the boy have learned the rituals so quickly? That was another question she had to ask. What troubled her, though, was neither the prayer nor the little boy. It was Irja Waltari. The priest’s wife was acting in the exact opposite manner to Kalle. She pretended to be listening, but Hella would bet her monthly wage that she wasn’t. Which was not what Hella would have expected from an otherwise devoted wife. What was the matter with her? Father Timo had noticed it, too; Hella could tell it from the stiffness of his shoulders, from the worried glances he directed at his wife when he thought she was not looking. He rambled on bravely regardless, his beautiful deep voice intoning the prayer, his eyes now set on the Christ the Saviour icon in the corner. Hella felt sorry for the poor man. It couldn’t be easy for a priest to have a wife who didn’t share his faith.
“Amen,” said the priest.
Irja Waltari straightened her skirt and rose to her feet, ready to serve dinner.
“Come on, Kalle,” called Hella, in an effort to establish contact. “Climb down.”
He did, but without looking at her, and without relinquishing the cat. The priest’s wife smiled absent-mindedly and placed a saucer of milk on the floor for Seamus. The animal twisted its nose, making it clear it would rather opt for the meatballs.
There was a new toy in the house, a moose made of rags that Irja had been stitching together. It stood on the windowsill, one of its horns sprawling and proud, the other hanging limply to one side.
“I dropped by the church on the way back, but you were already gone,” said Hella to the priest. “I went inside anyway, but it didn’t look like anything I’d imagined. It looked … dark. I don’t know why, but I always thought that Orthodox churches were full of light and colour.”
“It used to be,” said Father Timo, “but it needs restoration now. As you know, the Soviets are against all religion, and this part of Lapland has been invaded. The church had been stripped of its icons and converted into a warehouse. We’re lucky they didn’t burn it.”
Yes, thought Hella. That’s what they did, usually. Religion was public enemy number one.
“We’ve got some new icons from Helsinki, and the villagers have salvaged some of the original ones. I’m restoring them, though I’m not really a specialist. Irja helps a lot.”
Probably repainting them in lovely colours, thought Hella. What a nice family business. Pity they didn’t have a flock of little children, cute and blonde like Mummy and Daddy. Still, they were young, probably just married, so that would come in due course.
Irja placed food on the table – Russian borscht again – and Hella started eating without waiting for Father Timo to finish saying grace. They ate in silence, Hella wondering what it must feel like to be part of this land that had been torn between conflicting powers for centuries. Did people develop specific personality traits? Did they adapt easily? Or did they just cringe and wait in silence until things changed again? She tried to remember what she had heard about the people of Lapland, but nothing came to mind.
She was still pondering the question when dinner finally ended and Father Timo left the house to go back to the church and pray for the dead woman.
17
She has beautiful hair, thought Irja, and her eyes are nice, dark grey under sculpted eyebrows. But she’s doing everything in her power to conceal her good looks, as if being attractive is at odds with being professional. And her clothes! The lower button of her parka was dangling from a single thread. Irja made a mental note to sew it back on once Sergeant Mauzer went to bed. She also wanted to iron the policewoman’s crumpled shirts, but was afraid this gesture might be interpreted as a violation of the sergeant’s privacy.
The evening was well advanced and Kalle, exhausted by the day’s emotions, was fast asleep on top of the stove, Seamus curled up by his side. Irja was tired too, but Sergeant Mauzer, sitting opposite her, kept tapping on the table with her short, bitten nails. She wanted to ask her something, but she was struggling to find the words. Irja wondered what it could be. She also wondered if Sergeant Mauzer already had a theory about what had happened in the forest.
“About the boy …” started Miss Mauzer in a low voice. “He seems familiar with your religion. I saw him sign himself just now, in this right-to-left way you Orthodox have. Has he picked it up over the last few days?”
“No,” replied Irja quietly. She knew now why Sergeant Mauzer had waited before she asked her this question. She wanted Kalle asleep and Timo out of the house. Irja couldn’t hide the truth from her. So she explained:
“Kalle has got into the habit of going to the church over the last few months. I think, in a way, he’s been looking for his mother. After she died, someone told him she’d become an angel, and he understood it literally. He would stay there for hours on end, gazing up at an icon of Saint Elisabeth, smiling and moving his lips. He was talking to her, telling her about his life here and asking what the weather was like up in the clouds, and if she could come home one day.”
“Your husband encouraged him,” said Hella. More of a statement than a question.
“You have to understand he believes that Anna Jokinen is in heaven, and that her son has every right to talk to her, so, yes, he agreed with Kalle.”
“Did Erno know what the boy was up to?”
“Timo had asked Kalle about it, of course. And Kalle said that his grandpa had let him attend. Timo had no reason not to believe him.”
Sergeant Mauzer paused, pondering the answer.
“Your husband must have thought that it was a consolation for Kalle to keep this imagined connection with his mother. He meant well. Even though he realized pretty quickly that Erno knew nothing about Kalle’s visits, didn’t he?”
“He was worried about the boy. About the fact that Kalle and Erno kept to themselves so much that Kalle didn’t have any friends his own age. The village is small, but there are other children. Kalle never spent any time with them.”
“Mr Waltari told me he played chess with Erno once a week.”
“He did. Erno was – is – a rather good player. He even has a book on chess.”
“So they met once a week, and played chess together, and somehow your husband never mentioned that the young boy was spending his days in the church, in total disregard for his grandfather’s principles? Because I’ve heard that Erno wasn’t happy with your God, who’s allowed so much misery to befall his country and his own family. The last thing he would have wanted was to have his grandson believing in something he was strongly opposed to.”
Irja cast an anguished glance over to the stove, but, if Kalle was awake, he gave no sign. She whispered: “I suppose so.”
“How did Erno find out?”
“I don’t know.”
“But he was upset? Mrs Waltari?” Sergeant Mauzer, who was now scribbling furiously in her notebook, raised her head to look at her. “I’m waiting for an answer, Mrs Waltari.”
Irja paused, wondering if there was a different way to put what she was about to say. There wasn’t.
“He told Timo to leave, and to never again set foot in his house. He also said that Kalle would never be going near a church again.”
Sergeant Mauzer jotted down this information. The sergeant had her own disagreements with God, Irja was sure of that. She would now be suspicious of Timo. Would she go as far as to suspect him of murder?
“One last question, please, Mrs Waltari.”
Why had Sergeant Mauzer’s voice taken that metallic, official note? Irja pressed her hands hard against each other to stop them from trembling.
“When did that dispute, between Erno Jokinen and your husband, take place? Do you remember?”
She could say she didn’t remember. That her memory had been like a sieve lately. Or that the argument hadn’t really been a big deal, two friends bickering, forgetting all about it the following day. Meeting again, the week after, to play chess. Only it wouldn’t be the truth.
