Light in a Dark House (28 page)

If he was not much mistaken whorefucker25, on the other hand, was an old man always trying to seem young. Presumably that was one of the reasons why none of his twenty-three accounts was about a prostitute any older than nineteen. He too was a happy man if the ladies offered him an unprotected blow-job, and he liked the riding-astride position. He had once tried S & M and spanking, but something had gone wrong, he had sounded quite upset, and ended his account with the hesitant remark:
Likelihood of going back unfortunately only 40%.

A third virtual thumb went up. Loverboy-5000 was enthusiastic and announced that he was going to visit the lady in question today.

Good luck, thought Risto Nygren. He doubted whether Julia had recovered from the going-over he’d given her yet. Loverboy-5000 had better wait for the details.

But he didn’t feel like writing up the details now. He stood up, put on his jacket, went along the corridor and took the lift down. Christmas music was being played in the big golden lobby. A huge, lavishly decorated Christmas tree stood in the front hall of the hotel, and the mad-sounding laughter of Asiatics relaxing came from the hotel bar.

He sat down at one of the tables, looked at the brightly lit city in the dark from behind the big windows, and for reasons he didn’t entirely understand he thought of Saara. Of that strange last day. The last blow, which had been struck too hard. His headlong departure. And the way he had felt so bad about it.

He had sensed the tears come into his eyes during the flight, and the attendant had asked if he was all right as she brought him a drink. He had only nodded, but for several moments he had felt an impulse to tell her the truth.

The whole truth, whatever that was.

The air ticket had been very expensive, because he had booked it only on the day of the flight. For now, it was a one-way ticket.

He thought of Saara coming back, and yet again he wondered why. What had she really wanted of him after so many years? And what kind of a conversation was it that they’d had? What kind of a woman had it been sitting opposite him? With age marks on her hands, and a voice that was calm and controlled as she told him that she had seen him by chance in that stupid TV programme on a special-interest channel, about the tradition of family firms, and she had suddenly known that nothing was forgotten, and he would be called to reckoning for it all.

She had sat opposite him, smiling when he told her he was going to kill her. Right away. If she said a word about anything to anyone.

She had smiled, and he had almost felt a little panic, because he had seen no fear in her eyes.

Outside the hotel, twilight was falling, and the red-light district was lit up. A city of opposites, he thought, the luxury hotel and bank tower building next to the drugs advisory centre and the brothel. He liked that.

If he leaned very far to the right he could look out and guess at the window of the place where little Julia worked. Maybe Loverboy-5000 was already with her. The Asians were laughing at the bar, a little boy in the hall looked up as far as he could stretch, maybe so that he could see the star at the top of the Christmas tree.

Nothing was forgotten, Saara had said.

The waiter came over and asked if he could bring him something, but he didn’t want anything to drink. He wasn’t thirsty. He stood up and went to the lift, and with the little boy and a woman who was holding the little boy’s hand he went up to the twenty-fourth floor. He nodded goodbye to them.

There was a post on the forum, flickering on the screen of his laptop. From Loverboy-5000. Either he had used a five-minute number or he was sending his account in real time on his iPhone. Possibly both.

Hi guys. Was just with her, can’t go along with Old-Finn’s report. Julia looked like she hadn’t slept for two days, and if you ask me she was stoned out of her mind. Action as good as a valium tablet, doggy-fashion she almost fell off the bed, and when I came she didn’t even seem to notice. Likelihood of going back: 0%. If you ask me, there’s something the matter with her.

Oh, well, thought Risto Nygren. A sudden vague sadness came over him; in a way it somehow felt good. He hadn’t thought of Saara for a long time. Really, not since the day when he left her in the ditch and drove on to Helsinki and the airport.

His last thought of Saara had been when he felt an impulse to tell the flight attendant, the girl who looked at him with such concern, all about it, 10,000 metres above the ground.

Tell her everything. How he had killed a woman who had meant something to him. How it made him sad. The flight attendant in her smart uniform had looked as if she would understand him.

There’s something the matter with her, he thought.

Likelihood of going back: 0%
.

He tried to form a picture of Loverboy-5000. A banker. Between twenty and thirty. Who had something important to do at the office on 24 December, and then quickly saw to little Julia. And then, in the subway, gets out his iPhone or iPad, to send like-minded guys a report on his recent experience. Before Mama served the Christmas goose at seven and made him try on his new tie.

He logged out and closed the system down. Sat in the silence smiling slightly to himself.

Outside, idiots were throwing fireworks. At Christmas.

He closed his eyes.

After a while, as the image of Saara withdrew into mist, and made way for little Julia’s faint smile, he fell asleep.

71

KIMMO JOENTAA SPENT
Christmas in the small house in the forest, now standing empty, where the piano teacher Saara Koivula had lived twenty-five years ago.

The present owners of the property, a young married couple with a three-year-old daughter, had moved out a few months ago taking everything with them, except for a table and a chair, both made of pale wood the same colour as the floorboards.

Joentaa had had a short phone conversation with the young husband, and ended by asking him if, by any chance, he knew where the piano had stood. The man didn’t understand, and when Joentaa had finally managed to convey what he meant said that there had been no piano in the house, at least not when he and his family moved in. Joentaa had thanked him and apologised for his silly question.

He had been here several times in the last few days, trying to imagine what it had looked like in the summer of 1985. He assumed that the piano stood against the wall with the window next to the door to the terrace, which led straight out into the garden. He had a feeling that that would have been a good place for it.

He opened the terrace door, sat down on the wooden chair, and looked around the living room, which was small and square. A narrow corridor led to the kitchen, a small bathroom with an even smaller sauna, and another room that had presumably been the bedroom. Another door led from the bedroom out into the open air and the garden, which seemed to merge with the forest after about 20 metres. Snow blew in through the open door; the air was cool and clear.

A little way off a church bell rang, and a few minutes later the muted sound of Christmas carols being sung could be heard. Joentaa had seen the church when he turned off the narrow road along the even narrower track through the forest leading to Majala and Saara Koivula’s house.

He closed his eyes and thought of the telephone conversation he had had with Sundström that afternoon. The country-wide search for Teuvo Manner was turning out, so far anyway, to be a complete failure. Teuvo Manner didn’t seem to exist. All trace of him was lost in 1991, after he left school here in Karjasaari. Manner’s mother had died in 2003, also here in Karjasaari, and her son had obviously not been to the funeral. He had gone away, he was always going away, a friend of his mother had said.

It was a real problem, Westerberg had commented, and Joentaa had thought: Another shadow.

He thought of Seppo, spending Christmas in his hotel room and thereby probably annoying his fiancée and several family members who had expected him back in Helsinki for the holiday season. But Seppo was a man possessed by the idea that he could make a name emerge from a sea of photographs. He had been back to the local journalist to borrow her extensive photographic archive, had returned to the hotel with three large boxes, had dragged them up to his room, and announced that he was going to find what he wanted at any price.

However, he hadn’t found it yet, nor had Joentaa found anything out, although he had had many conversations over the last few days: with Happonen’s father again, with Miettinen’s son, with Anttila’s daughter and other people who had been in Karjasaari long enough to remember the summer of 1985.

Teuvo Manner had disappeared.

And Risto was still just Risto. A single name.

At least their colleagues in Helsinki, to which Westerberg had now returned, had found out Saara Koivula’s last address. She had lived a quiet life on her own in a one-room apartment in the city centre, with a view of the sea and the ferries going out and coming in.

She had last worked several years ago, teaching music and several languages at evening classes for adults, and after that she lived on state benefits, which had been paid up to and including December, because the state bureaucracy had not yet realised that Saara Koivula was dead.

Former students at her evening classes had been questioned. They had reacted with dismay to the news of her death, and were very positive in what they said about her. She had been a good, kind and patient teacher. None of them had connected her with the photograph shown in the media, the woman lying dead in the Turku hospital. The photograph hadn’t looked at all like her.

Westerberg had sent Joentaa a picture by email, a digital photograph taken by a woman who had attended her classes. Saara Koivula laughing among her students. If you looked very closely, you could just about see the laughing woman in the picture as the dead one in Turku hospital, but in a certain way they really were two different faces.

One laughing woman, one dead woman, Joentaa had thought, and then thought the idea was both true and stupid.

No one had noticed Saara Koivula’s disappearance. She hadn’t taught evening classes for years now. There seemed to be no relations or close friends who would have noticed that she was missing.

His mobile lay on the wooden table in front of him. He picked it up and called a number, the one he kept on calling recently. His own. No one answered. The house was empty, the giraffe was lying in the snow.

He thought of Tuomas Heinonen; he had phoned him the day before. Heinonen had said he was spending Christmas Eve at home with Paulina and the twins, and Joentaa had said he was very glad about that. He wrote a message:
Dear Tuomas, a very happy Christmas to you and Paulina and the twins. See you soon, Kimmo.

Then he leaned back on the chair and closed his eyes. The cold came in through the open door to the terrace. A text message from Tuomas came in:
Dear Kimmo, I wish you a happy Christmas too. We’re at home, it’s all lovely. I have a silly question to ask, and I really do ask you only because I know you won’t take it the wrong way – can you lend me a little money in the next few days? 500 euros?

Joentaa stared at the text message. For a few minutes he wondered whether it was possible that Tuomas Heinonen really did just mean to crack a joke.

Then he leaned forward, laid his head on the top of the table and closed his eyes. He tried to think about the boy Teuvo Manner, but the thought eluded him. He thought of Larissa, and that thought eluded him as well, and he dreamed of a woman who looked like Larissa.

When the familiar melody of his telephone roused him from sleep, he was sure that the call came from Sanna. Sanna had risen from the dead and had a mobile on which she was calling him now, at this moment, in the dark beside the red wooden church, standing beside her grave.

He raised his head from the table and reached for the phone. Put it down, picked it up again.

‘Hello,’ he shouted.

No one answered.

‘Yes!’ he shouted.

‘Er . . . Kimmo?’ asked the caller. He sounded uncertain.

‘Yes . . . sorry!’ shouted Joentaa.

‘Er . . . Kimmo, you’re shouting.’

‘Sorry,’ said Joentaa.

‘Never mind. Did I wake you up?’

‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter.’

‘I thought I’d give you a call at once,’ said Seppo.

‘Yes?’

‘Kimmo . . .’

‘Yes, what?’

‘I’ve got him.’

Now Joentaa heard the new tone in his voice. Triumph and excitement.

‘Risto Nygren.’

Joentaa said nothing.

‘Winner of the beach volleyball tournament on Karjasaari bathing beach on 24 July 1985. Captain of the team that won not only the honour but also a voucher for brunch at the fish restaurant there. In the photo Risto is holding the cup up to the camera, with the others in the background grinning for all they’re worth.’

R. says I’m not to worry about it
, thought Joentaa.

‘Do you understand? All four of them. Happonen, Forsman, Miettinen, Anttila.’

The entire volleyball team, thought Joentaa.

‘We’ve got him, Kimmo,’ said Seppo again.

‘Yes,’ said Joentaa. A puddle had formed on the square metre of floor in front of the terrace door, and Joentaa wondered vaguely if it would damage the floorboards.

‘I’ll call when we get more concrete facts,’ said Seppo.

‘Right,’ said Joentaa.

Then he sat in the silence again, in the empty house where Saara Koivula had lived with her boyfriend Risto Nygren. A brilliant volleyball player. He got up to close the terrace door, but when he reached the door he decided to go outside. Into the garden that merged with the forest after about 20 metres. There was a swing to one side of the garden; it looked home-made. Probably by the young father of the family, the man who wanted to sell this house.

Joentaa brushed off some of the snow and sat on the swing. He swung back and forth a little, looking through the windows into the living room of the house. After a while he heard the sound of his ringtone again. He walked in, slowly, and when he got to the mobile the display told him a call had been missed. Seppo’s number. He called back.