Light in a Dark House (6 page)

When I got home there was trouble, because my mother thought I’d skipped the piano lesson on account of my dirty trousers, and she even phoned Saara to ask. I think it was Risto who answered, because after a while my mother laughed the way women only laugh when they’re talking to men.

Anyway, then she came and put her hand on my head and apologised and even said she was proud of me. Probably because I play the piano.

Dear diary.

And not because of the e-rec-tion.

15

IN THE MORNING
information began coming in. A number of people were sure they knew the dead woman. A number of people said they thought they knew her. A number of people weren’t sure, but wanted to tell the police that the woman looked familiar to them. She had lived in Helsinki. In Seinäjoki. In Tampere and Joensuu. In Kotka, Savonlinna, Hämeenlinna. She had been unmarried, lived a secluded life, was gregarious, married, the mother of sons and daughters, a professor at the university, head bookkeeper for an insurance company, a cleaner in a department store.

The officers who took the phone calls and emails reported no definite leads, and other officers went out to check the most plausible stories.

Sundström had left his office door open, so that Grönholm and Joentaa could see him setting up one of his Excel spreadsheets. He typed names and times in with two fingers, jobs done and to be done, questions asked and to be asked; he cursed to himself when his computer crashed and closed his eyes as it rebooted.

‘You want to save now and then,’ muttered Petri Grönholm without looking up from his notes, and Joentaa leaned in the doorway unable to take his eyes off Sundström; it was going to take him quite a while to get the spreadsheet up and running again. But in the end it would be a smooth, white, symmetrical document made up of words without a single grammatical mistake, and it would indeed give some structure to the investigating team’s work for the first time.

‘I’ll have it in a minute,’ said Sundström.

‘Easy does it, we still have ten minutes before the meeting,’ called Grönholm from the next room.

Then the printer was running, and Joentaa jumped when Sundström said, ‘We’ll find her.’

He thought of his empty house in the morning. And in the night, part of which he had spent lying awake, in a drowsy state between dream and reality.

‘We’ll find her,’ said Sundström.

Find a dead woman, thought Joentaa.

Then they went along the corridor to the conference room, from which came the sound of the other officers’ conversation as they waited for them. Murmurs, suppressed laughter, some voices loud and clearly articulated, others softer, hesitant. They all fell silent when Sundström pushed open the door and entered the room, which was flooded with autumnal light.

‘Morning, men,’ he said, and Joentaa thought that he had the gift of injecting force and confidence into his voice, casually and without effort. They all sat down at the snow-white table, and Sundström had the spreadsheet handed round until they all had a copy in front of them.

Grönholm reported on what they knew, which was practically nothing. A dead woman. Name unknown. Origin unknown. Age unknown, estimated at between fifty and sixty. There had been nothing on her except the clothes she was wearing. No one had asked after her. No one had visited her in hospital. Reports of missing persons over the last few months had not uncovered any trail so far.

‘This is still work in progress, of course,’ said Grönholm. ‘We’ll start from the day when she was found and keep working our way forward and back. Chronologically, I mean. It could take us some time.’

Chronologically, thought Joentaa.

Sundström nodded, and Nurmela came into the room. With a spring in his step, as usual. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then carefully closed the door, turned to those present and asked Sundström not to let him disturb them. ‘Just carry on,’ he said, staying at the side of the room.

August, thought Joentaa.

And he thought that he must soon speak to August.

‘Well . . .’ said Grönholm.

‘The picture in the newspaper,’ said one of the uniformed officers.

‘Yes?’ asked Sundström.

‘Well . . . I think maybe we ought to publish a better one.’

‘A better one?’

‘No one’s recognised her. She looks like everyone and no one.’

Several officers nodded, and it occurred to Joentaa that his had been the same impression. A woman with a face from which all expression had been lost.

‘Er . . . suppose we publish one with her eyes open?’ asked the young officer. Sundström looked at him for a long time, and seemed to be waiting for the young man to look away.

In the end it was Sundström who looked away. ‘The fact is, we don’t have a picture of the woman with her eyes open,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said the young officer.

‘That’s right,’ said Sundström.

‘But I thought patients in a waking coma . . . I mean, usually their eyes are open.’

‘I didn’t say the woman kept her eyes closed all the time, I only said we don’t have a photo of her with her eyes open.’

‘Ah. I get it.’

‘The photo we do have was taken on the day she was found in the ditch at the side of the road. At that point she was unconscious.’

‘Okay,’ said the young officer.

‘Although that’s definitely a relevant aspect,’ said Grönholm. ‘Kimmo talked to Rintanen, the doctor treating her at the university hospital. About the medical details, so to speak.’

Silence filled the room, and when Joentaa finally began to speak his tongue felt coated. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he agreed.

The phone call to Rintanen, the doctor, at the end of a sleepless night that had felt like the night, years ago, when Sanna died. Rintanen, who had stroked Sanna’s shoulder and asked him if he would like to be alone with her for a little while. It had been hard for him to concentrate on what Rintanen was saying on the phone.

He had made the phone call from home before leaving. Had looked out at the lake where Larissa had played ice hockey and where Sanna used to swim. Had listened to Rintanen patiently and gently explaining the difference between a coma and a waking coma, and why it was likely that a severe traumatic brain injury, taking immediate effect, had caused first the coma and then the waking coma into which the unknown patient had fallen in the course of her time in the hospital.

‘That’s right,’ Joentaa repeated, and he cleared his throat. ‘What happened is that the woman came out of the coma after a few weeks, but she was still in what they call a waking coma or persistent vegetative state, meaning she was living in a rhythm of sleeping and waking, but was unable to react to her surroundings . . .’ He cleared his throat again, and wondered why he sounded so stilted. ‘Rintanen can’t say for certain what event was the root cause of . . . I mean, what prompted the coma. An accident can lead to a coma, of course, but as we know, when the woman was found in summer our colleagues couldn’t find anything to indicate that she’d been in an accident.’

‘So we don’t know who the woman is or what really happened to her,’ said Sundström, getting to his feet, as if this summing-up was something they could live with. ‘Some of the information coming in has already been checked. Questioning will continue at nine in the hospital. You will see who’s assigned to what job from the—’

‘Sorry to bother you,’ said Kari Niemi, appearing in the doorway.

‘Kari,’ said Sundström. ‘Cheer us up with the findings of forensic science, will you?’

‘We actually do have something,’ said Niemi. ‘Whatever it may mean.’

‘Yes?’ asked Sundström.

‘Lysozyme,’ said Niemi.

‘What?’ asked Sundström.

‘We found quite large amounts of a fluid on the sheet and the blanket under which the dead woman was lying. And a first analysis shows that this fluid contains lysozyme as well as . . .’

‘Lysowhat?’ asked Sundström.

‘. . . as well as a large amount of water, along with mineral substances and salts, indicating that . . .’

Sitting on her bed, thought Joentaa.

‘Hm?’ asked Sundström.

Smoothing out the sheet. Stroking the cold, soft blanket with his hands until he touches her shoulder and her face, very lightly so as not to wake her.

‘Lacrimal fluid,’ said Niemi. ‘We established that quite large quantities of lacrimal fluid were present on the sheet and the blanket.’

‘Ah,’ said Nurmela, who was leaning against the window wall in the sunshine.

‘And what does that tell us?’ asked Sundström.

Niemi shrugged his shoulders. Niemi, whose hug he still remembered very well, although it was so long ago. The day after Sanna’s death.

‘A murderer who was shedding tears,’ said Kimmo Joentaa in the ensuing silence.

16

KALEVI FORSMAN EXAMINED
the name on the business card again. And the design, which had been on his mind all this time. So plain yet so effective. The lines curving harmoniously, the colours seeming to flow gently into each other.

He couldn’t remember ever seeing such an attractive business card before.

He crossed the lobby and went up in the lift. The man was as good as his word. A picturesque view of the city and the bathing beach to the west of Helsinki, in the distance several of the huge ferries lying in the water like optical illusions. Women from the hotel or the catering service, in black dresses and white tops, setting up a buffet with drinks, coffee and cakes. He watched them for a while, then turned back to the window and stared out at the sunny sky. The steps behind him sounded soft and springy.

‘How do you do?’ said the man, already holding out his hand and smiling as he turned round.

‘Hello,’ replied Forsman.

‘Come along,’ said the man, going briskly ahead.

‘Er, where to?’

‘Out,’ said the man, walking on.

‘Where are the others, then?’

‘You’re the first,’ said the man, opening a door that led out to the roof terrace. In the background the clatter and clink of crockery and the soft, quiet women’s voices could be heard.

‘I’m the first?’ asked Kalevi Forsman.

‘You are,’ said the man.

‘I see.’

‘I think your program is interesting. I really do,’ said the man.

‘Good,’ said Forsman.

‘It’s not . . . not polished, it lacks a certain finesse, but one could look at it the other way around and describe it as absolutely reliable. Your program gives the user a sense of always being on the safe side. Being in control. Do you see what I mean?’

‘I think so, yes,’ said Forsman. ‘Indeed, that’s the basic idea of our differential system.’

‘Exactly. Well put. After all, that’s what we all want. To be safe from danger. Even if it’s only the danger of shares losing their value.’

‘Which is not the least of life’s dangers,’ said Forsman.

The man looked at him enquiringly, and smiled.

‘I mean . . . well, lives depend on that sort of thing,’ said Forsman.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘No, with our system you can calculate the value of your fund at any time, literally in real time. You can access it within seconds.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the man.

They were standing in the gentle wind; from time to time a dull thumping could be heard. Ocean-going steamers were probably being loaded up.

Forsman wondered what to say next, and the man said, ‘There’s something wrong with the weather.’

Forsman nodded, and followed the direction of his gaze out to sea.

‘I . . . of course I’m glad to hear that you are thinking of acquiring our software,’ he said, as the pause dragged on. His mobile vibrated in his trouser pocket.

‘Oh, yes, yes, we are,’ said the man. ‘You’re on our shortlist.’

‘Excuse me.’ Forsman took the mobile out of his pocket and looked at the number on the display. Jussilainen. Couldn’t wait patiently. Presumably wanted to ask how things were going.

The man never stopped smiling.

‘Nothing important,’ said Forsman. ‘Well. When . . . when will the others be arriving?’

He felt hungry; he would like a biscuit. One of the chocolate biscuits that a lady from catering had put on the conference table below.

The man said nothing, and Forsman felt the smooth surface of the business card against his hand as he put the mobile away in his jacket pocket. He took the card out, with a feeling that it was something he could hold on to. Although the name was very unusual. Norwegian maybe, or Latvian, although the man spoke Finnish without any foreign accent.

‘Do you like it?’

‘Hmm? Yes, I do. Plain but attractive. We do a little in the way of design ourselves, especially my partner . . .’

‘You could almost call this a one-off,’ said the man, taking the card from his hand.

Forsman looked at him with a question in his eyes, and the man looked over his shoulder as if there were something important there.

‘Do you remember Saara?’ asked the man.

‘Sorry?’ said Forsman.

The man looked past him, with great concentration, and Forsman turned round. The hotel employees were sitting on chairs at the edge of the buffet area, laughing and deep in conversation, and on the conference table there were black and yellow bottles of drinks and plates of the kind of biscuits he liked and hadn’t eaten for a long time.

‘Saara. I asked you about Saara,’ said the man with the strange name, and just before Forsman was lifted above the balustrade and fell to the depths below there was an answer on the tip of his tongue.

17

JOENTAA DROVE TO
the hospital with Grönholm. The bed that the dead woman had occupied was empty and made up with clean sheets. The number of forensics officers around the place had been considerably reduced.

Grönholm, deep in conversation with Rintanen, was drinking coffee, and Joentaa went to the cafeteria to look for the police officer who was coordinating interviews with the hospital staff. He couldn’t find him.