Light in a Dark House (9 page)

‘Is that Forsman?’ he asked.

‘Who?’

‘Here, the boy on this side of the group,’ he said, pointing to a teenager who seemed to bear a distant resemblance to the software adviser.

‘How would I know?’ said Seppo.

The smile was different, a reserved but genuine smile. The boy was looking ahead of him, straight at the camera.

‘I think it’s him,’ said Westerberg.

Seppo nodded vaguely.

The boy was in a group of people on a sandy beach in the sunlight, in front of a dark blue lake. A summer’s day straight out of a picture-book. Beside Forsman, if the boy was Forsman, stood another boy of about the same age, sideways on as if caught in the act of turning away. Beside the boys stood two men, smiling rather awkwardly, as if they didn’t like being photographed. They were all wearing outdated bathing trunks.

In the background of the picture, a woman in a swimsuit lay in the sun. She wore sunglasses, her face was turned up to the sky, and at the same time she was half-glancing at the men and the camera.

‘Forsman’s father died when he was five,’ said Seppo.

Westerberg nodded.

‘So neither of the two men can be his father.’

Westerberg nodded, and wondered what it was that he didn’t like about the picture. Maybe that unnatural-looking summer.

‘1985,’ said Seppo.

Westerberg looked enquiringly at him.

‘19 August 1985. It says so on the back.’

19 August 1985. We had a barbecue and a pasta bake. No one talked about what happened. She smiled at me. Everyone is the same as usual, and R. says I’m not to worry about it.

‘Aha,’ said Westerberg.

‘The picture was under his mattress,’ said Seppo.

24

19 August 1985

Dear diary,

I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to go to school. But I did go, because I thought I might see her. However, she wasn’t there. The music lesson was cancelled.

The headmaster said she’s ill, but that’s wrong. They all think she’s ill, but I know she isn’t. And the boy from the upper school who was there with us was absent too. In break I smoked behind the bicycle racks, and Lauri kept me company although he doesn’t smoke. He kept looking round in case a teacher came along and caught me with the cigarette, and he told me something, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking of Saara and the boy from the upper school, his name is Kalevi Forsman, and then I thought they aren’t there, and perhaps they don’t exist. If they don’t exist then yesterday didn’t happen. Specially because of Risto.

It would be a good thing if Risto didn’t exist.

I keep thinking of his face, and the sweat. Risto came in just as we finished the piano lesson. She said I’d played well, and held my hand very lightly. Risto coughed, and Saara jumped.

And then something happened. It’s difficult to explain. It happened fast, and I didn’t know at first just what was happening. I was sitting on the stool at the piano. Risto took hold of Saara’s head, he pulled her hair and went out of the room with her.

Then I sat on the stool for a little while longer, because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t hear anything else either.

Then I thought I’d better go, and I stood up. There were two men in the corridor, and they gave me a funny kind of look. Sort of pale, as if they were afraid of something, but one of them laughed when he saw me and said, sounding nervous, that he supposed I must be the model student. And he looked at the other man as if that was funny, but the other man didn’t laugh.

Then suddenly the door to the next room opened, and Risto came in, and I saw Saara lying on the bed, and the garden was all in flower outside, and I think her nose was bleeding. Yes. And she, she was looking up at the ceiling in a way that . . .

Okay, I’ll tell the rest of it later.

25

THE CONFERENCE ROOM
was bathed in sunlight. Kimmo Joentaa thought vaguely of the lights switched on in his house, and Sundström’s voice was lost in a sea of facts.

‘Forty-five to fifty-five years old, one metre sixty-five tall, slender, weight in life about fifty-five kilograms, dark brown hair, blue eyes. Right earlobe pierced, older scars of unknown origin on her upper arms and forearms as well as her back, operation scar on her knee. Very good teeth, obviously prophylactic treatment against caries from childhood. Appendix presumably present. No pregnancy stretch marks, no Caesarian scar. Traces suggesting burn marks of older origin in the region of her torso and her wrists.’

He looked up from the text that he was reading aloud.

‘Burn marks,’ said Grönholm.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s new.’

‘Yes. The photo is attached, and then it all goes out to a wide range of disseminators referring to our website,’ said Sundström.

‘Scars,’ said Grönholm.

Sundström nodded. ‘Hietalahti says there’s some indication of physical abuse, although long in the past. Probably years ago, can’t be precisely dated. He found most such signs only on closer examination of the body.’

Scars of older origin, thought Joentaa.

‘Her fingerprint scans have given us no results so far,’ said Grönholm. ‘No hits in the criminal records. And of course no luck with the Missing Persons files.’

Sundström nodded and lowered the sheet of paper.

‘That’s all,’ he said, and it sounded final.

Kimmo Joentaa stood up and walked out.

‘Kimmo?’ Sundström’s voice, some distance away.

He went through the entrance hall, past the cafeteria and through the early signs of autumn to the long, low building in which Forensics was accommodated. The silent green halls where Salomon Hietalahti went about his work.

He waited at reception. Hietalahti came along a few minutes later and led him through the cool passages to the unknown corpse; her refrigerated drawer bore the number 17. The woman herself was known by a reference number: 1108–11. Hietalahti carefully lifted the cloth from her face.

‘I haven’t done the internal examination yet,’ said Hietalahti.

Joentaa looked at him.

‘I mean . . . I haven’t finished the autopsy.’

‘No. I know,’ said Joentaa.

He looked at the dead woman’s face, and thought of the TV presenter with her lavish eye make-up last night, the woman who didn’t realise that
giraffe
was the right solution. She had been rather lively – even late in the night. The first woman ever to call him sweetie-pie.

He thought of driving to Lenganiemi and the graveyard. To stand by Sanna’s grave. And then go to see Ketola. Ask how he was doing. Visit Tuomas Heinonen in hospital at the weekend. And meet Larissa. Have an ice cream together. Perhaps she would tell him her real name, just drop it casually into the conversation. It would take him several seconds to understand.

‘Do you know how many ice-cream parlours there are?’

‘What?’ asked Hietalahti.

‘Here in Turku, I mean,’ said Joentaa.

‘In Turku?’

‘No, sorry. I don’t even know for certain . . . it’s probably just one of those ice-cream kiosks that pop up all over the place in summer. Are they still around now?’

‘Kimmo, what on earth are you talking about?’

‘Sorry. A friend of mine works in an ice-cream parlour, but I don’t know which one.’

‘Mmm,’ said Hietalahti, and Joentaa couldn’t take his eyes off the woman’s face, which had lost all expression. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the cloth covering her body, and he thought of the tears on the bedspread. Amazing what they could reconstruct. What they could sum up.

He said goodbye to Hietalahti and went back through the green corridors. A moped was standing outside in the sun, next to some bicycles. The colour was right but not the number plate.

Even the initial letter was wrong.

26

MARKUS HAPPONEN, TOWN
councillor and the second mayor of the municipality of Auno near Tammisaari, carefully passed his hand over his hair, and felt that everything was all right, although in his haste he hadn’t got around to showering that morning. He examined his face in the mirror and worked on giving his smile a determined yet at the same time relaxed expression.

His daughter Outi hadn’t come home until morning, when she had gone to her room without comment. Ina had criticised his command of crisis management. Veinö had shed tears and shouted that something was too loud. Too loud, too loud, too loud.

He turned away from the mirror, washed his hands, and went back into the sunlight. The journalist was sitting with his beer in front of him, leaning back and looking up at the sky. All around him were the lively voices of people enjoying the warmest autumn in living memory. Laughter rose from the beach, waitresses were serving pizza.

From a distance he examined the journalist, who had closed his eyes. He wondered whether he was going to ask any rather more personal questions. Very likely.

Your wife? Wants nothing more to do with me.

Your daughter? Hates me.

Your son? A useless weakling.

Ah, thank you, I’m sure it will be an excellent portrait. I’ll send you the text as soon as it’s ready so that you can authorise it.

The journalist opened his eyes, raised his beer glass to his mouth, and waved to him. Markus Happonen walked past the tables back to the chair where he had been sitting.

‘I’ve already had a sip or so,’ said the journalist, raising his glass again. ‘Down the hatch.’

‘Cheers,’ said Happonen, raising his own beer to his mouth. Ice-cold. Wonderful. The journalist was fiddling with his little recorder.

‘This is always something of an adventure,’ he said. ‘You’d think that one of these days I’d get the idea of where to switch it on and where to switch it off again.’ He wound the tape back and forth, and then Happonen heard his own voice, strange and unpleasant and tinny as it came out of the recorder. ‘I didn’t aim to get a mandate from the country as a whole, particularly with my family in mind . . . it would be bound to change some things but . . . believe me, if my party colleagues really insist, then naturally I feel . . . and it’s to be hoped that the result of the election will be what we all want . . .’

Confused remarks coming out of his mouth.

‘Excellent,’ said the journalist. ‘Yes, I got all that. Shall we go on?’

‘Yes . . . yes, by all means,’ said Happonen.

He heard himself talking. What he said sounded good. Promising. Successful family man. He talked about his shepherd dog Rötte. About fishing. About the peace and quiet he valued so much, about his son’s football games. Yes, a goalie. He thought of Veinö in his bright yellow jersey. The goal that was far too big for him, the ball that he was always fishing out of the net to kick back, morosely, in the direction of the centre circle. Veinö’s team was bottom of its table, and Veinö played in goal because he wasn’t good enough to play anywhere else.

‘A good lad,’ he said, and the journalist nodded and seemed to be deep in thought.

On his third beer Happonen began to feel more confident, perhaps because of the slight intoxication that was slowly setting in, but mainly because the questions were beginning to cover familiar ground. His career, his ambitions. His lightning start fifteen years ago. The youngest holder of office ever in Tammisaari. Youngest ever. Why? How did it feel? And what had brought him to politics?

‘This may sound funny,’ he said, ‘but it was because I wanted to take responsibility. To change something. Improve it.’

The remark did sound funny, because he had made it so often before. The journalist thanked him and searched in his bag. He brought out a camera.

‘Now for a nice photo. Maybe down on the beach?’ he suggested.

Markus Happonen nodded, and followed the journalist as he went along the path and down the slope to the beach. Once they were there, he searched around for the best view. ‘We must have the sun behind you,’ he said. He guided Happonen to various different positions near the edge of the water. Several girls giggled, presumably wondering who the man whose picture was being taken might be.

Markus Happonen tried to smile in a relaxed yet determined way, and concentrated on the sound of cries and balls being struck on the mini-golf course. A group of young men were playing bare-chested; they seemed to be having a very good time. The journalist pressed the shutter release and took a picture. ‘Wonderful, wonderful.’

Then he suggested taking another picture on the outskirts of the trees. He pointed in that direction. ‘Maybe right on the shore, so that we have the trees occupying half the picture, and the expanse of water occupies the other half.’ He seemed to like the idea. ‘And you in the middle, of course.’

Markus Happonen nodded, and followed the journalist as he strode ahead.

‘I’ll just change the lens,’ he said when they were in the pleasant shade of the trees.

‘No problem,’ said Happonen, and looked at the girls jumping into the water a little way off and the men laughing rather weakly, presumably because mini-golf was more difficult than they had expected. Happonen had opened the course a few years ago on a cold spring day.

‘There’s one thing that keeps going through my mind,’ said the journalist.

‘Yes?’ asked Happonen.

‘Your son. The goalie.’

‘Veinö,’ said Happonen.

‘Why a goalie?’ asked the journalist.

‘Why?’

‘Yes, why a goalie?’

‘I think . . . I expect he thinks it’s the most exciting position.’

The journalist nodded, and seemed to be thinking.

‘Can you remember Saara?’