Nights of Awe (29 page)
Authors: Harri Nykanen
“Tell us the whole story from the beginning.”
Mattsson swallowed a couple of times.
“I was out walking Jerry and heading home when a car pulled up next to me on Toinen Linja. I didn’t pay any attention to it at first… But the car just kept following me, so I turned to look… that man was sitting in the front seat, staring at me… I remembered him immediately, and when he saw me, I could tell he knew…”
She covered her face with her hands. The timing of the gesture was a little too perfect.
“Go on,” I asked.
“I went into a bar and tried to call you… the car stayed outside for a minute, but then it left. When I went out, it was gone.”
“Tell me about the car.”
“It was grey… I was panicking, it didn’t even occur to me to think about the car.”
Mattsson went over to the window and fearfully scanned the street from behind the drapes.
“I don’t think you need to be afraid any more,” Stenman said. “He can’t know where you live.”
Stenman’s words clearly didn’t calm Mattsson.
“He can find out.”
“Was there anyone else in the car?”
Mattsson thought for a moment.
“There must have been, because he wasn’t sitting on the driver’s side. But I didn’t see who was driving.”
“Show her the pictures,” I said to Stenman.
“Here are two photographs. Was it either of these men?”
Mattson took the photos and immediately said: “This is him. I’m one hundred per cent sure.”
She handed me Kaplan’s photograph.
“Was the other man on the bridge too?”
She looked at Weiss’s photo for a long time.
“I’m not sure, he was farther back and I didn’t get a good look at him. Do you have any other photos?”
“No.”
Mattson pointed at Kaplan’s photo.
“Who is he?”
Stenman glanced at me.
“We’re looking for him. I can’t say any more at this point.”
“Can’t or don’t want to? Don’t I have the right to know the name of the man who’s following me?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What if I see him again? I don’t even know if I should be afraid of him.”
“If that happens, call me immediately.”
“Does that mean I have reason to be afraid?”
Mattson grabbed my hand and positioned herself in front of me. I could smell the light scent of her perfume and see the fine down on her face. She raised her blue eyes to mine.
Phoney or not, it was effective.
“Should I be afraid?” she repeated. “Tell me.”
“He might be dangerous.”
“Because I identified him?”
“I can’t think of any other reason.”
“I read in the papers that there was an explosion in Vantaa yesterday where a young woman died. The paper said it had to do with what happened at Linnunlaulu. So you suspect that the man I saw was involved in that too?”
The question was cleverly posed. I replied that I didn’t know.
“What did the paper mean then?”
“There are certain connections. Do you live alone?”
“Yes, all alone.”
Mattsson was clearly beginning to recover.
“The performance begins at seven-thirty. What if he knows who I am and waits for me outside?”
It was conceivable, of course. On the one hand, it was difficult for me to believe that the Dan Kaplan I knew would do anything to a woman. On the other, he seemed to have a dark side that I didn’t know. And it could just be a coincidence. Dan had always had an eye for female beauty, and he might have just been flirting with Mattson by driving alongside her.
The thought distracted me, and somehow it just slipped out: “I can escort you to the theatre.”
I thought I could detect a little disapproval in Stenman’s gaze.
Mattson immediately latched onto my promise.
“Could you, I’d be so grateful…”
My mobile rang. It was Simolin. I moved a little farther away.
“I got right on Baltic Invest. The NBI has a dossier on them.”
“Why are they interested?”
“They started looking into the company after enquiries began rolling in. You have a second?”
“Shoot.”
“Amazingly enough, it appears to be a totally legit enterprise, even though it’s owned by an investment company called Island Group registered in the Isle of Man, which is in turn owned by a company named Global Invest, headquartered in Israel. The main owner is a Jerusalem-based businessman named Benjamin Hararin.”
“Thanks. We’ll talk more when I get back.”
“Meaning?”
“Half an hour.”
Benjamin Hararin?
I returned my phone to my pocket.
I remembered the photo on the wall at my brother’s office of the fat man boxed in by Max and Eli. I realized the women were staring at me. I said, “We have to go. What time should I pick you up?”
“Is six-thirty OK?”
“Six-thirty.”
“Did I screw up?” I asked Stenman as soon as we were in the corridor.
“Depends on what happens between you two. She may be right about Kaplan hunting her.”
“But why?” I wondered. “He knows that we know that he was at Linnunlaulu.”
“And maybe she knows more than she’s letting on. Or else Kaplan thinks she does and is covering his own back.”
I had barely made it to my office before Huovinen came to get me for the evening briefing. In addition to the detectives, Deputy Police Chief Leivo was in attendance.
I reported the latest news on the investigation and the inquiries that were still under way. The shell found near Weiss’s body was from a different weapon from the Linnunlaulu bullets or the shells and bullets found at Hamid’s body shop. However, Tagi and Ali Hamid and Ali’s employee Wasin Mahmed had all been shot with the same gun.
Leivo informed us that he and the police commander had met with the Israeli ambassador and been provided with the latest information on Saijed, Bakr, Weiss and Kaplan. He didn’t tell us what information the ambassador had been provided with in return. Leivo was clearly taken by his conference with the ambassador and summarized everything he had absorbed by reminding us that there are criminals in every country.
“If an Israeli kills someone, chances are he’s an average criminal, not a Mossad assassin. Weiss and Kaplan are common drug traffickers who just happen to be Israeli citizens.”
“And what if an Arab kills? Is he always a terrorist?”
I registered Huovinen knitting his brows in a sign to tread carefully.
“Of course not… but in this case there are also other indications of terrorism,” Leivo noted. “Weapons and explosives, in addition to the information we have on the perpetrators’ backgrounds.”
“So we’re supposed to base the investigation on the assumption that we’re dealing with a showdown between common Israeli drug traffickers and dangerous Arab terrorists and who’s worse? Besides, we still don’t know who the perpetrators are, we’re just assuming.”
“I’m not going to say one way or the other, but in light of the most recent information, it would appear so. The Israelis are certain that the man who got hit by the train was Saijed and the one who’s still on the loose is Bakr.”
“Weiss and Kaplan are up to their ears in the events at Linnunlaulu,” I said. “It’s hard to consider them common criminals.”
“Common criminals can help terrorists in exchange for payment. There doesn’t have to be anything ideological about it. According to the ambassador, this is exactly what this is a question of.”
“It would be good if you could share the new information provided by the ambassador with the rest of us.”
The deputy chief cleared his throat, and his face took on a concentrated expression.
“Yes, well… he promised to deliver us data gathered by the Israeli police and tax authorities on Kaplan and Weiss. He promised to do all he could to help us apprehend Kaplan. He considered Kaplan a dangerous criminal. In addition, we will receive assistance from Klein, the embassy’s head of security, as necessary.”
Leivo rose and straightened out the creases in his trousers.
“I believe we’re on the right trail. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t take advantage of the ambassador’s promise of assistance and the latest know-how.”
Leivo nodded and exited. Huovinen waited for a moment and quipped: “Use the latest know-how, boys. We’re on the right trail.”
When we were out in the corridor, Simolin whispered: “The phone records arrived.”
I followed him into his office. Stenman followed at our heels: she could sense the news in Simolin’s secretiveness.
Simolin pulled out the prints of phone records from a locked drawer. He peeked out into the corridor, which seemed a little excessive, closed the door behind him, and spread the sheets across his desk.
“Here’s the data for one month from the phone belonging to the man considered to be Ismel Saijed and the calls made from it to Hamid’s body shop, home and mobile phone, the calls made by Hamid, and location information. The information on Laya’s calls hasn’t come in yet. The calls that were located were all made from the greater Helsinki area, mostly Helsinki proper. There are no clusters; the calls are spread out all over different parts of town. In other words, the data isn’t much use. However…”
Simolin clicked the mouse a couple of times.
“I made a graph of all of the calls. It looks like this.”
The image made up of lines, circles and points looked like a lace-making pattern.
“Mr X… in other words, the man suspected of being Hassan Bakr. He’s clearly the number-one player, this spider here. This number, with the traffic that’s pretty unidirectional, must be his. Bakr has placed calls to both Ali and Tagi Hamid and clearly more often to the man hit by the train, who we suspect is Ismel Saijed. Saijed, on the other hand, has only contacted Bakr twice, in other words on the day that Ali Hamid was killed and then slightly before his death… Because Bakr is most important, his back is protected the best. I’m guessing he has contacted Saijed through accomplices abroad. Saijed received about thirty international calls over the month… from Syria, Israel, England and Pakistan.”
Simolin underlined two numbers…
“These here are interesting. Ali Hamid called both of these numbers several times during the month, and he was called from these numbers approximately just as many times, most recently on the night he was killed.”
I glanced at the numbers. One was a landline number; the other was a mobile number starting in 040. I recognized the first four digits of the landline number.
“That’s the number for SUPO.”
Simolin nodded.
“Both of them go to our old friend.”
“Sillanpää?”
“Good guess.”
At least you couldn’t blame Sillanpää for not trying. He was popping up everywhere.
When you added the call data to what we’d heard from the sister-in-law of the dead body-shop employee, there wasn’t much that remained unclear: Sillanpää and Ali Hamid knew each other, and Sillanpää was trying to milk Hamid for information, or else Hamid was Sillanpää’s snitch.
In either case, the season of mutual openness and trust between Inspector Sillanpää and myself had remained uncommonly brief.
21
I barely had time to drop by my place to shower and change for my escort gig. I took the tram to Hakaniemi and continued from there on foot. The weather was cold and it looked like rain.
Even though I believed that Vivica Mattsson was in no danger, I grew more alert as I approached her apartment. I stopped just short of a hundred yards from her building and looked around. I didn’t see anything suspicious; I didn’t see much of anything, actually. The cold was keeping everyone inside, and the street was totally dead.
I walked over in front of Mattsson’s building and scanned the vicinity again. A couple of young people exited the neighbouring building and a car drove down the hill, passing Mattson’s place before turning towards Hakaniemi.
I pressed the buzzer and waited. Nothing happened. I pressed again. No response.
I had Mattson’s number stored in my phone. I called it.
No one answered.
I pressed buzzers at random until I got in. I climbed up to the fourth floor and listened. I couldn’t hear anything except the sounds of everyday life; behind Mattsson’s door all was silent.
I rang the doorbell. No one came to open it. I peeked in through the mail slot, but all I could see was a strip of the Persian rug in the entryway.
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