Silence (16 page)

‘What …’

‘Just wanted to tell you. It suddenly mattered to me.’ He finished his coffee in a single draught and stood up. ‘Yes, well, I’ll call. So long. And if you like … some time we could talk too … I mean about you. And your … about Sanna.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘Only if you want to, of course,’ said Ketola, and left without looking back.

4

K
alevi Vehkasalo watched the pencil as it fell from the desk to the floor. A pleasant moment. A moment in which nothing but a pencil moved and time stood still.

He bent down, picked up the pencil, and when he looked at his screen again there were four new emails.

That’s how it was all morning. Every email had a similar text in the Subject line. Problems with the system. A special communications system. The system that he had developed, and its further development ought to have been getting various branches of an international firm of shaver manufacturers on the Internet today. The plan obviously hadn’t worked particularly well.

Problems from all over the world because Ville, his closest colleague and best programmer, had failed. He knew that already, because in the morning Ville had come to see him and said that he and Riska and Oksanen had worked all through the weekend, and the time frame was simply too tight.

‘It worked okay with France and Italy, but not the rest,’ Ville had said.

Kalevi Vehkasalo had nodded and felt that this was, naturally, an impossible conversation, a conversation that just could not be carried on, and he sensed that Ville was thinking just the same and knew that for quite some time they had been exchanging entirely impossible words, words that could not be spoken.

Ville knew what was going on. Ville knew that Vehkasalo’s daughter had gone missing, disappeared without trace, murdered by some madman, and Vehkasalo had tried to imagine how Ville and his colleagues had worked for a whole weekend knowing both that the daughter of the owner of this company was a major news item, and that the system for the shaver manufacturers couldn’t now be installed in time.

He had nodded, and said that Ville mustn’t feel bad about it.

It would all work out.

There were now three more messages on his screen. Most of the Subject lines ended with a question mark. He’d have to come up with an answer. The good thing was that he could say the same to everyone. A minor delay, otherwise all in good order. We’re working on it. Will be in touch.

He began typing and felt a rushing sensation like a wave, which was hardly possible in the dry atmosphere of his room. He stood up. Through the window he could see the market square. Through the glazed door he saw his colleagues working on the installation of the system. Their eyes were lowered. At the end of their conversation Ville had asked whether … but now he couldn’t remember what Ville had said. It had been something to do with Sinikka, and one or two others had mentioned Sinikka as well. He hadn’t exchanged a word with most of them.

The wave was in his head. He was standing beside the sea, looking at its blue waters. Hard times, he thought. For the firm. Hard times in general, all things considered.

Ville’s eyes met his. Ville turned away at once, and Kalevi Vehkasalo thought that he really did look tense. He had tried to carry out his task all weekend. Until late into the night. Tilting at windmills. Only to be able to give him at least one piece of good news on Monday morning.

They had known each other for years. Vehkasalo had founded the firm, but Ville had been his first employee, contributing much to its success. Thank you, Ville, he thought.

Ville made the thumbs-up sign and seemed to be calling something to him.

Vehkasalo opened the glazed door.

‘Poland’s on the Net now too,’ said Ville.

‘Good, good,’ said Kalevi Vehkasalo.

He closed the door and pulled down the blinds. Sat at his desk.

He let his head sink to the desktop. The surface was cool. He would talk to Ruth. He would talk to her for a long time. This silence must come to an end. It must all come out. In a minute filled with everything. And then he would understand what had happened. He would go home now, say goodbye to his employees, go home and take Ruth in his arms. He would speak to her. Touch her arm, her shoulder, her hand. They would talk and in the end they would understand everything. And drive off and find Sinikka, wherever she was. Yes, that was what they would do.

Just as soon as he found the strength to raise his head from the top of this desk.

5

T
imo Korvensuo was driving. Around the city, again and again. Keep moving. In the current of other people. Stopping at lights. Drumming all ten fingers on the steering wheel, impatient, in a hurry, some unknown goal before his eyes.

Once he confused red with green and had to swerve to avoid an open-top car. I had a red light, you bastard, he muttered, before a few minutes later he became aware of his mistake.

After some time he drove into a car park and called Marjatta.

They had been to the cinema, Marjatta said, the film was too violent for an eight-year-old. Aku was in a very good mood.

Korvensuo felt the fabric of his shirt on his skin. Cool and damp. Aku imitated the voice of a witch who had been a major character in the film.

‘No harrrm will come to you,’ said Aku in the witch’s shrill cackle of a voice. ‘No harrrm whatsoeverrrr.’

‘I’m going to dream of her,’ said Marjatta and Aku laughed.

‘Listen,’ Timo Korvensuo began.

‘I liiike little Aaakuuu verrry much,’ croaked Aku.

‘Did you say something?’ asked Marjatta.

‘Take the phone away from Aku,’ said Korvensuo.

‘Papa is afraid of witches,’ said Aku.

‘Now you’ve hurt his feelings,’ said Marjatta.

‘Sorry. Put him on the line again.’

But Aku didn’t want to talk any more; he wanted to go and have a pizza.

‘What were you going to say?’ asked Marjatta.

‘I … oh, I can’t remember. Probably nothing special. Was the witch in the film really so scary?’

‘Not just the witch, it was a real chamber of horrors. A fountain running with blood and so forth.’

‘Ah,’ said Korvensuo.

‘What actually is this odd appointment of yours there in Turku?’ asked Marjatta.

‘Why odd?’

‘Do you know yet whether you’ll be coming home tomorrow?’

‘Yes – or the day after tomorrow at the latest,’ Korvensuo promised. ‘I want to look at one more property, the kind of thing that might suit the planned estate. The one that’s going to be built in Helsinki, I mean. You do understand, don’t you?’

‘Of course I understand.’

‘I’ll be back the day after tomorrow at the latest,’ Korvensuo promised.

‘You neeedn’t think youuu’ll get awaaay so eeeeasily,’ cackled Aku. ‘No, no, liiiitle boooy.’

‘I’ll call again this evening,’ said Korvensuo, and for a few moments everything felt normal.

Then he sat in the silence for a long time, thinking of driving home. Giving Marjatta a surprise. And the children. Suddenly appearing in the doorway. Seeing Aku’s face as he imitated the witch. Listening to Marjatta’s breathing. Lying awake. Sleeping. Dreaming.

He leaned abruptly forward and started the car.

He drove purposefully, for he knew the way.

6

T
hey were sitting in the conference room. The same room in which Ketola had sat thirty-three years ago. With the model on wheels.

‘I think we have something now,’ said Heinonen. He spoke with quiet reserve, as always, but Joentaa detected the excitement in his voice.

‘But we don’t know if it will get us any further,’ said Grönholm.

Then they both fell silent.

‘Well, what is it, then?’ asked Sundström.

‘Marika Paloniemi,’ said Heinonen.

‘Aha.’

‘She disappeared in 1983 and never came back,’ said Grönholm. ‘In May 1983. She was sixteen at the time.’

‘Aha,’ said Sundström.

‘And in a witness statement there’s … although of course it could be a coincidence …’ said Heinonen.

‘There’s what?’ asked Sundström.

‘A small red car,’ said Grönholm.

Silence reigned for a while. Joentaa was thinking of Ruth Vehkasalo. Of the moment when he had looked back at the green house and Ruth Vehkasalo had lowered the Venetian blinds.

‘What else?’ asked Sundström.

‘Nothing else,’ said Heinonen. ‘The witness couldn’t say what make of car it was.’

‘Go on, go on. Who was the witness? How and where did the girl disappear?’

‘After school. In Paimio, an area outside our remit … well, I don’t mean
our
remit exactly, I mean we were none of us even working here then.’

‘Yes, yes, go on,’ said Sundström.

‘And anyway it was regarded as no more than a Missing Persons case,’ Heinonen went on. ‘She didn’t come home. She always took the bus and walked the few minutes from the bus stop to her home. And on that day …’ He looked at the files. ‘On 23 May 1983 she didn’t come home. As Petri was saying, she never resurfaced again.’ He cleared his throat, probably because the lake where Pia Lehtinen had been found occurred to him, and he became aware of the double meaning of the verb he had chosen.

‘The small red car? The witness?’ asked Sundström.

‘Oddly enough there wasn’t a very extensive investigation. Because no clues at all had been found and, after all, she was sixteen. These things happen. Sixteen-year-olds do just walk away,’ said Grönholm.

‘Was there anything to suggest that?’

‘It seemed at least plausible. She lived with her father, her mother had died two years earlier. And her father was away a lot, a rep for …’ Grönholm looked down at the papers too. ‘A rep for a pharmaceuticals company.’

‘And there’s been no trace since 1983 of this … what was her name?’

‘Marika Paloniemi. No, no trace. Disappeared,’ said Heinonen. And a boy who was at school with her saw the small red car, or said he saw it, but he also mentioned a pale green VW Polo.’

‘Ah,’ said Sundström.

‘He claims to have seen both cars at the bus stop where he and Marika Paloniemi got out. They were parked close together, and apparently there were people sitting in both of them too.’

‘And it would have taken the girl some five minutes to walk home from this bus stop?’

Heinonen nodded.

‘And she definitely didn’t go home?’

‘We can’t be absolutely sure, because her father wasn’t there. It could be that she did go home, and then went out again and never came back,’ said Heinonen. ‘But when the father got home that evening there was nothing to suggest that she had been there at all. No dirty dishes, for instance. Her father said she never washed the dishes.’

‘That’s in the files, is it?’

Heinonen nodded. ‘Apparently the father could well imagine that she had simply walked out. He probably wasn’t particularly distraught.’

‘Ah,’ said Sundström.

‘Mm,’ said Heinonen.

‘Any indications of that? Had any of her clothes gone? Things that were important to her?’

‘It was probably hard to find out, because her father had no real idea of his daughter’s possessions. In fact, not much was found in her room, which in one way seems to suggest that she did pack her things and simply left home.’

Silence fell once more.

‘Of course a search was made for her, but it led nowhere and it wasn’t really, well, intensive,’ said Heinonen.

‘I see,’ said Sundström.

‘But, and this is interesting, a list was drawn up,’ said Grönholm. ‘Seems like they took what her schoolmate said seriously … perhaps because it was more or less all they had to go on. Anyway, a list was compiled focusing on the two vehicles he said he’d seen. And here is the list of owners of small red cars in and around Turku.’ Grönholm waved several sheets of paper stapled together in the air.

‘The boy described the car as bright red, which did reduce the number of vehicles a little, but there were still over five hundred.’ Heinonen sat up straight, suddenly speaking louder than before. ‘Which is why at the time, and after some toing and froing, they also refrained from questioning the owners of those cars. But we have now established the following: back in 1974 a list in connection with Pia Lehtinen was also compiled. And all the owners of those vehicles were interviewed, but still no result.’

‘And now you have compared the 1974 list with the 1983 list, and marked all the vehicles found on both lists,’ said Sundström.

Heinonen slumped. ‘Exactly.’

‘Wonderful. How many are there?’

‘Two hundred and three,’ said Grönholm. ‘But we’re interested only in the cars on both lists with the same owner, since we are assuming one and the same murderer, and that leaves us with a hundred and four, and seventy-eight owners of those hundred and four cars are men.’

‘Seventy-eight,’ murmured Sundström.

‘I’m afraid so, and then we have to think that even the cars with women registered as the owners could have had men at the wheel, the owners’ sons, for instance.’

‘Of course,’ murmured Sundström, then he suddenly assumed a confident expression and sat up straight. ‘And how many of these seventy-eight or a hundred and four people are still alive?’ he asked.

‘We haven’t got that far yet,’ said Grönholm. ‘But we’re looking into it, and anyway, twenty-three of the seventy-eight men are definitely dead.’ He looked triumphantly from one to another of them. ‘So, with all due respect to the dead, of course, that does reduce the number of male owners in question to fifty-five.’

‘Fifty-five,’ said Sundström. ‘And there might be one or two others who have passed away by now.’

‘Exactly,’ said Grönholm. ‘We’ll have the list up to date by this evening.’

‘Good, good,’ said Sundström.

‘We’ve already listed the fifty-five.’ Heinonen handed out a closely printed sheet of paper to everyone.

‘Yes, well,’ said Sundström. ‘The problem, however, is that we don’t know whether Marika Paloniemi was murdered, or whether the red car that her school friend said he saw has any connection whatever with the case, right?’

‘Right,’ Grönholm agreed.

‘And even if there had been a connection, at the moment we’re really investigating the case of Sinikka Vehkasolo who’s been missing for three days, right?’