Silence (22 page)

‘Where did you find it? What exactly is going on?’

‘We – well, it’s hard to explain. The card came up in the course of our enquiries, so to speak, but there’s really no cause for concern. It’s merely a matter of clearing everything up.’

She sat down again, and Joentaa wondered why he was talking all this strange stuff and why he was so intent on not worrying Marjatta Korvensuo. He tried to concentrate on his questions. ‘Your husband,’ he began. ‘Do you know whether he ever lived in Turku, quite a long time ago? In the seventies?’

‘Yes, he did,’ she said at once and Joentaa felt a pang in his stomach. Although all that naturally proved nothing. He thought of the boy practising headers outside. Aku.

‘He did,’ she repeated. ‘In fact, he studied there. Mathematics. But then he dropped out of his studies and moved to Helsinki. Which was a good thing, or we would probably never have met.’ She smiled briefly. ‘Why is that important?’

‘Do you happen to know the exact date? When precisely that was?’

She thought about it for a moment. ‘He’s never talked much about it. Very little, actually. And it’s ages ago now. He must have moved to Helsinki about … yes, he moved in 1974, so he must have left Turku the same year.’

Joentaa lowered his eyes to the business card, and thought of Ketola’s old files and the date Marjatta Korvensuo had just mentioned: 1974. On every single page of the files, only the days and months before that year varied, until a time came when 1974 gave way to 1975. That proved nothing, he thought again; then he noticed that the ball had stopped hitting the garage door, and a boy rushed into the room.

‘Oh,’ he said tonelessly, when he met Joentaa’s eyes.

‘Hello,’ said Joentaa, anxious to seem friendly and normal.

‘Hello,’ replied the boy.

‘This is Mr Joentaa,’ said Marjatta Korvensuo.

The boy nodded and looked relaxed again, with his mind on other things, as he turned and went out of the room.

Upstairs, the girls were laughing.

Joentaa heard water rushing and was about to ask a question when he saw a change in Marjatta Korvensuo’s face. She was suddenly attentive to something.

‘Aku!’ she called.

‘What?’ Aku called back.

‘Where are you?’

‘In the loo, Mama!’ replied Aku, irritated.

There was a short pause. Then she asked Joentaa quietly, ‘So where is your colleague?’

A few seconds passed. Then Joentaa stood up and went out into the hall. One flight of stairs led up, another down, just like the stairs in the Vehkasalos’ house. Upstairs the girls were still laughing. He went down. In the Vehkasalos’ house, Sinikka’s room was on the lower ground floor. A washing machine was running. The basement corridor was dominated by huge bookshelves, which reminded him of the garden outside. The books were all over the place, yet somehow there was a system to it. He heard a familiar sound, one that always reminded him of the red wooden church. The hum of a computer. Ketola was sitting in the shadows. Leaning forward, chin propped on his hands, he was looking at the flickering monitor. He seemed to have calmed down. Joentaa stood in the doorway.

‘This must be Papa’s study,’ said Ketola.

Joentaa entered the room, which was meticulously neat and tidy. Unlike the garden. Unlike the bookshelves. The room seemed to consist of a profusion of perfect right angles.

‘It was very simple,’ said Ketola. ‘Even for a layman like me. Evidently Papa’s study is out of bounds to the rest of the family.’

Joentaa stopped behind Ketola.

‘How about a little slide show?’ said Ketola. ‘My son Tapani showed me how you do it recently. He may be crazy, but he’s good with computers.’

Ketola clicked, and the images began to take shape before Joentaa’s eyes. Very slowly, then in rapid succession. He heard Ketola’s voice as if in the distance.

‘The computer is stuffed with them. Amazing,’ said Ketola.

‘This is outrageous,’ said Marjatta Korvensuo, behind Joentaa’s back. He turned and saw her standing in the doorway. He would have moved towards her, but his legs didn’t obey, and she quickly came closer. He leaned over Ketola and tried to switch the computer off.

‘Keep your hands off that,’ said Marjatta Korvensuo. ‘This is quite enough. Outrageous.’

Then she was beside them.

Ketola sat there motionless and relaxed, and didn’t even raise his head, as if he hadn’t noticed Marjatta Korvensuo at all.

‘What …?’ said Marjatta Korvensuo.

‘Please turn that computer off,’ said Joentaa, but Ketola didn’t move.

‘What’s that?’ asked Marjatta Korvensuo.

There was a long silence.

Then Ketola said suddenly, ‘We must go.’ He halted the succession of images, turned off the computer and rose to his feet. ‘No one is to touch this thing,’ he told Marjatta Korvensuo. ‘Is that understood?’

She did not react.

‘We must go, Kimmo,’ Ketola said again, but Kimmo remained fixed to the spot.

‘Mrs Korvensuo, do you know where your husband is? Have you spoken on the phone? Did he say anything that could get our enquiries any further?’ asked Ketola.

‘He … he’s in Turku,’ she said, without taking her eyes off the computer screen. ‘You know that.’

‘Where in Turku? Where exactly is he?’

‘By the lake,’ she said.

‘By the lake?’ Ketola’s voice almost cracked.

‘He was beside a lake. I don’t know which lake.’

‘I do,’ said Ketola. ‘Come on, Kimmo.’

Ketola walked out. Joentaa stayed where he was beside Marjatta Korvensuo, following her eyes to the blank screen.

‘Will you come on, damn it?’ shouted Ketola from above.

Joentaa started moving, but then he turned back to Marjatta Korvensuo and said, without thinking, ‘I’d like … when all this is cleared up, when there’s more time, I’d like to come back here, and then we can talk.’

He didn’t know why he had said that.

Awkwardly, he held out his hand.

She nodded.

‘We’ll send someone who – I’ll make sure someone comes who you can talk to. We have people trained for that,’ he added.

She nodded again.

He moved away, and sensed that the picture of the woman standing in front of the blank screen was imprinting itself on his memory.

Ketola was already in the car, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

The boy had gone back to kicking his ball against the garage door. ‘Goodbye, Mr Joentaa,’ he called as Kimmo got into the car.

10

K
etola sat back in a remarkably relaxed, casual attitude as he drove well above the speed limit, while Kimmo Joentaa called Sundström. Sundström reacted with surprise but also with composure, his mind going straight to the point. ‘Rather a lot of coincidences, admittedly,’ he said after thinking for a few seconds.

‘Well, naturally none of this is proof of anything,’ said Joentaa.

‘No, indeed,’ Sundström agreed. ‘But I’m prepared to take it seriously now. There’s Elina Lehtinen’s impression of him, and the man has child porn on his hard disk, and he was living in Turku in 1974 and moved away in the same year … So Ketola thinks the man’s gone to the lake where the body of Pia Lehtinen was found?’

‘Yes. Maybe.’

‘But we’ve searched that one. He’s more likely to be at the lake where he sank Sinikka Vehkasalo’s body … and we don’t know what lake that is yet.’

‘Ketola is sure he’s by the lake where Pia Lehtinen’s body was found.’

‘Ah. Why?’

Joentaa glanced sideways at Ketola. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted.

‘Well, okay, since that’s the only lake we can connect with the case at all, we’ll drive out there,’ said Sundström.

‘Could you phone Helsinki and make sure someone’s with Marjatta Korvensuo? A psychologist, I mean. Someone good at dealing really well with a situation like this,’ said Joentaa.

‘Sure. I’ll do that. What’s the address?’

Joentaa gave it to him. ‘And of course someone must secure the computer immediately. We probably left in too much of a hurry.’

‘Of course. Right, then I’ll set off to pick up our murderer. Tell me the name again, please.’

‘Timo Korvensuo.’

‘Timo … Korvensuo. Right.’

‘I’ll call the hotel where Korvensuo has been staying. If he happens to be there I’ll let you know.’

‘Fine. See you later.’

Joentaa rang the number of the hotel and found that Korvensuo had checked out that morning. No, there were no records of calls or other messages from any kind of business partner for their guest Timo Korvensuo. Joentaa thanked them, finished the call, dialled another number and passed the information on to Heinonen. Sundström and Grönholm were already on their way to the lake.

Joentaa leaned back a little, but then sat upright again next moment and thought that all this was moving very fast. Maybe too fast.

Perhaps Korvensuo was calling his wife at this very moment. Then he’d realize what had happened. If she would speak to him. But she wouldn’t pick up the phone, surely. It was unthinkable that she would pick up the phone if the display showed the number of her husband’s mobile. She wouldn’t be able to speak to him now, she wouldn’t be able to speak to anyone, too much had turned upside down in too short a time.

Joentaa glanced sideways at Ketola and wondered whether he was thinking similar thoughts. It didn’t look like it. Ketola’s eyes were firmly on the road, and he was almost lying back in his seat, as if planning to drop off to sleep any moment now while doing 200 kpm.

‘All clear?’ asked Joentaa.

‘Sure,’ said Ketola.

‘Sundström is on his way to the lake,’ said Joentaa.

‘I heard.’

‘Do you think … are you sure? About Korvensuo?’

‘Perfectly sure.’

Joentaa nodded. ‘And what, in your opinion, is he doing beside that lake?’

Ketola glanced at him. ‘He …’ he began, then fell silent for a while before starting again. ‘Yes, good question. I’d say …’

Joentaa waited, but Ketola’s eyes were on the road again and he seemed to have forgotten that Joentaa had asked him a question at all.

Heinonen called and said all was going to plan in Helsinki. Their colleagues there were on their way.

‘Thanks,’ said Joentaa. He closed his eyes, and saw Marjatta Korvensuo at the moment when she had opened the door to them. The boy kicking the ball against the garage door.

‘About your question, Kimmo,’ said Ketola into the silence.

Joentaa opened his eyes, but once again Ketola did not answer it. Instead, he began to laugh.

First chuckling quietly.

Then roaring with wild laughter.

‘I don’t know!’ he suddenly cried, began laughing again, and repeated that remark at regular intervals.

‘I haven’t the faintest idea! I just don’t know! Please don’t ask me. Ask me another! Something easier!’ he kept shouting.

And all the time he laughed, pausing for a moment only now and then to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes.

11

M
atti Ylönen tasted peppermint, and yet again he felt an impulse to punch Outi hard in the face.

Which of course he wasn’t about to do, because men don’t hit women, it simply isn’t done, although he had been getting more and more inclined to entertain powerful doubts of the good sense of this fundamental rule, particularly recently, more particularly when he and Outi were together, for example like now.

Outi was sitting on the towel, calmly consuming the contents of the picnic basket, which he had put together with some care, and burying her face in a fashion magazine, while complaints and insults issued freely from her mouth.

So he was a weed and useless in bed, was he? Not that Outi was in any position to judge, since she kept putting him off until later in that respect. Furthermore, he was a figure of fun, or then again a stupid arsehole, her girlfriends had probably been right to say nothing would come of their relationship, all she was saying was, it had lasted nearly six weeks now, so maybe it was past its best.

That was how she put it, past its best after six weeks, and right at that moment Matti Ylönen felt so too, he had to agree with her wholeheartedly there, and when Outi also stuffed the last chewy sweet into her mouth without even offering it to him, he realized that the time had now come, he was about to punch her this minute; then, at that very moment, the relationship would indeed be past its best, the whole thing would be over, and to his entire satisfaction at that.

He spat out his now tasteless chewing gum, took a step her way, felt the anger gathering in his arm, in his fist, and Outi raised her head and for the first time in a long while looked him straight in the face and said, ‘You stay away from me, you sod.’

He took another step her way and was just deciding not to punch her but to start by slapping her face good and hard, when a sound stopped him in his tracks.

A sound that he couldn’t identify, because he had never heard anything like it before.

A long-drawn-out whistling. It began quietly, it grew louder, it ebbed again and then grew louder once more.

He saw Outi’s mouth drop open. She looked up, because she seemed to suppose that the sound came from the sky, and he thought he had gone too far, some awful retribution was about to descend upon him, although he hadn’t even touched her yet.

Now the sound was very high and very shrill, and when Outi got up and came to stand beside him, when she even took his hand, he realized that the sound was the scream being uttered by the man on the opposite bank of the lake.

The man was walking. No, he was running. He ran round his car, a silver sports model at which Matti Ylönen had earlier been gazing, fascinated, whereupon Outi had said that men who defined themselves through cars were just ridiculous, and if memory served him right, that exchange of words about the silly sports car had started the whole silly quarrel in the first place, and now the man on the opposite bank of the lake was running round his car. He slipped, he got to his feet, he ran again and let out a scream that seemed to go on for ever, and to Matti Ylönen it didn’t sound particularly human.

He felt the firm pressure of Outi’s hand in his.

They stood in silence as the man ran faster and faster, and the scream turned into a kind of hysterical native-American howl, and when the unknown man finally, as if guided by sudden inspiration, got into his car and roared the engine, drove away over the landing stage and catapulted himself and his car into the lake in a high arching flight, it occurred to Matti Ylönen, oddly enough, that he and Outi were going to live together.