Silence (6 page)

Ketola poured water into his glass and topped up Tapani’s as well, and when he looked up he thought, for a moment, that he saw a flash in Tapani’s eyes. Then Tapani laughed and Ketola laughed too.

‘Didn’t mean it seriously,’ said Tapani.

These were the best moments for Ketola, the times when Tapani was the way he used to be for a few seconds. So far no one had been able to give an adequate explanation of what had really happened to Tapani. No doctor, no psychologist. Ketola could have worked out what such people said for himself. Drugs. Obviously a wild, haphazard mixture. Obviously consumed to excess. Ketola had known that for a long time, and he also knew that it couldn’t all be explained nearly so simply.

About ten years before, Tapani had told him and Oona, on the evening before the party celebrating the end of the final school exams, that he had passed only with the aid of certain substances, that he probably didn’t tolerate those substances well and he was telling them because he intended to kick the habit. Because he had a feeling that it wouldn’t be good for him in the long run. Tapani had been sitting on this same sofa, putting his parents in the picture very objectively, infuriatingly objectively. Ketola had shouted at him, slapped his face and stayed away from the ceremony next day when the exam certificates were handed out.

Now Ketola was thinking of that, of his own appalling failure, while Tapani, very serious again, talked about a villa he had bought in Spain, where he intended to spend the next few years.

He knew now that Tapani had not stopped taking drugs, but instead had massively increased his consumption. He had gone to study mechanical engineering in Joensuu, although he hadn’t had the faintest interest in mechanical engineering, and all the time he had been taking cocaine and synthetic drugs in a weird and wonderful mixture.

Meanwhile, Ketola had separated from Oona, his wife and Tapani’s mother, because he didn’t get along with her any more, for reasons that he couldn’t have specified today, and he had taken very little interest in Tapani during those years. For instance, it had never entered his head to ask why on earth he was studying mechanical engineering, of all subjects.

Joensuu was hundreds of kilometres away; Ketola hoped his son was all right and suppressed any other ideas. About two years ago, just when his young colleague Kimmo Joentaa had lost his wife, Tapani too had had a nervous breakdown. He had appeared at the door one evening, saying what a nice, mild wind was blowing and looking at his father with an expression that went right to Ketola’s guts.

A little later a woman from some official department had got in touch and told him, with many bureaucratic turns of phrase, that Tapani Ketola had been picked up on the runway at Helsinki airport and taken to a psychiatric hospital for two weeks. Couldn’t Ketola, she asked, or the young man’s mother, Oona Ketola née Vaisänen, now living in Tampere, do something to help their son?

After that Tapani had spent a week with Ketola and then the three of them – Oona too had come to visit for several days – furnished a flat for him in a high-rise building on the outskirts of Turku. That had been a good time, but it passed quickly, it was too fragile to last, although Ketola, looking back, was not really sure why.

Anyway, he had not seen Oona since, or heard from her, and month by month Tapani had descended further into a strange world to which Ketola no longer had any access, and which in his opinion could not be plausibly explained by either drugs or anything else.

His son had become a puzzle to him, and now that puzzle, resurfacing after a considerable time, was sitting on his sofa again, and Ketola was both glad of that and at the same time, as always, felt absolutely desperate.

‘Do you have anything to eat?’ Tapani was just asking.

‘Of course.’ Ketola jumped up, relieved to be able to do something. He stood in the kitchen and heard more voices. Tapani had switched on the TV set.

‘Bloody TV mafia,’ Tapani was muttering as Ketola came back. He immediately began stuffing bread rolls into himself, returning to the subject of the house he had bought in Spain. ‘You don’t need things there, for instance you don’t need any towels because it’s so warm,’ he said, and Ketola looked at the TV screen and saw a bicycle lying in a field, and a cross beside the bicycle.

‘You know what they’ve done, they’ve …’ said Tapani and Ketola felt the ground give way under him. He wanted to stand up, but he just slumped even further back in his chair and stared at the TV.

Tapani followed his gaze. ‘A bicycle … yes, that’s it, I must buy a new bicycle too,’ he said, and the face of Pia Lehtinen came on screen, the photograph from his files – he remembered the photograph vividly. A similar case, they were saying. A newspaper report of the time came up on the screen, with a drawing of the small car at the centre of it, the small red car that they had never found. Then came an interview with Nurmela on the steps leading up to the entrance of the police building. He was saying that nothing had been found yet, but they were taking it very seriously, still hoping that the whole thing would turn out much less grave than had been assumed at first. When asked what he thought the connection with this case from the distant past could be, Nurmela said it was too early to speculate.

‘Will you give me a bicycle for my birthday?’ asked Tapani.

‘What? What was that …?’ said Ketola.

‘I was asking if you’d give me a bicycle.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Ketola.

‘Is it a promise, then?’ Tapani went on.

‘No – yes,’ said Ketola, without taking his eyes off the screen. A different news item had come on now; it might have been from another world. Soon after that came the weather forecast, then the sports news. Ketola watched it all without taking in any of it, and what Tapani said also echoed in a void. A feature film starring Alain Delon was just beginning on the TV screen.

‘I like him,’ said Tapani. ‘I like the film, but about that bicycle …’

‘What? Oh, yes, for your birthday. Let’s talk about it another time.’

‘I mean the bicycle they’ve found in the field in Naantali.’

‘Yes.’ Ketola straightened up.

‘What I was thinking,’ said Tapani, ‘is if that girl, the one they showed in that photo …’

‘Yes?’ asked Ketola. Pia Lehtinen, he thought; they had just shown the photo of Pia Lehtinen on television, his photo, the photo that the girl’s mother had given him at the time.

‘If she was thirteen years old then, she’d be forty-six today,’ said Tapani. ‘Do you see what I mean?’

‘What?’ asked Ketola.

‘Well, she’d be an old woman now.’

‘I’m over sixty myself,’ said Ketola automatically.

‘You know what I mean. That girl would be old today, older than me,’ said Tapani and Ketola looked at him, his son who looked like a child, and wondered what on earth was going on; and at that moment he felt that something he couldn’t define was entering his body and making him laugh. He laughed, first chuckling quietly, then out loud, roaring with laughter. He couldn’t stop, and what was particularly funny was that Tapani asked in all seriousness if he, Ketola, had gone crazy, before at last he too joined in.

It was a long time since they’d laughed together so heartily – it must be decades – if indeed they had ever laughed together like this. They laughed until Tapani suddenly stood up and said he’d have to go now, because he had an important appointment, but he was afraid he couldn’t tell Ketola any more about it.

Ketola nodded. Of course, he thought, naturally. He went to the front door with Tapani, gave him a brief hug and waited until his son had disappeared into the side street, walking with springy, confident steps.

Slowly, Ketola went back into the house and into the living room. Tapani had been in a good mood. Ketola had felt, several times that evening, how much he loved his son. Now he felt drained and empty. So he’d give Tapani a bicycle for his birthday. A really good one, a bicycle that would take him anywhere fast, and at least then he wouldn’t feel he had to learn to do flip-flops.

He shook his head. Those flip-flops, what a daft idea, but rather splendid in a way, he thought.

The television was still on, showing the French film that Tapani liked.

Ketola shook his head, went on and on shaking it, although the rest of him stood there motionless as he stared at the TV screen.

5

A
s they approached the large, pale green clapboard house, Joentaa saw a woman’s face behind one of the windows, and even before they had gone the last few metres the door was opened. A powerful-looking man came towards them, greeted them with a vigorous handshake and said, just a little too loudly, ‘Kalevi Vehkasalo. I think we spoke on the phone. Good that you could come at once.’

He still doesn’t want to accept what’s happened, thought Joentaa.

‘Paavo Sundström. This is my colleague Kimmo Joentaa,’ said Sundström, all of a sudden strictly matter-of-fact. In the car just now he had been singing along to an old Finnish Grand Prix song, amused to think that a few years ago, as far as he remembered, he had driven in the race and had come in last.

‘Come on in,’ said Vehkasalo, walking purposefully ahead. He led them into the house and a spacious living room, with large abstract paintings in glaring colours on the walls. A woman was standing in the middle of the room. The TV was on, with the sound muted, and a box of tissues lay on the glass-topped table.

‘My wife, Ruth,’ said Vehkasalo.

The woman’s eyes were small and reddened, her handshake almost too limp to be felt. But Joentaa got the impression that the appearance of Sundström in itself gave her some hope. Tall, athletic-looking Sundström, with his rugged features, radiated a certain air of confidence without having to say a word.

‘Most of all, of course, we want to know what’s really going on,’ said Vehkasalo. Where outward appearance was concerned, he was in no way inferior to Sundström. Another tall, dynamic man who looked as if he could get things done. He wore a casual but elegant jacket and made Joentaa feel, with every word and every gesture, that he would like to take control of the situation. Which made it clear to Joentaa that control was just what Vehkasalo must have lost as soon as he saw the news.

‘But let’s sit down first,’ said Vehkasalo and waited until they were all seated before he went on, ‘Right, to keep it short; that was Sinikka’s bicycle on TV. No doubt about it. Naturally, my wife is anxious. Sinikka is always coming home late, but – well, we’d like you to tell us what’s happened.’

‘I can understand … I quite understand your anxiety,’ Sundström began.

Vehkasalo interrupted, with a different tone in his voice all of a sudden. ‘No. Forgive me, but please don’t try that one with us. I don’t like it at all. Tell us what’s going on. It’s simple enough. Our daughter hasn’t come home and the police have found her bicycle. What happened?’

‘First of all, I’d like to …’

‘Are you deaf? I want a plain answer to my question!’ Vehkasalo slammed the flat of his hand down on the table, jumped up, stood still for a moment, then strode over to the TV set and switched it off.

‘Kalevi,’ Ruth Vehkasalo whispered.

‘I have photographs here,’ said Sundström, ‘and first of all I’d like you to tell me whether that is your daughter’s sports bag and whether those items of clothing are hers.’

He handed one photograph to Vehkasalo, who had come back to the table, the other to his wife, who immediately nodded and said, ‘Yes, I’m certain of it. She got the tracksuit for her birthday two weeks ago. I’m absolutely certain. Kalevi, it’s the tracksuit that I bought her …’

She passed the photo to her husband.

‘And that’s her sports bag. At least she has one like it,’ Vehkasalo murmured. ‘And a bicycle with the same sticker, just as I said.’

‘I see,’ said Sundström. ‘We have to make absolutely sure about this point, of course. We’ll have to show you the bicycle again tomorrow, but meanwhile I think we can now assume that it is indeed your daughter’s.’

‘You can leave out that last empty phrase,’ Vehkasalo interrupted him.

‘There’s something else that I’d like to tell you before we discuss this further, something very important. I’d like to say that we will do everything in our power to find your daughter. At this moment we don’t know any more than you do. Your daughter disappeared a few hours ago and we’ve only just ascertained that the missing girl concerned is, in all probability, your daughter …’

‘You can leave that one out too,’ Vehkasalo interrupted again.

‘All I mean is that …’

‘Leave out the “in all probability” bit. It
is
Sinikka. This is about our daughter Sinikka.’

‘All I mean is that we’re only just beginning on our enquiries. Your daughter is missing. We have found her bicycle and her sports bag. She didn’t come home. We’re investigating the place where those things were found at the moment and at the same time we’ve begun looking for your daughter herself. There’s much to suggest that she will come home safe and sound, and …’

‘You can leave out
all
the empty phrases. The bicycle was lying beside that cross.’ Vehkasalo was speaking with studied calm and objectivity now, as if describing some other, random incident. ‘We all know what happened to that girl in the old case. They made it very clear on the news. A girl dragged off her bicycle and murdered. I heard what they said, after all. So why was our daughter’s bike lying beside that particular cross? And why is the whole thing making the headlines if our daughter is as safe and sound as you say?’

‘I only want to make it clear to you that we are in the early stages,’said Sundström. ’I would like to ask you – and I know this is difficult – but I would like to ask you to keep calm.’

‘I am calm. My wife is calm too,’ said Vehkasalo, putting an arm round her.

There was silence for a few seconds.

‘Did your daughter often go that way? Past the cross?’ asked Joentaa as the silence lengthened. Husband and wife exchanged glances.

‘I don’t know. Where was she going?’ Vehkasalo asked his wife.

‘To volleyball. She’s been playing volleyball for several months, that’s why I bought her the new things …’