Tweety took out the pouch, crouched down and emptied its contents on to the floor in front of him. Reino and Lasse had finally learned: they didn’t stand around staring at him but kept a few steps back, and there they starting talking in low, hushed voices and it wasn’t difficult to guess that they were talking about him and the key and how he’d tricked them.
But Tweety didn’t waste time thinking about that. He selected a pick with a tooth like a crescent drawn by a fairy and got to work. The light almost disturbed him – in the dark it was easier to hear the lock’s singing – but he concentrated, delicately turning the tiny curve to the left and the right, and the lock started to answer him by either giving way or
resisting
, and little by little its movements turned to colours and chords, and Tweety was no longer aware of Reino and Lasse’s muttering.
‘OK,’ he said after barely fifteen minutes, sat upright, turned the lock and realigned it staight away. Reino and Lasse marched towards him and just then he could hear it inside him again: Tata-ta-tum! He didn’t open the door but held it ajar. Reino and Lasse stopped right beside him.
‘What’s the matter now?’
‘The man from the security company,’ Tweety answered, his jaw suddenly stiff. ‘What if he’s installed a motion detector… Remember, we wondered why there weren’t any.’
‘Fucking hell.’
‘Now you tell us,’ said Reino angrily as though this was Tweety’s fault.
They stood looking at one another, all thinking the same thing: would an alarm go off the second they stepped inside? Other thoughts came
flooding
into their minds: what if they were too late, what if all this had been for nothing? What if the Chancellor was never meant to be and they’d be stuck in Tapanila for the rest of their miserable lives? It seemed
impossible
, as though a truckload of mud had been tipped down their necks without warning.
‘Fucking hell!’
‘But could he have installed it in a day?’ asked Lasse hesitantly, his upper lip gleaming as though it had been sprayed with something. ‘They were only making plans. And anyway…’ He quickly examined the door frame and glanced further along the wall. ‘There’d be a keyhole somewhere for them to switch it on and off.’
‘Right, otherwise the employees wouldn’t be able to come down here either…’
Suddenly they were all chuckling. It seemed so childish to worry about a motion detector that didn’t even exist, and perhaps they were chuckling because they had come so far and everything had gone to plan. Tweety switched off the corridor lights and they stepped inside, and again it smelled different, like an office, the smell of paper, of women, or more specifically that the women’s locker room was somewhere close, filled with the smell of their clothes soaked in perfume and deodorant. From the bank’s main hall above them came the dim glow of the streetlights.
Tweety flicked life into Sparkle Eye and in its light Reino laid his briefcase on the floor, opened it and took out two torches – their lenses had been taped up too – and handed one of them to Lasse. Aiming the beam of light in front of him, Lasse walked off towards the main vault. He was almost tiptoeing, out of respect for the vibration sensor that was still working, and with good reason: while rewiring their replacement alarm he’d discovered that it was possible to adjust the sensor so that it reacted if someone so much as stamped on the floor or accidentally fell over.
‘Asko, over here,’ Reino muttered, ordering him around like a dog, and Tweety followed him towards the stairs, all the while trying to listen to what was happening within him: had the watchman settled down? Perhaps he’d been banging his drum because Tweety had been thinking subconsciously about the motion detector all day and had managed to convince himself it was there. But he hadn’t stopped altogether; he was marching on the spot,
taking steps that didn’t lead anywhere, and he wasn’t drumming any more but banging his sticks together: clack, clack, clack.
‘Hold the light up here, where that bolt is.’
Tweety did as he was told. Reino pulled out his tape measure and held down one end, muttered something to himself, forgot where he had started and had to start all over again, and the sound of urgent bells rang through Tweety’s mind, but he still didn’t dare say anything; did the cardboard need to be so exact, he thought to himself and wished that they were already with Lasse helping him switch the alarms. What he really wished was for everything to be over and done with, for them to be back in the corridor or out in the street. He decided that he would fill his lungs with the smell of night if he ever managed to get out there again and that once he got back home he would take Toby out of his cage and let him crawl in under his shirt. Reino was so damned slow; he was writing down the measurements in a small notepad in thick, block lettering, carefully and exactly so that he wouldn’t mistake them, then measured everything again.
‘Right, let’s see how far Lasse’s got,’ said Reino after what seemed like an eternity and they walked off into the darkness towards the beam of light from Lasse’s torch. Tweety imagined the bank holding its breath around them, as though the tiny pores of each and every wall were blocked, as though the building itself knew they had no reason to be there, and Tweety prayed that it wouldn’t decide to punish them. Then he remembered the rear lights of the car parked in front of them – why had he thought they looked like diseased eyes?
Lasse’s briefcase was open on the floor and he’d laid the replacement alarm ready in front of the vault. It was an incredible door, like the casing of a battleship, and right in the middle was an enormous, gleaming wheel like a great crown of antlers. There must have been at least a kilo of steel around the keyhole. The alarm was on the opposite side of the door and its armoured cable ran across the jamb making it impossible to open the door without removing the contact plugs.
‘This is a thousand-series door, lads,’ Reino said as if giving a lecture. ‘And that thing’s rigged up so that if someone goes in and makes a dog’s dinner of it then
bang!
It’ll be so jammed there’ll be no way in after that. But as you’ll see from the points I marked on the photographs, the most important bit is right there.’
‘Let’s get cracking.’
‘Yes… That’s where I’m going to start. Just think about what’s on the other side of this door. Jesus Christ, lads, there’s boxes one after the other full of money and gold, the bank’s cash stores and all their foreign currency. If we’re lucky, a few million will soon be like pocket money to us…’
‘Let’s get cracking!’
‘All right, all right.’
They crouched down to pick up what they each needed from the floor, just the way they’d practised back in the workshop, then they stood up and Reino held the new alarm in the air, ready to hand it to Lasse as soon as he’d removed the one attached to the door. Tweety was holding the alarm’s gleaming cover and the screw to fasten it in place and he was afraid he’d lose it – through his gloves it felt so tiny, he didn’t even know whether it was in his fingers or not. How would Lasse be able to work with gloved fingers? Tata-ta-tum! Tam-tam-tam! Lasse was holding the screwdriver ready; he laid his left hand on the alarm cable and looked up at Reino. Reino gave an audible gulp and panted: ‘Now!’
Lasse gave a tug and the cable came loose. Reino looked at his watch. Lasse was already frantically unscrewing the cover. Tweety saw a light
flashing
and he could hear the buzzer: beep – beep – beep! At that moment a blond, moustached policeman noticed the alarm and stood up from his chair in order to see the code number more clearly, then picked up a
red-covered
directory and opened it. The screw was out; Lasse prised off the cover and handed it to Tweety; Tweety placed the cover in Lasse’s briefcase. Lasse was already working on the insides of the alarm with his screwdriver as the policeman mumbled to himself: ‘Ah, Museokatu 18’. Then he pulled his computer keyboard closer and started typing. Tweety was fidgeting anxiously on the spot and Reino suddenly started coughing.
‘It’s off,’ Lasse gasped. He had the alarm in his hand; he didn’t give it a second look but bent down and put it in the briefcase, Reino held the new alarm in place and Lasse began screwing it in just as the policeman leaned right over to the microphone and asked: ‘Dog patrol, do you copy?’ Lasse held out his hand. Tweety gave him first the alarm cover then the screw.
‘That’s the wrong fucking one!’ Lasse hissed. ‘The thinner one!’
‘Dickhead,’ Reino chipped in and Tweety didn’t know where the thinner screw was and he was filled with such panic that he could have cried; it was like a whirlwind inside him, getting nearer all the time. Reino snarled something and snatched the correct screw from on top of the
briefcase and handed it to Lasse, and the point of the screwdriver glinted in the light from Sparkle Eye, and the policeman said into his
microphone
: ‘Is there a squad car in the Töölö area?’ Lasse’s hands dropped and the alarm shone proudly just as it had done before; Reino reattached the contact plugs – and there it was. Tata-ta-tum! Tata-ta-tum!
‘Two minutes exactly,’ Reino gasped. ‘No rush. Now get everything back in the briefcases and make sure nothing’s left behind. And
remember
: calmly, don’t run, don’t look around…’
They grabbed the few things they’d brought, packed them into the briefcases and snapped them shut. The beam of light from Reino’s torch was sweeping the floor and there was nothing left lying there, not a single screw or a piece of tape. And their minds pounded with the same thought –
it worked, we did it
– then another thought, almost immediately
afterwards
:
Let’s go!
They turned together, like one person, and started heading for the door, and though they might have felt like running and shoving they walked calmly.
‘No panic, lads,’ Reino kept repeating. ‘Don’t run…’
‘Aaw!’ Lasse cried out. ‘Oh God, oh God…’
They stopped. Tweety aimed the light at Lasse. His briefcase fell from his hand and gave an almighty thud as it hit the floor.
‘What the hell’s wrong now?’
‘I don’t know. Burning like… Aw, aaaw!’
‘Lasse’s face had turned white. His teeth were clenched – just like Brownie’s – and there was an expression of sheer agony in his eyes, as though someone were twisting a knife inside him. He slumped to the floor in so much pain that he was howling like an animal.
‘Get up!’ Reino demanded and grabbed him by the arm. ‘We’ve got to go!’
‘I can’t… My hip’s on fire… and my leg. I can’t move.’
‘Asko, grab on to him. We’ll have to carry him.’
Tweety took hold of Lasse’s arm and they tried to lift him up, but Lasse gave an agonised scream and his head drooped as though he’d fainted.
‘Jesus, Reino, what are we going to do? The pigs will be here any minute!’
‘We’ve got to carry him. Take him by the legs.’
They tried again, but it was hopeless; they could only take short,
staggering steps towards the door and beyond that was thirty-odd metres of corridor, the courtyard and the alleyway back to the gates, and the car itself was miles away on Temppelikatu. On top of that Lasse was still moaning, his voice getting louder and louder. Reino’s briefcase slid to the floor and opened up, spilling its contents around him.
Reino let go of Lasse and swore, a flood of curses rattling from his mouth, and Tweety wondered how much it hurt when the police hit you with their batons. Where did they hit you? Surely not in the groin? He felt sick and silver stars began flashing in his eyes just like after he’d given blood. Suddenly Reino seemed calm and his resolve was chilling.
‘We’ll all have to stay here,’ he said. ‘We’ll hide. Pick him up.’
‘No, don’t… they’ll bring the dogs…’
‘There’s no other way. Now keep your mouth shut… In the changing room.’
Tweety felt as though the floor was swaying back and forth, but he held on to Lasse’s legs and shuffled forwards while Reino panted in front. Reino let go.
‘Wait here, I’ll go and have a look outside. You pick up those tools. Quickly!’
Reino disappeared into the darkness; there came a thud as he bumped into something, then a tinny creak as he opened the door. Time seemed to pass quickly, as if it didn’t exist. Lasse was whimpering on the floor. Tweety went over to him. He’d undone his jacket, taken out his revolver and was gripping it with both hands. It looked huge, gleaming, its barrel was long and the end was so wide you could put your thumb in it.
‘You mark my words,’ Lasse gasped. ‘They’re not taking us for free.’
‘If we had binoculars we’d be able to see whether they’ve got fillings or not,’ said Onerva after a long silence. Harjunpää nodded. It was almost one o’clock and they’d been on the move for over three hours, searching the areas around potential restaurants and watching people wandering about late at night, they’d gone through the chain of events stage by stage trying to come up with something conclusive, but now they’d reached the point when fatigue was beginning to set into their limbs and somewhere close by lurked the belief that all their efforts that evening had been for nothing.
The restaurant was about twenty metres in front of them. It was on the ground floor with walls made of glass like an aquarium, and despite the tinted panes of glass they had a good view inside through the darkness. Harjunpää had been keeping an eye on a blonde woman sitting with a significantly older man. She wasn’t his daughter; Harjunpää knew this already. Perhaps it was her body language, the way she played with her wine glass, occasionally leaning forwards then sitting back and stretching her shoulders. He and Onerva were in the car, but from the park the view would be even clearer. It was easy to imagine their stalker on the prowl, how he loitered in the bushes and selected a suitable couple.
‘My mother called just before I left the house. Get this – when she heard Grandpa was still at our place she hung up without saying a word.’
‘Have they really never seen one another since the divorce?’
‘Not that I know. Last night I started thinking about why I never tried to look him up…’
‘And?’
‘It’s as if I didn’t do it out of some kind of loyalty to my mother. And I’ve got vague recollections of when I was in primary school and we still lived in Kruununhaka and I used to visit him regularly. Whenever I came home, Mother wouldn’t speak to me for hours at a time, and she
wouldn’t
leave me any food if I was late for dinner.’
‘Oh God. It’s the old story: if I don’t love him nobody else is allowed to love him. It’s revenge. Jaana Karonen did the exact same thing to her daughters. And she talked about Jussi as if he was some kind of monster – their own father. Just imagine, one day they’ll want to understand their relationship with him.’
They fell silent. A man in a grey jacket walked past, but he was the wrong build and in a hurry, and Onerva continued: ‘Children start to believe these things. It’s logical. And it works on adults too. In telling people about the divorce, Jaana slagged Jussi off behind his back to all their friends, and even though they knew what he was like they bought it all hook, line and sinker. Eventually people could barely bring themselves to say hello to him.’
‘Museokatu 18,’ the radio crackled. ‘National Investment Bank,
zero-two
. Any units in the Töölö area that can take this? This is call one.’
‘And after her call I realised she hasn’t invited the girls round to see her all this time. And part of what’s stressing me out about my father is…’
‘Museokatu 18, National Investment Bank. This is call two.’
‘Are we far from Museokatu?’
‘Not very far. How come?’
‘Some bank alarm’s gone off.’
‘Public Order should have the resources to take care of that.’
‘That’s just it. According to the initial patrol principle they should register the call immediately, which means they’re indoors for at least an hour after every call-out.’
‘Museokatu 18. This is call three.’
‘Unit 1-5-1 is in Lauttasaari.’
‘Is there nobody closer? Any units downtown?’
‘Shall we take it?’
‘OK,’ said Harjunpää, pressed down the clutch and turned the ignition, and the Golf’s motor revved up. He was already trying to
envisage
where Museokatu was and how best to drive there, and he decided to go straight down Topeliuksenkatu then along Runeberginkatu, then it was one of the turnings after Hesperiankatu.
‘Control,’ Onerva made the call. ‘Unit 5-8-3 will take it. We’re on Sibeliuksenkatu. We’re on our way.’
‘Unit 5-8-3, roger that. You’ll be coming down to the corner of Cygnaeuksenkatu. I’ve put the initial call-out down as urgent.’
‘Roger,’ said Onerva. Harjunpää was already changing into second gear; he swung the Golf round to the right, raised his hand and reached towards a switch with white stripes. He turned it a notch and a bright blue light blazed in the legroom at Onerva’s feet, again and again. The flashing light worked just as it should; Onerva rolled down the window, straightened out the cable, grabbed hold of the plastic dome, the size of a child’s head, and held it outside. There came a greedy thud as the
powerful
magnets sucked the device on to the roof of the car. Blue light began to flap across the trees in the park and the windows of the buildings opposite. Harjunpää turned the switch a notch further and a long moan pealed from the bonnet:
Piuuu
! Then came the repetitive, hammering tones of the siren like a giant leather belt thrashing the air:
woa-woa-woa
!
Harjunpää turned on to Topeliuksenkatu and started gathering speed: it was as though the cars parked along the road had started strangely reversing and before long they were streaming past in a blur of shining metal. He put the car into third, then fourth gear; the tarmac disappeared beneath them and the siren echoed from every wall:
woa-woa-woa
!
‘What can it be at this time of night?’ he said without taking his eyes off the road. He didn’t increase their speed any more. The most important thing was getting there, a few seconds here or there didn’t really matter.
‘Probably nothing. These alarm systems are often faulty.’
‘There could be burglars,’ said Harjunpää almost as a joke. It reminded him of the scoundrels in Donald Duck comics: big, stubbly men with floppy ears, a black mask covering their eyes, each carrying a crowbar and a gun.
Onerva picked up her bag and undid the zip. It was always odd seeing her with a heavy Smith & Wesson in her hands. Harjunpää touched his hip and the rubber handle of his gun felt at once familiar and yet strangely comforting in his fingers.
Töölö hospital and all the pain and suffering inside its walls was left behind them. Harjunpää braked a little as they approached the junction and the square.
‘Unit 5-8-3 on its way to a call. This is Control.’
‘Receiving.’
‘I’ve been liaising with a man called Kauppila. He’s an economist, works for the bank. He says it’s probably the automatic alarm in the vault; there have been some problems with it before. He lives on Apollonkatu and he’s on his way over with the keys.’
‘So we won’t need the dogs?’
‘Not at this stage. Take a look around first. But remember: always be on the safe side.’
‘Roger.’
The traffic lights were blinking at orange and Hesperia Park lay ahead of them. Harjunpää glanced to the sides, but as there were no pedestrians he continued over the zebra crossing. After the junction he flicked the switch again and the wail of the siren stopped its lashing. Air whooshed through the open window and the tarmac crunched beneath the wheels. Only the
flashing
light continued, its blue light licking the traffic lights and the walls.
‘Museokatu is at the next turning. Didn’t he say the corner of Cygaeuksenkatu? That’s almost the other end of the street.’
Harjunpää switched off the flashing light; everything seemed darker, stiller. The Golf was cruising along Museokatu, and Onerva leaned against the window to see the street numbers more clearly, all the while keeping her eyes on the street for anyone running away from the bank. It occurred to Harjunpää that there were two bulletproof vests in the boot of the car, but the idea seemed so over-the-top – or was that how accidents happened, when taking necessary precautions seemed over-the-top? As if to defend himself, he told himself they’d check all the doors and windows first, and if they found anything suspicious they’d take the vests. Or would even that be too late?
‘Twenty-four,’ said Onerva. ‘Twenty-two… Twenty. It’s the next
building
. Pull over by that gateway. We can walk the rest of the way.’
‘OK.’
‘Control. Unit 5-8-3 is on site.’
‘Roger. Take the walkie-talkie with you and report back when you’re ready.’
‘Will do.’
Harjunpää swung the car into the empty space and switched the engine off while at the same time reaching for his torch and pushing the door open. Outside there was nothing out of the ordinary; nobody fleeing
the site, nobody standing in a doorway watching them, no car waiting with the engine running.
They left the car doors ajar so they didn’t slam shut and began making their way towards the bank, walking tight in against the wall, one after the other, their shoulders instinctively hunched. Harjunpää went first. In one hand he was carrying a long, black torch – in an emergency it could be used to club someone – and with his other hand he pulled back the front of his jacket and brought out his revolver. Number eighteen was in front of them: it was on the end of the terrace. The bank’s walls were covered in pretty decorations; its logo shone blue.
They came to a halt. There were no shards of glass on the street and no noises coming from inside. There were no other sounds either: running footsteps, the roar of an engine, the squeal of tyres. Harjunpää took a deep breath and decided they could probably do without the vests. He gave Onerva a nod, lowered his firearm and walked on. The bank’s windows were right there; behind it shone a bright neon squirrel and behind that there was nothing but darkness. He gave the door a sharp tug and it was firmly locked. There were no marks on the lock or around the door frame. They made their way round the corner. The windows on that side of the building were all intact.
Harjunpää switched on his torch, stood on tiptoes and angled the bright white beam of light through the window and into the bank. The furnishings inside were dark; the light glided across the counters and along the floor, but still he couldn’t see anything suspicious. The furniture was as it should be, there were no papers strewn across the floor and he
couldn’t
see any light or movement.
‘There’s nothing here,’ he said and slowly relaxed. ‘It must be a problem with the alarm.’
‘I’ve heard that even a lorry rumbling past can set these things off.’
‘I know. Let’s take a look round the back.’
‘If we can get in there… The staff probably use a door at the back of the building.’
‘We’ll see… this is the only gate into the courtyard.’
They walked further along Cygnaeuksenkatu and stopped in front of the gate. It looked heavy and unyielding, and Harjunpää pulled on the handle almost as a formality, but the lock gave a click, the hinges creaked and the gate swung open. It hadn’t shut properly after the last person went
through; perhaps you had to give it an extra tug. Harjunpää and Onerva glanced up and down the street but still there was nobody in sight. Kauppila was probably still pulling his clothes on.
They stepped through the gate and into the alleyway and their footsteps echoed comfortingly, as though a company of horsemen were galloping through. The courtyard lay ahead, slightly better lit, and the air smelled of childhood, of going down to the jetties by the sea without permission.
‘And I can remember,’ Harjunpää said suddenly, ‘when I was a little bit older my godmother told me how brave I’d been as a child. I didn’t understand at the time, but she meant that back then I’d accepted my new father in a matter of weeks. It was only then that I realised that mother had rung round all our relatives telling them how much I worshipped Heikki and how happy I was now that my father was out of the picture.’
‘Maybe it was guilt.’
‘Maybe,’ said Harjunpää and let the beam of light sweep across the yard, paying particular attention to the locks on the doors into the basement, but they too all looked intact and firmly shut.
‘I was afraid of him for years. He was a stranger who’d turned up and stolen our home and our life… He brought this old cuckoo clock – and I hated it. Whenever I was at home by myself I’d hold the hatch shut so the cuckoo couldn’t come out and tweet. Eventually poor Heikki gave up mending the thing. To this day he still doesn’t know that it was me that kept breaking it.’
‘That’s a pretty normal reaction for a child. You’re on good terms now, aren’t you?’
‘Well… I’ve only really started to understand him in the last ten years. It’s that door over there…’
Harjunpää shone the torch at a grey door a few steps down from the courtyard and began walking towards it. The words National Investment Bank stood on the door in weathered blue lettering; Harjunpää went down the steps, all the while keeping his torch on the lock and the door frame, but still he couldn’t see any scratches or cracks.
‘Control, this is unit 5-8-3 on the walkie-talkie. Do you copy?’
‘Copy.’
‘From the outside everything looks in order. All the doors are locked and there are no signs of forced entry. We’ll wait for Kauppila and have a quick look inside.’
‘Roger that. Records show the alarm has gone off at night twice this past summer and on both occasions it was a false alarm. Just so you know.’
‘Copy.’
‘What a waste of time,’ Harjunpää yawned. ‘Can we be bothered to go back to the restaurant?’
‘I know… Let’s carry on tomorrow. But we should get Forensics down to the park during the day to process the muddy area by the bushes for footprints, especially if they find a spot that’s been trampled on.’
The gate clattered and from the alleyway came the sound of quick footsteps and the jingle of keys. Harjunpää got his badge out ready. A shortish man with a round face appeared in the yard; he was wearing a smart raincoat and a pair of loose tracksuit bottoms that flapped comically beneath the coat.
‘Crime Squad. Good evening.’
‘Risto Kauppila. Do forgive my appearance – call-out in the middle of the night, you know how it is. I’m sorry about all this. As far as I’m concerned you two can get back to your other work and I’ll take care of this from here.’
‘We’re not in any hurry,’ said Harjunpää. The man amused him, put him in a better mood – he seemed so jolly and yet so embarrassed at the whole situation. It demonstrated that some things were simply out of our control. He could easily imagine what the man was like during office hours: polite and scrutinising, wearing a hand-tailored suit with a grey silk tie and a tiepin boasting a small pearl.