‘What’s her story?’ asked Harjunpää, but Onerva gently squinted her eyes, which meant that she’d tell him later and that she wanted the other two to leave.
‘How about Onerva and I go through this material first, then you go through it, then we have a meeting and see what we’ve come up with. OK?’
‘Oh aye,’ scoffed Lampinen with what was perhaps the most common of his famous television allusions. ‘But I want one thing to be clear from the start: we maintain two parallel lines of approach. You take care of yours, we’ll take care of ours. And just so you know, this won’t be a very long case. It’s Klaus Nikander. Nobody picks locks better than he can, and he’s quite the pervert to boot. Well, his luck’s run out…’
‘You’re going to have him watched?’
‘Him and a couple of others, yes,’ said Lampinen mysteriously and stood up. Juslin followed his example, and when they stood next to one another you could see quite what an odd couple they were: Lampinen was of average height and gangly, while Juslin was over six foot and stocky, and his
movements were somehow exaggeratedly intense, tight and almost
bear-like
. His belt gave off a dull clunk as, in addition to his revolver, virtually everything that could be used as a weapon dangled around his waist.
‘Onerva,’ he growled. ‘How about it?’
‘Right away, sir,’ she replied and without further ado reached out and put her hand on Juslin’s flies. He gave a start, backed off and disappeared into the corridor. Harjunpää could see that his neck was bright red.
‘Dear oh dear,’ said Harjunpää quietly as he looked out of the window, and a sense of dejectedness began to fill his mind. The basis for the
investigation
couldn’t have been worse. He didn’t like Lampinen; Lampinen probably didn’t like him either; Onerva was sure to have problems with Juslin – or rather he would have a problem with her. On top of this,
supervising
everything was Järvi, and Harjunpää felt that Järvi had handed him this case as some form of punishment for the events of the previous day, when he had apparently been incapable of showing due respect.
‘It was a mistake calling him Lempi.’
‘Come on, it just came out.’
‘I know someone who works with his wife. The whole idea of
changing
his name was to stop people calling him Lempi. He can’t stand it because it’s a woman’s name, and you know he’s a bit…’
‘How was I supposed to know that?’
‘That’s why he’s so pally with Juslin, he wants to look as macho as him. Poor man doesn’t know how wrong he is.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well… You don’t seem that interested in this case.’
‘Not really. But we can get off with admin if Lampinen catches this Nikander in the act.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up. You know Nikander, he’s a bit on the chubby side. But this woman Pirjo described the intruder as almost scrawny. She said he reminded her of a chaffinch. Besides, Lampinen’s been a bit obsessed with Nikander for a while now. He’s been watching him for goodness knows how long, but after that job in Herttoniemi he hasn’t managed to catch him red-handed. But it was the toilet incident that really got his back up.’
‘The
what
?’
‘He was in a pub following Nikander, and when he went to the loo two blokes grabbed hold of him, held his head in the toilet bowl and
flushed it, saying “Greetings from Klaus”. You know he’d never forgive anyone for humiliating him like that. But Timo…’
‘Yes?’
‘Let’s crack this one because… who knows, it might be our last case together.’
‘We’ll do that,’ said Harjunpää, but he couldn’t look at Onerva. Instead he looked down at the papers Ahomäki had just brought them, and he didn’t have the faintest notion of how he was going to keep that promise.
Chief Inspector Kontio certainly lived up to his name: like a bear he was short, stocky and had a round face. His hands crowned it all: they were covered in hair, like paws with short, stubby fingers. Kontio didn’t know anything about his parents, but they’d undoubtedly had a roguish sense of humour as his first name was Otso – another of the epithets for the great bear of Finnish mythology. And if a man’s full name is Otso Kontio, you’d expect him to have a nickname anything from Teddy to Grizzly, but everyone referred to him as the Bogey Man.
And there was something decidedly bearish about him too. He was stubborn, a man of few words, but when he opened his mouth the words sounded at once friendly but so sharp that people listened to him immediately. He never raised his voice, but his subordinates were still afraid of him – and with good reason. He was filled with a deep sense of ambition and power and had a possessive nature, and perhaps this was why life and work were like games to him, games that didn’t involve people but playing pieces ready to make a move. And woe betide the unlucky fellow to whom, after losing one of his games, the Bogey Man said: ‘Listen, your career just took a sharp turn. A turn for the worse.’
Just then Chief Inspector Kontio was sitting in his dingy office and talking on the telephone, or rather he was listening, punctuating the caller’s words every now and then with a mumbled ‘yes’. The caller clearly wasn’t just anybody; Kontio had stopped fidgeting with his paperclip and there was something approaching respect in his expression. He definitely
wasn’t a yes-man, despite the fact that, like Järvi, he was an old-timer with minimal education and had friends in extremely high places.
He didn’t need to suck up to anyone; other people sucked up to him. All kinds of people were always being picked up on minor offences: an MP’s son is found in possession of cannabis; a small-town police officer’s wife walks out of the department store wearing a pair of shoes she hasn’t paid for; a prostitute cleans out a bank manager in a hotel somewhere. These things happened despite the goodness of people’s hearts, and at times like that it was nice to know there was someone you could call. What was even nicer was when that someone called back a few days later and said: ‘Don’t worry. You can rest assured the press won’t find out about it…’ Even more wonderful than that was when the voice said: ‘Forget about it. I’ve had a word with the officer in charge of the investigation and he assured me there are no grounds to take the matter any further. I think he’s typing up the final report as we speak…’
The conversation in which Kontio was now engaged was clearly coming to an end; the elbow of the hand holding the receiver rose from the table as he added, ‘You can rely on me. As I said, it’s a matter for the Violent Crimes unit, but in practice that doesn’t really matter. Let’s leave it a while yet. Do give Helen my regards…’
Kontio replaced the receiver, tightly pursed his lips, took a deep sigh and was clearly thinking things over, gathering the different parts ready to make his next move, and if a person’s brain really did consist of little cogs and wheels, the room would have been filled with an almighty humming and whirring. The telephone warbled again and interrupted him.
‘Kontio.’
‘Hi, Vaarala here.’
‘How’s tricks? Haven’t heard from you in a while.’
‘Well, you know what a circus this place can be.’
‘Suppose we should be grateful there’s enough money to put bread on the table.’
‘I suppose so. Gets a bit much sometimes, but can’t complain, eh… Actually, I wonder if I could have a word with you about a potential problem.’
‘I’ll pop by your place; I was just leaving.’
‘It’ll only take a few minutes. I’d…’
‘I’ll pop by.’
‘OK. Let’s say in half an hour? Pull up next to the office block and I’ll come out.’
‘Fine. Half past eleven on the forecourt.’
Kontio ended the call, and for a brief moment he was able to forget about the depressing thoughts that had plagued him for months. He smiled, and it was a shame there was nobody there to see it, because when he smiled he was just like any other old man, and it wasn’t hard to imagine happy grandchildren in his arms. Kontio didn’t have any family; his marriage had been childless and his wife had died over ten years ago. Soon he wouldn’t have anything left: his department was being closed down, the Property Theft unit was already being transferred to the Public Order Division and his subordinates were disappearing by the day in compulsory transfers to other departments.
It had been hard for Kontio to swallow. At first he hadn’t believed it would really happen, and when he finally accepted what was going on he thought that behind it all there must be a faction bent on crushing him. He’d used all his contacts and made frequent visits to the ministry – but to no avail. His only faint comfort was that he would have to be a
department-less
head of department for just four months, then retirement awaited him. But still, what was a pensioner? A frayed woollen sock that nobody respected.
Kontio dialled an internal extension and someone answered immediately.
‘It’s me,’ he growled. ‘Get me a car. I’ll be in the parking bay in five minutes.’
He stood up, pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and walked towards the filing cabinet. He unlocked one of the doors and slid it to one side. The upper shelf was full of neatly folded plastic bags, hundreds of them. He selected two of them, with firm fingers folded them smaller and pushed them into his trouser pocket. Finally he locked the cabinet, took his jacket from the back of his chair and stopped at the door to look behind him, as though he suspected that someone might come into the office and snoop around, but he couldn’t think of anything that others might have noticed and stepped out into the corridor.
Hämäläinen was driving with Kontio in the passenger seat. The men sat in silence: Kontio because he was thinking and Hämäläinen because he’d learned to be quiet – he knew how to read his boss and his expressions.
Hämäläinen was a slightly older senior constable who knew that this was as far as his career in the police force would go, and perhaps Kontio’s company fascinated him as it felt good even being close to power and everything that he himself had never achieved. He knew a lot about Kontio, things that many people would have paid to find out, but he was unflinchingly loyal to his superior, though he didn’t always understand why.
‘What kind of man is Harjunpää?’ Kontio asked out of the blue.
‘Just… part of the furniture, really.’
‘Does he drink?’
‘I’ve seen him have one or two in the sauna, but he’s never passed out or anything like that. I did hear that once he was apparently so drunk that Mäki managed to slip a pair of Ulla’s knickers into his pockets, and as he reached for his wallet on the train, they fell out and he was…’
‘I mean – if someone claimed he’d been on night shift and had one or two to drink, would anyone believe it?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘What’s he like otherwise?’
‘Well… he used to be a bit uptight, but he’s changed. Stenu said he’d heard his wife had joined the church. Maybe that could’ve affected him.’
‘Drive in there, then park by that window with the blinds half shut. Wait in the car.’
Hämäläinen steered the Lada through the gate and into the terminal area, skilfully driving between the lorries, and parked where he’d been instructed. Kontio got out of the car and Hämäläinen stayed where he was. The air was thick with the stink of diesel oil and exhaust fumes; the lorries’ motors roared and pneumatic brakes hissed. Cars came and went, and it occurred to him that millions of marks’ worth of freight must pass through this area every year and that losses were probably considerable, at least twenty million marks a year. Things disappeared as packages fell apart, address labels came off, parcels were sent to the wrong recipients and left lying around here and there. That’s how it must happen, in little droplets.
The matter was once considered so significant that a separate division for harbour and freight crimes had been established and Hämäläinen had worked there in the past. But with all the other upheavals that had racked the force, that too had been discontinued, and this had been the only time he had felt a certain contempt towards Kontio: the incident was the first time Kontio had supported the closure of a unit under his direct supervision.
Kontio strode towards the door, his hands on his backside, thoughts racing through his mind. He felt a comforting sense of expectation, like a child on Christmas Eve, and he was enjoying it so much that he almost hoped Vaarala would be slightly late. But he hadn’t even made it to the door when Vaarala dashed outside. The man was in his forties, thin and carefully groomed. He was wearing red, expensive-looking shoes, which he’d probably bought on his last trip to Italy, and on his little finger there was a white-gold ring with a small, gleaming diamond. Kontio’s sense of contentedness was suddenly gone.
‘How’s it going?’
‘All right. You know how it is, trucks in and out, freight moving from place to place.’
‘That’s the way it is. Sorry, I’ve got to be at a meeting in fifteen minutes. Fancy lunch later in the week?’
‘OK. The Fisher’s Croft Hotel is a decent place. Thursday at one?’
‘Fine. Let’s take a walk over there. Let me get straight to the point: my sister popped round yesterday. She’s having a spot of bother with you lot.’
Kontio murmured something indistinct and didn’t look at the other man. He merely stared at the ground in front of him so that Vaarala
couldn’t
read his expressions but could only see how concentrated he was on the matter in hand. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Vaarala seemed rather ill at ease.
‘Who’s leading the investigation?’
‘There is no investigation – really. They’re keeping an eye on her bloke. She mentioned someone called Lampinen. His name’s Reino Leinonen. He did over a couple of deposit boxes a few years back
apparently
, but he was never convicted. He’s been clean for a while now, but this Lampinen’s still on his tail.’
‘Then he’s up to something.’
‘But my sister comes here in tears and swears he isn’t. Reino and his brother have got themselves jobs as subcontractors for a firm that does up old digging machines before shipping them to Russia and the Baltics. It’s small-time stuff, but he’s trying to keep on the straight and narrow… And he’s worried he’ll lose credibility if the police are always hanging around him.’
‘And you’re sure there’s nothing else going on?’ Kontio asked and looked up suddenly, and the look in his eyes made Vaarala start.
‘No… why would I cover for him? It’s my sister I’m trying to help here, she’s had to put up with enough as it is.’
They stopped by an empty truck. Kontio put his foot on the step, and now he was no longer a guest – he was the lord of the manor. Vaarala rummaged for his cigarettes.
‘Smoke?’
‘Nope. You see, this is a tricky business,’ he said slowly and he wasn’t lying. It was particularly tricky for him as he wasn’t really on speaking terms with Järvi – or Lampinen, for that matter. He and Järvi had started out together and had ended up fighting for the same supervisor vacancies, but it had been too much for Järvi when Kontio was appointed
departmental
chief inspector. By way of compensation, the Special Unit had been tailored for Järvi, back in the days before people knew anything about profit responsibility, but now it seemed as though Järvi had once again drawn the short straw. And wasn’t Kontio the one behind it all in the first place?
‘It’s a tricky business.’
‘On a different subject… I hear you’ll be retiring in the not-
too-distant
future. There’s been some talk round here of establishing a small Security unit to help train our drivers going to Italy and the east. And I’m sure we’ll need to consult an expert every now and then…’
‘I’m retiring in April next year. But let me have a think about this business with your sister.’
‘Excellent. I knew I could rely on you.’
‘What’s this?’ Kontio exclaimed, his voice mockingly playful, and pulled the carrier bags out of his back pocket. ‘I wonder what these empty bags can be doing in my pocket.’
‘Hmm,’ Vaarala chuckled conspiratorially, but a look of disdain flashed across his eyes. ‘They’re clever bags, you see. They don’t feel very well because their stomachs are empty. Maybe they had a hunch they might find something to remedy that around here.’
‘Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing.’
‘Why don’t we go and have a look in my car. I thought I heard something jingling in the boot when I drove into work this morning…’
They came to a stop behind Vaarala’s Volvo. Kontio glanced around vigilantly; he’d done so every now and then throughout their
conversation
, but now he was particularly careful. Everything was fine; nobody was
staring at them and Hämäläinen looked as though he was reading something in the car.
Then he looked into the boot of Vaarala’s car and his satisfaction returned, stronger than before, and his mouth watered as though he had stepped up to a table laden with treats. The boot was full of treats too, cartons of cigarettes piled up, bottles of Chivas Regal in discreet packages, boxes of chocolates and bottles of perfume, dark strings of salami and small tins of preserves, foie gras, all manner of things. Kontio let out a faint sigh and took hold of the side of the boot.
Vaarala hastily filled the bags and finally weighed them as if to say ‘that’ll keep you going’, but Kontio cleared his throat and said quietly: ‘Another carton of cigarettes. The red ones.’
‘You don’t even smoke…’
‘For the boy in the car. He’s a good officer.’
‘Very well,’ Vaarala snorted, stuffed another carton of Pall Malls into one of the bags and handed them back to Kontio. After this they didn’t look at one another again; it was a rule of sorts. Vaarala was already
thinking
of his upcoming meeting and Kontio of his home and of emptying the bags. And above the roar of engines and the smell of exhaust fumes he felt suddenly happy and almost excited, just like the time when, as a little boy, Old Vähä-Hinkka’s farm girl had lifted up her blouse in the barn and placed his hand on her bare breasts.