The Bodyguard (15 page)

“Why would she say that?”

“I told her that I’d met a very charming woman, and I was going to spend the rest of my life with her. And that she’s Finnish, so the family traditions won’t disappear. What do you say, some sparkling wine for the occasion? What’s on the menu tonight? Hopefully plenty of protein.”

We both chose the smoked salmon, a bit of bubbly as an aperitif, and a bottle of white wine to accompany the fish. Now I just had to make sure that David drank most of it. He was pretty talkative again, blathering on and on about his childhood, sailing, getting lost in the fog. I noticed that I, too, divulged more about my past than usual. I even told him about Hevonpersiinsaari, and that it translates as Horse’s Ass Island, just like I’d told my academy friends, and it made him laugh.

“Your Uncle Jari sounds like a nice guy. You’re lucky to be raised by someone like him. Who was your best friend when you were growing up? Don’t girls always have one special friend, whereas boys roam around in groups?”

“Frida. Frida was my best friend.”

“Frida? That’s a Swedish name. I didn’t know Finnish Swedes lived in that area.”

“They don’t. Frida wasn’t human; she was a lynx. An orphaned lynx cub that Uncle Jari found and brought home.”

“You had a lynx as a pet?”

“She wasn’t a pet. She was a friend. My sister.”

David’s phone buzzed with a text message. As he read it, his brow wrinkled and his cheeks tightened. He read it again and started typing a reply. I wondered whether he could change the alphabet on his keyboard to write in Cyrillic, or whether he transliterated Russian words using the Roman alphabet. He let the phone drop loudly onto the table, and after a moment’s hesitation, he picked it up again and turned it off.

“I’m sorry, but there’s a change of plans. I need to leave by nine in the morning. Unfortunately, this business can’t wait.”

“So you work on Sundays, too?”

“If the client insists. But let’s not focus on that—we should enjoy the time we have together. Tell me more about Frida.”

The only photo I’d ever carried in my wallet was of Frida. I hadn’t shown it to many people. Once to my landlady on Morton Street when she was properly high on cocaine, and once to Mike Virtue during a weak moment, just when I’d heard that Uncle Jari had passed away. Even Monika had never seen Frida’s picture, although she knew about her. David would now be the third keeper of my secret. The picture barely fit behind the plastic window in my wallet, hidden under my driver’s license.

“There. Frida is about two years old in this one. Uncle Jari drove all the way to Kuopio to get this photo developed in case someone in Kaavi or Outokumpu would see it and start asking questions.”

“What a beautiful creature! We should go to Saaremaa together sometime. The lynx population there has grown to about six hundred because of the number of deer in the area.”

I thought about Helena’s photo from Saaremaa. Combining David and lynx sounded great. Of course I would go.

“I like islands. Saaremaa, Åland Islands, Corsica, Iceland, Irelan
d . . .
they’re all great,” David continued.

“Out of that list, I’ve only been to Åland Islands a couple of times for work. Monika von Hertzen, my employer before Anita Nuutinen, had friends over there. My teacher at the Queens security academy, Mike Virtue, was Irish on his mother’s side, and you could tell. I mean, in a good way.” Suddenly I saw his red hair and green eyes in front of me, the freckles on his face washed out by the years. Although Mike spoke in controlled American English, after a few pints, he would revert to his native Irish accent, and I had a hard time understanding him.

“I promise to take you to Corsica as soon as we both have time in our schedules. Thank you; it was delicious,” David switched to English to reply to the waitress who had come for the plates. “Would you like to have dessert?”

The dessert I desired wasn’t displayed in a bakery case or in the freezer. I had to make do with ice cream. David had turned his phone off and I had no clue about his security code. I wanted to know who had called and texted him. I felt like my whole information-gathering project was falling apart. All I had found out so far was that David Stahl had a strong libido.

People fresh out of the sauna came to the restaurant for a nightcap. It sounded like they were having a debate about energy policy. A man with shiny red hair reaching almost down to his butt claimed loudly that plans for the seventh nuclear plant had already been drawn up and that the Green union was an unwilling stooge to a pro-nuclear government. Others insisted this wasn’t true. I had no opinion on nuclear power, but Uncle Jari had been firmly against it.

David leaned over to kiss me in a way that indicated we should leave. We walked outside to the platform where summer dances were held; it was built into the cliff and we stood there, looking up at the stars. Back in the room, our clothes came off right away, and we almost fell out of bed. I didn’t know where I began and where he ended.

“Where are you going tomorrow?” I panted, trying hard to remain focused on my investigation.

“I can’t tell you right now. Clients don’t trust blabbermouths. You know that, Hilja,” was all David said. He spoke only when he wasn’t making love to me, and then there was no need for words, only moans and cries. David kissed my mouth shut and didn’t let go of my lips until he came. I had never in my life cried for joy, unless you included while watching a sappy movie, but now I could’ve shed tears. It was almost embarrassing.

“Can I tell you a fairy tale?” David asked later.

“A fairy tale?”

“That’s right. There was a prince and a princess, like there always is. They aren’t very young anymore, and queens and kings aren’t forcing them to get married or to kiss frogs. The princess is pretty, of course, but the prince leaves a lot to be desired: he’s large, and he’s bald. But because they were the prince and the princess, they were meant for each other. The prince knows that the princess can kill dragons on her own, but he still wants to protect her. Because that’s how princes are.” David paused and pressed his head against my chest. The hallway echoed in laughter and doors slammed; someone was wishing someone else a good night. When David lifted his head to continue his story, his cheeks were wet.

“The prince had his own battles to fight, like princes always do. You know how they have to solve three puzzles and live through three trials before they get the princess. This prince knew that the princess wouldn’t be waiting for him atop the glass mountain; she could come and rescue him, like some princesses rescue their brothers who have been turned into ravens, or their friends who are under the spell of Snow Queens. But right now, this prince has to fight his own battle alone, at least for a while. But should he need the princess’s help, will she come?”

“She will,” I replied, although I didn’t even know what I was agreeing to.

“Then they’ll leave everything behind. They’ll take off their crowns and they’ll go to a desert island or to a mountain village in Corsica where they don’t need to be the prince and the princess any longer; they can forget the pressures of the throne. And they’ll live happily ever after. That’s how fairy tales end.”

I fell into a dreamlike state in David’s warmth and scent. At one point I did get up to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. It was quiet, only the wind rattled the trees outside. I wondered whether I should give David my real phone number. After all, I’d already shown him a picture of Frida; how bad would it be to give him my number?

People began stirring in the building around seven, and I woke up before David. His face, softened by sleep, was like a boy’s; I could easily imagine what he’d looked like in grade school, sailing and playing soccer in Tammisaari. I still had some time to investigate, to go through David’s stuff. He’d told me he needed to be gone by nine, but I hadn’t seen him set an alarm. When I sat up as quietly as I could, though, David opened his eyes and smiled at me.

“Hilja. I was afraid it had all been a dream.”

I hadn’t had my fill of him yet; we had to make love once more. Would I ever get enough of him? Although our lovemaking was hasty and melancholy, it was still genuine. We went for breakfast together, and the restaurant was already empty. The innkeeper told us that the Green group had gone out to the dance platform for their lecture because it was so warm outside. The sun was as hot as it’d been in the height of summer, although it was nearly time for the fall equinox. I wasn’t surprised that the seasons were crazy; my world had just been shaken to its core, too.

David paid the bill and told me to keep his room if I wanted to stay a while, but I went to grab my things before I walked him to his car. I was about to kiss him good-bye when I saw Helena and a couple of others walk to the parking lot to pick up a stack of papers from Ulla’s car. They didn’t greet me, but I missed my good-bye kiss because of them. David just hugged me quickly, got into his car, and was gone.

While Ulla and another woman began carting the folders toward the dance platform, Helena stayed behind.

“Was this your mysterious friend, the one you weren’t sure could be trusted?”

“That’s the one.”

“Did he go to the security academy in New York, as well?”

“No. I just happen to know him.”

“Strange that he didn’t seem to recognize me. I talked to him last year because of this article I was writing. We met in Saint Petersburg; a detective I know from the security policy hooked us up. Of course you know that David Stahl works for Europol. He specializes in relations between the EU and Russia.”

15

I made Helena tell me her story three times. She’d met David Stahl in Saint Petersburg. His expertise was in energy. Earlier he’d been investigating black-market oil and how electricity produced by nuclear energy was being sold without a paper trail. Since then he’d switched to Nord Stream’s new gas pipeline project in the Gulf of Finland. His mission was top secret, and Helena had to go through multiple channels to get into the same room with him. Although she was a Finnish politician, Stahl hadn’t immediately trusted her. Helena began to regret telling me all this; she’d assumed I had known what Stahl did.

Luckily someone needed to speak with her, and I had some time to come up with an explanation. What had I just thought about my world shaking? Now the tsunami had swept away everything I had imagined, leaving behind only smooth sand. David Stahl didn’t work for Paskevich; he was on my side.

I ran to the beach, took off all my clothes, and swam in the cold water. I had to feel that my body was following my orders again. In the past twenty-four hours, it had been loved so much it now responded with gratitude. I got dressed again and walked briskly back to the inn. I did some cartwheels to the amusement of the Green League members who were hurrying to lunch. I used the shower in Ulla and Helena’s room, but the only dry shirt I had was the shiny black one from the night before, which still smelled like David. David, who hadn’t sold his soul to Paskevich. My energy renewed, I snatched a couple of rolls from the lunch buffet before biking to my cabin to get Anita’s safe. I managed to cram it into my backpack. I left without looking around the place. The seminar would be finished by two, and it was time to get back to Kirkkonummi. Lyrics from an Ismo Alanko song echoed in my mind—
I’m rudely full of life
—and I felt as if nothing could stop me.

I dropped my bike in its familiar hiding place in the ditch and waited for Ulla and Helena to pick me up on the side of the road. There were two other people in the backseat this time, so I squeezed in as the third. The vehicle was small and energy-efficient—a true Green League car—but my legs were cramped by the time we reached Kirkkonummi. Even that didn’t bring me down. I took a few minutes to stretch my legs and then began to organize Helena’s bookshelf again. I’d actually always loved to organize things in alphabetical order, although I didn’t own more than about twenty books—a person’s collection could reveal too much. At least music could be hidden inside an MP3 player.

Helena and I both went to bed early. I thought about sending David a text message, but then decided against it. He still didn’t have my new phone number, but I was pretty convinced that a Europol man could find it if he wanted to. And I had to cool myself down a bit; my body remembered his touch too well, wanted it more, endlessly. In my dreams I mated with a lynx—he bit me on my neck, his feline penis barbed.

The morning bus meandered through busy Hanko Road and smaller local streets. Helena read a memo about changes in waste-water legislation; a representative of the people had to work for her salary. Anita had always sneered when talking about politicians, believing it was good that they got paid so poorly. It made it easier to influence them, maybe in the form of financing their campaigns. Anita had supported representatives from Kymi, the district in which Kotka was located, regardless of their political leanings. In other words, she supported the candidates for all three major parties.

Leaving Helena on the bus, I got off in Hanasaari and walked along the shore to Lehtisaari. I had run on these familiar paths around Keilalahti before. Whatever clothing I still had at Anita’s house was tattered and ready to be thrown out. She’d provided the linen, and besides my clothes, the only personal item I had brought with me after I’d been hired was a magazine clipping of a lynx that I had pinned above my bed. Anita should have realized that lynx were important to me, but then I realized she may have never gone into my room to see the picture. The murder investigation had been closed before it really ever started in Finland, so the police had never even searched her home.

Anita had lived in a row-house condo. The residents had hired a groundskeeper, who was now raking the first fallen leaves in the yard. When he recognized me, he took a step closer and gave me a quizzical look. I quickly pressed the doorbell to get away from him; he was surely after some meaty gossip.

Cecilia Nuutinen-Kekki must have been waiting for me, given how swiftly she opened the door after I rang. She didn’t look much like her mother; she was almost too skinny and small-boned in general. The black color of her hair was most likely from a bottle; it only highlighted how pale she was. Cecilia was thirty, a couple years younger than me, but her face was already etched with deep wrinkles. She held a Masters of Science in economics and business, and worked at an international brokerage company whose name I had forgotten.

“Please come in.”

The condo was familiar, yet so unfamiliar. I recognized most of the furniture, including the enormous leather sofa and armchairs Anita had bought from Milan and the art she had called “investment paintings”; they were supposed to be sold for profit later, but in the meantime they made a nice pair of images. The glass table in the living room supported a laptop and an open briefcase. A wireless printer spit out paper in the middle of the floor. Anita would’ve hated how the printer destroyed the room’s symmetry.

Although Cecilia may not have looked like her mother, her movements were similar. She walked with purposeful strides peppered with oddly jerky movements. I had once seen Anita dance, and she had absolutely no sense of rhythm. She listened to music only when she was forced to. Once I had followed her and a Russian client to the opera. While the Russian had laughed and sang along to
The Marriage of Figaro
, Anita had looked positively tormented. She only clapped at the end so as not to insult her companion. That evening’s suffering paid off, though; Anita sold the client an island property in Taipalsaari, breaking the municipality’s record for the highest sale price.

Cecilia wasn’t sure where to start. She finally asked me to tell her again why I had quit. She still didn’t buy my story. When her phone rang and she picked it up without excusing herself, I went to my old room. The cleaning lady had removed the sheets from the bed and had arranged my stuff at its foot. There was no sign of the lynx clipping. The trash can was empty, too. I tossed my old underwear there. My pajamas were a relic from the previous winter and were too hot to wear now. One of the T-shirts had a hole in the armpit, but that could be fixed.

“Where did you go?” Cecilia appeared at the door. “I had to take that call. There’s a financial crisis going on in the United States, and it affects everyone, even us. At least Mom didn’t have to be here to watch the value of her investments tumble.”

“Are you going to inherit her assets?”

“I don’t know yet. Do you? Mom had a will—you know how particular she was about money. God, I really don’t have the time to organize this funeral, but it’s going to be held at the Temppeliaukio church on Friday afternoon. It was the only time they had available. Her obituary will be in the papers tomorrow, and we’ll have the memorial service here at home. We have plenty of room for it, that’s for sure. There is a caterer to take care of the food, but I have no idea how many people are coming. You will be there, right?” It was more like an order than a request.

“If I’m welcome.” I thought of Laitio. In books and movies, police always showed up at funerals when someone was murdered. But this was real life. The security academy had taught me well that reality was more horrifying than anything a storyteller could imagine; it crept up on you with unpleasant surprises again and again.

“These are mine, by the way,” I said, and pointed to the clothes I hadn’t packed yet.

“That’s what Felicia and I thought; they weren’t Mother’s size.” Felicia was Anita’s cleaning lady, a mail-order bride from the Philippines who had grown tired of sitting in the sticks in Kesälahti with nothing to do, divorced her husband, and moved to Helsinki to find a job. At least here there were other Filipinos she could speak her own language with. In Anita’s worldview Felicia was from a class below me, and Anita had done her best to prevent us from being friends. I guess she was afraid that we’d gang up on her. I needed to chat with Felicia—she’d been working for Anita for three years, even when Anita and Valentin Paskevich had still been romantically involved.

“Do you know who took care of your mother’s finances? As far as I know, she had a safety deposit box, but I never found out in which bank,” I asked. Anita had split her money into so many banks that the options were too numerous. The safe weighed heavy in my backpack, but I didn’t want to tell Cecilia about it just yet.

“She used the law firm Mikaelsson and Ainasoja. Johan Mikaelsson was in charge of her personal affairs. I’ve already talked with him; they have her will. Apparently it comes with a hefty list of properties.” Cecilia let her face relax for a moment, but her expression didn’t quite qualify as a smile. “We scheduled the reading for Saturday, the day after the funeral. I need to get back to Hong Kong as soon as I can.”

I figured that Mikaelsson would know about the safety deposit box, but it would be a bit too forward of me to mention it before the will was read. Now would’ve been a great time to show Cecilia what I had in my backpack, but I decided not to. We walked back to the living room where the printer was still spewing out paper. There was a pile an inch thick in front of it. The sheets were filled with numbers that meant nothing to me.

“Mother didn’t want me to touch her finances, although I’m an investment advisor,” Cecilia said. “It’s just frustrating, waiting here, knowing that her properties could be seriously devalued if the stock market collapses.”

“Are you worried that your inheritance will be gone in a flash?”

Cecilia was startled by my tone of voice. “My, aren’t you prickly. I don’t even know if there will be any inheritance for me. Who knows, this house may already be owned by the bank, all the way down to the doorknobs. Mother always took risks, and this is the result. By the way, some Finnish politician has been claiming that she didn’t believe the Moscow militia. You know, that a homeless man had killed my mother. I haven’t kept up with Finnish politics enough to remember her name. I think she was in the Coalition Party.”

“Helena Lehmusvuo. Green League. My current employer.”

Cecilia’s eyebrows flew up so quickly I thought they’d be forever lost in her bangs.

“Well, you certainly didn’t waste any time! You already have a new boss?” Cecilia took a breath. “Whatever. Let me ask you something. Who do you think killed my mother?”

“Well, they found that drunkard,” I said, avoiding the question.

“Even the Finnish police aren’t buying that! I had a chat with the Chief Constabl
e . . .
what was his name? Laiho something.”

“Laitio?”

“That’s right, Laitio. He insisted that the militia had been bribed, but the Finnish police had their hands tied, because those higher up in the government food chain don’t want to rock the boat, given our lukewarm relationship with Russia. And here I was, thinking that we had finally stopped bending over backward to the East, being a EU member state and all. I’m ashamed to be a Finn! I know, I know—Valentin has friends among the politicians and the oligarchs who fund those politicians, but it’s just unbelievable that such lawlessness is allowed in Russia, which is supposedly, according to Putin, doing its best to become a modern state. I’d sort of understand if the victim had been a Russian citizen, but I thought they’d still care about foreigners being killed in their country. Although I know it’s a dog-eat-dog world, why on earth do we have police and a justice system when they’re good for nothing?” Cecilia pulled a small silver box out of her pocket and opened it. She slipped a piece of chewing gum into her mouth. “I quit smoking a year ago, but ever since Mother died, I’ve been craving cigarettes again. Thank God for nicotine gum.”

Cecilia’s phone rang again. It sounded like it was a friend or a relative of Anita’s asking about the funeral. I waited for her to finish, but the longer the conversation went on, the clearer it became that she wasn’t going to hurry to get off her call on my account. I was, after all, the person who had indirectly caused her mother’s death. I couldn’t rummage through Anita’s things with Cecilia standing there, and she had asked me to return my set of house keys.

I’d sum up our conversation in one word: disappointing. Cecilia had been gone from Finland for so long that she barely knew what her mother had been up to. They had spoken over Skype and exchanged e-mails, but Anita hadn’t revealed very much about her business to her daughter. According to Cecilia, only a fool would talk about these things on such an unsecure method of communication.

“But I have to tell you, Mother humiliated Valentin so badly that he couldn’t have let it go without seeking revenge. Though his real estate holdings are just a small part of his empire, he’d certainly feel threatened if he lost millions of rubles. I happen to know one of Valentin’s bankers. If he ever made a mistake with Valentin’s accounts, he’d be better off killing himself before Valentin’s men got ahold of him.”

Cecilia presented this as if it was a fact of life. The security academy at Queens had been an international school, so we were taught how to handle security threats in various countries. The Russian mafia, the Camorra in Naples, Colombian drug lords. I had been naive to think they’d never enter Finland.