The Bodyguard (24 page)

On Friday I found myself in a place where I’d never thought I’d be: sitting in a meeting room in the Government Palace around the same table as the prime minister, the home secretary, the director of the National Security Police, Helena, and Laitio. Laitio was still wearing his tartan slipper and, judging by the smell, he’d smoked enough cigars to last him for a while.

The meeting was mostly about how to make the Vasiliev case go away without endangering Finland’s relationship with Russia. Helena was back to her old feisty self, saying that the Russian leaders should absolutely know about Vasiliev’s plans—there could be other people who might also try to sabotage the gas pipeline Helena was so passionately against. The group around the table had found out through Europol and Interpol that Boris Vasiliev had been in touch with a man from Belarus, Ivan Gezolian, who was known for his connections with Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. An anonymous Europol agent had infiltrated Vasiliev’s team and confirmed that Vasiliev had a deal to purchase the isotope, most likely from Ivan Gezolian. Europol wasn’t quite sure what had happened to the deal in the end. The agent had let them know about the isotope transaction on the day it was supposed to occur, but after that he had become unreachable. A hydroplane registered to Gezolian’s company had been spotted at a harbor in Saint Petersburg the day before the explosion, but no other connections between Vasiliev and Gezolian had been found.

“The waters were searched after the
I Believe
exploded, and the remains of at least four male individuals were found. They are being identified right now, but it won’t be easy. These investigations take time and money. On top of that, nobody has been reported missing, except that agent from Europol,” Laitio said.

“Does he have a name?” asked the home secretary. “This hero shouldn’t remain anonymous.”

Of course I knew what was coming next.

“David Daniel Stahl,” said Laitio. “Born in Tammisaari; a Finnish citizen although he spent most of his youth in Tartu and went to the police academy in Sweden. Among his colleagues he was known as
finnjävel
, the Finnish Devil, for not being a team player and for devising unorthodox plans that involved huge risks. He was chosen for the infiltration operation because of his language skills: he speaks Russian, Swedish, and Estonian, and understands enough Finnish to get by.”

David had never let on to me how good his Finnish was; maybe he didn’t think it was all that important. The meeting ended with a resolution to keep any information related to Vasiliev a secret, under the highest security classification among the government and the police. It meant that Helena and I had to keep our mouths shut for now. Paskevich and Trankov were placed on a banned-entry list; if they tried to come into the country, they would be arrested at the border. Everyone seemed to hope that would never happen, as it would only attract media attention, which might then put the government and senior police administration in an awkward position.

“How about the isotope that went missing—if it even existed? Is Europol after that?” asked Helena when everyone else was already eager to finish the briefing.

“We’re keeping tabs on everything, of course,” said Laitio. He fumbled with his cigar, then shoved it in his mouth without lighting it. “There’s a chance there was no deal, and that Gezolian was just scamming Vasiliev. Took the money and then blasted the boat to kingdom come. That’s the natural order of things, you know: the bigger fish eat the smaller ones. Wish we knew who the biggest fish is.” Laitio looked around and grinned. “Wait a second—will the biggest fish be me if I light up this cigar in here? Hey, Nupponen, what’s the current fine for breaking the tobacco law? I can’t remember. Or does the head of National Security Police have a better idea? Aren’t we so goddamned lucky to be protected against such evils?”

That was the end of the meeting. Laitio was allowed to sneak out to smoke his cigar. The ministers went back to their business, and Helena stayed behind to chat with Director Nupponen about setting up protection for her in the future. The government would pay for her bodyguard in the short term, but that wouldn’t be public knowledge. Helena had offered me the job, but I’d declined. I needed to move on. I had too much on my mind—and it wasn’t all because of Vasiliev.

My period was a few days late, which was very unusual for me. Was I pregnant? An IUD wasn’t one-hundred-percent foolproof and when we’d made love the last time, David and I hadn’t even used a condom. The thought of getting pregnant hadn’t even crossed my mind then.

As I stepped out to Senate Square, I saw Laitio smoking his cigar on the steps of the church. He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. I walked over to him.

“Smoke?” he asked.

“Are these the bad ones you mentioned?”

“No. I gave those to the drunkards at Tikkuraitti pub. This is a genuine Cohiba, and you look like you could use one, Ilveskero. That’s a prettier name than Suurluoto, by the way.”

“You’re right. I can’t complain about the name. Do you happen to know where Keijo Suurluoto, AKA Keijo Kurkimäki, is living these days?”

“Where he’s been for the past thirty years. In the hospital for mentally ill prisoners.”

“You’re saying he hasn’t been pardoned?”

“He hasn’t even petitioned for a pardon. You haven’t looked him up?”

I shook my head. That was all the information I needed for now. I wouldn’t be reaching out to him any time soon. He would be safe from me, too; he would be an easy target for my pent-up rage. Laitio prepped a cigar for me and lit it. Too bad Reiska was too poor to afford cigars. They smelled better than regular cigarettes.

“Oh, and about that Yuri Trankov,” added Laitio. “He’s Valentin Paskevich’s bastard son. A dirty word: bastard. Not really used in modern language for that purpose anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Trankov was trying hard to get his father’s approval. I guess that’s why he came after you. He probably thought he could use you to find out what had happened to Nuutinen. That information would’ve definitely endeared him to Paskevich. The boy is smarter than his father, though. Be careful of Trankov; you might run into him again.”

A busload of eager Japanese tourists fanned out over the square, taking pictures of the church, the university building, and the statue of Alexander the Second. Did they even know who they were taking pictures of? I wondered, not for the first time, why the Russian czar was featured so prominently in the Finnish capital.

“Lo, the statue of Alexander the Second still stands, stands the dead czar in the mist, missed and loved by the people. Lo, the bright eye of the lion of justice shimmers through the fog,” recited Laitio out of the blue, heavy on the poetic rhythm and pathos. “Recognize the poem?”

“No.”

“It’s called ‘Helsinki in the Mist
,
’ by Eino Leino. It’s a mist you have to get used to. Alexander the Second gave us Finns plenty of freedom, but even he couldn’t do anything about Finland’s geographic location. We just have to keep on fulfilling the tasks of this lion of justice. You and that Stahl, were you good friends?”

The change of subject was so sudden that the cigar almost slipped out of my mouth. I grabbed it quickly between my fingers.

“I don’t think I ever told you we’d met.”

“Come on! I’m a cop, you know. I don’t need a lie detector to tell me when I’m being fooled. Every time we mentioned Stahl, your pupils became oddly enlarged. And why did you have to reveal that you knew him? Only because you wanted to say his name out loud. That’s how women in love behave.”

“I suppose so.” I blinked my eyes and tried to create enough smoke to hide my face.

“Love. What a curious thing. It certainly doesn’t make life any easier, but it’s damned nice when you find it,” said Laitio. A black car pulled in front of him. A redheaded woman in a police uniform stepped out and opened the back door for Laitio.

“Need a ride?” he offered. “I can’t drive myself just yet, so I’m using these interns as my chauffeurs.”

“No, thanks. I’ll walk,” I said, not knowing at all where I was heading.

Once I completed my contract with Helena, I took some time off to spend a few days in Hevonpersiinsaari. It seemed like the only place where I could relax. Torbacka was contaminated by too many memories: I still felt David roaming in the forests, waiting for me at the Kopparnäs Inn. I’d told the Hakkarainens that I was going to be around. Matti had offered to pick me up from the bus stop at either Outokumpu or Kaavi, but I declined. I’d rather use a rental car.

I took the train to Kuopio, and once we passed Mikkeli, I felt my period start. I didn’t know whether I was relieved or disappointed; both, I suppose. I had grown up without parents and didn’t want to bring a fatherless child into this world, but there was a part of me that wanted to carry David’s child. Our child. It was as if I had lost the final traces of him with the blood flowing out of me.

My rental Peugot took me onward from Kuopio. Although there was no snow yet, the temperature was below freezing and the puddles on the road were covered in thin, brittle ice, just as the edges of lakes and ponds were. Darkness had already fallen by three p.m., so it was comforting to see that the Hakkarainens had placed a lantern on the side of the road. They’d even heated up the cabin and left a light on, and I found a tray of small Karelian pies on the table, carefully wedged between two napkins. The fridge was on, stocked with a mixture of boiled eggs and butter for the pies, some home-brewed beer, and two smoked whitefish.

I ate one of the pies and unpacked most of my clothes. Then I went outside. On my way here, I had purchased a small candle lantern and a bunch of white roses. Although the path leading to the rock next to the rose bush was now overgrown, I was still able to find it. The bush was bare, and the roses I’d brought would freeze in seconds. The ground was hard and covered in frost. I set the flowers in water—the tin can I’d brought to use as a vase wouldn’t break, even if the water froze overnight. I lit the candle and thought about singing a song. Lyrics from various songs came to mind:
life is forever for five minutes, it was happiness only for half an hour, when your eyes have lynx in them
. I knelt next to the candle and listened to the ice on the lake began to tinkle as frost crept over the water to Hevonpersiinsaari. When the next cloud drifted above me, it began to snow slowly.

24

The metal detector at the airport went off. Because it was a female passenger that had triggered it, I stepped forward and asked her to spread her arms.

“Must’ve been these shoes of mine,” she said cheerfully. “They always make these things beep.”

Then why didn’t you put them on the conveyor belt, you moron, I wanted to ask her, but I continued searching her with a blank expression and then asked that she take her shoes off and walk through the gate again. This time it remained mute.

Working security at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport was boring, which is why it suited me so well. I didn’t need any more action. Nowadays I had enough drama when a teenage boy tried to smuggle nine ounces of shampoo in his backpack and the entire family started arguing about it, or when we had to confiscate one lady’s antique pearl scissors she had inherited because she wasn’t allowed to take them on the plane. I memorized all the rules and I stuck to them. It was a nice change.

Riikka had moved in with her boyfriend, so her room was empty. Jenni was planning on going to the UK after Easter to participate in a student exchange program in Cambridge. Our little commune was going to be breaking up forever. Jenni’s sister and her friends were interested in moving to Untamo Road, so I had to look for another apartment.

“You could move in here,” suggested Mrs. Voutilainen when I told her the news. “I have a spare room, and you wouldn’t need to pay rent if you help with the chores I can’t do anymore. These legs aren’t what they used to be, and carrying grocery bags up the stairs is quite difficult.”

I hadn’t given her an answer yet. It was a viable option, though. I had given away my lease at Torbacka—I had no desire to stay at that cabin ever again. Once I’d returned to Untamo Road, I had spent quite a lot of time with Mrs. Voutilainen. I used to enjoy being alone, but now my thoughts were so overwhelming that the only way to deal with them was to be surrounded by other people. Mrs. Voutilainen fed me her quiches and stews and nagged me about not going for a run when I obviously had a cold.

“You’ll get myocarditis! That disease doesn’t care how old you are! And don’t you already have enough heart problems—problems of the soul?”

I was embarrassed. First Laitio saw fit to comment on my love life, and now Mrs. Voutilainen? And I’d always thought I was impenetrable and someone who could easily hide her secrets. I had never even mentioned David to my neighbor.

“Yeah, I’ve had some heartaches,” I admitted to her. We were sitting together over a pot of tea and an apple pie. I had just brought her rugs in from outside and hung her clothes up to dry. It was like visiting a grandma I had never had.

“Was he a bad man?” Mrs. Voutilainen asked, curious.

“No, a very good man. But he died.”

“Was it a car accident? My goodness, why haven’t you said anything?”

“He drowned. Our relationship was short-lived—this was when I was still working for Representative Lehmusvuo and I didn’t have time to see you much.”

Mrs. Voutilainen patted me on my cheek as if I were a little child.

“I won’t tell you that there will be other men. There will be, if that’s the world’s plan for you, but first you need to let yourself grieve. Does this man have something to do with that lynx painting?”

“Partly, but he wasn’t the one who sold you the painting.”

“Would you like to have it? It’ll be your Christmas present. And if you move into my place it’ll end up back in my living room. You can take it right now. I bought it because I felt sorry for that boy, but you obviously have an emotional connection to it.”

So that’s how Yuri Trankov’s painting ended up on my wall. It wasn’t bad at all; Trankov was a much better artist than a hit man. Maybe these days he was selling his paintings near the Frunzenskaya subway station, or some other station in Moscow, and nice people like Mrs. Voutilainen bought them, and slowly Trankov was becoming a decent man.

Untamo Road had great bus connections to the airport, so commute-wise, moving in with Mrs. Voutilainen was a good idea. I also suspected that she wasn’t telling me everything about her health situation. She seemed to take cabs often to go see one doctor or another. Mrs. Voutilainen was the opposite of the stereotypical senior citizen who was constantly complaining about ailments. The students at the Queens academy whined a lot more, and they were supposed to be an elite group. Mrs. Voutilainen didn’t ask any more questions about David, and I appreciated that. I felt close to her; she never forced me to confess anything.

I received a Christmas greeting from Gary, a former neighbor on Morton Street. He threatened to come visit me in Finland and sent the latest snapshot of his massive cat, Angus. Monika kept in touch, too. We Skyped, e-mailed, and sent text messages whenever we could. She obviously had a thing going on with Jordi, but despite that, she kept on inviting me to Mozambique. There’d be a lot of work available, as new mouths to feed were born every day.

So that was the second option, and in the darkness of the Finnish winter, the thought of Africa was tempting. Of course I wouldn’t be able to whip up anything fancy in the kitchen, but I knew how to peel, chop, slice, cut wood, and carry heavy loads. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d traveled across the ocean to find my place in the world. Back then I was after a job. This time, if I left Finland to run away from my past, it would be futile—a new location couldn’t heal these memories, only time would.

I worked during Christmas. Mrs. Voutilainen had gone to her niece’s family in Sipoo and Jenni went to her parents’ cabin. I ate sushi and vegetarian pizza and didn’t give a single thought to Christmas decorations. At work I showed some Christmas spirit when I let a woman traveling to Kuopio take her Christmas pastries on the plane, although the prune filling was essentially a liquid. Luckily my fellow guards were equally laid-back.

I thought of David every single day. There were moments when I was furious at life for giving me so little time with him, but even then I was thankful for what I’d been given. Occasionally I called Helena, and on New Year’s Eve, I received an e-mail forwarded from Laitio. He advised all who received the e-mail to smoke a good cigar in celebration of the new year. As an officer of the law, though, he had to remind us that he was in no way urging us to partake of illegal activities. The message ended with a note meant only for me:

By the way, Ilveskero, you’ll be interested to know that we weren’t able to identify any of the bodies we found in the Gulf of Finland, except for Boris Vasiliev’s. His head was almost intact and we were able to verify his DNA. No information on the other victims. I hope one of them was the bastard who killed Anita Nuutinen. Nobody has David Stahl’s DNA in their files, but one of the bodies matches his age and body structure. Unfortunately, we didn’t have anything to compare to his dental records, so we can’t confirm the ID. I’ll let you know if I hear anything more. With best regards, the lion of justice, T. Laitio.

I’ve always hated January. Christmas is over and there’s no sign of natural light. January was more tolerable in New York than in Finland, where everything seemed to close down for the month. You had to lose weight, stop drinking, exercise, and take advantage of all the sales. The falling snow brightened up the world, but it would melt in a few days. Rich bastards who didn’t care about climate change took off to Southeast Asia or to ski in the Alps. Even Mrs. Voutilainen went to the Canary Islands for two weeks—her old friend had a condo there. I walked her to her gate at the airport and sternly warned her about falling in love with gigolos. I could’ve packed up and left, too, but I just wallowed in my misery at home. I now understood why Uncle Jari had enjoyed living alone in Hevonpersiinsaari without electricity or television. No stimuli from the outside, nobody telling you what to do. You could just be yourself and sleep away the dark days.

I was on the night shift on the day after Mrs. Voutilainen left for her trip. Half-asleep on my way home, I almost got run over by a car when it ignored a red light and made a turn in the intersection. Pissed off, I gave the car a good kick when it lurched onward. It was yet another freezing day, no surprise, and the biting wind ripped through my jacket hood, numbing my ears. Of course I’d lost my hat at some point. The apartment building stairwell seemed abandoned without the delicious smells of freshly baked ham quiche or apple pie. I should have forced myself to go to the gym, but I didn’t have the energy. I’d be lucky if I managed to walk down to Käpygrilli for a beer. Maybe I’d just spend the rest of the day nodding off in front of the television.

On my way in, I checked the mail: an ad for a car and a single envelope. There was no return address. It was hard to tell where it had been postmarked. Was that Spain? The envelope was plain white, the kind that was sold by the millions all over the globe. There was a card inside. I took my time going to the kitchen, getting a pair of scissors and cutting the envelope open carefully, making sure I wasn’t damaging whatever was inside.

The card had two sections and opened in the middle, like a book. The front of the card featured a lynx,
el lince ibérico
. The handwritten note inside the card was in Swedish.

Dearest Hilja,

Greetings from the southernmost habitat of the Iberian lynx. It took me almost three months to recover from the frostbite and get my life sorted out. Now I can communicate again with the outside world. I’m staying in the mountains in a small hut, kind of like your cabin in Degerby. The lynx habitat is about six miles away. The nearest town is Huelva, and the easiest way to reach it is to fly to Seville. I’ll wait for you here. You can write to me at my e-mail address, [email protected]. Come as soon as you can. I miss you terribly.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was this some diabolical joke? No way could my story end this well. I read the card again and then a third time. It was finally becoming clear that David had survived his crazy stunt and he was waiting for me in Spain. I screamed as if Finland’s soccer team had made it to the World Cup. But it had been David who’d won against Gezolian and Vasiliev, six–nil. And I was his prize. I switched my computer on to find the quickest way to get to Seville. A flight to Madrid was departing at five, so I’d be in Seville this evening.

Once I’d bought the ticket, I sent an e-mail to lo.lynx.
Dear Lo, I’ll be in Seville tonight at 11:05. My number is still the same. Let me know by text message if you can come pick me up from the airport or if I should continue on my own to somewhere else. I have a layover in Madrid. Your Hilja.

I quit my job with an e-mail message. That would get messy, but whatever. I packed only the essentials, kissed my lynx painting good-bye, and danced my way to the bus stop in the sleet. I grinned at the bus driver enough to convince him I was insane; all the other passengers were staring at me, too. I had to strain to keep from telling everyone I saw what had just happened. Only a few more hours and I’d see David again.

At the security check, I hugged all of my coworkers. I didn’t want to meet David empty-handed, so I bought him a T-shirt with a lynx on the front, size XXL. Right before I got on the plane, I received a text message from him.
Dear Hilja, I’ll be at the Seville airport waiting for you. I’ll see you soon. Lo.

I tried to catch some sleep on the plane, but it was useless. I drank a small bottle of sparkling wine, although my mind was bubbling enough already. Once I switched planes in Madrid I began to count the minutes; they went by excruciatingly slowly. I couldn’t sleep or listen to music. Below me Spain was an enormous country, freeways and roads forming strips of light that never ended.

David was waiting behind the arrival gate, and as soon as I saw him I began to sprint. He smelled the same, his lips tasted the same, his skin was warm like it used to be. The lynx had called for a mate, and the call had been answered.