The Defenceless (12 page)

‘This interview is over. My client is in shock and is not in a fit condition to continue. Besides, we still have to submit our appeal to the high court. And I’ll have to consider how best to deal with the behaviour of Senior Constable Niemi. At the very least you’ll get a written warning for this outburst. I’m going to make sure you never interview my client again. You’ll never interview anyone at all, if I have my way. I’ve heard about your attitude before.’

Esko scoffed. Anna felt mortified on his behalf. Sammy had returned to that limp, phlegmatic state. He stood up and shuffled behind his lawyer out into the corridor, where an officer from the holding cells was waiting for him.

‘Utter bullshit,’ said Esko in the staffroom. It was already evening. Anna was eating the sandwiches she hadn’t had time to touch that morning and drinking the bitter coffee burnt at the bottom of the pot.

‘What is?’

‘The kid’s story about Pakistan and the rest of it. The gangs are behind all this, the Cobras and the Hell’s Angels. There’s a full-blown turf war going on out there,’ he said and gestured out towards the city. ‘That Sammy is protecting someone else’s backside. The Cobras probably brought him here in the first place, you mark my words.’

‘I will.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll mark your words. Where should I write them?’

‘Oh, piss off. The worst thing is that the Cobras have already been operating here for a while, and we didn’t notice a thing.’

‘Sammy came to Finland over two years ago. I doubt the Cobras were even thinking about coming here back then.’

‘Sammy looked frightened when I asked him about the gangs. And the first time the Cobras tried to set up shop here was a few years ago.’

‘I still don’t think Sammy has anything to do with them. He’s just had some bad luck.’

‘Do you know what the Black Cobras are like? They’re ruthless, and their primary preoccupation is the drugs trade.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ve read hundreds of reports from Sweden and Denmark about what they get up to. It’s crazy.’

‘Aren’t things dying down a bit, in Sweden at least?’

‘The police over there have hit them hard. Maybe that’s why they want to set up here. Besides, it’s all an act. In Sweden the Cobras have stopped wearing gang emblems, so their operations have become invisible. These guys’ jackets and hoodies give us a head start.’

‘Do you think they’d take on a Finnish boy? They’re an immigrant group, after all.’

‘Initially, yes, a Muslim group, but I’m sure any kid crazy enough will do. For day-to-day street dealing it’s probably good not to stand out too much. Up here in the north, at any rate. There aren’t that many of your lot here yet, thank God. Halttu got his hands on the Angels’ gear and he had other plans for it, and I’ll bet those plans involved the Cobras – and Sammy.’

‘It sounds possible. But you behaved appallingly towards him.’

‘I didn’t say anything that old bat could use to lodge a complaint.’

‘You were downright repulsive. I feel really sorry for that boy.’

‘I don’t feel a drop of sympathy for people like that. The kid’s mixed up with an international criminal gang, he’s doubtless spreading HIV and hepatitis round the city, and now he’s in our holding cell having his cold turkey treated at our taxpayers’ expenses. For crying out loud.’

‘I really thought you’d changed.’

Esko stared at Anna with bleary eyes. His expression said it all. ‘Just because I think you’re okay does not mean I suddenly love all the wogs round here.’

Anna glanced over her shoulder to check that nobody else was around.

‘You helped one of them,’ she whispered.

‘We agreed never to talk about that again,’ Esko hissed back at her.

Anna’s telephone rang; it was Gabriella. She pressed the ‘silence’ button.

‘One of your boyfriends?’

‘That’s right, three at once.’

‘Haven’t you got yourself a bloke yet?’

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Why not? You’re not a dyke, are you?’

‘Esko, you sound like my mother.’

‘I’m just worried about you. It’s fashionable these days, being worried about things all the time. Surely I can be worried about something too?’

‘No need. Have you got a lady friend?’

‘You bet. Plenty.’

‘With your looks and charm I bet you have to chase them off with a stick.’

All at once something flashed across Esko’s face, something different from the usual arrogant, hard-boiled cop; a lonely man behind the mask. I’ve gone too far, thought Anna. What do I know about that man’s life, about what had hardened him so much? Nothing whatsoever.

‘I fancy a quick pint,’ said Esko. ‘That bitch of a lawyer really pissed me off. You coming?’

‘Just the one. I’m going for a run later.’

‘Should have guessed. Well, I’m going back to work later, so it’s only one for me too.’

Anna was already on her evening run when she noticed that Gabriella had called her another five times and sent two text messages. Anna had put her phone on silent as she and Esko entered Kaarle’s Bar on the outskirts of the city centre, near Pizzeria Hazileklek. Esko had three pints, Anna only one. She’d been tempted to ask about Esko’s past, where he was born, why he had joined the police, whether he had any children, but she didn’t have the courage. Esko didn’t like busybodies. In that respect he and Anna were similar.
The conversation had stayed on safe subjects, work and colleagues, Rauno’s drawn-out recovery from the car crash, last autumn’s hunting season when Esko had caught four hares in one day. After that Anna had gone home and Esko had returned to the station.

Anna wondered whether she should call back. Did Gabriella have anything important to say? Anna noticed she’d received another text message from her mother.
Call soon. It’s important
was all it said.

Anna turned the sound back on and called her mother straight away. Anna’s grandmother had been taken ill, her mother told her. She couldn’t eat properly and was complaining of pains in her back and stomach. She had gone to the doctor that afternoon and been sent straight to hospital for further tests. Her mother promised to call her as soon as she knew more.

Anna was worried. Grandma had always been there. She couldn’t become ill, and she absolutely couldn’t die. Grandma, that dear, wonderful, wise, warm-hearted lady who had never once moved house, but who had still lived in five different states. The borders moved, rulers came and went, names changed and maps were redrawn, but grandmothers remained constant. Or did they?

Anna burst into a sprint. She decided to run further than she had planned; it helped alleviate her distress. Sweat ran down her warm skin, though the chill pinched her cheeks. She ran back and forth through Koivuharju until her mind began to calm with the physical exertion. The phone rang in her pocket just as she was passing Ákos’s house. Anna glanced up. The lights were on in his windows.

‘Szia, Anna,’
Gabriella whooped.

‘Szia.’

‘Hogy vagy?’

‘Jól vagyok.’

‘Is there any news about the old man?’

‘
Nem
. I’ll call you as soon we hear anything.’

Anna felt the sweat on her back cooling. Her moist running clothes didn’t protect against the wind.

‘Can we meet up?’

‘I’m out running. I can’t really talk.’

‘You’re such a sports freak! I should go to the gym too.’

‘Well…’

‘Can I come round? This evening?’

‘Sorry, I’m going to my brother’s place.’

‘More Hungarians! Can I come too?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Another time.’

‘Fine, if you say so.
Szia
.’

Gabriella hung up. Anna heard the hurt in her voice, the disappointment, the homesickness. I’m an insensitive bitch, she thought, looking up at Ákos’s window and stepping into the stairwell.

Her brother didn’t open the door. Anna tried to call him; she could hear his phone ringing in the hallway. As a ring tone, ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’ sounded even more ridiculous than on disc. Anna shouted through the letterbox. Not a sound. Either he wasn’t home or he had passed out. Probably the latter. Anna wondered whether Mr Karppinen could have passed out too. Nobody had answered the door there either, not even on her second visit, when all the other residents of the apartment block in Leppioja had returned home.

The computer screen glared numbingly. Esko restlessly clicked the mouse, surfed the net, drifting from one place to the next. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He clicked open an estate agent’s website, looking for something similar to his own apartment. He wouldn’t get much for his place. The location was crap, and in all these years he hadn’t done any renovation whatsoever. Selling his apartment was beginning to seem like hard work. Perhaps he could rent it out while he was away. But then he could forget about a cottage in the woods, unless you could rent them too. Damn it, everything was so difficult. Esko moved to travel agencies’ websites and began planning a summer holiday, but soon that too seemed to bore him. Why the hell should he take off to a place with rows of hotels and
millions of other tourists? He’d never done anything like that before. Why won’t this feeling of restlessness go away? And where would I go? What’s the matter with me, he wondered nervously and felt a tight, painful sensation in his chest. He pressed his hand against the pain and rubbed his chest muscles with his knuckles. Just then there was a knock at his door and Virkkunen stepped inside.

‘Still working?’ said Pentti and looked at the computer screen. Esko quickly clicked the screen away.

‘You too, I see.’

‘Problems with your ticker?’

Esko did nothing to hide the look of annoyance on his blotchy face.

‘No. I’m fit as a fiddle.’

‘Of course you are. Any progress on the Reza case?’

‘Nope. Still haven’t got the little bastard in my sights. But I’ve got a feeling we’ll find him soon. The Cobras have started falling into our hands like ripe apples.’

‘Have you seen your informant again?’

‘No. But things on the street are heating up. Big time.’

‘Indeed. The Cobras are encroaching on the Angels’ territory.’

‘I reckon we’re in for full-blown gang warfare.’

‘We had an average call-out at the weekend over in Rajapuro. You know Pasi Raatikainen, young guy from patrol?’

‘Yep.’

‘Well, he said there was something odd going on in that apartment.’

‘What?’

‘There were two guys from Iran hanging about in there, though they weren’t the reason for the disturbance, so they were simply removed from the property. A Finnish couple got into a fight. Standard stuff, drunken fisticuffs.’

‘And what’s weird about that?’

‘Raatikainen only heard about the Cobras at this morning’s briefing. It was his first night on duty since Christmas, so he didn’t know
anything about the gang investigation. This morning he realised that one of the guys had the letters B.C. tattooed on the fingers of his right hand.’

‘Damn it. I want that apartment turned inside out.’

‘Yes, and we’ll have to bring the drunken couple in for questioning. I’ll bring you up to date once we’ve decided when to go in. How are things otherwise?’ Virkkunen asked and looked at the computer again. Christ, the man sees everything, thought Esko.

‘I’ve been thinking about selling up and leaving.’

‘That’s a great idea, Esko. A change of scenery could do you good,’ said Virkkunen and left the room.

A HUMID WIND BLEW
through the pass. The grains of sand shimmered in the air. The Afghan borderlands sweated, a hazy threat electrified the air. Everything was silent. A speck burst from behind the horizon, growing rapidly. It was a jeep full of men. The barrels of rifles and bayonets, Mosin-Nagants and Kalashnikovs, jutted like extensions of the men’s silhouettes towards the sky, veiled behind the thick gauze of dust kicked up behind the vehicle. The jeep hurtled forwards; suddenly it was enormous, it was going to hit him. Sammy woke with a start to the sound of his own screams. His skin was sticky with sweat, his heart was thumping, a trail of saliva ran from the corner of his mouth. It took a moment to calm down, to realise that he was safe, there on the narrow bunk in the police holding cell.

Though Sammy knew that he would soon be returned to the place that dream had come from, for the first time in a long while he felt calm and protected in this bare, concrete room. He noticed that he almost enjoyed the officers’ polite knocks at his door, their gentle behaviour and the short conversations they had as they took him to the yard outside or brought him his meals. He wasn’t shown love and compassion, but he was treated well. What’s more, his illness, his addiction and withdrawal symptoms were being treated too. A nurse visited him, a beautiful young woman. She brought him medication and asked how he was coping, took his blood pressure and his body temperature, touched him with her warm, delicate hands. Sammy couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the friendly touch of another person on his skin. The woman’s eyes were indescribably blue, her hair fair and blond like the finest wool, and she smiled at
him. His five-square-metre cell with no entertainment or conveniences was heaven, a place Sammy could stay for a long time.

Sammy didn’t think Ritva Siponen’s appeal would be successful. She hadn’t been able to locate the priest in Karachi; Sammy guessed that he too had probably been killed. Ritva had looked online for information about human-rights organisations in Pakistan; she’d found the odd scrap, but nothing to show that Sammy’s family had been the victim of any persecution. The local judge had said he knew nothing of the blasphemy charges against Sammy and his father, the dirty liar. Ritva was trying her best, but Sammy had already lost hope. He knew exactly where he would go as soon as he got to Karachi, if he wasn’t arrested as soon as he got off the plane. In a city of millions there were a few people who always had room for him in their cardboard shacks. It was a shame that those shacks were in the opium fields, he thought and swallowed the saliva that flooded into his mouth. Perhaps he should just turn himself in at the airport. Pakistani prisons were worse than the opium dens and the slums, but he deserved his punishment. He could have saved his mother, but instead he’d saved his own skin.

Anna sat up, wide awake. Friday morning, another weekend on its way, she thought.
Bassza meg.
She trudged into the hall to fetch the newspaper, made some coffee and flicked through the paper before brushing her teeth and her thick, almost black hair, and setting off for work. Anna often felt her repetitive, everyday routines were oppressive, making each day feel like an eventless, empty copy of the day before, the patterns of life became predictable, numbing the senses and desensitising her mind. Morning chores, work, supermarket, home, food, evening chores, bed. Why was it she so often felt this wasn’t enough, that there should be something else, something greater and more exciting, something to shunt these repetitive routines off kilter and wake her up? But wake her from what exactly? And what for? After all, weren’t routines a shield to protect us against life’s often devastating quirks, events from which nobody was safe?
Routines forced people to hold on to their lives, to take care of their responsibilities, to swim with the current; they gave days a meaning and a rhythm.

Why couldn’t she just take care of her duties and be thankful, live in the moment? Why did she always have to look far into the future, out of reach of the everyday? Loved ones die, partners leave us, we lose our jobs, but it’s only when people no longer have the strength to cook food, to have a shower or take out the rubbish that they start to slip away. Was that the reason Subutex was so popular in this northern welfare state where youngsters all had an equal chance of an education lauded in international PISA reports, an equal opportunity to live a life filled with routines, a life identical to the people living next door? What else were drugs for if not to numb the tedium of everyday life and our sense of insignificance in the greater wheel of life, our exaggerated emotions that made routines feel like a noose pressing against our windpipes? In a way Anna could understand all those kids and parents that slipped into a cycle of alcohol and substance abuse. They yearned for something more from life, something out of the ordinary, but they didn’t know how to achieve it. They lacked the means, the stamina and patience; PISA reports didn’t say a word about people like them. Where was the fine line between success and failure? What pushed people over the edge or carried them to safety? I should learn to love my routines, because they don’t stifle me; rather, they make life possible, thought Anna and decided to cycle to the station.

Upon arriving at the station, Anna learned that Gabriella Farkas would be facing charges of reckless driving and involuntary manslaughter, even though she had been within the speed limit and was completely sober at the time. The reason was that the driver should have taken the adverse weather conditions into consideration and should have adjusted her speed appropriately. At least the word ‘gross’ had been left off the list of charges. Anna’s mother had sent her a Hungarian legal dictionary, so Anna would be able to find
all the relevant terminology. If and when this case went to court, they could hire an interpreter, she thought. That’s one thing I’m not prepared to do. She’d also received word from the Hungarian authorities that Gabriella had been apprehended for possession of marijuana in her first year at college. This was only a minor offence, Gabriella had got off with a fine and she had no other misdemeanours to her name, but now it made her seem very irresponsible.

Anna sighed. She felt sorry for Gabriella; she would probably receive a minor punishment, but whatever it was, the sentence would be a blow. It would be a nasty blot on her record. Would she ever get a job again? At the same time Anna felt a foul sense of satisfaction. Not exactly
Schadenfreude
, but something similar. What is it about that girl that bothers me, she wondered. Why do I think this somehow serves her right?

After this Anna began writing up yesterday’s interviews with Marko Halttu’s neighbours. To Anna and Sari’s surprise, the working families with little kids had seen and heard far more than the pensioners who were at home all day. The Kumpula family, who lived on the same floor as Halttu, had twice complained to the housing association about the loud music, first at the beginning of February, then just recently on March the twelfth. They had been certain that things weren’t going very well for their neighbour. Apparently the children didn’t like going into the yard by themselves, because they had to walk past Halttu’s door. Children can sense these things, Mrs Kumpula had said. But there wasn’t a constant flow of people in and out of the apartment. On the whole everything had been quiet and discreet, though Mrs Kumpula remembered once seeing a logo that could have belonged to a motorbike gang on the back of someone’s jacket. She wasn’t entirely sure of what she’d seen.

The Vehkaperä family on the top floor had taken their suspicions a step further. They had called the police after finding a used syringe in one of the rubbish bins. The bin had been full of rubbish bags and the syringe had almost fallen out as they opened the lid. This had happened some time last summer. They didn’t know whether
the police had taken any action. Earlier in the winter, perhaps back in January, they had seen a scruffy, foreign-looking boy hanging around in the yard. They had assumed he was on his way to Halttu’s apartment. They had seen other, similar-looking boys in the yard before and thought the syringe must have come from one of these pallid loiterers. But because they hadn’t found any other evidence of drug abuse and because Halttu’s emaciated guests hadn’t caused any disturbance to speak of, they hadn’t taken the matter any further. And how could they have been sure who threw the syringe in the rubbish bin? The Vehkaperäs stressed several times that they didn’t want to think ill of people, at least not without any proof. They hadn’t seen any snake logos, motorbikes or men in hoodies. Nobody knew anything about the disappearance of Mrs Vehviläinen.

Anna telephoned the caretaker, who sounded arrogant and uptight. He confirmed that there had been a few complaints about the music and that he had given the tenant in question a written warning. The caretaker claimed he had never seen Marko Halttu himself. He sounded just a little too cocky as he explained he was responsible for dozens of apartment blocks across the city and that he didn’t have time to look into every single complaint that came his way, because there were plenty of them. Anna asked whether the caretaker had ever met Riitta Vehviläinen, Halttu’s neighbour. He couldn’t remember ever having met her. Anna then dug out the original complaint about the syringe in the police files. The complaint had been made last August. That’s when I started working in this city, when I started chasing down the Hummingbird, she thought, and shuddered. She banished the brutal murders on the running track from her mind every time they tried to resurface, though she was happy that, soon after the Hummingbird had been apprehended, snow had covered the running track through the woods behind Koivuharju and made it inaccessible.

Anna realised she was hungry. She looked at the time; it was almost one o’clock. Morning had turned to afternoon without her noticing. There was no point asking anyone to join her for lunch;
everyone would have eaten already. She decided to eat by herself and visit Leppioja again, to ring Karppinen’s doorbell one more time.

How the hell does anyone understand a bloody word of these Pakis’ gibberish, Esko muttered to himself. He had spent hours trying to listen to the tapes he had ordered from the National Bureau of Investigation – intercepted telephone calls in which members of the Black Cobras were discussing business – to see if he could find a single conversation that might be in a language he could recognise. More specifically he was looking for a link between the Black Cobras – Reza Jobrani in particular – and Marko Halttu and Sammy Mashid. Esko was convinced Marko’s death wasn’t entirely self-inflicted. Gangs didn’t hesitate to take out people they thought they couldn’t trust. Killing someone meant instant promotion within the gang’s hierarchy; members of the Angels even got a special badge on their jackets. In those circles, someone capable of killing was highly respected. But these taped conversations in foreign languages were impenetrable. They could have been talking about anything, last night’s football results, anything at all. Not even the towel-heads were stupid enough to talk business on a normal telephone. Couldn’t the NBI afford to have these translated?

This is a fucking waste of time, thought Esko, switched off the tape recorders and started going through the lists of phone numbers that had been in contact with one another. A few of them were legitimate numbers, registered to people with foreign-sounding names. The rest were all prepaid and probably long since discarded. One number seemed to appear much more frequently than the others – and it was registered. Esko couldn’t find anything to indicate that the NBI had interviewed the owner of this number. I’ll do it myself, he thought and logged into the police’s telephone register. The owner lived in the Vaarala district. Esko searched for the name but couldn’t find a Facebook profile or any signs of life on other social media. The owner can’t be very young, he concluded. He flicked through other sites that came up on Google and found an interesting news item
about someone by the same name who ran a public-health project for women and girls in the northern Iranian countryside. The article was in English and was dated three years ago. Could this be the same person? Esko looked at the image of the woman hidden behind a veil, her black eyes lined in heavy kohl. The woman’s clothes made it impossible to guess her exact age, but her eyes revealed that this was a woman who had already reached middle age. He tried to read the article, but a pop-up window prevented him. I’ll have to call the IT department, tell them to update our firewalls, he thought. The words
Volunteer Help
flashed across the advertisement. Against his better judgement, he clicked it open.
Do you want to work abroad?
the advertisement asked him. Not on your life, Esko answered to himself.
Do you want to help children in developing countries?
Esko scoffed. Me?
We offer thousands of voluntary positions in fascinating locations around the world. You can help make a difference. Today.

Esko saved the site in his Bookmarks folder, asked for an interpreter and scheduled a meeting in Vaarala for the following Monday. We’ll soon find out about the woman behind the telephone number.

Her stomach full of pasta and sausage, Anna steered the car towards Leppioja. At that time of day the traffic on the southbound motorway was quiet. It was overcast for a change, but the layer of snow covering the fields extending on both sides of the road still reflected so much light that Anna had to wear sunglasses. She curved into the junction and exited the motorway. An area of newly built detached houses, Leppioja had sprung up right next to the intersection. Anna took the winding road through the suburb, passing young mothers pushing prams. Rauno lives somewhere round here, she thought, and tried and failed to remember his exact address. There followed a few hundred metres of woodland, like a transition zone into the older part of Leppioja with its sparsely situated apartment blocks and terraced houses by the ditch, an oasis of peace and calm far from downtown, far from the city’s restless high-rise jungles. But every police officer knows that nothing is ever what it seems at first appraisal.