The Defenceless (14 page)

THE SEA ICE GLEAMED
so brightly in the sunlight that you couldn’t look at it directly. Sun cream and a good pair of sunglasses were essential if you wanted to spend all day out on the ice. Anna planned to do just that. She took her skis out of the car, strapped them to her feet, slung her rucksack over her shoulder and sped out on to the ice. She gauged the direction that the wind was coming from and headed right into it. With any luck the wind wouldn’t turn, and the journey back would be easier, helped along by the breeze. There were other skiers out on the ice, as well as ice fishers and people on snowmobiles, but the further out Anna skied the more deserted her surroundings became. The best thing was the speed. Working your body as if you were on skates, you could travel very fast, and that’s what Anna enjoyed. This is actually better than running, she thought as she felt the sweat moistening her head and back and let the empty, barren landscape envelope her as she hurtled into it.

A biting wind blew across the ice, though there was no covering of fine snow on the surface of the ice. Any loose snow had long since become pressed into the ice beneath, and though at times it snowed again, fresh snow immediately clung to the old stuff. Just like me, thought Anna. The light burrowing into her eyes was so bright that she couldn’t look at it. Although the amount of daylight increased as the days passed, this spring had been exceptionally cold. At night temperatures dropped to around -20°C, while during the day they rose to no more than -10°C or -8°C.

Anna had decided to head towards a small island situated about five kilometres from the shore. The wind blew against her face, and skiing felt difficult. Punishing her body like this felt amazing,
pushing it, making it do more, last a little longer, go a little further. Without regular exercise and a good sweat I’d lose my mind, Anna thought. She knew this from experience. From a young age she’d been into running, skiing, hiking across the empty fells of Lapland, marathons. The head of Anna’s high school had suggested she take up football or basketball. Anna had dismissed this with a laugh and said she wasn’t remotely interested. In fact, the mere thought of it stressed her out: changing rooms, communal showers, competitions, training sessions late into the evenings, fundraising events, raffles, buses full of teammates and team spirit. The latter two were at the top of her anxiety list. She imagined she would have been able to poison the best of team spirits, would always sit at the front of the bus staring at the motorway.

The island appeared on the horizon like a blemish on the ice. Anna marched towards it, increasing her speed. The thought of the Thermos full of warm coffee and the salami sandwiches in her rucksack flickered in her mind. No man is an island, or so people said. What are we then?

Her phone rang in her bag.
A fene
, she said, braked and stopped, and looked at the screen, catching her breath. It was Gabriella. She pressed the ‘reject’ button, but the phone started ringing again before she could put it back into her bag. Was the girl in some kind of trouble?

‘Anna.’

‘Szia Anna, itt Gabi. Jó reggelt.’

‘Morning.’

‘Listen, I’ve been thinking about all sorts of things. I need a bit of help.’

‘I’m out skiing, I can’t talk right now. What if I call you on Monday?’

‘I’m looking after the kids again on Monday.’

‘Yes, and on Monday I’ll be at work again. Technically, you’re a work issue at the moment.’

‘I wondered, could I come over this evening? Tomorrow maybe?’

Anna was becoming frustrated. She simply couldn’t be seen to chum around with someone under investigation any longer. It was completely unprofessional, no matter how Hungarian the suspect. She could be taken off the case and given a warning. Besides, she didn’t want to have anything to do with Gabriella. There was something very annoying about her.

‘I’m sorry, Gabi. It’s not on. Only once the investigation is over. Do you understand?’

‘What if I give you a call later this evening?’

‘Nem.’

‘Miért nem?’

Anna could feel the chill. The sweat was drying on her skin and the bitter wind was freezing the hand holding her phone.

‘I’ll call you on Monday,’ she finally said.

‘Fine then. Monday it is,’ Gabriella responded, hurt, and hung up without saying goodbye.

Bassza meg
, that girl is getting on my nerves, thought Anna. She went back to her skiing but couldn’t find the same rhythm or speed as a moment ago. Even the ice stretching out towards the horizon seemed dreary now. The wind had eaten away at its surface, forming dips and lumps that knocked against her skis and almost toppled her. The wind had blown the soft covering of snow on to the shores in the distance. The ice was hard and unforgiving. Anna curved along the shore of the small island and looked for a sheltered dune of snow; she unrolled her outdoor mat and sat down to eat her sandwiches. The sun warmed her. She made out the faint buzz of a snowmobile. Gradually she calmed down.

Back home, the River Tisza never froze over. There were rarely sub-zero temperatures, and even if there were, the current in the river was too strong for it to freeze. She’d told her friends that people in Finland go winter swimming. Zoli and Ernő had wanted to try it out, and as their friends stood shrieking on the shore the boys went swimming in the 4°C waters of the Tisza, roaring and only feeling the chill afterwards. Anna told them about the health benefits of
winter swimming and the men decided to take it up as a hobby. After that, the same group of them had gone down to the shore every day. Réka, Anna, Nóra, Tibor and their three-year-old daughter Gizella remained on the jetty, cheering on Zoli and Ernő as they splashed around in the water, enjoying being the centre of attention, like little boys. Then they ran to the Gong for coffee, beer and a pizza. Anna smiled. The spontaneous ability of her old group of friends to have fun was something invaluable. Anna didn’t know whether they always behaved like that or whether her rare visits brought out a little extra fun-loving spirit. She looked at the impressive contours of the horizon in the sunshine, watched the speck of a distant skier gliding along it. She looked at her watch. There was still time to continue, to do a really long round trip. Or she could go into work. The thought of returning to her lonely apartment wasn’t appealing. She could pay another visit to Leppioja, talk to people in the house next door to where Halttu and Mrs Vehviläinen lived.

Anna watched her steps as she walked across the frozen yard. The gritting had become embedded in the ice and her feet slipped. Someone had built castles and horses in the snow. So there really are children here, she thought, and not just bitter old folk. But again the yard was empty. During the week the children were at school and nursery, where they were taught how to obey orders that over time would stymie their free spirits. Now they were spending Saturday afternoon with their families. The only people at home in the neighbouring block were a retired couple and one poor soul who could barely see herself in the mirror. Naturally none of them had noticed anything, and they didn’t know the people living in the building next door. Anna asked the retired couple to let her in; she wanted to look out of their windows to see what the yard looked like from up there. The couple eagerly agreed. They wanted to make some coffee, but Anna declined. She looked out of the windows for a long time. There wasn’t a good view of the car park. It was already so dark that the few streetlamps were unable to light the area completely. This is
the perfect place for dodgy dealings, Anna thought. No one can see a thing.

There was nobody home in any of the other apartments. The old couple guessed their neighbours had gone skiing for the weekend. Anna felt frustrated. Why was this so difficult? She dropped her card through each letterbox with a note asking people to call her. She didn’t want to come out here again unless people had something to tell her.

The beer can opened with a hiss. My favourite sound, thought Esko and switched on his computer. He was sitting in his office at the station, though it was a Saturday and he had a headache. He had come in to sort out the piles of papers that were now so numerous he wouldn’t have time to analyse them during normal working hours. The ingredients for a turf war were ready, right there in their quiet little city. The Cobras moving in on the Hell’s Angels’ territory would produce a wave of violence – and maybe even a few bodies, as had happened in Copenhagen. Sometimes it was as though the Danish capital was engulfed in a civil war, with firearms and shootouts and innocent victims right there in the city centre. It seemed incredible: this was Scandinavia, not Soweto. The Finnish authorities and all the tree-hugging humanists should visit Copenhagen and Malmö and take a look at what an open-door immigration policy really means, thought Esko.

Marko Halttu’s death could well be the first kill in a gang war. Someone had whacked him over the head before his death, which otherwise looked like an overdose. Who had been in that apartment? None other than Sammy Mashid. The Paki kid was trying to play innocent, but Esko knew the gangs and the drug world. Nobody was innocent. Narcotics, money and power were the only things that mattered, and they made people do all sorts of things. Of course, Sammy could be a victim, too, just a pawn in the big boys’ games, but he was still guilty, of that Esko was certain. Hell, if that bitch of a lawyer stops me from interrogating the boy again. Virkkunen
had put a letter from Internal Investigations on his desk. Esko had thrown it in the bin unopened. He had done nothing wrong and wouldn’t consent to any interviews or investigations. He’d rather hand in his notice. It was a tempting thought; he could slap his letter of resignation on Virkkunen’s desk and get the hell out, leave behind the mundane cases and boring colleagues and do something new. He remembered the advertisement saved in his browser’s bookmarks. How about it, he found himself wondering – to his own surprise. That would be something new. He had always believed that if you want to help refugees you should help them in their own countries and not haul them halfway across the world to be pampered at the expense of the Finnish taxpayer. The thought was tantalising.

Esko finished off his can and pulled another one from the rucksack beneath his desk. He organised the papers on his desk into new piles and sipped his beer. The material had originally been organised by theme: telecommunications, interrogations, house searches and so on. Now he reorganised events in chronological order. That would give him a fresh perspective on the situation, making it easier to establish how Sammy, Reza and Marko fitted into the murky world of the Cobras and the Hell’s Angels.

The job took him five beers and six cigarettes. It was late. Esko decided to go into town and get himself good and drunk, and leave the job of reading everything until later.

ANNA WOKE
to the sound of the doorbell. She looked at the alarm clock ticking on her bedside table; it was eight-thirty. She’d slept well, thanks to the skiing. The doorbell rattled again. Yes, all right, Anna shouted, reluctantly lifted the duvet, put on her dressing gown and went to the door. She was sure it would be Ákos.

‘A twig for thee, a gift for me, a pussy from the willow tree; the time is here, to thank you dear, and give good tidings all the year!’ chirped two little Easter witches standing in the stairwell, waving decorated willow branches.

A fene egye meg
, Anna cursed to herself. She’d forgotten – again. She always forgot, every year. So why did the kids always come back without fail? It was Palm Sunday and the local children were wandering from door to door dressed as Easter witches. They always dressed the same way: a brightly coloured scarf round their heads, red freckles drawn with Mum’s lipstick and a funny-looking skirt. Sometimes the witches were little boys. They had taken far less time over their costumes and generally looked like … little boys. To Anna they looked nothing like witches. For all their irritating sprightliness, these two were very cute, the younger probably not even in school. The children were carrying a large collection of pussy willows and a basket to fill with treats. At least they’d gone to the trouble of collecting the willows and decorating them with bright feathers. They were actually quite pretty.

‘Hang on, I’ll see if I’ve got any change in my wallet,’ Anna told the children, though she was sure she didn’t have any. She had no cash: no coins, no notes, no sweets, no biscuits. Absolutely nothing.

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry, I haven’t got anything to give you.’

The witches looked disappointed.

‘Then you don’t get a willow,’ said the elder one.

‘I suppose not,’ Anna replied, embarrassed.
A francba
, I’m going to go out today and buy a packet of Easter eggs ready for next year, she thought. And all my Christmas presents; they’re always left to the last minute too. Were the shops open on Palm Sunday? They were always open. Nothing was so sacred as to stop the constant exchange of money. Anna closed the door and squinted through the peephole into the stairwell. The witches moved next door. The elder one rang the doorbell and the smaller one turned to look at Anna’s door. A small pink tongue poked out of his grimacing mouth.

Anna trudged back to bed but couldn’t get to sleep. She reluctantly got up and made some coffee. She was just about to pour it into a cup when the doorbell rang again. There would be witches coming round all day. Best not answer the door. The letterbox screeched as it was prised open.

‘Anna, otthon vagy?’
Ákos’s voice echoed through the hallway. Damn it, he must be completely drunk, thought Anna and ran into the hall to open the door. Ákos looked scruffy, but he wasn’t staggering and didn’t smell of booze.

‘I’ve tried to call you,’ said her brother as he stepped into the hall.

‘Grandma is ill.’

Ákos took a deep breath. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘She was complaining of stomach cramps about a week ago; now she’s stopped eating altogether. Her back is sore too.’

‘Has someone looked at her?’

‘She’s in hospital. They took X-rays and ultrasound images on Friday. At least they didn’t find any tumours.’

‘Good.’

‘I know. But something’s wrong. She’s staying on the ward over the weekend and they’ll continue testing her next week. She’s in a bad way, because she hasn’t eaten or drunk anything. She’s being fed through a tube.’

‘Poor thing,’ said Ákos, clearly worried.

Ákos was their grandmother’s favourite grandchild, regardless of the Mohican and his raucous behaviour. Grandma made her own ice cream; she always had a tub in the freezer and would give Ákos the largest portion. She also baked
pogács
, savoury little scones, especially if Ákos asked for them. Ákos had always been their spokesman whenever the children wanted something from Grandma. At the time, Anna had been terribly jealous of this favouritism, though on the whole she felt just as loved as her brothers. As an adult she’d once watched a sobbing little boy trying in vain to climb into his father’s arms. In a flash she recalled how their own father used to reject Ákos, and at that moment she understood that Grandma was trying to make up for the faults of her own son.

‘The doctors said she’s in good condition on the whole, and they think she’ll be able to go home soon.’

‘Good. Should we go and visit her?’

‘I can’t get away at the moment. Work.’

‘I could go.’

‘Would you?’

‘I’ve got to. I want to see Grandma again before she’s in a coffin.’

‘Have you got any money?’

Ákos stared at the wall, embarrassed. ‘
A rohadt büdös élet
, Anna, you know how it is,’ he sulked.

‘I can buy your tickets.’

‘Again?’

‘Yes. How did you like being back there? You haven’t talked about our visit over Christmas. What did you get up to? We hardly saw you.’

‘Look who’s talking! I was mostly at home by myself or down at The Taverna playing billiards with Laci.’

‘You weren’t drinking?’

‘No.’

Anna knew that her brother had wanted to show his mother and their other relatives that he was fine, and she was glad he’d managed it. Their mother had asked Ákos to stay on and wept as they prepared
to leave. It was hardly surprising, as Ákos had only visited once since they’d left, and that had been over ten years ago.

‘It would be nice to visit home again,’ he said.

‘Are you in good enough shape?’

‘Everything’s fine.’

Anna switched on her computer and booked the tickets straight away. Ákos would leave early on Thursday morning. He would be in Budapest before midday. Ákos didn’t have a driving licence, so renting a car to drive to Serbia was out of the question, but there were several intercity trains between Budapest and Szeged every day. Someone would pick him up from there, Laci perhaps, or their cousin Attila. It wouldn’t be a problem. Some years ago the old border crossing at Horgos had been moved a few kilometres to the west, once the road link between Budapest and Belgrade had finally been turned into a four-lane motorway. The distance from the customs control to Kanizsa was longer than before, but because the border crossing was considerably bigger the queues of vehicles seemed to move much more quickly. The journey didn’t take any longer than usual. Anna thought of the winding lines of cars at the customs office, people agitatedly darting from one line to the next, people who always thought the neighbouring queue was moving faster. During the vacation rush around July and August, crossing the border could still take hours. The sun beat down on them, cars stood parked in line, the exhaust fumes were stifling, the chrome glinted, those who didn’t need to sit behind the wheel wandered between the cars stretching their legs, wiping sweat from their brows. Now and then the queue edged a car’s width closer to the passport control and freedom. People got hungry if they hadn’t brought anything to eat. But now it was March and the queues wouldn’t be too bad. Any one of their relatives would be happy to fetch Ákos from the Hungarian side. If only I could go too, thought Anna.

The morning was gradually starting to warm, the chill of night beginning to fade, but Esko didn’t notice it. The taxi seat was juddering
monotonously. Esko tried to focus his gaze on the delicate lantern hanging on the leafless crack willow. The lantern’s white paint was flaking and dappled with rust. Bitch, he said out loud. The taxi driver glanced at Esko with a look of confusion, but didn’t say anything; he was used to odd clients and knew to keep his mouth shut. Through the blur of alcohol Esko remembered how they’d planted the willow the summer the house was completed. They’d planted hundreds of perennials that summer too, and flower bulbs later in the autumn. The garden still blossomed every summer. Esko stared at the blurry snow verges that covered the floral bloom waiting to be released. Over there were the foxgloves and the peonies, and there the monkshoods, the creeping bellflowers, the greenhead coneflowers and the poppies. The roses in the front garden and along the garage wall, the plantain lilies beneath the hedgerow, the ferns.

I remember you all by name, thought Esko. I’m not as fucking callous as she said. He stepped out of the car and staggered as he pulled the lighter from his jacket pocket, lit a cigarette.

‘Damn it,’ he cursed. The cigarette fell to the ground and went out. ‘Fucking piece of shit,’ he slurred and lit another.

Esko couldn’t explain why he’d called a taxi and driven out here. He’d popped into a bar in town, gone home and sat there drinking all night by himself, fallen asleep for a while, and as soon as he’d woken up, he’d called a taxi. Now he couldn’t bear to look at the darkened house, the familiar garden, the flowers hidden beneath the snow, the trees and shrubs and empty lanterns, whose flickering in the darkening evenings had once meant something. Even less did he want to think of what was going on inside the house, that someone had moved in there, slept in the bed he had bought, woke next to his wife. His former wife.

‘Let’s go,’ said Esko as he sat in the car once again. The car’s motor breathed warm air into the interior. He felt sleepy.

‘Where to?’ asked the driver.

‘Wherever you want. Just drive.’

Esko stared at the city through the taxi window. The landscape
flashing past his eyes made him feel nauseous at first, before the sensation turned to a dull headache. If Esko had been sober or slightly more alert, he would have noticed the dark SUV driving behind them. The taxi driver noticed it, but guessed it must have been coincidence that the car was going in the same direction.

‘Take me back home,’ Esko said eventually. ‘Dead tired. Got to get to work on Monday morning.’

The taxi driver looked at the stocky, dishevelled man in the front seat and glanced at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. The sound of church bells could be heard somewhere. The dark SUV disappeared into the growing flow of traffic and the taxi driver forgot all about it.