The Hummingbird (17 page)

‘I don’t believe she’s safe there,’ Anna gave it one more try.

‘I’m sorry, Anna. I’ve got to say, I agree with them,’ said Sari, a little embarrassed. ‘We’d be overstepping the mark. Though I have to say, I agree there’s something going on in that family.’

‘Surely it can’t be illegal to take pre-emptive action to stop a crime from taking place.’ Anna felt frustrated and was almost shouting. ‘It’s our fundamental responsibility.’

‘We have no reason to suspect that a crime is about to take place. With that logic, we’d have to look out for almost everyone, just to make sure people stayed on the straight and narrow. It’s simply not possible,’ said Virkkunen.

‘Bihar is in danger,’ Anna repeated quietly.

‘I’m sorry, Anna, but that’s the end of the matter,’ said Virkkunen and switched off the projector. Now his eyes expressed nothing but determination. ‘We should think ourselves lucky. Now we can concentrate our efforts on the murdered jogger. Right, everybody, let’s get to work.’

15

IN
A
RAGE
ANNA
RAN
straight down to the smoking area in the courtyard and dug a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag. Why the hell do I carry these things around with me if I shouldn’t smoke them during the day, she wondered as she lit a cigarette and felt a rush of satisfaction as she drew the smoke into her lungs. Nicotine flowed into her blood, almost dizzying her, and made her mouth tingle.

‘I knew you were a smoker.’

Anna gave a start and almost dropped her cigarette.

‘You must really have a fetish for creeping up behind people and startling them,’ she snapped at Esko who had once again taken her by surprise.

‘Have you got any fetishes?’ he asked, his voice slimy and lascivious.

Harassment too, she thought.
Útálotos.
She didn’t respond, but took another drag on her cigarette. Esko lit one of his own. For a moment they stood smoking in silence.

‘Bihar Chelkin is lying. I’m convinced this is a matter of honour violence,’ Anna said eventually. She felt compelled to repeat herself one last time, especially to that arsehole.

‘Finnish law doesn’t recognise such a crime,’ he replied impassively.

‘Still.’

‘Just drop it, yeah? I know you feel great sympathy towards these girls, being one of your own and all that.’

‘I can tell when someone is lying,’ she said, trying to remain calm.

‘Bloody Muslims are always lying. It’s a twisted religion – terrorists and liars the whole lot of them. What faith are you?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Esko. What’s the matter with you? What has any of them, any of us, ever done to you?’ Now Anna raised her voice.

‘You’re telling me you don’t know?’ he said, inhaling deeply on his cigarette and staring at Anna with a maniacal gleam in his eyes. ‘You darkies all expect to come here and live the life of Riley on the dole – that’s taxpayers’ money, you know!’ he shouted and flicked his burning cigarette to the ground, lit another one immediately and glared at her, as if challenging her to argue back. ‘Either that or you turn up and take our jobs. Just like you.’

‘Whose job have I taken?’

‘I doubt you were the only applicant.’

For a moment Anna said nothing. She knew it would be pointless explaining how she’d subsisted from one temporary job to the next ever since graduating, how she’d applied for countless permanent positions – all for nothing. She also knew from experience that it was futile talking to Esko and people like him about despair, fear, war, torture, oppression, discrimination, poverty and hunger, about how the world was full of people whose lives were a daily struggle against all of those terrible things.

When she was younger she had often let herself rise to this, aggressively gone on the defensive, tried to beat facts and common sense into the heads of her opponents, shouting, raging and upsetting herself, but it was always pointless. The Eskos of this world were every bit as fanatical as extreme religious zealots, as obstinate and stubborn as donkeys. There was nothing you could say to these people.

Nothing except: ‘Sorry,’ she said and walked away.

She sprinted up the stairs to her office, taking out her frustration in the stairwell, to punish herself for the cigarette to which she had just succumbed. Once she reached the third floor, her mobile beeped in her handbag. She shut herself in her office, sat down at her desk, out of breath, and took out her phone. One new message. She opened the message, read it and sat in shock, a sense of anxiety
clenching her stomach. The message had come from a number she didn’t recognise.

Hey there, cutie. You’re quite a catch. I wanna taste.

She sent the number to directory enquiries. The blunt response arrived a second later: an unlisted number or sent from a prepaid phone. Who could have sent it, she wondered. Petri? I didn’t given him my number, even though he asked for it. Had he managed to fiddle with my phone at some point in the evening? Or had he found it on one of my cards? There was a pile of cards with the name Sgt Anna Fekete in a drawer in the hallway bureau.

If this was from him, it was a nasty trick.

And what if it wasn’t from him?

Anna felt a shiver run through her body. She rummaged in her wallet for the number Petri had given her as he’d left her apartment, shyly, almost embarrassed, and asked her to give him a call. Anna looked at the number. The text message had been sent from a different number. Call him and ask, she commanded herself. That way you’ll find out. But something within her resisted. She didn’t want to contact him and give the impression that she was somehow interested. He was a kind, wonderful man, a very pleasant acquaintance in every way, but for Anna one night was enough. She didn’t want to get his hopes up, because there was no hope of anything further. So why am I holding on to this piece of paper, she wondered as she replaced the phone number in her wallet and deleted the unpleasant message.

There was a new message in her email too. This one was from Linnea Markkula. Judging by the degree of digestion, the meal in Riikka’s stomach had been ingested at around 4 p.m. on the afternoon of the murder. Salmon, rice and pine nuts. Apparently Linnea had got lucky on Saturday night, for the first time in ages.

Anna chuckled. So did I, more’s the pity.

She decided to go into town for lunch. That would give her a chance to examine the lunch menus of the downtown restaurants and to show Riikka’s photographs to some of the waiters. If only
they could establish where Riikka had eaten and who she was with. She also wanted to visit the florist; she wanted to cheer up her balcony with pots of heather and other plants that would survive the winter.

Why am I always sent to visit the old folk, Rauno wondered. He looked at Aune Toivola as she sat at the kitchen table, her wrinkled hands resting on the waxed tablecloth. The coffee that she poured him was weak and tasted of nothing. Rauno handed her photographs of Riikka and Jere.

‘Do you know these people?’

Aune put on another pair of glasses – she had a selection of spectacles beside a pile of newspapers – and began examining the photographs. Rauno strummed his fingers on the table and glanced intermittently at the ticking second hand of the clock on the wall. Damn it, this is going to take all evening, he thought impatiently, though he couldn’t understand why he was so restless. He was in no hurry to get home. He had barely exchanged a word with his wife since Friday evening, except for a few compulsory conversations about the girls. Nina hadn’t come home until the following morning; she hadn’t told him where she’d been and he hadn’t asked.

But the thought was gnawing away at him.

‘This girl here I’ve never seen before, but I know the boy,’ said Aune, awakening Rauno from his thoughts. He sat up and sipped his tepid coffee.

‘This is the Koski boy, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right. Jere Koski.’

‘Oh, I know the Koski family. Veikko and Liisa. Veikko was the son of Ilmari, who was a year older than me at school. He married a girl called Lotta Siitonen, and they had Veikko. There were no other children. They’ve both been dead for years now.’

‘What can you tell me about Jere?’ Rauno pressed her.

‘I don’t know the youngsters all that well, of course. Ilmari was a drunk and that’s what they said about Veikko, too.’

‘And Jere?’

‘Isn’t he at the university? Maybe he’ll be able to stay on the straight and narrow.’

‘The murdered girl is Riikka Rautio. She was originally from Saloinen, too. Does that name mean anything to you?’

‘Rautio … it doesn’t sound familiar.’ Aune adjusted her glasses, took a sip of coffee and scrutinised Riikka’s photograph once again. Rauno felt like snatching the picture from her hand and leaving. But where would he go? For a pint? On a Monday evening?

Why not?

‘Just a minute … The daughter of Kalevi and Sanna Paakkari – Irmeli, her name was – I think she married someone called Rautio.’

‘Riikka’s mother’s name is Irmeli.’

‘Yes, I have a vague recollection of Irmeli. This is a terrible shock – your own child murdered in broad daylight, and so close-by too. I’ve kept the doors locked ever since. I’m worried someone will turn up here with a gun.’

The coffee cup in Aune’s hand had started to tremble, spilling coffee on to the shiny tablecloth.

‘I don’t think you’re in any danger,’ said Rauno, trying to sound convincing. But how the hell can I be sure of that, he cursed to himself.

‘The girl’s time of death has been placed at around ten o’clock in the evening. Do you remember anything about that evening?’

‘Excuse me?’ said Aune, touching her hearing aid.

‘I said, do you remember anything about the evening before you found the girl? Anything out of the ordinary?’

Aune thought for a moment.

‘No, nothing in particular,’ she replied eventually. ‘In the evenings I watch television and go to bed early. Every night.’

‘How do you get by, here all by yourself?’

‘I do well enough. I can still move around and there’s nothing wrong with my head, nothing much anyhow,’ she laughed. ‘It’s just my hearing. But now I’m worried. Mind you, it’s a good thing the
care assistant visits every morning. At least it won’t take them long to find me, if something should happen.’

‘Is there anyone you could ask to stay for a few days? A relative?’ Rauno suggested as he stood up.

‘My son is so far away. He’s too busy at work.’

Aune wiped the crumbs from the table and gathered them in her quivering hand. She remained sitting at the table, lost in thought, and didn’t get up to see Rauno to the door.

The woods on either side of the running track were shadowed and quiet. So what, thought Anna. It’s the same track, the same stretch of forest, the world is exactly the same as it is in daylight, she tried to convince herself the way her mother had done when she was a child and afraid of the dark. I’m not going to start imagining things now. But why on earth do all tracks like this have to run through the woods? They could just as well run through the city like soft streams, through the suburbs, from one yard to another, one car park to another, from the shopping centre to the church hall. People could run surrounded by lights and people; we wouldn’t always have to be by ourselves in the dark.

Her legs felt horribly stiff. Anna jogged as slowly as possible and still found it hard going. She had smoked far too much in the last few days.

She’d actually stopped smoking years ago. That’s what she tried to tell herself as she lit up every evening. The last time she’d smoked during the day was before joining the army, and even then she hadn’t smoked very much. One pack easily lasted her a week.

A fene egye meg
with the cigarettes, she cursed to herself. It was because of the nicotine that coffee had started to give her heartburn. Her mobile beeped. Happy at having an excuse to stop for a moment, she pulled the phone from her pocket. One new message. It was from the same number as the message earlier that day. Unknown. Prepaid.
A faszom,
she said out loud.

Did you get my msg this afternoon? I’m really interested in you. And hey, be careful out there.

There was a rustling in the trees nearby. The darkness behind the branches was almost impenetrable. Anyone could be hiding there and Anna wouldn’t notice a thing. The branches gave a crackle. Anna glanced around and put the phone back in her pocket. She was determined to find out who was sending these messages and why. It was probably the invalid; he’d clearly decided to start harassing her. Some people just can’t accept that I don’t want to see them a second time. But he could at least play fair; the unlisted number made the messages seem horrid, pathetic and frightening. Was that really his intention?