The Hummingbird (16 page)

‘It’s impossible to discern any individual shoeprints in all that sawdust; the material is too soft and pliable,’ she explained. ‘Besides, even if we had been able to identify something, it would be impossible to enter it into evidence as the track has obviously been used by plenty of people other than the killer. Still, it was interesting to examine. In a thousand years scientists will be able to use our material as an archaeological investigation into the development of Gore-tex. Decade upon decade of rubber and exercise fabric is layered among the sawdust. It’s fascinating.’

Sari gave Anna a look of amusement. ‘We’ve always said that Kirsti is a good archaeologist going to waste,’ she whispered.

‘Good job for the police,’ Anna whispered back.

‘In the car park, however, it would have been possible to distinguish tyre tracks and even shoeprints had the heavy rain that night not washed everything away. So that’s that. And we can’t be sure that the killer arrived by car, though the old man living in the vicinity said he heard the sound of a car at around the time of the shooting.’

‘There are three primary ways of reaching the location,’ Rauno interjected. ‘Along the track through the woods leading from the new detached houses or through the scrubland from the shoreline.
But, of course, the easiest way to get there would be along the path coming from the main road. I think we can assume the killer arrived at the site by car. The running track is so out of the way that someone walking or cycling there would likely attract more attention.’

‘Does the missing boyfriend own a car?’ asked Sari.

‘Yes,’ Anna replied. ‘Former boyfriend, actually. He has a blue Renault Laguna from 2004. It’s currently parked in the yard behind his apartment. The keys weren’t inside the flat.’

The image on the screen changed. Riikka Rautio lay on the sawdust, her head blown off. Anna gulped back a wave of nausea and forced herself to look at it.
A fene egye meg,
I’d better get used to this if I’m going to survive this job, she berated herself.

‘The autopsy report has been available for everyone to read since last week, so I won’t go into that any further. In the victim’s sock we found a very long, blonde hair, which cannot belong to the victim because her hair was dark.’

‘It must belong to Virve Sarlin,’ said Anna. ‘Riikka’s best friend. Virve told us that Riikka had been living with her all summer.’

‘That would explain things.’

‘Virve seemed agitated during our interview – and she doesn’t have an alibi for the evening of the murder.’

‘Let’s keep that it mind,’ said Virkkunen.

‘That brings us to the ballistics report,’ Kirsti continued.

The officers in the auditorium appeared to sit up straighter, as though this was the bit they had been waiting for. If they could isolate and identify the murder weapon, at least they’d have something concrete to go on, something to find, to use as evidence when the time came.

‘At the scene we found a total of 181 3.5-milligram steel pellets with a combined weight of 32 grams. In plain English that means we’re looking for a .12-calibre smoothbore rifle with room in the barrel for at least 70 rounds. This is one of the most common rifles among game hunters in Finland. There are hundreds of thousands of them in circulation. In theory, the round that killed Riikka Rautio
could have been fired by any one of them. The only way to identify the individual firearm would be if there was some damage to the barrel that might leave striations on the pellets. In this case, needless to say, there were no marks. The firearm could also be a 12/76 – a magnum, that is – or a 12/89, a super magnum, making the range of possible murder weapons even larger. Judging by the plug found among the brain matter, we can identify the round as one produced by a company called Armusa – a widely used manufacturer. So there’s nothing to get your hopes up. With such paltry information, we won’t get anyone – I mean, anyone – up on charges for this.’

‘Jere owns a 12/70 Remington,’ Esko piped up. His voice rattled with the sound of the booze and cigarettes he’d got through that weekend. ‘And it’s missing from his gun cabinet, just as clearly as the boy is missing from the flat.’

‘Well, obviously that’s quite a coincidence,’ Kirsti admitted as she removed the memory stick from the computer. ‘But with only general ballistics evidence to go on, you won’t be able to prove Jere’s guilt. You’ll need something more concrete.’

‘Isn’t it proof enough that the boy and his rifle mysteriously disappear the very day his girlfriend is shot dead with an identical rifle? If you ask me, it is. I’m sure the prosecutor would agree, too,’ Esko puffed. ‘Now we just have to find the bastard.’

‘Do we even think Jere is still alive?’ Sari asked the group. ‘Perhaps he’s taken another life, and now he’s lying somewhere with a round of pellets in his head.’

‘I reckon he’s more likely cowering somewhere licking his mental wounds. He regrets what he’s done and now he’s shit scared,’ said Esko. ‘Still, dead or alive, we’ll soon find out. If he’s dead, someone will find him before long. If he’s alive, he’ll turn himself in sooner or later; his nerves will cave in. Mark my words.’

Kirsti Sarkkinen picked up her folder and stepped back from the lectern.

‘Do we have any information about the girl’s movements on the day of the murder?’ asked Virkkunen.

‘Apparently she ate somewhere in town,’ said Anna. ‘And she showered twice that day; the second time just before going out on that final jog. It seems quite odd.’

‘She had some other kind of sport in mind,’ Esko scoffed.

‘Her debit card wasn’t used at all that day, so if she ate in town she must have paid in cash.’

‘Either that or someone treated her to lunch.’

‘According to her friend Virve, she’d spent quite a time getting herself ready before going out. Perhaps she had a date with her new boyfriend.’

‘And another date immediately afterwards? So why go home in between? Didn’t Virve say that Riikka had come home and slumped on the sofa without saying a thing? As if she was upset or something.’

‘Something happened.’

‘Maybe she had two blokes on the go.’

‘Virve said she suspected it might have been a woman,’ Anna commented. ‘Though I don’t think the gender of her partner is relevant here – I mean, as regards the murder. Virve simply suggested that that might have been the reason why Riikka wanted to keep the new relationship quiet.’

‘We haven’t found anything in Riikka’s Facebook messages or email account,’ said Virkkunen. ‘And the number that called her is unlisted, so we can’t trace it.’

‘The pendant in Riikka’s pocket seems strange to me,’ said Anna. ‘First of all because nobody would keep a necklace in their tracksuit pocket, and just strange in general. Should we look into this?’

‘What’s strange about that?’ asked Esko. ‘She was out running, the necklace was slapping against her neck and irritating her, she took it off and put it in her pocket. Strange, huh? I think we should focus our attention on locating Jere.’

‘Right,’ Virkkunen confirmed. ‘The most obvious solution is often the right one.’

‘What about the mobile phone?’ asked Rauno. ‘Riikka received a call from an unlisted number.’

‘We examined the necklace, and there were no traces of sweat or anything else on it. It must have been brand new. But what’s most interesting is that there was nothing on the phone, no grease stains, no fingerprints – not even Riikka’s own,’ said Kirsti. ‘And that’s almost impossible unless the device had been deliberately wiped clean.’

‘The killer must have deleted the messages and wiped the phone,’ said Sari.

‘Pretty cold-blooded, if you ask me. First blow the girl’s head off at close range with a shotgun, then stick around to wipe down the phone.’

‘And what did I say about Jere?’ Esko smirked. ‘As soon as we find him, this will all be cleared up.’

‘I agree,’ said Virkkunen. ‘In the light of what we’ve just heard, finding and apprehending Jere Koski is now our priority as far as this investigation is concerned. Let’s break for five minutes, then move on to the Chelkin case.’

‘There’s nothing we can do about that Chelkin family,’ Esko began. His break had taken ten minutes. Anna had expected some kind of reaction from Virkkunen, chastising him or at least warning him – after all, it was the second time Esko had been late for the same meeting. But nobody said a thing; nobody even seemed to notice he’d turned up late. Can that man get away with absolutely anything, she wondered.

‘The girl retracted her statement,’ he continued. ‘The 112 call was just a bit of theatre, a way of getting back at Daddy for not letting his underage daughter drink herself silly at the weekend. The relatives in Vantaa confirmed this. The father seemed surprisingly smart for a wog…’ Esko swallowed the end of his sentence as Virkkunen’s gaze fixed on him from behind his spectacles. ‘I mean, many a Finnish father could take a leaf out of his book; it would make our lives much easier.’

‘So we might as well discontinue the investigation,’ Virkkunen stated.

‘Well, there’s making a prank call to the emergency services, and
at least, in theory, there’s making a false accusation and resisting an officer. So the girl would face all the charges herself, if we decided not to play so nicely. But I don’t think there’s any point making a fuss about this. She’ll have learned her lesson, if she’s got any sense,’ said Rauno.

‘Quite. After all, she’s still a minor with an otherwise clean slate. You’d think having the whole family dragged in for questioning would be a sufficient lesson about the consequences of making false accusations,’ said Virkkunen.

Anna was suspicious. Something was bothering her.

‘Sari, you talked to the former teachers,’ she said.

‘That’s right. Two, in fact: Riitta Kolehmainen and Heli Virtanen, both teachers at Rajapuro elementary school. Both said the same thing. There were times when Bihar had a suspicious number of absences from school. Not often, and they were always accounted for. The little brother had always walked his sister to school. Bihar is good at school, so there was no need for Social Services to get involved. Riitta Kolehmainen mentioned that sometimes she had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right in that family, but that it had only been a passing hunch. She couldn’t explain what had caused it, couldn’t remember. Bihar’s high-school teacher mentioned that last year the girl spent several weeks in Turkey.’

‘These absences could be linked to honour violence,’ said Anna.

‘Either that or the flu,’ Esko muttered.

‘It’s also common for the males in the family – even younger brothers – to become their sisters’ keepers,’ she continued.

‘It could be the other way round. Maybe Bihar was told to look after her little brother on the way to school. Rajapuro is a rough neighbourhood; nobody in their right mind would want to walk around there by themselves.’

‘I think Bihar is lying,’ said Anna.

‘We must assume that plaintiffs are telling the truth in interviews and we have to act accordingly,’ said Virkkunen.

‘I know. Still.’

‘If there’s no evidence, and the girl herself has taken back the accusations – and, what’s more, if she can give a perfectly logical explanation for her actions – there’s nothing for us to do but drop the matter,’ he continued.

‘Did anyone ask why Bihar spent Sunday night in Vantaa, though she was supposed to be at school on Monday morning?’ Anna asked agitatedly.

‘Our colleagues in Vantaa asked, and her uncle said that Bihar was supposed to leave on Sunday evening but that she missed the train,’ Sari explained.

‘Yes, I remember that, too,’ said Esko. ‘Bihar’s father said the same as the uncle: she missed the train. She left in the morning. Maybe you should have asked, too, then we’d have three confirmations. Does one of us need to explain to you how these things work?’

‘You’re my partner, so why don’t you explain it to me?’ Anna quipped. ‘They had agreed what to say in advance. We should have taken them into custody straight away instead of waiting around.’

‘Let’s not forget, the girl retracted her story on the night of the call. What’s more, the officers who visited the scene didn’t see anything to indicate that any violence had taken place,’ Virkkunen interrupted. ‘The police can’t do anything without evidence. This matter is closed, Anna. I’m sorry.’

‘Let’s not sweep this under the carpet, at least not yet?’ she pleaded. ‘Let’s keep an eye on them, whenever we have a minute, maybe on alternate days or just a few times a week, especially when Bihar is on her way to and from school, so that they realise we’re still watching them. Or in the evenings we could park outside their house for a moment. Just to be sure, to make certain nothing more serious happens.’

‘Is there any point?’ asked Rauno. ‘For a start, when do we ever have a spare minute?’

‘Damn right, there’s no point,’ Esko raised his voice, drowning out Rauno. ‘I’m not going to start spying on people unless I’m legally bound to do so.’