Light in a Dark House (29 page)

‘Kimmo?’

‘Yes. You called.’

‘I did. Well, we’re scoring hits thick and fast here.’

‘Okay.’

‘Risto Nygren. A Finland Swede with German roots.’

‘Aha.’

‘Originally comes from Laappeenranta. Fifty-seven years old. Paper manufacturer, one of the four largest in Finland. Sold the firm a few years ago, seems to be living on the interest from the proceeds. A millionaire, I assume. Unmarried, no children. Has a handsome house near Turku, but he isn’t there now.’

Another house standing empty, thought Joentaa.

‘Our colleagues disturbed several Christmas parties in the area, and found out that Nygren hasn’t been seen since the summer of this year. That wouldn’t be considered anything unusual, though, because Nygren’s former company has branches in various countries, and he always spent a lot of time travelling.’

‘Hasn’t been seen since the summer of this year,’ said Joentaa.

‘Exactly. And it all began in summer when Saara Koivula was found in the roadside ditch.’

Joentaa remembered the conversation with Rintanen, the doctor in the Turku hospital. Apallic syndrome as the result of severe trauma of the skull and brain. Lack of oxygen, circulatory arrest.

‘And here it comes,’ said Seppo. ‘We’ve scored another hit, with luck the crucial one. Risto Nygren flew to Germany on 24 June. The first findings are that he’s been living there ever since, in Frankfurt. He’s taken a suite in a five-star hotel for an indefinite period.’

‘That’s . . .’

‘Marko Westerberg and I are flying out tomorrow. I’ll go back to Helsinki first thing after breakfast, and our flight for Frankfurt takes off at eleven thirty-five. Shall we see each other first? At seven, maybe?’

‘I’d like that,’ said Joentaa.

‘See you tomorrow,’ said Seppo, and then, once again, Joentaa was sitting in the silence that was filled with something he couldn’t yet pin down. Risto Nygren, Germany, five-star hotel. Paper manufacturer. Millionaire, Seppo assumed.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he had a feeling for some moments that he could see it all. The shimmering heat, the garden in flower, the film of sweat on the forehead of the boy who has struck a wrong note, but is happy all the same. For those moments he could see it, even the absent piano. Then everything was back to how it had been before.

An empty house in winter, snow blowing in through the terrace door. Risto. Manufactures paper.

A white sheet of paper. Nothing written on it.

A woman with no expression in her face any more.

A giraffe that won’t be able to breathe if the snow doesn’t stop falling.

He heard a sigh, and not until seconds later did he realise that it had come from his own mouth. He stood up and went to close the door carefully before he went down the slope to his car.

72

ON THE MORNING
of 25 December Kimmo Joentaa was slowly eating a bowl of multicoloured muesli flakes, looking at the empty chair where Seppo had been sitting just a moment ago.

Seppo had said goodbye and taken a taxi to Laappeenranta station, and Kimmo Joentaa felt as if he were now not just the only guest but the only human being in this hotel.

The old man who often breakfasted here, doggedly reading a newspaper, was not in evidence, and the young woman who had served them coffee had also said goodbye, taking care to wish him all the best in the New Year. Joentaa had returned her good wishes.

He went to his room and sat on the bed for a while before he began packing his few things in his travelling bag. When he had packed the bag he sat down on the bed. After a few more moments he pulled his laptop close to him and opened the email program. He had one new message. Not a lottery win, not a phone bill. A message from
veryhotlarissa
instead. Sent at 04.27 hours last night.

Happy Christmas, dear Kimmo.

He sat looking at those words for a little while. Looked at them and looked through them. Now and then a colourful ad popped up in the picture, exploding into a thousand sparks like a firework, only to come back a few seconds later. Joentaa tried to bring himself to obliterate the ad from his screen, but he didn’t have the strength. At some point a message came up saying that battery power was running low, and then the screen went black and the computer stopped humming.

Joentaa put the computer in his travelling bag and lingered in the doorway for a while before he left. He took the lift down. There was no one at the reception desk, but the old man who spent hours every day reading his newspaper was sitting in a niche in the breakfast room. So he had come after all, but a little later today, the first day of Christmas.

Joentaa left his key on the counter at reception; the police expenses department in Turku would deal with everything else. Then, on impulse, he went over to the old man and wished him a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ said the old man, without looking up from his paper. ‘And the same to you.’

As Joentaa stepped out of the hotel his mobile rang.

‘Yes?’ said Joentaa.

‘Moisander, remember me? From Karjasaari police station.’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Joentaa. He had met Moisander once, and had talked to him on the phone several times when he wanted information on addresses and contact data in Karjasaari.

‘We spoke on the phone several times,’ said Moisander.

‘Yes, I know. What . . . what is it?’ asked Joentaa.

‘We have something here. Something that might interest you,’ said Moisander.

‘You do?’

‘I’ll pick you up,’ said Moisander, ‘if that’s okay with you.’

‘Yes, fine, no problem. I’m outside the hotel here, I was really about to . . .’

‘I’ll be with you in five minutes,’ said Moisander.

‘Right,’ said Joentaa.

He went to his car, put his travelling bag in the boot, and waited for Moisander, who did indeed turn into the hotel car park with verve a few minutes later. The light on top of his patrol car was blinking, but the siren wasn’t sounding.

‘Hello,’ said Joentaa. ‘What’s happened?’

‘We none of us know for sure at this point,’ said Moisander. ‘I haven’t been to the scene yet. We’d better drive there and take a look for ourselves.’

Joentaa nodded and leaned back. He was feeling leaden weariness, and thought of the euphoric Seppo, who had sounded so triumphant first thing this morning. He closed his eyes, thinking that in a certain way everything, while still in progress, had come to a halt.

Those involved had been named, and now had only to be found.

Moisander took the car along increasingly narrow tracks through the forest, and Joentaa thought of Nurmela’s birthday party on the summery autumn day that now seemed so long ago. Maybe because Larissa had still been there that day, and next day she had gone. He thought of the last dance – of August Nurmela’s offbeat music in the night – a dance that came to an early end when Grönholm threw up on Nurmela’s fitted carpet.

‘Nearly there,’ said Moisander, beside him.

‘Isn’t this . . .’ Joentaa began.

‘Hmm?’

They went along another forest track, this one covered with snow, and some way off Joentaa saw two more police cars and another used by Forensics.

‘It’s over there,’ said Moisander. He expertly drove the car through the deep snow and parked beside one of the police cars. Joentaa narrowed his eyes and peered through the windscreen.

‘No, that way,’ said Moisander, pointing in the opposite direction, but Joentaa was climbing out and went a few steps up the slope. The trees grew very close together here, but he made his way through them.

‘Okay?’ called Moisander.

‘Just coming,’ said Joentaa, climbing on. He had not been mistaken. He had thought he saw the swing through the branches of the trees, and now the house itself was ahead of him. He went on, although Moisander was calling something or other, and then at last he was in the little garden and sat down on the swing where he had been sitting last night. Only a few hours ago. The windows were like mirrors, he could see nothing. But he knew what was on the other side of them. A chair, a table, no piano.

‘I’m here,’ called Joentaa. ‘Coming down again now.’

Moisander waved to him and nodded, and Joentaa walked towards the scene. After a few metres a strange feeling came over him, one that he didn’t understand. It was a feeling that with every step he was coming closer to a truth that he ought to have recognised long ago. Moisander was waiting for him, holding a pair of gloves provided by Forensics and a shoebox.

‘What’s that?’ asked Joentaa, putting on the gloves.

‘We . . . we don’t know yet. It was beside the body.’

Joentaa followed Moisander’s eyes, but he saw no body, only trees and wet leaves and snow, and people crouching on the ground going about their work, and then the body obviously covered up.

‘The dog’s owner thinks it must have been the stress of Christmas,’ said Moisander.

‘What?’ asked Joentaa.

‘The . . . er, the stress of Christmas. The dog ran away from him, which it never usually does. And the owner puts it down to all the stress at their Christmas family gathering, because it seems there was an almighty quarrel.’

‘I see,’ said Joentaa.

‘Anyway, the dog found the corpse. Otherwise I suppose it could have lain there for ever; there’s no real path that way. The dog’s owner is in shock because the body . . . well, it’s not a pretty sight by now.’

‘And what’s that?’ asked Joentaa, pointing to the shoebox.

‘It was lying beside the body.’ Moisander took the lid off and handed him an exercise book. A school exercise book, with lined paper.

Joentaa read the words on it, and thought of the giraffe. And the snow. And the night in the hospital where Sanna had died, and her smile that he hadn’t seen for too long.

He took the exercise book and walked away. Moisander said something, but he wasn’t listening. He walked on until he felt he was somewhere peaceful at last. Somewhere very peaceful.

Then he sat down on the ground, leaned back against a tree trunk, and read the words again, just to make sure they were really there. A simple, memorable heading that someone had written in careful handwriting on the lined paper of a school exercise book, many years ago.

Summer 1985
.

73

WESTERBERG AND SEPPO
were met at Frankfurt airport by a German colleague, who drove them along a smooth, wide, almost empty motorway to the city centre without asking questions. His replies to their own questions in English, the language in which the three of them conversed, were brief but to the point.

Risto Nygren. Six months ago. Checked into the hotel in June, moved into a suite on the twenty-fourth floor, at an all-inclusive price, so it seemed, but he didn’t really know much about these things.

Westerberg looked at the slushy snow piled high to the right and left of them, and listened to the noise of the windscreen wipers squeaking on the glass. Presumably it was the squeaking that caused his German colleague to utter a quiet, half-hearted curse now and then.

He parked the car right outside the hotel entrance, to the displeasure of a doorman standing there stiffly in the cold, showed his ID and said something that Westerberg didn’t understand in German. It seemed to make the right impression on the doorman, for he stepped aside and nodded to Westerberg and Seppo as well.

The hotel was red, gold and large. Westerberg looked up, trying to make out the windows of the suite on the twenty-fourth floor, before joining the others in the lobby, in the middle of which a gigantic, brightly lit Christmas tree stood.

The German officer spoke to a young woman at reception, and Seppo breathed audibly in and out and seemed to be shivering, although it was very warm inside the hotel. During the flight and on the drive to the centre of Frankfurt, Seppo had hardly said a word, and Westerberg too had been silent.

Presumably Seppo’s mind was on the same thing that had been occupying his own, and that ultimately consisted only of a name. Risto. And the fact that at last they would be able to put a face to that name, and associate it with the unimaginable.

‘He’s right here now and doesn’t know anything,’ said their German colleague in English. ‘Room number 248.’

Westerberg nodded.

The German offered to wait for them in the lobby, and Westerberg and Seppo took the lift up. Meditative music came over loudspeakers, and Seppo breathed in and out again audibly before he walked fast and purposefully along the corridor. Westerberg followed him. The droning of a vacuum cleaner came from one of the rooms. But all was quiet behind the white door on which there was a gold plate bearing the number 248.

Seppo hesitated, looked at his colleague, and Westerberg knocked. He thought he heard footsteps, but that could have been his imagination. Seppo breathed audibly in. Westerberg waited for Seppo to breathe out, but he held his breath and compressed his lips.

‘Seppo?’ said Westerberg.

Seppo abruptly turned away from the closed door. ‘Hmm?’

‘We’ll take this very calmly. You look kind of . . . tensed up.’

‘Yes, I am. But as you say . . . of course.’

‘Fine,’ said Westerberg. The man who opened the door to them was wearing a white bathrobe and did not seem at all pleased to be disturbed. He snapped something in German, but then his expression changed, presumably because neither Westerberg nor Seppo looked like members of the hotel staff.

‘Mr Nygren? Risto . . . Nygren? Resident of Turku?’ Westerberg asked.

The man did not reply, but stared at Westerberg in silence.

‘Risto Nygren?’ Westerberg asked again.

‘Yes . . . that’s me,’ said Nygren. His Finnish sounded a little strange, with touches of various different accents.

‘My name is Westerberg, this is my colleague Seppo, and we are police officers from Helsinki, Criminal Investigation Department.’

Nygren nodded. Nodded and nodded, and seemed to be thinking intently of something or other.

‘May we come in?’ asked Westerberg, and Nygren smiled suddenly, just as suddenly adopting a different tone of voice.