TH03 - To Steal Her Love (27 page)

‘You do understand?’

‘I think so,’ said Harjunpää, his head to one side. ‘I think I understand perfectly well.’

‘No, really,’ said Noponen. He moved awkwardly, suddenly, as though to indicate that he wanted to be left alone. There was no denying it was a bad moment: further down the corridor a meeting was underway, and from the comments he heard Harjunpää could well imagine they’d soon be arguing over whether to replace the old police Ladas with Opels or Toyotas – somebody preferred Fords, apparently – and whether they couldn’t order food with plenty of garlic for lunch meetings instead of the same old Wiener schnitzels.

‘We have to think of these compulsory transfers as part of a larger plan,’ Noponen explained. ‘You have to think of them as a whole, which the union will object to, of course. But you understand it’s impossible to react in every individual case.’

‘That may be, but when you are the individual case you can’t help reacting,’ said Harjunpää. Now he regretted bringing it up in the first place and not trusting what Aho had told him earlier.

‘It’s pointless,’ Aho had said. ‘The unions are powerless to do anything. They can give speeches on the super’s birthday and award each other ribbons and medals and write critical articles under a pseudonym in their own magazines, but that’s it. Like Noponen said, the reason they backed out of the night-shift issue is because they’re fed up disagreeing with the supers…’

‘I know it’s hard on you personally,’ Noponen tried to console him. ‘And believe me, I’ve heard these same things from many an officer before…’

‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be a pain… Thanks.’

‘And just so you know, almost everybody thinks there’s a personal grudge behind these things, when what’s really at stake is… Well, we’re living in the age of change.’

‘I certainly am,’ said Harjunpää, unable to do anything about the bitter note in his voice.

He waved his hand and walked back down the corridor, and so that he didn’t think badly of Noponen he tried to think why it was that police officers never stood up for themselves in these matters. As someone in the coffee room had once said: ‘If somebody came up with a new directive saying that all officers on duty had to go about barefoot throughout the winter, we’d do it, and maybe at a sauna evening you might hear somebody comment that it wasn’t very nice.’ Still, he’d seen that same subordinate humility in himself. Twice. And both times it had been in front of Tanttu.

He pressed the button and waited for the lift. Was it perhaps because he and the other officers all related to a glorified idea of the police force, of the institution itself, and forgot that they were simply employees working for a particular employer? Of course, it didn’t make any sense grumbling to yourself. Or was that it? When it’s your job to ensure that people follow rules and regulations, how can you oppose the decisions of your superiors?

Whatever the cause, these grudges always manifested themselves as bickering between the different factions of the police force. There were almost ten separate unions within the force, and when the representatives of these unions went around whispering things to the supers in secret, the powers that be realised quite how fragmented the officers were, and the end result was generally that everybody was left licking their wounds.

Harjunpää got out on the fourth floor and walked reluctantly towards his office. The worst of it was that he didn’t know whether Tanttu was serious or not. Ultimately, he hadn’t said anything concrete. The chief had been happy simply making insinuations and intimidating him.

Ahomäki, the chief of the Violent Crimes unit, thought the idea of Harjunpää’s transfer was a joke. He had pointed out that, thus far, nobody
had been transferred out of Violent Crimes; on the contrary, the number of officers had been increased over time, which was the result of instructions from above to consolidate and improve the number of those with the most experience of running cases of particular violence against individual persons.

But when he thought of the look on Tanttu’s face, Harjunpää was sure the man was deadly serious. He’d even begun getting used to the idea, saying his goodbyes to the little things around him. That Tuesday afternoon was perhaps the first time in his career when he hadn’t felt the least
interested
in the cases on his desk. Perhaps deep down he was relieved. At least he’d be rid of the constant presence of death and the feeling of helplessness that had started lurking at the back of his mind all the more often.

He opened his door. The room in front of him was familiar and smelled the same as it had thousands of times before. His shoulders slumped. This was the hardest thing. There in front of him was his world: the Violent Crimes office. There was Onerva and Tupala and Base, Arska and Grönde and Jami and Luukko who played his harmonica in his dark office whenever he was feeling sad. There were all their shared morning coffee breaks, office parties with the squad’s darts club, and all his exhausting cases, the failures and the successes. His entire world was there, and the thought of losing it was agony. It was as though a part of him was being wrenched away. At least there would soon be something to replace it, he thought.

‘Harjunpää,’ he said as he answered the telephone. It had clearly been ringing for some time. In her own office, Onerva was gesturing for him to answer it.

‘I’m sorry, who?’

‘Juha Backman. Remember? You interviewed me about the…’

‘That’s right. You ran after our intruder.’

‘He’s here! I saw him just a minute ago. If you can get down here quickly…’

‘Where is he?’ Harjunpää gasped and grabbed a pen. Naturally, it had run out of ink. He threw it away and rummaged through his drawers for another one. ‘Where are you calling from?’

‘A phone box.’

‘Yes, but where? Where is the phone box?’

‘In the Sokos shopping centre. The bloke’s downstairs, in a locksmith’s shop on the ground floor. He was talking to the man working in there as though they knew each other well.’

‘But you can’t see him any more?’

‘No. This phone is on a different floor. But I’m convinced it’s the same man. He looks smarter… Looks like he’s wearing a suit.’

‘What kind of suit?’

‘A light jacket and red trousers.’

‘OK. I’ll send a patrol car down there. Go outside and point this guy out to the officers when they arrive. And if he leaves, try to see where he’s going. Whatever you do, don’t try to apprehend him by yourself. Don’t try and be a hero.’

‘All right. And you’ll be here in a few minutes, yes?’

‘The nearest patrol car will be; they won’t be long.’ Harjunpää ended the call, gesticulated frantically to Onerva and began dialling the internal emergency number.

‘Emergency services.’

‘It’s Harjunpää from Violent Crimes. I need assistance to apprehend a suspect – quickly! There’s a man in Sokos that we’ve been looking for in connection with a series of break-ins. Can you send a patrol down there on the double?’

‘That shouldn’t be a problem. Sokos, you said?’

‘That’s right. The suspect is on the ground floor in a locksmith’s shop near the railway station. There’ll be a man called Juha Backman waiting for you on the street. He’ll point you to the suspect.’ Harjunpää quickly reeled off a description of the bird-man. Then he waited, fiddled with the telephone cable and waited, listened to the sound of the duty officer typing at his computer at the other end. Finally the voice came back on the line: ‘I’ll have to put it in the queue for a while. There’s been a nasty car accident in Kaisaniemi, so a couple of patrols are tied up there… But you’re third in the queue, just as soon as we can free up a car.’

‘Couldn’t… Couldn’t you bump us up the queue? Just this once?’

‘There’s very little I can do… We’ve got a house alarm that’s already been waiting for fifteen minutes. Then the fire brigade has asked for
assistance
at…’

‘Fine. Leave it in the queue. How long do you think it’ll take?’

‘Anything from fifteen minutes to half an hour. Sorry.’

‘OK, leave it there. I’ll take a car there myself and we’ll cancel the request if we get there first.’

‘Understood. Over and out.’

Harjunpää dialled the number for the Transport unit while trying to unlock his desk with his other hand. He pulled open the top drawer and there lay his weapon, loaded and in its holster. He grabbed it and attached the holster’s clip to his belt. The metallic clang of the wardrobe door came from Onerva’s office – she kept her revolver on the top shelf behind her hairbrushes and combs – and a moment later she was standing at his door and gave a nod.

‘Transport, Seppälä.’

‘It’s Harjunpää. We need a car. Pronto! Can you sort us out?’

‘Samara or Lada?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘You can have a Golf.’

Harjunpää slammed his door shut then ran off behind Onerva down the corridor. Doors flashed past them and sounds seemed to stretch oddly, even the incessant clicking of a typewriter: click-click-clunk… Onerva had thrown the Heart cardigan over her arm. It seemed to glow in
different
shades of red, covering her revolver, and its sleeves dangled like tails. Her skirt fluttered, her legs occasionally flashing beneath it, and her shoes tapped the floor: clipetty-clop!

They spun round the corner. Somebody was walking towards them, moved out of their way and said something about a fire. It was a joke. Onerva wrenched open the door to the stairwell and they ran down the stairs. The corners were tight. Harjunpää’s palm burned as it chafed against the banister; sounds echoed like dull thuds all around them. A moment later and they could already make out the smell of exhaust fumes coming from the car lot.

They sprinted towards the Transport unit’s office. Seppälä looked at them with worried surprise. Harjunpää didn’t have time to explain what was going on but grabbed the keys from his hand. The car was unit 5-8-3, the same one they’d used before. Harjunpää wished it could have been a different car.

‘Drive carefully, for God’s sake!’ Seppälä shouted after them.

‘Let’s go along the tram tracks,’ said Harjunpää. ‘We’ll be there in five minutes.’

‘Just be careful around the stops. People aren’t expecting a car to…’

‘I know. I know.’

Onerva heaved the garage door open. The smell of petrol became stronger. They could hear the sounds of driving, an engine revving. They
ran past the lifts. Somebody was reversing into the aisle in front of them. Whoever was driving was reversing recklessly, or else he and Onerva were blocking the driver’s view. A brown Lada appeared from the right. Harjunpää stopped in his tracks and tried to back away, but Onerva tried to reach the other side of the aisle in time. The brown Lada’s wheels screeched as it braked and tried to avoid hitting them and the car
reversing
. Harjunpää didn’t really know what happened next. He heard a thud, the strange sound of plate metal against stone. The Lada had hit a concrete pillar, and suddenly Onerva was shouting in an unfamiliar, high-pitched voice. ‘Help! Oh good God! Timo! Timo!’

Harjunpää darted between the cars and crossed the aisle. Onerva was leaning against the pillar with her left hand. Her face was absolutely white, her eyelids were twitching irregularly and she slowly began to slump to the ground. She held her right arm to one side as though she didn’t want to see it, as though she wanted to be rid of it.

Harjunpää gritted his teeth and stepped behind her. He grabbed her under the arms and held her tightly, squeezed her in his arms, held her like a child. Car doors slammed; everybody was asking questions. Harjunpää looked down at Onerva’s hand. Her palm was covered in blood, lots of it, pouring out in a steady stream and splashing as it dripped on the floor. He could see the bone, sharp and jagged, and her index finger was drooping limply towards the palm of her hand.

‘Show me, Timo,’ she said faintly.

‘No… It’s best that you don’t see it. Just shut your eyes.’

‘Ambulance!’ someone shouted. ‘Somebody call an ambulance!’

Onerva suddenly started to shake. Harjunpää held her tighter still and could feel her trembling through his body, then she went limp. Harjunpää took a few steps backwards and laid her carefully on the floor. He knelt next to her and cradled her head in his arms. Somebody held her arm up while somebody else pressed the artery shut. There came the sound of running footsteps.

Harjunpää’s hands were shaking. He stroked Onerva’s face and hair and gently touched her eyebrows. A single thought throbbed through his mind: this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening to Onerva, to us, to me… These things only happen to other people.

‘I couldn’t avoid her,’ he heard somebody explaining in horror. ‘The other car was reversing so quickly, then you two came running out of nowhere.’

‘She’s been caught between the pillar and mudguard…’

‘Will somebody get the bloody first-aid bag?’

‘It wasn’t my fault either, you know, what with you two running about blocking my view…’

Somebody opened the first-aid bag. Bandages whirled in the air. Harjunpää didn’t want to see Onerva’s hand any more.

‘Scissors… Get me the scissors.’

‘Hold it tighter. And undo those buttons.’

‘Out of the way. Somebody go and flag down the ambulance.’

‘I wasn’t even going that fast…’

‘Looks like her knitting days are over…’

‘Lay her head down. Put that cardigan underneath…’

Far away came the rising and falling wails of a siren. Harjunpää remained on his knees. He held Onerva’s head right next to his own, touched her hair and caressed her cheeks and nose and forehead.

‘Oh my darling,’ he whispered. ‘My love, my love… Why…?’

All of a sudden he started to cry, heavily and violently, and he didn’t care that the others could see him. He cried for Onerva’s sake and for the sake of all the wickedness he’d seen, because he didn’t know who was to blame. He cried for all the woes of his life.

The traffic on Runeberginkatu rumbled past just the way it did every afternoon, as though it were tired and slightly agitated after a day’s work. Tweety stood at a tram stop in the middle of it all, and he too was agitated. Or perhaps he was just nervous, and that was different. When you were nervous your whole body resounded like a shrill violin, but when you were agitated it felt like eating porridge made from shards of glass.

He glanced around and behind, then he looked at the people actually waiting for the tram, but nobody appeared to be looking at him. Something had unnerved him while he was at Weckman’s. A frantic-looking man had been staring at him through the window. When he noticed the man, he took the escalator up to the ground level and it looked as though the man had gone inside Weckman’s shop. He didn’t hang around to see why but walked right out on to Mannerheimintie. He hadn’t seen the man since then, and now he wondered whether he’d just been imagining things. But the incident had made him more vigilant than usual.

He took a tighter grip around the string holding his bouquet of flowers and his carrier bag and tried to forget about the man – and the other thing on his mind. That was more difficult; thinking about Wheatlocks was so easy. She was at home: he knew that. He’d visited her counter at Stockmann’s but another woman was standing there, Rosefinch, and when he’d called the house Wheatlocks had answered in her singsong voice, ‘Sari…’ He hadn’t been able to say anything, not even sorry. And when he thought of her voice now, it was like a fairy’s, the way it flowed out between her beautiful lips, and when he handed
her the roses he would kiss those lips. What joy! He took a deep sigh. What joy!

He raised his eyes, tilted his head to one side and looked up at Wheatlocks’ windows, one next to the other, the golden afternoon sun shining in through them. To see these windows was the only reason he was standing at the tram stop. He would have liked to catch a glimpse of Wheatlocks too, but the windows were too high up. He lowered his eyes, checked there were no cars coming and crossed the road. He headed straight towards the door into Wheatlocks’ stairwell, walking briskly and purposefully, but a few metres before he reached the door it happened again, for the fourth time. His steps began to slow all by themselves, then he came to a halt, turned his back to the door and groaned: he couldn’t decide how to approach her!

Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to ring the doorbell, but that would have been plain and rather silly, as if he were a vacuum
salesman
or someone come to read the electricity meter. He didn’t want it to be like that; he wanted to surprise her! And how surprised she’d be if he opened the door himself, as quietly as he possibly could, then he’d tiptoe along the hall and stop at the living-room door… There she’d be sitting, there on the pink sofa, reading a woman’s magazine. She’d raise her eyes and recognise him instantly. She’d know who he was, her very own beloved, and she’d stand up and walk towards him. ‘My love. I’ve been waiting for you.’

Tweety sobbed quietly, his shoulders trembling. There was something so beautiful about it, something symbolic: he would show her that he was able to open the door that separated them, to break down the wall that stood in the path of their love, that he had a key to Wheatlocks’ home, a key to her heart. He gave another sob, but this time for something else, something he tried not to think about. Toby.

Mother Gold had killed him, murdered him.

As soon as he thought about this, the area around his mouth began to feel cold and he didn’t like the sensation. He knew what it meant: soon the world would start to creak, and he didn’t want it to creak. He was in the city now, and moreover, he was on his way to propose to Wheatlocks.

He set off again. He walked briskly, almost at a run, because he wanted to escape the thought of Toby. What he really wanted to escape was the black dog sitting on the upper deck of his mind. It was sitting
with its muzzle towards the sky and howling ominously, howling for Toby’s death, the death of his only true friend. But the black dog was howling for another death too, and that scared him. It was howling for Mother Gold’s death. The dog was willing it to happen, and though Tweety had tried to silence it, scolded it and said that you shouldn’t wish for things like that, it just howled and howled regardless. It was a wicked, disobedient dog.

He stopped in his tracks, panting, and wiped his brow with quivering fingers. The howling wasn’t as loud any more and he plucked up the courage to think of the funeral they’d held for Toby. Lasse had made a small coffin out of plywood and they’d buried him behind Sisko’s vegetable patch near the hedgerow and Lasse’s daughters had read out
Now I lay me down to sleep
.

Thinking of this made him feel better and he didn’t feel as strongly that he had betrayed Toby by swapping him for Wheatlocks. Besides, he was sure that, up in rat heaven, Toby would be able to eat as many
chocolate
drops as he pleased.

He turned and looked almost shyly at his reflection in a shop window. He couldn’t quite believe that he was looking at himself. The man in the window was wearing a white dinner jacket with small shoulder pads, a cream-coloured open-necked shirt and loose, wine-red trousers, and when he stooped to look at his feet he saw a pair of braided shoes with small leather tassels. He gently shook his head and his hair moved; it felt springy and remained fixed in its new style. He’d had it cut in layers, for the very first time. Until then he’d been happy to let Bamse lop it off in the kitchen with a pair of scissors.

All at once his hesitation was gone. Now he realised that he hadn’t been worried about how to enter the flat but about whether he was good enough for Wheatlocks. But now that he’d seen himself in the window he knew that he had no reason to worry. He knew he could open the door without his guardian angel simply because his will was so great.

He strode back the way he had come, headed straight for Wheatlocks’ door, put his hand on the handle and stopped for a moment, but this time it was for a different reason. He looked around at the cars and the people flowing past, taking in the whole world, and in a way bidding it farewell, for he knew that everything would look different the next time he laid eyes upon it. He pulled the door open and stepped inside.

The stairwell smelled good, of Wheatlocks’ closeness. The darkness inside was calming, and the red rug in the entrance hall crunched comfortingly beneath Tweety’s feet just as it had done countless times before. And when he listened to it more carefully, it wasn’t simply the crunch of the rug but a barely audible whisper:
My love, my love
.

The lift was on the ground floor. Tweety walked past it and took the stairs. He usually took the stairs; this gave him time to listen to the house, to think of what it was trying to tell him. Not because he was doing something wrong or because he was afraid of being caught. The house was telling him good things: the joy in her surprised eyes, the softness of her lips as they kissed, the quiet music, the touch of her hands. It was telling him all about Wheatlocks, about his true love.

He came to the second floor, then the third and continued up to the fourth at the same pace. Wheatlocks lived on the fifth floor, and as he began walking up the last flight of stairs he hesitantly felt his breast pocket. The pouch was there, and it jangled melodiously as he touched it. He thought of the flowers and whether he should take them out of the wrapping paper or not. He couldn’t decide: he’d never brought a woman flowers before. If he removed the wrapping he would spoil the thrill of opening up the package, and he would look silly standing there with a mass of crumpled paper in his hands.

He stopped at Wheatlocks’ door and waited for his breathing to steady. His mind filled with a peculiar fondness. He raised his hand and gently caressed the wooden door and the name plate. Luoto, it read. He wondered whether Wheatlocks would start using a double-barrelled surname, Sari Anneli Luoto-Leinonen. It was like poetry, like the sound of a wagtail flying through the air. It would be a good name indeed.

He lightly pressed his ear against the door. Wheatlocks was still at home. At least, he could hear music coming from inside. It must have been Vivaldi; the music seemed to bubble peacefully, at once joyous and
melancholy
. Tweety felt moved that Wheatlocks liked classical music too, and he was sure she would come to like
Carmina Burana
as well.

He laid the bouquet of flowers and his plastic bag on the floor, dug the pouch out of his pocket and crouched down. He didn’t dare kneel; it was the middle of the afternoon and somebody could appear in the
stairwell
at any moment. From a crouching position it was easier to stand up and continue on his way. Still, people didn’t just
appear
in the stairwell; first
they rattled about in their hallway for a moment, and even an idiot would have been able to listen out for that.

Tweety knew Wheatlocks’ door off by heart: red, red, beige, turquoise, red, light blue, blue then orange. He turned his small brass pick in the lock, from left to right, and the lock responded to him. It started humming softly and beautifully, for it recognised his touch, and though he didn’t once look at his watch, he knew it had taken him less than eight minutes to pick the lock.

He turned the lock very slowly and quietly. The door was ajar, just enough that he could see that the chain wasn’t attached. The strains of Vivaldi grew stronger, a flute singing out its melody, and the air was filled with the scent of Wheatlocks and her home. It smelled of fresh laundry. Tweety quickly wiped the corner of his eye. He felt like he was coming home.

He ran his fingers through his hair, picked up the flowers and his plastic bag – which contained a box of Wiener nougat chocolates and a bottle of white wine, Riesling, he knew she liked that – then he opened the door and stepped across the threshold. The hallway was dark, but the dazzling afternoon sunshine was streaming in from the living room, and somebody was standing right amid the brightness.

At first he could only make out a dark figure, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the light he could see better: her thighs and hips and breasts, her hair shining like a golden halo, and he knew it was Wheatlocks. He quietly cleared his throat and stepped closer.

‘Don’t move!’ she shouted suddenly, her voice shrill with fear. ‘Don’t move! I’ll shoot!’

‘Wheatlocks?’ he exclaimed, but she didn’t answer. She just stared at him, terrified. Her mouth wasn’t Wheatlocks’ mouth; it belonged to someone else. Her arms were raised in front of her and she was pointing at him. He stepped closer so that she would recognise him.

‘Wheatlocks…’

‘Stop! Go away!’

‘But it’s me… You love me… And I…’

Tweety heard the shot, heard the bullet lodge somewhere high up in the wall behind him and, frozen to the spot, he waited for another shot to ring out. But suddenly he felt a searing pain in his head, then it felt as though he were on his back, flying through the air. He found himself
staring at the ceiling, and he realised that things weren’t over, that this wasn’t the end.
Don’t kill me! Let me live!