The Hummingbird

by Kati Hiekkapelto

  The police station was located next to the train and bus stations, nestled between restaurants, department stores, office blocks and housing complexes in one of the busiest areas of the city. It was an ugly, high-rise building erected in the late sixties.

  Anna tried to pluck something familiar from amid the cacophony, a sound that might have awoken a forgotten memory or reminded her of an event from her childhood or her teenage years, of her former life in this city. But the sounds could have been from any city, and the events of the past remained hidden.

  My first day on the job isn’t even over yet and I’m dealing with a case of suspected honour violence, a brutal homicide and a real arsehole of a partner, thought Anna, opening her eyes. It doesn’t look good. Nothing here will be easy. But is that really what I was expecting? Her thoughts drifted to the subject of Ákos.

  Before long she would have to confront him. She pressed herself tight against the bay windows and squinted into the bright sunshine. She was nervous. She felt a powerful urge to go out for a cigarette.

  So much evil took place last night, she pondered. My job is to find out who committed it and why, to find the guilty parties and the evidence to convict them. That’s what I’m paid for. It doesn’t matter whether it’s my first or my 500th day at work; my job is still my job. I’m good at this job. Well, back in the Guides I was. I don’t know about this one yet, but surely it can’t be all that different. And I’ve never yet let bullies get the better of me.

  Reluctantly she let her craving for nicotine waft out of the window and into the exhaust fumes in the alley below. There was no point getting into a bad habit like that; one a day was all she permitted herself, and never while she was on duty. She sighed and closed the window. The city bustle was muted behind the panes of glass. In the quiet of the room she could hear the dull ticking of a wall clock.

  She turned away from the window.

  A tall, ominous figure was standing behind her.

  ‘Úr Isten!’ Anna screamed. The shock coursed through her veins like poison.

  ‘We’ve tracked down Juhani Rautio. Pack your tampons and lipstick, we’re heading back to the same village we visited this morning,’ said Esko.

  ‘What the hell are you thinking? Don’t ever creep up on me again…’

  But Esko had already disappeared into the corridor.

  ‘Get a move on!’ he shouted from the lift.

  5

  JUHANI RAUTIO was just finishing an extended lunch break, during which he had brokered a lucrative deal, when his telephone rang. Juhani cursed his own absent-mindedness. Ten years ago, answering your telephone anywhere and everywhere had been the hallmark of a successful businessman, but nowadays it was considered downright uncouth. Juhani wasn’t uncouth, at least he didn’t think he was. In dealing with clients, he took pains to focus only on them, to make them feel that he was there for them and them alone. Children didn’t like it either, if Mum and Dad were on the phone or reading the newspaper while they were trying to explain something important. You had to be there for them.

  Juhani was about to press the reject button and present an embarrassed apology to his client when something made him answer after all. With hindsight, he saw this as a portentous sign of a father’s instinct.

  The phone call was from the police. He was asked to return home as soon as possible. His wife Irmeli had also been summoned.

  This time Esko took Anna in his car; Virkkunen must have been watching them from the window. Still, they didn’t exchange a word throughout the journey. Maybe I can get used to working like this, thought Anna bitterly: we sulk, don’t talk to one another, and if we do talk, it’s only to take the piss.

  The first impression of her new workplace had already begun to crack like an old oil painting. Have I just made the biggest mistake of my life, she pondered.

  The red-brick house belonging to Juhani and Irmeli Rautio was located in the centre of Saloinen in an area of old detached houses with spacious yards and gardens, each better pruned than the next. The tall trees, fulgent hedgerows and abundant flower beds made this a pleasant area. Almost every garden featured bushes of berries and vegetable patches, heavy with the late-summer harvest. Anna thought of the panorama opening up from her own balcony. She tried to remember whether she could see even a single balcony with hanging baskets. Her mother had always filled the balcony with troughs of flowers. She recalled the buzz of activity on the balcony each spring, her mother’s hands caked with mud, fragile plant cuttings standing in long, slender boxes, the cool of the balcony’s concrete floor, the bamboo mats rolled up waiting for shoots to be replanted. Above all, she remembered the pride with which her mother looked at her balcony on her way back from town. It really was beautiful, particularly in late summer when a sea of flowers spilled over the railings. After moving away from home, Anna had never planted a single flower. She found herself wondering why.

  Juhani arrived home at the same time as Anna and Esko. They shook hands in the driveway, introduced themselves and stepped inside. The house was calm and tidy. The family’s affluence wasn’t obvious, but was perceptible in the tastefully designed interior. Either the couple had employed a professional interior designer or Mrs Rautio was exceptionally gifted, thought Anna as Juhani gestured them through to the stylish living room where every detail seemed to be just right.

  ‘You are the owner of a yellow Fiat Punto, is that correct?’ Esko didn’t beat around the bush.

  ‘That’s right,’ Juhani replied, a note of concern in his voice.

  ‘With the registration number AKR-643?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Do you know where your car is right now?’

  ‘What’s going on? Has it been stolen?’

  ‘Just answer the question, please, and we’ll see whether this is a matter for your concern,’ said Esko calmly.

  ‘Has Riikka been in a crash? Is she okay? Tell me this minute she’s okay,’ Juhani shouted.

  Anna and Esko glanced at one another. Just then there came a click as the front door opened and Mrs Rautio stepped inside, her face red and sweaty as she took off her cycling helmet.

  ‘Juhani, what’s going on? Why do we have to come home?’ Her voice was taut with worry.

  ‘Please take a seat, both of you,’ said Esko gently but firmly.

  So he does know how to behave appropriately, thought Anna.

  ‘We found this car parked by a running track some distance from here. There are a few questions we’d like to ask.’

  ‘Our daughter Riikka uses that car, has done for about a year now, ever since she turned eighteen. We originally got it as a second car for my wife, but we realised we didn’t really need it.’

  ‘I prefer to cycle,’ said Irmeli. ‘Means I don’t need to work out separately. Where is Riikka? Let me call her right now,’ she continued and made to stand up.

  ‘Please, just sit down,’ Esko ordered. Irmeli remained seated.

  ‘Where should your daughter be right now?’ asked Anna.

  ‘In town, I should think,’ said Irmeli, glanced questioningly at her husband.

  ‘Is that where she lives?’

  ‘Well, she lives here actually. Officially, this is her address, but she spends most of her time at her boyfriend’s place downtown.’

  ‘She’s nineteen years old, is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Juhani.

  ‘Did she come home yesterday?’

  ‘No. We haven’t seen her for a few days. When was it she was here, Irmeli?’

  ‘She popped round to do some washing – was it Wednesday? Jere – her boyfriend, that is – doesn’t have a washing machine. There’s a laundry in the basement, but Riikka doesn’t like using it,’ Irmeli gave a forced giggle.

  ‘When did you last speak on the telephone?’

  ‘Riikka called us yesterday. Nothing in particular, just asked if she could take an antique chest of drawers with her to Jyväskylä. She was moving there to study. Psychology. The move’s
pretty soon.’

  ‘Does your daughter jog a lot?’ asked Anna and felt a slight tensing of her shoulders.

  Irmeli and Juhani sat for a moment in silence. What had so far remained unsaid flickered through the couple’s consciousness.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Irmeli. ‘She got into it in June. I bought her a decent pair of running shoes to get her started. They’re quite expensive, proper running shoes, especially on a student budget. She … she seems to think she’s overweight. But it’s nothing obsessive; it’s not as if she’s anorexic or anything like that, just a young woman’s normal concern for her own body. She wanted to look good.’

  Irmeli’s restless fingers began plaiting the tassels of a woollen shawl on the sofa. She peered up alternately at Anna and Esko, her eyes now alert with fear, a deep furrow of concern pressed into her brow.

  ‘What make of shoes were they?’ asked Anna.

  When Irmeli gave the name of the brand, Esko turned towards the window and clenched his fist so that his knuckles gleamed white. Anna tried to swallow the dried saliva in her throat.

  ‘What about her tracksuit? What kind of running clothes did she wear?’

  ‘I think she had several. At least one dark-blue Adidas tracksuit and a bright green one – that one was brand new. Why are you asking these things? Just tell us what’s happened!’ Irmeli begged, now unable to conceal her anguish.

  Anna looked at Esko. We should have talked about this beforehand, she thought. Who should say what? Is it now up to me to tell these people the worst possible news? What should I do?

  Esko cleared his throat.

  ‘We’ve found the body of a young woman on the running track near where your car was parked,’ he said in his gravelly voice.

  6

  RAUNO FORSMAN was driving to Saloinen through the landscape of a reborn summer. He had always been charmed by how quickly the city gave way to the countryside, by how thin and imperceptible the boundary between these two worlds really was. In his parents’ childhood the boundary had been clearly defined, and crossing that boundary was an event people planned with great care. Back then city dwellers were still considered better than everyone else. Country folk were curiously envious of them. That being said, they were also considered slightly stupid, because they knew nothing of hard graft and didn’t know how to get about in the woods. In Rauno’s childhood, this cultural clash had diminished to an extent, though its remnants could still be observed. Nowadays everyone was an equal part of the online community and living in the countryside was viewed as a trendy form of downshifting. The boundary between town and countryside had been erased by years of daily commutes in and out of the city. Traditional fields were replaced with identical, soulless blocks of flats. A romantic soul might have been lucky enough to find a rustic idyll in the form of an old log house.

  Rauno drove past the isolated houses in the vicinity of the crime scene. There were four in total. Two houses stood on Selkämaantie. The first was home to Aune Toivola, who would be left in peace and quiet for the rest of the day, and the second to elderly widower Yki Raappana. The other two houses were newly built detached units in Irjalanperä, a remote area to the south-east of the running track where, in the hope of increased tax revenue, the local council had planned plots of land to house those relocating from the city. These houses were inaccessible from the same path that led to the running track and to Aune and Yki’s properties. Instead you had to drive back to the main road, drive south for about half a kilometre and turn right at the roundabout by the shopping centre. Still, an old forest track a few kilometres long led from the houses to the illuminated running track. The shooter could well have used that.

  Rauno decided to start with Yki. The house was small, old and dilapidated, but beneath the flaking layers of paint and the torn felt roof someone with a penchant for DIY might well have been able to make out the potential for a quaint old cottage. The surrounding gardens featured large currant bushes, their branches heavy with berries. The woods opened out on the other side of the yard, behind the sauna and the fence. Rauno knocked at a slightly skewed door; its white paintwork had long since started to peel in slender strips. An old dwarf of a man in a checked shirt and brown trousers and braces opened the door surprisingly swiftly. The old man’s eyes blinked sharply. The stench of a potato cellar wafted out to the doorstep.

  ‘Hello there,’ said Yki and shook Rauno’s hand, his palm as rough as sandpaper. ‘It’s a fair surprise to have a real police officer round here. I get so few visitors these days. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Rauno didn’t care to decline, though the kitchen looked like a sure-fire way of picking up food poisoning. The ceramic hob was covered with layers of burnt food and the coffee pot was stained with age-old brown spillages. The draining board was piled with rubbish and dirty dishes. Yki rinsed two cups in cold water. Rauno sat down at a small kitchen table and decided to man up and deal with it.

  Though Yki continuously lost his train of thought and delayed Rauno’s departure with endless stories, the visit wasn’t entirely futile. Despite his age, the old man had a sharp mind and an acute sense of hearing. He hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. Like Aune, his house was out of sight of the track. However, he had heard something. At a quarter past ten he had gone outside to close the flues in the sauna and he’d heard a car driving towards the village. That certainly can’t have been the murdered jogger, thought Rauno. The old man had heard shots too, both before and after the sound of the car’s engine, but hadn’t paid them the slightest attention. At this time of year you heard shots all day long, and had he been a bit younger he too would have been down by the shore taking a pop at the geese late in the evening. But he no longer had a rifle. He had given it to his brother’s granddaughter when she’d turned fifteen and acquired her hunting licence. That was a few years ago now.

  The visit to Yki’s house had taken over an hour, and the aftertaste of three bitter cups of coffee still burned Rauno’s throat. He sniffed at the stale air that had soaked into his shirt as he drove to his next visit, which yielded nothing but a sense of burgeoning anxiety. Irjalanperä was home to two families with young children who had moved from the city and who were like clones of one another. Both houses were unfinished, their front gardens nothing but a glorified sandpit, a chaotic mess of toys and two-by-four planks. A flock of pre-school-age children was running around, while their parents looked dead with exhaustion; they were people deep in debt, people who collapsed into bed each night as soon as they’d put the kids to sleep.

  Just like me, thought Rauno. Just like us.

  Neither of the families had heard or seen anything, for which both couples seemed politely and genuinely apologetic. It was entirely plausible that someone could have walked or driven past, gone to the end of the path leading to the running track and made their way from there to the track or the shore without the couple noticing a thing. Putting the children to bed was such an operation that neither family had paid the slightest attention to the world outside their windows.

  However, they might have noticed a car’s headlights or the sound of the motor, simply because there was so rarely anyone else around. Perhaps they might have paid it some attention. But if someone had been moving around out there after they had gone to bed, they most certainly wouldn’t have woken again. Anything was possible, hard to say, maybe, maybe not, Mummy will come and look in just a minute, you wait now, Daddy’s talking to this man. They promised to mull it over and to get in touch if anything came to mind, though they seemed quite certain that wouldn’t happen. Rauno left his card at both houses and watched as both sets of children immediately seized it for their own games.

  He might as well have visited only one of the houses, thought Rauno as he headed back to the city. Now I’ve just exhausted myself. The noise, the small children, the parents running around after them – it was all too close to home, as if he’d been interviewing himself. Rauno wondered whether he looked as fatigued as they did. It occurred to hi
m that he could use the stress of the new case to escape the same hullabaloo when he got home. He’d have a pint somewhere, go home once the kids were sure to be asleep. And his wife.

  The thought was tempting.

  Sari Jokikokko-Pennanen had remained at the station. After the discovery of the jogger, Virkkunen had assigned her to all operations related to the missing Kurdish girl. Looks like I’ll be on overtime again, she cursed under her breath and reluctantly called the babysitter who had even more reluctantly agreed to stay for another hour but not a minute longer. Sari’s husband was away on business and her mother was on a senior citizens’ spa holiday in Estonia. She’d have to get home in time. Sari’s two small children prevented her from becoming consumed with work, and for that she was truly grateful.

  With a sense of routine Sari filled out the forms used to summon people for interview, printed and signed them, put them in envelopes and left them at reception to be posted. Bihar’s family would receive the forms tomorrow. Sari glanced at her watch; half an hour had passed already. She called the station in Vantaa and left a message requesting they call back. She wanted to talk to the officers that had visited Bihar’s uncle and aunt, who had seen the situation for themselves. Indeed, it would probably also be worth talking to the officers who had been alerted to Bihar’s house. Esko had apparently already done this, but she wanted to form her own perspective on the matter. Sari had always found it hard to get an overall sense of a case simply by reading other people’s reports, and this had had a somewhat detrimental effect on her work as a police officer. It was a weakness, she thought. My very own little weakness. Nobody’s perfect. Again she looked at her watch. She’d have to go soon. Although she was worth her weight in gold, the babysitter would be annoyed, and this she wanted to avoid at all costs. A good babysitter was hard to find, and she didn’t want to let this one slip through her fingers.