The Hummingbird

by Kati Hiekkapelto

Anna drummed her fingers on the table and drank her coffee.

  ‘How are you bearing up?’ Sari asked suddenly.

  Pretty bloody terribly, Anna felt like responding. To be honest, I’m at the end of my tether.

  ‘It’s just that you seem to take this case so personally,’ Sari continued.

  Yes, Sari, I do take it personally. Far too personally.

  ‘Sure, this is pretty difficult,’ she finally said out loud. ‘That girl really touched me. But I’ll be fine.’

  Anna slumped against the table. Sari watched her, concerned, then gently stroked her back.

  ‘Any news on Rauno?’ Anna asked.

  ‘No change. All of his organs are functioning, but he’s still unconscious,’ said Sari.

  ‘Damn it. As if we needed that too. Damn it, damn it, damn it,’ Anna cursed.

  ‘I think we all need some sleep,’ said Esko. ‘There’s no point staying here worrying about things we can’t change. We need to be ready tomorrow. It’s been a long and draining day, and tomorrow will be no different.’

  Not exactly music for going to sleep, thought Anna as she sipped beer straight from the half-litre can and tapped her left foot to the mystical beat as though she were walking through the alleyways of a large city. The Sistol album she’d ordered had finally arrived. It had been lying on the hallway rug in a flat cardboard package beneath a pile of flyers and free newspapers.

  Now rats were scavenging through the stinking rubbish bins. Homeless junkies lay by the walls watching her pass, their eyes gleaming. A blue wave of light washed across the graffiti-covered surface of the concrete walls as a police car sped along the adjacent avenue in hot pursuit of a criminal.

  It was well past midnight. She had only just come home and hadn’t bothered to have a shower. Tomorrow she would have to go for a run, she thought and wondered who she was trying to fool. She hadn’t run a step all autumn. She was so tired that every part of her body ached. She tried to make sense of all the indistinct things that had burst from her past to her present, things that had suddenly jumped into focus and were now shouting at her so loudly that everything else was drowned out.

  Vigyáz!

  Fatigue pulsed in her body like a tumour. I have emotional cancer, she thought and fetched another can of beer. And I don’t think I’m going to overcome it. She smoked a cigarette on the sofa and fetched the ashtray from the balcony. Sistol’s strange techno sounds emptied her head one beat at a time.

  She smoked another cigarette. Smoke rings rose up to the ceiling, shrouding the room in a grey mist.

  Heavenly Father, anyone who’s listening, let me sleep just one night, was her final, desperate thought before the gates opened to a deep, peaceful sleep.

  Juse is different from all the other boys I know. To be honest, I’ve always thought boys were a bit stupid. Mehvan is an idiot and all my boy cousins are idiots and all the snotty-nosed kids at Rajapuro primary are super idiots. Juse has light-blue eyes and his hair is cute the way it sticks up in every direction and he’s quite skinny. We were in the same group for a history project, then one day he came and chatted to me during break time and asked me out for a coffee. That’s where it all started. I fancied him straight away. He’s so funny, utterly crazy and always makes me laugh. He said he’d noticed me on the first day of school and wondered who that beautiful, quiet, smart girl was. I was embarrassed, but it’s really nice to hear someone saying things like that, especially if you’re not used to it. At first we were just good friends; we’d talk and talk, and all that free time I managed to swindle for myself we spent together, but it wasn’t long before the relationship got more serious. The attraction was really strong right from the start, and it was mutual. I told him all about my family and my background, everything. Juse had plans on how to soften up my parents, but with that he showed how naïve he was. No Finn can truly understand what honour, namus, really means to our people.

  One of my aunts, or a second cousin of our second cousin’s neighbours or whatever she was, had seen me and Juse around the town holding hands when, according to my timetable, I was supposed to be at school reading up for my extended chemistry exam. That’s when all hell finally broke loose. After that, everything happened quite fast. They found out that there was no Kurdish club, and when she was threatened back home Piya told her parents about a couple of class parties I’d been too. So, in other words, it turned out that for the best part of a year I’d had plenty of opportunities to spend time alone with boys – Finnish boys – and that there was a special boy in the picture too. Which, of course, to them meant that I’d already lost my virginity and that I was essentially a slut. They would have to call off the engagement, because who wants to marry a fallen woman? They could wave goodbye to the family’s honour; Bihar had destroyed that.

  Dad was furious. Still, he managed to behave with surprising calm – he didn’t beat me or anything. That’s when I knew they meant business. It felt as though they’d been planning this day for a long time. Perhaps they had.

  Juse received a death threat at the same time as they took me to my aunt and uncle’s place in Vantaa. Dad and my uncle were smart enough to send it from a prepaid phone and they didn’t mention any names. Juse decided to delete the message, he was so pissed off. I was really mad at him afterwards, because that would have been evidence.

  35

  THE MORNING MEETING about Rauno’s accident was over. The corridor and offices at the Violent Crimes Unit were quiet, as though any noise might have disturbed Rauno as he lay in the hospital. There was a shocked and despondent atmosphere in the unit. Any motivation to catch the killer was gone, now replaced by concern for their colleague. What’s more, Bihar’s disappearance was distressing. Even Virkkunen could sense it. Now he had to lead his team, give them emotional stamina. With Rauno out of the picture, they would have to work harder than ever. The killer must not be allowed to benefit from the crisis enveloping the investigation. We mustn’t allow him that pleasure, that advantage, Virkkunen had said as he rounded off the meeting. The officers nodded woefully, but Anna felt as though she was on the verge of giving up. She had slept well all night and woken up feeling surprisingly alert, something she barely recognised any more. For once her head hadn’t been throbbing, and she’d almost felt like going for a run. Now the fatigue was creeping back. It wasn’t going to give up just like that.

  A pale Virve was waiting in the corridor of the Violent Crimes Unit. She stepped into Anna’s office, sullen and nervous. She was wearing a retro-style dress with a large printed pattern and thick dark-brown socks. A Palestine scarf was tightly wrapped round her neck, and this time her long hair had been sloppily tied up in a bun. She took off her red duffel coat and held it in her arms.

  ‘How are you?’ Anna asked.

  Virve scoffed but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Several matters have come to light as part of our investigation, and I’d like to ask you a few questions about them. Then I’m going to take you down to the holding cells where we’ll register your details.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Virve gasped.

  ‘It’s just a routine procedure. We’ll take your photograph, fingerprints, a DNA sample and note down any distinguishing features. I have a warrant for it here. The information will all be destroyed if you’re proven innocent.’

  ‘Am I being charged?’ Virve’s panic was rapidly beginning to escalate.

  ‘No, not at the moment. So it’s important that you tell the truth and don’t try to hide anything from me.’

  Virve’s breathing was shallow and her eyes were shifting restlessly. She nodded to indicate that she had understood.

  ‘Where were you on Monday evening?’

  ‘At the cinema,’ she replied instantly. ‘With Emmi. You saw us together at Café Penguin.’

  ‘Which cinema were you at and what were you watching?’

  ‘We were at Aurora. Brad Pitt’s latest film. It was rubbish.’

  ‘What time was this?’
r />   ‘The showing started at nine and ended at eleven.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘I was with Emmi all day.’

  ‘And have you been to Mexico?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last spring, straight after our exams.’

  ‘Who were you travelling with?’

  ‘I was alone.’

  ‘Alone? Why?’

  ‘I wanted to go by myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose I just wanted to get away from everything, friends, school, Mum, everything.’

  ‘Was it because you wanted to learn about the history of the Aztecs?’

  ‘It’s really interesting, but that’s not why I went.’

  ‘So why did you go?’

  ‘I managed to get a really cheap flight.’

  Virve was extremely nervous. She fidgeted with her dress, kept touching her hair and bracelets, crossing and uncrossing her legs.

  ‘Why do you keep asking about the Aztecs?’

  ‘Because they’re linked to all three murders. That’s why. And you happen to have visited Mexico.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything!’ Virve raised her voice.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be the judge of that,’ said Anna, keeping her composure.

  ‘But I haven’t. You’ve got to believe me.’

  ‘Let’s go down and get you registered, shall we?’ said Anna and gestured to Virve to follow her.

  Anna and Virve walked through the police station and up to the top floor, where the holding cells were located. The whole floor stank of cigarette smoke. Anna realised that she hadn’t smoked a single cigarette since arriving at work that morning and felt the desire for nicotine like a sumptuous tingling in the tissues along the inside of her mouth. Why isn’t the yearning for nicotine enough? So often the mere thought feels better than the act itself.

  The registration department was situated right in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the holding cells. It was grey and lit in pale fluorescent light, like all the other rooms in this building, though this one had no windows. The bleak room had a computer, photographic equipment and a fingerprinting machine that looked like a scanner. On a table in the corner stood an older, manual version of the same machine. Anna wondered whether it had been left there on purpose, in case of a power cut or some significant infrastructure catastrophe.

  ‘Let’s take your fingerprints first, then the DNA sample and the photos to finish off with,’ said Heikki, a young guy who had graduated as a media assistant and who doubtless had a very different idea of his future career when he began his studies, but who had since realised he was lucky to have a job at all. In a twisted way he found working with criminals fascinating. Working here, he had plenty of juicy stories to tell his mates, far better than anyone in a regular, boring job. He had even registered the couple that had dismembered a woman and stuffed her in a suitcase last summer; he’d processed motorbike gangs, members of the Yugoslav mafia and other professional criminals whose scars and tattoos he had documented in detail.

  Once they had taken her fingerprints, Heikki glanced over the warrant for the DNA sample and asked Virve to open her mouth. With a practised hand, he swiped the inside of her cheek with a cotton-wool bud and pushed it into a plastic tube.

  ‘There we go, that’s ready for analysis,’ he said.

  ‘This is horrible,’ Virve whispered. ‘It makes me feel like a real criminal.’

  ‘Really?’ Anna commented. ‘Guilty conscience?’

  ‘Will you listen to me for once? No. This room is terrifying. All these fingerprints and samples … it’s as if I’d really done something bad. This is awful. Why are you taking these?’ Virve started to cry and looked at the door as though she wanted to rush out. Anna could see that the girl was beside herself.

  ‘Take it easy, now,’ said Heikki as he gently took Virve by the shoulders and sat her down. ‘You sit there for a moment. Right, now listen to me. These procedures are routine parts of a police investigation and it’s perfectly normal that the subject of the procedures – that’s you – finds them stressful and intrusive. You’re not the first person to start panicking up here. If you’re found to be completely innocent, all of this information will be destroyed and there won’t be any trace of you in the police system. So let’s all take a deep breath, get these photographs done, then that’s us for today.’ Heikki chatted away to Virve and the girl visibly calmed down. He’s slick, thought Anna. I must remember to commend him later.

  ‘That’s the way. Good. There’s nothing to worry about. First we’ll photograph your face, then if you’ve got any distinguishing features or tattoos, we’ll need to photograph them too. Do you have anything like that?’

  Virve wiped her tears on her sleeve and didn’t say anything.

  ‘Do you have any tattoos or scars or large birthmarks or…’

  Virve stared at the old manual fingerprinting machine, as though she was suddenly unable to understand what they were saying. Her eyes bore a look of resignation. Anna and Heikki waited. Eventually Virve rolled up the sleeve on her left arm.

  On her forearm, just above the wrist, was a colourful, resplendent orchid and from inside the flower, with its long curved beak, a beautiful hummingbird was supping nectar.

  ‘Should we take her in?’ Esko asked Virkkunen, to whose office the whole team had been summoned. Virve had been left to wait with Heikki in the registration room.

  ‘She can prove that she was at the cinema when Veli-Matti was shot,’ said Anna. ‘I just called the cinema and the girl she claims to have been with. The film played until 11 p.m. Nobody left during the screening.’

  ‘What about before the screening?’ asked Sari. ‘Veli-Matti wasn’t shot very late in the evening. She could have done it before the film started.’

  ‘She was with this Emmi from 5 p.m. onwards. They went swimming before the film. It’s just not possible. Virve can’t have killed Veli-Matti.’

  ‘This whole thing was cooked up by Virve and Jere, I’ve said so all along. Christ, now we’ve finally got the one with the hummingbird in her left hand! All autumn we’ve been wondering what on earth this Hutsilo thing means. We can’t let her go now. It’s time to put a stop to these killings!’ Esko bellowed.

  ‘What did you get out of Jere?’ Virkkunen asked Esko.

  ‘Nothing much. Apparently he’s stopped shagging the hippie girl. He’s ready to confront the grief of losing Riikka and doesn’t want to hide any more, nonsense like that – and from a grown man too. On Monday he was at a lecture, then he spent the evening and night with the university’s hiking society in Varpaneva. The story checks out; the hiking society confirmed it. They’re crazy folk, going off camping by a bog in the middle of the week at this time of year. But I’ll be damned, there they were. All evening and all night.’

  ‘So they can’t really be in it together if they were both somewhere else at the time. There would need to be a third person involved, and that sounds pretty far-fetched,’ said Anna.

  ‘Didn’t we speculate that they could belong to some kind of cult?’ asked Sari. ‘Rauno found a few on the internet. Then there are the online retailers. We need to get into Rauno’s email account; the Russian guy should have written back to him by now with information on whether there were any shipments of those necklaces to Finland.’

  ‘I’ll sort you out with the passwords,’ said Virkkunen.

  ‘Good. But what if this really is some sick cult where everybody takes turns at killing someone?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Anna. ‘But do you really think some of them could go crazy and start sacrificing people together? I mean, in real life?’

  ‘There are examples of mass suicides. People do all kinds of crazy things in the name of religion.’

  ‘Suicide is a bit different, though.’

  ‘I don’t know. But if that’s the case, who is their leader? Jere doesn’t have any humming
bird tattoos.’

  ‘It’s Virve, obviously,’ Esko spluttered. ‘She’s the one with the tattoo. She’s Hutsilo. The boss, the highest bloody deity.’

  ‘I don’t buy that,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve interviewed her three times.’

  ‘We need to grill these two about the Aztec connection. But we certainly can’t arrest Virve, not on evidence this flimsy,’ said Virkkunen.

  ‘But it can’t just be coincidence that the killer leaves images of a bloodthirsty Aztec god on each victim, then we find a tattoo directly linked to the necklaces on the wrist of a girl who was one of our first suspects. It cannot be coincidence!’ Esko shouted.

  ‘No, it can’t,’ Virkkunen conceded. ‘And I’m sure it isn’t. But that aside, one tattoo doesn’t prove that Virve is the killer or some kind of cult leader, especially as she has a watertight alibi. It’s circumstantial evidence. Continue with the interviews. If these kids have some connection to that god or any cult, find it. Now!’

  ‘Seems like you’re in the habit of roughing up your girlfriends, doesn’t it?’ Esko commented to Jere Koski, who was still sitting staring at his hands in Interview Room 2. ‘Virve Sarlin has described you as jealous and violent. Is that true?’

  Jere looked up.

  ‘I don’t wanna be like that,’ he said in despair.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Sometimes it just bursts out. It’s like I can’t control it.’

  ‘What bursts out?’ asked Sari.

  ‘The aggression. It’s like my head goes blank. I totally lose it.’

  ‘Does this happen often?’

  Jere looked at them, puzzled, as though suddenly he had no idea where he was or who he was with. Then he gave a cautious smile.

  ‘No, thank God. I’ve tried to train myself out of it. I don’t want to be like…’

  He stopped all of a sudden.

  ‘Like who?’ Sari prompted him.

  ‘Like my dad,’ Jere all but whispered.

  ‘But you are, after all. Yes?’ Sari asked.