From the fridge in the kitchenette, Leivo fetched a can of energy drink and cracked it open. He gulped half the can of pineapple-flavoured juice as he carefully shuffled towards his desk. He stopped, looked at the piles of papers waiting for his attention, and emptied the can. An empty can in his hand and a pile of bills in front of him. His mood threatened to slip from triumph to irritation. It was beyond his control.
He needed an assistant, a secretary, a helper. Preferably three. That was clear enough. But not yet. There wasn’t enough money coming in, but that would all change soon. The tide was turning.
Leivo sat down in his chair and turned to the window so that he could see a strip of the beach. Soon that beach would be full of people just like him, people that would finally understand their condition and seek out the optimal holiday experience. He craned his neck to see the lifeguards’ tower. It was empty. He turned, found the rota on his desk and ran his finger along the paper until he found the right day and time. No surprise there, he thought: Korhonen was supposed to be on duty. And he wasn’t.
They had torched the shed, thought Leivo. That was progress. He’d received a message on the phone he referred to as his operation phone. He didn’t know what to think of Korhonen and his – what was the right word? – his partner, boyfriend, lover, but as long as they got the job done there was nothing to stop his plans from moving ahead.
Leivo looked at the empty watchtower for a moment. It was unlikely anyone would drown. There was nobody in the water.
11
Olivia Koski carefully placed a hand on the side of the sauna stove. It was warm. She turned her hand; it was black with soot. She looked around. All summer she had been telling herself that she would use one of her days off to tidy the shed and empty it out, to get rid of the old junk and do something with the building. Problem solved: it was her day off and the shed had well and truly been given an extreme makeover.
It didn’t feel particularly good.
Olivia stepped cautiously, watching where she placed her feet. Her rubber boots had thick soles, but there were nails and sharp objects hidden beneath the mud and debris scattered across the yard. With each step came a crack, a crunch, a squelch.
Someone had burned down her shed. Before that someone had broken into her house and got himself murdered. Every time she started thinking about these things, every time she tried to work out what the hell was going on in her life, everything seemed to get more and more tangled. The more she thought, the tighter the knot became.
Last night, once she’d said good night to Jan Kaunisto – who was a nice, pleasant guy but who at that point in time was more of a distraction – she had tried to explain to the police that she was worried she no longer had any idea whatsoever of what was going on here, and asked straight out whether she needed some form of police protection and whether she was in imminent danger.
She didn’t suggest the kind of thing she’d seen in films and on television. What was it called again? – when witnesses were given a new identity and relocated to a small town where somebody inevitably recognised them and they had to fight for their life and in the final scene, as the houses burned and the blood flowed, they were forced to shoot the bad guy who had driven them out of their home in the first place. Only then could they hug each other, regardless of any shoulder injuries sustained, and start to rebuild their lives.
Olivia wasn’t quite that crazy. At least, she didn’t think so.
But the police might have thought so. That was the impression she quickly got from them.
They started questioning her.
How do you know Mr Kaunisto? You can’t think of any reason why the recent homicide in your house and the fire in your shed might be connected? Any difficult relationships recently? Have you been letting anybody live here? Do you know all your guests? Do you engage in any activities that involve fire, danger and strange men?
Yes, Olivia thought to herself, anonymous pyromaniacs really turn me on.
For God’s sake, she’d replied, you’re really asking me things like this? I ask you whether I’m in danger, you ask me whether I get excited at the thought of my shed burning down.
Olivia had lost her temper with them. Not entirely, but just enough. Enough for her body to start producing adrenalin, a protective shell, enough to spur her into action.
The conversation had continued for a while.
By the time the police explained that they hadn’t meant it literally, it was too late. They had nothing to offer her. Olivia realised that. She’d had enough. And the annoyance was still there the next morning, making her wake up to the reality of her situation. It had made her think and act when Wilenius the solicitor had turned up to introduce himself and make his offer.
Olivia decided that if he really was about to offer her the ten thousand euros she needed to carry out the necessary plumbing renovations, she would get to the bottom of the matter. Abso-bloody-lutely. She had no other options. And there was another motivation too. That evening she had finally begun to realise – to accept – that the police considered her in some way suspect and maybe even guilty.
The thought made her livid. It brought together all her disappointments, all the times she’d gone against her best instincts: Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it, I understand, maybe that’s right, this time, I can do it.
What a crock of shit.
Which reminded her what needed to be done first and foremost.
Olivia spent the next four and a half hours in the old outhouse and its immediate vicinity. The work was sweaty, dirty, heavy. The outhouse hadn’t been used for years. Luckily the original structure was sturdy, clearly built by someone other than her father or grandfather. She loved and respected them, but any outhouse they might have built would have collapsed under the pressure of the lightest of wipes – and not just of the building’s surfaces
In recent years the small outhouse had been used as a storage space. There was so much junk everywhere that Olivia found herself wishing that whoever had burned her shed had burned this outhouse instead. Maybe not, though – now that the water was off for good. And anyway she had no idea what had been going through the arsonist’s mind. They were sick people who, as the moustachioed police officer had insinuated, took sexual pleasure in starting fires. For whatever reason, burning the sauna offered greater pleasure than immolating the old privy.
Olivia emptied the back of the outhouse with a shovel. It was a peculiar mixture of decomposing matter – matter that had long since turned to earth – layer upon layer of old leaves (Olivia couldn’t for the life of her understand how and why they had got there) and even some small pieces of junk. Once she’d managed to clean out the midden, she fetched a water barrel from the corner of the house, propped it in place and poured in some soil and a few spadefuls of old leaves. That was a start. She fetched some water from the shore and used that to wash the inside of the structure, giving every surface a thorough scrub. Eventually, at the end of her garden stood a relatively clean outdoor toilet…
…Where she was sitting with the door wide open – the smell of disinfectant was that strong, and she certainly wasn’t expecting guests – when Jan Kaunisto pulled up in the drive on an old drop-handled Helkama. He looked her in the eyes from next to the charred ruins of the sauna, then looked down at his feet and seemed unsure what to do with himself or his bicycle. There he stood, still gripping the handlebars, as Olivia climbed off the toilet seat and walked into the yard. She was just resting, looking around, making sure she’d finished the job.
‘It’s all clean,’ she said. ‘Literally.’
Jan Kaunisto smiled, took that as a sign. He jumped off his bike and propped it on the kickstand.
Jan Nyman looked at the woman holding the red bucket. Olivia’s hair was tied in a loose ponytail, her T-shirt was partly stuck to her skin with sweat and her shorts were what might be called grandad-style. Her bare knees flashed above her black wellingtons. Nyman did his best not to show quite how pleasant it was
to see Olivia Koski again. Well, pleasant was one word for it – Nyman hadn’t even stopped off at his own chalet but had cycled straight out here after his meeting with Muurla. His legs were quivering with exertion.
‘I was out cycling,’ he said and gestured at his bike. ‘And I was just passing.’
‘On a dirt track that only leads to one place?’
There, thought Nyman. Straight to the point. Something had changed, he thought, and that something wasn’t just to do with the bucket or the outhouse standing behind Olivia.
‘Right,’ Nyman admitted and cast a glance at the ruins. ‘I just thought I’d pop in and see how you’re bearing up.’
‘The sauna and the shed have burned down. Someone died in my kitchen. I’ve just started using the outdoor toilet. Average day.’
Nyman was on thin ice, and he knew it. He had always been bad in situations like this, even with Tuula. She had always been telling him he didn’t know how to engage with people, to encounter them. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he didn’t know what those phrases meant.
‘Sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘Except the outdoor loo, that is. Good job you’ve got one.’
Olivia looked at him. Nyman didn’t think she was trying to suggest he should leave, but she didn’t seem overly enthusiastic at his presence.
‘How’s the windsurfing?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Cold,’ he replied. ‘I think I’ve made a new friend out of the teacher, though. Inquisitive fingers.’
Olivia looked as though she was thinking about something.
‘When did you say you arrived here? At the resort?’
The question was direct, and Nyman could only think of two explanations. The first was that he, Nyman, had somehow become suspicious in Olivia’s eyes, and that meant that Olivia Koski herself had nothing to do with the fire. The other explanation was, of course, that she had other reasons for asking.
‘I had nothing to do with this,’ he said and nodded at the ruins. ‘I arrived yesterday, in the morning. I was in my chalet all evening, I chatted to my new neighbour then came to the bar, where I saw you. And I can honestly say that if I wanted to burn some of your property, I’d burn that old boat at the end of the yard, the one with a hole in the bottom.’
‘It’s a memento.’
‘Then I probably wouldn’t burn that either.’
Olivia seemed to inspect him. ‘So why did you come here now?’
‘I came to have a look,’ he said. ‘To make sure the fire had gone out properly, and if it hadn’t, to help you put it out.’
Olivia Koski glanced at the ruins, swung her bucket and turned back to Nyman.
‘The fire has gone out. But the coffee might still be warm.’
They sat outside. Olivia was in bare feet, and Nyman noticed her toes rising and falling on the cropped lawn. A late afternoon by the shore, the soft glow of the sun slowly setting in the west, a hint of coolness in the air, the smells of nature: the sea, the trees, the plants, the flowers, the green lawn.
‘You made coffee. Does that mean the water is on again?’ asked Nyman.
‘Mineral water, from the store. The plumbing company has given me a quote. Ten thousand euros.’
Nyman turned his head just enough to see the house. In the golden-red glow of the sun, it looked even more in need of repair. Ten thousand euros was just a sticking plaster.
‘In the bar I got the impression you couldn’t afford the renovations. So you can afford it after all?’
‘Not yet.’
Nyman noticed how quickly Olivia gave her answer, how certain her voice was. He couldn’t decide whether he should try and get a lengthier explanation out of her or bide his time. He didn’t really have the luxury of either.
‘Have you ever taken a real risk, Jan?’ said Olivia, then turned and stared out to sea.
Nyman liked Olivia’s eyes, but he liked her profile too. Did Nyman ever take risks? He took risks for a living.
‘Depends how you define a real risk,’ he said.
‘A risk whereby you could lose everything you’re trying to achieve.’
‘That’s quite a risk.’
‘Have you ever done anything like that?’
Olivia turned back to face him.
Nyman shook his head. ‘I try to avoid unnecessary risks,’ he said. It was true, in its own way, once again.
He could see from Olivia’s expression that she was expecting more.
‘Maybe it’s because I think life itself can be a pretty risky business,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’ve never understood bungee jumping or mountain climbing. Why increase your risk factor from what it already is? Everything we eat is dangerous, if you believe what you read in magazines that is; traffic can be fatal; every day thousands of people are diagnosed with cancer. Even going to work in the morning can prove a fateful decision. As for work – depending on what you do it can be very bad for your health.’
‘It seems the life of a maths teacher is more dangerous than I thought,’ she said.
‘I just mean that life itself can be a risk.’
‘So you think we shouldn’t take risks?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Nyman replied, because there was something interesting going on here, both in the subject matter and the fact that Olivia had brought it up. ‘Maybe the important thing is to know how big a risk you’re taking, to make sure you’re fully aware of the possible consequences. And if you’re prepared to lose what you set out to achieve, then I suppose it’s okay. Are you prepared for that?’
Olivia didn’t answer immediately.
‘What if you don’t have any options?’ she asked.
Nyman wanted to watch her more closely, scrutinise her reactions, but managed to hold himself back.
‘Then it isn’t really a risk,’ he said. ‘It’s just something you have to do, without any prior knowledge of the outcome. Is that what this is about?’
He noticed that Olivia seemed to be watching him. Perhaps he was just imagining it. No, she really did look as though she was sizing him up, taking stock of him.
‘But would you do it?’ she asked. ‘You haven’t answered the question.’
Nyman looked away from Olivia’s brown eyes. He could still feel her gaze on his face, he was sure of it.
‘If my hands were tied,’ he said. ‘Yes, I would.’
Olivia shifted position, leaned back in her chair. For a moment they both stared out to sea. A swallow cut the sky in two. Nyman was going through the conversation in his head when Olivia turned back to face him.
‘Tell me about your divorce. What was it like?’ she asked, and Nyman couldn’t tell whether it was just a note of curiosity in her voice or something more, something suspicious. And if it was suspicious, he assumed it must have something to do with his cover story. It felt … extremely disconcerting.
‘Financially it was worth it,’ he said eventually. ‘My wife sold the apartment for a good price. She only told me about it as she slid the divorce papers across the table for me to sign. We were out having pizza. The pizzas had just arrived, steaming on the table in front of us. I can still remember what was on mine: walnuts, cherry tomatoes, gorgonzola and fresh rocket. It was a special offer.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I ate my pizza. I wouldn’t recommend the combination.’
‘I mean what happened then? To you?’
‘Oh. I asked my wife – I suppose by this point she was technically my ex-wife – whether I’d done something wrong. She said yes, and asked me to pass the oregano. I signed the papers and the settlement appeared in my bank account.’
‘Didn’t your wife – your ex-wife – ever tell you what you’d done wrong?’
‘Yes,’ said Nyman. ‘Many times. Many things: I never listened to her, I was never really there, always concentrating on work, not paying her enough attention; apparently I didn’t encounter her as a person.’
It looked as though Olivia smiled. Either that or the light s
oftened her features.
‘What happened then?’
‘I admitted she was probably right, because I wouldn’t know how to encounter her as a person, whatever that means. As far as I was concerned I’d met her years ago in a bar. She said that’s exactly what she meant. I paid for the pizzas, and rented the studio apartment where I still live.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘On Pengerkatu in Helsinki.’
Nyman couldn’t quite describe the expression on Olivia Koski’s face. Something was going on in those brown eyes.
‘Nice area,’ she said.
‘Very nice,’ Nyman smiled and sipped his coffee. It was tepid. He drank it all the same.
‘Do you ever eat at that Thai restaurant round the corner?’
‘There are several, aren’t there?’ he asked.
‘The one everybody knows,’ said Olivia. Nyman noted how sharp her gaze was, though the rest of her body seemed relaxed.
‘You mean Lemon Grass,’ he said and stared back at her. ‘Great coriander chicken.’
‘That’s the one,’ said Olivia. ‘You can’t get decent Thai food round here. Which reminds me, I need to go to the shop. You can cycle with me if you like. I just need a change of clothes.’
Nyman watched as Olivia walked up the steps to the house, glancing back into the yard once she reached the door. It only lasted a split second, but he caught her gaze. Olivia Koski looked at him as though she were assessing something, calculating something.
12
Holma parked his car beneath the verdant trees outside a halal butcher’s shop in Hakaniemi. Next to the shop was a kiosk. He stepped inside and bought a packet of ribbed condoms, a scratch card – in this life you always had to hope for the best – and a bottle of sugar-free fizzy orange. He tucked the contraceptives and his lottery ticket into his jacket pocket, opened the bottle of pop and looked around. The kiosk was bigger than it looked from the outside, a combination of café, second-hand store and betting shop. A television hung on the wall showing the results of various matches and competitions. Two men – both bald in strikingly identical fashion – were staring at the screen, their heads angled backwards, their gambling cards in hand. Holma thought of Antero. Antero was a gambling man. He played games in which the odds were always stacked against you. Holma gulped his fizzy orange and looked at the men. After a moment one of them sighed heavily, spun round in his chair and tore his ticket in half. He noticed Holma. Holma smiled back at him.
Palm Beach, Finland Page 13
