Black Noise

by Hiltunen, Pekka

  ‘Should we hide our wine glasses?’ Lia wondered.

  ‘From Mamia?’ Mari snorted. ‘Hardly.’

  Mamia answered after just a few rings. They saw concern on her face. Her breathing was raspy over the audio connection as she squinted at their picture.

  ‘Well now,’ Mamia said.

  She was clearly delighted to see Mari after so long.

  ‘Hi Grandma,’ Mari said.

  ‘Hi you two,’ Mamia said.

  She asked after Mari’s health and wouldn’t believe a bit of it when Mari assured her she was fine.

  ‘Even an old lady like me can see you aren’t,’ Mamia snapped.

  But if Mari was up to sipping wine with a friend, she had a good enough grip on life that her grandmother didn’t need to worry about her, Mamia said.

  ‘Have you watched the news from Finland? We’re having demonstrations here, in three cities. Young people protesting over growing income inequality. One of the marches is happening in Turku!’

  Mamia thought Turku was a lethargic, sleepy place where nothing real ever happened, Mari explained to Lia.

  ‘In that city it’s impossible to have an opinion,’ Mamia huffed.

  ‘And that galls you,’ Mari said, laughing. ‘But you want to join in.’

  ‘I might even,’ Mamia said.

  As they chatted, the evening darkened around them. The glow of Mari’s computer screen lit up her and Lia’s faces. They looked white and unreal and hopeful.

  No one talked about Mari’s other family members. Lia felt like she wasn’t supposed to ask about them or Mari’s background in general. They had plenty to talk about anyway. A couple of thousand kilometres separated them from Mamia, along with about fifty years, but she still felt like one of them.

  At some point Lia realised that she had never had such long phone conversations with her own relatives. Not even her parents. Lia rang them maybe once a month. Usually she didn’t use the computer so she wouldn’t have had video. Although it was nice seeing her parents, video calls were often a bit irritating when you thought about it: it was so easy to see when the other person’s thoughts started to wander and the novelty of seeing you wore off.

  When Mamia announced she was going to bed, they wished her goodnight several times, and after the call ended, Lia moved over to face Mari again.

  They sat there in silence for a long time.

  After opening another bottle, Mari asked how the others were holding up at the Studio.

  Maggie was doing well, Lia said. She had been in contact with Berg’s relatives in England, saying she was his friend and wanted to help with the funeral arrangements if they needed assistance. She hadn’t been coming to the Studio every day. She needed to take a little distance.

  ‘Rico – Rico is still Rico,’ Lia said with a smile.

  Rico was always doing something. Out of all of them, staying busy was easiest for him. His machines and programs always needed updating and tweaking. Only recently had it dawned on Lia how deeply Rico was mourning for the other victims besides Berg. Rico had only known Mike Cottle distantly, but even a distant personal connection made him more sensitive to what was going on.

  ‘And Paddy misses you,’ Lia said.

  This was a cheap shot, she knew. But Lia wanted Mari back at the Studio soon, and Paddy did too, for his own reasons.

  ‘Did he say something?’ Mari asked.

  ‘No, nothing in particular. But I can tell.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about ringing him.’

  Lia didn’t understand what she meant until Mari’s face eased into a smile.

  ‘You want to ask him out?’

  Mari nodded.

  ‘You want to ask him out now when you’re both…’ Lia said, searching for the words.

  ‘Out of our minds with grief,’ Mari said.

  She looked at her phone.

  ‘This doesn’t have much to do with logic.’

  Berg wasn’t even buried yet. Mari had been huddled at home in a state of near paralysis and only just set foot outside for the first time in days. Paddy probably blamed himself for everything that had happened just like all the rest of them.

  ‘This is the worst moment to be thinking about anything like this. But I’m still basically a coin toss away from ringing him.’

  Lying on her bed at home, Mari had worked through a lot of things. Such as the fact that none of them had unlimited time.

  ‘You forget that at the Studio,’ Mari said.

  Lia knew what she meant. At the Studio their work always demanded commitment. You felt like you always had to be on your toes to manage such important things. They often rode the high that came from a feeling of power. That was why it was easy to put off things like thoughts of dating, since you could never be sure what would come of it.

  Mari and Paddy had known each other for several years. The whole time they had both known that one of them would make a move at some point. Waiting had been fun in some ways too, Mari noted. It had been a sort of long-term flirtation.

  Paddy had been with other women. Mari had seen a couple of men during that time too.

  ‘Pretty short-term stuff though,’ she admitted. ‘But this Mr Moore – I’ve always known something more could happen with him.’

  Lia smiled. ‘Ring.’

  ‘Now?’ Mari asked, surprised.

  ‘Now.’

  A smirk spread across Mari’s face again.

  ‘That would serve him right.’

  Lia poured them both more wine and handed Mari her glass.

  ‘I want to listen.’

  Mari laughed. They drank. The temptation to shrug off the anguish of the past days by acting silly was overwhelming in their drunken state. Instead of living in the shadow of grief and fear, it felt good to be light-hearted and irresponsible for a while.

  ‘This is almost like being a kid,’ Lia said. ‘A teenager. Daring each other to ring a boy.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that for me,’ Mari said. ‘My childhood was a fucking freak show.’

  She took a swig of wine and started looking for the number in her phone. Paddy answered after three rings.

  ‘Mari?’

  ‘All right, Paddy?’ Mari said.

  Lia leaned in, almost placing her ear to Mari’s to hear every word. The situation was at once extremely comical and extremely serious. They felt reckless. Anything could happen.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ Paddy said, confused by the late night call.

  ‘Did I wake you?’ Mari asked.

  The phone went silent. Mari’s voice was a little too loud, a little too revealing.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Paddy said. He sounded drowsy and amused in a grumpy sort of way.

  ‘Yes,’ Mari said. ‘You nailed it.’

  Silence again.

  ‘I want to ask you out to eat. To Pied à Terre,’ Mari said.

  Paddy sighed.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ he repeated.

  ‘Pied à Terre. It is a French place I’ve wanted to go to with you for a long time,’ Mari said.

  ‘Sounds expensive.’

  ‘I can afford it.’

  Such a fancy restaurant, Paddy said, feigning hesitation. And what if he just wanted fish and chips?

  ‘They know how to fry fish and chips. Would you check your calendar to see when you’re free?’

  Paddy laughed.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘It would be like… a date?’

  ‘And fish and chips,’ Mari said.

  Paddy let her wait for her answer.

  ‘Yes, that’s fine then.’

  Lia didn’t mean to cry out, but a little yelp still escaped. She was so happy for Mari. And jealous – jealous because something was happening between Paddy and Mari.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Paddy blurted out. ‘Is Lia there too?’

  Mari and Lia couldn’t answer they were laughing so hard.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Paddy repeated. ‘Two drunk Finnish wo
men.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Mari said, raising her glass to Lia.

  ‘Go to sleep already,’ Paddy said. ‘Goodnight.’

  They could hear as he rung off that Paddy wasn’t sorry about the call though.

  They couldn’t go to sleep now. They had to sit and talk. Lia started talking about the thing that kept running through her head whenever she was in Mari’s flat: why had she lived so long in such a small flat in the basement of a student residence hall?

  ‘It’s a pretty building,’ Lia said. ‘Old and lovely in a plain sort of way. It’s convenient and awfully cheap. I’ve liked living there because I can control it. But it is small and rather bare. Maybe I should move some day. When it starts feeling necessary.’

  ‘You have to let things happen in their own time,’ Mari said. ‘Not everyone has to live up in an eyrie.’

  They both smiled at that thought: the expansive view from Mari’s windows was gorgeous in the dark. A cityscape you could only get with money.

  ‘You’re always wondering how I pay for all of this,’ Mari said.

  Lia nodded. This was one of many things she had wondered to herself about Mari and the Studio.

  ‘How do you have money for the Studio and this flat?’

  ‘You know a lot already,’ Mari said. ‘But there’s more I can tell you now.’

  She had entrusted her money to four portfolio managers in different parts of the world. Profits from her Frankfurt investments were the steadiest, but Hong Kong was where she made the quickest money. New York and London produced quite well at times too.

  Everything had started in Hong Kong though. While she was there, Mari had helped a British equity banker with some personal issues. In exchange, he suggested investment opportunities, and once Mari had made her initial money, he also found her three other colleagues in different countries to do the same thing.

  ‘They give me somewhat different advice to that which they give other people,’ Mari said. ‘It isn’t illegal, but it isn’t exactly legal either. It violates their fiduciary obligations.’

  To their investor clients, the men recommended opportunities that the financial management companies that employed them had chosen. But Mari they told about the ones they believed in personally. The strategy had paid off well. For the previous month, the total value of her portfolio had been 11.4 million pounds sterling.

  ‘And the best thing is that it’s invested in so many different places that there’s no way to lose it all.’

  Lia snorted. Hearing such a large number was at turns strange and amusing.

  ‘That’s so much money I can’t even wrap my head around it,’ she said.

  Mari nodded towards the dark buildings looming in the night on the other side of the park.

  ‘It is a lot, but it also isn’t very much at all. For example, you couldn’t buy a single one of those buildings with it. The value of money always depends on what you use it for. I mostly just need it for the Studio though.’

  As Lia returned for the second night in a row from Hoxton to her home on Kidderpore Avenue, to her tiny room on the basement level of the King’s College residence hall, she thought of time and its passing.

  She was almost thirty years old. She had been working full-time for more than six years now. She had about £10,000 invested.

  Seems like this would be a good point to know what I want. To decide what things are important to me.

  Mamia was ready to hit the streets with protesters sixty years younger than herself. Mari had just found the courage to rejoin the world and take a decisive step forward with Paddy.

  Lia had them, and Rico and Maggie, her colleagues at Level and her parents in Finland. She had seen various men from time to time, and there were a few people she didn’t want to think about.

  And in the flat above her she had Gro and Mr Vong.

  They’ll do just fine.

  It was early Saturday morning. Before lying down to sleep, she checked the news for any new information about the video killer. No police reports, nothing. Several days had passed now since anything new had hit the press about the case.

  She didn’t know whether the silence signified something good or something evil.

  30.

  The media’s handling of the killings changed instantly once the police announced their macabre connection to Queen on Saturday. The Video Killer became the Queen Killer, the papers rushed out special editions and the TV channels interrupted regular programming.

  ‘This is the unfortunate result of the constant growth of celebrity worship and the entertainment business,’ said Christopher Holywell, a criminal psychologist and profiler, during the Metropolitan Police press conference, which three British channels and CNN broadcast live.

  Singers and movie stars were constantly being ranked by popularity: there were the A-listers, the B-listers and then all the rest, Holywell continued. But getting on the A list also meant trouble for a star, things like death threats and stalkers. Frequently celebrities had to request restraining orders against fans, and some tended to meet quite a lot of fans who were willing to break the law. Unbalanced people even gravitated towards lesser-known stars – often the fan’s enthusiasm had less to do with the actual reputation of their idol than how important he or she was to them personally.

  ‘We often applaud celebrities for living like normal people. But for many of them that’s impossible nowadays, or it means taking unacceptable risks. Becoming a big star means your life changes and you have to start thinking about security arrangements, including for your family,’ Holywell said.

  ‘Are there a lot of these stalkers?’ the Daily Mail’s reporter asked.

  No one could know how many there were, Holywell said. Examples cropped up constantly, but most of them managed to stay out of public view. The celebrities didn’t want to draw attention to the problem to avoid encouraging other crackpots. Private firms usually handled celebrity security, so many threats never came to the authorities’ knowledge.

  One thing united fanatic admirers: they tried to get attention from their idols in dramatic, outrageous ways. Often there was a sexual or violent aspect to it. A woman who stalked Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones threatened to cut the actress up in pieces like a roast and feed her to her dogs. The evidence against the accused included a letter from Zeta-Jones in which she described her complete loss of peace of mind as a result of the harassment. She feared the anxiety would be with her for the rest of her life.

  ‘The wider public may sometimes have a difficult time taking these cases seriously because so much of pop culture feels unreal,’ Holywell said to the reporter. ‘But these are very real crimes. Frequently the harassment goes on for years getting worse and worse before anyone takes action.’

  Serial killings generally lacked a clear external motive, at least one a normal person could comprehend. Usually the killers point to irrational, seemingly random facts for their reasons.

  ‘Tracking these killers by trying to identify their goals or motivations is difficult. But identifying victims can help catch them.’

  Serial killers usually selected their victims from five groups of people: the elderly, children, prostitutes, homeless teenagers, or gay men.

  ‘The social standing of the victims is critical,’ Holywell said. ‘These groups are easier to kill because their safety networks are weaker.’

  Serial killers killed because it had a powerful psychological effect on them. Holywell believed that celebrity was becoming increasingly important for murderers.

  ‘Fantasy and reality become confused. According to one theory, all serial killers are connected by an addiction to their own fantasies: they feel a compulsion to live them out that exceeds all normal inhibitions related to killing. Celebrity and fulfilling one’s fantasies are very addictive things.’

  Nowadays killing was an easier way to achieve fame than ever before. That was why fame had started playing into the acts themselves. Criminologists had discovered that if
a serial killer received a nickname in the press and the media provided detailed descriptions of his killings, the pace of attacks tended to increase. Details would also start coming through in the murders meant to influence the public in certain ways.

  This killer had now linked himself with one of the most famous rock bands in the world to ensure his own future fame. He knew by now that everything about him would become just as interesting in the public’s eyes as anything a pop star did. And that’s what he wanted – pop stardom through murder.

  ‘Online auction sites sell memorabilia connected to famous serial killings. You can buy objects and clothing a murderer once owned. We’ve seen locks of Charles Manson’s hair for sale. And if someone wanted, they could go online right now and buy a pouch of sand from the foundations of John Wayne Gacy’s house where he buried twenty-six of his victims,’ Holywell said.

  ‘Is there some particular significance in the killings to the music used in the videos?’ a reporter asked.

  Queen did have a song named ‘Killer Queen’. Based on its length it didn’t seem to belong to any of the black videos, but could the songs themselves have some symbolic part in the overall picture?

  ‘It would seem that everything is significant in these crimes,’ Holywell said. ‘Every single tiny detail.’

  That was why the police had made this information public. They appealed to everyone listening or reading – did the Queen connection mean anything to anyone? The police tip-off lines would be open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  Holywell had one other plea for the public.

  ‘Don’t distribute these videos. Don’t increase their popularity. Control the curiosity we all naturally feel.’

  Serial killers typically took trophies from their victims, something to serve as a symbol of their accomplishment and a memento. The trophy could be a piece of clothing belonging to the victim, or sometimes even a part of the victim himself. In the video murders, the video served as a trophy.

  ‘Every time someone watches one of these videos online, the trophy becomes more valuable to him. It becomes even stronger evidence of his power.’

  Holywell was the first person in the police who seemed to have any idea what was going on in the case, Mari observed to Lia over the phone.