Detective Inspector Halonen had mentioned three murders and one count of attempted murder. That really was true. Giorgi Sebrinski had committed suicide by jumping from the balcony outside the sauna suite at the top of his apartment block in Vuosaari. He had plummeted almost seventy metres to the ground. Although there was about a metre of snow on the ground, it didn’t do much to soften his fall.
At the same time, Halonen had helped me to focus my attention. He seemed convinced of the role played by Maarit and the other activists. Of course, this was logical.
Question: Who would want to kill the entire board of directors?
Answer: Someone who knows they are complicit in something gross and unforgivable and who wants to make an example of them.
Ergo: The activists, who in the past have operated without regard for laws and regulations and who have now decided to up the ante, to take things to the next level.
I didn’t know whether Halonen had any proof. Even if he did, he wouldn’t have told me. It didn’t matter. For, even as Halonen’s gaze buried deep, straining for the obvious and the logical, he looked right past the target.
Three dead: Karmio, Stilson, Sebrinski.
One injured: Matti Mali.
One remaining: Hannu Valtonen.
5
Mankkaa was at its busiest at eight in the morning. In Mankkaa, that meant large SUVs taking children to local schools and bilingual nurseries; estates, station-wagons, in which sales directors, choked by their expensive ties, texted their mistresses at the wheel, spilling coffee on their suit trousers in the process.
The taxi pulled up behind an empty police car. The driver looked up in the mirror and asked if this was the right address. I looked at the number on the door of the house Yes, I said and paid him. I stepped out of the car and walked towards the two-storey whitewashed building.
The fresh snow that had fallen overnight crunched beneath my feet. The air in the quiet suburb was crisp. The road hadn’t yet been ploughed, so I walked along the furrows made by the passing cars. The windows of the surrounding houses were mostly still dark, the yards empty. People had already left to get on with their day. All except Hannu Valtonen.
An oblong garden sloped down to the road; I walked through it, up towards the house and the garage, where a white BMW and an ambulance were parked. This couldn’t have been an emergency call: the ambulance was empty and none of the lights in the car were switched on. As I walked past I glanced inside the BMW. On the backseat and in the boot were suitcases; on the front seat a bulging leather satchel – hand luggage. It looked as though someone was about to head off.
I stopped at the open door of the garage. It was high-ceilinged and spacious, and was divided into two sections. To the right was a beautifully restored 1960s Triumph sportscar, and around it were a variety of workbenches and tools. On a set of tracks running the length of the ceiling hung various cables and other equipment. This was a motoring enthusiast’s space. The left-hand section of the garage was empty, showing only an expanse of concrete flooring. Two police officers stood there, along with the ambulance crew, of which I assumed at least one had to be a doctor. Between them on the floor lay a grey body bag, its zip firmly shut. From the track running directly above the bag hung a metre of white rope, which seemed to have been cut in the middle.
‘Who are you?’ asked one of the officers upon noticing me. He was young and stout. ‘Are you a family member?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll have to ask you to leave.’
‘What’s happened here?’
By now the officer had appeared beside me and gripped me by the shoulder. Before I noticed it, we were walking in the same direction, away from the garage. Out in the garden I came to a halt.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked once more.
‘A man has died.’
The officer still had hold of my shoulder. His grip was firm.
‘Please leave the property.’
‘Hannu Valtonen?’
The policeman looked at me for a moment, then raised his hand. I took a few steps back.
‘No need,’ I said. ‘I’m going.’
I returned to the road, knotted my scarf and buttoned up my jacket. From my bag I took a hat and a pair of gloves, then I walked away.
Editor-in-chief Hutrila crossed his hands behind his head, closed his eyes and calmly breathed in and out, three times. He arched his back; it looked like a yoga position. I’d told him everything I was at liberty to reveal. Then I asked. Hutrila opened his eyes.
‘More time?’
‘Yes.’
‘You realise other journalists will get in there first and write up anything they can get their hands on?’
‘They’ll write up whatever they can get their hands on, yes,’ I said. ‘But nothing more. And I’ve got more, I promise, and soon there’ll be even more than that. That can be our angle, it’s what will make us stand out. Other papers take care of the basic story, report it on a general level. Then, once readers are familiar with the story, we jump in with all the details. We’ll have a scoop that other papers can only dream about.’
‘Are you sure?’
I’d come back from Mankkaa by bus. As the sun had risen, drawing out the contours of the horizon, I’d made my decision.
‘One hundred per cent sure.’
‘When you went up north, we agreed you would have a story ready by the time you came back.’
‘Things got complicated.’
Hutrila thought for a moment. ‘You’ve asked for extra time every step of the way. You’ve asked to be transferred; you’ve overspent your budget, then turned up here without a story. What’s different now?’
‘Now I have a deadline. Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock.’
Hutrila lowered his arms to his sides so slowly that I was beginning to think this really was yoga.
‘That’s the first sensible sentence I’ve heard you say in a long time.’
6
One more. This one would be the most difficult. It was the most difficult because it was the last.
By this point the risks were greater than ever; Emil knew that. He’d witnessed it countless times before; watched people letting go in the final straight, becoming careless and sloppy, lulling themselves into a false sense of security. It was understandable; it was human.
It happens to all of us.
When the finish line comes into view, it feels like you’ve already crossed it. You start living the life that comes afterwards. You imagine the rest of the journey will fall into place by itself, run on its own steam. You think you can concentrate on admiring the scenery, building a future. You see yourself doing different things, enjoying this, that and the other, without a care in the world. Your hand reaches for the trophy, your eyes focus on the podium.
You imagine there’s no space at all between you and the finishing line.
But in that space, there’s everything.
7
I hauled all the boxes containing Lehtinen’s papers into the conference room and closed the door. I sorted the papers, the notebooks and newspaper clippings into separate piles. The pile of papers was the tallest. That was a good starting point. I read through every page again, as if with fresh eyes, making notes as I went. I set myself the task of finding on every page something I hadn’t noticed before. As I’d said to Hutrila, other papers would start by reporting on what was happening right now, what might happen next. That would set up my story about what was really going on. I fetched my phone and called the laboratory.
I asked the switchboard to put me through to the technician, Susanna Salmela. They connected me straight away. The results hadn’t yet come through. I asked whether she was able to assess the samples based on what she’d already observed and on her overall experience in the field. She paused for a moment. This isn’t about a gut feeling, she said. That’s the whole point of these tests. We only tell people what we have measured and what we can prove. That’s just as it should be, I ad
mitted. I asked her to call me as soon as the results had come through.
But, just as I was about to hang up, Salmela asked me something. I didn’t hear her question and asked her to repeat it.
‘Have you seriously been using this water for everyday consumption?’ she asked.
Two hours later I fetched some food from across the street, stuffed the burger and fries into my mouth and swallowed. Next, the newspaper clippings, the articles Lehtinen had saved. I went through each and every one of them; some of them I even read from start to finish. Then the notebooks. I picked a retro-looking, A4-sized hardback notebook from the top of the pile.
The pages were full of Lehtinen’s handwriting. I’d flicked through this notebook once before, but on that occasion I hadn’t paid enough attention to the sheets of A4 he had stapled in, in various places. Now I realised this was because unfolding them was difficult. The staples were firm, and in some instances the pages were attached in several places. Lehtinen must have had a good reason to do this. I prised opened one of the sheets.
They were printouts of emails, but not Lehtinen’s own. The recipients included Giorgi Sebrinski, Kimmo Karmio, Hannu Valtonen, Alan Stilson and Matti Mali. They were communications between the board members of Finn Mining Ltd.
I went over to Tanja’s desk and asked to borrow something to remove the staples.
‘I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t do the twerking story,’ she said and handed me an implement that looked like an angry, metallic mouth. ‘Twerking is what everybody’s talking about right now.’
I returned to the conference room and began removing the staples, at the same time reading through Lehtinen’s notes. They weren’t directly related to the content of the emails. Perhaps this was intentional, perhaps not. Eventually all the attachments were laid out loose on the desk. I sat down and began to read.
Half an hour later I fetched my laptop and searched the relevant terms, and when I found the name of the company I was looking for, I ordered all the material I could find about it – documents from the register of companies; credit histories; a financial statement; staff reports. Then I printed them off. I checked to make sure everything fitted chronologically. I picked up one of the printed emails, laid it out in front of me and checked that it truly said what I thought it did.
Finally I called Marjo Harjukangas and apologised for contacting her again.
When she had given me a two-word answer, I thanked her and hung up.
8
The sky glowed above him, bright and blue. The snow that had built up on the window ledge overnight sparkled like millions of tiny mirrors. He had been getting dressed, but stopped now and walked to the window. He leaned against the window frame, felt the cold stone under his palms and a draught against his wrists.
He looked out into the forecourt where children in jumpsuits were climbing to the top of a pile of snow, stumbling and sliding down again on their plastic toboggans. Once in a while a child succeeded in sliding all the way down to the gritted pavement. There was a crackle as the plastic toboggan met the gravel and the child came to an immediate halt. He didn’t want to see it as some kind of premonition, but for some stubborn reason that’s what it looked like.
He had been given a deadline. He’d always liked that word. It described what he did, what his work was really about. But more than anything, he liked the literal meaning of the term. He liked timetables, time restraints. But he also noticed that the word hid a paradox. A deadline liberated him, stripped away any sense of indecision, helped him to concentrate, to focus his energy. When everything was hanging in the air, floating in the wind, nothing could ever be completed. And a suitable time never seemed to appear. He should be content right now. Everything was going as planned. And still…
Looking for answers on the outside was pointless.
The world hadn’t changed one iota.
He had changed.
He stood by the window a moment longer, then continued getting dressed. He pulled his skiing suit on over the layers of warm clothes, attached the bag round his waist and checked to make the sure it contained everything he needed: sunglasses, ski wax, an energy bar. And the key.
9
I got off the number twenty bus at its final stop – at the far end of Lauttasaari – and walked across the bridge to Kaskisaari. The island was small, extremely affluent and unknown to the majority of people in Helsinki. This was hardly a surprise. The island was exclusive, not only because of its location, but also because of the price tag on its properties. In places the detached houses looked like airports, with their extensive rooftops, long private roads leading up to their gardens, and windows several storeys high. The fences running round each of the properties were tall and were fitted with security devices in various shades from bright yellow to fire-engine red. I walked along the recently ploughed street and squinted. The snow and the sun made everything brighter. Between the houses I caught a glimpse of the sea. Across the water to the west lay Espoo. The towers at Keilaniemi rose up on the horizon like dull, grey teeth. To the east, across the sound, was Seurasaari; the outdoor museum exuded a stillness over the whole island. The protracted freezing weather and the constant snowfall had frozen the sea. The dots moving around on the ice were skiers enjoying the sturdy packed snow and the smooth, unimpeded surface of the ice.
The house I was looking for was on the western side of Kaskisaari. It was the penultimate building on the street leading to the shore. It was one of the oldest buildings on the island, built perhaps in the 1930s. Judging by the location and the era of its construction, the architect must have valued privacy and quiet. In those days the only way to reach the island was by boat. Two grey stone lions standing on either side of the steps leading up to the house kept any visitor under close watch. The house appeared to have a balcony facing in every direction. It wasn’t especially stylish, but it was massive and set apart from the surrounding homes. Part of the reason for its seeming isolation must have been the size and shape of the rectangular plot, on both sides of which grew thick walls of spruce trees. Upon approaching from the street, visitors could not see the sea behind the house.
The front gates were locked, as were the doors of the double garage. At the front gate there was what looked like a buzzer; above it there was a speaker behind a grille, and a black, convex lens, beneath which a security camera was surely hidden. The imposing entrance was crowned with a sticker from a security company. It seemed the residents of Kaskisaari were more than prepared to deal with unwanted guests, though this was a place nobody ever visited. I was about to press the steel button on the buzzer when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I stepped back from the gates and moved round the corner.
Lab technician Susanna Salmela started talking before I’d even said my name. Sulphate, sodium, mercury, lead, zinc, manganese, lye. All thousands of times over the recommended maximum. The water was life threatening. Salmela asked where the sample had come from, and said that if it had come from the well at my family’s farm then either we lived right next to a leaking nuclear reactor or I wasn’t telling the whole truth.
I admitted I’d left out a few details. Salmela fell silent for a moment then asked for my email address so she could send the full written report.
The minute I ended the call, my phone beeped as a new email arrived. I rang the buzzer, clicked open the email and soon heard a familiar voice asking me what business I had there.
‘Sulphates: forty-two milligrams per litre. Sodium: twenty milligrams per litre. Mercury, lead, zinc, manganese…’
‘Who are you?’
‘Janne Vuori, Helsinki Today.’
A short pause.
‘What do you want?’
‘To tell you what I know.’
The intercom crackled, indicating that the connection had been cut off. I took a few steps back. I looked up at the house but couldn’t see anyone in the windows. The door at the top of the steps remained shut. Again I rang the buzzer. Nobody answered. I tried the gate;
it was locked. Snow and silence surrounded the island, the house, and me. I was wondering what to do when the intercom gave another crackle, this time as the connection was opened again.
‘Hello. Are you still there?’
I rushed back to the speaker and said, yes, I was still here.
‘There was a small matter I needed to confirm. Please, come on in.’
Matti Mali’s smile was friendly and open, and seemed to light his face both inside and out. The contrast with the rest of his appearance was striking. Mali’s left eye was edged in shades of black and violet. A long, swollen wound ran the length of his forehead from the corner of his left eye to his hairline. His left arm was in a sling, its bandages lifting the collar of his shirt up almost to his ear.
Mali was a heavy-set, stocky man; his legs were spread apart and his slippers placed firmly on the floor. If it weren’t for the injuries, he would look more like a pensioner from the bingo hall than the former CEO of a prominent mining company. The brown velvet trousers, the dark-blue cardigan with sagging pockets and the curly, silvery grey hair only served to heighten the impression. For a few seconds I realised I was questioning myself and my conclusions. Perhaps Matti Mali noticed it too.
‘I recognised your name at once. I’ve read your articles. Let’s go into the living room and talk.’
I left my coat and shoes in the hallway and followed my host, who, despite his injuries, moved naturally and fearlessly. Just as I had imagined him.
From the entrance hall we went down two steps into the spacious living room. The windows gave a panorama out to sea, which gleamed white from one side of the windows to the other.
We sat down in armchairs situated on either side of a coffee table. In relation to the other furniture in the room, the chairs were positioned at a slight angle. I understood why. From Mali’s chair he could see both the sea and the television, which was behind me on my right. My chair offered a view out across the sea and the patio door, which was behind Mali, on his left. On the table were two coffee cups with saucers and a pot.
The Mine Page 21
