The Winter of the Lions

by Jan Costin Wagner

  Later he stood in the living room, looking at the frozen lake beyond the window and thinking of Kari Niemi, head of the scene-of-crime unit, who had asked if he would like to spend Christmas with him and his family. He had been very glad of the invitation, but declined it. Maybe next year. He had said the same when his mother Anita asked if he would like to spend the festive season with her in Kitee. He had also refused the annual invitation from Sanna’s parents Merja and Jussi Silvonen, saying that unfortunately he had his hands full over Christmas and would hardly get time to stop and take breath.

  He would visit Merja and Jussi tomorrow. They would be quiet, and after a while they would all talk about Sanna in their different ways. Exchanging memories that hovered in the air above them for a while. Weightless. Elusive. They would not talk about the weeks after her cancer diagnosis, the last days in hospital. There would be the clink of cups, and Merja offering a plate of home-made biscuits. In an empty house.

  Tomorrow. And tomorrow he’d ring his mother too.

  He went into the kitchen, feeling pleasantly silly as he took the unopened vodka bottle out of the fridge and sat down at the kitchen table. He thought of Sanna, who had seldom drunk, but when she did drink, she did it thoroughly. A quality he had liked, and after her death he was the same himself. On the rare occasions when he drank, he too did it thoroughly.

  This was one of those times. Maybe. He wasn’t sure. He toyed with the thought of drinking a glass of milk and going straight to bed.

  He was still thinking of various tempting alternatives when the doorbell rang.

  Pasi, he thought. Pasi Laaksonen come to ask if he wouldn’t like to spend Christmas Day next door, with them and their children and grandchildren.

  Or Anita. His mother had got on the train and come to visit him although he had firmly asked her not to.

  He opened the door and looked at the face of the woman who had broken Ari Pekka Sorajärvi’s nose and whose name he didn’t know. She looked like a snowman, since she was wearing a snow-white coat and a snow-white cap, and both were covered with snow.

  The woman said nothing. There seemed to be a quiet smile on her lips, but he could be wrong about that.

  ‘Oh … hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, walking past him and into the corridor.

  ‘I … how did you …’

  ‘Kimmo Joentaa. Says so on the nameplate outside your office door. And on an envelope lying on your desk. There’s only one Kimmo Joentaa in Turku. Unusual name. Sanna and Kimmo Joentaa, it says in the phone book. Is your wife here?’

  ‘N … no.’

  She nodded, as if she had expected that answer, and went towards the living room.

  ‘What … what did you want?’ asked Joentaa.

  She turned and looked at him for a while.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Nothing, probably. Do you have anything to drink?’

  ‘Er, of course. Milk … milk or vodka?’

  The woman seemed unimpressed by this selection. ‘Both,’ she said, going purposefully into the living room.

  ‘Er …’ said Joentaa. He went into the kitchen and filled one glass with milk and another with vodka.

  The woman was sitting on the living-room sofa looking at the lake outside the window. ‘Nice view,’ she said.

  Joentaa put the glasses down. ‘Can I help you? If it’s about the report you wanted to …’

  The woman laughed. Laughed at him again. The last person who had been able to laugh at him so heartily and regularly was Sanna.

  ‘No,’ said the woman. ‘No, it’s not about the report. I really can’t remember the man’s name anyway.’

  ‘Ari Pekka Sorajärvi,’ said Joentaa mechanically, and the woman laughed again. Even louder, a laugh ending in a squeal. She couldn’t calm down.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Joentaa, and the woman laughed and laughed as if he were the funniest comic act she had ever seen. Her slim body was convulsed by fits of laughter.

  Kimmo Joentaa went into the kitchen, drank four large shots of vodka in swift succession, and felt rather better as he went back to the laughing woman sitting on his living-room sofa. He sat down in the old armchair beside the sofa.

  ‘There’s something I’d like to ask you, it’s important,’ he said, and against all the dictates of logic he had an idea he was babbling already. ‘Did that … did that Sorajärvi hurt you?’

  The woman laughed again, but only briefly this time. ‘You talk just like senior citizens must have talked in the nineteenth century.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oh, damn it all, can’t you ever stop saying sorry?’

  ‘What I mean is … I think you ought to report the man to the police, which is what you were planning to do, after all. And I could understand you better then. I simply don’t understand you yet.’

  ‘Ari Pekka Sorajärvi was a little rougher with me than agreed,’ she said. ‘In return I broke his nose. Get the idea?’

  Joentaa thought about that for a moment. ‘Okay,’ he said, and the woman began laughing again.

  ‘As you say, okay.’

  ‘Sorry, all I meant was maybe I understand the situation a little better now.’

  ‘If you say sorry again for no reason I’ll be breaking another nose today.’

  ‘I can’t help you unless I understand what happened,’ said Joentaa.

  The woman looked at him for a long time. ‘Who says I want you to help me?’

  ‘I thought …’

  ‘You’re crazy, you just don’t know it,’ she said.

  ‘I think I …’

  ‘There’s something the matter with you,’ she said.

  Joentaa waited.

  ‘Something very much indeed the matter with you,’ said the woman.

  Joentaa still waited.

  ‘There’s something the matter with you, and I’d really like to find out what it is,’ she said.

  Then she stood up and put her arms round him. The old armchair creaked. He felt her hair against his cheek, her tongue in his mouth, and a great cry filled his brain.

  6

  KIMMO JOENTAA LAY awake. The snow and the night were melting away beyond the windows. He sat up carefully so as not to wake the woman lying beside him.

  He looked down at her for a few minutes.

  Heard her breathing quietly and regularly.

  Then he let his head drop back against the sofa cushion and felt the woman whose name he didn’t know clutching his arm with her hand. She was moaning slightly, as if in pain. Probably dreaming. He wondered whether he ought to wake her and liberate her from the dream, but after a while she lay at rest, breathing regularly again, and Joentaa closed his eyes and thought, for the first time in a long while, of that last night in the hospital.

  Thought of the last few hours that turned into the last few minutes, the last few seconds. Sanna too had slept. Sanna too had been breathing peacefully and regularly. Peacefully, regularly and barely perceptibly. Then her breathing had stopped.

  He had been waiting for that. Had been waiting, together with Sanna, for that moment, because he had known it would be the most important moment in his life. A never-ending moment.

  When he heard a knock at the door he thought at first that he had imagined it. When the knocking came again, a little louder and more insistent, he sat up and looked at the green glow of the numbers on the DVD recorder. Two in the morning. It couldn’t be Pasi Laaksonen from next door. Nor his mother, because no trains from Kitee arrived in the middle of the night. Nor the woman who had broken Ari Pekka Sorajärvi’s nose, because she was already lying beside him.

  He heard the knocking again, a little softer this time, with some slight hesitation. He got up and put on his T-shirt and trousers. He picked up the sofa throw, which was lying half on the floor, and covered up the woman, who seemed to be fast asleep.

  Then, legs feeling shaky, he went to the door. His back ached. He opened the door and felt the clear, cold air on his skin. There was no o
ne outside, but under the apple tree with its covering of white snow stood a man, just about to get back into his car.

  ‘Hello?’ said Joentaa.

  The man stopped and seemed to hesitate briefly. ‘Kimmo. Sorry. I thought … I wasn’t going to ring the bell, only knock, because I thought you might be asleep.’

  The man came towards him. It was Santa Claus.

  ‘Tuomas …’ said Joentaa.

  Tuomas Heinonen. He couldn’t remember Tuomas Heinonen ever visiting him before. Tuomas Heinonen dressed up as Santa Claus.

  ‘What … come on in,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  Tuomas Heinonen stood in the corridor, stooping and frozen, and seemed to be at a loss for words.

  ‘Would you like a hot drink? You look as if you’re freezing,’ said Joentaa, smiling, but Tuomas Heinonen probably wasn’t listening to him.

  ‘I’ve had a few problems at home. I … we had our present-giving and it went wrong, you might say. And then … then I thought of you. I’m glad you were still awake – or had you gone to sleep?’

  ‘Come on, let’s sit down and have something to drink first,’ said Joentaa, going into the kitchen.

  Tuomas Heinonen followed. He sat down, lost in thought, and looked at the vodka bottle and the milk container standing on the table.

  ‘The trouble is it’s all my fault. That’s the worst of it,’ said Heinonen.

  ‘What’s happened?’ asked Joentaa.

  Heinonen looked at him, forcing a painful smile, and hesitated. ‘Maybe we’re all washed up,’ he said at last, leaning back as if that explained everything.

  Joentaa sat down opposite him and waited.

  ‘If you …’ he began, but Heinonen interrupted him. He was talking at a frantic pace now. ‘It’s like this, I’d like to tell you about it but I don’t know if I can. It’s … it’s, well, difficult.’

  ‘You don’t have to …’

  ‘It’s like this, Kimmo, the twins, they were just too much for me.’

  Once again Heinonen slumped back as if that told the whole story.

  ‘Twins?’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Yes, you know we have twins, don’t you? Tarja and Vanessa.’

  Joentaa nodded.

  ‘Of course they’re great … great little girls. Sorry, I’m sure this is all nonsense I’m talking. I’m so sorry …’

  If you say sorry for no reason once again, thought Joentaa vaguely.

  ‘It was too much for me, I could have done without it,’ said Tuomas Heinonen. ‘I could have done without all that, I never wanted kids. I love them, of course, but I didn’t want to have them. Do you understand?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Joentaa, seeing pictures in his mind’s eye. Pictures of the twins’ christening. Joentaa had been there, and had felt out of place, because he hadn’t known anyone apart from a few colleagues. Heinonen carrying the two little girls under his arms like rugby balls, laughing as he ran with them.

  ‘It’s all too much for me. We don’t have any time these days. Nothing happens any more, it’s the kids all the time.’

  Joentaa nodded.

  ‘The problem is … well, it’s like this,’ said Heinonen. ‘I … I looked around for some kind of, well, compensation.’

  Joentaa waited.

  ‘I … I’ve been gambling.’

  ‘Gambling?’

  ‘Gambling money away. A lot of money. Almost everything we’d saved up for a rainy day.’

  Joentaa nodded, wondering what to say.

  ‘Internet betting,’ said Heinonen. ‘On sporting events. Virtual poker. But the money is real enough, you could say. If you … I lost control of myself and it came out. Paulina discovered what was going on, I don’t know how. But this evening she suddenly started on about it.’

  Joentaa nodded.

  Heinonen stared at the table, then at the sleeve of his Santa Claus coat. ‘Oh … sorry, I’ve only just noticed I still have this stupid costume on,’ he said in surprise.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Hm …’ Heinonen began to chuckle. ‘Kimmo, how do you do it? I mean, how do you manage it, keeping perfectly straight-faced in the most outlandish situations?’

  ‘Well, it was obvious that you’re feeling sad.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tuomas Heinonen. He seemed to be thinking. ‘What I’d like to ask you, Kimmo, sorry if I’m bothering you, but anyway I’m really sorry about turning up here like this …’

  ‘You don’t have to keep saying sorry.’

  ‘But how … how have you managed over these last few years, since your wife’s death … how have you managed living like this for years, I mean, on your own? I’ve often wondered. I’m sure it sounds silly, but I do kind of admire you for having this … this world of your own to live in, so peaceful, at least that’s the way you …’

  Joentaa wondered what Tuomas was getting at. He looked up into the eyes of the woman he didn’t know. She was standing in the doorway, sleepy and naked.

  ‘What are you two talking about all this time?’ she asked.

  Heinonen turned to look at her.

  There was silence for a while, then Kimmo said, ‘Tuomas, may I introduce you to … this is …’

  ‘Names don’t matter, but you can call me Larissa,’ said the woman.

  Larissa, thought Joentaa.

  ‘That’s what the others call me,’ she added.

  There was a long pause.

  Heinonen stared at the woman in the doorway. The woman in the doorway did not seem to mind either the silence or the way Heinonen looked at her.

  Larissa, thought Joentaa, suddenly feeling his heart lift.

  ‘I … I think I’d better be …’ Tuomas Heinonen began, then broke off. Kimmo Joentaa concentrated on the silence.

  An easy, a different silence. A new silence.

  Names don’t matter, he thought.

  ‘I really didn’t want to barge in on you two … I mean I didn’t know that … that you … well, Paulina will be waiting, and there’s the twins …’

  ‘Let’s get some sleep,’ said Joentaa.

  7

  TUOMAS HEINONEN SLEPT on the living-room sofa, the woman whose name he didn’t know slept beside him in his bed in the bedroom, and Kimmo Joentaa lay awake.

  Again, he concentrated on the woman’s quiet, regular breathing and the silence in the background. A clear day was beginning to dawn outside.

  He still felt light. Tired and light and thirsty. He went about on tiptoe so as not to wake his guest. Tuomas Heinonen was sprawled on the sofa. Judging by the look of him, he was fast asleep. The bottle and the milk carton stood on the kitchen table.

  Joentaa drank a glass of water and watched the morning turn bluer and brighter and whiter and sunnier, until it filled the rectangle of the window like a perfect picture postcard. He thought of the silence, and at almost the same time heard the telephone ringing and a heavy thud. ‘Shit … what’s that, then?’ muttered Heinonen, who was lying on the floor.

  ‘You all right?’ asked Joentaa.

  ‘I fell out of bed … I mean off the sofa,’ said Heinonen, as Joentaa searched about for the phone. He couldn’t find it. Heinonen scrambled up and asked vaguely if he could help.

  ‘It must be here somewhere,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘These cordless things … I can never find ours either, and then there’s a twin in each arm and I’d need a third hand to find the phone,’ said Heinonen sleepily.

  The phone stopped ringing, and a few seconds later the ring tone of Joentaa’s mobile sounded out in the corridor. He went and got it out of his coat pocket.

  ‘Joentaa.’

  ‘Kimmo, Paavo here. Christmas is over. I came back on duty early. The crime scene is in the forest. Go out of town down Eerikinkatu right to the end of the road, then turn left, keep going up the rise for quite a while and then along the forest track until you get there.’

  ‘Right, I’ll …’

  ‘Are you wi
th me so far?’

  ‘Yes, sure … have Laukkanen or his colleagues been informed yet?’

  ‘Laukkanen is there already. He’s the victim.’

  ‘Right, I’ll just go and get …’

  ‘Are you awake yet? I said, Laukkanen is the victim.’

  ‘Laukkanen …’

  ‘Our forensic pathologist Laukkanen is lying out there in the forest. He’s wearing cross-country skis and he’s dead,’ said Paavo Sundström.

  Joentaa said nothing.

  Silence is easy, he thought.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Heinonen behind him.

  ‘Will you call Heinonen? I’ll inform Petri Grönholm. As far as I know he should have been back from the Caribbean yesterday,’ said Sundström.

  ‘Yes, I’ll …’

  ‘Kimmo, get moving, please!’ said Sundström, cutting the connection.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Heinonen again.

  ‘Laukkanen …’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Paavo Sundström says he’s dead,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Oh?’ Heinonen looked at him like a question mark personified.

  ‘Paavo’s there already. He said Laukkanen was the victim.’

  ‘But that’s crazy,’ said Heinonen.

  ‘Let’s get out there,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘He’s taking the piss. These practical jokes are getting to be a pain,’ said Heinonen.

  ‘Let’s get out there,’ said Joentaa again.

  Heinonen nodded. ‘Of course. But there’s something wrong about this. I mean, it’s crazy,’ he said, reaching for his clothes, which he had left draped over the armchair. ‘Oh … sorry, I’m afraid you’ll have to lend me something. I had that Santa Claus outfit on.’

  ‘Just a moment.’ Joentaa went into the bedroom and put on a pair of trousers and a pullover. The woman had wrapped herself up in the duvet and was fast asleep. He looked at her for a while. Then he took a shirt and a pair of trousers for Tuomas Heinonen out of the wardrobe, carefully closed the bedroom door, and went back into the living room.

  Heinonen had the clothes on within seconds. ‘Shall we go?’ he asked.

  ‘Wait a moment.’