The Priest of Evil

by Matti Joensuu

  There he listened for a moment. Traffic hummed through the city, playing out its own steady symphony. The tracks screeched at the bridge across Pasila – probably a commuter train from Espoo, one of the Red Apostles, and a helicopter could be heard chattering somewhere in the east. None of these sounds was any cause for concern.

  He crouched down, took hold of the handle of a hatch on the roof with both hands and yanked it. The hatch had been positioned very carefully indeed: from the ground it was impossible to know that it existed, the hut simply looked like a pile of corrugated iron. He opened the hatch fully, sat on the roof and began searching with his feet for the top rungs of the ladder. By this point, even an inexperienced person would have been able to guess that the journey down was long; that beneath there gaped chasms of empty space, tunnels and more tunnels, entire networks, perhaps as much as three hundred kilometres long.

  Inside it smelt precisely the same as the earth spirit. And he could hear that same soft, eternal murmur.

  5. Daddy

  Harjunpää held his mobile phone against his ear and wondered for a moment whether it was radiating anything dangerous or not. Perhaps it was one of the patterns in the wallpaper that got him thinking; the paintings had all been removed, leaving only the nails behind. He could hear the usual background noises on the phone: doorbells ringing; low, muffled speech, a voice explaining something over the squad radio. Inside the apartment all he could hear was the faint whistle of the freezing wind and the rasp of bugs dying a slow, poisoned death, like moths madly striking against a lamp. Then there was the tapping, like a distant drum, coming from the cupboard in the hall. He had the constant feeling that something was wrong, or that something terrible was about to happen. It was a niggling feeling, as if his shoes were a size too small and his heels covered in blisters about to burst.

  He couldn’t pin down quite what had caused this unease; whether it was the body, which he had given only a cursory glance and hadn’t yet had a chance to examine thoroughly, or Jari, the man standing silently next to him in a dress. Was it something else entirely? Something at home?

  ‘Harjunpää, you still there?’

  ‘Where else do you think I’d be?’ he growled quietly.

  ‘I’ve double-checked and they’re all on their way, a doctor too. You know what the morning traffic’s like.’

  ‘OK, we’ll wait here.’

  ‘I’ll tell the squad to get a move on if you think it’ll help. I told the ambulance not to rush though, it’s not as if anyone’s life is at risk.’

  ‘All right, just sort it out. There’s no real emergency here, but I can’t do anything until someone else turns up.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he added and for a brief moment something approaching weariness flashed across his face, but his expression soon returned to normal: it bore the look of a man who was used to waiting, who had seen too much.

  Harjunpää glanced at his watch: it was almost half past seven. He had already been at the scene for three quarters of an hour but still hadn’t been able to do anything except assess the situation and try to speak to Jari. He had no reason not to believe Jari’s story, but hadn’t dared leave him unattended for a second.

  Out of the corner of his eye he took another look at Jari: his expression was still the same. It was like a knot, a painfully tangled knot. Harjunpää could sense that same pain in his eyes and his mouth, particularly now that Jari had bitten his lips together into a tight groove. He looked as though he thought he was drowning or that he was trying desperately to bite something in two. On top of this, patchy stubble covered his face, disconsolate like the plague.

  Jari already looked like an old man, though he was only just over forty. He seemed to be constantly listening to a murmur deep within himself, his head tilted slightly to one side, shivering. He hadn’t wanted to put on the tracksuit Harjunpää had found in one of the wardrobes and was still standing there wearing only a thin summer dress and a pair of nylon tights wrinkled around his ankles. The doors were all wide open – they had to remain open, only now could they breathe without feeling nauseous. The breeze came in through the stairwell like something living, tugging at the hem of Jari’s frock and making him tremble with cold, then gushed out of the balcony door, taking with it ton upon cubic ton of the nightmare inside.

  Suddenly it dawned on Harjunpää and he gave a start – it was as if someone had whispered to him: it was the hall cupboard. That’s what was bothering him. He still hadn’t looked inside it, partly because Jari had become almost hysterical when Harjunpää had touched the handle. He thought back to what had happened to one of his colleagues last winter. A caretaker had alerted the police to a flat in Eira because of a smell in the corridor. The patrol had discovered an old woman, who seemed to have died of natural causes, and had taken care of everything like normal, with the routine of having done it hundreds of times before. Only when the undertaker Stenberg had gone into the bathroom to wash his hands did he discover the other body: the old woman’s husband sitting on the toilet with a pistol in his hand and a bullet in his forehead.

  ‘What’s in there, Jari?’ asked Harjunpää, his words booming as if they had been standing in a cave.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The cupboard.’

  ‘Daddy.’

  ‘You told me there was a dog in there. And you said that your daddy died when you were a little boy.’

  ‘I was ten. And he told me to take good care of Mummy, and now she…’

  ‘Your mummy’s dead, Jari. She was a very sick old lady and you took care of her as best you could.’

  ‘Is she dead?’ Jari seemed confused and for the first time he looked Harjunpää in the eyes. A restless muscle at the corner of his mouth began to quiver.

  ‘I’m afraid so. And we both went up to the door and had a look. Now put on that tracksuit or you’ll catch a chill. Some more people will be here soon.’

  ‘Who’s coming?’

  ‘A doctor, just like I told you. And some policemen who are going to take your dog to the vet’s until we get you back on your feet again.’

  ‘You can’t take the dog!’ Jari’s scream rebounded against the walls in the empty flat, its echo reverberating down the stairwell. His hands flew up to his forehead and his fingers looked like gnarled branches with which he was trying to hold his head together. ‘Daddy’ll be furious! If you open the door he’ll go straight for your throat!’

  ‘Listen to me, Jari,’ said Harjunpää gently waving his hands. ‘It’s only a dog. A Great Dane, just like you said.’

  ‘Well, that too,’ he conceded, then hesitated as if he were about to impart a terrible secret. ‘You see, he’s still Daddy. His spirit came down from Heaven when Mummy… I know that look. It’s Daddy’s look and he’s very angry with me. He’s come to take his revenge.’

  ‘All right, Jari,’ said Harjunpää trying to calm him. ‘All right.’

  Only now did he fully understand that there was absolutely nothing he could do but wait. Time passed so slowly, like watching an endless freight train crawling carriage after carriage over the level crossing. From the street below he still couldn’t hear the slamming of car doors that he so anxiously awaited.

  At least this gave him a moment to think about the body: she looked at peace, lying there in a normal sleeping position. Her right hand was beneath the pillow, the left lay beside her face. A grey woollen sock had been pulled over her left hand, according to Jari because her hand was cold and ached, and to Harjunpää this indicated heart disease of some sort. But the body was already badly decomposed, blackened. Fluids had seeped through the bed on to the floor and around the face were the first signs of drying and mummification. She must have been dead for well over a month; numerous porridge bowls lay strewn across the floor and on the window ledge stood a row of air fresheners.

  Harjunpää couldn’t work out the layout of the flat, because it simply didn’t exist. The only remaining item of furniture
was the bed with the body lying on top of it. Only the lighter patches on the wallpaper indicated that other furniture had once been in place: presumably a large bookcase and maybe an armchair against the far wall, and there were indentations in the cork flooring where a sofa had once stood.

  ‘Everything all right up there?’ came a voice from the stairwell and Harjunpää realised that someone had heard Jari’s scream. The bright morning sunlight shone in from behind the voice and all Harjunpää could see was a dark figure that he decided must have been a woman in her dressing gown.

  ‘You’re not manhandling him, I hope.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m a police officer,’ he replied and moved towards the corridor. Dead bugs and bluebottles crackled under his feet like small, crisp pieces of boiled sweets. The woman took a step backwards and tightened the belt around her waist.

  Harjunpää didn’t actually hear anything behind him; he merely sensed something, a sudden movement or a flicker of the shadows. He ducked swiftly, rolled over and stood up again. But he had been mistaken; Jari was moving in the other direction. He was already halfway across the living room, bounding towards the gaping balcony door.

  ‘Jari, no!’ Harjunpää yelled. He was already in motion; he wrenched impetus from the doorpost, and everything else seemed to happen by itself; it was as though his whole life he had been practicing for this very moment. His shoes pounded against the floor, the patterns on the wallpaper blurred in streaks around him and the open balcony doorway grew larger at an incredible speed, like a camera zooming in. Jari had already made it out to the balcony and his dress flapped in the wind like a giant tail.

  He had gripped the railing and was now trying to lift one of his legs over the top as if he were mounting a horse. The wind caught one of his socks and it flew off like a bird shot down in mid-flight. Harjunpää had reached the balcony, he stood in the doorway and stretched out his hand. A single thought spun in his mind: what floor, what floor? Somehow he noticed a broom with no handle and a multicoloured sock lying in the corner of the balcony. He grabbed hold of Jari’s shoulders and, shifting his centre of gravity, pulled him down as hard as he could – the smell of sweat hung in the air. He then thrust his knee into the back of Jari’s thigh, there came a bony click and Jari was securely wedged in between Harjunpää and the railing.

  Jari removed his left hand from the railing and began scratching at Harjunpää’s fingers, but it was no use. They stood there panting, writhing like a many-limbed monster. Harjunpää instinctively looked down. At first all he saw was Jari’s bare leg dangling like a loose object through the railings, then there was nothing. Emptiness, more emptiness, and behind all the emptiness, unfathomably far away, he could make out the ground. In his stomach he could feel the downward acceleration, his jacket flapping in his eyes. Would there be enough time to feel pain? Or would it be nothing more than a single, astonishing blaze of red?

  ‘He’ll punish me because Mummy’s dead!’ Jari wailed. This statement seemed to give him a surge of renewed strength and he managed to clamber further up over the railing. A pen he had got from the museum fell out of Harjunpää’s pocket and shot downwards like a bullet, without even a quiver. Then it disappeared. It was only then that Harjunpää really felt afraid: something hot ran through him, in his temples he could feel his heart thumping, pounding, the image of his family flashed through his mind – how would they cope? Then he thought of Jari: did he have any chance of recovery, even with the best care available? For a short, horrifying moment he wondered whether to release his grip.

  ‘Nobody’s going to die today!’ he shouted, his mouth almost level with Jari’s ear. In a flash Harjunpää became almost frenzied, tightened his grip and pulled, and at that same moment Jari seemed to give in, his body almost limp. They quickly stumbled backwards across the balcony. But of course, of course, Harjunpää knocked his heel against the door and began to fall. Everything happened surprisingly slowly, as if time were a viscous, defiant mass, and he had just enough time to press his chin against his chest before his back slammed against the floor.

  Bugs crackled beneath him. Jari lay on top of him, heavy and bony, but Harjunpää managed to slip out from underneath, sprung to his knees and rolled him on to his stomach. Jari no longer tried to resist. Without any trouble he pulled Jari’s hands behind his back and groped for the handcuffs on his belt. He could already feel their cold, calming steel, but eventually decided to let things be. Instead he kept a firm grip on Jari’s right wrist, placed the palm of his free hand between Jari’s shoulder blades and sighed: ‘Easy does it, easy does it.’

  ‘Oy, you!’ a voice yelled. Harjunpää started and raised his head. In the front doorway stood a bulky man in a boiler suit, presumably the caretaker, restlessly beating the air with an ominous-looking rubber baton. The woman in the dressing gown stood behind him, her hands covering her face in horror.

  ‘All right, leave him alone. That’s assault, you know.’

  ‘I’m not assaulting him. I’m a police officer.’

  ‘Right, and I’m the prime minister. If I were you I’d stay right there on the floor, the real police are on their way.’

  ‘Have you called them?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well call them again and tell them to get a bloody move on. My badge is in my jacket pocket…’

  ‘And what if you’re lying? What if it’s a gun?’

  ‘I give up,’ he sighed, though under different circumstances he would have herded the onlookers out into the corridor. In any case he was certain that JP’s squad would arrive at any moment. He took hold of Jari’s arms, helped him into a sitting position and leant him against the wall. He could feel the man quivering all over, very slightly, from head to toe, as if he were crying deep inside. Harjunpää stood up, walked over to the balcony and shut the door. He felt relief as the howl of the wind finally ceased.

  ‘Fuckin A!’ came a voice from the stairwell. Harjunpää knew immediately who it was – there was only one man in the whole police force who after all these years still greeted him with those same words. He was right. Rummukainen from Central had already chivvied the caretaker and the woman in the dressing gown out into the stairwell and stood in the doorway in a position that had become very familiar to Harjunpää over the years: legs apart, his hat pushed back on his forehead and his thumbs tucked in behind the belt carrying his gun and other equipment. It had been said that Rummukainen only had to step out of his car and stand like this for a moment to diffuse any situation. Like Harjunpää he had seen almost everything, and even now his expression was calm, not shocked in the least, but still his eyes watchfully scanned across the room. Even if he hadn’t been in uniform, this at least would have given him away as a police officer.

  ‘He just tried the quick way down,’ Harjunpää whispered. ‘Off the balcony. We had quite a wrestling match.’

  ‘So I see. Your trousers are still covered in crap.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks. So,’ Harjunpää began decisively, but suddenly realised that he didn’t know what to say or do. His mind was blank; it felt almost as though he had woken up in strange surroundings and couldn’t for the life of him remember where he was. ‘So…’

  ‘The doctor’s arrived,’ said Rummukainen, nonchalantly twiddling with his moustache. ‘And an ambulance, but I told them all to wait in the corridor. Best fill the doc in first, then get this guy and everyone else out of here.’

  ‘Right,’ Harjunpää mumbled and for a brief, rare moment something approaching a smile crossed his face. After this short pause he could once again feel the blood begin pumping through him; his thoughts cleared, the machinery inside slowly jolted into motion. Immediately the plan of action became perfectly clear to him: Jari out, dog out, body out; schedule post mortem for the next day and seal off the flat. If necessary get forensics in to take a look around after the post mortem, then get the place disinfected.

  ‘Keep him company for a minute,’ he instructed Rummukainen and walked out
into the hallway. The front door was still wide open. Outside, in addition to the doctor and the firemen stood the caretaker, the dressing-gown woman and, judging by the way they were dressed, a few other people from the same building. Their confused, low muttering came to an abrupt halt as Harjunpää appeared in the doorway. The smell of fresh coffee wafted up the staircase and behind closed doors a few floors below came the shrill yapping of a little dog.

  ‘He did tell us all that his mother had died.’The caretaker seemed to speak for everyone; he was almost defensive. The rubber baton was carefully hidden behind his back. ‘But none of us realised she was still in there.’

  ‘When did he first mention this?’

  ‘It was March the 21st, I remember it clearly because it was my birthday and I remember thinking I ought to have flown our flag at half-mast.’

  ‘He gave me one of those double lamp-stands,’ said the woman in the dressing gown.

  ‘But we all thought he was just moving to a smaller flat and getting rid of some stuff. He even gave the Lönnbergs his piano.’

  ‘And I saw Mutanen’s eldest son carrying the telly out of there.’

  ‘The video and the microwave ended up in the rubbish downstairs.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Harjunpää and raised his hand. ‘I’ll be contacting you and everyone else in this block either today or tomorrow. I’ll leave my card on the notice board downstairs in case anything important comes to mind. Once again, thank you.’

  He indicated for the doctor and the firemen to follow him inside, shut the door behind him and crouched down to listen. He could tell that the neighbours were finally going from the sound of their voices and footsteps becoming quieter and quieter. Then came the sound of a door closing. This was what he had wanted. It would be better as far as getting Jari out of the flat was concerned.