‘But won’t it be a bit difficult to apprehend her if we’re by ourselves?’
‘Just shadow her to start with, and alert us by mobile. We’ll only try to talk to her once we’ve all regrouped.’
‘What about the stations in between?’
‘Get off at every station and give it a thorough going over, wait for the next train and carry on. Have a look on the ground and in the bins for pamphlets or flyers of a religious nature. If so, she might be very close by.’
‘And when the line splits?’
‘You take the Mellunmäki branch, I’ll go to Vuosaari; we’ll do exactly the same on the way back too. Once we’re done, we’ll meet back here and decide whether it’s worth doing another round.’
They looked at each other for a moment; they were all utterly expressionless, and the matter seemed to be clear. A camera dangled from Piipponen’s wrist; at the very least they wanted to try and photograph her.
‘Elderly female, grey hair down to her shoulders,’ Harjunpää recapped. ‘A beret pulled down to her ears, possibly some sort of long skirt. Sharp-chinned old crone.’
‘More than likely preaching and handing out some sort of leaflets.’
‘Let’s get to it,’ said Onerva decisively, and with that they turned and made their way past the ticket machines and on to the jolting, downward escalators. A light draught blew up towards them, carrying the slightest hint of dampness, of the underground; the odour growing stronger all the time, yet remaining virtually imperceptible.
Piipponen walked several metres ahead, a number of people stood between them, and above the clunking of the escalators he couldn’t hear a thing. Harjunpää whispered to Onerva: ‘I’ll give him his due, he’s pretty hard-working – works his arse off. I happened to see his timesheet and even yesterday he was there until about eleven.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Onerva scoffed cynically, as though she were not amused in the slightest. ‘So you’ve never worked with him before?’
‘No. We’ve been on night-duty together a few times, but that’s it.’
‘Come on, Timo…’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s not even worth telling you. For all I know it’s probably just gossip.’
‘You’ve started now.’
‘Well… You know he lives in Kivihaka, only a few kilometres up the road. Word is he works late almost every night doing a spot of his own ‘business’. Wills, some dodgy dealings, that sort of thing. That’s his idea of overtime.’
‘What the…?’
‘Apparently he sometimes turns up in a sweaty tracksuit, like he’s just come in from a jog, and paces around for half an hour with a pile of papers in his hands, making sure that everyone on night shift notices he’s there.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding…He’s pretty convincing, though.’
‘He even pretends to be angry if anyone suspects he’s up to no good.’
They were approaching the underground platforms and the wail of a departing train could be heard: phuii – phuii! A moment later crowds of people began flooding on to the escalator opposite; men and women of all ages, and considering the time of day a great number of teenagers - children even.
‘That was my train, it was going west,’ Piipponen shouted back to them. ‘I’ll get the next one. I’ll call you if anything happens.’
‘Yeah, we’ll be in touch. I’ll meet you back at the compass.’
‘Right!’
Harjunpää and Onerva turned left towards the eastbound platform. There were about thirty people waiting, among them a very drunk man, probably just back from a booze-cruise to Tallinn. He offered swigs from any of his numerous bottles to a young girl and boy sitting on one of the benches. Harjunpää let him be. They didn’t have time to take care of every trouble-maker they saw; they had a job to take care of, though searching around the underground was rather hit or miss. And then he spotted her.
He recognised her immediately: her clothes, her posture, her slight limp – and for a moment something inside him froze. A chill spread across his skin. Had the impossible suddenly become real?
‘Onerva…’
‘Yes?’
‘There she is. Over there on the far left. This time she’s got a blue beret.’
‘The skirt’s the same. How shall we take this?’
‘Let’s stroll up closer like we’re minding our own business. Then we’ll ask her for her papers – there’s still five minutes until the next train. Call Piipponen and tell him to get down here.’
‘OK.’
They started moving closer to the old woman, slowly winding their way through the crowds of people. Her beret was pulled almost down to her ears and looked like a blue ball covering her head, and beneath it her silver hair flowed loosely. Around her waist was a black and very full-looking bumbag: that must have been where she kept her leaflets. They kept moving closer, the gap between them now less than forty metres. Then all of a sudden the old woman gave a start, turned around and stared right at them. In a flash she was on the move. She ran off towards the end of the platform, and as Harjunpää broke into a run behind her his mind was filled with a sense of victory: she’s running into a dead end!
But to his surprise the woman stopped by the platform wall and began frantically rummaging through her bag. Only then did Harjunpää realise that at that point in the wall was a dark-brown, inconspicuous door. He vaguely recalled that the door led down into the shelter beneath the station, or else into one of the tunnels connecting the tracks, and he quickened his step, knocking people out of his way. ‘Sorry!’ he yelled.
The old woman glanced at him. There was something oddly familiar about her face, particularly her mouth, and from somewhere other than their encounter at Hakaniemi underground station. The woman clearly realised that she wouldn’t have time to open the door, if that was what she was planning, the hefty lock gleamed in the light before her; she let go of her bag and set off running again. The hem of her skirt flapped behind her like the wings of a giant vampire, but she could do nothing about the fact that she was running into a dead end.
‘Police! Stop!’ shouted Harjunpää, the words echoed off the stone walls of the tunnel as though someone had repeated his command, but the old woman did not look back. It was then that she took him utterly by surprise: she hopped down off the platform and onto the tracks, as light and nimble as a deer. Her skirt momentarily fluttered up like a bell, and a moment later she was inside the rock-hewn tunnel. The darkness swallowed her, leaving only her white legs flashing behind her.
Harjunpää stopped running, but his shoes slid along the floor and he almost collided with the wall at the end of the platform. A white placard stood in front of him: NO ENTRY. TUNNEL. KAISANIEMI 597m. He could clearly make out the woman’s steps crunching against the gravel as she ran. He knew full well that it was expressly forbidden to go on to the tracks - it could be life-threatening – but the woman running away might be guilty of two murders.
He hopped on to the tracks. The drop was well over a metre and he almost fell to his knees, but eventually he managed to regain his balance and began running into the darkness, all the time fumbling for the torch in his pocket. Behind him he could hear Onerva’s frantic, almost furious cries. ‘Timo! Come back you idiot!’
Harjunpää didn’t pay any attention to her. The old woman wouldn’t have run away unless she had a very good reason, not to mention risking her life by jumping on to the tracks. In addition to this, a gut reaction told Harjunpää he would catch her very soon, as there couldn’t possibly be anywhere in the tunnel for her to hide. He would have to hurry, and he hoped that there wouldn’t be a scuffle – there couldn’t have been more than four minutes until the arrival of the next train from the west. His heart beat so strongly that he could feel it in his temples, and the back of his shirt was already drenched with sweat. Around him lingered the smell of stone, and of oil that had seeped from the trains over the years.
A gap appe
ared suddenly in the left-hand wall, enabling him to see the opposite track. Light shone in from the platform. Something must have warned him, perhaps a faint breeze from below, and he stopped in his tracks. He gasped for breath, took out his torch and switched it on. He had indeed stopped just in time: in front of him gaped a black hole in the ground, then another, a third. There was a whole series of gaps; at this point the track ran across a bridge of some sort. But what exactly lay beneath?
He aimed his torch into the first of the gaps: the light only just reached the bottom of the shaft, but it was enough for him to make out the tracks of an intersecting tunnel further down. He noticed a railing running down the right-hand edge of the gap and moved towards it. He had guessed correctly: it was a ladder attached to the side of the shaft, leading down to the tunnel below. From the light of the torch he guessed that it was between three and four metres to the bottom. At the base of the ladder lay something on the floor, and when he looked closely he realised it was a blue beret. The old woman had gone that way. But how many minutes did he have before the next train arrived?
He was careful not to go near the bright yellow metallic rail running upside down along the tracks; this supplied the trains with electricity - the voltage was enormous. He gripped the ladder firmly, turned to face the tracks and began lowering himself downwards. For some reason he counted the eight steps before he reached the bottom. The ground in the lower tunnel was covered in coarse gravel.
Harjunpää crouched down and picked up the beret. He knew that he ought to have been carrying a plastic bag in case of finding any potential forensic evidence, but on this occasion he didn’t have one. Instead he carefully folded the beret –it might contain strands of hair, some of which could still have their roots attached, and these could then be used to determine the DNA of the beret’s owner. He put the hat in his pocket.
Which direction now? At a loss, he stood there listening for a moment. A distant humming could be heard, like the sound of a large machine, as though the earth itself were drawing breath, and from the left he could hear something else. A scraping sound perhaps? The crunch of gravel beneath someone’s feet? He decided to follow it. But before leaving he lifted the edge of his jacket, flicked open his revolver case and pulled out the gun inside; its rubber handle fitted his hand perfectly, and had a strangely calming effect on him.
A moment later and he was on the move again, sprinting forwards, the light from his torch caressing the ground and walls in front of him. Along the left at ground level ran a concrete gully containing a number of pipes and possibly a cable, while along the ceiling ran a set of even larger pipes which shone dimly in the torchlight. He recalled that this communal tunnel was used for almost everything: water and drainage, heating, electricity, telephone cables. It also occurred to him that he ought to be wearing a hard hat, as the rock faces hadn’t been secured with concrete, but had instead been left just as they were after quarrying – a large rock could easily have fallen on any unlucky person passing through.
The tunnel veered round a corner and the distant light from the station disappeared entirely. Harjunpää was enveloped by the darkness, which was lit only by the weak beam of light from his torch. Something began to puzzle him. How had a beret that was pulled so tightly round her head simply fallen off? And how could a frail old thing like her have jumped down on to the tracks so easily, not to mention climbing down the ladder? His mouth felt dry and he wet his lips. Had he been lured into a trap? In such thick darkness the light from his torch made him a sitting duck. He held his hand to one side and covered the lamp, allowing only thin filaments of light to trickle between his fingers.
He pointed the light towards the ceiling. Fluorescent light strips dangled at regular intervals, but he couldn’t see a switch anywhere. He focussed once again on the ground and something at the side of the tunnel suddenly caught his attention. Had the old woman dropped a scarf perhaps? Or was it something else? He listened carefully for a moment, but still could make out nothing but a distant humming, and the sound of his own rasping breath. He began slowly making his way towards the object; he stopped and crouched down – and at first couldn’t quite understand what he saw.
In a neat row on the ground in front of him lay a collection of dead pigeons. There were probably a dozen or so altogether; some already shrivelled and decomposing, though a number of them looked fresh. Each one of them had had its throat slit, and when he turned one of them over he saw that its chest had been cut open too, exposing the bloody innards.
‘Good God,’ he stammered, and wondered how the pigeons had ended up so far underground. There was no way they could have flown down here, that much he realised at once; something or someone must have brought them here. It couldn’t have been an animal? What animal could have gone outside to hunt them and then returned down here? And what about the cuts?
It had to be a person. But what sort of person? A wizard, involved in some evil form of witchcraft? The thought was a disquieting one, and Harjunpää had the inexplicable feeling that that same person was very close indeed, watching him – if not preparing to attack.
He spun around, but he must have been imagining it: there was no one behind him. Again he thought he heard something, this time from the opposite direction, and he turned back around – but still he saw nothing. He could have sworn he’d heard the gravel crunch beneath someone’s cautious feet.
‘Come out! Police!’ he shouted. His voice echoed against the rock, stretching further and further into the depths of the tunnel before finally disappearing as though the rock had swallowed it. A fear grew within him, the terrifying thought that the rock would swallow him too. He sensed something dark and malevolent about the place, and wanted desperately to return to the surface.
He had spun around so much that he could no longer remember which direction he had come from. About ten metres behind him he could make out the opening of a subsidiary tunnel. Was that the right way?
‘Calm down,’ he told himself, but it didn’t help. On top of everything else some sort of claustrophobic angst began to overwhelm him, though never before had he been affected by anything like it.
He could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead and he wet his lips once again. And of course, the light in his torch began to falter; it glowed dimly, like the setting sun. Now he was in a hurry. Still he managed to concentrate: he had first noticed the pigeons on his right and now they were on his left, so all he had to do was carry on straight ahead.
He bent down and grabbed one of the dead birds with the same hand his torch was in – and only then did he notice that something had been sprayed on the rock in front of him. There was not very much of it, only a few droplets, forming small rivulets, and he realised that it must be blood.
‘Ugh,’ he spat, and broke into a run. He suddenly felt that the hunter had become the hunted, and that something was right on his heels. Just then a familiar buzz could be heard from above: the fluorescent lamps began to flicker, and a moment later they shone fully and Harjunpää was forced to shut his eyes. He could hear heavy steps approaching, perhaps the steps of several people, then he felt the powerful beams of two lamps shining directly at his face. Through his blinking he could see that the men were wearing the familiar helmets and reflective black jackets of the fire brigade.
‘Put the gun down! Now!’ shouted one of them. Another exclaimed: ‘Harjunpää! What the hell’s going on?’
Harjunpää recognised the voice. It was Eki Tattari from the fire station downtown.
46. Headlines
Although spring was well on its way, the mornings were still cold and bracing. The wind almost burned into the knuckles of cyclists, and because of this Harjunpää was wearing a pair of leather gloves. He was on his way to work in Pasila, peddling towards Masala station as fast as he could. He had left the house in a rush, unable to find his keys – he had later found them in his trouser pocket.
He sped past the kiosk at Masala Station and continued for about anothe
r twenty metres before he fully understood what he had just seen. He braked suddenly; the wheels screeched and the bicycle lurched forward. He jumped from the saddle, letting the bike fall to the ground, its mudguards rattling, and ran back to the kiosk.
‘Christ Almighty,’ he seethed; he had seen correctly after all. The headline of one of the tabloids read: COPPER BRINGS TUBE TO STANDSTILL. Another read: FIRE CREW SAVES POLICEMAN FROM PIGEONS. The first one came complete with a photograph of a fireman standing on the platform holding out his hand, and Harjunpää himself standing on the tracks looking bewildered by all the lights and fuss. He was carrying one of the dead pigeons, its wings dangling sorrowfully towards the ground.
‘Christ Almighty,’ he sighed once again, and he suddenly felt a wave of nausea wash over him. He recalled his possible infection too, how he hadn’t dared kiss Elisa that night, and for a moment he had to lean against the wall of the kiosk, supporting himself with both hands. He vaguely remembered the flash of the cameras, but he had thought the photographer was just another fireman.
Onerva hadn’t been sure that the next train would stop at all, leaving her unable to warn the driver – it could have been a service train rattling through the station without stopping – and so she had pulled the emergency communication cord on the platform, cutting off the flow of electricity to the trains throughout that whole sector of the network; and because one sector was down the entire network had had to be closed.
Outside the Central Railway Station a sea of blue emergency lights had been flashing in the dusk. There were two ambulances, a SWAT team, a fire engine and two squad cars. Central had reported the incident to the division responsible for the downtown area, but Harjunpää still didn’t know whether charges would be brought against him. He wasn’t particularly well acquainted with the laws on matters of this nature, but jumping on to the tracks might well come under ‘causing rail traffic disturbance’.
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