The Priest of Evil

by Matti Joensuu

  ‘And guess what?’ quizzed Piipponen.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Those photofits have been distributed all over the place, and all the duty sergeants have printed them off and posted them in police stations around the city together with our brief.’

  ‘He, they…whatever; they’d be well advised not to show their face for a while.’

  ‘It won’t be long before every officer in the city recognises them.’

  ‘We’ve taken quite a few steps forward today.’

  ‘More like leaps, I’d say.’

  They stared at each other for a moment. Only now did they dare to smile, broadly and unashamedly, as though they had just made a full recovery from a debilitating illness. The magic was broken as Harjunpää’s work phone began to ring.

  ‘Crime Squad, Harjunpää,’ he answered, then listened for a few seconds, reached into his pocket for a pen, flicked over one of the photofits and began scribbling something down. ‘Could you repeat the social security number again? Thanks. Send a formal statement when you get a moment. Once again – thank you.’

  He ended the call and slipped his mobile back into his pocket.

  ‘You’ll never guess…’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Turns out our old biddy is a man after all.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘One Markus Luukas Paavali Heino. Master of theology, teacher of religious studies.’

  52. Playboy

  Piipponen was by no means a bad person. He was in fact a far better person than most of his colleagues realised; he was actively involved with a number of aid organisations, charities and societies. Part of the reason for this was that he enjoyed being in the thick of different projects and working with large sums of money, while at the same time he took great satisfaction from acting as MC at important functions and events.

  Aside from this he was quite a schemer and a plotter; what’s more, he knew it, too. If he had ever been asked to fill out a self-assessment form, he would probably have put a tick in the box marked ‘Scoundrel’. Less charitable colleagues may well have ticked the box marked ‘Cheat’.

  Of course there was an understandable reason for all of this. Piipponen was the fifth son of a caretaker; life had been hard and of all the children in the family he had suffered the most. He had always been left to settle for his brothers’ hand-me-downs: worn-out pairs of shoes; darned, threadbare clothes; an old bike that had already been well-used by four young rascals before him. Hobbies had only been allowed for the two eldest brothers; in any squabbling and quarrelling between them all Piipponen had always fared the worst.

  Nonetheless, Little Piipponen – or Lilliput as his elder brothers had called him – had found his own method of survival: he had started running small scams. Little by little he had become quite the playboy, though gambling had never been one of his pursuits. For him, daily life was one big game, a game in which the smartest always came up trumps, while the stupidest were left cowering with their tails between their legs. Now this had almost become a lifestyle in itself, and he always felt put out if on any particular day there was nothing even remotely exciting going on. As a result, he would often take a squad car and drive around sorting out his own business.

  He had more than enough matters to attend to. Spending his childhood and teenage years in poverty had made him eager to succeed, and very thrifty with money. He had all manner of little business projects: taking care of wills and estates; buying, selling and supplying almost anything; helping people move house. Those who knew him well were sure that his little enterprises weren’t always entirely legitimate.

  Still he tried hard – mostly on police time – and he had been rewarded with ample material comfort. He always drove the newest American car on the market; his cars were so new he almost never had to take them in to be serviced. Being the runt of the litter hadn’t turned him into a loser in the slightest; on the contrary, he had grown into an ambitious, successful man.

  It was just after six p. m., but Piipponen was still sitting at his computer terminal in Pasila police station, absent-mindedly chewing the end of his thumbnail. He was astonished; everyone else was astonished too. For the last twelve years “Apostle Heino” - as they had named their suspect because of his first names - had managed to live in such a way that there was not a single mention of him in any of the national registers. Throughout that time he had had no fixed abode, so it would have been understandable if at some point he had been picked up for a minor offence of some description. The last time he had been registered was for shoplifting. But since then, for twelve years he might as well have been dead.

  And although the others had already decided to call it a day – Harjunpää had taken his youngest daughter riding, and Onerva had gone to a concert she had booked months ago – Piipponen had stayed, going over everything again and again, but now even he had to admit that he was at a loss. It didn’t really matter; he was being paid the highest rate of overtime and he had come up with a few good ideas for the following day.

  First they had to establish the man’s last known place of work and contact the employer, as no living relatives could be found. They would have to check whether the man received a pension and which cash machines he used regularly. They would also have to contact social services, as it was highly possible that he received some form of benefits from them too, or even that he picked up his pension from their office.

  Piipponen yawned, rubbed his neck and glanced at his watch. He was marginally disappointed, as it would have been a sweet moment the following morning to throw a pile of print-outs nonchalantly on the table and scoff: ‘So there was no information to be found on him then?’ He still had some hope for the evening: they had managed to recruit four volunteers from Violent Crimes to work overtime, and at that moment they were all searching the underground network.

  The telephone warbled. It only rang once, which meant that this was an internal call.

  ‘Piipponen.’

  ‘Evening. It’s Alho from downstairs.’

  ‘Evening. How’s it going?’

  ‘The computer here says you’ve got a unit looking for a Heino. A Markus Luukas Paavali Heino?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Piipponen replied. He anxiously shifted position, suddenly filled with renewed hope. ‘Don’t say you’ve taken him in…’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. We’ve got him in cell number two.’

  ‘Who picked him up?’

  ‘A unit from Central. Underground security first noticed him travelling back and forth from one station to the next, then they recognised him from your photofit.’

  ‘Well I’ll be damned…’

  ‘Are you coming down to pick him up now or do you want us to bring him upstairs?’

  ‘You bet I’m going to pick him up. Do us a favour and process him for me, will you?’

  ‘No problems.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m on my way.’

  Piipponen hurled the receiver back into place. Something inside him froze and he took a deep breath. He could feel his temples tingling, and the sudden tension made his stomach churn – this was his big opportunity. He could almost see the others’ expressions as they arrived at work the following morning to see him calmly placing the interview transcripts on the table saying: ‘Here are three confessions, by the way. Two for murder and one for attempted murder.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he exclaimed, and then he was off. The excitement of a game in full swing fizzed inside him so strongly that he felt the palms of his hands begin to itch.

  ‘Good evening. I’m Detective Sergeant Piipponen’. He introduced himself at the door of the cell and extended his hand, but the sullen man inside made no move to touch it. ‘And you are Markus Luukas Paavali Heino?’

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘In a way? And what does that mean?’

  ‘I was once. Now I am merely the earth spirit.’

  ‘Of course,’ Piipponen uttered after a moment’s silence, and now he fel
t certain that the man was a lunatic. This gave him even more hope because, although people like this were often difficult to question, they were sometimes keen to confess everything during the initial interview; they were proud to take responsibility for their acts. However, Piipponen knew he’d have to be careful with the details, as head-cases like this often confessed to anything and would take the blame for other people’s crimes just to get some attention.

  ‘OK, follow me. When we get upstairs I’ll explain your position and your rights. Is there a lawyer you would like to have present? You do have the right to one.’

  ‘No, I do not need one,’ the man hissed. ‘My defence comes from another world.’

  ‘I see, that’s right,’ said Piipponen; although he never tried any of his tricks in an interview situation, it was always easier to get the suspect talking when there were only two people in the room.

  They stopped to wait for the lift and Piipponen examined the man out of the corner of his eye. He matched both his picture on the criminal register and his photofit almost perfectly, though now he looked slightly older and haggard. He was surprisingly calm; he wasn’t shaking, twitching or moving restlessly; he wasn’t even looking anxiously around himself; he stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the wall. Piipponen thought quickly what tactics to employ in the interview.

  ‘Listen,’ he said once the lift started moving. ‘Have a look up at the ceiling.’

  They both raised their eyes. On the ceiling there was a square pane of glass and behind that a camera staring at them.

  ‘They’re everywhere nowadays. It’s impossible to move around the city without being picked up on three or four different cameras.’

  The man remained silent, and Piipponen thought this was a good sign. He allowed the lift to go up another few floors before adding: ‘And there are even more of them around all the underground stations and inside the trains – hundreds.’

  Still the man remained silent. He merely stared past Piipponen far into the distance. Only his throat moved as though he were swallowing very slowly. When the lift came to a standstill Piipponen continued. ‘You see, the thing is, I’ve got a feeling there are several tapes with you on them.’

  They left the cells and walked across into the Violent Crimes building and Piipponen strode off along the endless labyrinth of corridors.

  ‘Follow the leader,’ he turned and gestured to Heino. ‘I can honestly tell you there are two ways we can sort this out…’

  Again he let the silence settle for full effect; all he could hear was the creak of his new shoes.

  ‘There’s an easy way and a difficult way. The easy way is you help us to establish exactly what happened. You tell us the truth. The difficult way is if you don’t want to cooperate. But even then you’ll eventually be forced to tell us the truth. All it takes is time and strong muscles in your backside. And I can assure you I’ve got plenty of both.’

  He stopped in front of the open door leading into his office and directed the man inside with a polite movement of the hand – nothing less for the man of the moment. But just then he was struck by an icy chill, as if a set of small hooks had sunk into his neck, and goosebumps appeared on his skin. There was no one behind him. He was standing in the corridor alone.

  ‘How the hell…’ he growled, then something snapped and his cheeks began to burn. He had made a stupid, amateurish mistake: he had walked in front, turning his back on the suspect. He also realised that he could thank his lucky stars that a suspected double murderer hadn’t gone straight for his jugular.

  He dashed towards the nearest door, but it was locked – the man couldn’t have gone in there. He began rattling the handle of the next door, and the next. His heart was pounding so much that his heart rate must have been well over a hundred. A thought occurred to him and he sped towards the end of the corridor: the man must have slipped out of the door in the stairwell; it could be opened from the inside without a key, and as for the main outer door, nobody could get in without a key card, but they could certainly get out!

  His shoes squeaked on the floor as he came to a stop by the thick glass door. He had been right: the door was still ajar, resting on the latch, and this meant that the man must have closed it slowly and with enough cold-blooded, steely reserve to make sure that the mechanism didn’t click shut. He hurriedly leant on the door and shoved it open, then stopped for a moment and listened carefully: the stairwell was so large that you couldn’t take a step without it echoing up to the fifth floor. But he couldn’t hear a thing; no steps, no rustling of clothes, no panting.

  Piipponen stumbled forwards and began running down the stairs as quickly as if he had wheels on his feet. The blue railing creaked beneath his hand and he could feel his palms burning. Once he reached the landing between the second and third floors he was overcome by the nauseating facts: the man was gone. In a daze he tried to catch his breath and looked around.

  However, he only stood still for a few seconds. He quickly shrugged off his jacket, tied the rough sleeve around his neck and began yanking it back and forth like a sponge. His skin instantly started to burn, and as he continued rubbing it turned a bright red colour. Blood had risen to the surface, he could feel it. He then slipped his jacket back on, tore his shirt open – a button flew on to the stairs and he picked it up. He knew precisely where it should be found: in the corridor on the floor next to his office door. Finally he took his mobile phone out of its case, and without a moment’s hesitation slammed it at the corner of his eye with full force. It broke on impact: the phone’s battery fell out and a crack appeared on its screen, while a warm stream of blood trickled from the corner of his eye. Before long it reached halfway down his chin.

  ‘Help!’ he shouted, his voice booming through the stairwell. ‘I’ve been attacked! The suspect’s escaped! Immediate assistance required!’

  53. Holy War

  ‘Belaboris botulium diaboli vascenata,’ he said to dispel the uncertainty from his mind. This was more than uncertainty, for a moment it had been pure fear; denying it was pointless. He had not experienced such a thing for years, as Maammo had always given him strength. But now for some reason Maammo was testing him. In some respects she was still on his side – the events of the previous night had been an indication of that. As an opponent Maammo had chosen such a stupid infidel that he had managed to slip away easily. He had not liked the man in the slightest: he stank of greed and pride, of money stashed in an old sock.

  The backpack was very heavy, he could feel it pulling at his back. Would the boy have the strength to carry it?

  The worst of it was that now they had begun their religious persecution, for that and nothing else was what the previous evening had been about. They could not accept that he worshipped Maammo, the only true deity, and that his faith demanded that he carry out necessary sacrifices. It would have been that same bigotry had he broken into their churches, kicked over the font and trampled their consecrated wafers into the ground.

  In fact, this was not merely religious persecution, this was a holy war – and they had declared it. They had declared it by making it impossible for him to visit his sacred shrines: the Railway Station, the underground stations and the trains themselves - the holy Orange Apostles. After that policeman had told him that there were cameras everywhere he had checked – and it was true. And not only at the stations, but almost everywhere, on the streets, outside every shop and government office. This meant that at any given moment he was on camera for all the nosy heathens to see. For this reason he was now pacing around the streets behind the Railway Station and wandering through Kaisaniemi Park. Although he had taken precautions to avoid being followed, he was still in the form of a man. After all, on their cameras they had already seen him in the form of a woman. This time, however, he was wearing a long raincoat and a cap with an extended brim. When he lowered his head the brim all but covered his face from view; in addition to this, he had left his hair half open so that it flowed down his back and was only
tied at the end with a rubber band.

  Another reason he had been unable to assume the form of a woman was that the boy had to be able to recognise him. That was, of course, if he turned up. It was late in the afternoon and school would certainly have finished for the day. Throughout the day – and the previous night for that matter – he had been sending the boy powerful messages to come and meet him, for now that war had been declared it was time to carry out the final strike - especially now that the future of the New Big Bang might be in danger, and would be fatefully delayed if they managed to catch him. As an extra precaution he had left his glasses at home; they were very distinctive and he could see well enough without them.

  Still, all these factors – the war situation, continuously having to watch his back, living in an unnatural way – considerably weakened his concentration and perhaps even his powers, and he was not at all sure whether his messages had found their way inside the boy’s head. In addition to all this, his left hand ached constantly, distracting him and making it difficult for him to scale the ladder down into his home. He had been unable to stop the bleeding and had resorted to putting a leather glove over his hand. Now that the blood had dried the glove was stuck to his hand so tightly that he had not dared to take it off.

  His hand had also been a hindrance in making his final preparations and in putting the bomb together. It had impaired him so much that he had had to start again many times and adjust the various settings, but there it finally was in the rucksack on his back. The clock was not yet ticking, but it would start the moment he pressed the battery into place, and after that only an hour would be left until the final BOOM! He could only imagine how the nails and bolts and pieces of metal would be cast in a great cloud in all directions, and how they would tear the infidels to pieces; their blood, their flesh and their splintered bones whirling in a wild, red storm.

  He had already decided upon the place of the sacrifice. It was appropriate in many ways, a temple of material greed, awash with people, and what’s more its structure was open, a grand hall, allowing the force of the blast to move freely upwards, right up to the top floor. There was even a glass ceiling and he was certain that it would collapse, shattering into millions of razor-sharp shards that would shower down upon the heads of the infidels who had been spared from the initial blast.