The Priest of Evil

by Matti Joensuu

  56. Suicide

  Harjunpää was driving, Piipponen was sitting in the passenger seat and Onerva was in the back. They were on their way back from a frustrating day’s reconnaissance, and the silence in the car was like a sheer wall of steel that none of them could break. As if each of them were sulking inside their own steel bubble.

  ‘Can we please knock off the silent treatment?’ Piipponen tried to sound pointed and irritated but his words did not have the desired effect. His voice sounded as though his cheeks were full of cotton wool, softening his every word. Around his neck was a thick foam support clipped shut at the back; its rim was so high that he couldn’t move his mouth properly. He had a large bandage on his forehead, and he had taken such a whack that the underside of his eye had turned progressively bluer throughout the course of the day. Despite this, he had flatly refused any suggestion of taking sick leave.

  ‘As if I’d let him escape on purpose,’ he mumbled with considerable difficulty. ‘It could have happened to anyone. All I did was turn my back for a second to find the key and put it in the lock and he was at my throat like a tiger…’

  ‘No one doubts you,’ said Harjunpää flatly. He always found it difficult giving people negative feedback, let alone directly criticising or blaming someone. Even now he had to clear his throat for a moment before finally stammering: ‘I’m just pissed off at how you handled things in the first place. What a cock-up! We should have pooled everything we had on him and had a meeting about how to proceed. In any case, I’m in charge of these two cases so I’m the one that should have questioned him.’

  ‘Here we go, so our Timo’s ambitious after all! You want to play the hero and be the one to get a confession out of him. That’s just great… I wasn’t even planning on questioning him. I just wanted to straighten things out with him so that come the morning he’d be like putty in your hands.’

  ‘Give it a rest,’ Harjunpää snapped and stared angrily at the traffic jam in front of them. Suddenly Onerva, who had been listening carefully, leaned forward between the front seats and pointed at the police radio.

  ‘Quiet, you two, and turn that thing up. There’s been another suicide somewhere.’

  ‘… take care of it, and back-up’s on its way. Grönlund’s still in charge.’

  A number of patrols acknowledged the call, but no one commented on the nature of the incident.

  Harjunpää grabbed the microphone from the dashboard.

  ‘This is Harjunpää from Violent Crimes. Where is it?’

  ‘The eastbound line at the Railway metro station.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Onerva gasped.

  ‘And you’re sure the victim jumped in front of the train? Were there any witnesses?’

  ‘Over twenty. A couple of security guards turned up and took down contact details and what have you. This one wasn’t hit by a train; just jumped on to the tracks and stuck her hand into the power rail at the back…and there’s enough electricity flowing through that thing to fuel a nuclear plant.’

  ‘And people actually saw her walking? Was she by herself?’

  ‘Yes, she seemed to do it by herself. Surely it’ll be on the CCTV cameras. The body’s so badly burnt that only the breasts indicate it was a woman. She died instantly. Are you going to take this one?’

  ‘Not in that case, give it to the guys on evening shift,’ said Harjunpää and then replaced the microphone in its holder. For a moment there was something almost like relief in the air, but the silence was every bit as impenetrable as it had been before.

  57. Guilty

  ‘Apartus ecolea mobilata,’ he panted and snarled, for he was in a very tight spot indeed - clinging desperately to the steel rungs of the ladder leading up from within the rock, barely a metre beneath the grille and the door to his home. But his stamina had simply run out. Perhaps this was not so much a matter of stamina as a culmination of events. First he had run through the network of tunnels all the way from the Railway Station to Pasila, and his ascent up the ladder had been hindered by his confounded raincoat which had repeatedly become stuck beneath his knees and shoes. On top of this he was still carrying the rucksack, which now felt so heavy that it may as well have been packed with paving stones. But by far the worst part was his left hand; it stung and ached as though the glove were full of small red-hot shards of steel. His grip would not hold.

  ‘Nessum tasea tacitus,’ he puffed and decided to try again, for he had no alternative other than to plummet back down the shaft, battering himself to death, and the thought did not appeal to him. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and quickly attempted to haul himself upwards using his feet and his good hand – and it worked! He collapsed on to the grille and lay there for a moment, a rushing sound in his ears and bright sparks dancing in front of his eyes. His clothes were soaked in sweat; he only realised this now that he was lying still and could feel the eternal, gentle draught wafting up from the depths.

  For almost ten minutes he lay there perfectly still. Only then did he attempt to clamber to his knees, then to his feet, finally stumbling over towards the tarpaulin hanging across the doorway. He could not for the life of him understand why Maammo had decided to treat him so cruelly. It was as though she had abandoned him, condemning him to failure in all his endeavours. He managed to pull the tarpaulin to one side, slipped the rucksack from his shoulders and gently laid it on the floor next to the pile of books. His fingers trembling, he lit the storm lantern and collapsed outstretched on his bed.

  A single thought spun through his mind: why should Maammo treat him, the highest of earth spirits, so wrongly? Had Maammo forsaken him forever? An eternal union existed between them, though Maammo could of course rescind the union, but only should he sully himself with greed and lechery, or if something beyond his control should pollute him – and he could not imagine what such a thing might be.

  Eventually he rose slowly to his knees, clenched his right hand into a fist and made the first sign of prayer – with his left hand he could do nothing. Then, as loudly as he could muster, he cried out: ‘Maammo! Mamolae, lama sabaktani?’

  His cry boomed from wall to wall, slipping past the tarpaulin and out into the shaft; it resounded in a faint echo up to the top of The Brocken, and travelled downward into the underground darkness from which he had risen. He listened carefully, to the world outside and to himself, but there was no reply. His chin slumped against his chest in bitter disappointment.

  Since when had Maammo’s displeasure plagued him? From the time he had adopted the boy? No, for nothing in the adoption went against the laws of Maammo; he had carried out everything exactly as he should. From the time he had adopted Mikko Matias, the boy’s father? No, for that too had been conducted in accordance with the law, and after all he was allowed five adoptions. When had his disgrace begun?

  ‘Cetera desunt,’ he whispered after many minutes of silence, for a thought was beginning to form in his mind, a revelation. Everything was not quite as it should be - the end was yet to come. He thought of the FiveWise Ones. He had asked for their guidance, they had given it to him, and he had followed their instructions, so this could not be the source of the problem.

  But still his thoughts remained with the FiveWise Ones, and after a moment everything became clear to him - in a flash! He ought to have realised straight away – it was the infidel, the policeman who had thought he was reviving him! It was he who had polluted him! He had polluted him by touching his mouth to the sacred mouth of the earth spirit, which had been blessed to utter prayers to Maammo. The policeman was guilty!

  ‘Mortuus et diapoli,’ he croaked, rose to his knees, and from the box beside his bed picked up the card the policeman had left. Placing a curse on the card with needles had clearly not been enough; this would require something far more powerful. Perhaps revenge would cleanse him and allow Maammo to grace him once again.

  He untied a small bag hanging from his belt, opened it and allowed its contents to spill out on to the bed. The bag containe
d dozens of pebbles, the majority of which held the captive souls of people who had wronged or offended him. However, some of the pebbles were still vacant. One at a time he fingered the available pebbles, but did not yet empower any of them. His spirit, his senses and instincts were tired, and were not as acute as normal. He tried again and finally selected the third pebble. Yes. This felt like the right one; he could fit the policeman’s soul inside, perhaps it was already inside. It nonetheless contained something which strongly resembled it. Around the stone he made the holy marks of Maammo, then the mark that would finally seal the infidel’s soul within the pebble forever.

  He stood up, taking the pierced card and the soul-pebble with him, pulled the tarpaulin aside so that he could slip out on to the grille and into the opposite room, which he often used as a redemption chamber. He switched on his headlamp once again and it shed a faint pool of light on the stone floor. In the middle of this he laid first the card, the text facing the ground and the underworld, then on top of that the pebble. He then rummaged in the left-hand corner of the chamber and quickly found what he was looking for: a jagged stone that fitted his hand perfectly.

  After feeling the stone for a moment, he knelt down and began pounding the card and pebble. He hit them hard, again and again, his hand moving like a piston. There came a loud crack as the pebble broke apart, but he carried on battering them, spitting out a deluge of venomous curses between blows. Eventually the pebble was nothing but dust, the card was reduced to a few pulpy lumps of paper.

  Only then did he finally stop. He stood up, caught his breath and kicked the dust and tiny pieces of paper out of the chamber. There they disappeared through the slats of the grille. Immediately he felt better. He felt energised, as though he had once again been allowed to suckle at Maammo’s breast, and he quickly made the holy mark of Maammo in thanks.

  His thoughts returned to the bomb. What in damnation had gone wrong? Why had it started ringing in the middle of the operation? Had blood perhaps dripped from his hand and dried on the clock-face causing the alarm to go off? Or had he, either accidentally or out of sheer carelessness, moved the switch as he had replaced the clock in the rucksack? He had to find out at all costs.

  He quickly returned home, turned up the storm lantern and allowed his headlamp to remain switched on. He then picked up the rucksack and placed it next to the pebbles on his bed, opened it, took out the clock and laid it on the mattress. He glanced at the middle box where the cables disappeared into the sticks of dynamite, reached out his hand and grabbed the…

  58. Sleeper

  Mikko had taken off his slippers so that the smack of their rubber soles against his heels wouldn’t wake Matti, though it now occurred to him that this wasn’t necessary – the road works on Neljäs Linja meant that every passing car caused the cobbles to rattle considerably. In addition to that it seemed that the previous night there had been far more call-outs at the nearby fire station than usual.

  Still, most importantly Matti was now sound asleep. He seemed peaceful, and he was no longer frantically twisting and turning as he had done just before one of his fits. Mikko rested his hand on the edge of the screen and looked at his sleeping son. Now that he had calmed down he looked almost the way he did as a little boy; he was even sleeping in the same way, almost a foetal position. His hair spilled across his ear and on to his cheek, forming the same wisp that had once been there - it seemed like millions of years ago.

  They weren’t really ‘fits’. They were nightmares during which Matti lay wriggling and crying, still asleep. Mikko could tell this from the fact that his son’s face had been limp and expressionless, and he had been unable to rouse him. Matti had simply curled up on the floor, sobbing so inconsolably that it was almost frightening, and crying out the name Leena.

  When Matti had appeared at his door earlier that evening – accompanied by a police patrol unit, for which Mikko was very grateful indeed – the boy had been hysterical and had barely managed to explain that his friend, or possibly even his girlfriend, Leena, had for some inexplicable reason crossed the underground tracks and had received a fatal electric shock. Matti had recognized her from her trainers, but the rest of her clothes had been burnt beyond recognition. On top of this, he had slipped past the guards and lifted the sheet laid out across the body, and he had barely been able to recognise her face. That alone would have been more than most adults could stomach.

  Mikko tiptoed silently through to the kitchen and took a cautious swig from an open bottle of beer. He didn’t want to get too drunk, so that he could be of some support should Matti wake up again, but he desperately needed something to calm him down. What Matti had told him had reminded him that he too had been shoved on to the tracks. He remembered the oily smell of the air; the lamps on the front of the engine growing larger and larger; the horrified look on the face of the woman driving the train. And all this had exhumed the terrible fear he had experienced as a child every time his father had tried to kill himself. But here he was despite it all. A single thought spun through his mind: had he been saved because Matti needed a father, a home? Was this the will of God?

  On his desk stood a lamp. Its light shone through the rice paper shade and fell softly on his son’s face. He was fast asleep, even his eyelids had stopped twitching. And although this recent change in his life had once again come as a complete surprise, everything seemed finally to be falling into place. The following day he would accompany Matti to a therapy session. The police had left a calling card which he’d stuck in his jacket pocket. He would spend at least the next week with Matti, helping him adjust to his new life and surroundings. If everything worked out, he’d be able to spend the rest of the spring term in his old school in Kulosaari, then they could decide what do after that. Come autumn they might no longer live in Kallio.

  But what should he do about his workroom in Kontula? Surely Cecilia would be obliged to pay him some sort of child support. And what would life be like once he returned to the post office?

  Despite everything he somehow felt lost, helpless. He walked into the kitchen, picked up the beer bottle and crept into the dark hallway. He opened the toilet door, switched on the lights, put down the toilet seat and sat down. For a long while he stared at the floor tiles between his bare feet and eventually he managed to block the outside world from his thoughts. His mind was filled with a profound silence.

  ‘Kikka?’ he called, his lips barely moving. He sat and waited. Nothing happened. He called again, over and over, his final cry was almost panicked. ‘Kikka!’

  It had stopped working. It couldn’t be because Matti was sleeping in the other room, it had worked dozens of times with Sanna sleeping there.

  ‘Kikka,’ he whispered a final time, but already it sounded dispirited and plaintive, for somehow in his heart of hearts he knew that his time with Kikka was gone. He could no longer imagine her as a living being – his very own golden-haired, beloved miniature woman.

  He remained there, dejected, full of sadness, staring at the toilet door. It needed to be washed and painted, he had been meaning to do it for a long time, but hadn’t found the energy. Now as he stared at the spot next to the handle where the paint had worn away, an even deeper silence reached out to him, as if someone had wrapped their arm around him. A moment later and the paintless spot no longer seemed like a smudge reproaching him for his inefficiency. It was now a strong spruce branch, standing firm against the gentle morning breeze. He began to see more: the sky brightening more and more in the north-east, the spruce grove appearing all the darker against the light. He saw red rays of sunlight shining against a turf-roofed cottage built in a clearing where hay and crops had grown. In the first rays of sunlight they looked almost fragile; like distant whistling willows.

  And from within the cottage came the sounds of sleep; there rested the happy family he had lost years ago.

  59. Name

  Jaana could only register a few things at once. First it had been the wail of sirens, their cries scre
eching high and low, then different cries at a faster tempo, like a dog barking. But now that too had stopped, and more distinctly than before she could feel the movement around her: she was being wheeled on a stretcher along a hospital corridor; fluorescent lamps and their mesh covers dazzled her eyes. It seemed like of an illusion; it felt almost as though she were moving upwards, shooting far up into the sky.

  The next thing was the pain. There it was again, gripping her from the neck downwards; this time so strongly that it felt like a new experience altogether, a state of being in which she was entirely removed from what was going on around her. She no longer understood that she was being rushed into a birthing room, and she no longer had the strength to be afraid, not even for the baby that was almost two months premature. Somehow instinctively she reached out for help, her fingers grabbing at the empty space next to the stretcher. She was searching for Tero’s hand, though she knew that she would never be able to hold it again.

  ‘… Completely green,’ someone said. In the distance she heard the words: ‘Tell them to get an incubator ready!’

  ‘It’s coming… It’s blue…’

  ‘… Umbilical cord round the neck… Oxygen!’

  ‘… No heartbeat…’

  Then amidst the commotion came a faint cry, like a kitten when someone stands on its tail, and immediately someone wearing a paper mask over her mouth leant across Jaana and all but shouted: ‘Mrs Kokkonen! Jaana! You’ve just had a little girl. What shall we call her?’

  ‘Is it a…an emergency baptism? Is she going to die?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s a healthy baby girl. Any idea what you’re going to call her?’

  And although before his death she and Tero had come up with a number of different options, for a girl or a boy, suddenly she couldn’t remember a single one of them. For some reason she simply said: ‘Sinikka.’