He poured more dafnes—he had ordered authentic Greek wine—into Ursula’s glass and received a vivacious smile in return. Ursula Katajisto was not an outright beauty, but she was good looking nonetheless. Her face was clear and smooth, her nose was slightly hooked, and her jaw was angular. Dark eyes sparkled vividly behind the lenses of her large, squarish glasses. Her shiny, naturally brown hair was parted on the crown of her head to the sides and curled from her earlobes down to her neck.
“Zorbas” was playing in the background, plucked out on a bousouki lute, and Koskinen didn’t feel at all like dancing. The place was called Knossos, and it was located on the second floor of the Koski Shopping Center, a modern mass of steel and glass surrounded by the red brick of Tampere’s industrial past.
The restaurant was clean and cozy, the doors and window shutters painted turquoise blue to emphasize the Greek theme.
However, the mood was far from that of the taverns on the small islands of the Aegean Sea the restaurant was trying to imitate. Where the originals were filled with black-mustached Greek men leisurely downing ouzo aperitifs, the clientele of Knossos was made up of middle-class Finns who had obviously dressed up for the evening. Koskinen felt out of place in his black dress shirt and gray sport coat. Even though the shirt was brand new.
He was furiously trying to come up with topics for conversation. He could chat all night about the upcoming Pirkka Trail Run and his bike rides, not to mention fishing and sailing. But what to talk about with a female companion on a first date? It was probably also tactless to start with whose place they would head to for the night. While waiting for their meal, they had not talked about anything beyond the quotidian conjectures about the weather and the requisite few disparaging words about the city’s street engineering.
Koskinen’s date had turned out to be a vegetarian. From the menu, she had chosen the house specialty: Eggplant Imam Bayildi. It looked like it must have been delicious. Nothing remained on her plate but a shred of baked tomato skin.
Ursula dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “I was listening to the news on Radio Tampere today. Last night there was another homicide of a disabled person in Kissanmaa.”
Koskinen lowered his fork to his plate. “Yes.”
Ursula picked up a toothpick and cocked her head curiously.
“Are you working on the investigation?”
“We’re all involved. It’s number one priority for the entire Violent Crimes Unit.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
If only, Koskinen thought. What he wouldn’t give for one person who stood out from the rest? He didn’t want to show how blindly they were wandering in the dark, so he replied evasively. “We have a few people of interest, but this early in the investigation we haven’t compiled enough evidence against anyone to make an arrest.”
“I understand.” Ursula said, snorting at Koskinen’s stock answer. “You can’t talk about work. It’s the same for me too, of course. Even though we’ve probably shared more than a few clients.”
Ursula’s teeth looked strong and a healthy white. He doubted the toothpick would find a hole big enough for it. Ursula lowered it to her plate, and her eyes flashed mischievously behind her glasses.
“Let’s talk about something else then.”
“Okay.”
“Are you interested in politics?”
“I vote.”
“And horoscopes?”
“Don’t believe in them.”
“Never mind. Neither do I.”
“That was the first plus on your record.”
“Just the first?” Ursula pouted coquettishly. “And what sort of record are you keeping on me?”
She was dressed in a light blue poplin shirt and slightly darker lace jacket. She wore ecru pearls around her neck, and the top buttons of her shirt were open. Koskinen felt restless. He couldn’t exactly boast about his female relationships post-Emilia. He had seen someone a few times, but it was easy to over-romanticize a relationship born in the exotic surroundings of the Mediterranean. A woman on the hot sands of a Greek beach isn’t the same back in Finland dressed in a black snowsuit in November sleet.
The conversation petered off again, and Koskinen felt uncomfortable. He had to come up with something quick. Knossos was just a restaurant, without a bar for continuing an evening of socializing. Koskinen didn’t feel like going dancing either. Actually, he would have preferred to get straight to the point without the obligatory mating rituals. In fact, he was starting to want that more and more by the minute.
However, he couldn’t suggest going to his place. That was out of the question. Koskinen had been hard pressed to get out the door after his early morning wakeup call. There were clothes draped on the backs of the chairs, dishes lying unwashed in the sink, and he never made his bed even on a good day. And of course his fridge was completely empty.
Ursula looked at Koskinen with her head cocked appraisingly. “You’re a very quiet man.”
Words stumbled out of Koskinen’s mouth: “Well, I’m so full and…”
“From that?” Ursula snorted. “I would’ve thought that a little portion like that would have just made a big man like you more hungry.”
“Oh, there was plenty to eat. At least more than in a French escargot. “
“Do you travel much?”
“Who, me?” This question made Koskinen more lively. “I used to drive back and forth across Europe in the family car, but now I travel less. But at this time last year I was sailing in Greece.”
“Aha!” Ursula’s thinly plucked eyebrows rose. “Now I know why you chose this place.”
“Otherwise we could have had Chinese.” Koskinen laughed and poured more wine in her glass.
Ursula sampled a drop of it and then started to finger her pearls pensively. “It would be nice to know more about you.”
“Even more?”
“Yeah. Tell me something about yourself! Anything at all.”
Koskinen rotated the salt shaker in his hand and thought about where to start. Should he first tell about his divorce and the house he had lost, about how pointless it had all been? Should he reflect out loud about how Emilia had wanted something new out of life while all Koskinen needed beyond his work were the herb garden and his rowboat? Or should he speculate once again about how they could still have fixed their marriage had they been able to address the issues early enough?
However, he hadn’t managed to begin on any of these topics before Ursula had already grown tired of waiting.
“You certainly are chatty,” she said, laughing. “You could at least tell me if you have any children.”
Koskinen realized that he had been shaking salt out onto the table cloth. He furtively slid the napkin holder over the pile.
“One son.”
“How old?”
“Twenty.”
“Student?”
“He’s doing civilian service in a daycare.”
“My, my!” Ursula said and raised her wine glass. “Now there’s something worthy of a toast.”
They clinked glasses. Koskinen took a swig and then remembered the fishing outing he had arranged with Tomi for the next day. They were also supposed to winterize the boat. He would probably have to push all that back now. He had the feeling that Saturday was going to turn out just as busy as the whole week had been since Tuesday morning.
Obviously Ursula misunderstood Koskinen’s silence.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Since you aren’t interested, I’ll tell something about myself then. If you’re at all interested.”
She took another toothpick out of its plastic wrapper and then sighed.
“I don’t have any children. Or a husband anymore. Lasse has a degree in economics and works for Nokia’s marketing department. A few years ago he was assigned responsibility for the Far East and Australia. Guess how much I saw of him at home after that! Then we thought it was best to separate. After that I haven’t had any company beyond my two canaries.�
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“You haven’t remarried?”
“No. Where is a forty-year-old woman supposed to find any available men?”
There’s one sitting right across from you, Koskinen thought, noticing that he was getting excited again. Ursula’s glass had dwindled to a third, and he filled it again.
A teasing expression flashed in Ursula’s eyes. “You aren’t trying to get me drunk, are you?”
“Of course not,” Koskinen said, at the same time thinking about whether he should order a second bottle. He poured the final couple of drops into his own glass.
“What if we had a change of venue?”
“Good idea,” Ursula said, nodding. “What do you have in mind?”
Once again Koskinen intended to act as tactfully as possibly. He decided to fashion his next sentence so artfully that Ursula wouldn’t immediately notice the proposition concealed within it.
But then in spite of it all he just blurted out, “It would be nice to meet those canaries of yours.”
“Wow!” Ursula huffed mirthlessly. “You sure do move fast.”
“What? No.”
Ursula clasped her hands and leaned her chin on them. She looked at Koskinen searchingly.
“How long have you been a policeman?”
To Koskinen it sounded the same as: “How long have you been suffering from that disease?”
“Almost my whole life,” he replied. “Almost twenty-five years.”
“Do you have any relatives in the same profession?”
So is the disease the hereditary type, Koskinen thought.
He replied tepidly, “Just my nephew. He’s a prison guard in Espoo.”
“Why did you become a police officer?”
Koskinen had expected this question. The thought of rattling off the same old litany was nauseating. Luckily he didn’t need to answer, because Ursula did it for him.
“It probably feels like a calling for you. You have an obvious need to protect people.”
Koskinen remembered Rauha Salmi, an old, defenseless woman, and her angel pictures. He wasn’t able to conceal how bad the thought of Salmi’s fate made him feel. Ursula misinterpreted this as well. She leaned over the table and placed her hand on Koskinen’s wrist.
“Can I say something?”
“Go ahead.”
“You’re easy to read. You don’t even try to act more clever than you are.”
Koskinen considered how he should take this. Not as a compliment in any case. He didn’t have time to say anything before Ursula continued. “You’re sensitive and easily hurt.”
“Is that so…”
“On the other hand, you have a very strong personality and probably a rich internal world. You take your work seriously and maybe carry too much of other people’s burdens. You put other people’s problems before your own, but when you need help yourself, you can’t find any shoulders to lean on. When it comes down to it, you have a hard time building new relationships, but then when you do, they’re that much more enduring.”
Koskinen found that his enthusiasm had suddenly died, and her next words didn’t improve his mood either.
“Your problems with relationships have a lot to do with how taciturn you are. Even when the other person is doing most of the work you aren’t much company. I wouldn’t call you unsociable, but your communication skills are clumsy.”
Koskinen wondered what she would have said had he brought the bouquet of roses. That might have elevated him all the way to bumbling.
Ursula took another toothpick from the glass and pointed it at Koskinen.
“But in your own way you need attention, and you take pleasure in your successes. Even though you downplay your achievements to others, their praise is flattering to you. You hate losing, and you shouldn’t pursue anything where you compete with your friends.”
Koskinen felt his anger rising, and decided to shoot off a few choice words about his date’s impertinence. But Ursula beat him to it again.
“Your quick temper is one of the most dominant sides of your personality, and sometimes you say malicious things that you immediately regret.”
Koskinen might have had the chance to regret just such an outburst very soon, but his phone saved him.
“It’s Pekki.”
“What now?”
“Hannu Ketterä has disappeared.”
Koskinen drew a blank for a moment.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“Just like how people usually disappear…No one has a clue where he is.”
Koskinen looked at Ursula, who was still picking at her teeth, and made a quick decision.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Where are you now?”
“Close.”
“At the Erotic Showroom, eh?”
Koskinen didn’t reply. He ended the call and pushed the phone into his pocket. Apparently Ursula had already guessed what was going on, and she didn’t look at all cheeky anymore.
“My, my,” she sighed wistfully. “Sounds like you have work to do.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately.”
“I understand,” Ursula said, and then added with undisguised suggestiveness, “It won’t take you the whole night, will it?”
“It does look that way.”
Koskinen waved the waitress over. She was more reminiscent of a strawberry picker from Savo than a Greek despinida. She had the check ready on her tray. Ursula started rummaging in her purse, but Koskinen raised his hand.
“Let me pay.”
“Okay.” Ursula smiled meaningfully. “Only on the condition that I get to treat you next time.”
Koskinen counted out the appropriate number of bills onto the table, trying desperately to come up with something intelligent to say. On the other hand, it was pointless to pretend with her. It would just turn into the same awkwardness for which she had already reprimanded him.
Instead he shook her hand and thanked her for the company. Not until he was outside the restaurant did he start to wonder whether he should have kissed her on the hand or done one of those fake French air kisses to the cheek. Or maybe a real kiss on the cheek. He should probably pick up an etiquette guide somewhere. Maybe he could borrow one from Pekki. That one would surely be in good condition if not completely unused.
Most of the shops in the shopping center had already closed their doors, and the saleswomen from the department stores were out collecting their advertising signboards from the hallway. Even so, there were still young people loitering around here and there in their oversize hoodies, a few African men leaning on the railing of the upper floor, and, below them, a group of giggling teenage girls on the escalator. Two athletically-built guards marched side-by-side chewing gum in time with their steps. An old man with a tangled beard crept outside as they came, the tattered hems of his trench coat flapping and his toxic green plastic bag making an unholy jangling racket.
Koskinen walked out the front doors and crossed the main road before turning toward the police station three blocks away. An ominous restlessness made him quicken his steps to jog. It was clear and calm, and the air was refreshing as his breathing intensified. The moon had already climbed into the eastern sky, and the onion-dome silhouettes of the Orthodox church looked like a giant clump of mushrooms.
19.
Koskinen stared into the darkness outside, the figures of four men reflected in the glass. For a moment he felt right at home. Their investigative team had spent countless nights together over the years this same way, sitting at the police station threshing out alternatives about how to track down criminals hiding out in the darkness. Often their sessions had rolled on into the early hours.
Staying up together while the city slept outside the window had increased their feeling of solidarity.
Koskinen turned his eyes from the window back to his desk. A slew of entries had collected in his notebook.
“One more time from the top,” he said. “So Laine picked up Ketterä at Wolf House at four thirty-fi
ve.”
“Yes,” Pekki said, flipping through his own notes. “Ketterä had an appointment with a physiotherapist...at five o’clock. At fifteen past the therapist called Wolf House and asked if Ketterä had decided not to come. Lea Kalenius was confused, but didn’t think of calling us yet.”
“I had understood that the physiotherapists came to Wolf House rather than the other way around.”
“Usually, yes, but Ketterä had been seeing a private therapist for over a year.”
“Where?”
“On Sotkan Street, across the river.”
“And Laine gave Ketterä a ride there?’
“Yes.”
“And Laine didn’t just leave him on the street there, did he?”
“Actually he did. The building is modern enough that you can get through the front doors to the elevator in a wheelchair. The elevator buttons have even been installed lower than when we were kids. Back then you had to be a teenager before they let you use the elevator alone.”
Kaatio was sitting in one of the chairs. He had stretched out his legs, and even though Koskinen couldn’t see from behind his desk, he knew that he was rotating his ankles from side to side.
“Ketterä can get around much more independently than Timonen could,” Kaatio said. “Not to mention Rauha Salmi. Until last July, Ketterä was still doing these therapy trips in his own car.”
“His own car?” Koskinen was alert now. “Ketterä has a car?”
“I just heard about it today at the Wolf House. The car is a late model Mitsubishi equipped with a control system for disabled people, including a hand throttle.”
“So why was he taking a taxi?”
“Last July, on the third to be precise, he got nailed at a DWI check point. He was coming back from a drinking trip to a restaurant outside of town with Harjus. The breathalyzer jumped to .17 and that was the end of his driving privileges for the rest of the year.”
Koskinen clicked the tip of his pen in and out. The investigation was constantly turning up new, surprising details, and that was making him increasingly insecure.
“And Ketterä wasn’t the only motorist at Wolf House either,” Kaatio continued. “Tapani Harjus had a car too until a year ago. It was an older American model, a big boat. But he had to sell it after his steroid bust to pay his debts.”
Wolves and Angels Page 21
