TH02 - The Priest of Evil

by Matti Joensuu

  ‘Everything. There’s something seriously wrong here, and I mean our method of working too. We’re stuck here in the dark wading through thousands of video tapes and a whole load of old cases and complaints when we should be out there interviewing people in and around the underground stations - shopkeepers, security guards…’

  ‘Mäki’s arranged for some internal enquiries to be conducted amongst the staff at the security firm. I’m sure they’ll come up with something in the next few days. He also sent a more strongly worded notice to the press. You’ll just have to cool it, Timo.’

  ‘And where the hell is Piipponen? We agreed to split this job up and now I’m left with a pile of things I still haven’t done.’

  ‘He went to the post.’

  ‘What, to send a letter?’

  ‘Ha ha,’ she smirked. ‘Our D. O. A. Kokkonen, but you never know with him…’

  ‘Listen,’ Harjunpää sighed heavily and sunk back into his chair. ‘The fact is I haven’t got anything off these tapes.’

  ‘Kirsti and I have had slightly better luck,’ Onerva tried to buoy him up, laid her pile of papers on the table and sat down next to him.

  ‘First of all there’s Lörtsy’s old case. In the report the driver of the train and one of the passengers both mentioned seeing an elderly woman rushing along the platform and accidentally knocking the victim in front of the train. Either that or the victim bumped into the old woman.’

  ‘Is any of this on the video?’

  ‘Sadly not, the camera facing that end of the platform was out of order that day.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘However, we did get a fairly good description of the woman; but the photo-fit was in the papers so many times they eventually stopped printing it altogether and instead started making snide remarks about how the police weren’t able to get hold of one old woman.’

  ‘That’s right, I remember now.’

  ‘Lörtsy and his partner spent a good two weeks hanging around the underground during rush hour, just riding back and forth, keeping an eye on Kaisaniemi in particular.’

  ‘And came up with nothing.’

  ‘Right, but I still think they did everything they could. The lack of results certainly wasn’t from lack of trying. Still, Piipponen doesn’t appear to have taken the matter any further, though there were a number of questions left unchecked.’

  There was another knock at the door. This time it sounded as if someone had kicked it, someone in a hurry. Piipponen appeared in the doorway, quick and nimble as the finest acrobat. In one hand he was carrying a bulging paper bag, while in the other he had managed to pick up three paper cups of coffee without spilling a drop.

  ‘Give us a hand, Harjunpää. These cups are hot as hell. I reckon we’ve more than earned our coffee break today. These doughnuts are from the bakery across the road,’ he explained as he sat down and began ripping open the paper bag. His annoyance aside, Harjunpää felt a faint glimmer of a smile creep through his mind. If for no other reason, this day would be remembered for the fact that Piipponen had treated everyone to coffee and doughnuts.

  ‘That was quite an autopsy, or should I say patching together. Severe crushing and mutilation is the official cause of death, but they’ll be able to tell us more once they get the results back. No other obvious problems with his internal organs; blood alcohol level zero.’

  ‘That was quite a long post mortem…’

  ‘Tell me about it. On the way back I stopped and had a chat with a few snouts I know, they said they’d keep their eyes peeled.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s not such a good idea to get the underworld involved in this,’ said Onerva. ‘If these are premeditated crimes we have to assume we’re not looking for anyone sane.’

  ‘Oh I agree, just thought I’d be on the safe side.’

  Onerva picked a few sheets of paper from the top of the pile and tapped them with her fingernail.

  ‘This might seem a bit far-fetched,’ she said. ‘But we’re going to check them out. Kirsti dug them up on a cross-reference search. In the first case the plaintiff felt a slight pain, but then assumed they’d been struck by a young boy’s skateboard. In the other one the woman in question was already on her way up the escalator at the Central Railway Station when the person behind her noticed that blood was dripping from her hand.’

  ‘Shit,’ Piipponen snapped. ‘I had a feeling during that post-mortem that we were going to end up going through every assault on the underground.’

  ‘In both cases the victim had a slit in their clothes about a centimetre long and beneath that a superficial skin wound.’

  ‘You think they were cut with the tip of a knife?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe even a surgical knife. Then there’s a whole wad of damage claims where people’s bags – and in particular leather jackets - have been slashed without their noticing.’

  Harjunpää picked up a complaint from the top of the pile, Piipponen grabbed the one underneath. They weren’t very long, and understandably they had been filed as miscellaneous complaints or alleged assaults, because there could be no certainty as to what had happened. In another file the plaintiff himself had suggested that the wiring of another passenger’s bag might have been responsible for the cut. Onerva closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with her fingertips.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Harjunpää after reading through both files. ‘We need to talk to these people again. Both damage claims date from between the two fatalities. Both took place during the afternoon rush hour, while the fatalities occurred during the morning rush hour.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Onerva and raised her hand as if she were in primary school. ‘I’ve just had a thought.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Piipponen smirked. Harjunpää remained silent. He knew from years of experience that Onerva’s flashes of inspiration often reaped great rewards.

  ‘We need to get hold of all the video tapes from Hakaniemi taken yesterday too.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘If this is some kind of a psychopath – which it clearly is – then they’d have gone back to the station some time yesterday and had a look around, at blood stains, you name it.’

  For a moment no one said anything. None of them really quite believed that perpetrators always return to the scene of the crime, but gradually their expressions began to soften, and finally something approaching a smile spread across their faces, as though they had just invented a car that ran on water.

  ‘Well done, Onerva. Most pyromaniacs do that too.’

  ‘I’ll get the tapes sent over today,’ Piipponen enthused.

  Some people joked that Piipponen was only ever keen to do the cushy jobs, like setting up camera surveillance, or when he had the opportunity to take some kind of glory. What did glory mean in a profession like this? Simply doing one’s job?

  Once they were in the corridor Onerva strode along briskly, leaving the others slightly behind. Piipponen sidled up to Harjunpää with an air of confidentiality.

  ‘Timo,’ he whispered. ‘Been thinking of getting a new set of wheels?’

  ‘No. Doubt I will for years.’

  ‘There’s this top-notch Merc going. 1999, only one previous owner, barely 50K on the meter; MOT done and all the paperwork in order; doesn’t rattle, doesn’t choke. Tell them I sent you and the price will drop five percent.’

  ‘You’ve been for a test drive.’

  ‘Too right I have!’

  They continued along the corridor towards the lift, and only then did Piipponen realise what he had said. ‘Yesterday, I mean…’ he spluttered.

  26. Experiment

  ‘Vasces et libera bombardus,’ he muttered under his voice, and though he was accustomed to the dusk, to the dark even, for once he wished there was a little more light. He was at home, kneeling on the floor beside his only chair. The storm lantern dangled from the back of it, its flame so tall that the lantern gave off a thin tail of black smoke, and the smell of burning petrol filled the air. In ad
dition he had pulled the tarpaulin which served as a door halfway across the opening, allowing a pallid grey light to filter in through the hatch above.

  ‘Carboratum vitilea bodulis,’ moved his lips. His fingers moved too; they were surprisingly nimble and flexible, as though some of his joints were made of rubber, and this dexterity meant that he had almost finished. In front of him on the chair was a pair of small-handled tongs, a pocket knife, a needle and a tiny screwdriver – and, of course, the alarm clock itself. However, this was not his own, but one he had stolen from a shop, one with a proper nine volt battery. The clock had partly been taken to pieces, and beside it lay his head lamp, though this time he could not rely on its light, for it too was part of the experiment, which was why he had removed its battery.

  He had visited the library in Pasila and in less than half an hour on the internet he’d found what he needed. The majority of the instructions were nonsense, little boys’ silly fantasies that could not possibly have worked. This one, for instance, he remembered word for word: “Drill a small hole in the base of a light bulb. Pour petrol or gunpowder in through the hole and cover it with tape. Go into your enemy’s room and exchange your light bulb for his. When he switches on the light – KABOOM! Your enemy’s head will be gone!” How can one drill a hole through the thin glass of a light bulb? It is as fragile as an eggshell; and how can one pour petrol through a hole the size of a pinprick when the air inside will not be able to escape?

  Of course, he had found plenty of information about different chemicals, instructions on how to handle them and in what quantities to mix them, but he did not care for this. He already had his bomb, the sticks of dynamite lying there beneath his bedside table, and now all he needed was a reliable detonator. And for this he had also found the necessary instructions: the classic alarm clock trick.

  At once he had understood how it worked, but only a moment ago had he realised that if he attached the fuse to the minute hand the bomb could be detonated at any time. However, if he attached it to the hour hand it could tick away in peace for up to twelve hours. Still, he – or rather his Piggy Back, as he had begun to call the boy – would need only half an hour at most, and thus the minute hand was the obvious choice.

  ‘Bona spes cum flammen alere,’ he whispered, as he checked that the screw he had mounted in the clock face, at twelve o’clock, was raised high enough for the minute hand to strike it firmly. Sure enough, it was in the right place. He turned the clock around to check that the cable attached to the screw was securely in place. He needed only one battery, the one that ran the clock; it would provide more than enough electricity to ignite the primer.

  With the tip of his knife he carved a small hole in the edge of the clock’s back cover, so that it could be closed properly while still allowing the cable to snake its way out; then he replaced the cover and turned the minute hand to eleven o’clock – giving himself five minutes. He double-checked the wires attached to the head lamp, then simply allowed the clock to tick, though it did not really tick the way clocks did in the olden days. It was more of a quiet hiss, like a hedgehog sipping milk.

  ‘Piggy Back,’ he said, his voice full, tasting the words - it felt good. He was content now that he had reached final certainty about the boy; he was not a trap, he was a son sent by Maammo herself. And the sacrifice of his own son was an act that would please Maammo so vastly that it might even begin a chain of events culminating in the Coming of the Truth: the birth of the New Big Bang.

  He ought to have understood this earlier: after all, it was he who had summoned the plump girl to his side and she had unwittingly brought him precisely what he needed. But final confirmation of this had come only once he had sacrificed the first of the pigeons required for the adoption: its blood had created a particularly beautiful pattern on the rock, almost like the swirl of the spirit as it leaves the body. Not only this, but it had also tasted exceptionally good, and was so thick that he had allowed himself to imbibe two whole spoonfuls of it.

  The minute hand had only a few seconds to go. It did not jolt forward showing each minute separately, rather it flowed upwards. Is it possible to flow upwards? No matter, this minute-hand did so, and it only had to flow a drop or two more before it touched the screw. With his tongue he restlessly realigned his lower teeth, over and over again, all the while staring fixedly at both the clock and the head lamp. The moment was nigh.

  At last! The lamp flickered and lit up, shining even more strongly than with its normal battery – it worked! Maammo’s grace was with him. By coincidence the beam of light from the lamp shone directly towards his bedside table, as if it had known that there, hidden away, lay his beloved sticks of dynamite. In a frenzy he raised his hands in thanks and prayed, almost shouting: ‘Ea lesum cum sabateum, torea borea in loco parentis! Ea, ea, ea!’

  His voice rebounded off the walls in a hollow, stony echo.

  27. Knock

  Since finally moving out Mikko had only once visited his former home in Kulosaari Park, to help Sanna move her things to Kallio; and he had no reason to visit now either. He was filled with a strange anxiety, like something thick and viscid heaving within him, mercury, or maybe cement. He had been gripped by this same sensation all those months ago during the divorce proceedings.

  But there he stood, staring at the light brick wall that once had brought him such a deep feeling of contentment. The house was one of eight in a terrace. He stared at his former front door, and the familiar bronze lionhead door knocker stared back at him. Its expression seemed dead now; before the divorce it had followed him everywhere, and had been on the front door of every house he had lived in during his adult life, but now it belonged to a woman from whom he was entirely estranged, and who lived with a man he did not even know. Ironically, it was his writing that had bought them the house in the first place.

  The bushes in the front garden had been pruned, castrated, leaving nothing but stubs, and on the side of the pine – the pine that had once been so dear to him, his power source; when embracing it he had always felt a mystical energy coursing through him – a dartboard had appeared; several darts hung dangling from the tree’s bark. Even his stone labyrinth had disappeared. He had taken the idea from the poet Pentti Saarikoski, although his labyrinth had been much smaller. Every one of its stones had been unique, they were individuals that he had collected over the years. Still, the space had not been left empty: in its place there now stood two pink plastic flamingos balancing on wire legs, swaying quietly in the wind.

  And on top of everything came one last humiliation. His cheeks furrowed as though he were chewing something, and his breath came fast and shallow. Despite this he picked up his mobile for the third time, pressed number three on the speed dial, and a few seconds later the telephone began to ring on the other side of the door. It made a shrill metallic sound - it was an old, black telephone he had bought at a flea market and restored, and it had always sat on the table in the hallway. It rang a third time, spitting out its harsh cry, and when Cecilia couldn’t bear it any longer she picked up the receiver. This confirmed that she was merely playing with him - for if she had wanted to she could have unplugged it altogether.

  ‘What is it now?’

  ‘Cecilia, be reasonable, open the door. I’ve brought something for Matti.’

  ‘You’ve got no business coming here, trying to be all chummy with me.’

  ‘Come on, Cecilia, please…’

  ‘And I think I remember telling you he’s not here anyway,’ she said.

  ‘Yes you did, but I’ve already been round all the places he normally hangs out and he’s not there either.’

  ‘How am I supposed to know where he is every minute of the day? And even if I did it wouldn’t make any difference, because he’s changed, he’s become violent. He attacked me, and Kari had to pull him off; then today I got a phone call from the headmaster saying he’s given some kid named Janne a black eye, and now I have to go in and talk to him.’

  Mikko didn’t
say a word. He couldn’t, he was entirely unable to speak, for he was so utterly astonished. Somewhere beneath his bewilderment he was certain that she was lying. None of this sounded even remotely like Matti.

  ‘That’s all the more reason for me to see him. And I could go to the school instead.’

  ‘If things carry on like this we’ll have to put him in a foster home.’

  ‘Now listen to me! You… First you smoked me out of the house, then Sanna, and now you’re trying to do the same to Matti. He’s your own son!’

  ‘Oh I did, did I? I can’t do anything about it if neither of them wants to live here any more. I can’t force them to stay.’

  ‘Listen. As part of the settlement we agreed that you could keep the house specifically so that the children could live there with you. Is that suddenly no longer the case?’

  ‘Do your papers say something like that? Mine certainly don’t.’

  ‘But for crying out loud… We had a verbal agreement!’

  ‘I don’t remember anything of the sort. Were witnesses present?’

  ‘God almighty,’ Mikko hissed almost silently. He ended the call, took one step, then another, each like a violent gust of wind, then grabbed the bronze knocker hanging from the lion’s mouth and began hammering on the door. He realised it was senseless, but perhaps his problem was that he had always been too sensible. More than that, he simply felt that the situation was unbearably malicious and unjust.

  ‘I’ll take out a restraining order on you!’ Cecilia hollered. She too had put the phone down and was now standing behind the door. ‘You mark my words - a restraining order!’

  ‘They’re for abusive spouses. And if anyone in this family has ever resorted to using their fists it certainly wasn’t me!’

  ‘If you don’t leave this minute I’ll call the police!’

  ‘Call them for all I care! Call them all you want!’ Mikko bellowed, but at that moment it was as if he began to wake up; suddenly he burst through the surface of his momentary rage and felt ashamed of the whole episode, the depths to which he had demeaned himself; and he shuddered almost instinctively, shaking the remnants of the episode from his body.