The Defenceless E-Book

Kati Hiekkapelto

• Herausgeber: Orenda Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Anna Fekete
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 477

Beschreibung

When an old man is run over and killed by a Hungarian au pair, Finnish police investigator Anna Fekete soon realizes that there is more than meets the eye … and a lot more at stake. The international, bestselling Anna Fekete series continues…***Shortlisted for the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year******Shortlisted for the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel******Winner of the Best Finnish Crime Novel of the Year***'Tough and powerful crime fiction' Publishers Weekly'Dark-souled but clear-eyed, Kati Hiekkapelto's edgy, powerful novels grip your throat and squeeze your heart. Addictive' A J Finn, author of The Woman in the Window'A gut-punch of a book' Metro––––––––––––––––––––––––When an old man is found dead on the road – seemingly run over by a Hungarian au pair – police investigator Anna Fekete is certain that there is more to the incident than meets the eye. As she begins to unravel an increasingly complex case, she's led on a deadly trail where illegal immigration, drugs and, ultimately, murder threaten not only her beliefs, but her life.Anna's partner Esko is entrenched in a separate but equally dangerous investigation into the activities of an immigrant gang, where deportation orders and raids cause increasing tension and result in desperate measures by gang members – and the police themselves.Then a bloody knife is found in the snow, and the two cases come together in ways that no one could have predicted. As pressure mounts, it becomes clear that having the law on their side may not be enough for Anna and Esko.Chilling, disturbing and terrifyingly believable, The Defenceless is an extraordinary, vivid and gripping thriller by one of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction.––––––––––––––––––––––––'Finnish Kati Hiekkapelto deserves her growing reputation as her individual writing identity is subtly unlike that of her colleagues' Barry Forshaw, Financial Times'There is something fresh and slightly subversive about Hiekkapelto's writing in The Defenceless. there is something of that restless energy here, a nod to anti-authoritarian and countercultural ideas that makes the novel stand out from the pack' Doug Johnstone, The Big Issue'A taut and provocative thriller with a raging social conscience … cements Kati Hiekkapelto's position as one of Scandi-noir's most exciting and important new voices' Eva Dolan, author of One Half Truth'Compelling, assured and gutsy … a gripping and stimulating read' LoveReading'An edgy and insightful chiller with a raw and brooding narrative. Skilfully plotted and beautifully written, Hiekkapelto has given us an excellent and suspenseful crime novel' Craig Robertson, author of Watch Him Die'A beautifully written and many-layered mystery novel that illuminates the dangers of prejudice, while still providing a major thrill ride' Mystery Scene Magazine'A writer willing to take risks with her work' Sarah Ward, author of the DC Childs mystery series'Seriously good! The taut elegance of the writing brilliantly contrasts the grit of the subject matter. Kati Hiekkapelto is the real deal' Anya Lipska, author of the Kizka & Kershaw series

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR KATI HIEKKAPELTO

Hiekkapelto’s brooding debut, a large-scale police procedural set in a small Finnish town, tilts heroically at such vexing ills as racial prejudice, alcoholism, and domestic abuse … tough and powerful crime fiction’ Publishers Weekly

‘Hiekkapelto provides an unsentimental account of Finnish society and its cultural traditions, in particular the Finnish obsession with hunting and guns, which means that, in theory, virtually anyone could be the killer on the rampage’ Irish Times

‘Crisp and refreshing, with a rawness that comes from a writer willing to take risks with her work’ Sarah Ward, CrimePieces

‘For a first novel The Hummingbird delivers a lot. The perspectives on immigration feel genuine and are insightful and the writing is atmospheric and absorbing. The two police investigations, one official and one not, are balanced well and the characters are rounded and appealing such that you want to know what will happen next in both their professional and personal lives. A second instalment is on the way and I look forward to following the careers of both Anna Fekete and Kati Hiekkapelto’ Live Many Lives

‘It’s like reading Henning Mankell, when Senior Constable Anna Fekete works on several tricky cases in the icy-cold winter of Northern Finland while contemplating the harshness of life’ Helsingin Sanomat

‘She has a wonderful natural style and narrative flow, as well as a talent for creating memorable, intriguing characters. I will look forward to Anna’s further adventures and the blossoming of her relationship with her colleagues’ CrimeFictionLover

‘As the plot keeps deepening, Hiekkapelto turns out to be incredibly skilful at carrying off a complicated story … the suspense feels real and the writing flows nicely’ Savon Sanomat

‘Hiekkapelto really treats her readers like royalty. The plot – with all its twists, its humorous yet wise narration – guarantees a perfect reading experience. I’m sorry for the superlatives, but I believe The Defenceless is the Book of the Year for me’ Literary Blog Rakkaudesta Kirjoihin

‘If you’re a fan of Swedish crime queen Camilla Läckberg, you’ll love Hiekkapelto’ Kaleva

‘A confident, thrilling crime novel that credibly depicts the everyday life of the Finnish police’ Me Naiset

‘Hiekkapelto knows how to get under your skin’ 45 min, MTV

‘Kati Hiekkapelto delivers a knockout punch in the fight to be top dog in the Scandi Crime wave with her debut crime thriller The Hummingbird. It has everything you need: three interwoven stories, the dark noir, the defective detective, the racist detective, all in the north of Finland as summer turns to the darkness of winter. This thriller will really get under your skin as the imagery is striking and at times stark and haunting like some of the landscapes can be as the changes from summer take place towards the Arctic circle’ Atticus Finch

‘A few other Finnish authors have surfaced in English since Antti Tuomainen appeared in 2013, but Kati Hiekkapelto is one that truly stands out’ Crime Fiction Lover

‘There are plenty of twists in the investigations to keep the reader guessing’ Book Oxygen

‘The twin investigations provide The Hummingbird with its narrative spine, but much of the story, which is translated by David Hackston, is engaged in exploring what it means to be Finnish, a place where “people were expected to unflaggingly present a play directed by market forces, a performance called Western civilisation”’ Crime Always Pays

‘Hiekkapelto does not forget to develop a decent plot and the crimes here are both complex; requiring a good deal of investigative shoe leather … I am already looking forward to the next installment of the series’ Reactions to Reading

‘I am really enjoying this burgeoning crime sub-genre of “social realism”, in which I include British authors such as Eva Dolan, Rob Wilson and Stav Sherez. Hiekkapelto looks set to be joining their ranks with her debut novel … a writer with a wonderful imagination and use of language’ Vicky Newham

The Defenceless

KATI HIEKKAPELTO

Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston

For Robert, Ilona and Aino

Contents

Title PageDedication123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930AcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorAbout the TranslatorCopyright

A humid wind blew through the pass, pushing back the hazy threat of the Afghan borderlands up ahead. The air shimmered in the glow of the sun; everything was silent. Something appeared from behind the horizon, at first only a speck, growing rapidly. It was a car, a jeep full of men. The barrels of rifles, deadly Mosin-Nagants and Kalashnikovs with bayonets, jutted like extensions of the men’s silhouettes towards the sky, hidden behind the thick gauze of dust and sand kicked up behind the vehicle. The jeep was getting steadily closer and now, from amongst the men on the trailer at the back, a smaller figure came into view; black and slightly hunched. The jeep came to a halt. Two men with rifles jumped to the ground; one of them held out his hand and helped a woman shrouded in a burqa down from the trailer. She cautiously lifted her veil, a sliver of black lace covering her eyes. She didn’t look around, simply followed the riflemen towards a whitewashed building.

Finnish Foreign Ministry

Pakistan: Travel Briefing

Violence and terror attacks possible throughout the country, particularly in the Afghan border regions. Visitors should avoid unnecessary travel to the area.

The situation in Pakistan remains unstable, and violence may erupt around the country for political, economical, social or religious reasons.

The risk of terrorist attacks, political unrest, violence and mass protest is particularly acute in Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad, Quetta and other large population centres. The risk is even greater in the Afghan borderlands, which travellers should avoid at all costs. Violence has escalated in Karachi in recent weeks. Travellers should exercise extreme caution throughout the country.

Travellers should not attempt to visit the tribal areas in the northeast of the country (Fata, including the Khyber Pass, Peshawar and the Swati Valley) or the province of Balochistan.

Pakistani blasphemy laws are extremely strict; contravention of these laws is punishable by death.

1

SAMMY HAD ARRIVED in Finland in the same manner and using the same route as the heroin that he knew so well, smuggled in to feed the hungry veins of Western Europeans: hidden in a truck belching thick exhaust fumes and driven across the endless steppes of Russia, illegally.

The heroin had continued on its way; Sammy had stayed put.

He applied for asylum, settled down in a reception centre, tried to kick the heroin and almost succeeded. He waited two years, four months and a week. Finally he received notice of his deportation. That’s when he went underground, on to the streets – and discovered Subutex.

Beads of cold sweat glinted on Sammy’s forehead and he could feel a headache coming on. He counted out his money: a measly banknote and a few euros in coins from the church’s homeless fund. That should get him something, then he’d be able to think more clearly about where to score some more. Money always turned up, if you knew where to look. He collected bottles, worked unofficially at a pizzeria, cleaning and running errands for the owners. At least he hadn’t had to sell himself, at least not often, and he hadn’t resorted to real crime. He wasn’t a criminal. He hated people who stole from the elderly, who broke into other people’s houses. That’s what he hated the most. Burglary. You shouldn’t touch other people’s houses. A home is a home. It’s a place where you should feel safe. If he had been left in peace in his own home, if he had felt safe, none of this would have happened. He would be putting himself through school, planning his future career. On Sundays he would go to church and steal glances at the girl that was already arranged for him. She was beautiful. Her full, curved eyelashes cast shadows on her high cheekbones as she sensed his gaze and demurely lowered her own. The hint of a smile flickered on the girl’s elegant face. It would be spring. Outside the air would be filled with the sound of birdsong; it would be warm, and the thousands of trees in the valley back home would be in full bloom.

A biting wind blew right through Sammy’s clothes. The frozen ground was slippery and uneven, making it hard to walk. Earlier that day the sun had warmed him a little. He’d trudged around the edge of town, closed his eyes every now and then and raised his face to the sky, felt the glimmer of warmth on his cheeks. But in the evening winter mercilessly gripped him again and the temperature plummeted. The duffel coat he’d been given at the Salvation Army flea market wasn’t very thick and he’d never heard of dressing in layers. He’d been on the streets for two months and it had been freezing cold the whole time. Did the winter and the cold never end? Where could he sleep tonight?

But first he had to find some subs. Bupe. Orange guys. A dear child has many names. In one of his Finnish classes they’d gone through Finnish proverbs and tried to come up with equivalents in their own languages. Sammy didn’t know if there was any such saying back home, and the teacher had gently pressed him to think back. It felt like an eternity since that class.

Sammy trudged towards the Leppioja district. He’d met a dealer who lived there. A Finnish boy, a user himself, the same age as him. Sammy didn’t much like Macke; there was something tense and volatile about him, something frightening, the agitated craziness of a substance abuser. But Macke almost always had some gear. Maybe Sammy could get a small discount. Maybe he could spend the night there. His headache was getting worse. Sammy quickened his step. The district was pretty far away, nothing but a few low-rise blocks of flats and a couple of isolated terraced houses in the middle of the woods. Not your average junkie area – there wasn’t even a corner shop to rob. Sammy liked the silence; for some reason he was more afraid of being arrested in the city centre than anywhere else, though he realised he attracted more attention in areas where you didn’t see all that many immigrants. The city’s largest suburbs – Rajapuro, Koivuharju and Vaarala – were the best places. There was always plenty of gear about, and friends, even some of his compatriots. In the suburbs he could disappear altogether, and in a way these too were quiet places. Leppioja wasn’t a big place. Maybe Macke’s parents owned the flat and allowed their son to live there. Sammy couldn’t think of any other reason for the flat’s location, or why Macke hadn’t yet been evicted.

The outer door was locked, of course. He couldn’t let Macke know he was coming because he didn’t have a mobile phone. This made scoring a fix pretty difficult, but Sammy was prepared to go to extra lengths, because, more than running out of Subutex, he was afraid of being caught by one of the police narcotics officers. One misplaced phone call or text message and he would leave a trace on the police radar like a hare’s paw print in fresh snow. He had learnt to identify hares’ tracks. There were lots of them around the city at night, a city that to his mind was nothing but an insignificant clearing in an endless forest right on the edge of the Siberian taiga. The city he had left behind had over a million inhabitants. Besides, constantly changing his phone and SIM card was expensive and brought with it another risk: visiting shops. Sammy didn’t want to show his face anywhere that there might be a security camera.

This time he risked it. He waited by the front door. Maybe someone would turn up and he’d be able to sneak inside. He tried to remain calm but kept glancing around restlessly. Could anyone see him? The adjacent low-rise building wasn’t very close. Between the buildings there were a few thick spruce trees and bushes coated in frost, a children’s playground and the ground, frozen and hard. The few lampposts weren’t powerful enough to light the whole garden. People in the surrounding apartments were still awake, but from their lit windows they wouldn’t be able to see down into the yard. Sammy wasn’t entirely hidden in the shadows. The bright, hexagonal lamp above the door to the stairwell was like a searchlight. The hue of the light made his warm, dark skin look blue.

He felt as though he were on a stage and started to feel uneasy. It had been too long since his last hit. He had tried to keep his usage under control, injecting just enough to help him cope with the constant fear and the freezing nights. He would quit as soon as he got things sorted out. It would be easy, because he wasn’t really hooked. But now he could feel the tremors starting. It was so terribly cold. He felt like smashing the window, shouting out. He had to get inside. Macke would sort him out. Just then, the lights in the stairwell flickered into life. Sammy stood up straight, took a few steps back and tried to affect a friendly, carefree expression, though he knew it was pointless. Out here he would never blend into the crowds, just another part of the blissfully identical pink-skinned masses; his black eyes and dark skin dug into Finnish eyes like a spike. And that’s precisely why it was important to try and look friendly. Even the slightest inkling of danger from someone like him would have people reaching for their phones and calling the police.

A man appeared in the stairwell, not very old but not young either. It was so difficult to gauge the age of Finnish people. The man was stylish, tall and wearing a dark woollen jacket and hat. But he didn’t look particularly wealthy. His clothes were old. Sammy had been watching people for such a long time, indeed, his whole life, that he’d learnt to smell money and friendship and danger. And this time he smelt danger. Just as the man was about to open the door, Sammy forced a smile to his face and stepped up to the door as if he had just arrived and was still fumbling in his pocket for the key, though he was afraid he looked like he was about to vomit. What a stroke of luck. And a very good evening to you too. Godspeed to you and your family. He would have said something, if he’d been able. He settled for a smile and hoped his tremors weren’t too obvious. The man glowered at him, said something in a gruff voice. Sammy pointed upwards and smiled like an idiot. The man stood in the doorway staring at him sceptically. Sammy noticed the man’s hesitation. The sense of danger evaporated. Again he pointed upstairs, this time plucking up the courage to say the word friend. The man glanced into the stairwell just as the automatic light switched off. As if expelled by the dark, he pulled the door wide open, strode outside and disappeared without looking back. Sammy slipped into the darkness of the corridor.

Vilho Karppinen was tired. He had felt terribly queasy all evening and had almost fallen asleep in front of the television on more than a few occasions. He had forced himself to go to bed, but now he couldn’t get to sleep because of the infernal din going on somewhere nearby. He couldn’t make out melodies, but the thump of the bass was so powerful that it seemed to travel through the girders of the building, along his bedposts and straight into his ears. It was as though the whole bed was trembling. Sometimes the noise stopped and Vilho almost nodded off, but then it started up again and wrenched him from sleep once again. It had happened before. Vilho had expected that the troublemaker would eventually get a warning, but apparently that hadn’t happened. The cacophony went on and on, not every night, but now and then. Didn’t it disturb anybody else? These damn kids get to keep everyone awake through the night without anyone batting an eyelid! Well, this time it’s going to stop. He would go down and tell them to switch off the racket – you couldn’t call it music. If they didn’t listen to him, he’d call the police. He decided to make an official complaint to the housing association first thing in the morning. The noisy kids would be evicted and he’d be able to sleep in peace and quiet. He needed the little sleep he got – and as an old man he was more than entitled to it.

Vilho gingerly got up and sat on the edge of the bed. Again he felt a dizzy whirr in his head. It’ll settle down, he thought and stood up, pattered into the hallway and groaned as he pulled on his slippers. Why did he suddenly feel so doddery? When had this started? Only a few winters ago he’d been skiing at the cottage. Or was it longer than that? Dressed in his pyjamas he went into the stairwell, left his door ajar, didn’t switch on the lights and listened to hear where the noise was coming from. It was one floor down. Probably the apartment where that young tearaway lived. Vilho didn’t know the boy, but he’d seen him in the corridor once or twice. The boy never said hello and never looked him in the eyes. Suspicious lad. But at least he’s in the same stairwell, Vilho thought with relief; he wouldn’t have to put his coat on.

Vilho took the stairs down to the first floor and gave the doorbell a resolute ping. The door opened and in a flash he was yanked inside. A fist gripped his nightshirt, pulling the fabric so hard that it tightened around his back.

‘What the fuck you doing creeping around out there, Grandad?’

The young man held Vilho close to his face. Vilho caught the smell of alcohol and saw his neighbour’s eyes for the first time, their pupils nothing but tiny black dots. He knew this had been a mistake. He should have called the police straight away instead of trying to play the hero. Sometimes he simply forgot his age, no matter how dizzy he felt, how weak he had become or how often he looked at the grey, shrivelled prune of a man staring back at him from the mirror.

‘Could you turn the music down a little?’ said Vilho. ‘I need to get some sleep. That’s all.’

‘But we’re trying to fucking listen to it,’ the boy replied and began dragging Vilho further into the living room. Vilho tried to resist. He felt faint. He tried to pull the boy’s fists loose, but he was powerless against the strength of youth, now so buoyed up with chemicals. Vilho tried to hit him, but his own fists were like leather gloves dried on the radiator: useless, pathetic clumps. Amid the chaos of the living room, the boy released his grip. Vilho gasped for breath. He saw another boy sitting on the couch, a dark boy with languid, good-hearted eyes, not threatening at all. Perhaps he’d get through this after all.

‘I don’t mean any trouble,’ said Vilho. ‘I just wanted to come and say that the music is disturbing me because I live right above you.’

‘Shut it, old man. Think you’re the boss in this house, do you? Always spying on other people. Never a moment’s peace round here, the fucking codgers are always breathing down our necks.’

The boy on the couch said something in a limp voice. Vilho didn’t understand a word, but he noted the boy’s conciliatory tone. This would all work out. He turned to leave. Just then a wave of dizziness came over him and his legs buckled beneath him. Vilho grabbed the first lad for support. The boy bellowed angrily and clocked him in the face with his fist. Vilho fell to the floor, knocking his head on the edge of the table. Blood gushed on to the stinking living-room rug, forming a pool between an empty syringe and a can of beer.

‘Shit, I’ve killed him!’ said the boy and started to snigger. Vilho’s consciousness gradually began to fade, but he had time to see the boy stare at him, first with a look of amusement, then more seriously. The boy searched for Vilho’s pulse but couldn’t find one.

‘He’s fucking dead!’ he hollered at the boy on the couch. ‘We’ve got to do something. Get up, you Paki bastard, move your stinking arse. We’ve got to do something. Fast!’

2

THE EARLY MORNING was still dark. Senior Constable Anna Fekete had woken with a start; she’d been dreaming about something terrible, but now she couldn’t remember what. Her sheets were damp with clammy sweat. Anna took a hot shower and made herself some tea for a change; she drank quite enough coffee at work. Sipping her tea, she sat reading the morning paper, listening to the sounds of the building wakening around her. Her neighbour was in the shower; the sound of rushing came from the pipes next to the kitchen. There was a thud somewhere. It occurred to her that she didn’t know any of her neighbours. People in the stairwell greeted her, polite but distant, but who were they, what did they do for a living, what kind of dreams did they have, what moments of joy, what pains? Anna knew nothing of their lives. She couldn’t even connect the names on the letterboxes to the right faces. But it was fine by her. She had no yearning for communal living, she had no desire to take part in shared gardening activities or local committee meetings held in the building’s clubroom.

For Anna, community spirit was nothing but an illusion, and an over-rated one at that. The only people that actively sought it out were people who had never experienced it first hand. In the West it seemed that mercilessly scrutinising other people’s business, sticking your nose into private matters, and people’s often violent attempts to preserve their personal freedoms were considered charming forms of care and concern without which all social ills flourished. Anna found it irritating. It wasn’t long since the greatest concern for Finnish people was what others, neighbours, relatives, people in the village, thought and said about them. People had allowed their lives to be shaped to fit society’s expectations; they were afraid of rejection, and in their fear they had accepted a fate imposed on them from outside. How many people had spent their whole lives suffering because of this? Is that what we should go back to? If her brother Ákos returned to Serbia, would he be more depressed than he was now, Anna wondered, more of a drunk? Was that why he wanted to stay in Finland?

Anna glanced at the clock, pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and an old hoodie, and decided to cycle to work despite the biting frost. She put on a thermal jacket, her hat and gloves. It felt crazy, the habit people round here had of cycling to work come rain or shine, of risking the freezing weather and potentially fatal, slippery roads, balanced precariously on two thin wheels. Her family back home would be shocked if they knew, but Anna had come to enjoy cycling in the winter. With a good set of studded tyres and a helmet, the snow didn’t slow her down at all. It did her good to get some fresh air before starting work, to wake her limbs, still stiff from sleep.

‘Anna, I’ve got a special assignment for you,’ said Chief Inspector Pertti Virkkunen at the morning meeting of the Violent Crimes Unit.

‘What’s that?’

Esko Niemi fetched his third cup of coffee of the morning, Sari Jokikokko-Pennanen was eating a sandwich and doodling along the margins of her notepad, Nils Näkkäläjärvi was drinking a cup of tea. Virkkunen’s expression was stern.

‘We’ve picked up a Hungarian girl.’

‘Oh. What’s she done?’

‘We’ll be investigating this as a case of causing death by dangerous driving. She ran someone over last night.’

‘Oh dear. Had she been drinking?’

‘No.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Nothing that showed up in the patrol officer’s initial breathalyser. We’ve sent blood samples to be tested.’

‘Was she speeding?’

‘We don’t know that yet. In any case, she doesn’t speak a word of Finnish, and her English is pretty weak, so it’s best if you take care of the interview.’

‘Of course!’

A tingle of nerves rippled through Anna’s stomach. A Hungarian girl. An interview in Hungarian. Would she be able to do it? How did you say ‘injured party’ in Hungarian? What about ‘involuntary manslaughter’? There were so many words in her native language that she couldn’t remember or that she’d never even heard. Where could she find all the relevant technical terms and phrases? Her mother knew a lawyer back home; perhaps she should contact him.

‘Well, get going then. We can’t keep her locked up forever.’

‘What? Right now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who’s the deceased? Where did the accident happen? When? I can’t go in there not knowing anything about the case.’

‘Last night, just after midnight, near Kangassara on the road leading out of the city, right on the edge of town. The victim was an elderly man. He was only wearing his pyjamas. We still haven’t got an ID on him. Sari can start looking around to see if anyone matching the description has been reported missing. Here are the initial photographs from the scene.’

Anna looked at the photographs spread out on the desk. The body and the blood spatter looked horrific; she doubted whether she would ever get used to images like this. Which was worse: to be so numbed to violence and the sight of bloodied corpses that you didn’t feel anything, or to be distressed by it every time?

‘There’s an old folks’ home out near Kangassara, isn’t there? The victim could have wandered off in the night.’

‘Maybe. Things like that happen all the time, but they don’t usually end up under a car.’

‘Normally they freeze to death,’ said Sari.

Esko hadn’t said anything. Everyone in the room had noticed his reddened eyes and the faint tremor of his coffee cup, but nobody said anything, not even Virkkunen. Perhaps he’d worked out how long it was until Esko’s retirement and decided it was too late to change him. Besides, Esko always did his job and wasn’t in the habit of taking days off sick, though nobody understood how this was possible given how obvious it was he’d been hitting the bottle. Anna had started to think that maybe some people simply needed alcohol to survive, to postpone death, to make waiting for death that bit more bearable, to numb their pain, to brighten their mundane day-to-day lives, to pep them up, to splash some colour against the greyness of routine, to provide release, self-deceit, self-destruction. Not everybody could be sporty health-freaks in top physical condition. Society needed the drunk, the obese, the depressed, as examples to the rest of us and to provide statistics with which to frighten people. And to this end, alcohol was the perfect weapon.

I wonder how Ákos is doing, Anna wondered. She knew her brother had been drinking for at least a week now.

‘Good job we can deal with this without an interpreter,’ said Virkkunen. ‘I’ll call the boys upstairs and tell them to take the girl into the interview room.’

‘Jó reggelt, Fekete Anna vagyok,’ Anna introduced herself.

‘Farkas Gabriella, kezét csókolom,’ the young woman responded formally, making Anna feel awkward. Nobody had ever addressed her like that before. ‘I kiss your hand’. That’s what you said to old folk or people who were clearly in a higher position than you. And for the first time Anna realised that that’s exactly what she was in this job. A superior, the holder of power. She had power over this person. Of course, not all power; thankfully there were laws and regulations in place to protect the rights of individuals and to define the extent of the police’s jurisdiction, but in this instance, as in most other work situations, the balance of power lay with her. A simple greeting, one that she happily used when she was visiting elderly relatives back home without giving it a second thought, had suddenly revealed something about the nature of her work that she’d never appreciated before. This was the power of words, she thought – the link between our native tongue and how we understand the world. How many other things remained hidden from her, concealed behind words without a mother tongue?

Anna noticed that Gabriella was waiting. She began by recapping what she already knew about the case and asked whether this was correct. Gabriella nodded.

‘Where were you going?’

‘Kangassara. That’s where I live. I’m an au pair with a family out there.’

‘How long have you been an au pair?’

‘Just over ten months.’

‘And you’re staying for a year?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where are you from originally?’

‘Budapesti vagyok. És te?’

‘Én vajdasági magyar vagyok, Magyarkanizsáról.’

‘Cool! I have friends nearby in Erdély but I’ve never been to Vajdaság. Have you lived in Finland long?’

‘Since I was a child. I’ll ask the questions, okay?’ Anna said, trying to sound friendly.

‘Oh, yes, of course. I haven’t spoken Hungarian for ten months, except on Skype,’ replied Gabriella, a little embarrassed.

‘I know the feeling. But let’s get back to business. Where were you driving from?’

‘The university. Well, the student village really. I was at a party.’

‘And your breathalyser test was negative.’

‘That’s right, I don’t drink if I have to drive. I don’t drink much anyway.’

‘And had you taken anything else?’

‘No. But I was listening to music.’

‘Well, that’s certainly not illegal.’

‘I was completely lost in it. Hungarian folk music,’ Gabriella said quietly.

‘Tell me in your own words, as carefully as you can, exactly what happened.’

Gabriella seemed to stiffen. She was clearly holding back tears, didn’t look Anna in the eyes but stared off into the distance, breathing in fits. Then in an anxious voice and swallowing back her tears, she explained how she had seen the man lying in the road but that the car hadn’t obeyed her, how it had continued sliding forwards. It felt like it took an eternity, though in reality the whole sequence of events must have lasted no longer than a few seconds. How the man seemed to get closer and closer, and she was unable to do anything about it. The sound of the thump as he struck the car. How she momentarily lost control of the car and feared more for her own life than for that of the man.

‘Will I go to prison?’ she asked, by now weeping.

‘First we’ll have to establish how fast you were driving. If you weren’t over the speed limit, there’s probably nothing to worry about. Of course, you should bear in mind that the speed of a vehicle should always be regulated according to the prevailing driving conditions. The roads were very slippery last night.’

‘I’m not used to driving in weather like this, but they told me the car had a good set of winter tyres.’

‘Whose car is it?’

‘My host family’s second car. I’m allowed to use it to get about. Will I ever get home? Look at me, always thinking of myself instead of others.’

‘You’ll have to stay in Finland for the duration of the investigation and possible trial. Let’s think about that once we know which … charges are going to be pressed or whether you’ll be charged at all.’

Anna had to think for a moment how to talk about pressing charges. I must get myself a legal dictionary next time I’m at home, she thought. A büdös fene, I don’t even know how to tell her she’s suspected of reckless driving! At worst, I could be found guilty of misconduct. I should have insisted on an interpreter – and at the same time I might as well admit to my colleagues that I can’t speak my own mother tongue any more.

‘At least he was an old man,’ Gabriella woke Anna from her thoughts. ‘If it had been a child, I don’t think I could bear it. I’d kill myself.’

‘Well,’ said Anna, ‘thankfully it wasn’t a child. But you say the man was already lying in the road when you noticed him?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So he wasn’t walking along the road?’

‘No, he was lying there. At first I didn’t even realise it was a person, it just looked like a dark heap in the road, a pile of gravel or something, a rubbish bag.’

‘Was he moving?’

‘I don’t know. Probably not. At least I don’t remember him moving.’

‘Do you remember how the man was lying before you hit him?’

‘No. It was so terrible, so unreal. All I knew was that the heap was getting closer and that it was a man after all. Wait, he might have been lying on his side. I think I remember seeing his face; it was like he was staring me right in the eyes. But I’m probably wrong or I’m just imagining it. Who was he?’

‘We don’t know that yet. It’s likely he was a dementia patient who had run away and got lost. You see people like that wandering about in strange places.’

‘Did he have a heart attack?’

‘Perhaps, or he might have fallen over. The autopsy will tell us what happened.’

‘The relatives are going to hate me.’

Anna didn’t have the heart to tell her that this was very likely.

‘But I can’t believe you’re Hungarian too. How great is that!’ said Gabriella. ‘I’d never get through this if I had to try and speak English.’

‘You would be assigned an interpreter.’

‘You’re far better than an interpreter. I want you.’

Though she might have wanted to, Anna was unable to say anything in reply.

Esko Niemi was standing outside the police station smoking a cigarette. He was thinking of the case the National Bureau of Investigation had assigned him. Jesus Christ. Working as a dogsbody for those idiots in suits annoyed him. He didn’t want to take orders from anyone but Virkkunen, and even those orders generally pissed him off. Things had started to irritate him more and more recently, and Esko didn’t really know why. Something was bugging him, something he couldn’t put his finger on. He felt as though he’d been driven into a corner, trapped in a cage. He’d felt troubled like this before, though he didn’t want to think about that, let alone admit it to himself. What if he just sold his apartment, bought a house in the woods, withdrew into the peace and quiet? He didn’t need all that much in the way of modern conveniences. Running water would be good, he’d need a small kitchen and a place to put his bed, a sauna and a fireplace.

Living without electricity might be a bit too basic – he wasn’t moving to a Siberian gulag. Maybe he could install a few solar panels; they were fairly cheap, though the people that normally bought them were generally your typical green-fingered eco-warriors. He could give it a try. There were a couple of small panels at Virkkunen’s summer cottage too. Esko visited Virkkunen there at least once every summer, and together they went fishing and relaxed. Those panels were enough to run a couple of lamps and charge up the laptop. A boat on the shore, a decent barbecue, a simple life far away from everything. Damn, it would be great. Esko felt a burning in his chest. He rubbed the spot with a clenched fist. The pain seemed to singe his dreams. He was no longer a young man, but surely he still had time to do something other than wading through the endless mire of the criminal world. But before that he would show the rookies at the NBI how an experienced policeman does his job, Esko thought. This case would be his grand finale. Then he could disappear, ride off into the sunset, leaving the dust to settle behind him. Esko smoked his cigarette right up to the filter, stamped the stub into the ground and lit another one. After finishing it, he went up to Anna’s office.

‘Pack your lipstick and tampons. We’re off to investigate the scene of an accident,’ he said.

‘Come up with something new, will you?’

‘I’m trying,’ Esko grunted. ‘You know I am,’ he muttered more to himself than to her.

Anna and Esko took the lift down to the depot beneath the police station, checked out a light-blue Ford civilian car and drove into the city. The sun gleamed in the cloudless sky. Exhaust fumes gave off steam in the frosted air, the silhouettes of buildings rising up majestically against the radiant blue of the sky. The tall piles of snow at the side of the road were dirty and grey. That’s what my lungs will look like when I’m older if I don’t quit smoking, Anna thought. Still, we all have to die of something, so why not lung cancer? She tried not to think unpleasant thoughts of hospital beds, painkillers and oxygen masks, but focussed on watching the crowds of people, which became sparser as they made their way out of the city and headed towards Kangassara. The urban landscape turned to forest, and after a bend in the road they saw the car that the police had moved to the verge during the night. The area was cordoned off with police tape. They pulled up by the side of the road, far enough away from the scene of the accident not to disturb any evidence.

Anna stepped out of the car. The icy surface of the road glinted in the bright sunshine. Seen from a distance, the car Gabriella had been driving didn’t seem to have sustained any visible damage, but any closer investigation was a job for one of the vehicular specialists on the traffic-accident investigation team. What a job title, thought Anna; compared to that, senior constable sounded almost human. The car would soon be transferred to the MOT inspection office and all imaginable data regarding the road surface, the friction force, the condition of the tyres, any braking marks and damage to the car would be collated and compared to the injuries and impact marks on the victim, and to the photographs and sketches of the scene taken by forensics, after which the investigation team would sift through the data, analyse it on their computers and give a statement about the sequence of events. Anna often wondered how the police seemed to have so much specialised expertise at its fingertips. She found it fascinating and was continually taken aback by it, perhaps because it gave her a tantalising sense that her career was in constant development, that it would never stagnate.

The thick spruce forest was silent, the dark-green gloom of its branches extinguishing any light reflected from the snow. Anna looked closely at the forest. Nobody would be able to walk through that thicket, she thought. The man must have been wandering along the road.

‘I’ll drive on a kilometre or so and walk back to meet you,’ said Esko. ‘Let’s try and work out what direction the old boy was coming from.’

‘Okay. Then we’ll examine the ground in the immediate vicinity.’

Esko glanced at the dense spruce wood and sniffed. ‘Nobody could walk around in there,’ he said, repeating Anna’s own summation, before getting back in his car and driving off.

Anna stood on the spot for a moment. She listened to the fading hum of Esko’s car but could no longer hear when it stopped and when Esko slammed the door shut. He must have driven quite a distance, she thought. I wonder if I should go back a bit. She quickly strode about half a kilometre back towards the city, turned and began slowly walking forwards, closely examining the road as she went. Every now and then she saw animal tracks in the soft snow on the verge. The surface of the road was so icy that someone out walking a dog wouldn’t have left any footprints – or had the dog been loose, a runaway, just like the old man might have been? Then two footprints: one in a heap of snow by the verge, the other sunk further into the drift with deep paw impressions all around it.

The snow still hadn’t crusted over, thought Anna. She still couldn’t go skiing across the fields. The human footprints were small. The dog had been out here with someone, a woman or a child, she concluded. The dog had caught the scent of a hare and raced off into the forest, dragging its owner with it. These weren’t the old man’s footprints, she thought, as she continued on her way, there’s nothing here; the road is too icy. She could see the police tape up ahead. Despite the icy conditions, the car Gabriella had been driving had left skid marks, though they were barely visible. Nothing sticks to a surface like this, thought Anna and looked at the blood spatter on the ground. That had stuck, that much was certain; blood and everything that had sprayed out of the old man upon impact had soaked into the ice, melting large, dark-red pools into its surface. The blood had seeped gruesomely into the surrounding snow.

Esko soon joined her. He was visibly out of breath.

‘You should cut back on the cigarettes,’ she commented.

‘Why the hell should I?’ he snapped, fumbled in his jacket pocket and lit another one. ‘Let’s check out that thicket and cut the bullshit, if that’s alright by Miss Moral High Ground?’

Anna laughed. She felt as though, in a very peculiar way, she sometimes even liked Esko.

They clambered in among the spruces. At first their legs sunk up to their knees in snow. Then, though there wasn’t much snow beneath the trees, the thick tangle of branches made it hard to walk. There was no way a feeble old man could have reached the road this way. And there are no prints here either, not even animal tracks, Anna noted just before she saw a bounding hare’s tracks in the soft snow. That’s what the dog must have been chasing; it would have run off after its prey if it hadn’t been on a leash. Anna examined every tree trunk for a strip of fabric, a hair, anything at all. But she could see nothing.

‘It’s odd,’ she said to Esko, as they returned to the road and dusted the snow from their legs.

‘What is?’

‘Well, the fact that there are no tracks round here. Nothing to suggest where the victim was coming from.’

‘I don’t think it’s all that odd. If the old boy was doddering around in the road or on the verge, there wouldn’t be any tracks. Everything’s iced over, and ice is pretty damned hard.’

‘I suppose. But it’s still odd.’

‘You’ll have to apply for more details on the Hungarian driver,’ said Esko. ‘Virkkunen’s orders.’

‘How am I going to do that? I don’t know how to apply for details like that.’

‘For crying out loud, you know how to use the telephone and you can stammer something in your own language. Either that or send an email.’

‘Back at the station I could barely remember how to say “press charges”. And who am I supposed to call? There are probably more police officers in Hungary than there are people in this city.’

‘Ask Virkkunen. You’d better check out her residence permit while you’re at it.’

‘Listen, you’re perfectly capable of doing that yourself. Any news on the identity of the victim?’

‘Sari just sent a message saying she’d come up with nothing. Nobody matching the description has been reported missing. She’s ringing round all the local hospitals and care facilities.’

‘Judging by the photographs, the man’s pyjamas weren’t issued by a hospital. Besides, surely these places would notice if someone has gone missing?’

‘You’d be surprised at the things people do and don’t notice in these places.’

‘I’m not surprised at all, sadly.’

Anna thought of her own grandmother, who lived with her father’s sister, Anna’s aunt. Grandma drank a small glass of home-made pálinka every morning. Apparently it helped her circulation and kept her mind in good order, and Anna certainly had no reason to disagree. Grandma was over ninety, she’d survived the wars, she’d seen plenty of sorrow in her life, not least the loss of her son, her grandson and her husband, but somehow she always managed to remain happy and content with her life. Back home people didn’t hide their old folk out of sight, didn’t send them to care homes to lose their minds. Back home they were treated with respect and greeted with the words kezét csókolom, ‘I kiss your hand’.

‘It’s late and I’m starving,’ said Esko. ‘What say we go back to town for a bite to eat?’ he suggested.

‘Good idea,’ Anna replied. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal all day.

A match flared in the darkness. The ember of a cigarette began to glow, then another. Jenni and Katri, both ninth-graders at the Ketoniemi secondary school, peered behind the tree to make sure nobody was coming. Jenni had stolen the cigarettes from her mum’s boyfriend and sent a message to her best friend Katri, who lived next door. The girls had told their parents they were going for a walk. Pinching the cigarettes had been easy, Jenni explained. Mum and her boyfriend had been watching TV; the boyfriend’s jacket was hanging in the hallway and the fags were in his pocket. To top it all off, the packet was suitably half full. If it had been full, two missing cigarettes would have been obvious, but if it had been almost empty, taking two would have cleaned it out. A half-full packet was best; nobody would notice a thing. Jenni knew this all too well, because she’d been caught stealing cigarettes from an almost empty packet before.

The girls dragged hungrily at their cigarettes in the woodland just behind their houses, gossiped about their stupid teachers, the cute guy, Ilari, in their year and all the other important things that fifteen-year-olds talk about. They spat in the heaps of ploughed snow. Once they’d finished their cigarettes, they decided to hang out at the shopping mall, see if there was anyone there, though they doubted it. It was dead on Thursday evenings. In fact, it was always pretty dead at the mall. The youth centre had been closed due to cutbacks and the only people at the shops were families with little kids and the local drunks loitering outside – there was never anyone around. But they needed to get rid of the smell of smoke before going home, so they had to take a walk somewhere no matter what. They decided to walk through the woods, though the snow made walking quite difficult, their toes froze and their Converse trainers were soaked.

‘What’s that?’ said Katri and stopped in her tracks.

‘What?’

‘That on the ground.’ Katri pointed towards a large pine tree. Something lay on the snow beneath the branches.

Jenni stepped closer.

‘Oh my God,’ she shrieked. ‘Look at this!’

It was a knife. Not just a normal breadknife, but a weapon with a curved blade. It was covered in blood.

‘Look,’ Katri whispered and pointed at the ground about two metres from the knife. A cloud of steam billowed from her mouth into the frozen air.

The snow was soaked in blood. In the darkening evening it looked almost black.

‘Has someone been killed?’

‘D’you think we should call the police?’

‘I’ll be fucking grounded if my mum finds out we’ve been out here smoking.’

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s go to the mall and think.’

‘Oh God, I’m scared. What if the killer is still here?’

The girls stood listening to the darkening forest around them. At first it was perfectly quiet, all they could hear was the sound of their frightened breathing. There came a crackle from the trees, then another.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Katri whispered, terrified.

The girls broke into a sprint. They ran through the woods, paying no attention to the branches slapping against their faces. Jenni tripped in the snow and began to cry; she shouted for Katri to wait, but got up quickly and continued running. Back to the safety of the houses and the lights, out of this terrifying forest where a crazed killer was on the loose. Soon they were standing in the yard outside the shopping mall. They ran up to one of the pubs, because it was the only place with people around, leant on the wall and glanced around, gasping for breath. Nobody had followed them out of the woods. The mall was deserted; there was nobody in sight.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Jenni.

A drunken woman staggered out of the pub and lit a cigarette. Soon afterwards a man appeared and began hitting on the woman.

‘Let’s go to my place,’ said Katri. ‘We can think what to say about this. If we talk to my mum first, then maybe your parents won’t start asking about the cigarettes.’

Anna’s studded trainers gripped the icy path. The frosted air tingled pleasantly at the back of her throat. The running track through the woods behind Koivuharju had been turned into a skiing track, so Anna had to run along the cycle paths. She enjoyed skiing too, but for that she needed a stretch of ice covering the open sea and the sight of a distant horizon, the bright, clearly defined contour of the skyline. Anna didn’t like pre-prepared skiing trails through the woods. The aimless freedom of vast expanses of ice, that’s what she wanted to find on her weekend-morning skiing trips that took her kilometres from the shore.

Her run that evening was fast and short: half an hour at full pace, then home to shower and smoke a cigarette. She’d managed to keep her New Year’s resolution – only one a day – though she’d made the promise with a cigarette in her mouth, tipsy with champagne, as the fireworks from the town hall in Kanizsa crackled and fizzed above her, diamonds, balls, glitter and coloured stars all exploding across the sky, people laughing, hugging and wishing each other a happy New Year. Réka’s circle of friends, many of whom Anna had known since they were at nursery school together, had organised a party. They had reserved a pub on the outskirts of town, ordered food from a catering service, played hits from the 90s, danced and drank the night away. Just before midnight they had gone into the town centre to watch the fireworks, like most people in Kanizsa on New Year’s Eve. Her mother had been there too, with her own friends. Anna had never seen fireworks this spectacular in Finland. In Kanizsa there were sometimes displays of fireworks in the middle of summer. For Anna it was one of the most exhilarating things in the world, an unexpected set of fireworks on a warm, dark summer’s night. She hadn’t seen Ákos among the partygoers.

At the party she’d also met Béci, a boy who used to hide Anna’s satchel and pull her hair when they were in first grade. Béci had been living in Budapest for the last ten years and Anna hadn’t seen him since she’d left; until that moment she’d forgotten he existed. But he had remembered Anna. After the fireworks had ended they bought some beer from a kiosk and walked down to the chilly banks of the Tisza and sat on the old swings suspended on metal chains, garish flakes of red, yellow and green paint flaking from the wooden seats. They reminisced about their childhood as the rusted bolts gave ear-splitting shrieks beneath their combined weight. When Anna began to feel cold, they’d snuck back to Béci’s parents’ house and up to the boy’s bedroom on the top floor, a room that hadn’t been decorated in at least ten years. The next morning Béci’s mother had insisted on cooking breakfast and Anna couldn’t bring herself to decline. It was embarrassing. It felt like being fifteen again.

Anna nervously crushed the stub of her cigarette into the ashtray and wanted to light another one. She’d had to go home with him, hadn’t she? Now Béci had tried to contact her in Finland, too; Réka had given him Anna’s email address and telephone number. A fene egye meg.

She forced herself to forget the idea of a second cigarette, went back inside and agonised over whether or not to call Ákos. Eventually she called him. Her brother was drunk, but not too much, and said he was at home by himself watching TV, the television Anna had given him. Anna couldn’t hear the sound of the television. She asked whether Ákos had remembered to apply for his unemployment benefit, whether there was food in the cupboard and whether he’d had a shower. Yes, yes, everything was fine, Ákos was just cutting down on his drinking, he’d almost stopped altogether, he hadn’t drunk much, everything was fine. A kurva életbe, Anna cursed under her breath as she ended the call. I’ve become a mother to my own older brother.

3

‘SEEMS THE OLD MAN hadn’t run away after all. I called all the local care facilities yesterday,’ Sari told Anna.

It was five past eight. The Violent Crimes Unit was starting its daily work, the photocopier whirred into life, the coffee machine gurgled, office lights switched on one by one, computers booted up. On the surface it was like an average day in any office. There was nothing to suggest that in these drab offices, with their non-descript furniture, people spent their time investigating acts which had their roots in the darkest recesses of the human mind.

‘That means he must have wandered off from his own home. I hope a relative notices something soon,’ Anna replied.

‘Let’s hope so. It makes me think of a few old people we’ve found mummified. They’d been lying dead for years and nobody noticed a thing.’ Sari yawned. The kids had woken her up at five and started playing.

‘Cases like that are rare exceptions. Let’s give it a few days; someone’s bound to call us worried that their grandfather has gone missing. They’ll probably call today.’

‘I hope so. I visited Rauno yesterday, by the way,’ said Sari.

‘Oh. How is he?’

‘He’s on sick leave until the end of April, goes to physiotherapy a few times a week. He’s coming along well, though it’s a long road to recovery. Apparently his left knee is in constant pain, and it’ll be a weak spot for the rest of his life.’

Senior Constable Rauno Forsman had been seriously injured when his car collided with an elk the previous autumn. Anna remembered the sight of her colleague, battered from the crash, as he lay in intensive care; how she’d wished she could be in his place, in a coma, forever. She gave a shiver. At the time, she had been suffering from acute insomnia and was so tired that she’d started to wonder whether she was even capable of carrying out her duties as a police officer.

‘So we can forget the Achilles heel; from now it’ll be known as Forsman’s knee,’ commented Nils as he walked into the staffroom. His dark hair was still tousled with sleep. Nils was actually quite cute, Anna noticed and stole a glance at the golden ring gleaming on the ring finger of his left hand.

‘What about Nina?’ asked Anna.

‘She wasn’t at home. I didn’t want to pry. Still, you wouldn’t believe how the girls have grown. Rauno sends his regards to everybody, and said you should all pop in some time. Make sure you do; the poor guy seems bored to tears.’

‘I’ll have to stop in,’ said Nils.