Light in a Dark House (Detective Kimmo Joentaa) Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Jan Costin Wagner

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Autumn

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Winter

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Christmas

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Thanks

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Finnish detective Kimmo Joentaa is called to the local hospital in which his young wife died several years before. An unidentified woman in a coma has been murdered by someone who wept over the body, their tears staining the sheets around her. The death marks the start of a series of killings, with the unknown patient at their centre.

  As autumn turns to winter, and Christmas fast approaches, Kimmo’s attempts to unravel the case and identify the first victim are complicated by the disappearance of his girlfriend, who has vanished after an awkward encounter at a party thrown by the head of the police force, and by a colleague’s spiral into the depths of a gambling addiction.

  Light in a Dark House is an atmospheric, haunting and beautifully written psychological crime thriller from an award winning crime writer.

  About the Author

  Jan Costin Wagner was born in 1972 in Langen/Hesse near Frankfurt. After studying German language, literature and history at Frankfurt University, he went on to work as a journalist and freelance writer. He divides his time between Germany and Finland (the home country of his wife). His previous crime novels featuring detective Kimmo Joentaa are Ice Moon, Silence, which won the 2008 German Crime Prize, and The Winter of the Lions.

  Anthea Bell is a freelance translator from German and French, specialising in modern and crime fiction.

  Also by Jan Costin Wagner

  Ice Moon

  Silence

  The Winter of the Lions

  For Venla

  Light in a Dark House

  Jan Costin Wagner

  Translated from the German by

  Anthea Bell

  PROLOGUE

  18 August 1985

  Something’s happened. I must write it down. Write it all down so that I can remember it later. Describe everything, and then there’ll be a picture of it in my mind.

  That’s what Lauri said.

  Right, then. She isn’t crying. And she isn’t laughing. She’s just sitting there. I’m sitting on the piano stool beside her, and there’s kind of a humming in my head. Like bees or flies or something. Dear diary. We’re sitting side by side. At the piano.

  She’s looking at the keys, concentrating on them. Then she strikes a key, and it makes a clear sound. It’s a hot day, we’re both sweating. Her dress is still all crumpled up. Sort of creased and messy. It’s the blue-and-white dress that I told Lauri about. Kind of a light summer dress, and you can see the shape of her breasts quite well underneath it, or maybe it’s more like you can guess at the shape of her breasts.

  The dress is all creased and rucked up; I can almost see the place where her bottom begins. The sound of the piano note is clear, a little louder than the humming, but anyway the humming isn’t real, it’s only inside my head.

  The window’s open. The wind is blowing in, but it’s a warm wind. Laughter and splashing from the lake. That’ll be the kids from next door.

  Outside it’s very hot. I sweated quite a lot when I was riding out to see her on my bike.

  And then we’re sitting side by side, after all that happened. But she’s trembling too. I’m sure she can’t be cold, because she’s sweating and kind of breathless, but she’s trembling, and she strikes another note on the piano. A little higher than the first, so it’s even clearer. It sounds somehow high and clear and quiet all at once.

  Like a whispered scream.

  AUTUMN

  1

  IN AN AUTUMN when no rain fell, Kimmo Joentaa was living with a woman who had no name. The anticyclone keeping the weather fine had been christened Magdalena. The woman told people to call her Larissa.

  She came and went. He didn’t know where from or where to.

  In the evening, when he came home, he would sit in the car for a while, looking for signs of her presence behind the windowpanes. Sometimes there was a light switched on that hadn’t been on when he left in the morning. Sometimes it was dark.

  If there was a light on, she usually wasn’t there. If it was dark, she would be sitting on the sofa with her knees drawn up, and she laughed when he asked how her day had been. She laughed and laughed, until after a while Kimmo Joentaa joined in.

  He’d asked her several times why she always switched on the light when she went out, and why she was sitting in the dark when he came home. She didn’t reply. She just looked at him and said nothing. That was what she usually did when he asked questions. If he looked like beginning to ask them again, she would come over, put her arms round him, undress him, push him down on the sofa and move above him in a practised rhythm until he came.

  Before the snow and ice melted, she’d played ice hockey on the lake with the kids. She ate huge quantities of ice cream, and liked vanilla and tundra-berry flavours best. She enjoyed action films, with shoot-outs and exploding cars. She didn’t like comedies, but she laughed a lot, mostly at him. He didn’t even have to say anything; often just the expression on his face, or a movement that he made, would make her laugh.

  She had blonde hair, and insisted that she was 1 metre 60 tall – not 1 metre 51, as Joentaa sug
gested now and then, because he liked her furious look – and she was very slim, which surprised Joentaa in view of her consumption of sweet things.

  Sometimes she disappeared. If he rang her mobile number, he reached the strange, anonymous voice of a recorded answer. He left messages, and sensed his words seeping away into the silence. He wrote to the email address that she had given him, and never got any answers. He sat in front of the laptop in an empty house, with his mobile in his hand, and waited.

  He began switching on the light when he left in the morning, and he felt a tingling in his stomach when at last, after days or weeks, the house was dark again when he came home. Then she would be sitting on the sofa with her knees drawn up, and she would turn to look his way and say she was back.

  If he asked her where she had been she said nothing.

  She liked walking. At weekends they walked through the forest together for hours at a time, and she told him about films she had seen or books she was reading. She read anything and everything so long as it was a story. She liked stories that she could tell him. Her books gathered in piles in various corners of the house. He listened to her attentively, and tried to find the storyteller behind the characters who came to life on the stage of her imagination.

  She worked as a prostitute, Joentaa didn’t know where. He once began asking her about it, but she just gave a wry grin and said he didn’t want to know. When summer began she had told him that she’d also taken a part-time job selling ice cream, and Joentaa said he was glad.

  ‘If I fix it right I’ll be able to eat all the sweet stuff I like,’ she said.

  He asked her to tell him her name, her real name, and she said that names didn’t matter.

  She cried in her sleep, and if he woke her, or asked, when she was awake again, why she’d been crying, she couldn’t remember having any dreams at all.

  2

  IN MID-SEPTEMBER they went to a birthday party together. Nurmela, the Turku police chief, was celebrating his fiftieth birthday in the huge garden of his house, which went down to the river and had a picturesque view.

  When they arrived, Nurmela’s wife Katriina welcomed them. Joentaa had met her several times at Christmas parties at the police station. She was tall and slender, and always seemed to be aware of her physical presence as she moved.

  The garden was already full of guests, and Joentaa made for Petri Grönholm and Paavo Sundström, who were sitting at a large table in the sun. Larissa held his hand tight as they walked, and when Joentaa cast her a brief glance she smiled at him. He felt her hand in his, and the heat of an autumn that was much too warm, and he was suddenly glad they had come to the party. He went up to the table where Sundström and Grönholm were sitting, and introduced the woman standing beside him, snuggling close to him, as Larissa.

  ‘Hello,’ said Grönholm.

  ‘Wow,’ said Sundström.

  Larissa laughed. The loud, abrupt laugh that he liked, because it was genuine and for a few moments it gave him the feeling that he knew her.

  Sundström stared at Larissa, until an idea seemed to bring him back to reality. ‘My own worse half is around here somewhere,’ he said, half-heartedly looking for her. ‘Probably at the prosecco bar.’

  ‘Sounds a good idea,’ said Larissa.

  ‘Yes . . . in a moment,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Come on, let’s get sloshed today,’ said Larissa.

  Sundström laughed, Grönholm laughed, Joentaa nodded, and Larissa let go of his hand and walked up the slope to the drinks table. Joentaa watched her go, and was aware that Sundström and Grönholm were doing the same.

  ‘Good for you, Kimmo. The new woman in your life, right?’ asked Sundström.

  Joentaa nodded. The new woman. Or whatever.

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Grönholm. ‘Really glad for you—’

  ‘What a . . .’ Sundström interrupted him.

  ‘What a what?’ asked Grönholm.

  ‘What a cracker,’ said Sundström.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Grönholm, smiling, and he glanced rather uncertainly at Joentaa.

  ‘I only meant . . . oh, hello, darling,’ said Sundström. ‘May I introduce Kimmo Joentaa, another of my unfortunate subordinates? Kimmo, Sabrina. Sabrina, Kimmo.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Joentaa.

  Sabrina Sundström raised a glass of prosecco to her mouth, took a sip, lowered the glass and gave Joentaa a ready smile. Joentaa didn’t know her, but he knew she must have a sense of humour. A good one. How else could she live with Paavo Sundström?

  Violin music began playing in the background, and after that Police Chief Nurmela, standing on the terrace in expansive mood, spoke into a microphone, thanking them all for coming and for their generous presents, which he would unpack at the appropriate time. He just hoped there weren’t too many references to pensions, retirement and the evening of his days, because this was only half-time for him, there was a lot he still planned to do. His wife Katriina was standing behind him, and when he had finished she said that the buffet would be open in a few minutes’ time.

  The violins struck up again. The black-clad quartet of musicians was sitting at the side of the broad terrace, three young women and one young man. Larissa came back, balancing a bottle of sparkling wine and glasses on a tray.

  ‘Plenty for everyone,’ she said.

  Sundström laughed, Grönholm poured the wine, and Larissa sat down and was immediately deep in conversation with Sundström’s wife. If Joentaa got the gist of the remarks that he caught from time to time correctly, they were talking about summer fashions.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nurmela coming towards them with his wife. Walking with a spring in his step, wearing a beige suit with a yellow tie. There were laughing, blue Donald Ducks all over the tie. Katriina moved fluently and gracefully, easily keeping up with his staccato pace.

  ‘Great outfit,’ said Sundström, as soon as the couple were in earshot. ‘The tie, I mean. And of course your wife’s dress.’

  ‘Thanks, thanks,’ said Nurmela. Katriina smiled, and Joentaa got the impression that something had changed in Nurmela’s face.

  ‘Hello there, August,’ said Larissa.

  ‘Hmm?’ That was Grönholm.

  ‘Who?’ said Sundström, and Grönholm’s eyes wandered off, presumably in search of August.

  ‘Oops,’ said Larissa, clapping her hand to her mouth, and Joentaa sensed that, beside him, Nurmela was swaying slightly as he quickly excused himself. Katriina was staring at Larissa. ‘Come along, darling, I must . . . must go and see to the guests . . .’ said Nurmela. He made off in the direction of the drinks table.

  They all watched him go. Katriina tore herself away and followed him.

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Grönholm.

  ‘Since when was Nurmela’s name August?’ asked Sundström.

  ‘His first name isn’t August, you know,’ said Grönholm, turning to Larissa.

  ‘My mistake,’ she said, with a wide smile for Kimmo Joentaa. ‘Who wants some more fizz?’ She picked up the bottle and refilled their glasses. Joentaa gratefully held out his, and drained it in a single draught. He suddenly had the sure and certain feeling that he could only spend this summery autumn day appropriately in a state of mild intoxication.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Larissa, and they all clinked glasses.

  ‘Is his name really August or not?’ asked Sabrina Sundström.

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ said Grönholm.

  ‘Nope,’ said Sundström.

  ‘Just a mistake,’ said Larissa.

  ‘Names don’t matter,’ said Joentaa.

  He caught Larissa’s eye. She was giving him a glance that he couldn’t interpret. He went to find another bottle of fizz.

  3

  THE REST OF the party passed in a soft, pleasant haze, with the clink and clatter of the cutlery, with lines of guests winding their way over the freshly mown lawns, going over to the buffet on tables covered by snow-white cloths. Laris
sa ate with a hearty appetite. She liked the eggs on salmon and the curried herring best.

  ‘Mm, delicious,’ she said several times, laughing, and Joentaa felt an urge to put his arms round her and hug her until they were both breathless. He had emptied his glass of sparkling wine eight to twelve times – he didn’t know exactly how often, because at some point he had lost count – and was vaguely aware of Sundström raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Er, Kimmo . . . everything okay so far?’ he asked.

  Joentaa nodded. He felt curiously sober, apart from the soft veil of mist that had come down over his mind.

  Larissa was in animated conversation with Sundström’s wife, and Grönholm was leaning back, relaxed, drinking beer after beer with a glass of sparkling wine or so in between, and seemed to be listening to them. Joentaa wondered why Grönholm never brought a woman to any occasions of this kind, and whether that accounted for Grönholm’s good humour and generally equable temperament, but rejected the idea, and for a while watched Nurmela talking to the guests surrounding him in the centre of the garden. Now and then he glanced at the table where Joentaa was sitting. Presumably he was trying to work out how the little blonde had found her way into his birthday party. Joentaa had a feeling that Nurmela’s eyes were lingering on his face more and more often, but he didn’t avoid them. His own eyes felt too lethargic, and the warmth of the evening too mild and gentle. He felt Larissa’s caresses brushing past him as she went to get a second helping at the buffet. Sometimes he held her hand tight, and waited for a few seconds before letting go of it.

  ‘I have to go to the buffet,’ Larissa told him.

  ‘I’m not stopping you,’ replied Joentaa.

  He watched her go, and saw that, unusually for her, she was wiggling her hips ostentatiously. Putting on a show for the others. For August, maybe. Most of the men present looked her way; some laughed, others carefully did not react.

  ‘That woman is quite something,’ whispered Sundström, right beside his ear. He felt Sundström’s breath, and nodded.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Sabrina.