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

  Larissa came back, carrying a white plate of eggs and herring. Looking at her, he suddenly thought that he had never known anyone so cheerful before.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘You’re looking at me in such a funny way,’ she said.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he replied.

  Never known anyone so cheerful before, he thought. Or anyone who cried so often in her sleep.

  Then she ate eggs and herring, and Sundström’s jokes began to border on the smutty. Evening came on, darkness fell, lighted torches in holders gave warmth and a little light, and when it was too cold and dark to stay outside, the remaining guests moved into the brightly lit house. Joentaa felt weak at the knees. He was vaguely aware of Nurmela drawing him aside.

  ‘Come here a moment, Kimmo,’ he said.

  ‘Hm?’

  The two of them were alone on the lawn. Laughter came from inside the house. Behind them, there was the clink of china as waiters cleared what was left of the buffet away.

  ‘Did you bring her?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘The . . . woman you arrived with.’

  ‘Larissa.’

  Nurmela stared at him. Seemed to be having difficulty in getting words out. Seemed to be focusing on some point in the distance. Joentaa watched the ducks in their sailor suits. On Nurmela’s tie. In the flickering light of the torches.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ asked Nurmela.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Showing up here with a . . . a tart . . .’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Exactly, yes.’

  ‘Larissa also has a job selling ice cream. Part-time,’ said Joentaa.

  Nurmela did not reply. His eyes were almost popping out of his head.

  ‘Those ducks are dancing,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘What?’

  ‘On your tie.’

  Nurmela looked down at himself, then up again.

  ‘I didn’t know that you knew each other,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t know that you and Larissa . . . that you . . . well, knew each other.’

  Nurmela’s hands shot out and grabbed Joentaa by the throat. He felt a pain in his chest, and heard himself breathing with difficulty. Looked at the blue ducks.

  Nurmela’s breath smelled of alcohol, his voice sounded clear and sober. ‘Arsehole,’ he said.

  Then he let go of him again. Joentaa followed his eyes to the windows at the front of the house. Katriina in the middle of the room, in the light from the chandeliers. Tall and slim. A smile for every guest.

  ‘I’m sorry if Katriina . . .’ Joentaa said.

  Nurmela let himself drop on to a white folding chair. Joentaa fetched another for himself. Sat down.

  ‘I’m sorry if Katriina . . . was annoyed . . .’

  ‘She didn’t notice anything,’ said Nurmela.

  ‘She didn’t?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, but I can smooth it over,’ said Nurmela.

  Smooth it over, thought Joentaa. Soft, gentle rain was falling, the first in a long time. Inside the house, no one seemed to notice that their host was missing.

  ‘I’ll tell her some kind of shit,’ said Nurmela.

  Joentaa nodded.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Nurmela.

  Joentaa nodded again, and saw Larissa on the other side of the windows. Deep in animated conversation with Nurmela’s wife. They were laughing together. Nurmela stared into the darkness. He had begun to stumble over his words.

  ‘None of it matters,’ he mumbled.

  ‘No,’ said Joentaa. He saw Larissa beyond the windowpane. Larissa. With Nurmela. He found it difficult to give distinct outlines to the image.

  ‘Half-time,’ said Nurmela.

  ‘Yes,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Time for the next half.’ Obviously in an attempt to put this statement into practice, he stood up wearily and marched towards the house. ‘Come on, Kimmo, let’s have another drink,’ he called.

  Joentaa followed him.

  ‘Are you two . . . together?’ asked Nurmela as they walked on.

  Larissa beyond the windows at the front of the house. Dancing to the rhythm of soundless music.

  Joentaa nodded.

  ‘Mhm. Mhm,’ said Nurmela, and it struck Joentaa that maybe Larissa was about to lose one of her best clients. Although why should she? Now that everything was adequately explained.

  Nurmela, Larissa.

  Nurmela nodded to himself. The blue ducks laughed, a peal of laughter like Larissa’s on the other side of the windows.

  When Nurmela opened the door, and at last they could hear the music to which Larissa and Katriina were dancing, Joentaa thought that there were two questions he must ask him some time.

  Why his house had soundproofed glazing.

  And why . . . why August?

  4

  ‘WHY . . . WHY AUGUST?’ asked Sundström, either because no more risqué jokes occurred to him or because Grönholm had just gone to fetch another beer.

  He leaned over to Joentaa, who was sitting at the other end of the sofa. There was a red-haired woman whom Joentaa didn’t know between them, and Sundström for one seemed to take no interest in including her in the conversation. His head hovered in the air just above her lap as he made the question more specific. ‘What was all that just now about this August?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Larissa’s been trying to kid me that she never said anything about any August. But you heard her too, mentioning August. And she seemed to mean Nurmela.’

  ‘No idea,’ said Joentaa again.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. A misunderstanding,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘All I mean is . . . well, Nurmela’s first name isn’t August. I haven’t been able to think what it is, but certainly not . . .’ murmured Sundström, removing his head from the lap of the redhead, who didn’t bat an eyelash.

  The music was loud and atmospheric, the basses hummed and growled, and Larissa and Katriina danced and laughed at each other, and Joentaa thought that Nurmela threw a really remarkable party. A few last guests still here. The string quartet had left long ago. Grönholm was staggering towards them in high good humour, and Nurmela was lying back in an armchair to one side of the room, smiling as if transported to a better world.

  Half-time, thought Joentaa. In view of the picture before his eyes, that seemed a mild way of putting it.

  Larissa. And August.

  Or whatever they were called.

  Then Larissa came over to him, took his arm and led him on to the dance floor in Nurmela’s living room. With strength that allowed no contradiction. He wondered where on earth Nurmela got this weird music from, and Larissa was hanging around his neck, her lips to his ear. A faint suggestion of her voice, but he couldn’t make out the words. Too loud, he signalled, and she smiled and dismissed it with a wave.

  In the background, Sabrina Sundström was smoothing down her husband’s tousled hair, and Petri Grönholm raised his beer glass to his mouth. Larissa was laughing. At him. Of course. He returned the laugh and exaggerated his ridiculous style of dancing by adding some nervous twitches. On the sofa, Grönholm laughed and egged him on. Sundström had closed his eyes, and seemed to be enjoying Sabrina’s scalp massage. After that there was quieter music, piano and a vocalist. Larissa wound her arms around him and said the singer could hardly have survived that song.

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Joentaa.

  ‘Too sad.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Joentaa.

  She let herself drop, laughing as she dragged him down towards the floor. ‘Oops,’ said Joentaa, holding on to her tightly, and Petri Grönholm threw up on Nurmela’s golden-brown fitted carpet.

  The redhead screeched, jumped off the sofa, and landed in the arms of a drugs investigator.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Sab
rina Sundström, and Katriina walked across the room, upright and graceful, and bent over Grönholm, who was clutching a table leg and trying to get up.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Katriina.

  ‘The carpet’s the same colour as the beer you brought up,’ said Sundström.

  ‘Paavo, please,’ said Sabrina.

  ‘What about it? They match,’ said Sundström.

  Nurmela came up and put an arm round Katriina, and together they looked down at Grönholm, who was mumbling, ‘Sorry . . . didn’t notice . . . didn’t realise I was so . . . it was the last beer, one too many.’

  Katriina began mopping up, and Nurmela took the cloth from her hand. ‘Let me do that,’ he said.

  ‘Another glass of wine?’ asked Sundström, as he helped Grönholm to get to his feet.

  ‘Kimmo’s fault,’ said Grönholm. ‘Your silly dancing finished me off.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Joentaa, and Grönholm began giggling. Nurmela was scrubbing for all he was worth, and Katriina said, ‘Not so hard, darling, or the carpet will fade.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That patch of carpet. If you scrub too hard, the detergent won’t come out.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Salt,’ suggested Sundström.

  ‘For wine,’ said Sabrina. ‘That’s for wine.’

  Then they all sat round the table, and Nurmela offered a nightcap of an apricot liqueur from France.

  ‘I don’t know if that’s a great idea just now,’ said Katriina, but even Grönholm said, ‘Sounds good, sounds good.’ And there was no stopping Nurmela anyway. He brought out the bottle, and they all clinked glasses.

  ‘Hm. Very good,’ said Larissa, emptying hers at a draught, and Nurmela cleared his throat.

  The redhead and the drugs investigator were first to leave. Joentaa and Sundström supported the swaying Grönholm, who kept muttering to himself, ‘Oh, man . . . oh, wow, would never have thought . . . thought a thing like that . . . of all people . . .’ Then he giggled again.

  Nurmela and Katriina waved, the drugs investigator and the redhead waved, and then the other five were in a car driven by Sabrina Sundström. The Sundströms sat in front, with Joentaa, Larissa and Grönholm in the back.

  ‘Where first?’ asked Sabrina.

  ‘Better take Petri home first,’ said Joentaa.

  ‘Don’t bother about me . . . I . . . I can drive myself if . . . if I have to,’ Petri Grönholm assured them.

  It had really begun raining now.

  ‘Here comes autumn,’ said Sundström.

  ‘It’s supposed to be going to stay warm,’ said Sabrina Sundström.

  Grönholm thanked everyone for the nice evening and insisted on getting out of the car and going into his apartment by himself. It was in a comparatively tall building in the centre of Turku, right on the marketplace.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ called Sundström from the passenger seat, and Petri Grönholm grunted something that Joentaa couldn’t make out. Then they drove along narrower streets through the increasingly heavy rain.

  ‘Are you sure this is right?’ asked Sundström, when Joentaa asked Sabrina to turn off along the forest path.

  What’s for sure? thought Joentaa.

  The house in the dark.

  Larissa beside him.

  Her hand in his.

  ‘Well, goodnight then, you two,’ said Sundström.

  ‘Sleep well,’ said Sabrina.

  ‘And you,’ said Joentaa, and he followed the woman whose name he didn’t know and who was already halfway to the front door.

  5

  SHE CRIED IN her sleep, and couldn’t remember any reason when Kimmo Joentaa woke her and asked if everything was all right.

  ‘I have to get some sleep now,’ she said.

  ‘You must have been dreaming something.’

  ‘Kimmo, I can’t remember what. Let me sleep, okay?’

  ‘If you promise me not to cry.’

  ‘Sometimes you really get on my nerves.’

  ‘What’s he like, then – August?’

  She did not reply, but sat up a little way.

  He felt a pang in his stomach, in his chest.

  A burning behind his eyes.

  ‘Kimmo, go to sleep now.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Just go to sleep.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Goodnight, Kimmo,’ she said, turning over on her side.

  Some time passed. A sentence formed in his mind. He weighed it up on his tongue for a while before bringing it out.

  ‘I need something from you,’ he said at last.

  There was no answer, and he didn’t know whether she had heard him.

  ‘I need your name,’ he said.

  But perhaps his words were only sounds or colours in the dream that she was dreaming, the dream that she would have forgotten as soon as she woke up.

  6

  14 September now

  Dear diary,

  That’s what people say, don’t they? Yes. I think so.

  Write it down just as you saw it at the time. So that you can remember it. Later.

  The hospital is sparsely furnished. The walls are green, white and blue. I walk through wide spaces with a sense of being alone. Glances fall on me but do not linger. They glide away again. There are medics wearing coats the same colours as the walls. They are in a hurry, concentrating. Focused on something that is nothing to do with me. They don’t see me. They walk fast and disappear behind doors, and muted voices come through the walls, sometimes a groan, a scream, or a fit of weeping.

  I feel like a shadow. Even when I am sitting with her. In an empty room that I found without actually looking for it. The wall around us is green. There’s a nail in it with a wooden crucifix hanging from the nail. A plastic plant on a side table. The bed and the covers are white. Medical equipment. Tubes, electronic apparatus. The technology looks curiously old. Much used, wearing out. The recurrent, soft humming note dies away in the silence, the way the notes of the piano died away back then after she had struck the keys.

  The recurrent, soft humming note saying that she is alive.

  Sleeping, waking.

  It all happens so fast, that’s why you have to write it down. To keep a record. So that you can remember it some other time.

  All so fast, so fast, I must come back to it later.

  The device keeping her alive flows into her hand, into her arm, and is easily removed, as if it were only a plaster on a cut.

  I leave the room, go along the right-angled corridors.

  Other people come towards me. Their shadows fall on the walls. Some of them are sitting on benches, and look up when a voice announces an emergency.

  When I step out into the daylight, the autumn feels like summer, the sun is shining as it was back at that time, and for a few moments I feel that only seconds have passed since then.

  7

  WHEN JOENTAA WOKE in the morning, Larissa had already got up. He tasted the stale flavour of the sparkling wine on his tongue. The dizziness and headache weren’t too bad, but he knew that they had arrived in the hours while he was asleep, and would stay with him for a while.

  He got up and went through the living room into the kitchen. The house was quiet and empty. No splashing, rushing water in the shower. He felt an impulse to call her name, but then the word left his mouth like a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Larissa,’ he said in a neutral voice, one that she couldn’t have heard even if she had been there.

  But she wasn’t there. He went down to the cellar and opened the wooden door to the sauna, which lay silent in the cool of morning. The narrow window was open. They’d forgotten to close it. He stood in the small, square room and looked at the aftermath of the previous day. The stones were cold, the water to pour on them was a calm, smooth surface in the old grey bucket, and he thought he saw imprints on the bottom step of the wooden bench, imprints left by their bodies and perhaps their body fluids, souvenirs of the heated hour they
had spent here. Before they went off to Nurmela’s house and his unusual birthday party.

  What’s he like, then – August?

  And what would that heated, passionate hour in the sauna cost him?

  He went up again. Sat down at the kitchen table and thought that it was Saturday, and she didn’t really work on Saturdays. Maybe she’d gone for a walk. Or a swim. The telephone rang. He stopped and waited until the answerphone came on. He knew it wasn’t Larissa. Larissa never phoned. It was Sundström asking him to call back.

  He went into the living room and over to the window in the front wall. His eyes searched the water of the lake. It was another calm, smooth surface, like the water down in the sauna in the dented tin bucket that Sanna had bought, when she was still alive and everything was all right.

  He sat on the sofa, never taking his eyes off the lake, and thought that Sanna was dead and Larissa had disappeared. And that there was nothing else to think about.

  She’d come back. In the evening. Or tomorrow. In a few days’ or weeks’ time.

  He’d go and water Sanna’s grave.

  He went into the kitchen, poured water into a glass, and raised it to his mouth. Pasi Laaksonen from the house next door came past. With his fishing rod. He waved, and Joentaa raised an arm to return the wave. As usual. As he had on the day when Sanna died, and so many other days afterwards.

  When Pasi Laaksonen went fishing late in the morning at weekends, Joentaa was usually standing at the kitchen window. He watched Pasi disappear down in the hollow leading to the lake, and wondered whether it was really just chance, a recurrent coincidence, or something entirely different.

  Pasi with his fishing rod, walking by, waving. A few hours after Sanna’s death. Perhaps he stood at the kitchen window so that he could experience the scene again and again. Because watching Pasi walk down to the water always brought back the moment when Sanna had died – and the moment when she had still been alive.

  The longer he thought about it, the more conclusive that idea appeared to him, and he wondered why it occurred to him only now, years later.

  He was still thinking about it when the phone rang again. He moved away from the window and went to answer it, walking with swift, springy steps, although he knew it wouldn’t be Larissa.