As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) (14 page)

White, tufted, puffy, gauzy, like mountains of whipped cream. Far off and farther still, rolling over and under and past each other. Slowly, languidly moving clouds.

“Day cools towards evening time . . .”
The words of a Swedish poem ran through her mind.

This day hadn’t cooled off yet, but the worst of the heat had passed. The air was like nectar. As if stroking the contours of her body with a great feather, it caressed her toes, thighs, and arms. Out on the dock, they could lie completely naked, looking at the sky and the clouds. Waiting. Yearning. Longing for the other while still within arm’s reach. Smiling to herself, feeling that look on her skin.

“Take my slender, longing shoulders in your hands . . .”

Warmth from the air and from within. Warmth that dispelled idle thoughts. Hastening leisure, languid haste. The
endless, endless transience of summer. The moment when everything was still good and being together was better than being alone. The thought that this feeling could last and last.
We could just stay here. I could be with this person. I could take that hand dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. And be quiet. Be quiet and hear our breath seek the same unforced, tranquil rhythm that could also get fast and urgent together, in sync.

When summer had passed and a cold undertone appeared in the wind as it scattered the first yellow leaves from the birch trees, those thoughts felt like a dream. Like a dream someone else had dreamed.

Lumikki sighed and moved her gaze from the sky toward the police station. The large windows of the bus depot offered her an unobstructed view. This was her third hour of waiting for something to happen.

And it felt pointless.

In the bone-chilling cold, she had followed Elisa’s dad, Terho Väisänen, from their home in Pyynikki to the highway. Then Väisänen had turned and gone to work, and Lumikki had taken up her watch in the bus depot. She wasn’t about to go wait at the police station itself. The passport processing lines were famously slow, but a girl sitting in the waiting room for hours on end would have had to arouse suspicion at some point.

No one was glowering at her here though. She was well-groomed enough that she didn’t look homeless, and she was inconspicuous enough that no one would even remember her being here.

Still, spending her day like this felt ludicrous. The most likely scenario was that Väisänen would stay at work until four or later and then walk home along the same route he had come. Quite the daredevil stakeout.

Lumikki was on her fourth paper cup of black coffee. She had to stay awake somehow.

Money. Men chasing Elisa. The young woman in the photographs. Polar Bear.

How did everything connect?

Väisänen was the key. She was sure of that much. Elisa was sure too, even though she didn’t want to believe anything bad about her dad. But she had to. After seeing the pictures, her face went somehow gray. Something inside her collapsed. In that moment, what remained of the innocence of her youth disappeared, and a part of her identity shattered.

Lumikki recognized the feeling. She remembered looking at herself in the mirror sometime in the fall of first grade, a little before Christmas, and seeing a frightened, shocked little girl who never could have believed that something like that could happen to her. That anything like that even existed.
I am no longer me.
That was what she thought. And it was true. She had become something else, a different kind of girl.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who learned to fear.

Weary from watching the police station, Lumikki rested her eyes by looking around the bus depot for a while. Renovated about a year earlier, it was a beautiful functionalist-style building. The morning light rippled in through large windows.
If you only looked at the light and not at the dazzling brightness outside, you could imagine it was summer.

Lumikki would have liked to lean back in her waiting hall chair, close her eyes, and dream once more of warmth and abandon. To accept the joy and sorrow of those summer memories. What the hell was she doing here?

Viivo Tamm kept one eye on the police station as he filled in his tabloid sudoku. He was doubting Boris Sokolov’s mental health. Lying in ambush all day for an on-duty police officer didn’t feel all that smart. But Sokolov was sure that something funny was going on. He was puzzled by Väisänen’s lack of response to Natalia’s e-mail. Apparently, Natalia had giggled once about how Väisänen usually replied to her almost before she had clicked “send.”

Sokolov had this hunch something was going to happen today. And when Sokolov had a hunch, there was no point arguing.

Viivo had asked Sokolov why he couldn’t just go talk to Väisänen. To make him understand it wasn’t a good idea to keep jerking them around. Viivo was good at keeping people in line. Keeping them quiet. Some people never said anything ever again after he paid them a visit.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option this time. None of them could be seen with the cop if they wanted to continue their collaboration. So he was just supposed to watch.

Sokolov was convinced that Väisänen was trying to pull a fast one, and he wanted to know whether he had accomplices.

Did that square need a nine or a seven? Should have picked a three-star sudoku instead of a five. Keep it simple. He wasn’t trying to become a sudoku master or anything, just kill some time. Chewing on the end of his pencil, Viivo glanced up at the police station.

This was going to waste his entire day.

Lumikki started digging out her cell phone to call Elisa and take back her promise. She had already wasted enough of her life on this futile stakeout.

Over in the police station, Terho Väisänen thought about the e-mail he’d received late the night before. Of course, he hadn’t been able to contact Polar Bear directly, but he did manage to get in touch with one of his “assistants,” who also went by a code name. The assistant had e-mailed to say that Terho should visit the Tampere Convention Center to retrieve a cell phone hidden in the tank of the third toilet stall in the men’s restroom, and use it to call the first number in the contact list. Then he would receive further instructions. The cell phone would be there today only.

Was he biting off more than he could chew?

Maybe he should just keep working with Boris Sokolov and the Estonians. They were straightforward, midlevel criminals. Sokolov was a rung above the Estonians, but still just an underling. Polar Bear was something else entirely. There were only rumors about him, nothing concrete. Terho didn’t know anyone who had actually seen the man.

But if he wanted his money, he had to do something. And he really wanted it. He had to have it. He had been counting on it, and now a couple of gaming debts were threatening to come due.

Pulling on his coat, Terho silenced his grumbling stomach and decided to spend his lunch hour in the convention center restroom.

A man walked out of the police station.

Viivo Tamm perked up.

Lumikki perked up.

Tamm was slightly faster, which was lucky for Lumikki because it gave her just enough time to realize that the man who suddenly dropped his sudoku looked familiar. When the man sprang into action, Lumikki recognized him from the length of his stride, his slightly hunched posture, and the way he swung his arms.

One of her pursuers.

The man rushed out the door. In the blink of an eye, Lumikki understood that it was no accident that he was here and now charging out at the same time she was. A simple fact connected her and this man.

The same target.

Damn it. This was going to make everything more difficult. She would have to stay out of sight of two men instead of just one.

Lumikki stood in the lobby of the convention center, momentarily indecisive.

So far, everything had gone well. Elisa’s dad had been so focused on reaching his destination and his pursuer so focused on tailing him that neither had paid any attention to Lumikki. She had hung back as far as she could, maintaining a visual connection with both men. Now you see me, now you don’t. She knew this game.

After crossing the railroad bridge, they each passed the university and turned north toward the convention center. Inside, Lumikki ran into a problem.

Terho Väisänen walked resolutely along the main concourse, following Kimmo Kaivanto’s
Blue Line
, a stripe of special tiles running down the middle of the floor that
occasionally rose toward the ceiling in blocky cobalt statues. Then Väisänen turned into the men’s restroom. His pursuer paused for a few seconds outside, glancing around and then entering as well.

Lumikki considered her options. She could wait in the lobby, hidden from view. However, something decisive might happen in the restroom. Would
probably
happen in the restroom. No way had Elisa’s dad come all this way just to get a little variety in the color of tile he stared at while he peed. He had some other reason for being here, and Lumikki had to find out what that was. She couldn’t go inside as a girl because she would attract too much unwanted attention. So she would have to go in as a boy.

Lumikki looked at herself in the mirrors next to the coat check. She was wearing dark clothing and a gray knit hat. All appropriately gender neutral. A thick winter coat concealed the shape of her body. Quickly tucking her hair under her hat, she changed her posture, shifting her center of gravity slightly. She altered the expression of her face.

The transformation was striking. In the mirror, a teenage boy with his hat pulled down low glared back at her.

The gait was the most important thing. She had to relax, opening her hips and slouching slightly. Then she walked up to the men’s room door, grabbed the handle, and yanked it open confidently.

Terho Väisänen’s fingers slipped when he tried to lift the lid of the toilet tank. It was surprisingly heavy and tight fitting.
He tried to get his fingernails into the tiny gap, but it didn’t help. He needed something longer. Terho rummaged in his pockets. His reflector armband wasn’t going to be any help, and neither was his driver’s license. Fortunately, in the bottom of one coat pocket, he found the key to an old bike lock, which he was able to wedge under the lid. Then he started wrenching the tank open as quietly as possible. Suddenly, he heard someone enter the stall on his left.

Just his luck. Couldn’t he ever catch a break?

The key was bending dangerously, but thank goodness, the lid was also shifting. It banged nastily against the edge of the tank, sounding like an explosion in the quiet restroom.

The door opened again. Great, another set of ears. The newcomer chose the stall on his right. Terho felt surrounded. He had to calm down, breathe deeply, try not to be paranoid. The convention center was a public place with free toilets. Of course there would be other people here. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that three men wanted to empty their bowels at the same time. Well, two, since he was otherwise occupied.

Terho removed his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Shoving his hand into the water tank, he groped around. At first, his fingers only felt water, and he was revolted, despite knowing that tank liquid was perfectly clean. Was he in the right stall? What if they had already taken the phone back? Or what if he had been tricked?

Then his hand hit something.

Bingo.

Terho pulled out a black case, which must have been waterproof. Opening it carefully, he found a cell phone wrapped in plastic inside. Shoving the phone in one coat pocket and the case in another, he replaced the toilet tank lid. His heart was pounding in his ears like an insane drummer. He realized his hands were shaking. Fear made his knees weak, even though there shouldn’t have been anything to be afraid of.

Coat on, door open, quickly to the sinks. Vigorously rubbing soap into his hands, Terho washed and rinsed thoroughly, and then repeated the process. He fought back his desire to go wipe his fingerprints off the water tank. That would have been excessive.

Not a peep came from the other toilet stalls.
Maybe a little constipation going around,
Terho thought, drying his hands carefully and then hurrying out of the room.