As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) (5 page)

As she approached Tammela, Lumikki felt a strange surge of emotion. Her apartment wasn’t really home, no question there, but maybe she’d started to warm up to the neighborhood? The thought amused her. Black sausage and milk at Tammela Square. The cheers of soccer fans from the Tammela Stadium. Basic stuff all the locals did. Nostalgia for the few wooden buildings left from old Tammela and admiration for the red brick buildings of the former Aaltonen Shoe Factory. That didn’t sound at all like Lumikki Andersson, who avoided all that mushy stuff. Still, for some reason, she felt a little more relaxed and a little warmer here than in other parts of town. Hometown pride wasn’t in her vocabulary, but there were probably worse things in the world than liking where you lived. Maybe this neighborhood could become her home. Maybe she could start thinking of these streets as her own. Maybe that had already started to happen even though, consciously, Lumikki didn’t want to get too attached to any one place.

The shouts and laughter and cries of children echoed from the yard of the Tammela School. Lumikki watched as the girls and boys ran and jumped and swung and climbed, their breath steaming and their cheeks red from the cold. In their thick winter clothing, they were like pudgy, colorful snowmen. Her gaze scanned the edges of the schoolyard for the lonely children abandoned by their peers. She focused her ears to pick out the cries of fear from the shouts of joy. Lumikki knew that, for some, this schoolyard glittering in the winter sun was a nightmare kingdom where the days were long and black as night.

A little girl walked around the lemon-colored art nouveau school building by herself. She walked slowly, head held down. Lumikki watched the girl for a moment. Did she turn at each corner to glance behind her? Did she flinch every now and then? Was that anguish in her downcast eyes? No. When Lumikki could finally make out the girl’s face, she found her smiling to herself. The girl’s lips were moving. She was probably creating a story in her mind that made her eyes smile along.

She isn’t like I was then,
Lumikki thought. Thank goodness.

Then she realized that something was amiss. Something was wrong. Someone was too close.

She realized too late.

Suddenly, strong hands grabbed her and dragged her into the shadows of a nearby doorway, shoving her violently against the stone wall. Lumikki’s cheek pressed hard against the frigid rock. The surprise attack left Lumikki’s arms limp as her assailant pulled them painfully behind her back. Lumikki barely managed to contain a yelp.

She recognized her attacker from his smell before he said a single word.

Tuukka.

“You’re not the only one who knows how to tail someone.”

Tuukka’s words came with an unpleasant warmth on her cheek. His breath stank of the coffee he had just drunk and a recently smoked cigarette. Lumikki was furious with herself. How could she have made such a rookie mistake? How could she have left the coffee shop without watching her back?

Never overestimate your own cleverness. Never think you are completely safe. She should know better by now. Her skills had grown rusty in Tampere since she didn’t need them every day anymore.

“I spotted you in the coffee shop. Well, not you, just this backpack of yours. And then I realized that I almost ran into you back by the darkroom. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it,” Tuukka said, squeezing Lumikki’s arm.

Lumikki quickly evaluated the situation.

If she moved fast enough, she might be able to wrench free of Tuukka’s grasp. That wasn’t guaranteed, though. And Tuukka was fast. He would just catch her again. Better not to struggle and waste her strength for no reason. She might as well hear what he had to say.

“What did you see? What do you know?” Tuukka asked.

“I saw the darkroom earlier. And I heard what you were saying in the café. That’s all,” Lumikki replied calmly.

Provoking him now wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

“Damn it,” Tuukka said. “Nobody can know about this.”

Lumikki did not reply. The rough, icy stone of the wall chafed her cheek. She tried to move as little as possible.

“You’re going to keep your mouth shut. You aren’t going to tell anyone. You don’t know anything. No one would even believe you.”

Tuukka tried to sound menacing, but there was uncertainty in his voice. Lumikki still didn’t say a word.

“Do you hear me?”

Tuukka’s voice was louder and even more uncertain. He was afraid. He was much more afraid than Lumikki was.

“I hear you,” Lumikki said.

Tuukka thought for a second.

“Okay. How much do you want?” he asked.

Now his voice was almost pleading. He was clearly worried about what all this could do to his reputation.

“I don’t want any of it,” Lumikki replied. “But now you’re going to let me go.”

It wasn’t a request or a command, simply a statement. A fact. Never give people options, just give them simple directives. Don’t beg or demand, just tell them how things are. Lumikki’s certainty made Tuukka release his grip, and she turned, slowly massaging her wrists.

“Now, this is what we’re going to do,” she said, looking the boy firmly in the eye. “I have zero desire to get mixed up in this. I didn’t see anything, and I didn’t hear anything. I’m not going to go looking to rat on anyone, but if someone asks me directly, I’m also not going to lie. I think you’re going to get into trouble over this, and I have no intention of saving you.”

Tuukka looked at her hesitantly. His ears were red from the cold. He wasn’t wearing a hat. Vanity seemed to trump practicality. He was clearly considering Lumikki’s words, weighing the risks and his options.

“Okay. It’s a deal,” he said finally, extending his hand.

Lumikki didn’t take it. Tuukka ran it through his hair and laughed.

“You’re a surprisingly tough chick. Maybe I underestimated you.”

Lots of people do,
Lumikki thought.

Trying to regain the upper hand, Tuukka presumptuously brushed Lumikki’s hair out of her face.

“You know what? You could actually be pretty good-looking if you changed this horrible hairdo, ditched those Greenpeace clothes, and learned to put on makeup,” he said, curling one corner of his mouth.

Lumikki smiled.

“And do you know what?” she replied. “You could actually be a pretty smart, nice guy if you completely changed your horrible personality.”

She didn’t hang around to hear what Tuukka might say to that, just walked away, not looking back. She knew he wouldn’t follow her.

Back at her apartment, Lumikki looked in the mirror at her red, tingling cheek. The mark was going to be visible for at least a day. It was small, though, and she had experienced much worse. Drinking some cold water straight from the tap, she decided not to go to school the next day. She could afford to stay home this one time. Then everything would be normal again. She would go to school. She would forget about the money. She wouldn’t get involved in any way.

It was 3:45 a.m.

Boris Sokolov was staring at his cell phone like it was an oversized cockroach, fantasizing about smashing it against the wall. The call had woken him in the middle of a dream. He had been lied to. He had been threatened. Now, he could tolerate being woken up. The lying disgusted him. But what Boris Sokolov truly hated was being threatened. Especially by a man who shouldn’t have been in any position to make threats.

Boris Sokolov switched out his cell phone’s SIM card and dialed a number.

After three rings, the Estonian answered. Boris could tell the call had woken him too. The Estonian’s voice sounded viscous and distant, even though he only lived a few miles away.

“Well?”

Boris began speaking to the Estonian in Russian.

“He called. He says he never got the money.”

“He’s crazy,” the Estonian said. “We took it right to his house.”

Boris got out of bed and walked to the bedroom window. The parquet floor felt cold. Maybe he should have gotten carpet put in. Who cared if it got dirty? He could just have it replaced every couple of years. The moonlight was unpleasantly bright. Two sets of rabbit tracks crossed in the yard. The Estonian had helped him cover up another kind of tracks, tramping a natural-looking path to the other side of the backyard. Carefully removing any snow that wasn’t perfectly white.

“He said he waited up all night. Tonight.”

“What the hell? We told him it was coming at the usual time but a different place.”

The Estonian was starting to really wake up now.

Boris grunted. “He said something about a misunderstanding. That yesterday was leap day and the last day of the month.”

He tapped his fingers on the windowsill. Had the rabbits been gnawing at the apple tree? He would have to rig up some sort of fencing around it. Or keep watch some night and score a couple of rabbit roasts for the freezer. His own freezer this time.

“Yeah, yeah, but the twenty-eighth doesn’t turn into the twenty-ninth because of leap year. And why the hell was he waiting up tonight when we already delivered the money yesterday?”

“That’s just it. He says we didn’t. That he hasn’t seen anything. Nada.”

The Estonian was silent for a moment. Boris waited to see whether his underling would come to the same conclusion he had.

“He’s bullshitting us. He did get the money. He just realized what happened to it, and now he’s trying to play hardball.”

Yep, same conclusion.

“The little shit tried to threaten me. He said he’d expose everything.”

Boris felt himself getting angry again just saying the words. He squeezed the cell phone, imagining the crunch of a cockroach exoskeleton in his fist.

“But I’ll burn in hell before I see that!”

The Estonian was furious too. Good. They were firmly on the same side. Two backsliders within the past thirty-eight hours was enough. No, it was too much. Two too many. A working machine could only lose so many parts at a time without repairs.

“We’re going to make sure he doesn’t talk.”

Boris said the words with relish. No one threatened him without repercussions. No one bullshitted him and got away with it.

He had thought a plastic bag full of bloody cash would have been sufficient warning.

Apparently not.

But he knew how to play hardball too. The difference was he would win.

Terho Väisänen knew there was no way he was going to fall back asleep. He lay on one side of the queen-sized bed, even though he could have stretched out across the whole mattress if he’d wanted to. He felt as if someone were whittling the bed frame out from under him and that, at any moment, he might collapse onto the floor, which would also give way. Something was crumbling, something he had thought would last.

Terho Väisänen couldn’t say he was proud of himself. There were mornings when he had a hard time looking himself in the eye, but usually the feeling went away by the time he got to work and remembered how much good he had done over the past ten years. How many cases had been solved solely thanks to him? That kind of success rate had its price, but so be it.

Pulling the covers up around his neck, he sniffed the fresh scent of the duvet cover. He wished he could hug someone, hold someone warm tight in his arms.

Terho tried to call one more time. The phone rang and rang, but no one answered. Terho felt a vague fear taking root somewhere around his solar plexus. He had a feeling that, after tonight, everything would be different.