TH02 - The Priest of Evil (17 page)

‘A woman. Not a very young one either, see that long flowing skirt.’

‘It’s blue; the monitor decided to show colour for a change. And that beret is a deep burgundy.’

‘It’s almost pulled down over her eyes.’

‘But what on earth would make someone like that shove people in front of a train?’

‘
If
he was pushed, that is… Still, this woman had better have a pretty good explanation.’

It was as though something inside him came to a halt; he grasped at the thought, the way one grasps at fragments of a dream that reappear throughout the day, and suddenly he was absolutely certain.

‘I’ve seen that woman…’

‘Really? Who is it?’

‘I don’t know. It was yesterday when I arrived at the underground station. That woman was standing in a crowd of people on the upper level. She seemed very agitated and started shouting something at me.’

‘Something to do with the case?’

‘No, she’s one of those religious folk, said something like, I’ll pray for mercy yet.’

For a moment they stood looking one another in the eye. It had always puzzled Harjunpää, the way her eyes were each a different colour. Then
they began to smile, together, each knowing what was going through the other’s mind: like a silent shout of yippee, they both felt the same sense of joy and satisfaction whenever an unfathomable case edged ever so slightly forward.

‘Shall we go today?’

‘Hang on.’ Harjunpää scratched his chin; indistinct, blurred thoughts suddenly spinning through his mind. ‘We’ve got to plan this properly… We haven’t got any hard evidence against her. She might say she witnessed the incident and was so shocked by it that she was compelled to go back to the scene again and again…’

‘You’re right.’

‘In any case – we’re not even sure if there’s a crime to suspect her of. We’re still only investigating two miscellaneous fatalities. We can’t apprehend her…’

‘Damn it.’

‘I know. And there’s no way Mäki will turn them into murder investigations on such insufficient evidence.’

‘Damn it.’

‘Armor cumbator?’
he wondered all of a sudden. Perhaps he even said it out loud, for something was disturbing him. To be more precise, something was disturbing his thoughts - and they were good thoughts. He did not feel threatened – this was a passing disturbance. Could one of the people going down into the underground be a priest? Priests were the envoys of the infidel and their presence always caused him some sort of disturbance; this he had experienced many times before. He scrutinised the people around him, those going down and those coming back up the other side of the escalator, but no; none of them gave off the same negative aura as a priest.

He quickly shook his head and this seemed to help: he recovered the thought that had so warmed his heart. Only an hour ago he had sacrificed the third pigeon required for the adoption and its blood had been potent, a beautiful red. In accordance with the law of Maammo the boy was now
his son, and with his own son he could do as he saw fit. He wanted nothing more beautiful than to sacrifice his son, and through this to surrender his own spirit, his flesh and blood, to Maammo for the sake of the New Big Bang. But he did not yet call the boy to his side, for not everything had become clear to him.

He was not sure where the event was to take place. Should it be in a church midway through a Sunday service? On the one hand this would have been highly impressive, but it did have one weakness: far too few people attended Sunday services. This time he wanted to create a truly massive swirl. Perhaps a department store would be a better choice, on a Friday or a Saturday during the busiest shopping hours. Indeed, this would be particularly apt, as those covetous people would meet their end surrounded by the very Mammon of their fornication. The third option was naturally an ice-hockey stadium: they were almost hollow and the force of the blast might cause the building to come crashing down upon those who survived, thus creating an even greater swirl.

‘Take it! The Truth shall come!’ he shouted to a man who dared walk close enough to him, but to no avail. That day not a single person seemed interested in the Coming of the Truth, and this if anything proved how depraved humanity had become and how profoundly it deserved what was coming. ‘Take it! The Truth shall come!’

Then he felt it: the disturbance was behind him, perhaps a hundred metres away or as close as the newsagents. He raised his free hand, pressed his first finger and thumb together forming a telescope, then raised his hand up above his shoulder so that the person behind him knew he had been seen. He then moved his hand in front of his face and slowly began to turn around.

Framed in his fingers was the plump girl. What could this mean? He had not sent her any message, let alone an invitation. And why was she not with his son? Her expression was worried, sad perhaps. She had looked the same when he had first saved her; it had either been the 1
^st
of May or the city festival – a celebration of debauchery nonetheless – and the girl had been sitting on a bench at the railway station, drunkenly sobbing out of sheer loneliness. He had approached her and saved her, made her one of Maammo’s children: he had touched her forehead, sending her his powers, and she had stopped crying
and begun to sober up in front of his very eyes. Since then her soul had belonged to him, and through him to Maammo herself.

‘Hi there,’ said the girl joylessly, standing out of either shyness or respect about ten metres away from him. This was indeed the way to behave in the presence of the earth spirit. With his fingers he made the first of Maammo’s holy signs and she understood that this meant she should come to him. She began to waddle closer. She was carrying a rucksack, or at least something with straps resembling those of a rucksack, and she clung to the straps with both hands as though it contained something very special.

‘Good evening, my girl.’

‘Hi. Sorry for turning up like this. I knew you’d be in the middle of your work.’

‘Why, that is all right, my child – or should I say young lady? No work could me more important to me than that which I can do to help you.’

‘Thanks. Um, well…’

‘Shall we move out of the way? Over by the wall, perhaps?’

‘Yes.’

He walked ahead and the girl tottered after him. He already knew that she was going to ask him something, something which to her tiny mind was very important. He was no longer upset that she had caused him a momentary disturbance, and he suddenly felt most merciful. There was no reason he could not help a poor creature like this. They stopped by the wall.

‘Well, you see…’ she stammered, as she began slipping the rucksack from her back. It was pink, a pig, it even had eyes and a snout. Two little piggies back to back. ‘It’s Matti…’

‘The boy who went rowing?’

‘Yes, that’s him.’

‘So his name is Matti…’

‘Yes. And, you see, I… To me he’s… His dad wants him to move in with him, and then he’ll have to leave Kulosaari.’

‘And you like him?’

‘Yes! Couldn’t you do something about it?’

‘And where exactly will he and his father be moving to?’

‘All the way to Tampere! Then I’ll never see him again!’

‘
Mortuus percecae!
’ he exclaimed. That would not do at all. This would ruin his sacrifice. It would deny him the opportunity to serve Maammo in the most divine way, and could even jeopardise the Coming of the Truth! Restlessly he shifted the position of his legs and looked at the girl, who clearly thought that he too was upset at the prospect of her losing Matti. It was for the best that she thought this.

‘And when is this move to take place?’ he asked, and this time he managed to control his voice and his state of anxiety. This may have been a test sent by Maammo to see whether he could overcome great difficulties in order to fight for the Coming of the Truth.

‘I’m not sure, but he said it might be very soon. Maybe in a week or two.’

‘Sabre dantum!’

‘I don’t understand…’

‘So you would like me to do something to prevent this?’

‘Right!’ she exclaimed and frantically began opening her rucksack. ‘I thought you might be able to change his dad’s mind so that he won’t want to move to Turku… I mean, Tampere… or so that he won’t take Matti with him.’

‘I see. You would like that too…’

The girl finally opened her rucksack, she had been fiddling anxiously with the knot, and removed a book with three large M’s on the spine. After the final M, in almost microscopic lettering, stood ‘oisio’, forming the word M
OISIO
. She opened up the book to reveal its inner jacket flap.

‘There’s a picture of his dad. I thought it might be easier to send him thoughts if you know what he looks like…’

‘You are a wise girl. And where does his daddy live?’

‘Somewhere in Kallio, I think.’

‘Does he work?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘At the postal sorting office. It’s somewhere in Pasila.’

‘Well well, Pasila indeed. And how does he travel there?’

‘He’s not there at the moment. He’s got a year’s leave and he’s living on some scholarship. But he has got an office in Kontula and he goes there on the underground.’

‘Morning and evening?’

‘Yes, and he always travels during rush hour, so it feels like he’s really going to work.’

‘So he travels between Hakaniemi and Kontula?’

‘Right.’

‘Verily I will help you,’ he said ceremoniously and made all three holy signs before the girl’s face. This clearly did her a lot of good, for an expression of contentment appeared on her lips.

‘Thanks a lot. Really.’

‘It is nothing. It shall be my pleasure.’

‘You’re the best… Could you…?’

‘You would like something more?’

‘Erm… could you give me the vibes again?’

‘For you, certainly. Go and lean your back against the wall.’

He approached the wall behind the girl, placed the fingers of both hands upon her temples and began to concentrate: ‘
Ea lesum cum sabateum
…’

He wanted to give the plump girl good vibes, very good vibes indeed, for she had earned them. Perhaps she had unwittingly rescued the New Big Bang. He raised his head and stared with all his power right into her eyes, watching her like a hawk, then quickly moved his fingers from her temples to her forehead – and this time she fell down straight away.

Her eyeballs almost rolled all the way back, with only the slightest strips of her irises still showing; then her eyelids closed and began twitching as though she were dreaming intensely. The whole length of her body pressed against the wall and slowly she sank first to her knees, then to a sitting position. She came to just as her bottom touched the floor. She shook her head in bewilderment, her eyes scanning around her, as if she did not quite know where she was – for a moment she probably didn’t.

‘Wow,’ she panted, thrilled, and started pulling herself to her feet.

‘What did you see?’

‘I was on the roof of a really tall building, right on the edge. And I was really thin, just like a ballerina. I was wearing a leotard and one of those bell skirts. I was scared, but then I jumped and… I could fly! I glided very
slowly through the air, hopped off the roof of the next building, and then I turned into a boy…’

‘My girl, that was a beautiful vision. You were shown good things as a sign that Maammo loves you and will take good care of you.’

‘Thanks a million. Can I…’

‘No. Go now. Go!
Ea lesum!
’

He did not look to see whether she left or not, for surely she would leave if he so commanded it. He turned and walked in the opposite direction, and for a brief moment he sensed a slight uncertainty, a doubt in his mind, but then he remembered the face of the man on the inside flap of the book; he remembered every detail of his face, even the overgrown hair around his neck. That this man should dare try to steal his son!

He was filled once again with a fighting spirit, that same unshakeable will, the strength with which he doggedly carried out his work from day to day, and he was no longer in any doubt as to who next would be sacrificed to Maammo through the Orange Apostle.

If anyone were to walk along the thin dirt track around the edge of Kulosaari Park in the direction of Naurissalmi, before long, if they looked carefully, they might just make out a small clump of rushes. It wasn’t particularly big, barely even a hundred square metres, but it was high and thick: the rushes grew in a dense patch and were so tall that in parts the tips of theirs flowers stood several metres high. And those with a keen eye might even notice that a narrow strip of land ran through them; not really a path as such, but a vague parting in the undergrowth, as if a very thin person had wandered through there every now and then.

The water was cloudy, the bottom was covered in mud, though the tops of a few rocks could be seen jutting out through the surface. And if someone were to walk along this narrow strip, they would soon see that the rocks formed a kind of bridge. Less than a metre apart, it was possible to walk along them to a place hidden within the rushes. At the end of the
path was something of a surprise: a flat stone, polished smooth by centuries of tides, making it comfortable to sit on.

Matti sat shivering on the rock.

He sat crouched with his arms wrapped around his shins, his cheek resting against his knee, and he couldn’t understand what it was he’d been thinking – or rather, he couldn’t comprehend that he hadn’t been thinking anything at all. He’d been in some kind of trance, and had taken off his trousers, shoes and socks and waded from the rock into the sea. Only when his underpants and the bottom of his shirt were wet had he snapped out of it; only then had he taken fright and retreated back to the rock, leaving the water barely rippling.

Had he done it because he wanted so much to get away from everything? Away, loose, free, trying to escape, though he had nowhere to go. He didn’t dare think of home, he was sure a police car would be waiting for him in the driveway. And if there was no police car, then his things would be scattered around the garden awaiting his return. The headmaster had said he was going to ring his mum, and he was certain she would do the same as she had done to Sanna on countless occasions: throw all her things into the front garden, as if to say ‘take your stuff and leave’. Only after a drawn-out ritual humiliation and a lot of pleading would she allow her to stay - ‘this time’.

On top of that, he couldn’t quite understand what had happened during the lunch break at school. Leena had been away all day, skiving probably, and Matti had wanted to ask her why she’d suddenly gone so quiet. Had he offended her in some way? The other boys had noticed that she wasn’t at school and Janne, Rike and Stenu had cornered him in the playground. As soon as Janne had asked: ‘Where’s your girlfriend today, Matti Shithead?’ Matti had punched him. He’d been clenching the pebble the priest had given him, and had done what the priest had instructed him to do, thinking: ‘This moment here and now is crap, but at the same time I’m already back home.’ Then he’d just lashed out, punching him once, right in the face. He hadn’t even had enough time to see where he’d hit him, but Janne fell back, landing on his arse, and the area around his left eye had started swelling so much you could see it from a distance.

They had all fallen silent. Janne had yelled a little, and the others had helped him away. Rike had threatened to go to the headmaster, and apparently he had done so. Matti was duly summoned to the headmaster’s office during the next lesson. The head had said he was shocked, that he was going to call Matti’s mother, and that he was going to do all he could to put an end to bullying and violence in his school. He had even threatened Matti with the police and social services and goodness knows what else. At this very moment he was hiding amongst the rushes, sitting on a rock shivering with his arms wrapped around his legs. He hadn’t thought to take off his wet underpants; he felt like a little boy who had wet himself.

It was beginning to get dark, though as spring went on the darkness seemed somehow much weaker. An old-fashioned motor boat could be heard chugging in the distance:
pfut-pfut-pfut
. The air smelled of fish. He stood up, numbness pinching his legs, removed his jeans which had stuck uncomfortably to his backside, and listened. There was not a sound from the dirt track, nobody was moving around. He took a long stride and stepped on to the first of the rocks leading back to the shore, carefully pulling aside the rushes so that he could see the next rock. Somewhere deep within him grew the feeling that there wasn’t anything or anybody in the world that could help him other than Leena’s priest. If only for a short while the priest had made Matti feel better, and at least for the moment, the perpetual bullying seemed to have stopped.

They came at almost exactly the same time, or perhaps Kikka beat him by a second or two; it was almost as if she gave Mikko permission to come. He didn’t roll off her straight away, as Kikka enjoyed the feeling of him inside her afterwards, the way he slowly drifted away before finally slipping out in his own good time. He too enjoyed the sensation of Kikka contracting around him, slower and slower. There they lay, breathing as one, their sweat mingling, and for a brief moment they themselves were one. It felt good.

Mikko breathed in the soft perfume on Kikka’s neck and with his fingers gently brushed her tangled hair behind her ears. Kikka’s hand was between his shoulder blades and she delicately caressed the most sensitive part of his back. Time passed, and it was a good kind of time: not a single negative thought went through Mikko’s mind; all that existed was the moment and the warmth of Kikka’s bare skin. But soon it too had passed. He released his grip, slowly rolled on to his back and lay beside her. Kikka nestled her head between his shoulder and his neck and with her other hand pulled the sheets up around them. They were motionless once again; all they could feel was the gradually calming beat of their hearts.

‘You’re worried about something,’ she said quietly, in a way that meant she didn’t expect him to explain.

‘A bit.’

‘Because Matti hasn’t called you?’

‘Partly.’

‘It doesn’t mean something’s happened to him. Kids that age can sit for hours moping about anything, especially if he really did get into trouble at school like Cecilia said.’

‘It’s just so unlike him… And what really annoys me is that I went there and left that telephone with her.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she could very well ‘forget’ to give it to him, or break it.’

‘A grown woman?’

‘Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous. All kinds of things started happening while we were going through the divorce. I used to have a green Loden hat that I wore while writing. It was a bit like a talisman to me. Then it mysteriously disappeared.’

‘That’s pretty low.’

‘I know. And once while she was watering the flowers she managed to spill half the watering can over my typewriter, the electric Olympia, even though the nearest vase was at least a metre away.’

They lay there in silence for a moment yet, not moving, and as their passion subsided they could make out the various sounds within the building: somewhere downstairs a door slammed angrily, someone roared
back and forth across the courtyard on a sputtering moped, while the couple next door were in the early stages of yet another argument, just beginning to raise their voices as if they were looking for a suitable reason to have a row. All this made Mikko feel uneasy and he tossed and turned, but no matter what position he found, nothing felt comfortable.

‘What’s wrong now?’

‘Everything. I don’t know what I’m going to do about the house; then there’s this office – for some reason I just can’t bring myself to like it. And I guess I feel a bit melancholic about Sanna moving out today.’

‘You’ll soon get used to Matti being there instead. But I’ll still give you the same advice: go and talk to your parents about it.’

‘You don’t know them.’

‘But you’re their son. And this is only a temporary problem.’

‘Even so…’

‘For crying out loud, you’re only asking for a loan. Just draw up all the proper paperwork.’

‘They can certainly well afford it. To my knowledge Father gets three times as much pension as I do wages.’

‘And with five leased properties – surely one of them must be empty. They could take you on as a tenant.’

‘The two-bedroom in Punavuori might be vacant, at least they mentioned that they were going to renovate it. There would be just enough space for Matti and me, and I could use the room facing the courtyard as an office.’

‘Go and talk to them.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Mikko, wriggling on to his side, with his back to Kikka. His eyes were blank and his face was like a grey stone, his mouth an iron fissure running through it.

Harjunpää had walked from Pasila to the Police Station so quickly that a thin trail of sweat was slowly running down the end of his nose. For a reason he couldn’t put his finger on, he was eager to get stuck into the
underground case, with an enthusiasm much like when he had first joined the Crime Squad. Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that he couldn’t remember being in a situation quite as frustrating as this before: two fatalities, possibly linked, but still they couldn’t ascertain whether either of them was in fact a crime. On the train that morning it had also occurred to him that they should get hold of the CCTV tapes from the upper level of Hakaniemi station and examine the point at which he had walked in, to check whether the woman who kept returning to the platform was the same woman who had preached to him.

Upon arrival he headed straight for the bathroom. He threw his shoulder bag on the floor, ran the water until it was cold and began rinsing his face. Only as he was dabbing himself dry with a paper towel did he notice that he was not alone. There was someone else in the toilet, someone who had clearly been there for some time, and there was a hint of satisfaction in his voice as he sang merrily to himself.

Harjunpää took another towel as he heard the toilet flush. Then came the sound of a belt being fastened and a moment later the door of the
left-hand
cubicle swung open: Piipponen appeared. The evening paper was folded beneath his arm – presumably he had been reading it just now – but when he saw Harjunpää his expression changed in an instant, as if a Venetian blind had suddenly been pulled shut.

‘Christ, Harjunpää,’ he puffed. His voice was serious and sharp; irritated wrinkles appeared across his forehead, and with a flick of his wrist he opened the paper to reveal the headlines. ‘Take a look at this!’

The lettering was thick and ominous, only three words followed by a bulky question mark, a little touch that nonetheless revealed so much. “
UNDERGROUND SERIAL KILLER
?” Harjunpää hissed wearily. The question mark meant that the press had absolutely no confirmed information, only enough to come up with a suitably scandalous headline that would sell its papers. This headline meant that once again someone had leaked information – a problem spreading like a cancer through the police force.