TH02 - The Priest of Evil (24 page)

‘Thanks.’

‘And what’s this thing about the keys?’ Mäki asked, nodding towards Harjunpää. ‘I see you’ve made the front page.’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Not to worry, only it’s stirred up rumours of a serial killer again.’

‘I’m sorry…’

‘That’s all right. So what about the keys?’

‘It was seven years ago. One of the guards lost a set of keys, including the master key for the entire underground network. He thought he lost them in a scuffle with some troublemaker, and figured they’d been carted off to sea with the snow.’

‘And they haven’t noticed anything strange since?’

‘No. That key gives access to well over a hundred doors, even some along the streets in the walls of certain houses. There’s no way they could have changed all the locks and codes.’

‘What about the alarm system?’

‘It covers the platforms and pavements, but it’s under renovation at the moment. Some of the doors haven’t been used for years, the locks have rusted and not all of them work properly.’

‘Have you been down there with a sniffer dog?’ Harjunpää asked Piipponen, who had promised to take care of the matter first thing that morning.

‘Yes,’ he replied immediately, staring down at his hands. Red blotches glowed on his cheeks. ‘But it didn’t get the scent. It just wandered back and forth at the spot where you and the firemen were standing.’

‘What about forensics?’

‘They couldn’t find anything, though there were a few decent hairs on that beret.’

‘So it wasn’t a complete waste of time after all,’ said Harjunpää, and at that moment a thought flashed through his mind as clearly as if someone had whispered to him. ‘I’ll just throw my jacket in my office, I’ll be right back…’ he said.

He left the room but walked past his office door and continued further along the corridor. He pressed the door to Piipponen’s office with the tips of his fingers, letting it glide silently open. The camera lay on the edge of the table. It was one of those new-fangled ones, light and easy to use; the kind that, apart from pointing it in the right direction, practically took care of the entire operation by itself. He turned the adjustor towards the green letter L at the sensor and looked at the tiny screen on the other edge. This indicated that there was no film in the camera. Immediately his eyes narrowed to mere slits across his face, though he realised that there might well be an innocent explanation for this.

He took his satchel and jacket into his office, and just as he was returning to Mäki’s office Rummukainen from Central turned the corner in front of him, his belt quietly jangling. He was carrying a number of video cassettes and a notepad with a few lines of text in tight, pedantic handwriting.

‘Good morning! How’s our celebrity doing?’

‘Give it a rest… Yourself?’

‘I think I can shed some light on this shady case of yours.’

‘The underground case?’

‘Yes. My partner’s sitting in the visitors’ room with a Mikko Matias Moisio. Heard of him?’

‘Isn’t he a novelist?’

‘That’s the one. His novels very nearly came to an abrupt end this morning. Someone shoved him in front of a train at Hakaniemi.’

‘And he survived?’ asked Harjunpää, his voice coarse with disbelief.

‘We’re not exactly in the habit of bringing bodies in for interviews. He didn’t fall, but managed to jump across the tracks and power cable and landed on the other side. There’s just enough room there for a thin person between the train and the wall. He’s pretty shaken up though.’

Harjunpää rubbed his neck, utterly dumbfounded. At least now one thing was certain. There was no doubt that what they were dealing with was two murders, plus a third attempted murder.

‘What about the perpetrator?’

‘Got away in all the commotion. But now we’ve got descriptions from five different witnesses and some fairly clear footage on these tapes.’

‘The silver-haired old woman, right?’

‘Not even close – a middle-aged man.’

‘A man…?’

‘Yes. The opposite of a woman.’

‘And all this time we’ve been looking for a woman,’ said Harjunpää. Now he was even more perplexed and began to wonder why things didn’t quite add up.

‘These things happen, there are always a few little set-backs along the way.’

‘I’ll interview him right away. I’ll go and tell the others.’

‘Timo, the third name on the list is the one who can best describe the guy. We didn’t bother sending forensics down there, as a thousand passengers had already trampled all over the place and we had to get the network back up and running. All the particulars are on page three, including all the measurements too. We photographed the scene and the film’s in the lab.’

‘Thanks a lot. This is definitely attempted manslaughter, if not attempted murder.’

Rummukainen walked off, his boots softly creaking, and indicated to his partner to follow him. Harjunpää hurried into Mäki’s office and shouted from the door. ‘We’ve got another underground case. This one managed to jump across the power cables and got away without a scratch. And guess what?’

‘It’s that same woman?’

‘That’s just it – it was a middle-aged man.’

‘Great, that’s all we need… don’t tell me there are two of them on the loose?’

‘Piipponen, go and watch these CCTV videos and print off any good images of the guy. Onerva, ring through this list of witnesses, ask them to go through the details again and arrange to bring them in for questioning. I’ll go and talk to Moisio.’

‘Not Mikko Matias Moisio?’

‘The very same.’

‘Great, now we’ll have the media breathing down our necks again. Try and get him to agree not to go to the press.’

‘I’ll try.’

Mikko Matias Moisio was a slender man, he looked thoughtful and somewhat downhearted, and when they shook hands Harjunpää could feel he was quivering all over. It would have been wrong to call him shabby, he simply looked as if he didn’t have much money; either that or he no longer knew how to take care of himself. Still, the most striking thing about him was his eyes: they were at once sharp and sympathetic.

‘It must have been quite a shock. I’ll give you the number for Victim Support. They can offer you professional help.’

‘I’m sure I’ll be OK… It just brought back a wave of bad memories.’

‘Indeed,’ muttered Harjunpää, allowing the silence to continue until the man sat down and glanced around.

‘Perhaps you could tell me in your own words what happened back there?’

‘There’s not much to tell really. I was waiting for the ten to eight train and was standing at the edge of the platform, lost in thought. And when its lights came into view… Oh God… Then… then I just felt a violent shove at my hips. My bag fell to the ground and I spun my hands round trying to regain my balance. When I realised I was going to fall I tried to propel myself forwards and jumped over the tracks and on to the other side.’

‘Did you see who did it?’

‘No, I didn’t even notice anyone hanging around near me. Those policemen said that you have a number of witnesses. But yesterday…’

‘Yes?’

‘This probably has nothing to do with it, and I may be mistaken… All day yesterday I had the distinct feeling someone was watching me and following me. Let me assure you I’m not exactly paranoid.’

Moisio’s mobile started ringing in his pocket. Harjunpää had forgotten to ask him to turn it off; mobile phones going off during interviews were one of his pet hates. Moisio dug the phone out of his pocket, looked at the screen and clearly didn’t recognise the number calling him.

‘Moisio… Matti, is that you? So you did get it… I’ll call you back soon,’ he said quickly, but something inside him snapped and he burst into tears. His sobbing was heavy, painful, and Harjunpää realised straight away that Moisio was not crying merely because of what had happened that morning, but for years of ungrieved pain.

‘I’ll fetch those cards,’ said Harjunpää. He stood up and walked out of the room, went to the toilet, picked up a handful of paper towels and filled a paper cup with water.

The cards for Victim Support were in his desk drawer.

No meeting had officially been scheduled, but everyone had slowly made their way into Harjunpää’s office once he had finished interviewing Moisio and had seen him out of the building. Each of them read the text in turn and gave a sigh of disappointment.

‘He really didn’t see a thing. The guy came at him from behind. He didn’t see anyone staring at him before-hand either.’

‘What’s going on with this case? Someone’s really taking the piss.’

‘I just can’t believe there are two psychos on the loose shoving people in front of underground trains.’

‘Unless they’re both members of some weirdo cult,’ suggested Piipponen.

Harjunpää knew Onerva well enough to see that she had something important to say, but one of the others always managed to butt in first.

‘And what’s with the dead pigeons in the tunnel? You don’t think these are some kind of devil worshippers?’

‘They tend to be younger, and the clothing doesn’t suggest any involvement with the occult. Perhaps we should look into it nonetheless.’

‘Koskinen called from the security company. Almost all the guards know the old woman. But apparently she’s never been any trouble, they’ve never had to remove her or check her ID. They call her the Easter Witch.’

‘Still we should get in touch with the guards and give them the photofits of both suspects.’

‘Listen!’ Onerva finally managed to get a word in. ‘Rummukainen said that one of the witnesses got a good look at our man, and she did. But before I say anything else… Timo, could you write down any distinguishing features of the man we resuscitated?’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.’

‘All right,’ Harjunpää conceded, knowing Onerva wouldn’t ask something like that without good reason. He grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer and picked up a pencil, but he had to think hard for a moment before he could remember the details properly. The situation had been so nerve-wracking that he had only been able to concentrate on what was most important: reviving the man. Nonetheless, the policeman’s eye in him had been at work all the time and he very quickly jotted down a list of bullet points.

‘About 180cm tall, thin, bony,’ he began to read aloud. ‘Grey checked cap, the grandad type. Brownish overcoat, straight dark-grey trousers. A pair of worn trainers that didn’t match the rest of his clothes… I think they were brown.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Let me see… False teeth, but of course a witness couldn’t possibly know that. Ah yes, big, thick-rimmed glasses. Hang on a minute, Moisio said he had noticed one person on the platform because he reminded him of President Kekkonen, and it was because of the huge glasses!’

‘You see?’

‘It’s quite a coincidence… I know he behaved oddly, but would he do something like this?’

‘Hold on,’Mäki interrupted. ‘Could you let the rest of us in on this, please?’

‘Of course,’ said Onerva, the joy of being in the right dancing across her smiling eyes. ‘This description perfectly matches the one our witness gave Rummukainen.’

‘I’ll be damned. You took down his details, I assume.’

‘There was such a commotion that it completely slipped our minds. But he was admitted to hospital later on.’

‘Somebody get hold of the paramedics to see where they took him.’

‘And he’s more than likely still there.’

The change in atmosphere in the office was almost tangible. Someone restlessly changed positions, someone else eagerly rubbed his hands together, and faint smiles lit up their faces.

‘But how does this explain the old biddy?’

‘Let’s take care of the guy first. We can cross that bridge later.’

‘What if it’s some kind of tranny?’ exclaimed Piipponen. ‘Do you remember that film where a transvestite killed women so he could make a dress out of their skin?’

‘
The Silence of the Lambs
,’ said Onerva matter-of-factly. ‘But that’s rubbish. There’s nothing in transvestites’ behavioural patterns to indicate such violence. For most people it’s something secret and shameful. People used to think of homosexuality like that too.’

For a moment the room was silent. Harjunpää slowly stood up and gestured towards Onerva.

‘His hair… What was it like?’ he asked.

‘You were closer to his head than I was.’

‘It was tied up in a bun under his cap, a ponytail tied into a knot. And it was grey!’

‘And when it’s loose would it reach down as far as the old woman’s?’

‘I’m certain of it. And once I took out his false teeth… When I think about it, the woman running about at Hakaniemi had the same sort of sharp chin.’

‘My god, anyone would think we’re a bunch of secret agents,’ said Piipponen, deadly serious. At times he could be quite the comedian. Once – as a joke – he had made such a good case for a new and completely useless motor boat for the arson department that the Chief of Police had eventually given the go-ahead. He was also in the habit of putting small popping devices under toilet seats so that when anyone sat down it would make a small bang. Now he seemed so sincere that everyone burst into much needed laughter.

Only Harjunpää’s laughter was short-lived, and his expression suddenly turned serious with disbelief. As if in slow motion he took a pair of tongs from the box of pens, stepped around his desk and on towards the metallic coat rack by the door.

‘What now?’

Harjunpää didn’t respond, but perhaps he hadn’t heard the question. His pulse was racing as he stared at the row of police jackets hanging on the rail. A moment ago he had remembered the last time he’d worn one. He undid the zip of one of the breast pockets and opened it carefully, as if he were approaching a bird’s nest and expected something to fly out at him at any moment. Then he slowly inserted the tongs into the pocket.

‘Look,’ he said, turning to face the others. Between the tongs he held a roughly folded piece of paper. ‘I took this from the old woman at Hakaniemi so I could get rid of her. There was so much else to think about that I’d forgotten all about it…’