Silence (17 page)

‘Right,’ Grönholm repeated.

Joentaa was only half listening. He was examining the names on the list. Arranged in alphabetical order.

‘All the same, we’ll follow up that lead,’ he heard Sundström saying, and went on scrutinizing the letters making up the names. Oksanen, Orava, Oraniemi, Palolahti, Pärssinen, Peltonen, Seinäjoki, Sihvonen. He stopped at that name. Reijo Sihvonen. No relation, even by marriage. Plenty of other people were called Sihvonen, just like Sanna. In the background he heard chairs being pushed back.

He must call Sanna’s parents. Merja and Jussi Sihvonen. He kept putting the phone call off, day after day, week after week, and it was a long time since they had called him.

He must call his mother as well. She kept writing letters, she must be writing every other week, although he never answered.

‘We’ll have to take it further,’ Sundström had just said.

Joentaa nodded. ‘I think so too,’ he said and looked up.

The others had already left.

7

T
imo Korvensuo knew the way. Which wasn’t really possible. It couldn’t be possible. He thought about that as he drove.

He was waiting for the moment when he would have to ask someone for directions, but that moment never came, and Korvensuo wouldn’t have known how to put his question either.

He knew the way. It was as simple as that. Driving like a sleepwalker. Dreams did not exist. The cross looked small and spindly. The field was full of yellow flowers. Yellow as it had been at the time. Identical. He drove past it. Not slowly, not fast.

He saw no police officers. No one at all. Houses in the distance, half hidden beyond the field. He turned, drove back, stopped at the roadside and got out of the car.

He crossed the road. The bicycle path ran into the trees. He stood in their shade. Scraps of paper lay on the ground, the remains of police barrier tape. There were flowers left beside the cross.

Pia Lehtinen, he read. The lettering was large by comparison with the small size of the cross. And they were carefully applied to the wood, in white paint. The yellow field beyond. Murdered 1974. Those words were in rather smaller lettering. Aku imitating a witch. Laura. She was going to be fourteen in July. How time flies, thought Korvensuo. Pärssinen a kindly old caretaker. Laura’s birthday was on 19 July. He had straightened the handlebars of the bike.

‘A sad story,’ said a voice beside him.

He turned and saw a woman and a man, out walking. The woman was very small, white-haired, and the man said again, quietly and looking at the cross, A sad story. And now the same thing has happened again.’

‘Are you from the police?’ asked the woman.

‘I … no, no,’ Korvensuo replied.

‘The police came here, but yesterday evening they dismantled all their equipment and went away,’ said the man and the woman nodded.

‘Yes, I … I’d heard about it,’ said Korvensuo. ‘It’s on the news a lot.’

‘They’ve even been filming here over the last few days,’ said the man. ‘Always with the police in their white outfits in the background, and the field. We could even see our house.’

Korvensuo nodded.

‘We know Pia’s mother slightly … Elina. We live in the same road,’ said the woman.

‘But at the other end of it,’ added the man. ‘The other end of the same road.’

Korvensuo nodded again.

‘Yes,’ said the woman.

‘Well, goodbye,’ said the man.

Korvensuo watched them walk away.

The couple went along the bicycle path and turned off into the wood.

He was alone again.

Red, he thought. Not a trace of red.

His silver car stood in the sunlight. He went back to it and got in. A wave of heat, then the shivers. His headache was back. He took two tablets and called the enquiry service. Elina Lehtinen in Turku, he said, and was given a phone number and an address.

He started the car, drove it slowly to the far end of the field, and stood in the road leading to the residential district. He switched off the engine and sat there in the silence.

Two girls came cycling towards him. They rode past him, hands free, and turned off on the bicycle path that Pia Lehtinen had once used. Timo Korvensuo saw them cycling past the cross without slackening speed, and called Marjatta’s mobile just to hear her voice.

8

H
annu Lehtinen spoke fast and at the same time thoughtfully. In well-polished sentences. He had retired from work some years earlier, but the address on the visiting card that Elina Lehtinen had given Joentaa was correct.

They sat on the terrace, which led to a small garden that looked almost manicured. Identical colours. All the plants flowering at the same height. No sign of any football.

‘Forty years,’ he said, and Joentaa looked enquiringly at him. ‘I worked forty years for Ventiga,’ Hannu Lehtinen explained and handed him a card.

Joentaa took it, although he had already been given the same card by Elina Lehtinen.

‘There was a big retirement party. I sometimes go back to visit my colleagues at the firm.’

Joentaa nodded.

‘We eat in the canteen together,’ he said, ‘and they always tell me things aren’t what they used to be now I’m not there any more. But of course, you haven’t come to hear about that.’

‘No, well, I …’

‘I know why you’re here. The girl who disappeared. I saw it on the news.’

‘Yes. I’ve already talked to your wife about it,’ said Joentaa.

‘Elina – how is she?’ He looked straight at Joentaa and seemed to feel this was a perfectly normal question.

‘I’m afraid I can’t really judge that,’ said Joentaa.

‘No, of course not. Forgive me.’

‘However, I think that she … I thought she was a remarkable woman.’ Joentaa was surprised by his own words.

Lehtinen stared at him for a while, then nodded almost imperceptibly and said, ‘I’ll call Elina some time soon.’

‘Yes. I’m here to ask you whether you think there’s a possible connection,’ said Joentaa.

‘Connection?’

‘The girl’s name is Sinikka Vehkasalo. Does that mean anything to you? We’re looking for some kind of connection.’

‘Connection?’ Lehtinen repeated.

‘Between Sinikka Vehkasalo and your daughter Pia. There are thirty-three years between the two incidents, but as we see it there has to be a connection.’

Lehtinen thought about that for a while. ‘Why?’ he finally enquired.

‘What do you think?’ asked Joentaa. ‘What did you think when you first heard about it?’

‘When I heard about what?’

‘The girl’s disappearance. At the very place where your own daughter went missing in the past.’

Lehtinen looked at him and seemed to be seeing past him at the same time. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No.’

‘But you must … maybe we’re talking at cross purposes.’

‘No,’ said Hannu Lehtinen. He got to his feet. ‘I’d like you to leave now.’

‘I … listen, we could perhaps be looking for the man who killed your daughter.’

‘I’d like you to leave,’ Lehtinen repeated.

Joentaa rose to his feet. As he walked out, his legs were shaking.

‘I don’t know anyone called Vehkasalo,’ Lehtinen added as they reached the door. ‘And I can’t talk about the rest of it. I ask you to understand that.’

Joentaa nodded and Hannu Lehtinen closed the door.

9

T
imo Korvensuo went to the cinema. He saw the film that Marjatta and Aku had seen.

It was cool and dark, and the pain was beginning to wear off. His head felt light. The cinema was almost empty, just a few young people sitting in the front row, laughing at moments that Korvensuo didn’t find funny.

He sat in the back row, and thought that he was seeing the same images as Marjatta and Aku.

Marjatta had been surprised when he called her again just now, and had given an uncertain laugh when he said he only wanted to hear her voice.

The witch really did cackle like Aku’s imitation.

He had stood for a while within sight of the house where Elina Lehtinen lived. He had not seen Elina Lehtinen herself, but there had been an old man watering flowers in the garden of the house next door and, unless he was mistaken, the old man had been weeping and shaking his head, and watering the flowers.

Timo Korvensuo had looked from the man to the house where Elina Lehrinen lived and back again, and after a while the man put down his watering can, went over to the house and rang Elina Lehtinen’s bell.

The man had waited with his head bowed, and a woman opened the door. A slender woman with a strikingly round face. She took the weeping man in her arms and closed the door, and Timo Korvensuo went to the cinema.

On the screen he saw the fountain running with blood that Marjatta had mentioned. The young people in the front row laughed. The witch spoke with Aku’s tone of voice, he had broken off his mathematical studies early, there was an empty lemonade bottle lying on the seat beside him.

The film ended happily, with the death of the witch.

As Timo Korvensuo drove around the city again the evening sun was shining, and his headache returned.

10

K
alevi Vehkasalo had put words together. Even whole sentences.

He had sat in his office, watching Ville and the rest of them working, and wondered what he would say to Ruth, what they would talk about that evening when he came home. He had thought so many thoughts, all to do with Sinikka.

For instance, he had decided to thank Ruth again, with all his heart, for going through with her wish for children in spite of his initial opposition, because Sinikka had been the best thing ever to happen to him.

Even if he hadn’t always shown it. Even if Sinikka certainly hadn’t known it, but it was the truth, and if he could never tell Sinikka herself again, at least he would tell Ruth.

He had gone home that evening and when he tried to kiss Ruth’s cheek she had flinched.

Then he had said there was chaos at the firm, sheer chaos, but it was all going to be sorted out.

Then he had sat opposite Ruth and felt there was no more to say.

Ruth had peeled and eaten an apple.

After a while she had gone over to the TV set and switched on the news. She had knelt on the ground in front of the set, and he had sat at the table and thought that he wanted to put his arms round Ruth, but he hadn’t been able to move.

They had waited together.

After a few minutes Sinikka’s photo came up on the screen. From the start, she was at the centre of the programme, presumably because there weren’t any fresh headlines.

Ruth had turned off the TV again and looked at him with an expression that he had never seen before, and he hadn’t been able to hold her gaze. She had said she was going to lie down and he had nodded, but all the same he had got to his feet and held her close.

‘I’d like us to face this together,’ he had said, trying to meet her eyes, and Ruth had removed herself from his embrace and gone out without another word.

Kalevi Vehkasalo hoped she was asleep.

That was the only thing to do. Sleep for a long time, sleep until it was all over. He didn’t know how much time had passed since Ruth left the room. Presumably hours. Or minutes. He had no idea. He just knew that he wanted to sleep. Until the moment when it would be possible to breathe again. Breathe out and breathe in.

He switched on the television set once more and read the brief report on teletext. His glance lingered on the name. Sinikka. His daughter was called Sinikka too. He heard water running. Ruth was awake.

He stood there motionless for some time, as if he could create a silence that would let Ruth get some rest at last.

He went downstairs to Sinikka’s room. He stood in the doorway for a while, staring into the darkness. Then he switched on the light. For the first time it struck him as a beautiful, warm light.

Raising his eyes to the lamp, he saw that it had been carefully shaded with paper and fabric of different colours. Sinikka had made her own lampshade and her own light, and he admired it. He decided to tell her so at the first opportunity.

‘I would like us to separate,’ said Ruth, behind him. He hadn’t heard her coming. He turned round and saw her standing in the doorway.

‘I thought you were asleep,’ he said.

‘Sinikka was all that still kept us together,’ said Ruth. ‘Or isn’t that how you see it?’

He saw her pale face. He felt dizzy. He stood opposite her and saw a beautiful woman, and Ruth came up to him and started hitting out. He waited, motionless. Ruth flung her arms round him and pulled him down on to Sinikka’s mattress. The pillow was soft. Ruth lay on top of him; he felt her tears on his cheeks and his tongue.

After a while Ruth got up, went over to the little stereo system and switched on some music. ‘The last thing Sinikka listened to,’ she said.

He nodded. He didn’t know the song. There were no lyrics, it was a tune played on two acoustic guitars. He liked it, and was surprised that Sinikka had liked it too.

Ruth had closed her eyes. He let his head rest on her shoulder, and only now did he remember that he had shouted at Sinikka. When he last saw her. Only a few days ago. Sinikka had preserved an iron silence and gone to her room when he had finished shouting. There had been fury in the last glance she gave him. He couldn’t remember what it had all been about.

He would ask Ruth later, as soon as she opened her eyes again.

11

T
imo Korvensuo was driving. Keep moving. Round and round the city. He couldn’t decide whether to go back to the hotel. Eat supper. Watch old films. Or go and see Pärssinen. Ask one last question. Sit on the swings, swinging over the top of the frame. Stand up and laugh with the boy. Laugh his head off. Say goodbye. To the boy and to Pärssinen.

Finally he drove back to Naantali, parked at the same place as before, where the field ended and the estate of small houses began. There was a light on in Elina Lehtinen’s window. The field lay pale in the midnight sun. He called Marjatta to tell her that he had seen the film. Marjatta didn’t know what he was talking about.