TH02 - The Priest of Evil (22 page)

They had forcibly taken a scan or something of his heart. He was not quite certain, as he had not visited a doctor or been to a hospital for many years. But their scan had revealed nothing, so once he had begun playing the difficult patient – and he certainly knew how to do this when necessary – and showered them with horrific curses, they had all but thrown him out.

His heart had not really stopped: with the power of his mind he was able to slow his pulse so that his heart beat only once every ten or even fifteen seconds; and no one had the patience to check a lifeless artery for such a long time. He had learnt how to do this in India, in a town called Jabalpur, where he had spent almost five years back when he had first realised what a pack of lies the teachings of the church really were; but he had not converted to Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam. The only drawback was that he could only sustain this bodily state for four minutes at a time. His mentor in Jabalpur, Laximidas Tagore, could remain in this state for up to an hour. He was also able to dangle from a noose for a full two minutes, and could slide a knitting needle through his arm or palm without feeling the slightest pain, without shedding a single drop of blood.

It was strange being in a state of slowed heart activity; his body felt very heavy, but still he seemed to be floating, suspended in some form of liquid, and although he could not see a thing because his eyes were closed, in some miraculous way he was able to sense everything happening around him. Only once he had begun to discern a quiet rushing sound in his ears did he know that it was time to return his heartbeat to its normal rate again. He rubbed his forehead; a small bump had appeared. He had had to
act at the beginning, pressing his hands against his chest and falling to the ground, but as soon as he was lying down he was able to control his heartbeat at will.

‘Helsinki Police Department, Violent Crimes Division,’ he read aloud from the card. ‘Detective Superintendent Timo Harjunpää.’

This was the man that had startled him; he recognised him as the same man that had come to the underground station on the day of the sacrifice and to whom he had tried to preach. For a moment he had been sure that the man had recognised him too, for at first he did not remember that on that particular day Maammo had wished him to appear in the form of a woman.

‘Timo Harjunpää,’ he repeated. He did not like the name. He did not like the man either, for he had committed a gross profanity by touching the earth spirit’s mouth –with his lips! This was simply not done and would not be tolerated, for the law of Maammo declared it an evil sin; and should anyone commit such a sin, he would not go unpunished. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, over and over again, for he felt as though something dirty had been left on his lips – after all, the man was an infidel and, as a policeman, he was a representative of the entire infidel society, much like a priest.

He sat there a moment longer, lost in thought, then stood up. Holding the card gently between his fingernails, he stepped over to the bedside table, placed it on the rough surface next to the storm lantern and knelt down. Stuck into the furthest plank of the chest were nine black-headed pins standing neatly in a row. Their colour was important; red, blue or white pins would not do. He picked one of them up and slowly stuck it through the card. There came an almost imperceptible pop as it pierced the card and struck the board beneath. He pricked it again, over and over, until the tiny holes formed a pentagon directly above the words ‘Timo Harjunpää’; then, little by little, a large letter M gradually appeared within the pentagon, representing the word ‘
mortuus
’ – body, death.

Common sense had told Harjunpää that he probably hadn’t caught anything serious, but as the day drew on he remembered the man’s
chapped lips all the more clearly, and realised that blood could well have been seeping out behind those loose flakes of dry skin. Finally he had decided to tell a little white lie: he claimed that the man had split his lip when he fell over, so that during the resuscitation he had come into contact with blood. He was therefore immediately sent to Aurora hospital for an HIV test and anti-hepatitis drugs.

He still wasn’t sure how he would be able to tell Elisa.

As the day slowly faded into evening, the worst of the rush hour was over. Onerva, Piipponen and Harjunpää were on the upper underground level of the Central Railway Station, standing next to the compass mosaic on the floor. The letter N for North was directly beneath Harjunpää’s feet.

‘I think it would be best if we split up,’ he said. ‘Piip, you take the next west-bound train to Ruoholahti; Onerva and I can take the next two trains going east.’

‘But won’t it be a bit difficult to apprehend her if we’re by ourselves?’

‘Just shadow her to start with, and alert us by mobile. We’ll only try to talk to her once we’ve all regrouped.’

‘What about the stations in between?’

‘Get off at every station and give it a thorough going over, wait for the next train and carry on. Have a look on the ground and in the bins for pamphlets or flyers of a religious nature. If so, she might be very close by.’

‘And when the line splits?’

‘You take the Mellunmäki branch, I’ll go to Vuosaari; we’ll do exactly the same on the way back too. Once we’re done, we’ll meet back here and decide whether it’s worth doing another round.’

They looked at each other for a moment; they were all utterly expressionless, and the matter seemed to be clear. A camera dangled from Piipponen’s wrist; at the very least they wanted to try and photograph her.

‘Elderly female, grey hair down to her shoulders,’ Harjunpää recapped. ‘A beret pulled down to her ears, possibly some sort of long skirt.
Sharp-chinned
old crone.’

‘More than likely preaching and handing out some sort of leaflets.’

‘Let’s get to it,’ said Onerva decisively, and with that they turned and made their way past the ticket machines and on to the jolting, downward
escalators. A light draught blew up towards them, carrying the slightest hint of dampness, of the underground; the odour growing stronger all the time, yet remaining virtually imperceptible.

Piipponen walked several metres ahead, a number of people stood between them, and above the clunking of the escalators he couldn’t hear a thing. Harjunpää whispered to Onerva: ‘I’ll give him his due, he’s pretty hard-working – works his arse off. I happened to see his timesheet and even yesterday he was there until about eleven.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Onerva scoffed cynically, as though she were not amused in the slightest. ‘So you’ve never worked with him before?’

‘No. We’ve been on night-duty together a few times, but that’s it.’

‘Come on, Timo…’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s not even worth telling you. For all I know it’s probably just gossip.’

‘You’ve started now.’

‘Well… You know he lives in Kivihaka, only a few kilometres up the road. Word is he works late almost every night doing a spot of his own ‘business’. Wills, some dodgy dealings, that sort of thing. That’s his idea of overtime.’

‘What the…?’

‘Apparently he sometimes turns up in a sweaty tracksuit, like he’s just come in from a jog, and paces around for half an hour with a pile of papers in his hands, making sure that everyone on night shift notices he’s there.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding…He’s pretty convincing, though.’

‘He even pretends to be angry if anyone suspects he’s up to no good.’

They were approaching the underground platforms and the wail of a departing train could be heard:
phuii – phuii!
A moment later crowds of people began flooding on to the escalator opposite; men and women of all ages, and considering the time of day a great number of teenagers - children even.

‘That was my train, it was going west,’ Piipponen shouted back to them. ‘I’ll get the next one. I’ll call you if anything happens.’

‘Yeah, we’ll be in touch. I’ll meet you back at the compass.’

‘Right!’

Harjunpää and Onerva turned left towards the eastbound platform. There were about thirty people waiting, among them a very drunk man, probably just back from a booze-cruise to Tallinn. He offered swigs from any of his numerous bottles to a young girl and boy sitting on one of the benches. Harjunpää let him be. They didn’t have time to take care of every trouble-maker they saw; they had a job to take care of, though searching around the underground was rather hit or miss. And then he spotted her.

He recognised her immediately: her clothes, her posture, her slight limp – and for a moment something inside him froze. A chill spread across his skin. Had the impossible suddenly become real?

‘Onerva…’

‘Yes?’

‘There she is. Over there on the far left. This time she’s got a blue beret.’

‘The skirt’s the same. How shall we take this?’

‘Let’s stroll up closer like we’re minding our own business. Then we’ll ask her for her papers – there’s still five minutes until the next train. Call Piipponen and tell him to get down here.’

‘OK.’

They started moving closer to the old woman, slowly winding their way through the crowds of people. Her beret was pulled almost down to her ears and looked like a blue ball covering her head, and beneath it her silver hair flowed loosely. Around her waist was a black and very
full-looking
bumbag: that must have been where she kept her leaflets. They kept moving closer, the gap between them now less than forty metres. Then all of a sudden the old woman gave a start, turned around and stared right at them. In a flash she was on the move. She ran off towards the end of the platform, and as Harjunpää broke into a run behind her his mind was filled with a sense of victory: she’s running into a dead end!

But to his surprise the woman stopped by the platform wall and began frantically rummaging through her bag. Only then did Harjunpää realise that at that point in the wall was a dark-brown, inconspicuous door. He vaguely recalled that the door led down into the shelter beneath the station, or else into one of the tunnels connecting the tracks, and he quickened his step, knocking people out of his way. ‘Sorry!’ he yelled.

The old woman glanced at him. There was something oddly familiar about her face, particularly her mouth, and from somewhere other than their encounter at Hakaniemi underground station. The woman clearly realised that she wouldn’t have time to open the door, if that was what she was planning, the hefty lock gleamed in the light before her; she let go of her bag and set off running again. The hem of her skirt flapped behind her like the wings of a giant vampire, but she could do nothing about the fact that she was running into a dead end.

‘Police! Stop!’ shouted Harjunpää, the words echoed off the stone walls of the tunnel as though someone had repeated his command, but the old woman did not look back. It was then that she took him utterly by surprise: she hopped down off the platform and onto the tracks, as light and nimble as a deer. Her skirt momentarily fluttered up like a bell, and a moment later she was inside the rock-hewn tunnel. The darkness swallowed her, leaving only her white legs flashing behind her.

Harjunpää stopped running, but his shoes slid along the floor and he almost collided with the wall at the end of the platform. A white placard stood in front of him:
NO ENTRY. TUNNEL. KAISANIEMI
597m. He could clearly make out the woman’s steps crunching against the gravel as she ran. He knew full well that it was expressly forbidden to go on to the tracks - it could be life-threatening – but the woman running away might be guilty of two murders.

He hopped on to the tracks. The drop was well over a metre and he almost fell to his knees, but eventually he managed to regain his balance and began running into the darkness, all the time fumbling for the torch in his pocket. Behind him he could hear Onerva’s frantic, almost furious cries. ‘Timo! Come back you idiot!’

Harjunpää didn’t pay any attention to her. The old woman wouldn’t have run away unless she had a very good reason, not to mention risking her life by jumping on to the tracks. In addition to this, a gut reaction told Harjunpää he would catch her very soon, as there couldn’t possibly be anywhere in the tunnel for her to hide. He would have to hurry, and he hoped that there wouldn’t be a scuffle – there couldn’t have been more than four minutes until the arrival of the next train from the west. His
heart beat so strongly that he could feel it in his temples, and the back of his shirt was already drenched with sweat. Around him lingered the smell of stone, and of oil that had seeped from the trains over the years.

A gap appeared suddenly in the left-hand wall, enabling him to see the opposite track. Light shone in from the platform. Something must have warned him, perhaps a faint breeze from below, and he stopped in his tracks. He gasped for breath, took out his torch and switched it on. He had indeed stopped just in time: in front of him gaped a black hole in the ground, then another, a third. There was a whole series of gaps; at this point the track ran across a bridge of some sort. But what exactly lay beneath?

He aimed his torch into the first of the gaps: the light only just reached the bottom of the shaft, but it was enough for him to make out the tracks of an intersecting tunnel further down. He noticed a railing running down the right-hand edge of the gap and moved towards it. He had guessed correctly: it was a ladder attached to the side of the shaft, leading down to the tunnel below. From the light of the torch he guessed that it was between three and four metres to the bottom. At the base of the ladder lay something on the floor, and when he looked closely he realised it was a blue beret. The old woman had gone that way. But how many minutes did he have before the next train arrived?

He was careful not to go near the bright yellow metallic rail running upside down along the tracks; this supplied the trains with electricity - the voltage was enormous. He gripped the ladder firmly, turned to face the tracks and began lowering himself downwards. For some reason he counted the eight steps before he reached the bottom. The ground in the lower tunnel was covered in coarse gravel.