The Winter of the Lions (11 page)

He thought of Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen and the expression on his face, which was always the same. If he understood the two news editors correctly, it had still been the same even when he was lying on the floor with life-threatening injuries.

He glanced at Sundström, who was heatedly addressing a group of people. Joentaa recognised one of the doormen, and assumed that the rest of the group had been on the two guided tours of the building. Sundström’s voice and the suppressed fury in it carried to him. He saw Hämäläinen’s assistant standing at one side of the room. Tuula Palonen, if he remembered correctly. She was talking to a grey-haired man of medium height, or rather seemed to be listening as he explained something to her. Joentaa went over to her. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

Tuula Palonen turned to him abruptly. ‘Can’t you see that … oh, we …’

‘Kimmo Joentaa. I was in your editorial offices yesterday with two colleagues.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry, we were just … this is Raafael Mertaranta, the station’s controller.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Mertaranta, and Joentaa nodded.

‘We hear … we hear that Kai-Petteri is doing better. That’s wonderful,’ said Mertaranta.

‘The doctors tell us his condition is stable.’

‘I’d like to go to the hospital,’ said Tuula Palonen. ‘But your colleague’ – she pointed to Westerberg who was sitting at one of the tables deep in conversation – ‘your colleague said everyone who works for the station should be available here.’

Joentaa nodded. ‘We’ve already been to the hospital. No one can speak to him yet anyway. He’s still unconscious.’

Tuula Palonen sighed, barely audibly, and Raafael Mertaranta said, ‘Do you know when he’ll be able to present the show again?’

Joentaa was too baffled to come up with any answer.

‘We’ll have to find a substitute for now, of course,’ said Mertaranta.

Joentaa sought for words. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.

‘They’re running a special about Kai on the news today,’ said Tuula.

Mertaranta nodded.

‘Maybe we can transmit a longer version of the special on our own programme,’ said Tuula.

Mertaranta thought for a while, and then said. ‘Good idea.’

There was a short silence, and Mertaranta cast Joentaa a glance that he couldn’t interpret.

‘Please don’t misunderstand us, but we have to make sure the screen doesn’t stay blank. And when Kai is doing better, of course we’ll be very relieved, and …’

Joentaa nodded.

‘… and I can tell you something …’ said Mertaranta. Joentaa waited, thinking of Larissa and that he wanted to call her and hear her voice.

‘… that’s what Kai-Petteri himself would want. You know what Kai-Petteri would most like to do once he has his strength back?’

Has his strength back, thought Joentaa, remembering the body lying motionless with tubes inserted into it, and Mertaranta said, ‘What he’d most like to do is interview himself.’

GLIDING OVER THE
snow as if on rails.

Setting the world to rights.

‘That’s what you said the last time we talked. I remember it,’ says the distant voice. ‘Is there a special reason why you think of it now? Do you have some particular picture in your mind’s eye?’

A particular picture …

‘It’s always the same one,’ she says.

The bus turns into the narrow street. She lives at the end of it, with the grey lake to the left, the white football pitch to the right.

The telephone feels light in her hand.

‘I’m seeing someone in a moment. Would you like to bring our next appointment forward? According to my diary we’re not due to meet again until next week,’ he says.

The grey lake where Ilmari used to swim.

‘I can find time this evening,’ he says.

The white football pitch where Veikko used to play.

‘This evening at 18.30 hours? I’ll square the fee, we can manage that,’ he says.

The man lying on the floor. The questioning look in his eyes as he stares into the void. She stands on the edge, waiting. She doesn’t know what she’s waiting for.

She thinks of the letter that came with this morning’s post. She stared at the sender’s name for a long time. A friendly letter, a warm invitation, and two train tickets enclosed. There and back. Who can describe it if she can’t?

‘We’ll talk about the picture you have in your mind’s eye this evening,’ he says.

An empty hall. The man lies on the floor, looking up. She follows the direction of his eyes. She can see the sky above a glass ceiling. She stands at the edge waiting for the sky to fall in.

But it doesn’t.

Nothing happens.

‘I’m making a note of it now: 18.30 hours. Are you still there?’

A stranger listens to her, listens to her silence.

EARLY IN THE
evening the doctor phoned and said Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen was conscious and able to answer questions. They drove to the hospital.

Hämäläinen was lying motionless on the bed, surrounded by tubes and other apparatus, and nodded to them as they
came in. ‘The gentlemen from the police,’ he murmured, and seemed to smile. He sat a little way up and looked relieved. Free of the fear of death, Joentaa suspected, and Westerberg began asking questions. Hämäläinen’s quiet, surprising answers fell slowly into the silence, deepening it.

‘Nothing?’ said Sundström. ‘You saw nothing at all? You didn’t notice anything?’

‘A shadow,’ said Hämäläinen.

‘A shadow?’

‘I remember leaving the cafeteria and making for the lifts. I … I was trying to remember the name of that forensic pathologist, and I could only remember his son’s name.’

‘His son’s name?’ said Westerberg.

‘Yes, it was Kalle. The forensic pathologist told me he was going to have a little boy and they would call him Kalle. I remembered it, and after that I saw a shadow, and then …’

‘Yes?’ asked Sundström.

‘… then everything seemed very slow. I felt I was hovering, and I felt a pain in my back – as if something had grazed me or stabbed me.’

They waited.

‘A shadow. And then that pain. And then I was out of there, being carried. Then I woke up here.’

They waited, but Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen had told them all he knew.

‘That’s impossible,’ said Sundström.

Westerberg turned to look at him.

‘Impossible,’ Sundström repeated.

Hämäläinen nodded, and Joentaa thought again that he seemed different.

‘I wish I could help you,’ he said.

‘Did you see anything earlier?’ asked Sundström. ‘When you came down and into the cafeteria? Or even before that, when you came into the building?’

Hämäläinen thought for a while, then shook his head.

‘Someone or other who caught your attention? Someone who didn’t belong in the TV station. Did you feel you were being watched?’

‘No,’ said Hämäläinen. ‘Nothing at all. Naturally, there were people around when I arrived, and no doubt when I went to the cafeteria, but I didn’t notice anything.’

Silence again.

‘Isn’t there … hasn’t anyone … do you have no idea who did it?’ asked Hämäläinen.

‘I’m afraid not, no,’ said Westerberg.

‘But someone must have seen something.’

‘We suspect that your attacker came into the building with a group going on a guided tour through the various editorial departments,’ said Westerberg.

‘Of course it’s possible that it was someone who works there,’ added Sundström.

Hämäläinen lay motionless and said nothing for a while. Then he said, ‘What’s going on, anyway? Why was I …?’

Westerberg tried to find words, and Sundström said, ‘We don’t know.’

‘But it must … it must be something to do with that interview. The interview I did with Mäkelä and the forensic pathologist.’

Sundström did not reply, Westerberg did not reply, and Joentaa thought that Hämäläinen was stating the obvious.

‘But what did we do, dammit?’ said Hämäläinen. ‘There was nothing out of the ordinary.’

Silence again.

‘It was a perfectly normal interview. I’ve done hundreds of them,’ said Hämäläinen. ‘There was nothing special about it. A forensic pathologist talking about his everyday life, a puppet-maker describing his working methods. That was all.’

‘We don’t know what the background is. It’s all the more
important for you to remember every detail of today’s incident. You must … forgive me, but you must have noticed something.’

‘A shadow,’ said Hämäläinen. ‘As I said.’

‘A shadow’s not enough,’ said Sundström.

‘I know.’

Behind them the door was opened. The woman who had been standing beside Kimmo at the viewing window in the morning, looking at the unconscious Hämäläinen, appeared in the doorway.

‘Irene,’ said Hämäläinen.

Irene Hämäläinen moved hesitantly into the room.

‘It’s not so bad,’ said Hämäläinen quietly, but with the confident note in his voice that was his trademark as a presenter. ‘Looks worse than it is.’

The woman nodded.

‘Does it look bad, by the way? I’m feeling pretty good,’ said Hämäläinen.

The woman nodded to them and went up to the bed.

‘Where are those imps of ours?’ asked Hämäläinen.

‘With Mariella. They’re in good spirits,’ she said. Her voice sounded cracked, but also strong.

‘That’s good,’ said Hämäläinen.

‘Well … we’ll be on our way,’ said Sundström, getting to his feet. Halfway to the door, he turned back. ‘The doctors say you’ll be here for a few more days. There are police officers on duty to keep this ward secure. Only your wife and the doctors treating you have access. And so do we, of course.’

Hämäläinen nodded.

‘We’ll discuss everything else next time,’ said Sundström.

Hämäläinen nodded again and looked at his wife, and Joentaa thought once more that he seemed different.

Exhausted. Marked by his experience. Relieved. Liberated.

Irene Hämäläinen sat down on the chair where Sundström
had been sitting. Joentaa turned away and thought of Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen, the expression on his face that was always the same, the smile when he said goodbye and his guests left the stage, and he thought:

Liberated, but not from the fear of death.

Liberated from the oppressive sense of being immortal.

THE MOTIONLESS, FLICKERING
picture. Always the same. 18.30 hours. She has only a few minutes to wait. Then she is sitting opposite him, saying no when he asks her if anything in particular has happened.

‘It’s unusual for you to call. You’ve never called in between our sessions before,’ he says.

She nods.

‘Have you been to see Rauna?’ he asks.

She nods.

‘How’s she doing?’

‘All right,’ she says.

He does not reply, but puts his head on one side and looks through the window into the darkness.

‘You said something about a picture …’

‘No,’ she says.

‘No?’

‘No. You said something about a picture, and I said I see one, always the same picture.’

‘You’re right. That’s how it was,’ he says.

She nods.

‘Would you like to talk about the picture?’

‘No,’ she says.

‘What would you like to talk about?’

‘About Little My.’

He says nothing, and she smiles. She has succeeded in surprising him. She can see that from looking at him, and she likes it.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Tell me about her.’

‘Not about her, about me,’ she says.

‘About you, then. Tell me about yourself.’

‘I was Little My on the day I met Ilmari. I was working in Moomin World on the beach in Naantali. It’s a children’s theme park. The Moomin family.’

‘I know,’ he says. ‘I’ve been there.’

‘Do you have … children?’

‘A son.’

‘You have a son?’ she says. ‘How … how old is he?’

‘Seven.’

She looks at him for a long time, and after a while she realises that she is trying to see from his face whether he is telling the truth. She looks away.

‘I didn’t know you had children,’ she says.

‘Only him. My son, Sami.’

‘Why did you never say so?’

‘You’re the only one of my women patients who knows,’ he says. ‘It’s not usual for me to talk about myself during sessions. So you were working at Moomin World?’

‘Yes … yes, I was being Little My. The red-haired little girl. In the vacation before I began my training I’d been in a theatrical company engaged for Moomin World. I was much too big for Little My, but because of my red hair I got the part.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Very much. It was hot in the costume, but in the evening I always jumped straight into the water, and that was …’

‘Yes?’

‘That was … wonderful.’

He does not reply.

‘It was so good that I can hardly believe it really happened.’

‘And that was when you met Ilmari?’

‘Yes, he was there with one of his groups. As you know, he looked after children with learning difficulties. Autistic kids.’

‘Yes.’

‘The children were … unusual. I didn’t know that before. I wanted to give them some fun, and they just didn’t react.’

He nods.

‘They weren’t friendly, they weren’t unfriendly, it was as if they weren’t there at all.’

He nods.

‘The children were the way I feel now,’ she says.

‘Describe what you feel more closely.’

‘I don’t want to. I want to talk about Ilmari.’

‘Then tell me about Ilmari.’

‘He was looking after the children. He came to Moomin World with them, and he was the only one in the group who laughed. At my jokes. Well, I was playing Little My, so I had to be funny. Then they left. They went on somewhere else, and I had to see to the other children. That evening I’d taken off my costume, and there was Ilmari suddenly standing beside me, saying Little My was bigger than he’d thought.’

He has put his head on one side again. Not far. He probably doesn’t even know he does that.

‘Next day he was there again. And the day after that. We swam together. That was always the best part of it for me. Washing the sweat off my body in the evening.’

His head tilts to the other side.