Palm Beach, Finland Read online

  ‘Five hundred,’ he said. ‘Per head.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Leivo, and just as the sense of victory was about to burst out of Chico, he added: ‘I’ll pay you a hundred each and we’ll call it a deal.’

  Leivo pulled four fifty-euro notes from a thick wad and handed them across the table to Chico. Chico acted instinctively. He leapt up from his chair and grabbed the cash. It was only then that he realised how flustered he became at the mere sight of money. It had that effect on him. There was nothing he could do about it.

  The bills felt ever so slightly damp.

  The property in question was situated at the end of a magnificent peninsula. On either side of the peninsula was a beautiful sandy beach, and looking from the mainland the beach rose gently to the left and ended in a broad, thick area of forest, on the other side of which, completely hidden from view, was the area that belonged to Palm Beach Finland. Chico knew that Jorma Leivo had already come to an arrangement about the purchase of this land.

  Chico and Robin lay on their stomachs beneath the pines and stared at the house. Darkness had fallen.

  ‘What’s Leivo got against Olivia?’ asked Robin in a whisper.

  ‘Nothing, I suppose,’ Chico whispered back.

  ‘So why does he want us to piss through her letterbox?’

  ‘We’re not going to piss through Olivia’s letterbox.’

  ‘So what are we going to do then?’

  Chico didn’t have a chance to answer. Lights came on in the ground floor.

  Olivia had come home. To be completely accurate, Olivia had come home a few months earlier, immediately after her father’s death. He had suffered a massive heart attack while out in his kayak. The wind had carried him into the children’s swimming area and he had frightened the kids, hunched over, his face stiffened into a permanent smile and an oar jutting upwards in his hands. Someone had taken a picture, which Chico had later seen. The day after his death, Olivia Koski had returned to her former hometown, alone, and decided to stay. Alone.

  And now: lights in the window, a human shadow on the wall.

  Chico wasn’t the kind of man to operate without a plan of action. He picked a hefty-looking stone up from the ground and showed it to Robin. Robin took the hint, and picked up a stone of his own. Chico explained the plan, which had probably been in existence since Neanderthal times: run up to the house, throw the stone, run away. On the count of three. At two, Robin sped off, and Chico followed him. They ran through the woods and into the yard, and threw the stones at the same time. The illuminated downstairs window shattered. Chico and Robin were about to round the corner of the house and disappear back into the woods when they heard it. Something between a squeal, a gasp of pain, and a shrill cry for help. They stopped in the darkness of the yard, stood on the spot as though turned to pillars of salt. Again, the same sound.

  ‘I told you we should have pissed through the letterbox,’ Robin whispered. ‘It doesn’t hurt anyone, and it’s fun.’

  Chico tried to think. This wasn’t part of the plan.

  ‘We’re going to have to…’ he began but didn’t know how to continue. They would have to do something. Something. ‘We have to make sure nothing bad has happened.’

  The same sound again, this time followed by knocking and banging.

  They turned, quietly paced along the wall of the house to the veranda, walked up the steps and opened the door. The veranda, complete with a sofa and all the trappings, looked pleasant and empty. The sound was coming from deep inside the house. Chico walked in front, Robin close behind him.

  The glass-fronted internal door creaked when Chico opened it. Startled, he clenched his teeth together. He stopped and sensed Robin tight up against him. The light was coming from the right. Chico could see cupboards and furniture typical of any kitchen. He listened carefully, but now everything was silent. No sounds, no knocking, no banging. Again he took a few steps, towards the kitchen door, and when he reached the doorway he stopped and peered inside.

  A tiled floor, a dark wooden countertop, cupboards, the broken window. But more importantly: blood. Blood and shards of broken glass. Everywhere. A pool of blood right beneath the window. Droplets and spatter everywhere. A red streak across the white fridge door leading…

  Right here.

  Chico could taste the electric whisk in his mouth. He was falling backwards – he knew that much. He tried to stay upright but his legs weren’t quite in the position he’d imagined them, so he simply spun on the spot.

  And as he fell, everything around him was bright and then darkening, like a series of disparate images: long dark hair, a face covered in blood, Olivia’s slender figure in black jeans and a black polo-neck jumper, the white plastic shell of the electric whisk as it reflected light from the spherical lampshade above.

  As Chico came crashing to the floor, he saw Robin peer into the kitchen, just as Chico had a moment before. And just like him, he too got a whack from the whisk, this time on his temple. Robin fell to his knees in the doorway as though begging to be let into the kitchen.

  Chico’s surprise was tinged with annoyance: they are worried about her, they come into the house to check she’s all right only to get whacked in the face with a bloody kitchen appliance. Now Chico heard footsteps, and he guessed what was coming but didn’t have time to do anything about it. Large black spots still obscured his field of vision. The whisk struck him like a bear’s paw: it was painful and dizzying.

  ‘We only came to help,’ he whimpered.

  But Olivia wasn’t listening.

  She had already turned round. The whisk rose into the air and came down like a guillotine. Robin remained on his knees despite the blow. Chico’s ear felt like it was on fire, and a searing pain ran down that side of his head.

  They had to get the situation under control.

  Chico grabbed the table for support and pulled himself to his feet. The dark figure was approaching. Chico leapt forwards. He caught Olivia by the thighs, making her lose her balance. He hollered at Robin to grab hold of her. They toppled backwards towards Robin, and he lunged for them. The whisk fell from Olivia’s hand.

  Olivia ended up lying on her stomach on the floor. Chico was holding her by the legs, while her head was under Robin’s armpit. Chico was shouting instructions. They struggled to their knees. She was light. It turned out there was some use for Robin’s stubbornness after all; his grip on Olivia didn’t flinch.

  Chico’s plan was the third he’d had that evening: they would take her outside, into the fresh air; they’d talk about it and sort things out, Chico would repay the cost of the broken window. Their down payment would cover it. Of course, paying damages like this wasn’t exactly in the spirit of their agreement with Jorma Leivo, but needs must.

  Running away is out of the question, he told Robin, she knows who we are. Robin looked as though he understood what Chico was saying.

  With some difficulty they struggled to their feet. The body dangling between them was wriggling, grappling, lashing out. Chico took a firmer grip and shouted at Robin to hold tight. We’ll take her outside.

  Robin nodded, turned to get into a better position. Chico did the same. He shifted his weight to the other leg, shouted ‘Now’ and tensed his muscles. The pool of blood, in which Olivia had been lying face-down and where Chico now stood in his Adidas trainers, was fresh and slippery. He lost his footing. As he stumbled backwards he instinctively tightened his grip. At the same moment Robin, with Olivia’s head still under his arm, yanked them towards the front door.

  The crack was like a dry plank snapping in two. Olivia’s body went limp. Robin was still carrying her headfirst into the yard. Chico was holding on to her legs, and staggered to his feet in the pool of blood. Chico bellowed at Robin, shouted at him to stop and let go. Chico let go. Olivia slumped to the floor.

  Chico clambered to his hands and knees. Robin was standing in the doorway.

  ‘I’ve never seen her like this,’ said Robin.

 
Talk about stating the bleeding obvious, thought Chico. He took a few cautious steps towards Robin, then brushed the body’s long dark hair back from its face and wiped one of the cheeks with a sleeve of the T-shirt, just enough to make out its features. The skin on the gaunt face was strangely white and taut, and the eye staring intensely at the tall skirting board in front of it was bright blue, the ear was small, the moustache thin and the goatee on the chin narrow and black, as though etched in pencil.

  For once Robin was right. Chico had never seen Olivia like this either. The reason was clear: it wasn’t Olivia.

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  1

  It seemed that other people always thought that the great challenges and pains of a divorce were their business too. Everyone wanted to share their experiences, tell you what had happened to them and how they had got through it.

  Jan Nyman always found these situations stressful: he couldn’t simply say he wasn’t interested (though he categorically wasn’t interested), he didn’t think there was anything particular for him to ‘get over’, and he didn’t have a bad word to say about his ex-wife, Tuula. Quite the opposite. But his boss had now decided to stick his oar in, and given that he’d invited Nyman into his office, and sounded agitated and officious on the telephone – Come straight to my office, do not pass the cafeteria, do not go to your desk – all Nyman could do was grin and bear it.

  ‘Maiju and I went on a week’s therapy retreat once,’ said Muurla after explaining that he too – naturally – had experience of divorce. ‘To try and get our relationship working again. There were six other couples there too – people on the brink of divorce; people who should have taken a hint, run as fast as they could in different directions and never tried to do anything together ever again; people who shouldn’t even wait for the bus together, let alone drive out into the middle of nowhere to open up old wounds. We arrive at this farmhouse after an infernal drive – four hundred and twelve kilometres of non-stop argy-bargy – and as soon as we get there the women start going nineteen to the dozen over the welcome drinks – chaga tea, or whatever they call it; tastes like earwax, smells like your granny’s armpit – regaling us with all the gory details of their sex lives, so by this point we all know that Jari can’t get a hard-on and his wife has started sleeping around, and I liked it, she says, and the blokes are just sitting right there listening, their ears red with embarrassment, the floorboards creaking, and by now the chaga tea is stone cold. The camp was run by some softly spoken lad who didn’t join the rest of the men in the sauna. I thought it must have been a status thing, like he wants to keep at a distance from his clients while all the time he’s watching us, staring at us, looking as though he’s about to lose hope with us: his face red, his lips pursed tight, a twitch in his temple. He didn’t like it when the rest of the men decided to have a game of volleyball, didn’t like it one bit. He stood further off in the bushes, wouldn’t come near the court. Then on the fourth day it was my turn to heat the sauna, and I’m walking to the sauna with an armful of good dry logs when I hear this moaning and grunting from the changing room, and I look inside and there’s one of these husbands – not flaccid Jari but some city-slicker type – lying on his stomach on the bench while the softly spoken instructor guy is doing him up the backside so hard his cheeks are shaking. Shirt still on, top button done up, the lot. I put the logs back on the pile, go back to Maiju, give her a kiss on the cheek and say let’s just file the sodding papers and be done with it. The drive home was relaxed and we’re still good friends to this day. It’s a pretty ordinary story, really.’

  Muurla seemed to be gathering his thoughts. Nyman thought it best not to comment on the story in any way, not even with a yes or a right. He glanced outside.

  The Vantaa offices of the National Bureau of Investigation were on a plot of their own, and the southwest wall, on the third floor of which was Muurla’s office, looked across the street into an undeveloped greenfield site the size of a football pitch. It was so green, so grassy, so neatly edged with small birch trees that Nyman thought of his summer holiday. He still hadn’t taken it. That said, by looking at him you might say his holiday was well under way: new white trainers, relaxed, baggy jeans, a flannel shirt in red and grey, a few day’s stubble accentuating the dimples in his cheeks, his dark, longish hair still wet and tangled from the shower. This was what he normally looked like – according to Tuula, he was a cross between a country singer and a long-distance runner. He was neither. He was the best detective the Undercover Unit had, and he imagined that might be the reason he was sitting here now. He looked up at his boss, who seemed to have returned to the here and now.

  ‘There’s the case file in its entirety,’ said Muurla, clasping his fingers together and placing his hands on the table as though in prayer. ‘It’s online too, so you can read it there. Here’s the short version: a body turns up in a small town. Local investigation, no results. Regional investigation team in and out, no results. The case is a mystery.’

  Nyman looked at the man sitting behind the desk. His face resembled a broad antique sofa, its leather worn and lumpy. Muurla had been his boss ever since he had joined the undercover team after years in the Violent Crimes Unit of the Helsinki police. He didn’t know anything about Muurla’s background, he didn’t even know how old his boss was; true to its name, the Undercover Unit operated on a strictly need-to-know basis. He must have been closing in on sixty. Nyman liked working for Muurla: he was only interested in results, he wasn’t cocky and he didn’t offer advice or guidance. Of course, that might have been because he had very little to offer in that department. Nyman preferred not to think about that option.

  ‘There must be something else to it, if they want us to investigate,’ said Nyman. It was a question.

  ‘They think it was a professional job,’ said Muurla. ‘At least, they should think so. There’s still a lot we don’t know, but it looks like this: there’s a man in the house, either invited or uninvited, some other people arrive, either invited or uninvited, they all either know one another or they don’t, and their actions are either premeditated or spontaneous, but the long and the short of it is that one of them ends up with a broken neck. Your regular Joe Blogs couldn’t do something like that, and certainly not the owner of the property – a woman who might be involved in this, but then again might not. She’s been interviewed on numerous occasions since and she’s stuck to the story she told the police the first time: she arrived home to find the house trashed, and on the floor was a man she’d never seen before. We can’t confirm any of her story, except that she was elsewhere at the time of the incident. But whether or not she knew about what was going on in the house is a different matter, and if she did know, how was she involved?’

  ‘And the modus operandi suggests a professional hit?’

  ‘Yes,’ Muurla nodded. ‘As you’ll see from the case file, the victim was badly beaten first, then killed in an exceptional and very physical manner that would require great skill. According to the coroner, this kind of job requires two people who know what they’re doing. This isn’t something an amateur could pull off. The victim has to be in exactly the right position. This requires knowledge of anatomy, timing, cooperation, maybe even a familiarity with martial arts – and we’re not talking about yellow belts here. Black ones, for sure. And there’s something else: nothing was taken from the property. They turned up, did the job, and left before the owner returned. So everything else might be a distraction – the property might have been trashed afterwards for show. And there’s one more factor to complicate matters…’

  Nyman waited. Muurla leaned against his desk and edged his elbows forwards one at a time, cautiously moving closer to Nyman.

  ‘There was some confusion when everything kicked off,’ he said, his grey eyes boring ever deeper into Nyman. He was used to this by now: this was the way Muurla looked at someone who was about to be sent out of the office door and asked to do something utterly impossible. ‘After hearing the orig
inal call to the emergency services, the police assumed the situation in the property was still ongoing. So a squad barged inside and shook the guy who’d broken his neck, naturally thinking he was just another local nutcase who had taken a cocktail of modified drugs, thrown some rocks around, smashed a few windows, broken in, messed the place up and passed out. Everyday stuff. Anyway, in doing so this group of boy scouts really messed up the crime scene. What’s more, there’s some renovation work going on in the property at the moment, so you can imagine it’s been like Central Station in there. And so, to put it politely, the forensic investigation has been, shall we say, challenging, and the criminal investigation has been conducted manually, old school, as my son would say. Talking of offspring, it’s probably a good thing you two don’t have any children, what with the divorce and everything…’

  ‘Who am I?’ asked Nyman before Muurla could go any further. Nyman felt he must have heard at least four hundred different divorce-related anecdotes over the last month, some pretty tenuous and far-fetched, and none of which remotely resembled his own situation.

  ‘Your name is Jan Kaunisto,’ said Muurla and tapped a plastic folder on the desk. On top of the pile of documents was a brand-new Finnish passport. ‘A maths teacher. On summer holiday.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Nyman, and he could hear as he spoke quite how dry and laconic the word sounded. His tone of voice notwithstanding, he was pleased that this time he was able to keep his own first name. It helped when getting used to his new identity.

  ‘There’s a month’s wages and holiday pay in your account,’ said Muurla, opening the plastic folder enough to show the documents beneath the passport. ‘And here’s a debit card. You can sort yourself out with whatever else you need – telephone, that sort of thing. Any questions?’

  ‘Plenty, but the case file will probably answer most of them.’