Free The Bodyguard by Leena Lehtolainen Page A

He’s a garbage truck driver during the day and paints in the evenings, and he sends all his earnings back to his family near Murmansk. He looked so hungry I had to invite him in for coffee and some ham quiche.”
    “Did you choose this painting?”
    “No, Yuri picked it out for me. He said its colors would make a good addition to this room, and he was right—look how it matches my sofa and the wallpaper. I preferred the swan he’d painted, but I thought he’d have an easier time selling that one than the one I bought. Let me pop into the kitchen to see if the pie is ready. I’ll set the table.”
    I took a few steps toward the painting. The signature was large and clear: Yuri Trankov . It probably wasn’t his real name. The paintings may not have been his, either. It was easy to buy amateur paintings in bulk from some homeless person at a Moscow subway station. This Trankov wasn’t a bad artist; the painting was incredibly realistic. It was small, only about eleven by fifteen inches, and in other circumstances I would have greatly admired it. It depicted a lynx leaping from a ledge to attack a deer. But this piece of art could only be interpreted as a warning. What did that voice mail say again? That I should keep quiet if I didn’t want to end up as dead as the lynx Anita had been wearing?
    Over coffee I tried to pry for more details about Trankov from Mrs. Voutilainen. He had appeared with a bag on wheels containing about a dozen small paintings of animals. He’d asked for fifty euros, but she had given him sixty because she happened to have three twenty-euro bills in her purse.
    “Did you two speak in English? You don’t know Russian, do you?”
    “No, and my English isn’t great, either. Yuri spoke Finnish, and very well considering that he’s only been in Helsinki since last fall. Obviously a motivated young man.”
    Elli Voutilainen didn’t have any children of her own; she loved taking young people under her wing. I asked whether Yuri had happened to leave any contact information, but apparently he was so poor that he didn’t even have a phone. Mrs. Voutilainen accused me of being prejudiced against Russians—all Yuri took were three slices of quiche, and that was only after she had insisted on it. I didn’t think Yuri had any plans to rob Mrs. Voutilainen; he was just a messenger, and his message had been heard loud and clear.
    Because she was a skillful artist herself, I asked her to make a sketch of Yuri for me. She shook her head.
    “Poor girl, you’re so suspicious of everyone, but I guess it’s part of your job.” She’d heard the same cover story as my roommates about my work. Despite her protests she began to draw, and soon an image emerged of a skinny man with sunken cheeks, a small goatee, and sideburns. She had captured his easily recognized Slavic features: the prominent cheek bones, forehead, and small, narrow nose.
    “Too bad you don’t have his address. He would have liked this portrait. Can I buy it?”
    “What do you mean, buy ? Take it. Oh, and take some of this lingonberry pie to Jenni and Riikka. Which one of them was making a ruckus last night in the hallway? I suppose it was Jenni; the religious girl probably wouldn’t have.” Mrs. Voutilainen bustled back to the kitchen to pack up the pie and left me alone, staring at the painting.
    At home I used Riikka’s printer-copier combo to make copies of the sketch. She also identified Trankov as the man who had showed up at our door.
    “If you see this guy, let me know,” I said. “And do not let him in, under any circumstances.” I’d tell Jenni the same thing the next time I saw her.
    “Why?”
    “He’s not a nice guy. A skirt chaser. Better stay away from him.”
    “Did he hurt you?”
    “He tried. I’d rather not talk about it, you know, for professional confidentiality reasons.”
    “Sheesh, what a job you have. Both the cops and the robbers are after you.”
    In an attempt to steer the conversation in