Free Light in a Dark House by Jan Costin Wagner Page B

internal examination yet,’ said Hietalahti.
    Joentaa looked at him.
    ‘I mean . . . I haven’t finished the autopsy.’
    ‘No. I know,’ said Joentaa.
    He looked at the dead woman’s face, and thought of the TV presenter with her lavish eye make-up last night, the woman who didn’t realise that giraffe was the right solution. She had been rather lively – even late in the night. The first woman ever to call him sweetie-pie.
    He thought of driving to Lenganiemi and the graveyard. To stand by Sanna’s grave. And then go to see Ketola. Ask how he was doing. Visit Tuomas Heinonen in hospital at the weekend. And meet Larissa. Have an ice cream together. Perhaps she would tell him her real name, just drop it casually into the conversation. It would take him several seconds to understand.
    ‘Do you know how many ice-cream parlours there are?’
    ‘What?’ asked Hietalahti.
    ‘Here in Turku, I mean,’ said Joentaa.
    ‘In Turku?’
    ‘No, sorry. I don’t even know for certain . . . it’s probably just one of those ice-cream kiosks that pop up all over the place in summer. Are they still around now?’
    ‘Kimmo, what on earth are you talking about?’
    ‘Sorry. A friend of mine works in an ice-cream parlour, but I don’t know which one.’
    ‘Mmm,’ said Hietalahti, and Joentaa couldn’t take his eyes off the woman’s face, which had lost all expression. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the cloth covering her body, and he thought of the tears on the bedspread. Amazing what they could reconstruct. What they could sum up.
    He said goodbye to Hietalahti and went back through the green corridors. A moped was standing outside in the sun, next to some bicycles. The colour was right but not the number plate.
    Even the initial letter was wrong.

26
    MARKUS HAPPONEN, TOWN councillor and the second mayor of the municipality of Auno near Tammisaari, carefully passed his hand over his hair, and felt that everything was all right, although in his haste he hadn’t got around to showering that morning. He examined his face in the mirror and worked on giving his smile a determined yet at the same time relaxed expression.
    His daughter Outi hadn’t come home until morning, when she had gone to her room without comment. Ina had criticised his command of crisis management. Veinö had shed tears and shouted that something was too loud. Too loud, too loud, too loud.
    He turned away from the mirror, washed his hands, and went back into the sunlight. The journalist was sitting with his beer in front of him, leaning back and looking up at the sky. All around him were the lively voices of people enjoying the warmest autumn in living memory. Laughter rose from the beach, waitresses were serving pizza.
    From a distance he examined the journalist, who had closed his eyes. He wondered whether he was going to ask any rather more personal questions. Very likely.
    Your wife? Wants nothing more to do with me.
    Your daughter? Hates me.
    Your son? A useless weakling.
    Ah, thank you, I’m sure it will be an excellent portrait. I’ll send you the text as soon as it’s ready so that you can authorise it.
    The journalist opened his eyes, raised his beer glass to his mouth, and waved to him. Markus Happonen walked past the tables back to the chair where he had been sitting.
    ‘I’ve already had a sip or so,’ said the journalist, raising his glass again. ‘Down the hatch.’
    ‘Cheers,’ said Happonen, raising his own beer to his mouth. Ice-cold. Wonderful. The journalist was fiddling with his little recorder.
    ‘This is always something of an adventure,’ he said. ‘You’d think that one of these days I’d get the idea of where to switch it on and where to switch it off again.’ He wound the tape back and forth, and then Happonen heard his own voice, strange and unpleasant and tinny as it came out of the recorder. ‘I didn’t aim to get a mandate from the country as a whole, particularly with my family in mind . . . it