Silence by Jan Costin Wagner Read Free Book Online

long nights were more beautiful in Finland than anywhere else. Once, when they were staggering back through Turku after a midsummer party, she had fallen into the river, hopelessly tipsy. Kimmo, panic-stricken, had jumped in after her and Sanna had laughed at his clumsy attempts to pull her out.
    ‘Nothing!’ called one of the divers. ‘We’re not finding anything.’
    ‘Carry on!’ called Sundström, who was standing on the bank beside the motionless Petri Grönholm, rocking vigorously back and forth on the ball of his feet. He turned and came over to Kimmo. ‘No sign of her,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find the poor soul in this lake.’
    Kimmo nodded. If so, the curious parallels would probably end here. When the discovery of the bicycle was reported at midday, no one had made the connection at first. A couple of officers on patrol had gone to take a closer look, and reported back that the bicycle was lying near a cross erected in memory of a girl murdered in 1974. They said they had also found traces of blood and a sports bag containing gear that presumably belonged to a teenage girl.
    While Niemi and his team were driving out to the scene, Kimmo had gone in search of the files. He had immediately remembered the day of Ketola’s retirement, the case that Ketola had described, the model they had carried out to Ketola’s car in the sleet and snow.
    With Päivi Holmquist, the head archivist, he had gone back down to the big basement room where long-forgotten items were stored. Päivi had gone straight to the right folder, taken it out and, presumably noticing his amazement, pointed out, with emphasis, that she did know what files were to be found in this room.
    There were dozens of file folders, faded yellow folders containing a wealth of carefully compiled material. Joentaa had thought of Ketola putting that particular folder down there so long ago.
    He had thanked Päivi, taken the folder up to the third floor in an old cardboard box and had a first quick look at it before driving out with Sundström to the place where the bicycle had been found.
    The site as reported was the same as the crime scene of the old case, and the name on the cross was indeed the name of the girl in the files dating back to that time. Niemi and his colleagues had been hard at work. Joentaa, feeling the sun on the back of his neck, had read the inscription on the cross. Pia Lehtinen. Murdered 1974.
    ‘Take a look at this, will you?’ Sundström had said, indicating the place where Niemi was standing a few metres away. They had approached cautiously, and Niemi had pointed to the spot where the soil joined the asphalt bicycle path and the thin trail of blood there.
    ‘It’s as if someone had been dragged along the ground to the bicycle path. That’s where the trail ends,’ Niemi had said.
    Kimmo had nodded, remembering the reconstruction of the old crime in the files. There had been a trickle of blood then too and the reconstruction suggested that the murderer had put Pia Lehtinen in his car before sinking her body in the lake, where she was found months later. Sundström, Grönholm and he were now standing on its bank, while divers searched the bottom for the corpse of a still anonymous girl.
    ‘Could be the girl doesn’t exist,’ Grönholm was just saying. ‘Could be the whole thing will turn out to be just a joke.’
    Kimmo nodded.
    ‘Funny sort of joke, of course,’ Grönholm added. ‘But to date all we have is a bike found by chance beside this cross and the sports bag.’
    ‘And traces of a struggle. And a trail of blood, my young friend,’ said Sundström.
    ‘Yes, well,’ said Grönholm.
    Kimmo Joentaa wasn’t really listening. He was thinking what it would mean if the parallels between then and now ended here. Beside this lake. There were dozens of other lakes around here. Lakes they’d have to search. Ultimately, Grönholm had a point, but at the same time Joentaa thought the idea of a joke was