Silence by Jan Costin Wagner Read Free Book Online Page A

ridiculous. What kind of joke would that be? What was all this about, anyway? Had the same murderer come back after thirty-three years to commit the same crime at the same place? If so, what on earth had got into the man?
    ‘I …’ he began.
    ‘Yes?’ asked Sundström.
    ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ said Kimmo.
    ‘Well, congratulations!’ said Sundström.
    Joentaa wasn’t sure what Sundström meant by that, and Sundström went on, ‘What we need now, my friends, is that damn body.’
    Grönholm and Joentaa exchanged a brief glance.
    ‘Or alternatively, how about the girl herself, uninjured and in perfect health?’ asked Grönholm, but Sundström didn’t even seem to notice that Grönholm was alluding to his remarks.
    The divers went down and came up again. Unsuccessfully. By agreement with Nurmela, Sundström had already informed the media that afternoon. Joentaa thought this was the right thing to do. And the decision to carry out a thorough and immediate search of the lake where Pia Lehtinen had been found so long ago was the obvious course to take, even though Kimmo was beginning to wonder if there was any point in searching this lake for a body, when there was a chance that the missing girl was still alive somewhere else. If, indeed, there was a missing girl.
    The ringtone of his mobile brought him out of his thoughts. ‘Tuomas here,’ said Heinonen. ‘I’ve located the girl.’
    Kimmo’s stomach lurched. ‘Oh no, that’s …’
    ‘No, sorry. I mean I probably know who she is,’ said Heinonen.
    ‘Ah. I see,’ said Kimmo.
    ‘Guy called Kalevi Vehkasalo rang to say the bike on the news belongs to his daughter and his daughter hasn’t come home today.’
    ‘Was he absolutely sure about the bike?’
    ‘Yes, that’s why I think it’s important. I mean, it was shown in close-up on the news and he’s perfectly certain it’s his daughter’s bicycle; he recognized the green sticker on the bell and he says his daughter’s bike had one just like it, a sticker with strong language on it – well, it said Fucking Bitch – and he’d always wanted to take that sticker off, he said, but she wouldn’t let him. And the sticker really does say Fucking Bitch.’
    ‘How did you leave things?’ asked Joentaa.
    ’I said we’d come right over to see him. And his wife, they’re both at home. I thought maybe Sundström would do that.’
    ‘I’ll have a word with him. Give me the address.’
    ‘Sodankylänkatu 12. That’s in Halinen, quite a way from where the bicycle was found.’
    ‘Right, thanks. See you later,’ said Joentaa.
    He spoke to Sundström, who narrowed his eyes, began rocking back and forth again and said, ‘Ah, so now we’re seeing some action.’
    4
    K etola saw the bicycle beside the cross in the field on the late news.
    His son Tapani had dropped in early that evening. Unannounced and out of the blue as usual. Ketola didn’t hear from him for weeks, sometimes months, then there would be Tapani standing in the doorway, smiling and looking at him with that expression of his, which might conceal some unfathomable world, or an empty world, or a world full of something or other, but anyway a world that Ketola didn’t understand.
    Tapani sat on the sofa, facing him, and talked about things he had done, or rather said he had done. Meetings with people who didn’t exist. Couldn’t exist. Although it was sometimes difficult to keep reality and fantasy apart with him.
    About a year ago Tapani had been arrested in northern Finland for simply walking out of a shop with a DVD player, obviously hoping the theft would be so conspicuous that no one would notice. Legal proceedings against him had been dropped, partly through Ketola’s influence, and yet again Tapani had spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. Ketola had visited him every week and they sat in his room. Tapani had talked, Ketola had kept quiet.
    It was the same now. Tapani talked about men who went into the woods and