TH02 - The Priest of Evil by Matti Joensuu Read Free Book Online Page B

the few metres to the end of the screen. Its frame and slats were made of unvarnished wood but otherwise it was nothing but white, transparent paper. They had bought it in a shop near the ring road, to split up the room.
    ‘Try and sleep a while longer,’ he said and only then realised how empty it sounded. The important thing was that he had walked across the room and now looked his daughter in the eye. ‘I’ll wake you before I leave. And I’ll make you a cup of tea and a sandwich.’
    ‘OK,’ she sighed and rested her head on the pillow. ‘Don’t forget to leave me some money for the bus. Mari and I are going to look at that flat today.’
    ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if you liked the place… I’ll leave the money in the hall cupboard. Have a good day then.’
    ‘Dad?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Have you seen Matti at all?’
    ‘Well… you know how he hates me.’
    ‘No he doesn’t, not really, it’s just that he’s been hurt so badly, that’s all. You have a good day too.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    He went back to his desk and hopelessly picked up his papers, knowing that nothing would come of reading them again. It suddenly struck him how much he missed his son and his real home in Kulosaari; he missed the life he had lost, the years when Sanna and Matti were still little andeverything was just right. With uncomfortable certainty he suddenly felt that nothing like that would ever happen to him again, that from now on grey days would follow, one after the other, and that soon the weekend would be no different from a Thursday. Another grey morning was dawning. Soon he would trudge down the hill to Hakaniemi, take a rattling underground train to Kontula and shut himself inside the even smaller rented room he called his office. The years went by as quickly as ever – four years of a state grant behind him and he hadn’t been able to write a thing. In less than a year’s time he would have no choice but to return to the post office and the drudgery of his job in the sorting office.
    He glanced drowsily over the first page and somewhere deep inside him, almost beyond his reach, he could sense that perhaps this was good prose after all, but the cold fact remained that it was of absolutely no use to him whatsoever.
    He turned and stared at the bookshelf: there in a row stood his eight novels. The words Mikko Matias Moisio appeared on the spine of each book, leading his colleagues at the post office to tease him incessantly. Some of them had given him the nickname the Three M’s.
    His novels formed a series and they had brought him considerable renown both in Finland and abroad.
    It was a series about a happy family.
7. Jam
    To be absolutely specific, the vehicle was one belonging to the arson unit of the Violent Crimes Squad of Helsinki’s municipal police. Not surprisingly it was known as simply the ‘Fire Engine’, even though this particular one wasn’t red but white, just like all the other police Transporter vans, containing nothing personal that could identify the owners. Only a sharp eye would have noticed it was a police vehicle, from the two flashing blue lights hidden behind the cooling vent.
    Officers from other squads were allowed to use the cars as necessary, and this time it was Harjunpää’s turn to borrow it. He approached the car from behind, almost dragging his feet. At this Elisa would certainlyhave noted that her husband wasn’t in the best of moods. Harjunpää took a deep breath. Though he could already sense the exhaust fumes drifting in across the Western Highway, he enjoyed the scent of Lauttasaari in the spring. It was a pleasant mix of budding birch trees, lawns slowly awakening and the sea finally released from the grip of ice. The air smelled and tasted of life.
    In one hand Harjunpää was carrying a case file and in the other he fumbled with the car keys. As he pressed a button on the key ring the Transporter’s lights flashed and there came a small click as the doors unlocked. He threw