The Winter of the Lions by Jan Costin Wagner Read Free Book Online

when Rauna begins to connect you personally with the incident. And then you might not beable to help her any more. It might become more of a burden on her. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
    ‘Rauna was glad to see me,’ she says.
    ‘I know. I’m just trying to point out that it will take her a long time to work her way through the incident and go through the various stages.’
    The incident, she thinks. How matter-of-fact he sounds when he says it. She likes him. He is clever, but clumsy at the same time. She likes that odd mixture, he sometimes reminds her of Ilmari. They don’t look like each other, but they’re about the same age, and Ilmari too was clever and clumsy. Would Ilmari have described the moment when the sky fell in as an incident?
    ‘What good does that do us?’ she asks.
    He waits.
    ‘What good does it do to talk about an incident?’
    He waits a moment, then says, ‘I think it’s important to find a term that creates distance. You need distance before you can begin again.’
    ‘Do you really think so?’
    He nods.
    ‘Because that’s what you were taught?’
    For a while he says nothing.
    ‘What did you mean when you said you were gliding over the snow as if you were on rails?’ he asks.
    ‘It’s what I’d most like to do. Glide over the snow on rails and put the world to rights,’ she says.
    He waits, but she doesn’t know what else she could say to him.
    ‘Do you understand?’ she asks.
    He nods.
    When she goes out into the cold it is snowing, and Ilmari and Veikko still lie buried under the ruins of the sky.

16
    WHEN JOENTAA GOT home the house was dark. He opened the door and stood on the threshold for a while.
    ‘Larissa?’ he said softly.
    No reply. He went into the living room, dropped on to the sofa and looked at the little spruce tree beside the picture window for some time. He tried to concentrate on Patrik Laukkanen. On any possible motive for his murder. That was how Sundström had put it. An efficient investigation had been set in motion, there was a conclusive scenario, there were clues that could be assessed, but no sign of what, in most cases, emerges quite early as at least a possibility – there was no indication of the murderer’s motives.
    Joentaa stared at the television screen, at the silhouette of his own body reflected in it, and heard a faint crunching outside and felt a cold draught of air as the front door was opened. He sat there motionless, holding his breath. In the kitchen, the fridge was opened. He heard the clink of a glass, the rushing of water. After a while, someone drawing long breaths. Someone breathing there in his house. He waited.
    ‘Hello, Kimmo,’ said Larissa.
    He turned, and saw her standing in the doorway. Her voice sounded different. Both strange and familiar.
    ‘Hello,’ said Kimmo.
    ‘I’m rather tired,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed soon.’
    ‘Do that,’ he said.
    She took off her jacket, perched on the arm of the comfortable living-room chair and looked at him.
    ‘Everything … everything all right?’ he asked.
    She nodded, stood up and undressed. She put her clothes in a neat pile on the sofa beside him.
    ‘I’m glad …’ said Joentaa.
    She looked enquiringly at him.
    ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
    She was looking at him, but he couldn’t interpret her expression.
    ‘Sleep well, Kimmo,’ she said. She went into the bedroom and closed the door without looking back.

27 D ECEMBER

17
    WHEN JOENTAA WOKE up he wasn’t sure where he was. After a few seconds he got his bearings. He was sitting on the living-room sofa, and the digits on the DVD player said the time was 6.38. He ran his hands over his face and thought of Tuomas Heinonen. Heinonen had set off that afternoon to compile a list of people who knew Patrik Laukkanen. ‘Wish me luck,’ he’d said before leaving the office. He probably hadn’t been referring to the questioning sessions ahead of him, and Kimmo hadn’t seen him since.
    He sat