“Is it a male with short hair and a trench coat?”
“No, they said it was that old drunk Fuck-Jore . His hands are trembling worse than ever, but evidently his mouth moves just fine. He started going on about some knife in his pocket.”
Helmikoski considered before responding. “Send one unit. Have the rest keep searching.”
The officer checked the map, turned to her microphone, and sent over the closest patrol, unit 122.
* * *
A smile spread across Nieminen’s face when the orders arrived. The car was still on Mannerheim Street, but had now advanced down to the Sokos department store. “Yippe kay-ay,” he said, flipping on the lights and sirens. Traffic wasn’t moving, but Nieminen bumped the car up onto the sidewalk. The pedestrians started at the noise and moved out of the way.
“Hey, take it easy!” Partio snapped. He would have much preferred to be at the wheel himself. He instinctively checked his pistol and mace. He always did when it was a Code 3. The third critical thing was his seat belt. That was on, too.
Partio remembered Fuck-Jore well; he was a regular customer. The fifty-year-old had gotten his nickname from the fact that every third word out of his mouth was “fuck,” or some derivation of it. Not a total skid row bum yet, but well on his way. The gaunt drunk’s eyebrows were as bushy as Brezhnev’s, and he always wore the same flannel shirt. Fuck-Jore used to be a mid-level burglar, but booze had started to taste a little too good. Partio thought it was a minor miracle the guy was still alive.
At the old main post office, Nieminen whipped the Mondeo onto Posti Street, heading toward the main railway station. He did it a little too quickly for Partio’s taste, missing a pedestrian by less than a yard. The streets were crowded, and everyone was staring at the police car with its lights and sirens blaring.
Although there wasn’t anything remarkable about him, a man in a gray coat who was staring at one of the Sokos display windows caught Partio’s attention. Partio tried to remember: it was a trench coat, wasn’t it? Why didn’t the guy look at them? Maybe he was deaf, but still.
Partio had learned to register everything out of the ordinary, but the man in the gray coat vanished from his thoughts when Nieminen hit the gas and swerved into the oncoming lane. A number 66 bus was headed toward them, and the Mondeo made it back into its own lane just in the nick of time.
“Goddammit! Take it easy, will you?” Partio yelled. Luckily, Nieminen would be able to jump up onto the tram lane at Kaivo Street. Driving along them instead of in traffic was safer for all concerned. The man in the gray coat still nagged at him, and Partio grabbed the microphone from the dash.
* * *
Timo Repo was sure he’d just gotten caught. He had heard the wailing of the police car before it turned the corner, but it had zoomed past. He had instinctively turned his face toward the display window and hoped for the best. He was envisioning a scene with the officer aiming a gun at him and ordering him to put his hands up.
And that’s how it had gone down eight years ago. He couldn’t imagine a worse way to wake up. The police officer slapping his face and shouting. Opening his eyes to find himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. And then the third thing he noticed was how sticky his hands were, and the sweet, sickening smell in the air. Repo remembered it all like it was yesterday. Coca-Cola? No, something red. Blood. He decided not to pursue those thoughts any further.
He needed to get out of downtown, and fast. The police car bothered him. Why had it passed him by? Why didn’t it stop? Why didn’t some gorilla in blue coveralls jump out, waving a gun?
Repo jogged a couple of steps and accidentally bumped a skinny punk in a hoodie.
“Fucking faggot. You wanna get your ass kicked?”
“Sorry. Late for my train,” Repo apologized without stopping. In his younger days he might have mashed the guy’s face into a pizza, but not now.
At the corner, Repo crossed over to the post office side of the street and set course for the central train station.
Just then a police car pulled up to the railway station taxi stand and two officers stepped out. Both scanned the crowd.
Repo turned in the direction of the all-glass offices of the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, which stood behind the restaurant Vltava. Further ahead, toward Finlandia Hall, he saw another police car. He rapidly ticked off his alternatives: the old post office? No, he’d be trapped if he went in there. A small doorway nearby had a sign indicating it would lead him to the underground parking lot below Eliel Square.
Eliel Square was a busy transportation hub, with buses pulling into and backing out of loading zones.
At that instant a woman in a red coat ran past, and Repo noticed a bus on the verge of pulling out. He sprang after her. The bus was his best chance. It was already sliding back out of its parking spot, but the woman smacked its side. The driver stopped and opened the door. She stepped in, and Repo followed.
“Sorry,” she said to the grouchy driver, flashing a card in front of some sort of reader that Repo didn’t recognize. “Have to pick up my kid from daycare.”
The driver didn’t respond, just looked at Repo, who was clueless. “You wanna pay so we can get out of here?”
Pay! He didn’t have any money. His hand reached into the pocket of the trench coat, where at least there was a comb. He fished deeper and felt coins. Repo pulled them out, but they looked strange. He had heard of euros, of course, but he had never held one before. The prison store worked on credit.
“Sorry,” he said, trying to act the yokel. It didn’t take much effort. “How much is it?”
“Where are you headed?” the driver asked.
Repo didn’t even know what bus he was on. “Umm… End of the line.”
“Three sixty,” the driver snapped.
Someone yelled from the back, “Hey, asshole! Why don’t you pay so we can get out of here!”
Repo fumbled with the coins, trying to see how much they were worth, but they all looked the same to him. He slapped them down on the driver’s little tray. “You mind? Eyesight’s bad,” he said.
“So get some glasses,” the driver retorted, picking through the coins for the fare. Repo took his ticket, swept up the remaining coins, and moved farther back into the bus. He kept his eyes on the floor and found a seat up front, on the left. The woman in the red coat was sitting next to him, but she didn’t so much as glance in his direction.
The bus backed up and Repo stole a glimpse outside. The police car that had approached from the Helsingin Sanomat headquarters had stopped fifty yards away.
Repo examined the coins in his hand. One was bigger than the rest and had a big 2 on it. The second-biggest one was yellow and it was worth 50. Repo counted his funds and came to the conclusion that he had 4 euros and 70 cents. He noticed the woman in the red coat eyeing him, and he slipped the change into his coat pocket.
The bus drove past the police car. It passed the newspaper’s offices on the left and some new hotel on the right as it continued down the street, following the railroad. Up at the front of the bus, red lights formed what appeared to be the numbers 194. Repo didn’t have the faintest idea where he was headed.
CHAPTER 2
MONDAY, 4:50 P.M.
HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS, PASILA
Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki was in his office browsing through his copy of Finland’s statutes, which was marked with colored Post-it notes cut into narrow strips. Written on the Post-its in tidy, tiny stick letters were words such as MURDER, ARSON, TELESURVEILLANCE, POLICE LAW.