He makes a perfect target. She delivers another kick to his crotch with a stockinged foot. He vomits, pulls his knees up to his stomach, tries to protect his testicles from further violence, cries like a baby. She goes back in the bedroom, sits down on the bed beside her sister, stares at the invisible fixed spot again.
Peter’s nose requires medical attention, but I don’t feel inclined to get it for him yet. He was a handsome boy, maybe too handsome, so pretty he was almost effeminate. Valtteri and little sister cured that problem, but then again, no doubt Daddy will have a plastic surgeon put it back the way it was. I leave him on the floor of the hall. Puke drools out of the corner of his mouth. Blood runs out of his nose and puddles on the floor around his head. He’s curled into a fetal position, bawling his eyes out.
Prostitution isn’t a crime in Finland, and neither is procuring the services of a prostitute. Prostitution only becomes a matter for the law when it’s organized, involves human trafficking and slavery. Big sister is at least sixteen, the age of consent in this country, and is taking part in prostitution of her own volition. Little sister, however, is well under the age of consent. Peter has raped and sexually assaulted a minor.
The law states that people entering the country for the purpose of prostitution must be deported. But not today. I’ll get the girls medical and psychiatric care first, and take their statements, but they’ll never return for trial. Daddy will buy Peter a good lawyer, and in the end, Peter might walk on the rape and assault charges.
I call for EMTs and search while I wait. I find cocaine and Rohypnol, the date-rape drug, and pills which I think are probably GHB or ecstasy. I check out Daddy’s computer. Some of the video files are encrypted, some aren’t. I guess Daddy had the sense to encrypt his videos, but Peter found the key to the secret lair, used the equipment and didn’t have the brains to cover his ass.
There’s footage of him having sex with a variety of people, some male, some female, some adults, some children. In a folder labeled BROKEN ANGELS, I find downloaded kiddie porn, Japanese videos of violent sex with abused and damaged children. Peter is already a convicted sex offender, and possession of child pornography is a serious crime here. In essence, Peter’s fucked, and Daddy can’t help him without incriminating himself.
Two ambulances arrive, the sisters and Peter travel in separate vehicles. Through driving snow, Valtteri and I trail behind them in the cruiser without speaking. At the hospital, I find a nurse fluent in Russian. She translates and I take statements from the girls. We sit in the waiting room and I take a short nap, until a doctor says we have to leave Peter because he has a ruptured testicle. Both the testicle and his nose require surgery. He won’t be able to walk for a week. I suggest he test Peter for HIV/AIDS, because he has unprotected anal sex with prostitutes from Russia, where the disease is rampant.
I’m not worried about leaving Peter unguarded. He’s temporarily crippled and anyway, I have his passport. He has nowhere to run. We drive back to the station. “He resisted arrest,” I say, “and it was your duty to stop him, but you overreacted and you were going to let him fall over the rail. You almost killed him. And there was no need to hit him like that.”
He stares straight ahead, repeats what I said to him a few days ago. “If you feel like you have to report what I did, I won’t hold it against you.”
I’m not sure if he’s mocking me. “I guess we’re even now,” I say, “but are you sure you’re ready to be on duty?”
“I wouldn’t have let him fall.”
I don’t press it.
32
Back at the Police Station, I go down to the lockup and open the port in Seppo’s cell door. He’s sitting on the edge of his cot, crying, looks like he hasn’t stopped since I left him there hours ago.
“You have two options,” I say. “You can hold Heli’s funeral tomorrow, or wait until after Christmas.”
He looks up through eyes swollen almost shut. “What do you think I should do?”
My patience with him is gone. “For fuck’s sake, she was your wife. What you do with her isn’t my decision.”
He whimpers. “I can’t think, just do whatever you think is best.”
Maybe we should just get it over with and put her burial behind us. At least then I won’t have to discuss it with him anymore. “Let’s do it tomorrow.”
He starts bawling again in big sobs and shouts through his tears, “My wife is dead and I can’t even go to her funeral because I’m in jail.”
I’ve already considered this. “You can go. I’ll take you.”
He pauses, wipes his eyes. “Thank you,” he says, then gets down on the floor on his knees, folds his hands and starts begging. “I’m innocent, please help me. I’m innocent, please help me.” He keeps repeating it over and over again.
I ignore him, shut the port in his door and go up to my office. I call Jorma to make Heli’s funeral arrangements, then check my e-mail. Luck is with me. Interpol sent me a student identification photo from the Sorbonne. It’s twenty-six years old, but the man in the photo bears little resemblance to the man in Finland claiming to be Dr. Abdi Barre. The last the Sorbonne heard of him, Abdi Barre was practicing medicine at Karaan Hospital, to the north of Mogadishu. It wasn’t so much a real hospital as a group of villas that were converted to form a collective center for emergency surgery for those suffering acute war injuries. Dr. Barre was last heard from in 1990.
Since there’s no agency in Somalia I can turn to, I consider who might be able to trace Dr. Barre. If he was killed, maybe his death was recorded and listed somewhere. Murdering a physician treating civilian wounded might qualify as a war crime. Finland is a member of the European Union, and international cooperation between EU police departments is good. However, the EU has no jurisdiction over war criminals. That responsibility falls to the International Criminal Court, in The Hague.
When I call the ICC, they give me the bureaucratic runaround. After a while, I get a minor functionary on the phone who explains to me that they’ve been talking about holding war crimes tribunals for genocide in Somalia for some years, but haven’t done anything about it yet. They haven’t even assembled an official list of suspects, let alone put together a list of victims. I ask why not. He doesn’t have an answer.
When Serbians committed genocide in the Balkans, the ICC took their prosecution of war criminals seriously and is still tracking them down. The message is clear: Europeans find their own lives of great value, but African lives of little or no worth. I ask if any agency might have assembled a victims list. He says the Human Rights Commission monitored violence in Mogadishu during that time frame and suggests I check with them.
I phone the HRC and speak with a helpful and concerned woman. I give her the year and name of the hospital and she checks their records. There is no victims list, but physicians from the expatriate staff of Medecins Sans Frontieres provided emergency assistance. She has a list of MSF doctors that were there, and can e-mail me their contact information. Two minutes later, I get it and notice that one of the doctors is a Finn. I call her up.
Yes, she remembers Abdi Barre, his death was very sad. In the first weeks of heavy fighting, it was common for groups of armed soldiers to bring their wounded to the hospital. They dictated tri-age decisions and forced doctors to operate with guns held to their heads. The president’s own bodyguards, the Red Berets, notorious for torture, subjected Dr. Barre to such treatment. When his patient died on the operating table, they took him outside, filled a tire with gasoline, placed it around his arms and chest and burned him to death.