CHIEF INSPECTOR SANNA Porkka grips the steering wheel and stares out at the hypnotic sight before her. The powder swirling on the surface of the highway dances in the glow of her high beams. The wedge of light illuminates not only the plowed snow at the sides of the road, but the bare tree trunks that hide endless darkness behind them. They have been driving through heavy snow for an hour already, but they still have more than three hours to go before they reach Helsinki, and that’s without any stops. On the phone, her colleague Chief Inspector Mikson stressed that there was no particular hurry. The important thing was to get Koponen to Helsinki safely so they can go through things in the morning thoroughly.
Sanna glances down at the navigator on the dash. Once they pass Juva, she is supposed to turn onto Highway 5 toward Mikkeli, from where their trip will continue via Lahti and on to Helsinki. The road will not turn into an expressway until they reach Heinola. Even though there is no traffic to speak of, driving down the narrow highway when she’s tired is stressful. All they have come across is the occasional semi headed in the other direction; Sanna hasn’t had to pass a single vehicle.
“Tell me if you need to stop,” Sanna says, looking in the rearview mirror. Neither she nor Koponen has said a word the entire drive. The author has been sitting so quietly in the backseat of his Audi that a couple of times Sanna has thought he’s fallen asleep. But Koponen hasn’t so much as shut his eyes; this whole time, his blank gaze has been directed at the forest flickering past like a monotonous filmstrip. A few thumb-sized bottles of liquor from the hotel’s minibar have joined him for the ride.
“Stop?” Koponen says, and now turns his eyes to the front seat. Sanna can smell the whisky on his breath.
“Yes. If—”
“It’s one thirty in the morning. Why the fuck would we stop?” Koponen’s voice is low; he rubs the wrinkles in his forehead.
For a moment, Sanna considers answering but decides not to. She has tried to be friendly, and that’s enough. It’s not natural to expect completely normal behavior from anyone in this sort of situation. The guy must be in some sort of shock; he probably just wants to get home, sit next to his wife on the couch, and tell her how crazy everyone else is. But Maria Koponen is dead. And now Sanna knows what Koponen and her colleagues were talking about; she glanced at the image Chief Mikson sent. The frozen euphoria on the woman’s face has been etched onto Sanna’s retinas. She can picture it amid the snowflakes scintillating in the car’s headlights.
“I’m sorry,” Koponen says with a sigh. A twist cap cracks open in his hands, and Sanna emerges from her imaginings. The speedometer shows a hair past a hundred; it’s over the speed limit and otherwise too fast, considering the weather conditions, despite the all-weather tires. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he continues in a weary voice, then raises the bottle to his lips. Sanna isn’t sure drinking is what’s best for Koponen at the moment. On the other hand, it could calm him, maybe even help him fall asleep. Mikson’s instructions didn’t include any specific requests: just pack Koponen into his car and drive him to Helsinki.
“No worries,” Sanna says with a quick glance over her shoulder. It’s too fleeting to catch Koponen’s face in the darkness, but she assumes his expression is conciliatory.
Sanna takes her foot off the gas. The V-6 purring under the hood of the Audi drops its revs. Her fingers stroke the tooled leather on the steering wheel. A magnificent machine. Maybe someday she’ll be able to get herself a car she wants, not just one she needs.
“We’ll be in Helsinki at four thirty at the earliest,” Sanna says, and jams a pillow of snuff into her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. Her passenger doesn’t respond, but Sanna sees him lean his head back against the headrest.
Sanna hasn’t been to Helsinki in ages, and she doesn’t have any intention of staying there any longer than absolutely necessary this time. But she’s scheduled for duty today anyway, and it’s all the same to her where she spends her workday: at the station in Savonlinna or on the road, chauffeuring a just-widowed bestselling author. Besides, it’s not often that she gets a chance to sit behind the wheel of a brand-new luxury car.
“Have you read my books?”
“No,” Sanna answers quickly. Further explanation would feel strange.
Koponen lets out a deep sigh. “There are totally crazy things in them. . . . If everything that . . . I can’t even imagine.”
“You’ll have a chance to talk about all that once we get to Helsinki,” Sanna says calmly. A few moments pass in silence. Then she starts to hear sobbing from the backseat. Sanna isn’t sure if her passenger’s sudden outburst is because his wife’s death has finally sunk in, or if he is silently reviewing the horrors his imagination has produced between the covers. Grisly fantasies that have inspired some sick individual to kill his wife. Sanna has the urge to say something comforting, but nothing feels right. It has all been said already. The distance to the backseat feels greater than a light-year.
A semi blows past, and the current of air from the massive vehicle rocks the Audi. Snow tumbles across the asphalt, whips into frenzied swirls. And then Sanna sees a bright light creep into the rearview mirror.