THE CONFERENCE ROOM smells of cigarette butts, despite the fact the last time smoking was allowed there was somewhere around the beginning of the millennium. It’s early morning, the wind has settled down, but it’s still dark out. The window gives onto a view of the gargantuan construction site enveloping the Pasila rail yard, deserted despite the glare of bright lights. Towering cranes rise skyward like dinosaurs sleeping on their feet.
Jessica intertwines her fingers around her tea mug and raises it to her lips. With the exception of Erne, the whole team is present: Yusuf, Nina, Mikael, and Rasmus, who, as usual, reeks of sweat. According to the joke going around the station, Rasmus’ deodorant is the worst friend in the history of the world, because it betrays him every day. It’s pretty amazing that the gibe hasn’t reached his ears yet; if it had, he might have done something about it. Rasmus Susikoski, the same age as Jessica almost to the day, is an attorney by training and hasn’t spent a single day in the field. In spite of this—and thanks to his keen observations and encyclopedic general knowledge—he has proven to be worth his weight in gold during many investigations.
Nina Ruska is tapping blithely at her phone, as if she will return to the Spartan conference room at police HQ and a reality more gruesome than a fairy tale only after she has pressed Send. Nina is fortyish, with strong features and a generous sprinkling of freckles; despite her daily uniform of jeans and a hoodie, she always looks beautiful. Mikael Kaariniemi, sitting at her side, chomps on his gum furiously. Micke is the same age as Nina and has recently given up the battle against hair loss; his dress shirts are always surprisingly well pressed. He raises an eyebrow at Jessica, and she quickly turns away.
“Good morning,” Erne says, shutting the door behind him. The other five attendees mumble responses. “The press briefing starts at eight. By then, we have to sketch out at least a preliminary line of investigation.”
Erne uses the remote to turn on the video projector. The room fills with the subdued hum of the device hanging from the ceiling.
“You first, Rasse,” Erne says, and leans against the table.
The foul-smelling man clears his throat and prods his glasses more firmly onto his nose with his forefinger. He glances quickly at the others and begins haltingly: “We’ve read through Koponen’s trilogy and started a second round, to see if we might catch any details we missed the first time. We found a total of eight homicides, seven of which can be considered ritual murders. For each of the homicides under investigation, a corresponding crime is described in Koponen’s story.”
Rasmus’ words break the tension that has permeated the room. They confirm what everyone already knew, deep down.
“Do the crimes in the book take place in this same order?” Erne asks, surprisingly calmly, as he folds his arms across his chest. Jessica glances at her superior and then turns back to Rasmus, who is sitting at her side.
“No.” Rasmus nervously fiddles with the temples of his eyeglasses. “The murders have not been carried out in the same order as in the book. Or, I mean the first two were, but if we want to view the two middle-of-the-night killings as burnings at the stake . . . I have copies here for everyone. . . .”
Rasmus pushes a slim stack of papers out into the middle of the table, and everyone grabs their own. Jessica looks at the list and frowns.
Murders committed in Roger Koponen’s Witch Hunt series:
BOOK I
Woman, drowned (under the ice)
Woman, poisoned (body positioned in a manner identical to Maria Koponen’s body)
Man, stoned to death
BOOK II
Man, stabbed with a dagger
Man, burned at the stake
BOOK III
Woman, crushed to death (gradually, with heavy stones)
Woman, burned at the stake
“Just a second,” Erne says, looking up from the sheet of paper. “Has poison been confirmed as the cause of Maria Koponen’s death?”
“Not that I know of,” Rasmus replies unhesitatingly; his tone is uncertain. “But with the others, the crime matches the depiction in the book. And the victims match the books’ descriptions to a T: dark hair, beautiful.”
“Fine,” Erne says, picking up his printout from the table and raising it closer to his eyes.
“And these two burned at the stake—,” Yusuf begins, and Erne replies with a pregnant nod.
A moment of absolute silence falls over the room; everyone appears to be reading the printouts over and over. Jessica sips her rose hip tea; it tastes like iron.
“If we assume that the perpetrator or perpetrators intend on going through the entire list, we can expect three more murders.”
“Perpetrators?” Nina asks, jotting something down at the upper edge of her printout. Mikael glances at her and then at the text she has scrawled there. Jessica looks at the couple and momentarily wonders if Nina has written herself a note or if she was scribbling a message to Micke. But their faces are serious.
“It’s likely that the killer in Juva is different than the one who fled from the Koponen residence,” Erne says, ducking the blue rectangle created by the video projector. “But it’s by no means certain. The Kulosaari perp slipped away at eleven oh four p.m. I received Sanna Porkka’s call from Juva at three fifteen a.m. If the perp immediately jumped in a car at Kulosaari and headed for Savonlinna, he could have made it to the vicinity of Juva to ambush Koponen’s car, despite the challenging weather conditions.”
“Maybe skipping town would be a smart choice anyway,” Yusuf says, voice slightly hoarse.
“I still don’t think it’s the same guy.”
“Why not?”
“There’s one fundamental flaw with that theory: how would the killer have known Koponen was going to be driven to Helsinki? And at what time?” Erne says, eyeing Yusuf, who shakes his head thoughtfully. “It’s hard to believe the guy would have just jumped in his car and driven off without a careful plan, spotted the oncoming Audi at Juva, and then turned around to follow it. Besides, snow was falling heavily last night. Visibility would have been shit.”
Erne sits.
“And still, whoever it was got a bonfire to light in the forest,” Jessica says softly, eyes glued to her piece of paper.
No one laughs. Not that that was the intent. A siren bursts out howling on the street. Jessica’s thoughts turn to Fubu, who gets skittish every time he hears the sound of an emergency vehicle. You can take the man out of eastern Helsinki, but you can’t take the eastern Helsinki out of the man.
“The more likely scenario is that someone followed them from Savonlinna. Someone had to be aware of every move they made. The decision to start driving Koponen toward Helsinki wasn’t made until around midnight.” Erne’s Adam’s apple trembles the way Jessica knows so well; that decision was made by Erne. In hindsight, it’s easy to say it’s obvious Koponen needed proper protection during the return drive. Erne is presumably blaming himself for what happened, at least subconsciously.
“A few things to note here,” Erne says gravely. “In the first place, Sanna Porkka had her gun with her. Even so, she wasn’t able to defend herself against the assailants. Why not? Were the assailants also armed? With more firepower, maybe?”
Except for the hum of the video projector, the room is utterly silent. Even Mikael’s jaws have momentarily stopped moving.
“In the second place,” Erne continues, frowning as if forming the words hurts. “Koponen’s Audi was found undamaged at the scene of the crime. So there was no collision, and it wasn’t forced off the road. Either Porkka turned onto the dirt road herself, or by that point the car was driven by someone else. Who? Last of all, only one type of footprint was found at the scene. In other words, if there were multiple perpetrators, they were all wearing the same size forty-five combat boots fresh out of the box. The number of footprints at the scene indicates the potential for lots of traffic.”
“But the footprints at Kulosaari are—”
“Exactly the same. But like I said, I believe the perp there is someone else.”
“Wait a second,” Mikael interjects, rubbing the bald crown of his head. “Multiple perps at Juva. Plus the guy at Kulosaari. Are we assuming now that—”
“Yes,” Erne says, and inhales deeply. “Everything points to there being three perps. Or more.”
Jessica shifts her gaze from the printout to her warm mug. The tea bag has dyed the water red. She tastes the iron on her tongue, and for some reason, her brain raises the specter that she has prepared herself a cup of blood. For an instant, everything is red: the walls, the screen at the front of the room, the table, the faces of the people sitting around it.
She feels like she’s going to retch.