“KNOCK, KNOCK.”
Erne looks up and sees Rasmus Susikoski in the doorway. He’s wearing a gray turtleneck and is carrying a laptop and a sheaf of printouts.
“Come in, Rasse.”
“Funny, it feels colder in the office today than yesterday, even though it’s warmer outside.” Rasmus sits down, an awkward grin on his face. Erne can see Rasmus’ mouth moving, but his brain refuses to register the vacuous small talk emerging from it.
“How can I help you, Rasse?”
“Where’s Jessica? I tried to call her a couple times—”
“Her phone is on the lam. You can get in touch with her by calling Yusuf.”
“OK.” Rasse nods and starts unpacking his gifts on Erne’s desk. Erne crinkles his nose, despite the fact that Rasmus’ heavy sweater is surprisingly effective at checking the sweat smell. Erne can’t help it: every time he sees Rasse, his nostrils pick up a fetid odor, even if the guy has just stepped out of the shower.
“In the first place, I have to say things are progressing pretty smoothly. We finally have enough people. If only we always had this many helping hands—”
“And in the second place?” Erne growls.
“Right, so I’m working on two tasks. . . . In the first place—”
“First place already went.”
“The presumed Roger Koponen boarded the metro to Mellunmäki at the Central Railway Station at eight oh eight a.m. The phone powered off a few minutes later. Here’s CCTV footage from the metro car.” Rasmus turns the laptop so Erne can see the screen. “The first door at the bottom,” he continues, pointing at the opening sliding doors.
Erne slips the readers hanging around his neck onto his nose and leans in to study the clip. A moment later, Roger Koponen steps into the car. The image is crisp and the camera so close that there’s no doubt as to the man’s identity. Unless he’s Koponen’s identical twin, who, as far as they know, doesn’t exist.
“Well, I’ll be damned. . . . And no one recognizes him.”
“The funny thing about writers is that if their face isn’t on TV all the time, on Have I Got News for You or whatever, no one recognizes them. Not even if they’ve sold tens of millions of books. Would you recognize J. K. Rowling if you saw her in the Tube without makeup—”
“Who?”
“Never mind. Wait,” Rasmus says, and clicks the screen; the image speeds up. For the next few seconds, the doors open and close a few times; people scurry in and out like worker ants. But Roger Koponen just stands there.
“At eight sixteen, Koponen steps out of the metro.”
“Which stop?”
“Kulosaari.”
“Goddamn it. Was he seriously going home?”
“Somewhere in the vicinity, at least. Unfortunately, he moves out of range of the CCTV cameras the moment he steps off the metro platform.”
“Car parked in the lot there?”
“No. That we would have noticed.”
“Shit.”
“But there’s been a minimum of one patrol outside the Koponen residence since last night, and they would have reacted if Roger Koponen had shown up there. Besides, why would he have done that . . . revealed that he was alive?”
“Maybe . . . ,” Erne says, then buries his face in his hands. “Maybe he doesn’t even know he’s dead yet.”
“What?”
“Maybe he doesn’t read the news. Hell, I don’t know. We need to think about this carefully. Thanks, Rasse. I have to make a couple of calls.” Erne pushes his office chair away from his desk and directs his gaze out the window; an airplane is flying across the sky.
“There was still that second matter . . . regarding Torsten Karlstedt.” Rasmus shuts his laptop, and Erne turns back, intrigued.
Rasmus moistens his fingertip on his tongue and slides it between two sheets in his stack of papers. “A truly interesting case. Finnish, fifty years old. No criminal record. Lives in Westend, three young children. CEO, chairman of the board, and sole shareowner of an IT company named Tors10 Inc. Turnover a nice two-point-four million euros, nearly half of that profit.”
“And the car seen in Savonlinna belongs to him?”
“Porsche Cayenne, twenty eighteen model. The newest of the new.”
“You said just a second ago that he’s an interesting case. So far he strikes me as your average rich jerkoff. . . .”
“He’s anything but. He appears to be some expert on the occult. He has published two works on the subject. The books cover, among other things, secret societies, esotericism, magic, and even witchcraft. Their Finnish publisher is the same company that published Roger Koponen’s trilogy.”
“Slow down,” Erne says. “Is ‘occult’ the same as ‘supernatural’?”
“To simplify, yes. The term comes from the Latin word ‘occultus,’ which means ‘hidden.’ Occultism explores a world that exists outside of everyday reality. The purpose of occultism is to build a bridge between realities, between our mundane world and the world of secrets. In order to achieve this aim, practitioners of the occult employ various rituals and objects, such as amulets, rabbit-feet, you name it. Or even spells and magic.”
“What’s the point of all this mumbo jumbo?”
“Secret knowledge only accessible to a few has all sorts of amazing potential. It helps practitioners understand the meaning of life. Impact its course. Perhaps conquer death.”
“So the aims of occultism are positive?”
“There are all sorts of magic. And while the aims of white magic are good, the aims of black magic—”
“Are bad. I get it. So what we’re talking about here is some sort of religion?”
“There are similarities. But there’s one fundamental difference between magic and any major mainstream religion. And that’s where the fascination with the occult lies.”
“Which is?”
“Anyone can believe in God if they want to. Religions compete for members; they push their beliefs on people in the form of missionary work and dogmatism. But secret knowledge is, as the name indicates, exclusive—in other words information intended solely for a select few.”
Erne draws his mouth into a taut line and looks at Rasmus. “And as an expert in the occult, Torsten Karlstedt made a special trip to Savonlinna to hear Roger Koponen talk about his novels, which deal with the same topics?”
“I doubt it. Roger Koponen spoke three times in Helsinki last week. At the Casino, Pörssitalo, and Paasitorni. Why drive four hours to Savonlinna just to hear the same twaddle?” Rasmus murmurs.
“Maybe Karlstedt wasn’t able to make it to the Helsinki events. Or maybe he’s a serious fan.”
“Koponen was supposed to speak at a few bookstores in the Helsinki area next week too.”
“If Karlstedt knew Koponen was going to die, he knew he would be seeing his last appearance.”
“Or else he knew that Koponen wasn’t really going to die.”
“Fuck, what a mess. What if he didn’t just drive there and back after all? Maybe Karlstedt is still in Savonlinna.”
“His car is parked outside his house in Westend.”
“That means he might be mixed up with the burnings outside Juva. It’s possible, at least from a logistical perspective.”
“That’s true.” Rasmus takes a few deep breaths. His demeanor is more relaxed than earlier; it feels like the progress in the case has gotten him to loosen up. “As I mentioned, Karlstedt wrote two books.” He sets two printouts on the desk, each with an image of the cover of a book.
INTRODUCTION TO THE OCCULT, TORSTEN KARLSTEDT (2002)
THE HERMETIC AND ESOTERIC SCIENCES, TORSTEN KARLSTEDT, KAI LEHTINEN (2007)
“Who’s Kai Lehtinen?”
“I couldn’t find much on him right off the bat. As far as I could tell, this is the only project he was involved in, and he hasn’t published anything else. I called the publisher and asked for information on him. They didn’t tell me anything worth mentioning. But I did get his social security number from them.” Rasmus slides out the bottommost sheet of paper from the stack. The photograph is of a bald man with a vaguely threatening appearance. The glaring eyes seem to be concealing something unpredictable and uncontrollable within them.
“Kai ‘Kalle’ Lehtinen, forty-eight years old. General contractor, lives in Vantaa. No family.”
“So this is the guy who asked the weird question, then climbed into Karlstedt’s car?”
“I sent the photo to Pave Koskinen and he said he’s ninety percent sure.”
“Good work, Rasse. Give me ten minutes to chew on this,” Erne says, reaching for his mobile phone.