Tweety tried to keep on imagining that Reino’s van was like an elephant. True, it was the wrong colour – it was dark blue – but the headlights were like an elephant’s eyes, small and tearful, and he knew it was an elephant because if it had left its droppings on the street it would have left a pile exactly the same as the one he’d seen at the Mission Museum. As a child it had always fascinated him: ELEPHANT EXCREMENT. He’d always wondered how it had been brought back from Africa – in a priest’s knapsack?
An elephant – he tried to hold on to the thought, but it had passed and in his head he immediately heard the sharp tata-ta-tum of the watchman elf’s drum.
Reino was driving. Tweety sat in the middle and Lasse in the passenger seat; he wanted to sit there so he could look in the wing mirror to see whether they were being tailed. Reino had followed his instructions and driven back and forth through the city centre, pulling over every now and then, but now they were cruising down Museokatu, which spread out in front of them like a dreamy gulf between the houses. The street lights had blue eyes and the cars’ sleep was nothing but a tin-covered bluff.
‘There’s nobody following us.’
‘No. And did you notice? Only one police car all this time, and that was back at Hakaniemi.’
‘They’ll be around here somewhere.’
‘Somewhere’s fine by me. I’ll pull over on Temppelikatu. Check the park to see if there are any drunks hanging about. Doubt it at this hour.’
Tata-ta-tum! went the watchman elf’s snare drum, its sound piercing. Tweety jumped as though he’d sat on something sharp. He wanted to grab the steering wheel and shout: Stop! Let’s leave it tonight, let’s go back! But he didn’t dare. Lasse would have agreed straight away, he was so wound up that his fingers were twisted with cramp, but Reino wouldn’t have given in to them. He was fired up in a happy, mischievous mood and he’d forced them to go through with the plan. Lasse was unable to work under too much pressure. He was supposed to carry out the actual switchover and he’d have bungled it up somehow and that would be the end of things.
There were no people in the park, but there were hidden dwarves, not even knee-high, with fur like moles and green curly hats, burying the toys the children had left lying around deep in the sand. Soon they were on Cygnaeuksenkatu and Tweety peered at the house on the corner: in the bank’s window glowed a squirrel fashioned from a blue neon light-strip. Inside the bank it was dark, but from the outside he couldn’t tell whether it was good or bad dark. Reino turned the car again and Temppelikatu rose up the hill in front of them. There was an empty parking space further up the hill; Reino steered the elephant into the space, and when he switched the motor off everything fell eerily silent; it was as though the whole world had pricked up its ears to listen.
‘Right then, you pricks,’ Reino said eventually, the mock cheerfulness in his voice filling the car. ‘As soon as we get into the courtyard we’ll check the windows in the outer wing of the building. If that woman’s there we just walk past the rubbish bins minding our own business, make our way into the neighbouring yard and leave that way. Then we’ll come back an hour later. She’s hardly likely to be there, though…’
Tata-ta-tum! Tata-tum-tum-tum! Reino was stroking his chin. There was no need to go through the plan again; they all knew what to do. Unless he had to go through it for himself. Tata-ta-tum!
‘And if she’s not there then we go straight over to the doorway, Asko opens the door, then we go through to the door with the squirrel. Once we’re inside the bank we make sure the tarred boards are in place and get the meters ready. Then we switch the alarms. Once we’ve pulled out the cable, the clock starts ticking… As soon as we’re done, we get out. And remember: even if there’s someone in the yard or you hear sirens in the distance, walk calmly across the yard and back to the car. Don’t run. Don’t look around. Calmly, OK?’
He looked at them firmly, his stare forcing its way deep into their minds, and Tweety thought he could almost see the watchman elf marching back and forth banging his drum, about to blame Tweety for not telling them… But Reino hadn’t noticed anything; his eyes were like the balls in bottles of deodorant and Tweety decided not to say anything. Then there was the other thing, and at some point he’d have to tell them, but maybe this wasn’t the right moment. Reino wouldn’t start making a racket once they were inside the bank.
‘OK?’
‘Yes,’ Lasse hissed and Tweety nodded. Lasse’s lips were moving as though he was going through the plan to himself once more, the part about walking calmly out of the building, then his expression changed to one of certainty, fragile as a mask of papier-mâché, but even that was better than nothing. He kept his hand by his side, and Tweety wondered what it felt like to touch the handle of a gun – would it be metallic or wooden? Reino had allowed Lasse to bring the revolver. He’d said he wasn’t going to use it but that it made him feel safer. Tweety wasn’t so sure.
‘Let’s double-check the equipment,’ said Reino. He lifted a thin briefcase from beside his feet and Lasse did the same. They laid the briefcases on their laps and flicked open the locks; Tweety didn’t have a briefcase, only the pouch in his pocket, and it made him feel useless and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to be a pigeon sleeping up on the rooftop.
Inside Lasse’s briefcase was an alarm with the lid loosened and held on by a piece of brown tape, then there were four different-sized screwdrivers, two slotted and two crosshead, and numerous screws of different thicknesses attached to the inside of the briefcase with a strip of tape. He pointed at each item in turn, occasionally glancing up at Reino, who looked focused and eventually gave a nod.
They then checked Reino’s briefcase. It too was sparse – he always carefully planned what they would need and didn’t allow them to take anything else, and in that respect he was absolutely right: the more they carried with them, the easier something might be left behind, and an extra screwdriver left lying beside the bank’s main vault would let the staff know that something was going on; Reino even claimed that a forgotten roll of tape could be enough evidence to secure a conviction. Tweety didn’t look at the contents of the briefcase. He stared at the rear lights of the car parked in front of them and he didn’t like them; they were like a pair of diseased eyes watching them. Finally Reino and Lasse nodded at one another, Reino took three pairs of leather gloves from his briefcase and handed them out, then they snapped their cases shut.
‘It’s half twelve,’ said Reino. ‘Now listen, lads. By one o’clock this will all be over. Right, let’s get going…’
They got out of the car. The night was like black chamois leather and the air was fragrant with the evening rain and the trees in the park. There was also a hint of danger in the air, its smell like a blue thread drawn through the nostrils with a needle. But Reino and Lasse didn’t notice it. High above them a bird gave a shrill chirp.
They were on the move, three businessmen; they were wearing suits, white shirts and ties. It had been Reino’s idea and in its simplicity it was a good one. The first time they’d come out of the bank at night they’d bumped into a woman taking her rubbish out to the bins in the courtyard, and she’d clearly thought they worked for the bank as she’d said: ‘I suppose I should charge you for this, but you can have it for free, as long as you can make the ticket machines give out five-mark coins instead of…’
They turned at the corner. A taxi went down Museokatu and disappeared somewhere, and further off a drunken man staggered along, his shoulders hunched in sorrow. It wasn’t far now, only about twenty metres, and for Tweety going to the bank had never felt so agonising. He knew what would happen: the alarm buzzer would go off right in front of some copper’s eyes, then it would only be a matter of minutes until blue lights were flashing through the night, and inside the cars there would be stern-faced men with batons and revolvers at the ready. Tweety wet his lips; he was cold, yet strangely he was sweating at the same time and he was doing everything he could to make the blue images in his head disappear.
The worst of it was that he knew he had to do this; the Chancellor depended on him. Lasse had rearranged the wiring inside the alarm: to the people working at the bank it looked as if it worked and everything was fine, but the new alarm no longer reacted to heat or shock waves. And when they came back on Friday night for the final phase of the Chancellor, all they had to do was wrench the door open and make straight for the safety deposit boxes and nobody would know about the robbery until the women at the counter arrived for work on the Monday morning.
They stopped in front of the archway and carefully looked around one more time, but they couldn’t see anyone watching them and the courtyard was dark and quiet. Tweety grabbed the handle and pulled on it, and the narrow grille in the gate opened; he’d put a paper egg in place that afternoon, and even if someone had removed it, using Vaseline he would still have been able to slip his hand through the mesh in the gate and open the door that way if necessary.
The grille shut with a clunk and their footsteps echoed in the arched tunnel, raining down upon them from the ceiling. The courtyard was in front of them and they all crouched to look towards the annex at the side: on the second floor lived a grey-haired old woman who spent all day peering out of her window, and the thought of her made them nervous. It was irrational: they all but expected her to smash her windows and start screaming that she’d seen them, but her window was dark. Reino was panting and Lasse groaned, but above it all Tweety heard a third sound: tata-ta-tum! Why was he banging his drum? Though his own premonitions often proved wrong, he couldn’t remember a single time the watchman had been wrong.
The air was filled with the smell of the rubbish bins and laundry hung out to dry. A cat darted along the edge of the fence and into the adjoining courtyard. The three brothers turned left, but Reino came to a sudden stop.
‘I’ll park the car over here,’ he whispered and pointed at the spot. ‘Bonnet facing the wall. It’ll be harder to get away if I’ve got to turn around and reverse down there. But I’ll put the side of the van up here, and if I park diagonally we won’t have to carry stuff more than a couple of metres.’
‘But the sound of the motor will attract attention,’ Lasse whispered, and in his mind Tweety shouted: Come on! Come on, why are we standing here in full view?
‘We’ll just have to take that risk. And don’t forget those signs.’
‘Unless we bring them out here earlier in the afternoon.’
‘Don’t be stupid. The whole staff will see them, and they might get suspicious.’
Tweety couldn’t stand still any longer, couldn’t take any more of their bickering. He walked into the courtyard, went up to the door, took the few descending concrete steps and there was his job: a grey, painted door leading down into the basement. He’d already picked it three times and those three times had been enough. He couldn’t stand working with Reino and Lasse covering him from behind, watching his every move, and he’d been scared to death that someone might appear – at least three doors led out of the corridor right into the yard.
This time he didn’t reach for the pouch; from a small pocket in his suit jacket he pulled out a gleaming, brand new key: he’d cut it that afternoon while Weckman had been on his lunch break, and now he prayed he’d remembered the sequence correctly. He worked the key into the lock and turned it; it caught, but only a little bit, the way all new keys do, then the lock gave a click and the door was open. Through the gap came the smell of brick walls and cobwebs.
‘Hurry up, will you!’ Tweety hissed. Reino and Lasse left the problem of where to park the van for the time being. Tweety wanted to see Reino’s expression; it frightened him a little – how would he react? His mouth opened in disbelief, then he closed his lips again because he didn’t understand.
‘Was it open?’
‘No. I opened it.’
‘So quickly?’
‘Just get inside,’ said Tweety anxiously. He couldn’t bear it when they stood around without a care in the world; it was as though they were willing something bad to happen. He pulled the door fully open and let them pass, made sure that the door shut properly, and only then did he press the switches and the corridor was filled with flickering light. The corridor stretched out in front of them like a bowel, like a tunnel made of raw meat: the bare bricks gleamed, unplastered, and it was strange to imagine the women at the bank, their lace, their fragrances, walking through here all day.
‘Asko, for Christ’s sake,’ Reino started, but Tweety handed him the key before he could go any further. Reino and Lasse looked at the key then stared at Tweety.
‘I cut it today. But you can’t get in the other door…’
‘But you’ve known the sequence all along, right?’
‘The sequence?’
‘For the door! Don’t pretend you don’t know. You could have done it ages ago, then we wouldn’t be…’
‘Is it a sequence? To me they’re colours. The deepest one is green, that one’s light yellow… But with cylinder locks the colours are refracted, so it’s impossible to make a bump key.’
‘Get a move on!’ Lasse hurried them along and Reino realised there was no point carrying on. He gripped the key with a look of content, and Tweety wondered whether he was thinking: We needn’t have brought you along in the first place. And he had a hunch Reino would try and force him to cut a key for the other door too – but there he would be mistaken.
They walked along the corridor and from behind the wooden doors seeped the smell of roots and juice cartons and skis waiting for the winter, and after about thirty metres they were there. The bank door was massive, made of steel and with thick hinges. A blue squirrel had been painted in the middle. Reino could have broken his way through the door but that would give the game away, and even if he only broke in when it was time to set the Chancellor in motion it would have made far too much noise and would have taken too long, and anyone popping down to the basement would have guessed from the marks left on the door what had been going on.
Tweety took out the pouch, crouched down and emptied its contents on to the floor in front of him. Reino and Lasse had finally learned: they didn’t stand around staring at him but kept a few steps back, and there they starting talking in low, hushed voices and it wasn’t difficult to guess that they were talking about him and the key and how he’d tricked them.
But Tweety didn’t waste time thinking about that. He selected a pick with a tooth like a crescent drawn by a fairy and got to work. The light almost disturbed him – in the dark it was easier to hear the lock’s singing – but he concentrated, delicately turning the tiny curve to the left and the right, and the lock started to answer him by either giving way or resisting, and little by little its movements turned to colours and chords, and Tweety was no longer aware of Reino and Lasse’s muttering.
‘OK,’ he said after barely fifteen minutes, sat upright, turned the lock and realigned it staight away. Reino and Lasse marched towards him and just then he could hear it inside him again: Tata-ta-tum! He didn’t open the door but held it ajar. Reino and Lasse stopped right beside him.
‘What’s the matter now?’
‘The man from the security company,’ Tweety answered, his jaw suddenly stiff. ‘What if he’s installed a motion detector… Remember, we wondered why there weren’t any.’
‘Fucking hell.’
‘Now you tell us,’ said Reino angrily as though this was Tweety’s fault. They stood looking at one another, all thinking the same thing: would an alarm go off the second they stepped inside? Other thoughts came flooding into their minds: what if they were too late, what if all this had been for nothing? What if the Chancellor was never meant to be and they’d be stuck in Tapanila for the rest of their miserable lives? It seemed impossible, as though a truckload of mud had been tipped down their necks without warning.
‘Fucking hell!’
‘But could he have installed it in a day?’ asked Lasse hesitantly, his upper lip gleaming as though it had been sprayed with something. ‘They were only making plans. And anyway…’ He quickly examined the door frame and glanced further along the wall. ‘There’d be a keyhole somewhere for them to switch it on and off.’
‘Right, otherwise the employees wouldn’t be able to come down here either…’
Suddenly they were all chuckling. It seemed so childish to worry about a motion detector that didn’t even exist, and perhaps they were chuckling because they had come so far and everything had gone to plan. Tweety switched off the corridor lights and they stepped inside, and again it smelled different, like an office, the smell of paper, of women, or more specifically that the women’s locker room was somewhere close, filled with the smell of their clothes soaked in perfume and deodorant. From the bank’s main hall above them came the dim glow of the streetlights.
Tweety flicked life into Sparkle Eye and in its light Reino laid his briefcase on the floor, opened it and took out two torches – their lenses had been taped up too – and handed one of them to Lasse. Aiming the beam of light in front of him, Lasse walked off towards the main vault. He was almost tiptoeing, out of respect for the vibration sensor that was still working, and with good reason: while rewiring their replacement alarm he’d discovered that it was possible to adjust the sensor so that it reacted if someone so much as stamped on the floor or accidentally fell over.
‘Asko, over here,’ Reino muttered, ordering him around like a dog, and Tweety followed him towards the stairs, all the while trying to listen to what was happening within him: had the watchman settled down? Perhaps he’d been banging his drum because Tweety had been thinking subconsciously about the motion detector all day and had managed to convince himself it was there. But he hadn’t stopped altogether; he was marching on the spot, taking steps that didn’t lead anywhere, and he wasn’t drumming any more but banging his sticks together: clack, clack, clack.
‘Hold the light up here, where that bolt is.’
Tweety did as he was told. Reino pulled out his tape measure and held down one end, muttered something to himself, forgot where he had started and had to start all over again, and the sound of urgent bells rang through Tweety’s mind, but he still didn’t dare say anything; did the cardboard need to be so exact, he thought to himself and wished that they were already with Lasse helping him switch the alarms. What he really wished was for everything to be over and done with, for them to be back in the corridor or out in the street. He decided that he would fill his lungs with the smell of night if he ever managed to get out there again and that once he got back home he would take Toby out of his cage and let him crawl in under his shirt. Reino was so damned slow; he was writing down the measurements in a small notepad in thick, block lettering, carefully and exactly so that he wouldn’t mistake them, then measured everything again.
‘Right, let’s see how far Lasse’s got,’ said Reino after what seemed like an eternity and they walked off into the darkness towards the beam of light from Lasse’s torch. Tweety imagined the bank holding its breath around them, as though the tiny pores of each and every wall were blocked, as though the building itself knew they had no reason to be there, and Tweety prayed that it wouldn’t decide to punish them. Then he remembered the rear lights of the car parked in front of them – why had he thought they looked like diseased eyes?
Lasse’s briefcase was open on the floor and he’d laid the replacement alarm ready in front of the vault. It was an incredible door, like the casing of a battleship, and right in the middle was an enormous, gleaming wheel like a great crown of antlers. There must have been at least a kilo of steel around the keyhole. The alarm was on the opposite side of the door and its armoured cable ran across the jamb making it impossible to open the door without removing the contact plugs.
‘This is a thousand-series door, lads,’ Reino said as if giving a lecture. ‘And that thing’s rigged up so that if someone goes in and makes a dog’s dinner of it then bang! It’ll be so jammed there’ll be no way in after that. But as you’ll see from the points I marked on the photographs, the most important bit is right there.’
‘Let’s get cracking.’
‘Yes… That’s where I’m going to start. Just think about what’s on the other side of this door. Jesus Christ, lads, there’s boxes one after the other full of money and gold, the bank’s cash stores and all their foreign currency. If we’re lucky, a few million will soon be like pocket money to us…’
‘Let’s get cracking!’
‘All right, all right.’
They crouched down to pick up what they each needed from the floor, just the way they’d practised back in the workshop, then they stood up and Reino held the new alarm in the air, ready to hand it to Lasse as soon as he’d removed the one attached to the door. Tweety was holding the alarm’s gleaming cover and the screw to fasten it in place and he was afraid he’d lose it – through his gloves it felt so tiny, he didn’t even know whether it was in his fingers or not. How would Lasse be able to work with gloved fingers? Tata-ta-tum! Tam-tam-tam! Lasse was holding the screwdriver ready; he laid his left hand on the alarm cable and looked up at Reino. Reino gave an audible gulp and panted: ‘Now!’
Lasse gave a tug and the cable came loose. Reino looked at his watch. Lasse was already frantically unscrewing the cover. Tweety saw a light flashing and he could hear the buzzer: beep – beep – beep! At that moment a blond, moustached policeman noticed the alarm and stood up from his chair in order to see the code number more clearly, then picked up a red-covered directory and opened it. The screw was out; Lasse prised off the cover and handed it to Tweety; Tweety placed the cover in Lasse’s briefcase. Lasse was already working on the insides of the alarm with his screwdriver as the policeman mumbled to himself: ‘Ah, Museokatu 18’. Then he pulled his computer keyboard closer and started typing. Tweety was fidgeting anxiously on the spot and Reino suddenly started coughing.
‘It’s off,’ Lasse gasped. He had the alarm in his hand; he didn’t give it a second look but bent down and put it in the briefcase, Reino held the new alarm in place and Lasse began screwing it in just as the policeman leaned right over to the microphone and asked: ‘Dog patrol, do you copy?’ Lasse held out his hand. Tweety gave him first the alarm cover then the screw.
‘That’s the wrong fucking one!’ Lasse hissed. ‘The thinner one!’
‘Dickhead,’ Reino chipped in and Tweety didn’t know where the thinner screw was and he was filled with such panic that he could have cried; it was like a whirlwind inside him, getting nearer all the time. Reino snarled something and snatched the correct screw from on top of the briefcase and handed it to Lasse, and the point of the screwdriver glinted in the light from Sparkle Eye, and the policeman said into his microphone: ‘Is there a squad car in the Töölö area?’ Lasse’s hands dropped and the alarm shone proudly just as it had done before; Reino reattached the contact plugs – and there it was. Tata-ta-tum! Tata-ta-tum!
‘Two minutes exactly,’ Reino gasped. ‘No rush. Now get everything back in the briefcases and make sure nothing’s left behind. And remember: calmly, don’t run, don’t look around…’
They grabbed the few things they’d brought, packed them into the briefcases and snapped them shut. The beam of light from Reino’s torch was sweeping the floor and there was nothing left lying there, not a single screw or a piece of tape. And their minds pounded with the same thought – it worked, we did it – then another thought, almost immediately afterwards: Let’s go!
They turned together, like one person, and started heading for the door, and though they might have felt like running and shoving they walked calmly.
‘No panic, lads,’ Reino kept repeating. ‘Don’t run…’
‘Aaw!’ Lasse cried out. ‘Oh God, oh God…’
They stopped. Tweety aimed the light at Lasse. His briefcase fell from his hand and gave an almighty thud as it hit the floor.
‘What the hell’s wrong now?’
‘I don’t know. Burning like… Aw, aaaw!’
‘Lasse’s face had turned white. His teeth were clenched – just like Brownie’s – and there was an expression of sheer agony in his eyes, as though someone were twisting a knife inside him. He slumped to the floor in so much pain that he was howling like an animal.
‘Get up!’ Reino demanded and grabbed him by the arm. ‘We’ve got to go!’
‘I can’t… My hip’s on fire… and my leg. I can’t move.’
‘Asko, grab on to him. We’ll have to carry him.’
Tweety took hold of Lasse’s arm and they tried to lift him up, but Lasse gave an agonised scream and his head drooped as though he’d fainted.
‘Jesus, Reino, what are we going to do? The pigs will be here any minute!’
‘We’ve got to carry him. Take him by the legs.’
They tried again, but it was hopeless; they could only take short, staggering steps towards the door and beyond that was thirty-odd metres of corridor, the courtyard and the alleyway back to the gates, and the car itself was miles away on Temppelikatu. On top of that Lasse was still moaning, his voice getting louder and louder. Reino’s briefcase slid to the floor and opened up, spilling its contents around him.
Reino let go of Lasse and swore, a flood of curses rattling from his mouth, and Tweety wondered how much it hurt when the police hit you with their batons. Where did they hit you? Surely not in the groin? He felt sick and silver stars began flashing in his eyes just like after he’d given blood. Suddenly Reino seemed calm and his resolve was chilling.
‘We’ll all have to stay here,’ he said. ‘We’ll hide. Pick him up.’
‘No, don’t… they’ll bring the dogs…’
‘There’s no other way. Now keep your mouth shut… In the changing room.’
Tweety felt as though the floor was swaying back and forth, but he held on to Lasse’s legs and shuffled forwards while Reino panted in front. Reino let go.
‘Wait here, I’ll go and have a look outside. You pick up those tools. Quickly!’
Reino disappeared into the darkness; there came a thud as he bumped into something, then a tinny creak as he opened the door. Time seemed to pass quickly, as if it didn’t exist. Lasse was whimpering on the floor. Tweety went over to him. He’d undone his jacket, taken out his revolver and was gripping it with both hands. It looked huge, gleaming, its barrel was long and the end was so wide you could put your thumb in it.
‘You mark my words,’ Lasse gasped. ‘They’re not taking us for free.’