The car is parked in front of a cottage, its engine still running. The headlights illuminate the front of the cottage like a set of spotlights. The cottage is small and run-down. It looks like so many of the old houses round here. The original occupants die and their descendants or distant relatives now spend a week or two at most in the house in the summer – for a couple of years. Then even that comes to an end, and, overwhelmed by the weather and the passing of time, the house starts to subside, like someone losing their grip on a lifebuoy.
I watch the cottage, the car and the two people from the side, like a theatre performance.
The pair are wrestling in the snow between the car and the cottage. No. It’s not really wrestling. One is punching the other, and the other is unable to fight back. The thuds of the punches and the possible shouts that follow are drowned by the sound of the engine. I creep a short distance forwards through the snow between the tree trunks, and from there I’m able to walk along the tracks left by the tyres. I’ve had close combat training, and I know more than just the basics of self-defence. I try to recall everything I’ve learned as I approach the pair.
At the same time I remember why I’ve come out here. I’ve been humiliated enough for one day.
Jeans, a jumper and a flannel shirt are, of course, relatively light attire for such biting cold, but I don’t plan to hang about. I approach the light-blue Nissan Micra; the smell of exhaust fumes is heavy in the calm, starlit night. Rust has eaten away at the rims of the bodywork. I look at the registration number and commit it to memory. I creep behind the car and look for a suitable route. One of the thieves is lying face-down in the snow. I can deal with him later. The other one walks up to the cottage door, unlocks it and steps inside.
I wait for a moment then step out from behind the car and trudge through the snow towards the cottage. I pass the guy lying in the snow on his right side, still keeping my distance. I keep well out of the light, just in case the guy inside glances out through the window. For a split second, I think I see the thief in the snow moving, but perhaps not. The car’s headlights are so bright that I can see a long tear in the right sleeve of his jacket, and in that tear is something dark and wet. Maybe he cut his arm climbing through the broken window at the museum. Beside his left arm is a torch standing almost upright in the snow. I can’t help thinking that this is the object that caused the lump above my ear.
The car’s lights have been left on for a reason – I assume there is no electricity out here. There are two windows at the front of the cottage. In the left-hand one I see a human shadow passing between the floral curtains. I step nearer the door. I know what I’ve come to find. I reach out towards the handle.
Then the world suddenly bursts into flame.
And the door comes flying towards me.
If the snow beneath you feels soft and good, it usually means it’s too late. I know this, but still I enjoy the sensation. Lord knows I need some rest. Or does He? Is there a Lord at all? I open my mouth, snow falls inside. I realise I’m not on a couch or in bed, not discussing what you might call life’s bigger questions. I’m lying in the snow, and I have to get to my feet. I must get up, otherwise I’ll freeze. I have to get inside. Then I remember where I am.
I was about to go inside…
The cottage…
Smoke and dust are billowing from what used to be the windows. The remaining shreds of the curtains dangle round the window frames.
All this I see in the light of the moon and the stars. The Nissan Micra has disappeared. So has the thief who was lying in the snow. I finally haul myself to my feet. I look around, shivering with cold. Beside me, a few metres from the doorway, is the cottage door. I can’t hear anything. I can’t see anyone. There is a trail in the snow, drag marks. And there’s a torch propped upright. I pick up the torch and stand in front of the cottage.
I take a cautious step inside, flick the torch into life and allow the beam of light to wash across the interior of the cottage. I have seen many rooms, apartments and houses just like this. I look in front of me, stepping carefully through the debris. This space was clearly once a combined kitchen and living room.
The fridge seems to have spun round on its axis. The chairs and dining table are spread across the room in different-sized splinters. The shelves have fallen from the walls and collapsed into the middle of the floor. Crockery and various items have smashed, flown through the air and are now strewn in a chaotic mess. And everything – literally everything – seems to have ended up on the floor.
Everything except…
I raise the light from the torch to the walls. Something dark and wet. Small damp blotches, larger ones too. Chunks and strips of solid matter.
I reach the middle of the room and stop. I aim the torch at the floor.
Right in front of the window, where presumably there was once a dining table, is a pair of men’s winter boots. Or, more specifically, a pair of boots and a pair of legs. The legs look like they might belong to a mannequin. The large boots seem to be stepping in opposite directions.
Again I look at the walls. The owner of the legs is smeared evenly across the walls and the ceiling. On the ceiling, right above the feet, is a larger, hairy blob the size of a hotplate on the cooker. Given its colour and the length of the hairs I assume this is a scalp. I look back at the boots. Even without my military training, I know this man doesn’t need an ambulance. He’s not in any danger now.
I feel a deep-rooted sense of gratitude for the German engineer who must have stood up for himself at a car-factory design meeting and demanded that seat heaters should reach such high temperatures, that in normal circumstances they would roast your backside. Now the seat heater is like an open fire that I could curl up beside. Except, of course, there’s no time to curl up. I’m driving at break-neck speed back to Hurmevaara and the museum.
My head throbs with the bleak thoughts running through my mind, not just about the evening’s events but about the situation at home. I’ll soon be a man with no family, I think, and my wife has had to make do with the village stud. I try to prevent the theft of the meteorite and end up witnessing an unfathomable series of events that culminates in an unfortunate soul blowing himself up, leaving his body spattered across the panelled ceiling of a remote cottage. And I didn’t even find the meteorite. What have I done wrong? I might ask right now, if I could muster any belief in the power of such questions.
I jump out of the car and in a few seconds I am at the front door. I take out my set of keys, open the door, and with that I am in the War Museum once again.
My phone is where I left it, between the Bible and the crime novel. I pick it up and run into the hall where the meteorite is being kept. I key in the number for the police in Joensuu and am about to report the meteorite stolen when…
…I realise that it hasn’t been stolen.
There it is in its glass cabinet.
I stop. There is broken glass on both sides of the meteorite. Then I see what is missing. A grenade. These artefacts shouldn’t be active any longer, but that’s cold comfort to Puss in Boots at the cottage.
I breathe steadily, the phone in my hand. I hear the voice of the police at the other end. I look at the meteorite. It might have set off on its journey at the beginning of time. It has hurtled through space at immeasurable speed and has struck the Earth at this precise time and place. I raise the phone to my ear.
‘Hello? Anybody there?’ the officer asks again.
‘I’d like to report a robbery,’ I begin. ‘Someone has broken into the Hurmevaara War Museum. I was battered unconscious. The intruder seems to have made off with a wartime grenade. That’s all I know.’