9

I need to move, get some fresh air. Primarily some oxygen.

And I need food too. It’s the first time I’ve been hungry since yesterday lunchtime. The maelstrom whirling inside me dispels hunger with such ease that it could be considered an effective natural weight-loss technique. Want to lose weight? Find yourself a duplicitous partner.

Liisa’s Café serves up hearty homemade food, the kind of stuff Krista thinks is unhealthy. I rarely eat at Liisa’s Café, not because it’s unhealthy, but because I prefer to eat lunch at my workplace, alone. I enjoy eating in peace and quiet; I can keep my thoughts focussed on the day’s work, and after lunch my concentration continues unperturbed. I don’t have to wonder where I was, what I was doing.

Now, however, the idea of concentration seems like a distant utopia. Besides – and this thought I manage to crystallise as the cold refreshes my body and the frozen air makes me catch my breath – it is only by meeting other people that I can continue my investigation. On the other hand, the sinister truth is that both the impregnator and burglar might be watching me as I spoon down my creamy salmon soup and tuck in to Liisa’s famous Karelian hotpot.

The thought makes me feel nauseous. For a moment. Then I begin to see the opportunities in all this. The fact that I am out in the open might encourage one or both of them to act, to do something.

Liisa’s Café is almost full, as it usually is at this time of day. It is situated in what used to be the foyer of the local bank; there are eight four-seater tables and three two-seaters. If necessary the kitchen can be sealed off with steel shutters, and the former safe is used to store dry foodstuffs. I order lunch at the counter and turn to choose a table. The clientele is mostly men; I recognise almost all of them. None of them looks like they have spent the last few weeks knocking around with my wife. And none of them looks particularly like a burglar either.

I hear someone call my name. Räystäinen’s tanned, sinewy arm waves at me from across the room. I walk up to his table and he gestures towards the chair opposite him. He only arrived a moment ago. The two-seater table is small and wobbly.

Räystäinen is full of questions. He has heard almost everything there is to know about the break-in, everything that’s public knowledge. Now he wants some meat on the bones.

I begin to speak, spreading butter on a slice of rye bread as I do. I have to watch my words, keep strictly to the official version of events. Dressed in only a T-shirt, Räystäinen listens intently, but once I’ve finished, his solarium-tanned face doesn’t look at all satisfied. He crosses his bare arms over his chest; his veins and tendons stretch and bulge. I can see he was clearly expecting more. His eyes only leave me for a moment, then return like a hungry animal to a bowl of food. All I can do is shrug my shoulders and munch on my rye bread.

‘Everything happened so quickly.’

Räystäinen leans back in his chair.

‘And you can’t even say what they looked like?’

I shake my head.

‘You didn’t hear them talking?’

I continue eating my bread and again shake my head. Räystäinen seems to be thinking about something. I don’t know much about him, except for a few well-known facts and what he and his young wife get up to – and how often.

‘But you’d recognise them all the same?’

I look at him. I think about the perfume, how powerful it was. I know I’d recognise that smell again.

‘Maybe,’ I reply.

‘From what?’

The question comes so quickly that it completely cuts off what I was about to say next. Just then our dishes arrive at the table. I’ve ordered macaroni cheese, Räystäinen the chicken breast.

‘From what?’ he repeats, once the waitress has left.

I hesitate. I decide quickly, and in a purely instinctive way, that that perfume is my private property, with a few provisos. Moreover it is an inseparable part of my task, inextricably linked to the very thing I have undertaken to protect. Räystäinen holds his knife and fork in the air.

‘I don’t know,’ I say eventually. ‘I suppose, because the whole event was so shocking, I’m sure it’ll stick in my mind. I might be completely wrong.’

‘So, you wouldn’t recognise them after all?’

This is classic Räystäinen. He asks more and more questions until all your answers have dried up. But why is he fixating on this particular detail?

‘I’ve only had a few hours’ sleep,’ I say. ‘I can’t really say what happened. Maybe I need more rest before I start to see things clearly again.’

Räystäinen lowers his eyes and starts eating, and I too begin cutting up my hearty portion. For a moment we eat in silence, exchanging only a few words about the upcoming meeting of the village action committee. Then Räystäinen repeats that I should come over to his gym one day and try it out. He says he’ll prepare a personal workout plan for me free of charge. He’s got a free slot this evening.

It’s a familiar subject, but now it’s as if there is a new, more urgent tone to his voice. Räystäinen lays his knife and fork on the plate. Right now there’s nothing further from my mind than getting into shape. I’m about to say so, but first ask him to pass the bottle of ketchup from the table behind him.

Räystäinen spins round in his chair, reaches out his right hand. His arm extends, grips the ketchup bottle. His elbow bends in again, the back of his hand comes into view. There it is: a long, fresh scratch. It reaches from his elbow far up beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt. It looks like the kind of wound one could get from a broken window.

I shift my eyes from his arm just as Räystäinen spins back into place and looks at me. I take the ketchup bottle from his hand.

‘It might just help me sleep better,’ I say. ‘A little exercise before bed.’