The first shot makes a hole in the windscreen, the second penetrates the bumper and the third punctures the left front tyre. I unclip my seatbelt, open the door and dive out into the snow. I manage to reach the safety of the trees and don’t hear any more shots. Now I hear cursing. I stand up carefully and, from behind a thick spruce, look towards the house.
Tarvainen is standing on the upper-floor balcony, battering his rifle against the floor. I’ve seen the same kind of panic before when a firearm malfunctions. A faint light glows behind him, making his movements look like a violent theatre of shadows. I remain in the shelter of the trees and wade through the snow, which reaches halfway up my thighs. Eventually I arrive at the front yard and walk round the side of the house. Tarvainen is still on the balcony. He seems to be peering towards the car and the yard. Perhaps he can’t see that the door on the driver’s side is wide open.
I make my way along the side of the house, turn the corner and reach the back of the house, where the snowmobile is parked almost right against the wall. Its motor is still clicking with heat in the frozen night, the key is still in the ignition. I remove the key. If Tarvainen wants to shoot my car to pieces, he can give me a lift back to the village. Assuming I need a lift at all, that is – assuming Tarvainen doesn’t shoot me dead.
There is a door to one side of the snowmobile. It is unlocked.
The lights are on in the downstairs room. The room has large windows facing the lake and a big open hearth, which doesn’t appear to have been used recently, and such a cornucopia of rally paraphernalia that it almost feels as though I’ve stepped into a motorsports museum. There must be dozens of trophies. And medals. And photographs showing cars turning corners almost on their sides or flying through the air, photographs in which Tarvainen is holding a trophy aloft or spraying champagne in the air, or standing arm-in-arm with rows of smiling people. Tarvainen himself never smiles.
Something about the room makes me stop. It’s not that I stand still wondering about it, but the truth is that only a moment ago this same man saved my life. Karoliina and Leonid wouldn’t have left me alive to tell anyone about the break-in or the people carrying it out.
I walk up the steps as quickly and silently as possible. Despite my best efforts my winter shoes make the wooden floorboards creak ever so slightly. I get halfway up and peer into the room above from floor level.
The living room is large and open-plan, and the space is still bright, though it is lit only by a single floor lamp in the corner. Otherwise the room is empty. I walk up the remaining stairs and try to locate Tarvainen by sound. I just about work out the location of the balcony from which Tarvainen opened fire and take a few cautious steps in that direction. I assume that if the rifle was working, Tarvainen would have taken another pot-shot – either at the car or into the woods. Then I hear a clatter from a completely different direction.
Tarvainen is in the kitchen. I approach the doorway and peer inside. The kitchen is a large rectangular space; Tarvainen is at the far end of the room, by the windows. The rucksack is firmly strapped to his back. And there’s something in his hand. When the lights from the kitchen counter illuminate him from the right angle, I recognise what it is. A large Chinese kitchen knife, the shape of a cleaver. I take a deep breath, exhale and step inside.
‘We have to talk,’ I say.
Tarvainen spins round. He doesn’t look surprised; he looks furious, utterly livid.
‘About what?’ he asks, by now sounding considerably more inebriated than at the museum. Perhaps he downed a few celebratory drinks on the way home. He has also unbuttoned his black overcoat, beneath which I can see the sponsor jacket of yesteryear.
‘About lots of things. I want…’
‘The meteorite.’
I don’t answer. He’s right, of course.
‘I want to thank you,’ I say and take a few wary steps in his direction. ‘You saved my life. Back at the museum.’
Tarvainen staggers. It’s obvious that he is profoundly drunk. I don’t know how he managed to steal anything or steer the snowmobile so skilfully. But on the other hand I understand: every member of my small family has first-hand experience of his skills behind the wheel.
‘You’re welcome,’ he says. ‘Now get out of my house.’
‘One more thing,’ I say. ‘Well, two things. First, I need that … rucksack.’
‘I knew it, dammit.’
‘What did you know?’
‘I knew you were the same as all the rest of them.’
‘Of course I am. But—’
‘You want the meteorite. Everybody wants it. But it’s mine. It belongs to me now.’
‘I need it,’ I say honestly. ‘I need it to save my wife, Krista.’
Tarvainen’s expression doesn’t flicker.
‘And another thing,’ I continue. It’s extraordinarily hard to put this into words, and even more so to make myself say it. ‘I want to forgive you.’
He clearly hasn’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about.
‘I want to forgive you,’ I repeat. ‘We all make mistakes. Now put the knife away.’
Tarvainen does the opposite. He raises the knife, brandishes it in the air. The enormous blade seems to gather all the light in the room; it gleams like a lamp pointed right at me.
‘Out of my house!’ he shouts.
I shake my head. ‘I can’t leave without that meteorite.’
Tarvainen cries out, bellows something indistinct, and lowers the hand with the knife. He is standing only three or four metres away, and I catch his familiar scent: raw liquor, a mixture of old and fresh. The blade of the kitchen knife flickers again, and I prepare myself to wrestle him. But Tarvainen takes me completely by surprise and throws the knife underarm. It flies towards me, and I just have time to drop the snowmobile’s keys to the floor and start to raise my hands.
The knife hits me in the front, sinks through my coat and shirt right in the middle of my chest. And there it remains, I don’t know how deep. Pain erupts through my body, it feels as though my chest has been torn open, breathing is impossible. And of course, I’m more than aware of why this is: there’s a giant Chinese kitchen knife stuck in my chest. But understanding this doesn’t make me feel any better, doesn’t alleviate the dizzying pain.
Tarvainen is running, somewhere, it sounds as though he is hurrying down the staircase.
I grip the handle of the knife, it feels worse than anything I’ve experienced before. I close my eyes and wrench it out. The knife makes a sucking sound as it exits my chest, the sound of a starving person slurping thick soup from the side of a bowl. I drop the knife to the floor. It is covered in blood and I can feel the warm flow on my chest. I manage to breathe for the first time since the attack. It is difficult, my chest hurts as though someone were tearing it open. I turn and head after Tarvainen.
What should I think of this man? In the space of one night he has both saved my life and tried to kill me. Twice.
I reach the ground floor and make my way outside. Once in the yard I can see footsteps in the snow, and when I raise my eyes I see Tarvainen in the glow of the moon and stars. He is running across the frozen lake. I glance at the snowmobile; naturally he tried this first, but, as I then realise, the keys are still on the floor upstairs.
I try to catch up with him, but there’s no way I can run as fast as I’d like. Shouting is even more difficult. I can see the flags, and now I know where Tarvainen is running.
The fishermen’s flags, marking holes in the ice.
The famous Lake Hurmevaara sprats.
At first I wonder whether Tarvainen sees the flags at all, but he must surely see them. Now I realise what is happening. Tarvainen corrects his course. He is running directly towards one of the flags. He approaches the flag, and I try to shout out.
Tarvainen is so close to the flag that he could almost touch it. But he doesn’t have the chance. The ice buckles beneath him and he disappears into the hole. I see his upper body, like a barrel bobbing in the middle of the lake; the rucksack makes his chest bulbous and heavy, and it sinks more slowly. But it sinks all the same, and eventually Tarvainen disappears from view.
I stop, gasp for breath. I cannot run, I can only walk slowly.
A hand appears above the ice, then disappears again, leaving only the moonlit night, the stars and the smooth, gleaming surface of the endless lake.
I recall Tarvainen’s words.
Rally or death.