PATRIK LAUKKANEN WAS laughing. It struck Joentaa that he had never seen him look happier, and he tried to concentrate on the words being exchanged, but he found it difficult, because he kept staring at the laughing Laukkanen until the picture blurred before his eyes.
Harri Mäkelä explained how he made models of dead bodies out of shapeless lumps of modelling material, and the presenter Hämäläinen nodded, asking a question now and then, and Patrik Laukkanen laughed. Laughed and laughed, explained something, praised Mäkelä’s models because the puppet-maker observed a certain anatomical feature accurately in constructing them. Then he laughed again, Mäkelä joined in, Hämäläinen grinned wryly, the audience laughed and a stand-up comic came on stage, a man with some nervous tics who immediately began to imitate famous voices.
Sundström muted the sound. The pictures flickered silently. They all sat there in silence, Sundström and Tuomas Heinonen on chairs in front of the TV set, Petri Grönholm perched on the edge of the long, narrow table that dominated the conference room. Joentaa was kneeling in front of the TV set. He had put the DVD in the player and hadn’t moved since Hämäläinen, on screen, invited his guests Harri Mäkelä and Patrik Laukkanen to come up on stage and join the models lying on stretchers under blue cloths.
‘Well …’ said Sundström after a while.
The comic on the screen twitched and seemed to be concentrating. He appeared to address some serious subject now. Hämäläinen nodded from time to time and returned the man’s grave look.
The comic is sad, thought Joentaa vaguely, and death is a joke.
‘Does that get us any further?’ asked Sundström, breaking the silence.
No one replied. Tuomas Heinonen was pale, staring at the pictures on the screen. Three all, thought Joentaa.
‘Patrik was good,’ said Grönholm. ‘That’s all that really struck me.’
Sundström nodded.
‘He was really good,’ said Grönholm. ‘What he said was based on facts and interesting. And witty.’
Sundström nodded again.
‘I always thought Patrik had no sense of humour,’ said Grönholm.
‘And the puppet-maker was an arsehole,’ said Heinonen. They all turned to look at him. ‘Sorry,’ said Heinonen. ‘It’s just that the way he showed off because he makes models of corpses for TV got on my nerves.’
The comic’s face twitched, and Joentaa wondered whether that was part of his act or for real. Perhaps both. Perhaps he’d submerged himself in his role until reality and illusion merged. With the nervous tics of a stand-up comic, he told serious stories from his life.
Joentaa thought about corpses for TV and what Larissa had said.
Harri Mäkelä and Patrik Laukkanen were also still sitting in their places with the rest of the people on the screen. Mäkelä seemed to take little interest in the comic’s performance; he was looking at the floor, lost in thought, and changed his expression only when he thought the camera was on him. Patrik Laukkanen seemed to be listening attentively to the comic. The presenter, Hämäläinen, sat motionless and upright at his desk, his body turned to whichever guest he happened to be addressing, always with the same expression on his face, the one that seemed to say he would understand anything. Whatever might come of it.
Hämäläinen, thought Joentaa vaguely.
Reality and illusion.
‘I’d like to watch that again,’ said Joentaa.
‘What?’ asked Sundström.
‘I don’t mean right now. I’ll take the DVD home if that’s okay.’
‘Fine,’ said Sundström.
‘And we have to think about Hämäläinen.’
‘Hämäläinen?’
‘Three people took part in that conversation on the chat show. Two of them are dead, and Hämäläinen is the third.’
Sundström said nothing for a while. ‘I see what you’re getting at. The problem is, I just can’t think how to construct a motive for murder out of that conversation on the chat show. It simply won’t wash. Unless we assume we have here a murderer who kills people because they appear on TV.’
‘We’d have to protect a hell of a lot of people,’ said Grönholm.
‘It was a joke, Petri,’ said Sundström. ‘Irony.’
Irony, thought Joentaa.
‘Of course we’ll talk to Hämäläinen,’ said Sundström. ‘I’ve already fixed it with our colleagues in Helsinki for us to be present when they interview him. But personal protection … at the moment that strikes me as a rather far-fetched notion.’
Joentaa nodded.
‘What matters is to get an idea of what this is really all about,’ said Sundström.
On the screen, the comic was telling sad stories from his life.
The dead bodies lying on stretchers under blue cloths had never been alive.
And Patrik Laukkanen, who wasn’t alive any more, raised a glass of water to his mouth.