JOENTAA DROVE TO Helsinki with Sundström. The roads were wide and empty, the winter sunlight gave way to grey clouds, and it began to snow.
They sat in Westerberg’s office and compared notes on what they knew. Kimmo Joentaa couldn’t get that picture out of his head, the image of a laughing Laukkanen raising the glass of water to his mouth.
Sundström had not been exaggerating. Marko Westerberg did indeed seem to be very tired as he described the state of their investigation in Helsinki so far.
They went to the house where Harri Mäkelä had lived, and where he had died outside the front entrance. A sky-blue, unusually extensive clinker-built wooden house. Police officers in white overalls were securing any clues. Neighbours and curious onlookers stood on the other side of yellow police tape. A thin young man was sitting on a sofa in the living room. His head was bowed and his eyes closed.
‘Mr Vaasara?’ said Westerberg in his melancholy voice, dragging the words out slowly.
The man looked up.
‘These are colleagues of ours from Turku. Paavo Sundström and Kimmo Joentaa.’
The man nodded.
‘Nuutti Vaasara,’ said Westerberg. ‘He’s … he lived here with Harri Mäkelä. And they … they worked together too.’ Westerberg sounded particularly weary as he gave this information.
The young man nodded, Sundström and Joentaa nodded.
‘I’d like to know more about the work,’ said Joentaa.
The young man stared at him for a while, and Joentaa wasn’t sure if he had understood. He was about to ask again when Vaasara said, ‘The studio’s at the back of the house.’
‘May I take a look at it?’ asked Joentaa.
‘Of course,’ said Vaasara, and got to his feet. He was tall, and his movements were fluid and well coordinated. Joentaa, Sundström and Westerberg followed Vaasara down a long corridor and entered a world that had nothing to do with the warm, elegantly furnished living area of the house. Vaasara had opened the door and let Joentaa into the large white room first. On a long, massive wooden table in the middle of the room stood containers, spray cans and buckets of paint. Joentaa went over to the table and out of the corner of his eye saw human figures leaning against the wall. With their heads drooping. A red and yellow clown stood out sharply against the white that dominated the room. A dead body lay in the clown’s lap.
A stand-up comic telling sad stories from his life, he thought.
Joentaa stood motionless, and Vaasara said, ‘This is our studio.’
Joentaa nodded, shook off his rigidity and went over to the table. He looked inside the containers.
‘Silicon, latex,’ said Vaasara. ‘Silicon, latex, plastics, they’re the basic materials for making the puppets.’
Joentaa nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the puppets up against the wall and felt a pang in his chest. In his chest and behind his forehead. He sensed an idea making space for itself.
‘I’m the assistant. Harri is the artist,’ said Vaasara.
Joentaa nodded. Not with the best will in the world, Sundström had said. By now Sundström had gone over to the table himself and was asking Vaasara a question that Joentaa did not hear, because the idea was taking over more space. An idea that he couldn’t quite grasp yet. Westerberg was standing gloomily in the doorway.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Sundström. The words reached him in waves.
‘Sure,’ said Joentaa.
The idea was Sanna. The moment when the nurse on night duty had put out the light. Bright yellow light, like the light in this room. The same white walls. He had seen Sanna’s face and couldn’t take in what he was seeing. Couldn’t take it in. Hadn’t taken it in to this day. He went out of the room.
‘Kimmo?’ he heard Sundström saying.
The name came to him in waves, Kimmo, Kimmo, Kimmo.
Kimmo, he had replied, when Sanna had asked who he was, what his name was. When she didn’t recognise him any more, when the world in which they had lived together was slipping away from her, to be replaced by a new world that he didn’t understand. Could he see her riding a horse, Sanna had asked, and he had nodded, and Sanna had smiled for the last time.
He went down the corridor back to the living room, where it was warm. He sat down on the sofa where Vaasara had been sitting. His head was bowed, like Vaasara’s when they had arrived.
‘Are you really all right, Kimmo?’ asked Sundström behind his back.
‘In a minute,’ said Joentaa. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing regularly.
‘It – they’re only models,’ said Vaasara. ‘Puppets.’
Sundström laughed briefly.
‘Thanks. We’d never have thought of that for ourselves,’ said Westerberg wearily, standing in the doorway.