THEY DROVE IN silence. The snowploughs had cleared the motorway, and the snow was piled high to right and left of the road. Nurmela, the Turku chief of police, called several times to find out about the latest developments. He asked if it was all true. He wanted to know why Hämäläinen hadn’t been given police protection. How was it possible for such a thing …? Sundström’s answers were monosyllabic; he seemed to be deep in thought. He said nothing until they arrived in Helsinki and drew up outside the hospital entrance.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Sundström. Then he shut his mouth again.
Outside the hospital, hundreds of people were standing behind a barrier. There were outside-broadcast vehicles from several TV and radio stations. The phone rang. Nurmela’s frantic voice filled the interior of the car.
‘We’re there,’ said Sundström.
‘And?’
‘All hell’s broken loose,’ said Sundström.
‘Call me as soon as you have any news,’ said Nurmela.
They got out and made their way through the crowd. Sundström held his badge aloft. A uniformed officer waved them past the barrier and escorted them to the entrance. After a few minutes Marko Westerberg arrived. He seemed even wearier and more apathetic than usual. In his case, presumably that was a sign of stress.
‘He’s going to pull through,’ said Westerberg. ‘The doctors say he was extraordinarily lucky.’
They followed Westerberg towards the lifts. The peace and quiet inside the hospital was in marked contrast to the excitement outside. They stood in the reception area almost alone apart from a few people in white coats scurrying past. A woman with her leg in plaster sat on a bench against a yellow wall leafing through a magazine. She had two crutches propped beside her.
‘Is that lift coming soon?’ asked Sundström.
Westerberg pressed the button again, and they stared at the red light announcing the lift’s arrival. Its broad door opened. Two paramedics pushed a stretcher past them. An old man who looked like a skeleton lay on the stretcher. His eyes passed over Joentaa as they got into the lift.
They went up to the fourth floor. A uniformed officer stood outside the door bearing the words Intensive Care in narrow white lettering. He nodded to them, and entered a code into a display of numbers. The door opened automatically. Beyond it chaos seemed to reign, but only at first glance. Joentaa heard several conversations going on at the same time. The doctors and nurses wore blue-green coats, they moved swiftly and purposefully, and Joentaa thought of that last night in the hospital. The moment when Sanna’s pulse had stopped. He listened to the conversations: enquiring voices mingled with firm voices conveying reassurance. They went along the broad white corridor of the Intensive Care ward, stood at one window for a while and saw Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen on the other side of it, lying on a bed. Several tubes were inserted into his body, and he seemed to be asleep.
‘A matter of centimetres,’ said a voice behind him. Joentaa turned, and looked at the face of a young man of about his own age. His hair was cut short, and under the blue-green medical coat he looked very thin.
‘A matter of centimetres,’ he repeated. His voice sounded calm and confident. Joentaa thought of Rintanen, the doctor who had treated Sanna in the last weeks of her life. His voice had sounded much the same.
‘He’ll live,’ said the young doctor. ‘He probably won’t have to spend more than a few days here with us. After that, nursing care at home should do the trick.’
Westerberg nodded, and Paavo Sundström breathed in deeply and out again. In and out. ‘Well, isn’t that great?’ he said. ‘Oh, brilliant.’
The young doctor and Westerberg looked at him in some irritation, and Sundström repeated it. ‘Great. Just brilliant. Oh, yes.’ Then he took out his mobile, saying he had to make a call. He moved away, and Joentaa turned back to the window beyond which Hämäläinen lay in his spartan room on a freshly made bed.
‘When can we talk to him?’ he heard Westerberg ask.
‘Soon, I should think. Soon. Maybe this evening.’
‘It’s very important for us. He can probably give us useful information.’
‘I realise that,’ said the doctor.
Joentaa looked at Hämäläinen, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He turned away and saw a wall to one side covered with vast numbers of brightly coloured cards. Thank-you cards from mothers and fathers whose babies had been delivered in this hospital. Joentaa wondered why they were here rather than in the maternity ward. He went closer to read the cards. The parents had often signed in the names of their children, sometimes even deliberately scrawling names to suggest that the babies themselves had written the cards. Joentaa looked at the pictures, at the exuberantly happy messages, the recurrent phrases. He thought vaguely of Larissa. Or whatever her name was. He had no idea if she took precautions. He wasn’t interested in that. He had no idea who she was. He didn’t want to know. He felt like ringing her. Hearing her voice. He imagined touching her.
He thought of that last night in the hospital. It was years ago, but it was always as if it had been only last night. Sanna had fallen asleep, he had been holding her hand. He thought of the last moment. Of the pain that had been pulsating under his skin ever since. He didn’t feel it, he just knew that it was there.
He moved away from the wall and looked back at Hämäläinen lying the other side of the glass. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a movement to his right. Then a woman came into his field of vision and over to the viewing window. She shook her head and compressed her lips. Their eyes met.
‘I heard it on TV,’ she said.
Joentaa nodded, and the woman turned back to the window.
She said nothing more for a while.
Then she said, barely audibly, ‘Heard it on TV. Like so much else about him.’