THEY DROVE TO the TV station. Several police cars were parked right outside the building. The forensics people in their white overalls harmonised with both the snow and the futuristic glass structure rising to the sky behind them.
Westerberg phoned. Sundström phoned. Westerberg shouted over the phone at one of his men and managed to make even tearing someone off a strip sound apathetic. Sundström spoke to Nurmela, who was phoning almost every minute. The investigating team in Helsinki had fixed a press conference for 14.00 hours. Sundström was trying to make it clear to Nurmela that he would not be sitting on the platform himself, he would leave it to his colleagues to mention the close cooperation between Helsinki and Turku.
They entered the glass tower. There was only a doorman sitting behind the glass, and he hardly looked at them as they passed him. The catastrophe had already happened; he didn’t seem to be expecting a second one.
The reception area and the cafeteria next to it were empty. Cleared for the scene-of-crime unit. Interviews were being held in a conference room on the first floor. Westerberg led the way to it without interrupting his conversation with his colleague, and did not lower his mobile until the man himself was face to face with him, also putting his own mobile away.
‘This just can’t be possible,’ said Westerberg. He was not shouting any longer, he was speaking in a soft, slow voice.
‘What can’t be possible?’ asked Sundström.
‘We have nothing. Nothing at all,’ said Westerberg. ‘No one has the faintest idea who stabbed Hämäläinen.’
They went on into the room, which was full of people. Police officers sat at tables in conversation with employees of the TV station. Joentaa recognised one of the doormen, the man who had let them in the day before.
‘It’s like this: in a way this building is a self-enclosed area,’ said Westerberg. ‘But only in a way.’
‘You’re talking in riddles,’ said Sundström.
‘Well, in principle the identity of everyone who comes in is registered, which ought to reduce the circle of people we have to look at.’
‘To the few hundred people who work here, you mean?’
‘Yes, but even that doesn’t cover everything.’
‘Ah,’ said Sundström.
‘Because there were two guided tours of the station building this morning, for the winners of a crossword puzzle competition,’ said Westerberg.
‘Crossword puzzle competition,’ said Sundström.
‘So if we begin by considering that an outsider could have done it, and if we then assume that he would hardly have had himself registered here, name and address and all, before going on to attack Hämäläinen, then we suspect that somehow or other he mingled with the group on one of the guided tours and got into the building that way, without our knowledge.’
Sundström nodded. ‘And then he stabbed Hämäläinen in the entrance hall and simply walked out again.’
‘No,’ said Westerberg.
‘Really? No?’
‘No. Hämäläinen was stabbed in the cafeteria,’ said Westerberg. ‘To be precise, between the cafeteria and the entrance hall. There’s no door between the two, they just merge with each other.’
Sundström looked at Westerberg and suddenly began to laugh. ‘Marko, are you taking the piss?’
‘No,’ said Westerberg.
‘You’re surely not telling me that no one noticed this TV station’s star presenter lying on the floor seriously injured, gasping for breath? That’s … I mean, there must have been someone in that cafeteria. Behind the counter, for instance.’
‘There wasn’t anyone behind the counter just at that minute because the girl on duty had gone to the loo. Two women, editors in the newsroom, told us they were drinking coffee at the same time as Hämäläinen, but they only saw him walk away, they didn’t see him being attacked.’
Sundström nodded for a while, muttering something by way of agreement. ‘Well, well. I see. Yes.’
‘I’m as furious about this as you are.’
‘You must be joking. See me fall about laughing,’ shouted Sundström. The conversations in the room around them died down, and Sundström actually did begin to laugh. ‘You point your cameras at everything, and then you miss the best bit, that’s the irony of it, it’s amazing,’ he said. ‘Kimmo, take a look at this, see if you get the joke.’
‘Calm down, Paavo, and then we can go on,’ said Westerberg.
‘Right, let’s do just that. Where do you get all that laid-back lethargy? Is it yoga or Tai Chi or what?’
‘Paavo, let’s …’
‘Look, the most famous man in Finland was stabbed here today, and two other men are dead already, including a man I knew and liked. Are you with me so far?’
Westerberg nodded.
‘I’d like to speak to the doormen now, the ones who let in the groups for the guided tours,’ said Sundström. ‘And to the people who were in those groups. At once. And Kimmo, have another word with the two women who saw Hämäläinen in the cafeteria.’
Westerberg nodded. ‘I’ll see to it,’ he said, and spoke to his colleague, who was still standing there with his mobile in his hand.
‘You know, I just can’t think of any more jokes,’ said Sundström.
Westerberg beckoned Joentaa over. He was standing with two young women who looked horrified, and at the same time elated and excited. Mixed feelings. Like the two boys who had been standing in the forest in Turku on the other side of the police tape, looking at Patrik Laukkanen lying on the ground.
Joentaa shook hands with both the editors and introduced himself. They sat down at one of the tables, and Joentaa asked the question to which he already knew they would reply ‘No’.
‘You saw nothing at all? Not even a faint indication of someone attacking Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen?’
The two women shook their heads.
‘We were still sitting at our table in the cafeteria when … Kai-Petteri left. We stayed there and …’
‘We watched him leave. We were talking about him,’ said the other woman.
‘Then he was out of sight from where we were sitting, and we stayed there for a few more minutes. We didn’t … we didn’t hear anything. Nothing at all.’
‘When we left we went the same way he had, and then we saw him lying on the floor.’
Joentaa nodded. Several minutes. Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen had been lying in the middle of that glass box for several minutes, fighting for his life, and no one had noticed.
‘He was lying sort of … perfectly peacefully. He looked at us and just nodded.’
‘We ran to the doormen, and they called the emergency doctor. And a little while later everyone in the building seemed to know. Suddenly they were all there.’
‘Try to concentrate on the people you saw. Was anyone among them who doesn’t belong here? Or maybe outside in the park, maybe you saw someone through the windows while everyone was waiting for the emergency doctor …’
They shook their heads. ‘There wasn’t anyone there,’ said the younger of the two women. ‘First there was no one there, then crowds of people. But no one I specially noticed.’
Her colleague nodded in agreement.
Joentaa thanked them. The two women got to their feet and stood there indecisively, looking around and apparently not sure what to do next. Like most of the people in the room. A curious reversal of circumstances, thought Joentaa. The investigators were asking cogent questions, while the employees of the TV station, who spent their time devising new formats and new ways of presenting life’s disasters, had run out of answers.
He thought of Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen and the expression on his face, which was always the same. If he understood the two news editors correctly, it had still been the same even when he was lying on the floor with life-threatening injuries.
He glanced at Sundström, who was heatedly addressing a group of people. Joentaa recognised one of the doormen, and assumed that the rest of the group had been on the two guided tours of the building. Sundström’s voice and the suppressed fury in it carried to him. He saw Hämäläinen’s assistant standing at one side of the room. Tuula Palonen, if he remembered correctly. She was talking to a grey-haired man of medium height, or rather seemed to be listening as he explained something to her. Joentaa went over to her. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.
Tuula Palonen turned to him abruptly. ‘Can’t you see that … oh, we …’
‘Kimmo Joentaa. I was in your editorial offices yesterday with two colleagues.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry, we were just … this is Raafael Mertaranta, the station’s controller.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Mertaranta, and Joentaa nodded.
‘We hear … we hear that Kai-Petteri is doing better. That’s wonderful,’ said Mertaranta.
‘The doctors tell us his condition is stable.’
‘I’d like to go to the hospital,’ said Tuula Palonen. ‘But your colleague’ – she pointed to Westerberg who was sitting at one of the tables deep in conversation – ‘your colleague said everyone who works for the station should be available here.’
Joentaa nodded. ‘We’ve already been to the hospital. No one can speak to him yet anyway. He’s still unconscious.’
Tuula Palonen sighed, barely audibly, and Raafael Mertaranta said, ‘Do you know when he’ll be able to present the show again?’
Joentaa was too baffled to come up with any answer.
‘We’ll have to find a substitute for now, of course,’ said Mertaranta.
Joentaa sought for words. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.
‘They’re running a special about Kai on the news today,’ said Tuula.
Mertaranta nodded.
‘Maybe we can transmit a longer version of the special on our own programme,’ said Tuula.
Mertaranta thought for a while, and then said. ‘Good idea.’
There was a short silence, and Mertaranta cast Joentaa a glance that he couldn’t interpret.
‘Please don’t misunderstand us, but we have to make sure the screen doesn’t stay blank. And when Kai is doing better, of course we’ll be very relieved, and …’
‘… and I can tell you something …’ said Mertaranta. Joentaa waited, thinking of Larissa and that he wanted to call her and hear her voice.
‘… that’s what Kai-Petteri himself would want. You know what Kai-Petteri would most like to do once he has his strength back?’
Has his strength back, thought Joentaa, remembering the body lying motionless with tubes inserted into it, and Mertaranta said, ‘What he’d most like to do is interview himself.’