RAAFAEL MERTARANTA BLEW her a kiss before he got into the lift and went up to the next floor.
Tuula Palonen turned away and went into the cafeteria. She felt a brief pang as she passed the area marked off by tape, the rectangle of smooth floor on which Kai-Petteri had lain fighting for his life. The thought was unreal.
She chose avocado soup, risotto, and a pink dessert garnished with raspberries, which looked suspiciously creamy but delicious. With her meal she drank a glass of water and black coffee.
She sat at a table over to one side, ate fast, and was so deep in thought about the course of the next few hours that she hardly noticed the taste of the food.
Finally she drew the raspberry cream and her coffee towards her, and took the schedule and a red pen out of her briefcase. She began reading, taking a spoonful of raspberry cream and a sip of coffee now and then, and ticked items that had already been dealt with.
At one point she stopped for a moment and thought about that police officer, Joentaa. She’d call him and tell him there had been no unusual reactions to the interview with Mäkelä and the forensic pathologist. No threatening letters or anything of that kind. Of course not. There’d been many appreciative letters and emails about the information given in the programme, and the writers had expressed thanks, but that probably wasn’t what Joentaa was looking for. In fact, she wondered exactly what he was looking for, and thought of the mysterious questions he had asked about the puppets and imaginary causes of death.
She looked at the schedule, the warm-up sequence and the presentations, and her glance fell again on the fifth main subject of tonight’s programme.
She thought of Harri Mäkelä. Of the cheerful and well-irrigated evening after the recording. Mäkelä had downed beer after beer and talked his head off. About a plane crash that wasn’t a plane crash. She remembered that she hadn’t really understood what he had been trying to say. But maybe that taciturn policeman could make something of it.
She made a mental note to call him as soon as she had a free moment, and took a last spoonful from her dish of raspberry cream. She drained her coffee, went through the hall, past the rectangle marked off by police tape and over to the lifts, then up to the twelfth floor.
Margot Lind was sitting in the open-plan office of the Hämäläinen talk show, telephoning. ‘Olli’s looking for you,’ she said as she put the receiver down. ‘And one of those policemen called. Or rather it was someone from reception, to say he hadn’t been able to connect the policeman with us, and the policeman would like someone to call back.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Tuula Palonen.
‘Just a moment. I wrote the name down. Yes, Joentaa, from Turku.’
Joentaa, thought Tuula Palonen, that pain in the neck. At that moment Olli Latvala came into the office, cheerful and confident as ever and said, ‘There was a policeman looking for you. Man called Joentaa.’
Margot Lind giggled. ‘Persistent, isn’t he?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Latvala.
‘Okay, I’ll call him,’ said Tuula Palonen. ‘Give me the number, Margot.’
‘There’s no need, he’s here. Sitting up there with one of the cutters watching some archival material.’
‘Oh,’ said Tuula Palonen. ‘What kind of archival material?’
‘The uncut version of the show with Mäkelä and that forensic pathologist. And anything else we could find from that edition. Footage from the hand-held camera, for instance.’
‘Oh,’ said Tuula Palonen.
‘Mainly he wanted to see pictures of the audience,’ said Latvala.
‘Right,’ said Tuula Palonen. ‘I’ll go and see him right away.’
‘No need for that either. If I understood him correctly I’ve already been able to find him everything he wanted,’ said Latvala.
‘Oh, good. All the better,’ said Tuula Palonen.
‘If you have time I’d like to discuss a couple of ideas about the set for today’s show,’ said Olli Latvala.
‘Go ahead,’ she said, and Latvala sat down beside her. She thought again of Harri Mäkelä, who had sent them that impossible puppet. It was no good, they’d had to reject it on the very day of the show, but Mäkelä had provided a substitute all the same. And in the evening, after his tenth beer and fourth chaser of schnapps, he had said there’d been a little misunderstanding. Maybe she ought to go up one floor and see what Joentaa was doing. Archival material. Pictures of the audience.
‘Er … Tuula, are you with me?’ asked Olli Latvala.
‘What? Yes, of course.’
‘Well … did you hear what I said?’
‘Begin again at the beginning,’ she said.
‘Right, the idea is for Kai-Petteri to move from the sofa to the other group of seats depending on the subject,’ said Latvala. ‘And I’d definitely have the ski-jumpers sitting on the sofa, particularly as they’re bringing their skis …’
‘What?’ asked Tuula Palonen distractedly.
‘Their skis.’
‘They’re bringing their skis into the studio?’
‘Yes, it’s something to do with their sponsor’s contract. Kai-Petteri is supposed to be asking several questions about the composition of the skis, and skis for ski-jumping are very long, so the group of seats with the desk wouldn’t be so suitable, if you see what I mean.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Tuula Palonen.
‘The problem is that we’ve also planned to use the sofa for the next item in the show, so the effect would be static, and the directing team doesn’t like my suggestion of deliberately bringing the ski-jumpers into the picture with the hand-held camera.’
‘I see,’ said Tuula Palonen.
‘So have a word with them, will you?’
‘I will,’ said Tuula Palonen.