JESSICA STRIDES BRISKLY down the short hall toward the front door. She unsnaps her holster and tilts the gun slightly toward her body, releasing the locking mechanism. She feels a throbbing at her temples; her rhythmic, ever-intensifying heartbeats make her feel incredibly alive, a body running on automatic functions. When she reaches the door, Jessica sees three officers in uniform, two police vans, the tech van, and the hearse, which just pulled up. The ambulance, called in pointlessly, is leaving. The flashing blues and reds of the emergency vehicles dominate the color scale of the nocturnal idyll; they draw their strokes across the neighboring lots and the buildings, where lights indicating curiosity are coming on in more and more windows. The officers notice Jessica’s alert state before she can even open her mouth.
“Is everything—”
“Where did he go?” Jessica barks.
“Who?”
“That CSI!”
“Oh, him . . . ,” one of the officers says, raising his thumb to indicate the street leading down the hill. “He just headed—”
“Running?”
“Walking.”
“One of you come with me, now!” Jessica orders, taking a few backward steps down the road, illuminated by streetlamps swaying in the wind.
“Was he—”
“And you, call dispatch and tell them the killer fled the scene on foot just a moment ago. We need more bodies, and fast!” Jessica speaks emphatically, pulling her pistol out of the holster. The dramatic gesture makes the bearded officer start, as if this was what it took to convince him Jessica is dead serious.
They drop down the snow-blanketed street, where the deep tire tracks look as if they could carry a streetcar. A densely spaced line of fresh footprints is clearly visible on the sidewalk. The man in white coveralls has indeed walked away: the tracks of a running person would be farther apart. They’ll be able to catch up to him if he’s not expecting them to follow him soon. Even so, confusion bores into Jessica’s mind during the few seconds it takes them to hustle to the corner where the footprints lead. The murderer knows they will chase after him. It’s clearly what he wanted: a moment before, he marched up to Jessica and opened his mouth, despite the fact that he could have simply strolled out of the house without anyone being the wiser. If she had only understood during the encounter that he was no CSI . . . Jessica feels goose bumps form on her skin. She has seen the shit who murdered Maria Koponen, looked him in the eye. And now the asshole is out here somewhere, on the loose and triumphant.
“He can’t have gotten far,” the officer says. Despite his beefiness, he is keeping up without the slightest shortness of breath. Jessica grips her pistol in both hands as they approach the intersection; her line of sight to the cross street is blocked by a tall, snow-crusted spruce hedge. She slows down, shoots a glance at the officer at her side, whose movements are a mirror image of her own. Jessica peers around the hedge and sees an empty street with a pileup of cars parked on either side.
“Motherfucker,” Jessica mutters, scanning around for the footprints. There’s no sign of them. The road has been plowed, and by walking down the middle of it, the fugitive has been able to continue on his way without leaving any easily discernible trace. Jessica hears the sirens of approaching patrols. The clank and growl of a snowplow carry faintly from somewhere in the distance.
“He could be hiding behind the cars. Or under,” the officer whispers confidently, then calmly advances toward the closest parked vehicles.
Jessica replies at normal volume: “He’d only do that if he had to hide in a hurry.”
“Doesn’t he?”
Jessica doesn’t answer. She softly curses the long seconds it took her to grasp that the killer had just walked out of the police-cordoned crime scene on his own two feet.
“Maybe he had a car parked here,” the officer says. It’s not a totally off-the-wall idea. But at first glance, the snow on the ground didn’t indicate a car was parked there recently or show any tire tracks merging into the driving lane.
“What’s your name?” Jessica asks as they advance cautiously, car by car.
“Hallvik. Lasse Hallvik.”
“OK, Lasse. Check the cars. Stay on your guard. Reinforcements are on the way,” Jessica says, and starts jogging down the long, brightly lit road.
“You’re not going after him alone, are you?”
Jessica doesn’t make any sign of responding; instead, she pulls out her phone and lifts it to her ear, pistol still in her other hand. She runs down the middle of the street, cars on either side, fully confident that Hallvik is covering her. At least for this stretch of road.
“Hello?” The alert voice that answers belongs to Erne Mikson, who just half an hour before was made investigative lead on the case.
“I’m not sure if you got the message from the switchboard, but we have to close the interchanges leading to the Kulosaari bridges. Fast.” Jessica can hear the tension in her own voice.
“What’s going on there?”
“I’m trailing the killer on foot. . . .”
“With who?”
“No one.”
“Jessica!”
“He went this way just a minute ago. . . . I have to see if . . . Shit, hold on. . . .” Jessica slips the phone into her coat pocket and holds the Glock with both hands again. For a second she’s sure she’s looking at a person lying on the ground. But the white coveralls shivering in the street are empty, like a Michelin Man that has been pricked with a dagger. One leg flutters in the wind, as if indicating the direction its owner has in all likelihood continued on in his journey. Jessica glances back, sees Hallvik crouching between cars a hundred meters away. She puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles to get his attention.
“Lasse! Make sure no one drives over this!” At first Jessica isn’t sure if he’s heard her yell since it was flying into a headwind, but he stands and hurries over. Jessica continues down the road and is considering her next move when she registers the sirens growing louder. Some ineffable instinct prompts her to stop and whispers the unfortunate truth. They’re not going to catch him. Not tonight. She lets out a deep sigh and feels the sting in her lungs. Then she puts her hand back in her coat pocket.
“Erne?”
“Goddamn it, Jessica! I was already thinking—”
“Erne, I screwed up.”
She hears her boss’ voice, but her mind has already leapt onto a spinning merry-go-round with no room for new thoughts to jump on in the middle of the ride. The man who conjured up a smile on Maria Koponen’s now-lifeless face might be watching them at this very moment from the depths of the darkness. There’s no sign of him. And yet he’s everywhere.