DUSK HAS FALLEN over Helsinki again. The sun spends so few hours glowing through the veil of gray clouds this time of the year that it feels as if someone is turning the dimmer first clockwise and then counterclockwise.
Jessica and Yusuf are just climbing out of the car in the garage at police HQ in Pasila when Jessica’s phone rings.
“Sergeant Niemi. I am. Yes. Good. Could you send me the report . . . ? Great. Thank you.”
Yusuf watches his colleague’s terse exchange with interest. Then Jessica lowers the receiver from her ear. “That was Sarvilinna. We have an ID for the Ice Princess.”
Yusuf leans his elbows on the car’s roof. “OK.”
“Her name is Lea Blomqvist. Twenty-nine years old.”
“Who ID’d the body?”
“Apparently her brother, who reported her missing this morning.”
“Is the brother still at the morgue?”
“Yes. We need to talk to him right away.”
“Erne wants us to meet with him first,” Yusuf says, slamming the car door.
“I guess we’d better do that, then.”
THE DOOR IS open, and Jessica and Yusuf walk into Erne’s cramped office without knocking.
“You two have had a busy day,” Erne says, gaze glued to his computer screen. His forefinger is tapping at the mouse.
“You can say that again,” Jessica says quietly. She unzips her coat. “Did Sarvilinna call you too?”
“She did. She had tried to get ahold of you earlier, but you didn’t answer.”
“My phone was misplaced for a sec.”
“So I understood.”
“So you heard the Ice Princess has been identified.”
Erne frowns. “Huh? I don’t care for that nickname.”
“We don’t either. And now we don’t have to use it anymore,” Jessica says as Yusuf takes a seat in the corner.
“So now we know the identities of all victims aside from the man in Juva,” Erne says, releasing the mouse.
“Yup.” Jessica lightly massages her kneecaps. They are tingling ominously. It has been months since her episode, but she still remembers the paralyzing pain that put her out of commission for multiple days.
“What’s your plan?” Erne asks.
“To talk to Helminen’s and Blomqvist’s family members. Maybe Maria Koponen’s closest friends too.”
“Why?”
“I’m positive there’s a connection between the three of them. Something aside from the fact that some sick fuck thought they were witches.”
Erne smiles. Jessica knows all three of Erne’s smiles; the one she just saw indicates satisfaction.
“Excellent,” he says, then starts coughing uncontrollably. Jessica looks at him in concern. When did Erne get so old and decrepit?
Jessica waits for his coughing fit to subside before she continues. “Both Helminen and Blomqvist were drugged and taken to a basement where they were dressed in identical clothes. Then evidently the witch test was performed on both of them, the one Micke told us about. The women were submerged in a large wooden tub or tank.”
“And all this is based on what Helminen told you?”
“Yes. She also claimed the abductors were wearing some sort of animal masks, just like that creep I saw today on the ice.” After saying this, Jessica casts a long glance at Erne and studies his reaction. If he didn’t before, now he has to believe the horned man on the ice wasn’t a figment of Jessica’s imagination.
“So you believe Helminen is credible?”
Jessica shivers. She was wrong. Erne doesn’t trust either report. “What do you mean? I don’t understand why she wouldn’t be.”
“After a shock like that, the imagination can make up all sorts of things.”
Jessica’s fingers clench into fists of vexation in the back pockets of her jeans, and she is emphatic: “Like I just said, her account fits perfectly into the overall picture.” She looks at Yusuf, who takes a moment to realize he’s part of the conversation.
“Damn right, Erne,” he says despite the uncertainty in his voice. Yusuf has been in the unit for only a couple of years and is still afraid of saying something that might antagonize his boss.
But now Erne chuckles good-naturedly. “Damn right,” he repeats softly, and then turns his attention to his papers. Jessica sees a thick stack of printouts on the corner of the desk: Koponen’s books and Karlstedt’s work Introduction to the Occult, which Erne has managed to get his hands on from somewhere. Eventually he speaks again: “I agree there has to be some connection between the women other than a trim figure and dark hair. I think it’s a good angle of attack.”
“I haven’t had time to talk to Micke about what happened on the ice today . . . ,” Jessica begins, and feels hunger searing her stomach. She hasn’t had a chance to eat.
“You want to know what it has to do with Koponen’s book?”
“Of course.”
“There’s a pretty exact parallel. In the book, one of the women suspected of being a witch passes the test. In other words, she sinks instead of floating. The inquisitors pull her out of the water and set her free. It’s likely that Laura Helminen is playing that poor woman in this grisly drama.”
“Don’t you find it odd that some of the crimes that take place in the books have been copied to a T, but in others the connection to the text is pretty superficial, like in the case of Laura Helminen?”
“You’re right. But you have to remember, we’re the ones who made the assumption that this group is copying the events from Koponen’s book. Even if it were true, the criminals don’t necessarily have any rule about following the plot word for word.”
“I see,” Jessica says, then pulls her notebook from her coat pocket and jots down something. For a moment they sit there in silence. The only sound in the room is that of Erne’s heavy breathing.
“Then there’s one thing I’d like you to take a stance on as principal investigator, Jessie,” Erne says. He rises lazily from his chair. “Karlstedt and Lehtinen. We don’t have any information on the car’s movements last night. In theory it’s possible the two of them are in some way involved in the burning deaths in Juva. And if they are, we can’t shut out the possibility that the two of them are working in concert with Roger Koponen.”
“But there’s nothing concrete? Other than the question Lehtinen asked?” Jessica says, clicking the end of her ballpoint pen.
“Exactly. Both of them are under constant surveillance. We have eyes on the cars in Westend and Vantaa. We’ve received warrants to monitor their telephones, and the lines are singing. But even so, Nina and Micke think we should bring them in immediately for questioning.”
“You want to know what I think?”
“Desperately.”
“Isn’t our main goal to find Roger Koponen? In which case we ought to hold off and wait for one of those two guys to contact him—or vice versa.”
“I agree,” Erne says, looking a little relieved.
“But we can’t focus solely on Koponen. He was demonstrably in Savonlinna at the time when Maria Koponen and the Ice Princess—”
“She has a name now, Jessica.” Erne steps behind his desk and looks out the window.
“—Lea Blomqvist were killed in Kulosaari.”
Erne presses his fingertips against the windowpane. “So even if we find Koponen, the murderer would still be on the loose.”
“Exactly.” Jessica takes a deep breath. “So it would be downright dumb to bring Karlstedt and Lehtinen in now.”
“Jessica saw a guy with horns out on the ice,” Yusuf begins, deep in thought. “At the same time, someone was under the ice with Laura Helminen, bringing her to the hole.”
“And?”
“Were Karlstedt and Lehtinen under surveillance by that point?”
“No. But very soon thereafter, we placed Karlstedt at his house in Westend and Lehtinen at his workplace in Kivistö. I suppose it’s theoretically possible but really damn unlikely that they would have been at Kulosaari at that time. Roger Koponen, on the other hand, got off the metro in Kulosaari at eight sixteen a.m.”
Jessica lowers her head and feels a tremendous shudder convulse through her body.