YUSUF PULLS THE car door shut and looks over at the dark gray Toyota van across the street: stakeout central for the guys from SUPO. The van has been equipped with recording devices and eight supersharp cameras that offer a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the world outside via a small screen. There are two men sitting in the car. During twenty-four-hour surveillance, one watches the screen while the other one rests his eyes. The stakeout van is supplied with substantial stores of water and canned food, a portable toilet, and a reserve power source, to make days of unbroken surveillance possible. It’s not a great gig: Yusuf knows the initial burst of romanticized suspense inspired by movies like Chinatown quickly turns into shit-stench claustrophobia.
Yusuf starts up his car. Poor Jessica. This case is making her lose her grip. She’s usually so careful and conscientious, and now she’s started losing things: a phone here, a debit card there. Yusuf can forget his heartwarming dreams of a to-go pizza from Manala.
He reverses a meter or two, then turns the car around and drives down Töölönkatu toward Hesperia Park. Snow is drifting down from the sky again, and the people walking on the sidewalks have pulled up the hoods of their heavy coats to protect their heads.
His phone, which is connected to the car’s Bluetooth, starts to ring. Mikael’s number appears on the screen, and Yusuf sighs. He doesn’t like Mikael. Not because the guy has ever done anything to him, but because they’re so different. Besides, Mikael is a skirt chaser and a cocky bastard, and Nina is going to pay the price for that if their relationship lasts. Which she does not deserve, under any circumstances.
“What’s up, Micke?”
“You were right, damn it.” Mikael holds a brief artistic pause.
“About what?”
“Malleus Maleficarum. The words were spotted from the air. This time in flaming letters.”
Yusuf feels a burn in his diaphragm. “What? Where?”
“A field in Haltiala.”
“You’re shitting me,” Yusuf says. He takes his foot off the gas, and for a second, the car slides down toward the intersection. “So a chopper spotted it—”
“The copter Erne sent up was hovering over eastern Helsinki. But Haltiala is so close to the airport that there were several sightings. The reports were passed on to the fire department as a terrain fire. There are a few fire trucks on the scene by now, but some aerial photographs were taken of the text. There’s no mistaking what it said.”
Yusuf glances at his watch. “I’m heading out there.”
“Good. Tech is already on its way.”
“Why?”
“A dead woman was found there, Yusuf.”
The car stops at the crosswalk. Yusuf shuts his eyes; his voice has dropped to a rasp. “Out of Koponen’s book? Crushed—”
“Something like that. You really need to get out there.”
“Send me the address,” Yusuf says. He hangs up and tries to swallow down the lump in his throat. For some reason, the crimes over the past twenty-four hours have put him in mind of Nezha. How if some nutjob decides to target his hatred on her someday, he won’t be able to protect his sister.
Yusuf steps on the gas, drives across the crosswalk, and pulls over between the park’s two allées. His fingers are clenched around the steering wheel; his nails are digging into the flesh of his palms. It’s only when he releases his grip that he realizes his hands are shaking. Yusuf shifts into neutral, yanks up the hand brake, and turns on his yellow emergency blinkers. Then he rises out of the still-running vehicle and lights a cigarette.
The car behind passes him, horn held down.