SILENT NIGHT

BY JARKKO SIPILA

East Pasila

Translated by Lola Rogers

Takamäki sat in his office in the quiet police station. He could hear the hum of the central heat, which was rather unusual. The homicide unit was usually bustling. There was always some new assault or rape to deal with.

But not now. Just silence. If you listened very carefully you might be able to hear the sound of an old Finnish movie from the television in the break room. Outside was dark, had been dark for many hours although the time was only approaching ten p.m.

Lieutenant Takamäki, who had just turned fifty, had his feet up on his desk, his eyes closed. His short dark hair was graying at the temples and his face had a few new furrows. His gray sweater was a little torn under the arms.

This was a rare moment for Takamäki. He didn’t mind coming in on Christmas Eve, although it wasn’t required of him. His wife had died a few years earlier and his sons were grown up and had moved away. Let a younger detective spend the evening at home with his family.

A few weeks ago, he had bought a two-bedroom apartment in Kruununhaka, partly on credit, partly with the insurance money from his row house, which had burned down. It was on Rauhankatu—Peace Street—a name that appealed to him after such thorough experience with violence. He still hadn’t unpacked any boxes. He may have been using work just to put off that task.

He could watch the news, he thought, then remembered that they didn’t air the ten o’clock news on Christmas Eve. At least if there was no news it meant that there was no bad news, which was good news.

Anna Joutsamo, a dark-haired woman about forty years old, appeared in the doorway. “I can’t concentrate anymore,” she said.

“Getting old, are you?” Takamäki said with a smile. “You used to type for forty-eight hours in one sitting.”

Joutsamo dodged the jab. “Is it really this quiet? We usually have somebody roll an old lady or something . . .”

Takamäki lowered his feet from the desk and knocked on the wooden top. “Don’t jinx us. Usually the third time somebody complains about the quiet, all hell breaks loose.”

“Superstition.”

“But true. Once, I think it was 1987, I was . . .” Takamäki paused.

Detective Suhonen appeared in the doorway in his black leather jacket and stubbled chin, interrupting him: “Hi.” He had a package of gingerbread cookies in his hand. “I bought these from a Girl Scout last week. I thought I’d offer some to you two, with Christmas wishes. I’m sick of playing Xbox.”

Suhonen didn’t have any family either. In the old days, he used to spend Christmas with Takamäki’s family, in the house that had burned down.

“It’s awfully quiet,” he said, handing them the box of cookies.

Takamäki looked at him and rapped on the table. “That’s twice.”

Suhonen laughed. “You’re remembering that time in ’87, aren’t you?”

Takamäki glanced at the clock. Almost ten. It would be nice to listen to the radio news. Unlike the commercial channels, YLE Radio didn’t go off the air. He clicked on the radio, and there it was. Soprano Karita Mattila belting out in a stately voice: “Silent night . . . holy night . . .”

Before Takamäki could knock a third time, his phone rang.

* * *

Takamäki drove the Volkswagen Golf south on Pasila Street, which was completely deserted. It was five below zero and there was a layer of snow a few centimeters deep on the ground. But the car was warm because they’d signed it out of the police department’s basement parking garage.

The ten-story office buildings of West Pasila rose up on their right. There were electric candles in a few of the windows but most of the businesses were saving on decorations during this storm of financial upheaval. Opening out on their left was the Pasila rail yard with its dozens of tracks, the large, pale-blue station building standing among them. Ten years from now Helsinki’s first skyscrapers might stand here, and in twenty years it might look like a real city.

The station would be buried in the shadows of buildings then, but for now it was still a nondescript oasis between the office hell of West Pasila and the mecca of East German architecture in East Pasila, no doubt soon to be designated a historic district. Only a hundred years earlier, this area just three kilometers north of Helsinki had been farmland, although the first railway had crossed it as early as the mid-1800s. In the 1970s, East Pasila was full of romantic but rundown wooden houses. They were replaced by a wide swath of concrete suburb where the cars drove along covered ramps among the nearly identical fifteen-story buildings.

Lieutenant Takamäki turned onto the bridge. Joutsamo was sitting in the front seat and Suhonen had stuffed himself into the back, even though it wasn’t his shift. Takamäki had guessed he was lonely as soon as he came poking through the door with his gingerbread cookies.

It was only a few minutes’ drive to East Pasila. There was no need to use the siren or the light hidden under the hood. Patrol officers were already on the scene.

* * *

The apartment was the typical East Pasila type: two cramped rooms and a kitchenette, on the seventh floor. There was no wreath on the half-opened door, and the mailbox read, Virtanen. Some uniformed men stood in the hallway.

“The ambulance already left. There was nothing for them to do,” Constable Partio said sternly, his fiftyish face worn.

“Merry Christmas,” Takamäki said.

“It’s not very merry,” a younger officer said. “At least not for this guy.”

“I see.” Takamäki looked around the stairwell. There were scratches on the walls, like there always are in buildings where people move a lot, but no blood or anything else unusual. The door seemed to be intact, so no one had broken in.

“We got the call about half an hour ago,” Partio explained. “The neighbor wondered why the door was open, looked inside, was horrified, and called the police. The ambulance got here a couple of minutes before we did. They tried not to disturb the footprints, but there were a lot of people in there. There was nothing in the apartment but the body.”

“Who is it?”

The officer shrugged. “It says Virtanen on the door. The neighbor couldn’t tell us anything.”

Takamäki knew very well that the name on the door didn’t mean anything. The tenant might or might not be Virtanen. The chances were fifty-fifty. People with unpaid debts or warrants for their arrest prefer not to advertise their addresses.

The one technical team on duty was at the scene of a computer store break-in, which would take them at least an hour, judging by the report. There had been a couple of other similar cases earlier that evening. Takamäki stepped into the room and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Joutsamo and Suhonen followed with the investigation kit.

The first thing Takamäki smelled was stale cigarettes. There were several jumbled pairs of shoes and a bag of garbage in the entryway. A leather jacket and a dark overcoat hung from the coat rack. Suhonen examined the leather jacket while the others continued into the apartment.

The open door made Takamäki wonder—why would the killer leave the door open? If it had been closed, the crime wouldn’t have been discovered until the smell of burnt Christmas ham faded from the hallways and the body started to smell. And if the window had been left open, the freezing weather might have left the body undetected for weeks.

There were no carpets on the gray vinyl floor, no pictures on the battered walls. On the left was the bedroom door and on the right the living room/kitchen. The bathroom was straight ahead. There was a large crack in the entryway mirror.

Takamäki glanced into the bedroom, which was empty except for a mattress on the floor and a pile of clothes in the corner. The living room was directly across from it. The pale green curtains were faded by the sun.

The man’s body was on the bloody floor, but Takamäki’s eye stopped short at the two meter–high Christmas tree. He wondered for a moment at seeing a Christmas tree at all in such a dumpy apartment, but that thought disappeared fairly quickly when he saw the human head among the topmost branches.

The long-haired, bearded head looked like a wax doll, but there was no doubting that it was real. The tree wasn’t real, it was made of plastic. The blood on the green plastic branches was already congealed.

For some reason “Oh Christmas Tree,” with its tedious repetitions, rose up in Takamäki’s mind.

“Dope shit,” Joutsamo said in a mystified voice.

“What?” Takamäki said, but she didn’t answer.

Neither of them could take their eyes off the head. Takamäki had to shut his eyes for a moment; after that he could look around the rest of the room. First he turned to peer at the body, which was headless. The last thing they needed was to have to search for a body missing its head.

The man was stocky—big-bellied, in fact. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. There were tattoos on his arms.

Takamäki smelled the sweetish stench of blood. The smallest drops of blood had already congealed, but the larger puddles looked like they were still wet. The body was an hour old at most.

It wasn’t a large room. A sofa, coffee table, and television, all set low. Not the usual bookshelf. Next to the sofa was a worn leather armchair. The tree was on the other side of the room, next to the window, in front of the kitchenette.

“What dope shit?” Suhonen asked from the entryway.

“Come and look,” Joutsamo said.

Suhonen did, and stood there staring at the head at the top of the tree.

“Hang a shining star upon the highest bow . . .” one of the uniforms sang.

Joutsamo took the camera out of the investigation kit. An examination of a crime scene should start with photographs. But this phase was clearly just going to be preliminary. They needed professionals at the scene, people who could search the place properly. They shouldn’t disturb the evidence.

Takamäki noticed two glasses of mulled wine on the table. Had someone drunk wine with the victim before the crime? At a glance it looked like the victim had been stabbed in the chest before his head was cut off. Under the table, he discovered a saw that would have done the trick.

Suhonen was still looking at the head in the tree. “I know who that is.”

Takamäki and Joutsamo turned to him. “Well?”

“Maximillian Karstu. He got out of jail about a month ago. Sat in there for four years for aggravated drug offenses and was recently named weapons officer of the Skull Brigade. Also some military background. He was in Afghanistan about ten years ago.”

Joutsamo glanced at Suhonen. “Impressive.”

“Yeah, well, there was a gang vest in the entryway closet and a wallet in the jacket pocket with a release notice in it. He’s as ugly in his driver’s license picture as he is there in the . . .”

Takamäki shook his head. “Christmas Eve, a gang murder, and a guy’s head hanging from the tree. Just what we ordered.”

* * *

The yellow splashes of light from the streetlamps ended and the asphalt was filled with large wet holes as Suhonen turned the car into the yard of an old concrete industrial building along the ring road. The road, which was eight lanes wide in places, arched around the city from west to east.

Konala was an old, somewhat rundown industrial area just north of the ring road. The largest building was the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant. The gang headquarters were situated a kilometer farther from the plant.

Suhonen had wondered if he ought to bring the bears from Special Operations with him, but he would have had to take them away from their Christmas celebrations. He thought he could handle the situation by himself. In fact, going alone was probably the best way to handle it. He’d had time to make a couple of calls on the way too.

Takamäki had stayed in his office at the station to type up an electronic records request. The judge on duty would process it quickly on Christmas Eve and get the paperwork to the phone company right away. They might have information on Max Karstu’s phone records before the night was over.

Joutsamo had handled the neighbors in the East Pasila apartment house, but she hadn’t found anything, at least not judging by her early reports. A rotten business, ringing people’s doorbells on Christmas Eve to ask them if they’d seen or heard anything. Having something like this happen in their own building must have ruined their Christmas spirit, though Joutsamo didn’t tell them anything about how the man was killed, of course.

Suhonen parked the car in front of the two-story building. The yard had once been surrounded by a chain-link fence, but the police had broken it down a year ago and no one had repaired it. There were some other cars parked in the yard.

The front door of the building had a sign that said, Skull Brigade. At one time it had been one of the toughest criminal gangs in Helsinki, but it had steadily lost its power in the past few years, thanks to the efforts of the police. According to their most recent information on the group, the once professional-level gang was descending to the status of second-rate hustlers as larger motorcycle gangs lured away their best (in other words, most violent) men. The Brigade was still a player in the drug and stolen goods trade, however.

There was a dim light mounted above the door and next to it a surveillance camera. Suhonen rang the doorbell.

“What the fuck do you want?” a thin, freckled, twentyish fellow said when he’d opened the door. The fortyish Suhonen looked the youth in the eye. The boy’s black leather vest indicated to Suhonen that he was one of the gang’s hangers-on. In the old days someone like him wouldn’t have gotten any further than cleaning the bathrooms.

“Merry Christmas,” Suhonen grinned. “Is Jake here?”

The young man tried to look tough, but Suhonen was almost amused by him. Looking closer, he wondered if the kid was even old enough to drive. He ought to have been stealing beer from a kiosk with his buddies, not wearing a Skulls vest.

A tone of uncertainty crept into the vested fellow’s voice. “What business do you have with Jake?”

“Ask him to come down here,” Suhonen said. The young man thought for a moment and decided to do as he was told.

They’d found Jake’s fingerprints on the wine glass in Max’s apartment. He was their prime suspect, but Suhonen didn’t think he was the perpetrator. The Brigade couldn’t afford to kill their own in the condition they were in.

Suhonen considered the possibilities. One strong possibility, of course, was that Jake would come down the stairs with a sawed-off shotgun.

Suhonen had been to the clubhouse many times. The building was a former auto inspection site, with car and motorcycle parking spaces on the ground floor. The club space, with its bar and stage, was on the second floor.

After a couple of minutes a bearded man in his thirties waddled down the stairs with an elf hat on his head. He was about a meter and a half tall but weighed at least a hundred fifty kilos. The junior club member followed behind him.

“You?” Jake said, sending the hanger-on back upstairs.

Suhonen had done a lot of undercover work, but that wasn’t possible anymore among Helsinki’s biker gangs. Too many people knew him, like Jake did.

Jake stopped a couple of meters away. He looked comical in his gang vest and elf hat. He had a half-eaten Christmas tart in one hand.

“What now?” he asked. “Damn it. It’s midnight on Christmas Eve. We’re singing Christmas carols with our wives and kids.”

Suhonen had to laugh. They were probably eating frozen pizza off some Russian stripper’s chest.

“Where have you been this evening?”

“Are you questioning me? If you are, I need a lawyer present.”

“Jake,” Suhonen smiled, “I came here by myself. I can make one call and have the bears here. They’re right around the corner. If I do that then you’ll all have to come down to the station and tell us where you’ve been. You and your wife and kids, and the Russian strippers.”

“Today, you mean?”

Suhonen was surprised at how easily he gave in. “Yeah.”

“Earlier this evening I was over at Max’s house and then I came here to set up this party, which naturally has gone all to hell because that damn Max didn’t come like he promised he would. He was supposed to be Santa Claus.”

“Was he?” Suhonen said. “When did you get here?”

“About seven.”

“Any evidence of that? Other than your friends saying so, I mean?”

“What’s this about?”

Suhonen stared at the fat fellow sternly. “Evidence?”

“I don’t have anything to hide. I went over to that shithead’s house to make sure he was really coming and wasn’t shitfaced. He offered me some mulled wine and then I came here. I’m sure you can see it on the surveillance camera.”

Jake toddled past Suhonen into the guard booth and clicked a mouse a couple of times. The monitor showed a real-time photo record. He dragged the cursor on the front door video footage to the left and in a couple of seconds he’d found a picture of himself going in the door. The record was marked 7:03 p.m.

“I’m sure my cell phone record supports it too,” he said, pulling the phone out of his pocket and offering it to Suhonen.

“I believe you.” Suhonen wasn’t actually sure if the time marked on the video was accurate, but it would be easy enough to check later.

“What’s this about?”

“Let’s just say Max has a good excuse for not being here. Do you want to hear about it?”

Jake thought for a moment. “Not really. We’re right in the middle of a nice party. I’d rather not turn it into a wake—if I’m understanding you correctly.”

Suhonen’s expression told Jake he was understanding correctly. “Was somebody after Max?”

Jake shook his head, his cheeks wobbling. “You know what the Brigade’s like nowadays. We don’t . . . Well, let’s just say that we can’t afford to fight with anybody anymore. Nobody’s after us.”

“What time was Max supposed to be here?”

“Preferably nine-ish, but ten at the latest. Santa was supposed to get here by ten.”

* * *

“I don’t understand why they had to put the head in the Christmas tree,” Joutsamo said.

They were sitting in the conference room. Someone had left some Christmas ham in the fridge and they were eating slices of it on rye bread with a squirt of sweet mustard.

The case was upsetting. Her rounds of the building where the murder occurred had spoiled dozens of people’s Christmas Eves, although that didn’t much matter from the police’s point of view. It bothered her anyway, though. Their job was to clean up the ugly side of society like garbage collectors clean up the streets—no fuss, out of sight, without disturbing anybody. It hadn’t worked this evening.

She was also annoyed that they hadn’t made any progress with the case. It was nearly one in the morning and the perpetrator already had several hours’ head start. There were surveillance cameras in East Pasila, but of course they couldn’t get at their contents on Christmas Eve.

The fingerprints on the wineglasses hadn’t been any use.

“In a murder investigation, you’ve got to look for probabilities, if you’ve got nothing else. The extreme violence of the case points to mental health issues.”

“Silent night, holy night,” Suhonen crooned with a grin, out of tune, chomping on his bread.

“You’re right about that. It has something to do with Christmas,” Joutsamo said.

“Karstu was supposed to be Santa at the gang’s Christmas party tonight,” Suhonen said, wiping mustard off his mouth. “Although at a place like that, being Santa might mean something completely different.”

Takamäki shook his head. “Now we’re just speculating. Shall we leave it till morning?”

“No,” Joutsamo said. “Let’s get it done.”

Takamäki went over the facts of the case again. Karstu had been at home, Jake came over sometime after six and drank a cup of mulled wine. Based on the driving time, Jake had left around quarter to seven. The probable time of the murder was sometime between eight thirty and nine thirty.

There was a code to get in the door of the building and the tenants there had confirmed that no one had squeezed in the door behind them. Of course the perpetrator might have known the door code, but that would indicate that it was someone Max knew. There were no signs of struggle.

There were no wounds on the victim’s hands, so the first blow of the knife had been to the chest, and had come by surprise. There were about ten knife wounds.

“Why would he leave the door open?” Takamäki wondered aloud. “What was the hurry to leave? After all, it must have taken awhile to saw off the head.”

A large man in coveralls appeared in the doorway—Kannas. “Is there any ham left?” he asked in a gravelly voice.

Kannas was the head of technical investigations. He’d come in himself, not wanting to call in his underlings on Christmas Eve.

Takamäki smiled. Kannas was a veteran of the Helsinki police force and they’d spent the 1980s watching the president’s office in the freezing winter wind. You used to see police on foot back then. Now they were all in cars.

Kannas went over to the ham, grabbed a piece, and put it on a slice of bread. He slathered on a triple helping of mustard, and took a large bite of the sandwich before continuing: “He wasn’t necessarily in a hurry to leave.”

“How so?”

“The dead bolt was turned, so the door wouldn’t close. He may have tried to close it and not been able to if he felt a little panicked. It’s one of those old German locks where if you pull on the door and press down on the handle, the dead bolt clicks out. It’s easy to do it by accident if you’re not used to the door. So the perpetrator might not have been able to get the door closed.”

“So the door wasn’t left open on purpose,” Joutsamo said. “There were no fingerprints on the lock . . .”

“No. We found a clumsily concealed false back to the wardrobe and there was a Colt .45 pistol and four grams of cocaine behind it . . . So Max wasn’t expecting any uninvited guests. We’re still in the middle of DNA tests, and there’s no sense in speculating about that.”

Kannas took another bite of his sandwich. “Pretty thin stuff. We’re not going to solve this case tonight. But there’s one thing I keep wondering about.” In his typical manner, he finished his sandwich before continuing.

Takamäki knew it was his turn to ask: “What?”

“There was a perfectly good Sony TV, a high-quality DVD player, and an Xbox, but no movies or games. It made me think there must have been some there before.”

Takamäki was about to speak, then decided to wait. Kannas had something else to say. It was his style to hold back.

He took another bite of sandwich. “Now, I’m not sure about this, but there was something odd about the burglaries earlier in the evening. Three break-ins, but apparently nothing was taken. In one of them the men from the security company were on the scene in three minutes, but the burglar was already gone. It was as if he was looking for something and didn’t find it. He dropped his wallet at one of the stores. The lieutenant on duty thought they’d get him tomorrow, but now I’m not so sure . . .”

“Not so sure about what?” Takamäki asked.

“Johan Svensson was his name. I checked his background. It seems he got out of Sörkkä this morning.”

“Pickax Svensson?” Suhonen said.

Kannas nodded. The nickname was from the crime that had gotten Svensson sentenced to ten years in prison. His victim had been a friend of his. They’d had a fight over the last can of beer.

Suhonen pulled out his phone and stepped away. A couple of minutes later he came back. “Someone I know at the jail says that Pickax Svensson shared a cell with Karstu for a few months this summer and that Karstu came to visit him just last week.”

* * *

The ex-convicts’ apartment house was in a condemned two-story brick building next to the rail yard. It was soon to be demolished, but until then a convict aid organization had found lodging there for guys who had nowhere else to go.

The building was only a couple of kilometers from the police station, so the three of them got there in just a few minutes. The light in the yard was dim but the black text on the white sign next to the door was clearly visible: No alcohol, no drugs. All bags will be searched.

Joutsamo glanced instinctively at her shoulder holster. She preferred not to carry it, but this time she’d even made Takamäki bring his revolver with him. Suhonen didn’t need to be reminded—he routinely carried a weapon.

Takamäki tried the door. It was locked. There had once been a window in the door but it was covered with plywood. Takamäki knocked on the wood.

He waited and then knocked again before a sleepy long-haired man came to open the door. “What the hell’s the emergency?”

“Police,” Takamäki said grimly, and pushed inside.

The watchman, who was wearing gray sweatpants and a worn New York Giants cap, backed up into the hallway. “Room eight. Second floor,” he said, and stepped aside.

“Merry Christmas,” Suhonen said as he passed, grabbing the master key from the rack behind the guard’s desk.

The building had once been housing for railroad employees. The hallway was narrow and the staircase curved and steep. The apartments were all single rooms. The kitchens, toilets, and showers were in the hall. Religious posters were glued to the walls, warning of the curse of liquor.

Takamäki went first, up to the second floor. At the top of the stairs was a black sign with yellow letters: Don’t drink. Don’t fight. Believe in yourself.

There was good reason for a sign like that. Nine out of ten prison inmates had a drinking problem and just-released prisoners like these were in great danger of backsliding. They had no homes, no family, no jobs. All they had were old friends. The old cycle, waiting for them.

Room eight was on the left, at the end of the hall. The hall lights only half worked, but their eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness. They had their coats open. Takamäki wondered if he should have his gun out. Once he did that, it might start to become a habit.

Joutsamo listened with her ear at the door for a moment, then shook her head. She didn’t hear anything.

The door didn’t look very sturdy—they could have opened it with a good tug—but Suhonen held out the master key and glanced at the others. Takamäki nodded. Joutsamo’s hand went to the butt of her pistol.

Suhonen shoved the key quickly into the lock, twisted it, and yanked the door open fast. Takamäki went in first.

“What the hell?” a man said in irritation, jumping out of his bed. It was Johan Svensson, in his underwear. His body was thin. You could see his ribs. His gray hair hung limp and tangled and his eyes seemed frozen in his head.

Joutsamo followed Takamäki in, pulling her Glock and holding it in front of her when she saw the knife in Svensson’s hand.

“Filthy pigs,” Svensson rasped, his eyes darting, looking for an exit. There was none. The best he could have done was the window behind him, but the plywood that covered the opening would have slowed him down considerably.

“Merry Christmas,” Takamäki said calmly. “There’s no need to panic. We just want to talk to you.”

Svensson was confused. He tilted his head to one side, like a bewildered dog. But he still had the knife in his hand.

The room was almost perfectly square. The bed was on the left, a writing table and chair on the right. In the back corner there was an old tube television. On the wall were two anti-alcohol posters like the ones in the hallway.

“Why don’t you sit down on the bed so we can chat?” Takamäki said.

“I . . . I . . . um . . .”

“Just sit down, Johan,” Takamäki said, stepping forward to stand next to the desk. He turned the chair around and sat down on it. Joutsamo stood next to the door, aiming at the knife. Suhonen stood next to her.

Svensson sniffled, dropped the knife, and slumped onto the bed. He buried his head in his hands. “I . . . I . . .”

Takamäki could see that Joutsamo was ready to rush in and handcuff the man, but he gestured for her to come inside and put away her gun. She and Suhonen remained standing next to the door.

Then Takamäki noticed the Xbox games on the floor. They were smashed, as if they’d been thrown against the wall. The discs had fallen out of the green boxes.

“Johan,” Takamäki said, but Svensson didn’t respond.

Joutsamo was still watching the red-handled knife on the floor. It was lying right at Svensson’s feet. He could pick it up quickly and attack Takamäki with it. Joutsamo thought the lieutenant was taking a needless risk.

“Johan,” Takamäki said again, in a calm tone. “Look at me.”

The man slowly raised his eyes.

“Why?” Takamäki asked.

“I’m not confessing anything,” the man said weakly. “I haven’t done anything.”

Takamäki peered momentarily at one of the computer games on the floor—a hockey game. “So that isn’t what you were looking for.”

Svensson shook his head. “No . . . no . . . it isn’t.”

Takamäki picked up another game—Battlefield. “Or this one?”

“No . . .” Svensson said, his eyes sharpening. “I, um, I’ll tell you everything. If you do me one favor.”

“What?” Takamäki asked. They didn’t have much physical evidence from their preliminary investigation of the crime scene, so a confession would make it quite a bit easier to close the case. At this point there were only a few police, ambulance crew, and staff who were aware of how Max Karstu was killed. If Svensson knew the method used to kill him, it would link him to the crime, but the man had to say it in an official interrogation.

“I need FGS,” Svensson said. “Then I’ll tell you.”

Takamäki looked confused. What the hell was FGS?

“FGS,” Svensson repeated. “That’s all. It’s important.”

“Final Great Soldier,” Suhonen said from the doorway. “I managed to get one by ordering in advance. Lucked out.”

* * *

The clock read 2:55 a.m. Takamäki sat in his car in front of an apartment house. He’d been waiting there for ten minutes, but he was in no hurry.

Snow had started to fall quietly. He wiped off the windshield.

The area around the building was completely deserted. No one to be seen. No one coming home drunk from the bar, no one taking their dog out to pee, no newspaper carrier, no one returning from the night shift. No one. Takamäki enjoyed the moment of quiet.

He saw the lights first, at the corner, and soon Suhonen was parking next to him. Suhonen got in the passenger seat and handed him the game. Final Great Soldier was the international hit of the season. Takamäki remembered his own son mentioning it now. It had been sold out everywhere for months.

Takamäki had blue wrapping paper and tape with him. It only took a moment to wrap the package. In the cramped car it didn’t look exactly wonderful, but authentic. He taped the card to it. The text was short: For Paul. Merry Christmas. I love you. Daddy Johan.

Takamäki got out of the car and put the package safely under his coat. It would be a shame if the ink ran.

The two of them walked together toward the door of the building. Svensson had told them the door code. The door to the fifth-floor apartment would read, Lind.

“Why did Pickax kill Karstu?” Suhonen asked, although he could almost guess the answer.

Svensson had been taken from his apartment to the station. Takamäki and Joutsamo had stayed to question him. The interrogation had been delayed for an hour waiting for the attorney to arrive, but that had given Suhonen time to pick up the game.

“When they were in jail, Max promised to pick up a copy of the game for Svensson, and Svensson promised it to his thirteen-year-old son for Christmas over the phone. He said it was a really, really big deal. So on Christmas Eve, right after Svensson got out of jail, Max had forgotten about the whole thing, which made Svensson fly into a rage. When he didn’t find a copy of the game in the break-ins, he went to Karstu’s apartment. Max just laughed at Pickax for getting so worked up about it, and things quickly got out of hand. Svensson didn’t plan to do it. It just happened, in a fit of rage.”

“Did he describe the method, how Max was killed?”

Takamäki nodded. “He’s going back to prison.”

The elevator carried them to the fifth floor. Suhonen opened the elevator door.

“What’s so great about this game?” Takamäki asked, looking at the package in his hand.

Suhonen laughed. “I don’t know. It’s not your typical shoot-’em-up. There’s a right side to be on and you feel like you’re doing good. It’s hard to explain. There’s something compelling about the conflict.”

Suhonen crouched down and silently opened the mail slot. Takamäki slid the package through the slot and it landed with a thud on the floor of the apartment.

“It’s just addictive,” Suhonen said.

They got back in the elevator and Takamäki pushed the button for the first floor. “Once in a while real life works like that too.”