Authors: James Thompson
I suspect the same. Åland, an archipelago in the Baltic, between Finland and Sweden, comprises over six thousand five hundred islands and skerries, sixty-five of which are populated. Many of them are little more than flyspecks that stand only a few inches over the waterline. In the summer, Åland is bustling, infested with boats and tourists. However, most congregate on Fasta Åland, the main island, and the islands in the surrounding area.
Some of the islands are flat as planks. The most popular ones have well-kept bicycle paths, and the area is a favorite of cycling enthusiasts. The residents own far more bikes than motorized vehicles for this reason. In some places, they’re rendered almost unnecessary. Many of the islands have old cottages, most just shacks, the most basic of structures—that were once used by commercial fishermen. Now they serve as crash pads for whoever wants to spend the night.
“Can you think of anywhere in particular he might be drawn to as a place to hide? Do you own a private island Antti could be hiding on?”
Saukko laughs. “You know, I almost forgot about it. I own so much shit. I have a private island called Saukkosaari—Saukko Island—and it has an excellent summer cottage on it. In fact, it’s a bit sumptuous to be called a cottage. I bought the island and it had an old, run-down house on it, which I had refurbished. This was fifteen or twenty years ago. I went there a couple times and got bored with it. Just never went back. And none of the rest of the family uses it, either. I hired a gamekeeper who lived in a cottage there. I have no idea if he’s still there or not. For all I know,
he might have dropped dead and is still on the payroll. With three batteries, Antti could have made it there.”
This heartens me. However, there’s also the other missing boat. He could have used it to flee considerably farther away.
Saukko says, “I also owned over a hundred islands up north in the archipelago. I created a foundation out of them but kept the hunting and fishing rights. Not even tourists go up there much. And it’s a barren area. No amenities. Nothing. I doubt he’s there. If he is, he’ll be damned hard to find. But I still don’t put much stock in this Antti-is-a-murderer-theory shit.”
I seriously doubt he’s there, either. But still. “Doesn’t cost anything to look.”
“True,” he says. “What the fuck. Take my yacht.”
“Thanks, but we can take a police boat.”
“Do police boats have fully stocked bars and come loaded with fishing gear?”
I admit that they don’t.
“Then I insist you take the yacht.” Then it dawns on him. “Fuck. I just fired the skipper.”
This boat is motorized. No sails. Doesn’t take the same level of professional skill. “First, I want to check out Saukkosaari. My partner Milo knows how to sail, he can pilot. I’ll call him now.”
Moreau says he can also handle a yacht. Moreau. Master of All. It’s starting to get on my nerves. I call Milo and Sweetness and tell them to be here in an hour.
M
ilo’s father is dead but apparently was something of a character—Milo’s mother once stabbed him for philandering—but Milo seldom mentions him. However, he taught Milo to sail. He fires up the engines, gives instructions, and we’re out on the open sea in just a few minutes. Milo can be an aggravating fuck, but his confidence with all things technical can be reassuring at times, and this is one.
He’s dog sick from
pontikka
overdose, pukes over the rail a few times. Sweetness is no better, even by his standards he got shitfaced and looks like death. In addition to being sick from drinking, they’re covered with cuts and bruises from fighting. Milo has a butterfly Band-Aid holding his eyebrow together. Both of them have black eyes. Milo limps. Sweetness has a fat lip, split open but short of needing stitches. Neither holds a grudge, though. Instead, they laugh about it. It was just what they needed. Men are like that sometimes. Sweetness finds the bar and hair of the dog.
After a couple hours, we find the island, tie the boat off at the dock next to an older, smaller and somewhat dilapidated vessel. We walk up a winding path to the so-called summer cottage. I would guess it’s about a hundred years old, and as Saukko said,
“cottage” is a misnomer. It’s bigger than a house, too small to qualify as a mansion.
We find no one here, but someone was here, a while ago. The garbage wasn’t taken out. Dirty dishes left in the sink. And Saukko was right about the gamekeeper. His cottage is empty. His belongings are in the house proper. I guess at a certain point, maybe after some years went by, he realized that the place was forgotten, that he was employed but forgotten too, and moved into a lovely remodeled home in an idyllic setting. We take a walk around the grounds, both forest and meadows are behind the home, the ocean view in front of it.
The gamekeeper must have lived in peace and comfort, until one day a bad man or men came and ruined it all. We find four shallow graves behind the house. A little scooping and kicking away dirt with our hands and feet reveal four bodies in late decomp, consistent with about a year since death. A grown man and three children. The gamekeeper and Kosonen’s three kids. So they were kept here as blackmail to force their father to carry out the kidnapping. There’s still no solid proof that Antti was behind it, but I’d give good odds on it.
A hypothesis forms of its own accord, just hits me all at once. Killing three children wouldn’t come easy to an inexperienced killer. I think he had an accomplice or accomplices. In this investigation, I’ve come across three men I believe capable of the crimes that have occurred. One of them is here with us now. The other two sell heroin and pâté.
My guess: The gamekeeper was murdered straightaway. Antti hid out here on this island while he was supposedly kidnapped. His job was to kill Kosonen, come back here with the money, wait
for his accomplice or accomplices, divide up their ten million euros, and then they would go their separate ways and he would disappear, begin life anew under a different identity.
But he didn’t wait. He had another boat he had stolen from his father, an Ocean Master 310 Sport Cabin, according to the manifest. He abandoned the children to his partner or partners in crime to deal with them and left. Realizing they had gotten fucked, they killed the kids—they were witnesses, after all—and set about finding Antti and their money. They’re still looking, most likely why Moreau is here, because they enlisted him, offering him Antti’s share. They killed Kaarina to punish Antti and, if my guess is right, are now just making foie gras and waiting for this to all play itself out.
Lisbet Söderlund. How does she fit into this and why was she murdered?
Her death wasn’t what Saukko asked for, but was the kind of symbol he sought in order to relinquish his million euros. He and Jesper talked about selling heroin to sedate the black masses. I’m in charge of cleaning up drugs in Helsinki. I proved myself more than capable. Moreau told me the lesson learned is that narcotics are needed but must be controlled. The interior minister told me that he believes men adroit at one task are nearly always adroit at others and gave me an additional task, the skank sheet, hinting at additional responsibilities. He and others believe I’ll find the money. It will disappear. Saukko will never get it back.
I think they all know the pâté peddlers murdered her, and that Antti has the ten million euros. Plus the other promised million in exchange for “a display of dedication to racist policies” makes eleven. This money is to be pooled and divided among various
interests. Am I reading too much into this, or are the Legionnaires to have the heroin importation concession, the neo-Nazis the wholesale concession, our immigrant population to be the target consumer market, this money also to be shared? As I’ve learned, the amounts involved in dope are huge, and even small pieces of the pie could make many men rich. And I’m to be Finland’s drug czar, discouraging other narcotics entrepreneurs around the country, as I have in Helsinki? I’m to be a cop in name, but Finland’s narcotics power broker in truth, much as the former Legionnaires are foie gras dabblers in name but heroin kingpins in reality.
It’s so insidious that it’s difficult to conceive, but I believe it entirely possible.
Saukko won’t like it, but the discovery of the children’s bodies rightly goes to Saska. I call him, suggest he come here in a police helicopter, chopper them home and concoct a tale to explain the breakthrough in the case.
The question remains: Where is Antti? I think he’s hiding somewhere, just waiting to be forgotten. We leave so we can be out of the way when Saska makes his fake break in the case, and go back to Saukko’s mansion.
Saukko is so thrilled that the hunt is on again after a year that he doesn’t even gripe about Saska’s involvement. Saukko insists I hunt to the north. I give in and ask him for a map of his foundation properties. After some searching, he produces one.
I also call the interior minister and explain the situation. I ask him if he can make arrangements to use the radio-controlled pilotless planes as during the original search for Antti, to avoid his suspicion should he be in northern Åland. I tell him the type of craft we’re looking for.
Some of the islands have rock shelves or caves on their coasts. Small craft could be hidden there, invisible from above. I suggest the Border Guard send vessels to circle all the islands and ensure Antti hasn’t hidden his boat in such a place.
“No, Inspector,” the interior minister says, “these are not good ideas. They limit our options. The Border Guard would have to arrest Antti. If you were to take him into custody, our options would remain open.”
“Such as?”
“Such as his father is a powerful man and might prefer if his son doesn’t rot in prison, no matter what he’s done. He would be in great debt to us if we made that happen. If you find Antti, call me, and I’ll instruct you as to what’s to be done.”
I hear myself sigh. Corruption has no limits among the powerful, even when it involves murder. My previous self would have expressed outrage. I’ve hidden my emotional stunting through the remembrance of emotions. I notice that my memories of them are fading, growing more distant.
“I want you to go, Inspector, and circle each and every island yourself. If you fail to find him, I’ll consider your suggestion.”
“You understand,” I say, “that this is a wild-goose chase. He would have had to winter there, and it would have taken a great deal of time and preparation for him to do that. The only reason I think it remotely possible is because his father has the means to search to the ends of the earth for him, and this desolate area fills the bill.”
“I understand, and I agree with you. But after all, he also has resources. He could have made a home winter-worthy in secret.”
“Very well,” I say and ring off.
I ask Saukko if I can use his yacht again tomorrow to continue the search, say that it will likely be an overnight trip, and he’s happy to oblige. He wants to come. I suggest that it might be best for all if this was kept strictly police business. If we were to find Antti, his emotions would run high and might lead to something that could impede prosecution. He grudgingly agrees. Finding Antti there truly is only a shot in the dark. He’s abandoned his wife and children, so he wanted out bad. His father has pretty much every resource in the world at his disposal to find Antti. If he really wants to disappear, as I said to the minister, it has to be somewhere at the ends of the earth. It’s a thousand-to-one shot, but northern Åland pretty much qualifies.
M
oreau rides with me back to Helsinki. I tell him he can’t come with us tomorrow. “It’s a snipe hunt, but if we should find Antti and the money, I won’t be able to explain your presence. Maybe you could be at Saukko’s side in his moment of triumph. He’d like that.”
Moreau agrees. I ask where I can drop him off.
“I’m staying at that little hostel your wife runs, Hotel Kämp.” I drop him off, pick up more baby formula and go home. Kate looks ghastly. She’s drinking a glass of water with two hands. Her hangover is so bad that she trembles.
I pick up Anu, bounce her on my knee, and tell Kate all I’ve learned. She couldn’t give a fuck less.
“Is something the matter, besides your hangover?” I ask.
“Where should I begin? Maybe we should talk about how I’ve ignored my child for days while I stayed drunk.”
I’ve learned that in marriage there are times to console with hugs, and times when they aren’t wanted. Right now, it’s the latter.
“Kate, you tried to run with the big dogs. The people you’ve hung around with the past few days drink a lot. You don’t and couldn’t keep up. Maybe you should have learned from your mistake the
first time. But last night, drinking
pontikka
, it happens to everybody. Anni told me you didn’t even drink very much of it. You’re not a bad mother, you just had a very Finnish learning experience.”
By the look on her face, I think Kate would be yelling at me now if she wasn’t too sick to manage it. “Have you considered the possibility that I’ve been drunk because I’m so fucked-up that I’m not in control of my actions, even at the expense of our child, and that maybe the reason I’m so fucked-up is you?”
I thought my work might be affecting her, but not to this extent.
“You met us at that bar yesterday and Sweetness had blood coming out of puncture wounds in his knuckles. Now, why do I think he got those by knocking out someone’s front teeth?”
“I’m investigating a murder of historic proportion and dealing with evil people—the kind of people who cut an innocent woman’s head off—trying to solve it. I’m doing whatever I deem necessary.”
“Is it necessary for you to commit crimes that could put you in jail, and do you see that you’re working with buffoons that don’t have a fucking clue what they’re doing? You came to me with this song and dance about a black-ops thing that was supposed to help people, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no because I thought you might die. But these black-ops actions aren’t to help people, they’re to generate graft for corrupt politicians. I put up with all this because you gave me a choice and I agreed to it in the beginning and I kept my word. I was wrong. We should have left and gone back to the States. You and your team are dupes and pawns, and you’re going to pay a high price for your stupidity.”