her face destroyed by cigarette burns and lashings, glares at me with her one remaining eye and demands justice. Legion, his eyes at peace. I see starving and helpless prisoners of war looking up from inside a bomb crater, their eyes imploring. Arvid and my grandpa machine-gun them to death, and a tractor covers the pit with dirt.
My cell phone rings and breaks my unholy reverie. It’s Milo. I don’t want to answer but do it anyway. “Guess where I am,” he says.
“No guessing games today. Where are you?”
“I’m at Meilahti hospital. Guess why.”
My mood is foul. “What the fuck did I just say?”
“Jesus, don’t have a cow. Sulo Polvinen’s father took matters into his own hands. He came here and stabbed the bouncers to death in their hospital beds.”
I can hear the glee in Milo’s voice.
“He plugged them in their chests with a hunting knife and didn’t even try to escape, just sat down in a chair after he killed the second one and waited to be arrested. He confessed to the attack at the Silver Dollar, too.”
“He didn’t attack them at the club. Sulo did. I’m sure of it. He confessed to keep Sulo out of prison so he wouldn’t lose a second son.”
“So? Taisto Polvinen got some justice, after all.”
I resist the urge to scream at Milo. “Has it occurred to you that Sulo has now lost his brother and his father? His mother lost a son and a husband. He’s going to rot in a cell for ten years for avenging his child.”
Remorse isn’t Milo’s strong suit. “Well, no, I hadn’t really thought about it, but still…”
I hang up on him, can’t stand to listen to unadulterated stupidity at the moment. I’m ten minutes away from downtown Helsinki and Hotel Kamp, and I still don’t have a fucking clue how I’m going to deal with Ivan Filippov.
45
Despite the cold and snow, Kamp’s restaurant is bustling. The hotel’s guests, mostly foreign businesspeople, need a place to eat and drink, and it’s easier to do it here than to go out in the cold and snow. Filippov and Linda sit side by side at a window table, he on the inside, she next to the glass. The table next to them is reserved and so unoccupied for the moment. I take a seat across from Filippov. They’re noshing on caviar and drinking Dom Perignon.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again,” Linda says. “Ivan, did I tell you how charming the inspector is?”
“You mentioned it.” Filippov gestures toward the champagne. “Inspector, would you care for a glass? Since dinner is on you, we thought it best to show no restraint.”
“No, thank you,” I say.
A waiter takes my drink order. I take kossu and beer.
“So,” Filippov says, “you have a proposition for me. What is it?”
I aim for middle ground, just to see if it will work. Jyri was right, I should promise him anything he wants to buy time, but if I seem soft, he’ll smell the lie.
“The murder goes unsolved,” I say. “You and Linda walk. You get the contracts you felt you were promised. We get the videos.”
The waiter brings my drinks, and a dozen raw oysters for Filippov and Linda. He takes a break from speaking to chow down, slurps an oyster, dabs his mouth with a linen napkin. “Unacceptable. My wife was brutally murdered. The culprit is Rein Saar. He has to serve a lengthy prison sentence.”
Strike one. Filippov is negotiating from a position of strength. He won’t compromise.
“Be reasonable,” I say. “You and Linda murdered your wife, but you’ll go unpunished, and the matter will be forgotten. Saar is innocent. Leave him be.”
He sticks a finger in my face. “You’re wrong. Saar is guilty. He fucked my wife for two years.” He raises his voice. “My wife! Mine! He deserves prison. He deserves worse. He’s getting off easy.”
Filippov pauses, slides another oyster down his throat. “As you pointed out last night,” he says, “my wife was a miserable slut. I can’t punish everyone who fucked my wife, but I can punish him. If he and others like him had respected my marriage and kept their hands off my wife, Iisa would still be alive, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The value of punishing Saar is symbolic to me. His incarceration is nonnegotiable.”
I have to admit, he makes an extreme but compelling argument. I look at Linda, hoping for help, but she only winks at me and chases an oyster with champagne.
The waiter brings their main courses. We halt our conversation while he sets their plates in front of them. Arvid walks in. My bewilderment mounts. The waiter leaves.
Arvid walks over to the table and stands beside Filippov.
“How did you get here?” I ask Arvid.
“By taxi. Cost me two hundred euros. Is this that Russian bastard?” he asks.
“That’s him. What are you doing here?”
He pulls a chair over from the next table and sits next to Filippov. Arvid has on a long overcoat. He shoots the sleeves and shows us the little Sauer suicide pistol that sat on the mantel over his fireplace, only now it has a silencer attached to it. He pulls his sleeve down again to hide it, and jams it against Filippov’s ribs. “As I said earlier,” Arvid says, “fixing our problems.”
Filippov blinks and licks his lips, confused. He knows something has gone wrong. I do, too, but haven’t the vaguest idea what it is.
“Old man,” Filippov says, “who the hell are you and what do you want?”
“Admit that you killed your wife,” Arvid says.
Filippov shrugs his shoulders. “Okay, I admit it.”
“Don’t move a goddamned muscle,” Arvid says.
Filippov senses that Arvid isn’t fucking around. He sits stockupright in his chair and stares straight ahead.
Arvid takes a wineglass from the table with his left hand, stands up, and with his right hand presses the pistol against the back of Filippov’s head. Low, where it meets his neck. Arvid smashes the wineglass on the floor and pulls the trigger, simultaneous. He shoots Filippov at the junction of his brain and brain stem, in the same way that Milo shot Legion. It’s obvious that Arvid has done this many times before. Arvid pockets his gun and holds Filippov up so he doesn’t pitch forward onto the table.
The silencer muffled the sound of the shot and changed its pitch. Diners look around, curious. Arvid goes sheepish and shrugs. His look says, Sorry, folks, I’m just a clumsy and silly old man. They think the sound was only from the breaking wineglass and go back to their conversations. Arvid balances Filippov so he stays upright, and sits down beside him again. Filippov doesn’t look dead, just bored. Arvid’s peashooter didn’t pack enough punch to make a mess. A busboy scurries over, sweeps up the broken glass in ten seconds flat and departs.
I’m so shocked that I start to giggle. Linda gets up, goes over to Arvid and kisses him on the cheek. “You’ve rather changed my plans,” she says, “but thank you. That was the nicest thing anyone ever did for me. Who are you?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know anymore.”
She sits down again. “Would someone please explain to me what just happened?”
“Yeah,” I say, “as soon as I understand it myself.”
Arvid slides Filippov’s plate over and eyes his dinner. “What was he having?”
I’ve eaten here a lot and know the menu. “It’s a grilled fillet of beef with haricots verts, mushrooms, caramelized onions and potatoes au gratin. Can you please tell me why you just killed a man?”
He takes a place setting, cuts a slice of beef and digs in. “You were going to get fucked by this murder investigation. Now, your killer is apprehended, but unfortunately unable to stand trial. You solved the crime and closed the case.”
Arvid helps himself to Dom Perignon. I knock back my kossu. I need it. Filippov remains upright. His eyes are open, staring at me like the dead I imagined earlier on my drive here. Sooner or later, he’ll pitch forward. We don’t have much time. I turn to Linda. “Who are you?” I ask.
