daughter’s murder as you have been in your inquiry of me. Much would have been spared us all.”
“I’m sorry for that, I did my best.”
I turn and don’t look back. My bad knee has stiffened from the cold. I limp across the windswept graveyard through the crackling snow and drive away.
I GO TO SEPPO’S house and look for clothes appropriate for a funeral. I pick out a charcoal pinstripe suit for him, find him a long heavy wool coat so he doesn’t get frostbite during last rites at the cemetery. Back at the station, I let him use our sauna and shower room to prepare himself, clean up and shave.
I talk to Valtteri. He’s been on the phone, calling people from the church, trying to make sure Heli gets a proper send-off. He’s gotten everything together: his white winter camouflage suit, a video camera, recording equipment and a scoped AK-47. I let Seppo sit in the common room without handcuffs. It seems too cruel to make him linger in his cell while he waits to bury his wife. I sit in my office alone for a while and smoke cigarettes.
When it’s time, Seppo and I drive to Kittila’s church in my car. The day is wretched. Cold, dark and miserable. He sits in the passenger seat beside me and maintains his composure. He attempts conversation, wants to commiserate over Heli. I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that I don’t feel like chatting.
Like in many small Finnish towns, our church is simple and wooden. The turnout is good, maybe sixty people. Some knew Heli when she was a girl, some come out of obligation because a member of the congregation has died. Her family is there. Her mother and father barely acknowledge Seppo, but hug me like I’m still their son-in- law. Jorma did a good job. Her casket is white with polished brass handles. There’s no clue that preparations were made at the last minute.
Pastor Nuorgam, a Laestadian, holds the service. He goes through the ritual parts, then begins the sermon. It starts nicely enough, mourns the loss of a daughter of the church who was for a time a lost lamb but who thanks be to Christ recovered her faith before her passing. Then it devolves into a rant, low-key and in a calm voice, but a rant nonetheless, about original sin and the tortures of hell. It ends with the expression of hope that Heli won’t suffer such torments.
I’m asked to be a pallbearer. I decline. We tramp out into the frozen graveyard, my second trek through it today. Heli’s burial plot is about seventy-five yards from Sufia’s. The wind has died down, a small blessing. Heli is lowered into the ground, a few more prayers are offered, and then it’s over. Seppo cries a little, but overall comports himself well. There will be no wake.
We get back in my car and pull out onto the road. “I’m going to take you to the lake now,” I say, “to the place where Heli was killed.”
“Is Sufia’s father coming?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much.”
We ride in silence for a few minutes. “I suppose you don’t think so because of the things I did,” Seppo says, “but I loved Heli more than you imagine. I don’t know how I’ll live without her.”
I keep my eyes on the road, but out of the corner of my eye, I see Seppo shed a tear. “I’m certain you’ll find a way,” I say.
“You’re a strong man,” he says. “You must have loved Heli after so many years together, even after what happened between you at the end, but no one could have guessed how much pain you were in at the funeral.”
This is the second time in two days I’ve been told I still loved Heli, and it’s fucking annoying. “Yesterday, you were convinced I hated her enough to kill her, now you think I still loved her. Which is it?”
The dimwit puts a consoling hand on my shoulder. “Both.”
I push his hand away. “You’re wrong. I didn’t hate Heli. It took time and self-discipline, but I did something worse to her. I forgot her, deleted her from my mind like she never existed. I threw out every picture of her. If I had something I thought she might even have touched, I got rid of it. If I had seen her on the street, I wouldn’t have acknowledged her presence. I would have looked past her like she wasn’t there. If she was starving and came to me begging, I wouldn’t have given her pocket change for something to eat. If her lungs were on fire, I wouldn’t have pissed down her throat to put it out. If it hadn’t been for this investigation, I would have never, ever, spoken to her again. You get it now?”
He takes this in. “I would have liked it better if you hated her,” he says.
He stays quiet after that.
34
WE GET TO THE lake and I pull off to the side of the road. The sky is overcast and the snow reflects only the dimmest of light. A small fire is burning on the ice where Heli died. I clip a microphone to the inside of my fox fur hat, chamber a round into my Glock and slip it into my coat pocket. I snap cuffs on Seppo to make it seem that he hasn’t come of his own volition.
“I’m afraid,” he says.
I don’t comfort him.
We lurch through the snow down the embankment. The lake looks the same as the day Suvi drowned. The wind has polished the surface until it’s as slick and clean as a slab of slate. The muted light makes it appear the color of dark pearl. I look off into the woods. The shadows are impenetrable, but it’s reassuring to know that Valtteri is there, watching and listening.
We walk across the lake. Abdi has gathered wood and made a small campfire. He’s sitting on a tire, warming his hands, a can of gasoline beside him. A few feet away from him, the ice is still scorched in the spot Heli was burned.
We come close to him. I push Seppo down on his knees.
I look at the tire and gas can. “That’s a messy suicide you’ve concocted.”
Abdi raises a hand, levels a pistol at my face. This isn’t according to plan. “Where did you get the gun?” I ask.
“I’m a businessman and transport quantities of cash. I have a license to carry it.”
We stare at each other. I don’t know why I’m not afraid.
“You were correct in certain assumptions, wrong in others,” he says. “No, I am not Dr. Abdi Barre, my name is Ibrahim Hassan Daud. I did not kill Dr. Barre, in fact, I rather liked him. I did, however, take his passport. After all, he had no further use for it. Your inquiry into my identity has raised certain difficulties.”
“Who you are isn’t my concern,” I say. “It has no bearing on what happens here.”
“But it does. Although I did not kill Dr. Barre, I have killed others. I took no pleasure in it, but it was a time of war, something I doubt you can understand. One does what one must in order to survive. I take no pleasure in what I do now, but once again, I do what I must. You have placed us both in a most uncomfortable position. Were I to be deported back to Somalia, I would be summarily executed. Hudow has already lost her only child, and she would be left here alone, incapable of fending for herself. This, I must not allow.”
I try to keep him talking, to get his confession. “Who would execute you?”
“I served as an officer in the security service of the now-deceased former president of Somalia, Siad Barre. The doctor and he were not related. Barre is a most common Somali surname. Like you, I was once a policeman. Because of my duties in that capacity, many would take pleasure in my death.”
“What you’ve done in the past doesn’t matter to me,” I say. “I have no interest in having you deported.”
“As I suggested to you earlier today, forgive me if I lack enough confidence in you to place myself and my wife in your hands. Your performance to date has been most unacceptable. Please surrender your weapon.”
I don’t move.
“I won’t hesitate to kill you Inspector, and our time is short.”
I set my Glock down on the ice.
He looks at Seppo. “Defiler of innocence and murderer. You are not forgotten. I will deal with you shortly.”
