Page 16

2019

Patric has brought over meatballs for Agatha and the children, and more of his blueberry pie. He stands over Agatha as she heats the meatball sauce on the hob. He’s making sure she doesn’t burn it, even at this ridiculously straightforward stage, while simultaneously ordering the children to set the table. Emilia, Olavi and Onni always do exactly what Patric tells them. Agatha is not surprised. He might not be the boss any longer, but he still has the boss voice.

‘I thought you guys deserved one decent meal that’s home-cooked and not take-out,’ he says.

‘You got them pizza the other night,’ Agatha cries, defensively.

‘A treat night.’

‘Yes, well, I made them a perfectly acceptable breakfast this morning.’

‘You gave us cereal, Mom,’ Emilia says.

‘With fresh milk,’ Agatha retorts.

Agatha spots Patric slip Emilia a twenty before the kids leave the kitchen. He’s not staying for dinner. He has a hot date. Agatha knows he’s been chatting up Cecelia, who runs the restaurant at the Lodge and lost her husband last year. Cecelia is in her sixties now, but she’s still a big, beautiful woman. She’d been Cloudberry Queen many years ago, even won at national level. Something she likes to remind people of, frequently.

‘So,’ Patric says, when the coast is clear. ‘Tell me.’

Agatha had asked him to pop by this evening. He knows something is wrong.

‘Olavi says he saw Luca.’

Patric straightens up.

‘I thought you wanted to speak about Lassi.’

Agatha rolls her eyes.

‘Don’t tell me he’s been complaining to you that I asked him a few questions? Is he ever going to come to terms with you retiring and me being the boss?’

Patric leans against the kitchen counter, his ear cocked to make sure none of the children are coming up the hallway.

‘Forget him. I’m surprised you could concentrate on anything today.’

‘I still have a job to do,’ Agatha says.

‘Nobody has mentioned seeing Luca.’ Patric shakes his head, thinking. ‘Surely if somebody as infamous as that was hanging around town. . . You know you’re safe, don’t you? No matter what happens.’

‘It’s not me I’m worried about,’ Agatha says. She stares at the kitchen table, and the four place settings. Once, there would have been five.

Now, the fifth person is the one who fills her nightmares.

‘If Luca is back, I’ll find out,’ Patric says.

‘Thank you. For everything.’

‘You’ve nothing to thank me for.’

He helps her dish out dinner, then he leaves with a reassuring pat on her shoulder.

The kids pile in and Agatha is distracted by the boys squabbling over who has the larger portion of food.

Just passing on the information makes Agatha feel a little better. For so long she kept everything silent about Luca, about how hard things were and how poorly Agatha was managing. She knows now that silence is power. Patric will help, she thinks. Patric will keep us safe. The whole town will.

The kids scoff down the meatballs, then seconds, while Agatha pushes a couple around her plate, only managing a few bites. She takes a thin slice of the pie– all that’s left, really, after the children got their mitts on it– and toys with that too. She’s well aware she’s counting down the seconds to them retreating to their rooms so she can pour herself a large glass of wine and try to unwind.

She gets her wish at 8.30 and slumps into a chair in the sitting room, Vicky Evans’ file on her lap. The two officers secured from the nearby town of Sellaniemi have been helping with interviews around town all day and Agatha is catching up on the statements. Town will be easy compared to driving around the wider area and knocking doors. It can take an hour to get from one house to the next.

Agatha wraps a blanket around her shoulders and sips white wine while reading through the typed-up notes. So far, everything matches the statements made when Vicky disappeared. No inconsistencies, yet. Harry, the Lodge manager, was the very last person to see Vicky, when she entered her cabin with Bryce Adams, the night she seems to have vanished. But plenty of people in Elliot’s had seen her with Bryce and the other American tourists leading up to that. Everybody seemed happy. There were no arguments, no apparent danger.

Agatha flicks to the statement emailed over from the States a couple of hours earlier. In it, Bryce Adams confirms he went back to Vicky’s but denies they had sex.

Agatha scans the transcript of his interview.

I got the impression Vicky was a nice girl, up for a laugh and a flirt, but that maybe she acted a little more fun than she was? Like, she wanted to have this reputation as a party girl but she wasn’t really into me. Sure, I could say she led me on a bit. I thought we were going back for– you know. Sexual intercourse. I think she considered it, too, but changed her mind. I didn’t react angrily to that. I know most guys would, but my mom reared me well, and all through school and college I’ve been taught when a girl changes her mind, she changes her mind. I’ve even taken a pledge. No means no. We had a few drinks and I left. I didn’t see her again but she was very much alive when I left.

Bryce’s friends confirmed that he had rejoined them in the Lodge bar at 11 p.m. There was some mocking that he’d been very quick in Vicky’s place.

Agatha frowns. On the one hand, she struggles to imagine a young man taking it well if Vicky invited him to her cabin and then told him she didn’t want sex. On the other, if he went into her cabin at 9.30 p.m. and was back in the bar by 11, was that enough time to attempt to have sex with her, be rebuffed, fight over it, attack her and dump her in the lake? And then to return, clear out her cabin, head to the bar and act perfectly normally for the night?

He’d gone back to his shared cabin around 1 a.m. Maybe, just maybe, he’d waited until his roommate was asleep and gone back to Vicky’s cabin. There were too many what ifs with that hypothesis, though.

Agatha shakes her head. She takes out the full medical report Venla has emailed and confirms, again, what she already knows.

No sign of sexual assault to Vicky’s body. She might have had consensual sex before she died, but it would be impossible to tell. If Bryce had killed Vicky because she’d refused to have sex with him, he’d have been more likely to rape her, then kill her.

Agatha is taking another sip of her wine when there’s a loud knock on her front door.

She jumps so hard, the wine glass hits her teeth and some liquid spills on to Vicky’s case file.

Agatha stands up; her heart is racing.

Without hesitating, she goes to the locked safe under the stairs and reaches for her weapon before heading to the door, just as the knocking starts again.

She’ll use it if she has to, she tells herself. If it’s a choice between Luca or the children, she’ll use it.

Through the chained crack in the door, she sees Alex Evans.

She throws the door open and stares at him.

Her annoyance must show on her face because Alex looks taken aback. Then she realises what’s caused his reaction. She’s brandishing her service weapon.

Agatha lowers her arm.

‘So, not much crime around these parts?’ Alex says, and Agatha almost laughs. It’s partially relief flooding her body that he’s not who she thought he was. But it’s also the look on his face.

‘I can come back,’ he says, contrite. ‘I shouldn’t have come to your house. Again. I apologise.’

‘Why wouldn’t you come to my house?’ Agatha asks. ‘It’s the time of the night that’s the problem. You ever heard of calling ahead?’

She stands back and cocks her head to indicate he should come in.

They sit on the partially sheltered deck at the back of the house. She’s lit the stove and given him a blanket for his knees because he looks terrified at the prospect of sitting even half outdoors. He has a glass of wine to match hers.

He’s staring up at the sky. The night is cloudless, the stars in their millions.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he says. ‘You don’t get this in the city. You don’t even really get it in Yorkshire. The towns are too big. Too much light pollution.’

‘You might get lucky,’ Agatha says. ‘We could have an aurora tonight.’

She sips her wine. It’s helping her to relax and she reminds herself that the amount she drinks is a perfectly normal volume for a grown woman. She’s not dependent on alcohol. She just likes it.

She’s not Luca.

‘Is there any news about your mom?’ she asks.

‘She’s still in an induced coma,’ he says. ‘The doctors think she’s going to be okay.’

‘How is your father coping?’

‘In his usual way, I’d imagine. Telling the doctors how to do their jobs, knowing better than everybody else.’

‘Does he work?’

‘He’s a postman but he was the top guy in his union back in the day. When he gave speeches, Christ, it felt like the earth was quaking. He doesn’t do it as much now. He’s handed over the reins.’

‘Old age?’

‘More fatigue. Too many years under right-wing governments. Mum made him retire. She thought. . .’ Alex snorts. ‘She was worried the union would give him a heart attack.’

Agatha can appreciate the irony. She hopes his mom is doing okay. It would be too much, to lose both the women in the family so close together.

‘A postman,’ she says. ‘But you didn’t follow in his footsteps.’

‘No.’

There’s something there, Agatha thinks. Something between father and son. Some wound that has yet to scab.

‘I wanted to make money,’ he says, shrugging.

Agatha studies him.

‘I don’t think money is everything to you,’ she says. ‘Maybe you just like your job?’

Alex frowns.

‘I don’t,’ he says. ‘I don’t even know how I ended up in it.’ He hesitates. ‘I suppose I was flattered into it. Very important people who did very important things wanted me to join them. They saw something in me that I’m not sure I even saw in myself. They were willing to give me a chance when. . . well. It is what it is.’

It is what it is. Agatha likes that saying. She might steal it. She’ll use it when somebody from town comes in to complain about one of their neighbours. It is what it is. What do you want me to do?

‘What about you?’ Alex asks. ‘Your parents? Were they cops, too?’

‘They’re dead,’ Agatha says. She stares into her wine glass. ‘Anyway, what was it you wanted to talk about tonight?’

Alex doesn’t speak for a few seconds, probably thrown by her diversion. Agatha slows her breathing. She won’t talk about herself. She never does. She has too much to hide.

‘Miika,’ Alex says.

Agatha breathes out.

‘Miika,’ she parrots. ‘Miika Virtanen. Who told you about him?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It matters what you were told. How lurid was the tale? Was it accurate, or recounted with the usual local colour? I’ve heard stories where he has fangs and only comes out on a full moon. Some say he drinks the blood of young virgins. Some say he’s a dirty pervert. And some say he’s just an oddball reindeer farmer from up the mountain.’

Alex stares at her. Agatha takes a sip of wine and swallows.

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘You were just told to ask about him. I see. One of the staff at the Lodge, then. Of course they assume the local bad guy must be involved. Because the murderer couldn’t be someone more sinister, like, say, somebody they know.’

Alex says nothing.

Agatha sighs. She stares up at the stars.

‘Miika is our town rumour,’ she says, after a minute or two has passed. ‘He’s very real, don’t get me wrong. But the stories that have grown up around him are just that. Stories.’

‘So he does live here? In the town?’

‘He lives up the mountain. Alone.’

‘Why do they talk about him?’

Agatha turns and looks at Alex.

‘His wife disappeared.’

‘Disappeared, disappeared? As in, she didn’t just up and leave him?’

‘No, she disappeared. Twenty-one years ago. People looked for her but, nothing.’

‘So, why is he considered a monster?’ Alex says, and she can tell from the tone of his voice he already knows.

‘People presumed he killed her,’ Agatha says.

‘Did he?’

‘How would we know? Her body was never found. There was no evidence.’

‘He still lives here? Even with all the speculation?’

‘Sure he does. The man says he has nothing to prove. Nothing to hide. But he only comes down from the mountain to do business. He doesn’t socialise down here.’

‘Why would people assume he’d killed her?’

‘He’s weird.’ Agatha sighs. ‘That doesn’t mean anything more than what it is. For all we know, his wife had an accident somewhere, slipped down a gully and was never found. Or maybe she’s living happily in Helsinki under another name. We don’t know.’

‘Why was his name mentioned to me, then?’ Alex says. ‘If this happened years ago, why would anybody presume he has anything to do with Vicky?’

Agatha glances upwards again. She can see it starting, the shifting of the sky. She can smell it, hear the static.

‘Because. . . some things have happened here over the years,’ Agatha says.

‘Things like what?’

Agatha doesn’t answer. She points up at the sky. The air is crackling.

Green is the first colour to shimmer. It comes in a line at first. It starts to build quickly towards the curtains effect. Tonight, the lights will be strong. Agatha knows the signs.

She watches Alex’s eyes widen.

‘It’s slow,’ Agatha says. ‘That’s what you’re thinking. But what you see on TV, that’s the speeded-up version. The lights last for hours, most of the time. All night.’

Alex doesn’t respond. She can tell it’s taken his breath away. It always does, the first time.

They watch as blue waves begin to creep through the green. The colours form a magnificent kaleidoscope, long streaks pulsing against the cold night sky.

‘It’s. . .’ Alex seems to struggle for the right words. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘You’re lucky to see it like this,’ Agatha whispers. ‘I’ve heard of some tourists hiring helicopters to get to see the lights when there’s cloud cover.’

They both watch for a couple of minutes.

‘What was his wife’s name?’ Alex says, breaking the silence. ‘This Miika guy.’

‘Kaya,’ Agatha says.

Alex nods, his eyes still on the aurora.

‘And what bad things have happened here over the years?’

‘This really isn’t a conversation I should be having with you.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m the chief of police and you’re a foreign citizen.’

‘But you don’t want to have the Met breathing over your shoulder,’ Alex says. ‘Which is why you’re doing your best to keep me happy.’

Agatha looks at him sharply. He’s perceptive, she’ll give him that. Agatha takes a deep breath.

‘I suppose there’s nothing I can tell you that you won’t be told in a far more salacious fashion by somebody else in town,’ she says.

‘And arguably, it’s better you give it to me in the professional, understated manner you seem to specialise in.’

Agatha almost smiles. Then her face grows serious again. She’s still reluctant to throw fuel on the fire.

‘What is it?’ Alex prompts her.

Fine, Agatha thinks. She’ll roll the dice and see how they land.

‘Kaya wasn’t the last woman to go missing,’ she says.

Alex follows Agatha through a door in the kitchen and down into the basement. It’s dark; she’s told him the light on the stairs is broken but there’s one below and she knows where the cord is by touch.

‘You waving that gun around tonight,’ Alex says. ‘These missing women. . . Is there a link?’

‘What? Oh. God, no. That’s nothing to do with these cases. It’s just. . .’ She doesn’t finish.

Just what, Alex wonders.

She tells him to wait on the bottom step then feels her way into the middle of the room. He hears a snap; light floods the basement and he can see her standing in the middle of the room holding the light cord.

The next thing he sees is the wall. There are pictures and marker lines and threads and maps.

It’s Agatha’s version of an FBI case board.

‘I don’t want the kids seeing some of the images in my case files,’ Agatha says. ‘So I keep them down here and the door locked.’

‘Makes sense.’

Alex crosses to the wall. She’s written three names at its top and, underneath, triangles of information spell out the facts of their disappearances.

Alex scans the dates.

‘Cold cases,’ he says.

‘Cold but open,’ Agatha says. ‘The case files in the station are slim and sit in a drawer. But I put up this board when I took over in . It’s just a reminder, because it’s years since I’ve been able to dedicate any time to them. Sometimes, I google their names to see if anything pops up. And every time a body is found, anywhere in Finland, I wonder. Proper investigations were conducted into each of them but. . . nothing.’

She pauses.

‘Alex, none of these women disappeared in the same circumstances as your sister. Vicky’s body was found. These women just vanished off the face of the earth.’

‘Couldn’t that be just luck?’ Alex says. ‘Her body surfaced– these others didn’t?’

‘Some of it is luck, but also, her body was unimpeded. I told you how big Inari is. If you wanted somebody to disappear, you would bring them to the middle, weigh them down, and in all likelihood, we would never see them again. Whoever killed your sister made an amateur error. And Alex, I’m certain that if there was stupidity involved at that point in Vicky’s murder, there was stupidity involved at other points. Which is how I think I’ll catch her killer.’

Alex considers this.

‘Is that what you think happened to these three?’ he says. ‘That they were weighted down in the lake?’

Alex looks at the names again. Then he studies the photos. Three women, all different ages, could even be different nationalities, they look so unalike. He points to the first one.

Kaya Virtanen.

‘Twenty-two years old,’ Agatha says. ‘Last known sighting, working in a local bar, though her husband, the infamous Miika, always maintained she left the house the next morning to return to town and that was the last he saw of her. That was 1998.’

Agatha lifts a finger to her chin and starts to tap it as she stares at the photo.

‘When my old boss– he was chief at the time– when Patric began to suspect something had happened to her, the locals were already whispering that Miika had done away with her. But there were other rumours, too. A foreign businessman had taken an interest in her; someone overheard him say he was going to, in his words, “screw her”. She was seen knocking him back. I looked up the guy; he was charged with sexual assault in the States a few years ago. There was also talk she might have had a boyfriend. A couple of townspeople said they’d seen her car leaving late a few nights, long after the bar had closed.’

‘Your lot ever find a boyfriend?’

‘No. But, you know, affairs happen. Small town, long nights, a tiny populace. With so few members of the opposite sex to choose from, people settle and then get itchy feet. She married young. Always a problem.’

Alex glances at Agatha. He wonders if that was a problem for her, if that’s why she’s rearing three children on her own.

Agatha points to the next picture.

‘Mary Rosenberg, twenty-nine. Canadian. Went missing in 2007. She was staying in my friend Becki’s place. Well, her mother’s, actually. Henni runs a sort of exclusive resort, up the lake a bit. For private bookings.

‘Mary’s mother was Finnish, her father Canadian; she liked to spend the winters over here. There was talk of her almost making the Olympic skiing team back home but she had an accident in her teens and damaged her back. She came here to ski for fun and give a few lessons. That day, she went out on a cross-country ski and never returned. Becki and Henni were immediately worried. Then her fiancé in Montreal grew concerned when she didn’t return his calls and flew over. Her clothes and belongings were still here but she was gone. There were searches all over.’

The last picture.

‘Hilda Paikkala, thirty-six, lived in the next town over. 2014. Seen by her neighbours walking along a road out of town. She had a bag on her back and she had friends living in the next village. I was working here by then, back from my stint at Rovaniemi. We assumed at first she’d had an accident en route. The roads and surrounding woods were searched. But when her body wasn’t found, people started to wonder whether somebody had offered her a lift. A car was spotted on the same route hours later; a man and a woman allegedly arguing in the front seats. They never came forward, so the speculation persisted. They could have just been tourists arguing over a missed road.’

‘But you thought somebody picked her up and killed her?’

Agatha shrugs.

‘Three women, their bodies never found,’ Alex says.

‘And we don’t know if they were involved in accidents or if something else happened.’

‘But now, Vicky.’

‘Like I said, it’s not the same.’

‘Only because her body turned up.’

‘And also because her room was cleared, Alex. All of these women disappeared and the places where they were staying were left like the Marie Celeste . Hilda took only a small bag, enough to stay with friends for a few days. Mary just had her day gear. Kaya had her bag and purse.’

‘Maybe there were too many questions asked before,’ Alex says. ‘Maybe this time, he thought clearing her room would make people believe she’d left. It almost worked, didn’t it? Maybe this Miika guy has been knocking off people for decades. What if he’s getting clumsy because he’s got away with it for so long and that’s why he didn’t put rocks in a bag with Vicky? Don’t serial killers take bigger and bigger risks? Isn’t that what they say?’

‘Alex, if Miika wanted to kill his wife and properly cover it up at the time, he could have done that to begin with. He could have got rid of all Kaya’s belongings and then told people she’d left him. Her family claimed she wasn’t happy with him but her mother also told Patric that Kaya refused to admit she was unhappy. So, it would have added up if she was too ashamed to tell anybody and just left. But Miika wouldn’t let it go. He reported her missing and insisted the police look for her. Yes, serial killers will often look for attention but generally they start out very anonymously. They don’t insert themselves into the initial investigation. That’s something they say, too.’

‘So, why did the townspeople assume he’d killed her? He’s weird, fine. But to think of him as a serial killer?’

Agatha sucks in her cheeks.

‘They knew Miika was capable of violence.’

Alex bristles.

‘He was the quiet sort,’ Agatha continues. ‘He didn’t mix much, but he’d been involved in a couple of fights in town and Kaya was seen with bruising. It was enough for Patric to bring him in and make his life very uncomfortable. But Patric was also the first one to accept Miika hadn’t done anything.’

‘Why, if Kaya was never found?’

Agatha shakes her head.

‘If you knew Patric. . . I trust his judgement.’

Alex lets out a deep, troubled sigh.

‘Do you think my sister is going to end up as one of these unsolved cases? Another name on your board?’

Agatha doesn’t answer him straight away. Alex turns and stares at her.

‘Do you?’

‘I can never promise, with absolute certainty, that I will solve a case,’ she says. ‘Look at their pictures. Do you think I want this board here? Kaya’s parents phone and ask for progress reports once a year. They moved to Rovaniemi– they couldn’t stay up here, living with the thought that the man whom they believed murdered their daughter was still here, still free.’

Agatha bites her lip.

‘Mary Rosenberg’s fiancé married another woman and every now and again he sends me an email asking if there’s news,’ she continues. ‘And I think of Hilda every time I pass the café where she worked. It’s the same for Patric, but worse. He was the lead on all these cases. Nobody remembers all the ones he solved, all the people he did help. They just remember the failures. And they can’t get their heads around them either, so local people look to what they can understand. Miika Virtanen hit his wife. His wife vanished. Miika must have killed her. Oh, somebody else has gone missing. It must have been Miika.’

‘You’re a local,’ Alex says. ‘Why don’t you think like that?’

‘Sporadic serial killers operate in patterns,’ Agatha replies. ‘1998, 2007, 2014. And now 2019. The gaps are too wide, too irregular. They mean nothing. Most serial killers might leave a break at the start but then, when they’re active, they become chaotic. They lose the ability to restrain themselves. And they usually have a type. These women had nothing in common. They were different ages, looked nothing alike. The only thing that links them is that they all disappeared in my jurisdiction. But in the jurisdiction next to mine, two guys went missing a few years ago and were never found. They were climbers, so everyone assumes they fell somewhere and their bodies were lost somewhere hard to reach. And they were men, so nobody else could have been involved, right?

‘An old lady disappeared the year before. Told her family she was going out to the shop and that was that. But when it’s women of a certain age, people arrive at less sinister conclusions. She got cold and disoriented and fell into a hole. Nobody would snatch an old woman, would they?’

Alex says nothing for a few moments. He looks at the board.

‘So there’s no pattern,’ he says. ‘But like I said. What if these are the only ones you know about?’

‘It’s a small population,’ Agatha replies. ‘We’d know if there were more. And if tourists were going missing all over the place, we’d especially know. I don’t think these women are linked to your sister.’

‘So, why tell me about them at all?’

He’s frustrated now. He can see the sense in what Agatha is saying but, still. . .

‘Because you’ve already been told Miika’s name and this is next,’ Agatha says. ‘They’ll tell you all about his other victims . And I want you to have some context, to understand that the police here are not incompetent fools. There is absolutely nothing connecting Miika Virtanen to your sister.’

‘Have you questioned him?’ Alex asks.

Agatha looks away from him. He waits for her answer.

‘I have no reason to,’ she says.

Her answer is adamant but, even still, Alex can hear something.

Uncertainty.

Agatha might not think there’s a serial killer operating in , but nor is she convinced there’s not.

‘You’re not sure,’ Alex says, and looks her dead in the eye. ‘You’re not sure if there’s something more sinister going on here. This board in your basement all these years. There must be other unsolved cases. But you have their faces up here. Together. You put them together for a reason.’

Agatha starts to shake her head but then she pauses and looks back at the board. He can see the movement in her throat as she swallows.

‘None of it indicates a serial killer,’ she says, quietly. ‘And I haven’t been hunting one. But the single most important thing I’ve learned over the years is that being sure of something doesn’t make it so. I could be wrong.’

Alex can tell it’s taken her a lot to admit that in his presence.

He looks back at the board.

‘My sister had a second email address,’ he says.

Agatha spins around to face him.

Alex doesn’t look at her.

‘I think she might have tried to send me a message. Why was she trying so hard to get in contact with me before she died? What if she knew she was in danger?’