Page 20

2019

The roadside café where Hilda Paikkala worked before she went missing is not far from Becki’s, so Agatha takes a small detour before heading back into .

Anywhere else, the police might not presume that the people who’d worked in the café five years ago still worked there, but not around here. Jobs aren’t easy to come by this far north and, mostly, once you get one, it’s a job for life. Not to mention, this business is family-run.

Agatha parks up near the petrol pumps beside the café. There are a couple of large trucks pulled in on the other side of the road, hauliers stopping for fuel and sustenance before continuing the long, arduous drive down to the capital. Most of them are coming or going from Sweden, crossing the border at the top where the two countries meet. Agatha knows the vast majority of drivers will have been on the road since last night. Sometimes they pull over and sleep in the cabins behind the driver’s compartment. It’s a legal requirement that they don’t drive for longer than a set amount of hours. The distances they cover are vast and conditions up here are ripe for lulling people to sleep.

But she also knows that some of the truckers have bosses and companies that don’t write decent pit stops into the schedule, and so a few of the drivers in the café will be mainlining coffee before hitting the road again for another long shift.

The bell tinkles on the door as Agatha steps in and pulls back the old, chequered curtain to enter the building. She removes her gloves and coat; the owner has the heat dialled up, maybe to encourage customers to stay a little longer.

There are a handful of men sitting at the tables, consuming bowls of coffee, sandwiches and cakes. They look at her with mild interest; something in her demeanour reveals she’s police and they all lower their gazes. The last thing they need is her stopping them as they’re getting into their trucks to ask to look at their itineraries and tachographs. She’ll be able to tell with a glance if they’ve slept since they left Helsinki or Stockholm or whether they should be sleeping here before driving on.

Agatha heads straight to the counter, ignoring the drivers.

A young, raven-haired woman is there, taking a tray of tired pastries from behind the glass display and replacing it with a fresh one. She smiles at Agatha; they know each other, mainly to see around. Agatha has never had much call to come to the café; there’s rarely trouble here. The truckers save that for the pubs, when they’re rested and drink has been taken.

But the woman remembers Agatha from years back, when Agatha was helping Patric with the investigation into Hilda’s disappearance. Agatha was just the deputy then and this woman, if she recalls correctly, is the owner’s daughter and somebody who worked alongside Hilda.

They’d been friendly, despite the age gap. The woman– Anna, that’s her name– was only eighteen at the time and Hilda was in her thirties. But she’d found Hilda great fun and latched on to her.

‘Chief,’ Anna says. ‘It is chief now, isn’t it?’

Agatha smiles.

‘The last three years,’ she says. ‘And let me guess, you’re the boss now, too?’

Anna snorts.

‘Not a chance. Dad’s out back, doing a stocktake. Which is code for playing online poker. Luckily, we have him on a limit. Otherwise my inheritance would be gone from underneath me. Can I get you a coffee?’

Agatha laughs at the tone Anna uses for the word inheritance, and politely declines the coffee.

‘Do you need to speak to Dad?’

Agatha had already thought about this on the way over. The café owner hadn’t been entirely helpful when Hilda disappeared. He seemed to know very little about his employee, other than the fact she was a good worker and had never caused him any problems. Agatha had called in a couple of times since, and the old man never had anything to add to his original account.

Hilda had left work the evening before she disappeared. She had a few holiday days owed. She told her employer she was going to visit friends the next day in a town upcountry. That was the last conversation they had.

‘Actually,’ Agatha says, ‘I wouldn’t mind chatting to you this time.’

‘Me?’ Anna asks, curiously.

A trucker comes to the counter to pay his bill. He keeps his eyes down, avoiding Agatha. He throws down the exact amount on his bill and a couple of twenty-cent coins.

‘Is that your tip?’ Agatha says.

The guy looks up at her, alarmed.

‘Uh.’ He mumbles something, then fumbles in his pockets. He pulls out a couple of two-euro coins and places them gently on the counter.

‘Thanks,’ he says, then leaves.

Anna looks at Agatha.

‘Can you stay?’ she says. ‘The guy only had a cheese sandwich.’

Agatha smiles. It can’t be easy, being in your early twenties and working in a place like this, with men who are either monosyllabic or trying it on.

‘I guess you want to ask about Hilda,’ Anna says.

‘What gave me away?’

‘Nothing else has ever happened here. Nothing we’re associated with, anyway. And with the girl from the Lodge. . .’

‘I’ve no updates,’ Agatha says. ‘But, you know, it’s still a live case.’

‘I always thought that was just one of those things the police say to placate families.’

Agatha’s jaw twitches. How right Anna is.

‘Hilda didn’t really have any family, though, did she?’ Agatha says.

‘Nope. Some people in Helsinki, but nobody she ever really talked about. She had friends, though. She was very bubbly. She got on with people. Well able for working in here with all the guys who pass through. She taught me everything I know.’

‘Is there anything that you’ve thought of over the years that might have seemed important afterwards? Anything she said in those few weeks running up to her disappearance, any periods of time when she was a little off or acting unusually?’

Anna narrows her eyes, giving Agatha’s question real consideration.

‘Well, I wasn’t here a whole lot,’ she says. ‘As you know. I was in and out of school and really just helping out. She always seemed fine to me. If anything, I would say she was really happy before she disappeared. Like, really.’

‘Happy? Not just in her normal way? Your dad always said she’d a smile on her face and was a good worker. Her friends didn’t think there was anything going on with her, but then, they said they hadn’t seen her much, that she’d been working a lot. They were looking forward to her visit.’

‘Not happy in her normal way,’ Anna says, slowly, and Agatha can see she’s thinking hard. ‘I would say she was practically glowing.’

Agatha frowns.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Like– she had a secret or something.’

‘You never mentioned this before.’

Anna smiles, shyly.

‘To be honest, I don’t think I understood before. I kind of do now.’

‘What do you mean?’

Anna glances over her shoulder at the set of curtains behind the counter. Agatha guesses she’s checking her father isn’t about to put in an appearance.

‘I met somebody, in my last year in college,’ she says. ‘We were just friends, but it’s grown into something more. I’m engaged. I haven’t told Dad yet. He’ll say I’m too young, that the whole point of sending me to college was to get out of here, but I plan to do both. Matt is from Austria– we’re going to get hitched and travel through Europe before getting proper jobs.’

Agatha tries to look supportive.

‘That sounds fantastic,’ she says. ‘I’m very happy for you.’

Anna’s smile falters.

‘You’re not, really,’ she says. ‘You think I’m too young, too.’

Agatha shakes her head.

‘What does it matter what I think? I was never lucky enough to meet anybody like that. It wouldn’t have mattered to me if I’d been twenty-three or thirty-three, I’d have jumped at the chance.’

Anna relaxes again.

‘Well, I’m not stupid enough not to realise how it looks,’ she says. ‘Which is why I haven’t told anybody. Nobody who’d judge, anyway.’

‘And you think that Hilda might have had a secret like that?’

‘Yeah. I do.’

Agatha doesn’t get it. Hilda wasn’t a girl in her early twenties. She was a woman in her mid-thirties. Why couldn’t she just come out and say if she was with somebody? Why stage ‘a visit’ with her friends, all to spend a few days with a guy? And why not return? Had she run off with him? Or had he hurt her? Why was he a secret in the first place?

Unless there was a reason she was keeping it private.

If it was somebody she shouldn’t have been with, Agatha thinks.

‘But she never mentioned who,’ Agatha asks. ‘You never caught sight of a picture on her phone or heard her talking to anybody who seemed special?’

Anna shrugs.

‘She flirted with every guy who came in here. That was her way. It would have been hard to know if one of them was more special than the other, and I guess that’s how she was around all the men she met. But I do think there was somebody. I think she was happy because she was in love.’

Agatha thanks Anna and they make some small talk for a couple of minutes before Agatha leaves.

She stands outside, breathing in the cold, fresh air for a few moments after the stuffy heat of the café.

She’s not entirely sure what she’s doing, dragging up all this history.

What she had told Alex wasn’t a lie. The chances of these three vanished women being connected is slim, let alone their cases having anything to do with Vicky Evans.

And yet. . .

None of Hilda’s friends had ever mentioned a boyfriend.

In any investigation, there can be a dripping of information over time. And Anna has mostly been down in Helsinki, so Agatha’s not annoyed with herself for not unearthing this possible nugget sooner.

But she is curious as to what it means. It might be nothing. Hilda had her eye on somebody or had started seeing somebody– maybe even a married guy– but then she went missing and he couldn’t come forward.

Or, he was involved in her disappearance.

In which case, it means everything.

And that niggling in the recesses of Agatha’s brain– that tiny suspicion that she had never allowed to take hold– is starting to sound louder.

What if these women are connected?

What if Vicky’s death has opened a Pandora’s box?

When she returns to the station, Agatha finds Janic and Jonas eating chicken rolls and playing cards.

‘Seriously,’ she says, dumping the bag of cookies in front of them, the ones Becki sent back with her, ‘are you already on Christmas holidays, Janic? There’s nothing pressing for us to do, no?’

Jonas doesn’t respond, he just starts to quietly, slowly, gather all the cards. Janic jumps up, full of guilt.

‘I was just taking a break,’ he says. ‘We’ve done the door-to-door around . There’s nothing new to report. I spoke to Rovaniemi as well, that Venla one in pathology. She said you have the full report and she has nothing to add. And I had to go over to the other side of the mountain today. Somebody said there were scouts out there.’

‘Scouts for what?’ Agatha says.

‘The usual. Mining.’

Agatha raises her eyebrows. Everybody knows is safe from mining scouts, the well-paid reps who come to Lapland to source lands for industrial exploration. The village has secured its economic success via tourism and most of the council members are actively invested in the hospitality industry. Plenty of business people have come to in the past, just like in other parts of Lapland, looking to win mining licences, but most of the actual mines end up in poorer, less scenic parts of the country.

She doesn’t know if Janic’s source got it wrong or if he was skiving this morning.

‘Sit down and finish your lunch,’ Agatha says. She meets Jonas’ eye. The quiet man gives her a hint of a smile. He knows her well, whereas Janic can only see her as a boss. To be fair, it’s probably the best thing. He’s the sort who’d take advantage, otherwise. His mother spoils him. If she didn’t, she’d have told him to shave those sideburns by now.

‘When you’re finished, I want you to check something for me,’ she says.

Janic grabs a pen and pad and looks at her, eagerly.

‘Mary Rosenberg,’ she says. ‘2007. I want you to recheck whether her passport was picked up leaving Finland. It was followed up at the time but maybe somebody missed something.’

Before Janic can finish writing the name, Jonas leans back in his chair, reaches over to his desk and picks up a file. He hands it to Janic, who stares at it, confused, then hands it to Agatha. Agatha glances at the name on the white sticker on the cover– it’s Mary Rosenberg’s file. Jonas had already pulled it out.

‘Hilda Paikkala, too?’ Agatha says, and like magic, Jonas produces a second file.

‘Great minds,’ Agatha says, while Janic looks between the two of them, completely bewildered.

He might be practically mute, but anybody who knows Jonas is aware of how useful he can be. Had he wanted to progress in the police, he could have. He has a good head on his shoulders. Good intuition.

And he’s just compounded Agatha’s fears. If he too has started thinking about these cold cases and a possible connection to the new case, then maybe the path Agatha is testing her toes on isn’t entirely off course.

‘Any luck getting access to Vicky Evans’ second email account?’ she asks.

Janic shakes his head.

‘I tried coming up with the password but nothing. I’ve contacted the server. They’re usually quicker than the social media sites, so we might get lucky.’

Agatha purses her lips.

She has an inkling that Alex Evans could make a good guess at Vicky’s password. Maybe he already has and he’s just not telling her.

‘Visitor,’ Jonas warns her, and Agatha looks over her shoulder at the front door.

She’s expecting it to be Alex and it is Alex.

‘We need to go up and see Miika,’ he says.

‘Alex, as we discussed—’

‘I saw him this morning at the Lodge. He was delivering food. You tell me this guy is some kind of urban legend but it’s not like he’s just lurking up in the hills, is it? He does business with the Lodge and I’ve checked in the kitchen– Vicky did have an interaction with him. They were seen. Maybe it happened more than once.’

‘Are you doing the very thing we agreed you wouldn’t do? Are you interrogating people?’

Agatha dumps the files on the reception desk.

Alex spots the names on the two front covers, then looks to her.

‘You’re wondering, aren’t you? You’re wondering if it’s the one guy.’

‘I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t look at every angle, including the absolutely most unlikely ones. Come on, then.’

Agatha hasn’t taken her coat off. She might as well get this over with.

Even though it’s exactly what he came and asked her to do, Alex remains rooted to the spot. He’d probably been expecting admonition, not cooperation.

‘We’ll go see him,’ Agatha says. ‘But you have to keep your mouth shut.’

‘You’re letting me come?’

Agatha pauses.

‘Here’s how I see it: I bring you. You listen. You’re happy. I don’t bring you. You go find him on your own. You cause untold problems. Am I right?’

Alex’s face tells her everything she needs to know.

Agatha sighs and points the way back out, as her deputies watch on, bemused.

Agatha takes the snowmobile again, making Alex sit on the back.

‘You ever been a passenger on a motorbike?’ she asks.

‘No, but I’ve driven one.’

‘This is a hundred times safer,’ she tells him. ‘There’s a speed limit set on the ones in the Lodge, so the tourists don’t kill themselves, but they can go a lot faster. I won’t push it to the limit, don’t worry. Just hold on to the sides and if you get anxious, tap my shoulder. Oh, you’ve no back trouble, do you?’

‘Why?’

‘Just asking.’

Agatha smirks. Alex is such a cool customer. It’s nice to have the upper hand for once.

She looks up at the sky as she helps fasten Alex’s helmet. She doesn’t like how the air smells or the taste of it on her tongue. There’s a heavy snowfall coming. Hopefully they’ll get up and back before it lands. Still, when she sees Janic emerge from the station, she calls over to him.

‘If I’m not here at school time, will you pick up the kids?’

Janic looks up at the clouds and nods. Agatha jumps on the snowmobile.

She’s suddenly, uncomfortably, conscious of Alex’s legs flanking her. He’s a tall man– quite a handsome man– and while that hasn’t escaped her notice, she’s been more than aware of the reason for his visit and how she must behave towards him. Not to mention, he’s been a thorn in her side.

Now, at close quarters, she feels the smallest of butterflies in the pit of her stomach and immediately quashes them.

It isn’t just that it’s entirely inappropriate.

She’d promised herself, for the kids’ sakes, no men. No boyfriends or part-time lovers or any complications that could distress them or cause any instability.

She takes off, going a little faster than she normally might because she’s nervous about the weather. They cross the lower end of the lake then start into the forest on the other side. The ride is a lot bumpier here than on the smooth surface of the lake and she hopes Alex is coping. He doesn’t tap her shoulder, even when she’s dodging in and out of trees as they climb the mountain. Agatha knows it’s scarier as the passenger, when you can’t see the swerves coming and you aren’t holding on to the handlebars.

The journey takes just under half an hour. Agatha pulls up at the sheds beside Miika’s reindeer enclosure. She gets off then helps Alex climb down.

‘Fuck,’ he says, when he’s on steady ground. He looks at her with the expression of a man who can’t believe he’s still alive. ‘Fuck.’

‘And I’m the sensible driver in our station.’ Agatha shrugs.

He rubs his lower back.

‘Sore?’ she asks.

‘I tensed,’ he answers. ‘Going through that forest, I thought I was going to fall off.’

‘It’s the quickest way. We’d still be in the car circling the lake. Higher up, they’ve built a road across, but it’s still not as fast. So, this is your first sight of a proper farm. What do you think?’

Agatha sweeps the air with her hand, covering Miika’s house, the sheds surrounding it, and the reindeer enclosure.

Alex steadies himself and it’s then he notices the animals. She enjoys seeing the look on his face: it’s the same for everyone the first time. Reindeer are practically mythical creatures to non-Nordics, especially in their natural habitat. Agatha has only ever seen them as working animals, but she still enjoys witnessing the enchantment in others.

Alex walks towards one and holds his hand out. The reindeer sniffs, hoping for lichen. Finding nothing, he snorts and lopes off, but not before Alex gets to run his hand along the beast’s back.

Alex turns back to Agatha and for a moment she can imagine what he was like as a child. His eyes are bright, his cheeks red dots on pale skin; he’s just seen his first reindeer in Lapland. She’s glad she’s given him this tiniest moment of respite from grief.

‘Their fur, it’s so thick,’ he says.

‘Each individual hair is hollow inside,’ Agatha tells him. ‘It both insulates and cools them. And when they’re killed, every part is used.’

‘I thought there’d be more. If it’s a farm.’

‘There’ll be hundreds more out on the mountain. But you must never ask a reindeer farmer how many are in his herd. It’s considered very rude.’

And just like that, Alex’s eyes travel to Miika’s house and darken.

The snow has started to fall now; Agatha notes the swirling patterns and knows what they mean. She also sees smoke pumping from Miika’s chimney. She expects him to be in, but it did occur to her at a certain point on the trip that spontaneity is never a good idea when you’re travelling miles and a heavy snowfall is due. Like all the houses round here, Miika’s home will be unlocked and they can take shelter, but still, she should have checked.

Maybe, she thinks fleetingly, she didn’t want to warn him they were coming.

‘You ready?’ she asks Alex.

He nods and leaves the reindeer. He’s shivering again– she reckons from a combination of the cold and the adrenaline leaving his body after the ride. Agatha thinks that if the stress of this trip doesn’t age him, the extreme weather will.

They step on to Miika’s porch and knock on the door, while kicking the snow off their boots. The house is as Agatha remembers it: a basic wooden chalet with a dark pointed roof. She and her sister, along with half the kids in their class, used to come up here in their late teens, with bottles of alcohol and hearts full of daring. They did it more after Miika got rid of the dogs and wasn’t alerted to the teenagers’ presence so quickly. Far more exciting to try to catch a glimpse of the man, unseen.

This was the house where a woman was murdered, after all. That’s what the grown-ups said.

The poor man, Agatha thinks. Teens can be cruel. Especially when the townsfolk, who are supposed to keep a rein on them, don’t care about the man that they’re torturing.

It’s half the house it once was. Literally. Miika’s father and his brother split the house in half when they both got married. His brother rolled his on logs towards the other side of the mountain. Agatha likes telling tourists that the term ‘moving house’ comes from actually moving house.

There’s no answer at the door and Agatha calls out. She’s rethinking her strategy, until she hears movement over by one of the sheds beside the reindeer pen.

Miika emerges, his apron covered in blood, a large knife in his hand.

‘Nothing suspicious there, so,’ Alex mutters under his breath.

Agatha raises her eyebrows.

‘He’s butchering meat,’ she says.

She takes a step off the porch and calls to Miika in Finnish.

‘I just wanted to have a chat, if that’s okay.’

Miika takes a look at Alex and then back at Agatha. When he answers her, it’s in English.

‘It’s about that girl, the one you found? I had nothing to do with that.’

Agatha can practically feel Alex react adversely. She knows Miika, knows his ways and that the man has no time for small talk. Of course, he’d just come out and say it. But to Alex, it must sound defensive.

‘We’ll just take a few minutes of your time,’ she says. ‘If you’d be kind enough to offer us a hot drink?’

Miika rubs his hands down on his apron, which has started steaming. The blood from the reindeer is still hot and it’s reacting with the cold air. Agatha glances at Alex.

She can read his thoughts.

Vicky’s brother has Miika hung, drawn and quartered.

Alex is reluctant to go into this man’s house, but he’s even more reluctant to let Agatha go in alone. She keeps looking at him like she’s surprised by his hostile reaction to Miika. He wants to ask her how he’s supposed to react to this giant of a man, already suspected of murdering his own wife and two other women, and who may have killed his sister. It doesn’t help he’s had to wash blood off his knife and himself before he can put the kettle on.

They sit around a table in a small sitting room that’s also a kitchen, on hardback chairs fashioned sometime in the 1930s. Alex is pretty certain very little has been modernised in this house since it was built. He can’t see a TV, for starters. He thinks of his own apartment, of the underfloor heating and voice-activated controls in every room, the flat-screen that can slide back into a cabinet in the wall, the speakers in the ceilings, the automated temperature adjustments in the shower, and the fridge that informs him when he’s running low on milk and mineral water.

On the wall in front of him, there’s a framed front page of an extremely old newspaper. Alex doesn’t understand the Finnish headline but he can tell by the old-fashioned photograph that it’s men panning for gold in a river.

Pioneers. That’s what this cabin and the whole countryside remind him of. People brave enough to find new ground and survive in difficult circumstances.

He’d die if he lived out here, and he doesn’t mean that in a snowflake, can’t-exist-without-his-appliances way. The cold and the boredom would kill him. From his recollection of Agatha’s murder wall, Kaya was a young woman. How on earth had she coped?

While they wait in silence for the kettle to boil, Alex looks around the room some more, observing the antiquated dresser, topped with a tray of dusty glasses. There are several picture frames, and while some contain photographs, there are also drawings, including one of an Arctic fox. They’re detailed, intricate, and very skilled. He wonders if Miika has hidden artistic talents or if the only thing he’s hiding is a penchant for murdering and disappearing women.

‘You’ve heard all about it, then,’ Agatha says, when Miika puts mugs of instant coffee down in front of them.

‘I heard. I presumed you’d be up before now.’

Miika sits down. It evens the score a little but he still has a few inches on Alex, something Alex is not used to. But it’s less the height of the man and more his girth. He’s twice as wide as any man Alex has ever seen, and none of it looks like fat. He can understand, wrongly or rightly, why Miika causes such fear and rumour down in the town.

‘I didn’t know if I’d reason to come up,’ Agatha says, shrugging. ‘Did you know Vicky Evans? She worked in the Lodge.’

Miika glances at Alex, but he doesn’t ask who he is. It’s plain that he’s already guessed, given he and Agatha are conducting their conversation in English.

Alex wonders why Miika’s not railing against his presence. Is it because he has nothing to hide? Or because he has, and playing the innocent is all part of the fun?

‘I didn’t know her,’ Miika says. ‘She could have been any of the ones who work down there. When I go in, I keep my head down and I don’t speak to anybody. Especially not the women.’

Agatha doesn’t immediately say anything. Alex sees she’s distracted by something outside the window. He follows her gaze. The snow is falling heavily.

Agatha turns back to Miika.

‘Somebody in the Lodge said they saw you talking to her.’

Agatha takes out her phone; pulls up an image. Alex catches a glimpse. It’s one of Vicky’s Facebook pictures; a recent one. She’s in snow gear, but her dark hair and broad smile are visible.

He holds his breath as Miika looks at the photo.

‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘I was looking for Lassi. I asked a girl. I didn’t want to, but there was nobody else around. It must have taken all of a few seconds. Could have been her.’

‘Then, there have been times you’ve spoken to women in the Lodge,’ Agatha says. Her tone is gentle to Alex’s ears but he gets the implication and so does Miika, because he’s glaring at Agatha with his head cocked, a belligerent look on his face.

‘I go to the Lodge kitchen,’ he says. ‘I drop off my delivery. Four times a year, I take payment from Lassi. He tries to avoid me, every time. Makes excuses. The cheque had an error on it. He accidentally left the email to his bank on draft. Nonsense. There’s usually one of the kitchen hands there; I can ask them to run in for me. I don’t talk to the women in the Lodge, if I can help it.’

Agatha and Miika stare at each other for a few moments. Then she puts her phone away.

‘So, were you delivering to the Lodge around the time she went missing?’ she asks.

‘What was the exact date?’ Miika asks.

Agatha tells him the date in November when Vicky was last seen. Miika stands and crosses to the cabinet, taking out a small diary and ledger. He sits back down. Alex notices how the whole house seems to shake when Miika walks.

‘I drove down to Rovaniemi,’ he says, pointing at an entry in the diary and showing it to Agatha. ‘I had to buy some equipment for the farm that they don’t deliver. I went down that morning and I wasn’t back until the following night.’

‘Did you stay in a hotel?’

‘Stayed in my truck. Have a bed in the back. Took it down instead of the car because I was bringing the equipment back up.’

‘But people would have seen you down there? That day and the next?’

‘I’m hard to miss.’

He’s got that right, Alex thinks.

Part of him is still hopeful. Slept in his truck? In this weather?

‘I might get the names of those shops you called into,’ Agatha says.

Miika shrugs. His dark eyes narrow then and he rests his chin on his hand.

‘How do you know when she was killed, though?’ he says.

‘Excuse me?’ Agatha responds.

Alex tenses.

‘You know when she went missing, but I’m guessing the lake left you unsure about when she died. The water, the temperature. Somebody could have taken her and held her against her will.’

Jesus Christ. Alex feels the shudder run right through him, from the back of his neck all along his spine and down his legs.

Miika is calm. Completely lacking in emotion. Alex looks to Agatha, expecting her to react angrily.

‘That’s true,’ Agatha says, her face betraying nothing. ‘Though I’m going to guess, if you weren’t here the night she disappeared, you couldn’t have taken her, Miika.’

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘But what if I told her to wait somewhere for me? What if she stayed here for a while?’

The hairs on Alex’s neck are standing.

He’s toying with them. The psychopath is fucking toying with them.

‘You could have done that,’ Agatha says. ‘In which case, you wouldn’t mind me looking around?’

Miika glances at Alex.

‘Be my guest,’ he says, holding out his hands.

Agatha takes a sip of coffee– her and Miika’s eyes are locked. It’s like a battle of wits, Alex thinks. A part of him doesn’t want to be left sitting with the guy at the table alone. He wants to search this house, too, see if there’s any evidence of Vicky being here.

But he senses Agatha wants him to stay. She wants to nose around on her own.

Alex feels something nagging at him. It started when Miika was speaking. He can’t put his finger on it but it’s there. . . somewhere.

As Agatha heads into one of the bedrooms, Alex stares down at the chipped wood on the cheap table.

‘So, are you the boyfriend?’ Miika asks.

Alex frowns. The man’s voice has completely changed now he’s talking to Alex alone. He sounds. . . softer. Less threatening.

‘Brother,’ Alex says. He still can’t keep the hostility from his voice, regardless of the other man’s altered demeanour.

Miika says nothing. Then he exhales, heavily.

‘Sorry for your loss,’ he says. ‘I had a sister. She died when I was a kid. Only a baby. Went into the lake. My parents got her out in time but the cold was in her lungs.’

Alex doesn’t know how to respond. He’s hardly going to say ‘thanks for the condolences’.

‘You’ve heard the rumours about me?’ Miika says.

Alex nods.

The other man nods, too, and stands. He crosses to the cabinet, picks up one of the framed photographs, brings it to the table.

‘Kaya,’ he says, and hands it to Alex.

Alex looks at the young woman in the photograph. She’s pretty in an unconventional way. Slavic-type, high cheekbones, full lips and masses of dark hair. But it’s her eyes that grab Alex. Deep, thoughtful eyes, the sort that you know are hiding secrets. Kaya was already dreaming of being somewhere else when this photograph was taken, he thinks.

‘The drawings are hers,’ Miika says. ‘She was always drawing. Even in school. She was talented.’

‘Did you kill her?’ Alex asks.

Miika stares at him.

‘My wife or your sister? Or both?’

Alex shrugs. He places the picture frame down on the table between them, eyeballs Miika. The man could floor him with one swipe, even if Alex tried to hold his own. Maybe Agatha would get her gun out in time, maybe she wouldn’t. But Alex refuses to be cowed by this man, regardless of what he might have done– because of it, in fact.

‘I killed neither,’ Miika says. ‘Kaya left, like I told the police. There was nothing unusual; she didn’t take anything with her. Well, bar the one thing that she always had on her, but I told them that too. And she never came home. Did I hurt her? No. Did somebody? Yes. I believe they did.’

Alex frowns.

‘What do you mean?’

Miika seems to hesitate. He sips his coffee.

‘When they couldn’t get me to confess, they decided Kaya must have had an accident. They didn’t look at anybody else. Made sense. They protect their own in this town. The ones who they think are worth protecting. I never fit that description. Never have been accepted, really. Neither fish nor fowl. Got Sami blood in me, so reindeer-farming is in the family. Lots of people round here don’t like the Sami. But I’m not pure Sami so the Sami don’t have much time for me either. Think reindeer-farming should be their sole preserve. Law says anybody can do it, though.’

He points at the old newspaper article on the wall.

‘See that? That’s my uncle. He moved house, gave up farming. Thought he’d try his luck at gold-panning in Ivalojoki River. Big thing, here, panning and mining for gold. But he never made his fortune, not like the guys back in 1868. My father, though, he did okay on the farm. You don’t get far dreaming, that’s what he always said. Kaya never understood that. All she did was dream.’

Agatha slips outside now, glancing quickly at Alex as she goes. Alex figures Miika feels freer speaking in front of him. And maybe Agatha is counting on that.

The front door and porch doors are only open together for a second but the gust of snow that blows in tells Alex that a blizzard has hit. He looks back at Miika.

‘You don’t think Kaya had an accident?’ Alex asks.

Miika shakes his head.

Alex backtracks.

‘What did she take with her? You said she always had this one thing on her.’

‘She had her coat and her purse, obviously. We had no mobile phones then. But she took her drawing book. She was very protective of it, kept it safe here unless she was sketching in it. It was very precious to her. A leather-bound journal. Small. I’d bought it for her.’

‘Why didn’t the police believe you?’

Alex thinks of the old chief, the man he’d met in the bar the other night. They were only together a short time but Alex had been begrudgingly impressed by the man. Patric, that’s his name. Could he have been so inept that he didn’t bother pursuing the real killer, after failing to pin it on Kaya’s husband? Or was it, as Miika is implying, more to do with corruption, letting somebody else get away with it?

‘I had. . .’ Miika trails off. He stares into the fire that’s burning fiercely in the stove.

‘I was not always a good husband,’ he says. ‘People knew that. Kaya’s parents knew that. I am ashamed of things that I did. I can say I was young and I was under pressure, but they’re just excuses. I hit my wife. Several times. Always after alcohol. So, when I reported her missing, at first, Patric looked. Then, when he couldn’t find her, he assumed I was lying. No matter what I said, or how I protested. Because he knew, like everybody, that I’d been violent with her. Patric made his point. Perhaps I deserved to be punished for being the man I was. But I’m not a murderer.’

‘Those other women who went missing over the years, though,’ Alex says. ‘People think. . .’

‘I know what they think. I can’t stop them thinking those things. So I just go about my business and keep my head down. I didn’t kill your sister. I don’t even remember meeting her. And I’ve suffered enough for Kaya. I’m not suffering any more. I’m not keeping my head bowed while another death is blamed on me.’

Alex studies the other man. Really studies him. He wants this guy to be guilty. Just like Patric did. So he can know .

But Alex can’t see deceit in Miika. He can see guilt– the man clearly feels intense guilt. Of course, if he was beating up his wife, and then she disappeared, that’s probably natural.

‘Do you think somebody could have murdered your wife and those other women?’ he asks. ‘ And my sister?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Miika says. ‘I just know, if they suspect me of doing every bad thing that has happened in this town, and I haven’t done those things, that doesn’t mean somebody else didn’t.’

Alex nods. He thinks the same.

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ he asks. ‘Why are you happy to talk to me and not Agatha?’

Miika snorts.

‘Why do you think?’ he says. ‘You’re an outsider. She’s not. Maybe you’ll judge me. Maybe you won’t. She can’t help it. She’ll judge whether she wants to or not.’

The doors open again and Agatha comes in.

‘No secret cells or underground torture rooms?’ Miika says.

Agatha raises her eyebrows.

‘The weather has taken a bad turn,’ she says.

‘I can put on some food,’ Miika offers. He turns to Alex. ‘You ever try blood pancake?’

Alex has no desire to try blood pancake but he tries to look semi-enthusiastic.

Agatha’s phone is ringing. She takes it out.

‘It’s the station,’ she says.

Alex watches Miika light a ring on the gas stove as Agatha starts to speak in Finnish.

Miika puts a pan on the ring and takes a jug of something from the fridge. Alex stands and walks over to the wooden countertop, feigning interest. The jug is full of blood. So, blood pancakes are no exaggeration, he realises.

‘Do you have any idea who?’ Alex says, his voice low. ‘If somebody is killing women up here, do you know who it could be?’

Miika pours blood into the pan and lets it form a flat circle. Alex watches it bubble.

‘You’ve gone from thinking I might have hurt your sister to asking me to help you?’

‘I don’t care how it looks,’ Alex says, truthfully. ‘I just want to find out who did it.’

Miika shakes the pan as the blood turns black.

Alex waits impatiently.

‘Like I said,’ Miika says. ‘They protect their own. They watch out for themselves. Certain people around here, they want to protect their reputations. Some would say, they are the town.’

Alex studies Miika.

And then, out of the blue, it hits him. What Miika had said that jogged his memory.

Lassi’s emails to the bank were left in drafts.

Alex needs to check Vicky’s email drafts. Why the hell hadn’t he done that?

Agatha’s voice is growing louder. Both Miika and Alex look at her. Alex notices how pale she’s turned; her voice is fraught. He can’t understand anything she’s saying but he can hear one word.

Luca.

She hangs up the phone.

‘We need to go,’ she says.

Alex glances out the window. It’s a snowstorm like he’s never seen, a hurricane of white.

‘What about the weather?’ he asks.

‘You can stay,’ she says, already pulling on her coat. ‘Or you can come with me. It’s up to you. I’m leaving now.’

Alex looks at Miika’s pan and grabs his coat from the back of the chair. If she reckons she can get them back in that weather, he trusts her.

He glances at Miika one last time.

He doesn’t think the man has told them everything. But he’s right about one thing. Alex came up here thinking he might be facing his sister’s killer. Now, he’s not so sure.

Outside, the snow is swirling thick and fast. The light of the day, already dull, has been vanquished, but it wouldn’t matter if it was 1 p.m. or 10 p.m., Alex can barely see his hand in front of his face in the blizzard.

‘Are you sure about this?’ he calls to Agatha. She doesn’t reply; he thinks she’s nodding. Either way, Alex is man enough to admit he is utterly terrified as he climbs on the back of the snowmobile.

They take off at speed and soon Agatha is navigating her way back down the mountain. She appears to be doing it by memory because Alex checks over her shoulder a couple of times and can see absolutely nothing.

He finds if he leans his head against her back, he’s sheltered from the worst of the storm. It occurs to him that if they crash and die, the last thing he’ll have done is be within centimetres of this woman’s body and he barely even knows her.

He does know that, whoever this Luca guy is, Alex feels a lot of aggression towards him and that’s a thought that solidifies itself as they hare down the mountain, his spine feeling more bruised every time it’s slammed against the back of his seat.

He was right to trust Agatha, though. She gets them back to in one piece.

They both go into the police station, though it’s clear Agatha has no intention of staying put. Patric is there and he seems to be a calming force. He says something to her in Finnish that instantly soothes Agatha.

‘Will you get him back to the Lodge?’ she asks Patric in English, nodding at Alex. Alex feels like a ten-year-old and is about to point out if he survived the trip down the mountain, he can handle the ten-minute walk to where he’s staying. But it’s not the time. Agatha looks almost faint with worry.

She rushes from the station and Alex is left looking at Patric.

‘We’ll take my car,’ Patric says.

The blizzard seems to have eased a little as they set off. Patric is quiet. When they pull up at the Lodge, Alex turns to him.

‘Is everything okay?’ he asks. ‘With Agatha, I mean.’

On closer examination, Alex can see that Patric, too, looks a little shaken. Maybe that’s why he answers Alex frankly, as opposed to telling him to mind his own business.

‘She’ll be fine,’ he says, ‘once she sees the kids are fine.’

‘What happened?’

Patric sighs.

‘Janic picked them up from school and brought them back to the station. He only planned to stay there a couple of minutes before dropping them over to mine. I often help Agatha. I’ve known her, and those kids, all their lives. But Janic got caught on a call. Another call came in and Emilia answered the phone. She thought she was helping. It was Luca.’

Alex doesn’t reply for a few seconds.

‘He’s the ex, right?’

‘The ex?’ Patric repeats. He turns and looks at Alex.

‘Yeah?’ Alex says, uncertain now. Patric is staring at him, quizzically.

‘The kids’ dad?’ Alex adds.

‘No,’ Patric says, shaking his head. ‘Luca is Agatha’s twin sister.’

Alex blinks, too confused to immediately formulate his next question. He’d made the classic assumption. But Luca is as much a girl’s name as it is a boy’s.

‘Sorry,’ Patric says, catching himself. ‘Like I said before. It’s Agatha’s business.’

Alex doesn’t ask anything more.

He stares out the window at the Lodge, about to get out.

‘Where were you, anyway?’ Patric says. ‘This afternoon.’

‘We went up to see Miika.’

Patric frowns.

‘Hell. Why does nobody listen to me? The man deserves some peace.’

Alex shakes his head.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t an interrogation. And. . .’ Alex hesitates. ‘I believe you. I don’t think Miika had anything to do with my sister. In fact, I’m not sure if he had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance, either.’

Patric raises an eyebrow.

‘That makes two of us in the whole town,’ he says. ‘Three, when Agatha is being sensible.’

Alex shrugs.

‘What convinced you?’ Patric asks.

‘I don’t know. It felt like he was telling the truth. Maybe I’m just easily fooled, but he looked me in the eye and said he hadn’t touched my sister and I. . . I believed him.’

Patric studies him. Alex maintains eye contact.

‘Maybe you might tell that lot in the Lodge the same thing,’ Patric says. ‘Some of the female staff are saying he shouldn’t be allowed to do business down here.’

Alex looks back at the resort, lit up against the dark night. The snow is still falling, but lighter now.

‘They can only trade on rumours when they don’t have the facts,’ he says.

‘Is that aimed at me?’ Patric says. ‘Agatha told me what you think. That maybe there’s a serial killer up here. You’re wrong. Nothing about any of the women who went missing around here ever said serial killer to me. Including your sister’s death. It’s not my case, but in my opinion, whoever killed Vicky knew her. Somebody cleared out her room. Somebody who knew what cabin she was in.’

With that, Patric releases the door lock.

Before Alex gets out, he turns to Patric again.

‘This Luca. Is Agatha safe around her?’

Patric’s lips form a thin line, telling Alex everything he needs to know.

Alex gets out and watches Patric drive off into the night.

Then he looks back at the Lodge. Through the glass windows of the bar, he can see somebody looking out.

It’s Harry, the manager.

Agatha has filled bowls with popcorn and chocolate to accompany an entirely age-inappropriate action movie for the boys in the sitting room. They’re aware something is going on but are happy to play oblivious if it means being spoiled rotten.

She and Emilia sit in the kitchen. Emilia stares blankly at the hot chocolate in front of her.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Agatha says.

Emilia shrugs.

‘It’s okay,’ Agatha says. ‘I’m not angry. You answered the phone in the police station. It should have been safe for you to do that. It shouldn’t have been Luca.’

‘She sounded. . . she sounded good,’ Emilia says.

Agatha considers this before responding. Luca has sounded good before, then come into their lives and wreaked complete havoc.

‘Did she say anything to upset you?’ Agatha asks.

‘No. She just asked how we all were. She said she misses us all.’

Agatha bites her tongue so hard she almost draws blood.

She misses Luca, too. She misses the idea of what Luca should be. Their parents died, one after the other, a heart attack and then cancer. It was the sort of tragedy that should bring siblings, especially twins, together. And with three kids, you need siblings, right? All that work, a sister would be so much help.

But Luca had never been easy to be around.

‘Why did she ring?’ Emilia asks. ‘Does she want to see us again?’

Agatha shakes her head. There’s a knot in her stomach tight enough to hang herself with. If she hadn’t phoned Luca, Luca wouldn’t have phoned back. Agatha has done this. She invited her in.

‘Will she come here anyway?’ Emilia adds.

‘No!’ Agatha says, too quick and too loud. She repeats it, but calmer. More like the adult Emilia needs.

‘I’m not letting her come here to disrupt our lives again,’ Agatha says.

‘Last time was very bad,’ Emilia says, her voice small. ‘I’m sorry. I know she’s your sister. It’s just. . .’

Agatha puts her arms around Emilia and pulls her in until Emilia’s head is tucked under Agatha’s chin.

‘It’s okay, baby,’ she says, fully aware that Emilia is weeks off turning fifteen and is no more a baby than Agatha was at that age. It doesn’t matter. Sometimes kids need to feel cherished.

‘If you want us to see her, we will,’ Emilia says. ‘But I’d rather not. And I don’t think Onni and Olavi—’

‘You are not going to be seeing my sister,’ Agatha says, emphatically.

They’re disturbed by a knock on the door. Emilia tenses, but Agatha strokes her cheek.

‘If Luca turns up here, I’ll deal with her,’ she says.

Emilia looks reassured and that’s all that matters. She doesn’t need to know that Agatha is beyond terrified at the prospect of her sister coming back to , that Luca has always been able to catch Agatha out and can rain destruction just by breathing.

How many times has Agatha wished her sister would just die?

How often has she hated herself for that very thought?

But it’s justified, isn’t it? She’s been grieving her sister for decades. And there’s no worse grief than grief for a loved one who’s still alive.

Janic is at the door, his face full of apology.

‘I’m so sorry, boss,’ he says.

Agatha steps on to the porch, even though it’s freezing, so the kids won’t overhear.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she says. ‘Patric says you were on a call.’

‘Jonas had gone to help some tourists find their cabin. They were drunk, as usual. I turned around and Emilia was. . . all the blood had left her face.’

Agatha shakes her head, again.

‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘Did she try to phone back?’

‘No,’ Janic says, adamant. ‘I took the phone when I realised; I read her the riot act but she hung up. I, eh, hope that’s okay.’

Agatha smiles, thinly. They’re all on her side, she reminds herself. Hers and the kids’. They all know what Luca is capable of. It’s not like years ago, when it would be Agatha’s word against Luca’s. Luca, the party girl, the fun-timer, the one who could cause mayhem then smile innocently and say, Who, me? And everybody would smile and say, Oh, don’t be so serious and sensible all the time, Agatha. Lighten up. Like Luca.

Until Luca kept crossing lines, showing how little she thought of all their good opinions.

‘With everything happening,’ Janic continues, ‘I forgot to tell you why I was on the other phone when it happened.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘I was trying to track down Mary Rosenberg.’

‘You find something?’

‘No. I did a check with passport control. Nothing was missed the first time. She may have used a fake document, but Mary Rosenberg didn’t leave the country on her own passport, I confirmed that much. No, the thing I discovered was about the other one. Hilda Paikkala.’

‘They logged her passport?’ Agatha is confused.

Janic shakes his head. Agatha can tell he’s brimming with excitement at his discovery– he’s practically designing himself a badge that says he’s a proper detective.

‘I was on the phone to the Swedish police,’ he says. ‘And I made a breakthrough.’

The bar in the Lodge is packed to the rafters. Most of the customers have gathered around the huge Christmas tree and the fire. Glasses of mulled wine clink in toasts; the aromas of ginger and cinnamon are strong in the air.

Alex has to think for a moment– what is it, a week until Christmas? Will he be home by then? He can’t leave his parents alone in Yorkshire, one child dead, the other trying to find her killer, and his mother still recovering in hospital, no matter what his mum says.

But he’s no closer to knowing what happened to Vicky.

If this was work, he’d have a clear goal and a deadline, and if the target wasn’t met, the project would be dropped. Losses cut. Alex is ruthless when it comes to walking away from problems in his world. Successful lobbyists know when they’re winning and when they’re losing and it isn’t always in the campaigns expected to go well. Sometimes the most difficult job gets the quickest result, like the Cassidy contract Charlie has allegedly brought home. Alternatively, something that should be a slam-dunk can limp on for an age until either the company that’s hired Alex runs out of resources or TM the German women have returned to their table. Alex isn’t sure which one Harry’s eyes betrayed but it was one of them.

Alex slips off his stool and walks to the top of the bar. The scent of pine needles from the Christmas tree is so strong up here, it tickles his nose.

Florian leaves to bring a drink to a customer’s table but Lassi observes Alex’s approach. When Alex is beside him, Lassi flashes a wide smile, revealing perfect white veneers that are too large for the man’s mouth.

‘It’s Alex, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘How are you doing, son?’

Alex doesn’t get to reply; Lassi keeps talking.

‘I was very sorry to hear about your sister. I’m told she was an excellent worker and got on with everybody. Especially the tourists.’

There’s something in the intonation of the last sentence that makes Alex pause. Is this guy mocking Vicky? Implying something sordid?

Lassi gestures to Alex to take the bar stool beside him. Alex stays standing.

‘Didn’t you know my sister personally?’ he says.

The other man blinks, calmly, his face giving away nothing.

‘I’m sad to say I didn’t. I own a couple of resorts across Lapland, it’s difficult to stay on top of all the staff.’

There it is again. Stay on top of. Alex doesn’t know if he’s being paranoid or if Lassi is deliberately baiting him.

‘That’s not to say she wasn’t a cherished employee,’ Lassi adds. ‘I wouldn’t want you thinking that. I do remember she was a very pretty girl.’

Lassi’s smile is broad and full of teeth.

Alex realises the din in the bar has faded in his ears; it’s just him and this man, and every part of his being is telling him Lassi is a deeply unpleasant character.

‘Let me buy you a drink,’ Lassi says, still smiling.

‘No, thank you,’ Alex says. ‘I already have one.’

‘Well, for you, everything is on the house here. We’re like family in Lodge and Vicky was one of us. I might not have had the pleasure of her company much, but our young folk are important to me. We feel your loss. I hope you’re enjoying your stay in the complimentary cabin?’

Alex feels the hot rush of bile at the back of his throat. Lassi is smiling amiably– and maybe an objective observer would say his words were just ill-chosen, not malicious– but this is not a good man, Alex’s gut tells him. Lassi has done bad things in his life. Alex doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows.

He feels an incredible urge to hit him. He pictures himself letting go, just really letting go and pummelling this man’s face to a bloody pulp.

He has to breathe deeply, clench and unclench his fists. This is the closest he’s come in a long time to losing it, he realises. And he’s tried so hard for so long to control himself. To be a better man.

He can’t waste all that on this guy. All it would take is one punch– all it ever takes is a punch– and Alex would regret it.

Instead, Alex comes close to Lassi, so close he’s breathing on the man’s skin.

‘When I find out who hurt her, I’m going to kill him,’ he says.

Because that, he knows, is true.

Then he forces himself to turn on his heel and walk away, heart beating hard in his chest, tears rising in the corners of his eyes. As he exits the bar, he knows that every single employee is watching him leave and has witnessed the interaction, too.

He’s almost back at his cabin when Niamh catches up with him.

‘Wait,’ she says, gasping for breath. He stops and watches her trudge through the deep new layer of fallen snow until she’s level with him.

‘What were you and Lassi talking about?’ she says.

‘Nothing,’ Alex spits. ‘Why? Is there something I need to know about him?’

Niamh lowers her gaze.

‘You were happy to give me a steer about that Miika guy,’ Alex says. ‘So, if you think you can still be of help, then tell me what you know. You were her friend, weren’t you?’

‘Of course I was her friend.’ Niamh hesitates. ‘But I’m also an employee.’

‘Are you seriously telling me your job means more to you than helping me discover who murdered my sister?’

Niamh hangs her head. Then she shakes it.

‘Come on,’ Alex says. ‘I’m fucking freezing.’

They walk towards his cabin.