Read Online Light in a Dark House by Jan Costin Wagner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jan Costin Wagner
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football.
Saara looked at the floor and didn’t move at all. She was breathing very fast.
Then we played football. I chased every ball as if I was running for my life. In the end Risto praised me and clapped me on the shoulder, and then he put his hand on the back of my neck. Exerting pressure. It almost hurt. I can still feel it now, although it was quite a while ago, and then I got on my bike and went home.
Lauri rang, but I don’t want to see him at the moment.
I’m going to have to cry now, I don’t know exactly why.
22
KIMMO JOENTAA WOKE early in the morning with a headache and thinking of Sanna, who used to make the pain better. She would massage his head for hours when he woke up at night and woke her too, because the tablets hadn’t worked and the pain was unbearable.
That had been when he first joined the Turku police force and wasn’t getting on with the police chief of the time, Ketola. With Ketola’s aggressive and remote stance.
It was a long time since he’d had one of those severe headaches, and he wondered for a while why. Maybe it was because he now thought of Ketola as a friend whom he hadn’t seen for a long time. Or maybe it was because Sanna was no longer alive, so his head had burst apart long ago. As a matter of course and without his noticing it.
So the headaches had come back – look at it that way, and everything was all right. His tongue felt coated and dry, there was football on the TV screen, a series of goals being scored. The morning sun stood bright and clear over the lake outside.
He took last night’s leftovers into the kitchen, put everything on the counter top next to the sink, went back into the living room, turned off the TV and got out his laptop. Sitting on the sofa, he logged in and wrote a message to [email protected] . He decided not to spend long thinking about the right words, because he had a feeling that no words would be right anyway. He quickly typed:
Dear Larissa,
I hope you’re well. Please get in touch. I miss you, and I’m worried because you left the giraffe here. It’s lying in the grass under the apple tree, and it will stay there until you come back.
Love from
Kimmo
He sent the message, took two painkillers, showered and thought of Sanna as he rubbed his scalp dry.
He switched the light on before he went out.
23
ONCE AGAIN MARKO Westerberg was standing far above the ground of Helsinki, in a penthouse with a roof terrace, thinking that in all probability Kalevi Forsman the software adviser had been a lonely man.
The apartment lay bright and empty in the sunlight. Empty except for a narrow bed, a silver TV set, a scarlet sofa and an elaborately equipped computer terminal, as well as a designer kitchen, and a broad, varnished wooden table in the middle of the living room.
‘No chairs,’ Seppo had remarked perceptively.
He was right, there was a distinct shortage of chairs. And of everything else that could have made the apartment look inviting. A broad, long table just right for a pleasant evening with friends, but no chairs. Cream for coffee and several boxes of chocolates in the fridge, along with a few slices of ham past their use-by date.
In daylight the whole place looked even more peculiar than the evening before, but Seppo, not to be deterred, kept informing him, unasked, that this was the way such people lived nowadays.
‘Such people?’ asked Westerberg.
‘Software advisers. IT nerds. Too busy earning money to do any living.’
‘Forsman had debts,’ said Westerberg.
‘That doesn’t make it any different,’ said Seppo.
Westerberg sat down on the only chair, the one at the computer terminal, and picked up the photograph of Kalevi Forsman again. The photo on his company’s home page. Well-pressed suit, neatly arranged tie, and a smile that Westerberg thought would last only fractions of a second after the camera flash went off.
‘Politician,’ said Seppo.
‘Hmm?’
‘Should have been a politician,’ said
Saara looked at the floor and didn’t move at all. She was breathing very fast.
Then we played football. I chased every ball as if I was running for my life. In the end Risto praised me and clapped me on the shoulder, and then he put his hand on the back of my neck. Exerting pressure. It almost hurt. I can still feel it now, although it was quite a while ago, and then I got on my bike and went home.
Lauri rang, but I don’t want to see him at the moment.
I’m going to have to cry now, I don’t know exactly why.
22
KIMMO JOENTAA WOKE early in the morning with a headache and thinking of Sanna, who used to make the pain better. She would massage his head for hours when he woke up at night and woke her too, because the tablets hadn’t worked and the pain was unbearable.
That had been when he first joined the Turku police force and wasn’t getting on with the police chief of the time, Ketola. With Ketola’s aggressive and remote stance.
It was a long time since he’d had one of those severe headaches, and he wondered for a while why. Maybe it was because he now thought of Ketola as a friend whom he hadn’t seen for a long time. Or maybe it was because Sanna was no longer alive, so his head had burst apart long ago. As a matter of course and without his noticing it.
So the headaches had come back – look at it that way, and everything was all right. His tongue felt coated and dry, there was football on the TV screen, a series of goals being scored. The morning sun stood bright and clear over the lake outside.
He took last night’s leftovers into the kitchen, put everything on the counter top next to the sink, went back into the living room, turned off the TV and got out his laptop. Sitting on the sofa, he logged in and wrote a message to [email protected] . He decided not to spend long thinking about the right words, because he had a feeling that no words would be right anyway. He quickly typed:
Dear Larissa,
I hope you’re well. Please get in touch. I miss you, and I’m worried because you left the giraffe here. It’s lying in the grass under the apple tree, and it will stay there until you come back.
Love from
Kimmo
He sent the message, took two painkillers, showered and thought of Sanna as he rubbed his scalp dry.
He switched the light on before he went out.
23
ONCE AGAIN MARKO Westerberg was standing far above the ground of Helsinki, in a penthouse with a roof terrace, thinking that in all probability Kalevi Forsman the software adviser had been a lonely man.
The apartment lay bright and empty in the sunlight. Empty except for a narrow bed, a silver TV set, a scarlet sofa and an elaborately equipped computer terminal, as well as a designer kitchen, and a broad, varnished wooden table in the middle of the living room.
‘No chairs,’ Seppo had remarked perceptively.
He was right, there was a distinct shortage of chairs. And of everything else that could have made the apartment look inviting. A broad, long table just right for a pleasant evening with friends, but no chairs. Cream for coffee and several boxes of chocolates in the fridge, along with a few slices of ham past their use-by date.
In daylight the whole place looked even more peculiar than the evening before, but Seppo, not to be deterred, kept informing him, unasked, that this was the way such people lived nowadays.
‘Such people?’ asked Westerberg.
‘Software advisers. IT nerds. Too busy earning money to do any living.’
‘Forsman had debts,’ said Westerberg.
‘That doesn’t make it any different,’ said Seppo.
Westerberg sat down on the only chair, the one at the computer terminal, and picked up the photograph of Kalevi Forsman again. The photo on his company’s home page. Well-pressed suit, neatly arranged tie, and a smile that Westerberg thought would last only fractions of a second after the camera flash went off.
‘Politician,’ said Seppo.
‘Hmm?’
‘Should have been a politician,’ said
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