Found Wanting

FIFTY-ONE

Forty-eight hours had vanished into a black hole. They existed as a memory, but one too dark and dense for Eusden to access: a singularity in more ways than one, since being alive confounded his last recollected expectation.

He had been lucky, according to the quietly spoken doctor who succeeded the nurses who were the first to greet him when he resumed meaningful engagement with the world. He had lost consciousness in the car and, thanks to the angle it was resting at, had slumped forward across the steering-wheel, setting off the horn again. The noise had failed to rouse him, but, in the absence of much other noise, had attracted the attention of an engineer repairing a power line half a kilometre away, who had recognized it for what it was. Eusden had been brought to the Central Hospital in Jyväskylä, the regional capital, where he now was, with smashed ankle reset and broken ribs realigned, wounds cleaned and stitched, lost blood replaced, vital organs checked. Neither of the bullets had lodged in his body or caused irreparable damage. And the tube in his chest denoted nothing more sinister than a minor pneumothorax in his right lung, caused by one of the fractured ribs. The doctor’s prognosis was that he should make a full recovery, though not necessarily a speedy one. ‘Your body has been through a lot, Mr Eusden. It will tell you how long it needs to get over it.’

The doctor’s tone altered when he went on to inform him of the police’s interest in his condition. There was an officer sitting outside the room whose superior was anxious to talk to Eusden at the earliest opportunity. ‘I will have to inform him that in my opinion you are now well enough to be questioned.’

That seemed undeniable, though Eusden soon had cause to doubt it. ‘We have the media in the car park,’ the doctor added. ‘The death of Tolmar Aksden…in these circumstances… is very big news.’ Then he said something which Eusden had to ask him to repeat and even then could not quite believe he had heard, something so joyously unexpected and wholly astounding that he thought it must be a delusion on his part, until the doctor assured him it was not. ‘It has been difficult for Ms Madsen to come to the hospital. The reporters and photographers will not leave her alone.’

Pernille was not dead. The doctor, of course, did not know why Eusden was so overwhelmed by his reference to her. Nor was he able to answer the seemingly obtuse question, ‘How can she be alive?’ The simple fact, self-evident to him, was that she was. And she was just as anxious to see Eusden as Inspector Ahlroos.

It was Ahlroos, however, who arrived first. A slightly built, dark-haired man with a professionally guarded expression and the apparent ability never to blink, he was accompanied by a burly junior who prowled round the room and did a lot of gum-chewing and window-gazing while his boss asked the questions. And he had a lot of questions to ask.

The inspector might have anticipated caution or evasion from his interviewee. It was clear to Eusden that he must be an actual or potential murder suspect. He supposed the most prudent course of action would be to say nothing at all until he had taken legal advice. As it was, however, he was so euphoric at the news that Pernille was not dead that he told Ahlroos everything he wanted to know and probably more, which even so was less than the whole and multi-faceted truth. All he sought in return was an answer to the question he had put to the doctor in vain: ‘How can she be alive?’

His persistence eventually won him an explanation of sorts. ‘Ms Madsen was never at the house in Munkkiniemi, Mr Eusden. She told us she let Lars Aksden take her place. He was killed in the explosion. For why they swapped, you must ask her.’

Eusden’s chance to do that came a couple of hours later. When Pernille entered the room, she stopped in the doorway and they smiled disbelievingly at each other. Then she walked across and kissed him on the cheek and sat down on the chair beside the bed. She was dressed in the same black outfit she had worn when they first met in Stockholm. She looked tired and stressed – and wonderfully alive.

‘I thought you’d run away,’ she said, still smiling at him.

‘And I thought you were dead.’

‘I’m happy we were both wrong.’

‘The police said Lars took your place.’

‘Someone inside Mjollnir tipped him off about what was happening. He refused to tell me who it was and now I suppose we may never know. He saw his chance to find out what the family secret really was and I was so… disappointed…you’d quit on me I… didn’t try to talk him out of it. We met halfway to Koskinen’s house. I got out of the car and he got in. Matalainen had no choice about going along with it. There wasn’t time for him to argue. They drove away – to their deaths. When I heard about the explosion, I realized Tolmar had doublecrossed us – and killed his brother by mistake in the process. I moved to a different hotel so no one would know where I was and tried to decide what to do. In the end, I went to the police. They didn’t believe me, of course. Then the news came from here that Tolmar and Arto Falenius and another man had been found dead – and that you were in hospital. It was the last news I was expecting.’

‘The Opposition sent a hit man after Tolmar, who shot Falenius by mistake. Then Tolmar shot the hit man. And then…’ Eusden searched Pernille’s face for some clue to what she thought he had done. ‘It was him or me.’

‘I’m glad it wasn’t you.’

‘I don’t suppose Michael will be. How is he?’

‘Not good. He’s lost his uncle as well as his father. He’s…’ She shrugged. ‘You can imagine.’

‘I’m trying to.’

‘I left him in Helsinki with Elsa.’

‘Thanks for coming to see me. It… can’t have been easy to get away.’

‘I’ve been several times.’

‘So I gather. And you’ve had to fend off reporters to do it, apparently.’

‘I can handle them. I’m more worried about the police. What did they want to know?’

‘Everything. And that’s what I told them. Now I should tell you everything as well. About what happened by the lake.’

‘It can wait. The doctor says you need plenty of rest. You also need a lawyer. I can help with that.’

‘I’m just going to keep on telling the truth, Pernille. It’s about all I feel capable of doing.’

‘They’ve arrested Erik Lund.’

‘Good.’

‘And poor Osmo Koskinen. But I expect they’ll let him go soon. I think it’s going to be all right. But still you should have a lawyer.’

‘OK. If you say so.’

A silence fell briefly between them, strangely lacking in awkwardness. Then Pernille said, ‘I met your American friend, Regina Celeste, in Helsinki. She asked me to tell you that Werner Straub has turned up there.’

‘He’s wasting his time. Sooner or later, he’ll realize that and go home.’

‘She also asked me to tell you that you owe her an apology.’

‘I seem to owe quite a lot of people one of those.’

Another fleeting silence was broken this time by Eusden.

‘I’m sorry about Lars, Pernille. He seemed a decent man.’

‘He was. I never should have let him go… instead of me.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

She sighed. ‘It’s not going to be easy… to find a way through this. Michael is so angry. He doesn’t believe what I’ve told him about his father. He’ll have to in the end. But then…’

‘Maybe I can help.’ Eusden reached out towards her and she took his hand.

‘Maybe we can help each other,’ she said softly.

Lying in bed that night, gazing up at the shadows on the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the hospital around him, Eusden wondered if he and Pernille really were alive, or if this frailly hopeful future that seemed now to be possible was merely a consoling fantasy devised by his brain to render the process of freezing to death in a Finnish forest more tolerable. Maybe it was, he decided. But as consolations went, it was mightily effective. There was nothing to be gained by fighting against it. Time would tell whether it was real or not. He closed his eyes. And the darkness received him like a loyal friend.