James Thompson - Lucifer's tears

“Ivan Filippov is a good acquaintance of mine, and he’s well connected in the business world. This sounds open-and-shut, but you’re given to leaps of imagination. Close the case fast. And defer to Filippov whenever possible.”

I say nothing.

“I’ve got a vicious hangover and I’m not in the mood to be nice. Let me make this clear. You solved the Sufia Elmi case, but it dragged on too long and turned into a fiasco. Not this time.”

Fuck Jyri. “Filippov cites you as his alibi. Care to confirm it?”

“Confirmed. He left the party around one. I see no need to relate his whereabouts of last night to the press. I and some others would prefer to be distanced from the investigation. Somehow, the media would invent a conspiracy theory and create a scandal.”

Yes, they would. “I don’t intend to handle the media at all. I’ll leave it to Arto and the police PR folks.”

“Good thinking. Media relations isn’t your strong suit. And the discussion we had last night about Arvid Lahtinen. You on that yet?”

“I’ve been working for twenty hours straight. Of course I’m not on it yet.”

“You can sleep when you’re dead. Get on it.” He rings off.

I’ve always felt that Jyri is excellent at his job but a real fuckwad as a human being. Every interaction I have with him confirms it. I’ll handle both the investigation and Arvid as I see fit.

We drop Pastor Oksanen off at his house and drive back to the police garage. I tell Milo I want him to get some sleep, ask him to look at the tape Filippov gave him, check out evidence from forensics and write the initial report in the morning.

It’s two thirty P.M. I don’t have much time, but want to check on Kate. We thought her pregnancy was going well, but found out a couple weeks ago that she’s suffering from hypertension and preeclampsia. Placental abruption is a danger, and with it, a risk of maternal mortality. I could lose not only another child but Kate along with her. It scares the shit out of me.

I find a parking space a couple blocks from our apartment on Vaasankatu and walk the rest of the distance home. The snow has stopped, the wind died down. The street is quiet. A white snowscape, lovely and hushed.

Vaasankatu, here in the district of Kallio, is nicknamed Puukkobulevardi -Hunting Knife Boulevard. Years ago, this was a dangerous place, and it still has a bad reputation, although largely undeserved these days. The area has its bars and drunks, some Thai massage parlors, but many of them were recently shut down. Prostitution in itself isn’t a crime, but various moralistic lobbies raised a stink, so the police cited illegal residency by workers, pimping-which is a crime-whatever they could come up with, to get rid of the parlors and stop the debate. The street is fairly gentrified now, many residents are upscale professionals.

Kate had misgivings about moving to Kallio, but it’s the only area in Helsinki that, to my mind, has a feeling of genuine community. And besides, even in this modest area, our nine-hundred-and ninety-square-foot apartment, which I have to admit is gorgeous, cost us a cool three hundred and fifty thousand euros. A similar place in another part of town could run a million and a half. As general manager of Kamp, Helsinki’s only five-star hotel, Kate earns good money, and for a cop, I make a fair wage as an inspector, but not enough for a seven-figure apartment. In the north, a million and a half would buy us a palace. Helsinki is one of the most expensive cities on the planet.

I find Kate lying on the couch, reading a book about childrearing. I give her a kiss hello. She sits up, rubs her back. At this late stage of her pregnancy, she’s having a hard time staying comfortable. “I can’t wait to get this child out of me,” she says.

I sit beside her, put an arm around her. She looks at me, scrutinizing. “I don’t know how you can function without sleep.”

It’s not like I have a choice. “It doesn’t bother me much.”

“How is your headache?” she asks.

“It’s been worse.”

“Your eyes wander when it’s bad,” she says, “and they’re doing it now. You need to go to the doctor again.”

“There’s no point. The stuff she gave me makes me too dopey. I won’t take it.”

“Then go see your brother. He’ll help you.”

Jari is a neurologist here in Helsinki. I haven’t seen him since we moved. I guess it’s about time to pay him a visit, and anyway, Kate isn’t going to let me wriggle out of it. I hate doctors. They’ll put me through a series of tests. I don’t want to take them, just to find out they don’t know what’s wrong with me. “I’ll call Jari,” I say. “Have you given any more thought to staying home with the baby?”

She snuggles up close, I think trying to soften her answer. “I’ve been on maternity leave for two weeks already, and I just don’t think it’s for me. And besides, I don’t think it’s fair to my employer.”

This is a source of contention between us. “Kate, I’m sorry to put it this way, but fuck your employer. Nine months of leave after the baby is born is your right as a mother in Finland.”

“When Hotel Kamp hired me, they entrusted me with a great deal of responsibility. If I stay home for nine months, I’ll feel like I’m betraying a trust.”

It’s true that employers get pissed off when they lose workers to pregnancy, and sometimes don’t want to give young women jobs, because they’re considered investment risks. Pregnant women receive full salaries from employers for the first three months of leave.

“You should realize,” I say, “that in this country, a lot of people feel that not spending that time at home is betraying a child’s trust.”

I could dig deeper, explain the unwritten societal rules about what good mothers are expected to do. Good mothers breast-feed, or their competency as mothers will be called into question. Good mothers stay at home for two or three years, that time subsidized by the government. If they don’t do these things, whispers and innuendo about whether they deserve the gift of a child will come from other mothers, whose lives revolve around living up to these conventions. It’s ridiculous and unfair.

She’s getting pissed off. “You want me to sit at home because of what people might think? Kari, I thought you had more substance than that.”

“I don’t care what people think, but it pays to be aware of cultural perceptions. They also affect your career. I want you to stay home with our daughter because I believe it’s the best thing for her.”

“So now I’m a bad mother.”

I came home to spend some time with Kate and I’m wrecking it. Sometimes it’s hard to think, because of the headache, and it causes me to make blunders. I’ve hurt her feelings. It shows on her face. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. You’re going to be a wonderful mother.”

She goes quiet for a moment. I wonder if she’s thinking about our dead twins right now. “Maybe you should take fatherhood leave and stay home with the baby yourself. You have all of the same so-called rights as me. And I don’t think you like your job anyway.”

She’s said this before, and she’s right, I’m less than enamored with my job at the moment. The truth is that I would like to stay home with our child, but my migraines have gotten so bad that I’m afraid I’m not capable of being her full-time caregiver. I don’t want Kate to know this. It would only worry her. I change the subject. “I’m looking forward to meeting your brother and sister tonight.”

This is a half-truth. I don’t want to be saddled with them for weeks. I’d like to meet them, but under different circumstances. Maybe for dinner and a chat, and then we go our separate ways. But Kate needs this. She and her siblings had it rough growing up. It made them closer than most brothers and sisters, and they’ve been apart for too long.