James Thompson - Lucifer's tears

He seems fascinated by the event. “What’s your interest?” I ask.

“It’s clear that the ship was loaded with secretly sold nukes, their destination unknown. High-level cover-ups always interest me.”

The hearse arrives and stops our conversation. I stay with Arvid while he sees Ritva out of the house.

“You better go,” he says. “With this weather, you won’t make your appointment with that murderous Russian bastard if you don’t.”

Right now, the Filippov case doesn’t seem so important to me. “Fuck that Russian bastard. I can stay here with you for a while. Or if you want, come and spend the night with me and Kate. The house is a little full at the moment, but we’ll make room.”

He pats my back. “Thank you, son, but no. This old man needs to be alone for a while.”

I would, too. I leave him to his memories and his grief.

I drive back to Helsinki at a crawl. The migraine snaps on sudden and bad. The white of the snow hurts my eyes. It’s hard to see. I think about poor Arvid, alone after all those years with Ritva. I picture her pretty, dead face. Then a procession of dead faces from childhood forward.

My sister, Suvi, her panicked dying eyes looking up at me through a sheet of ice on a frozen lake. A slew of murder victims from over the course of my career as a policeman stare at me, judging. Then Sufia Elmi, but she can’t look at me because her eyes are gouged out. My ex-wife, Heli, who can’t look at me because her eyes are burned out. My ex-sergeant, Valtteri, his eyes fishdead, his brain blown out. His son, Heikki, hanging from a basement rafter, his eyes bugged out. Sufia’s father in flames, eyes open wide and angry. Iisa Filippov, if it is Iisa, her face destroyed by cigarette burns and lashings, glares at me with her one remaining eye and demands justice. Legion, his eyes at peace. I see starving and helpless prisoners of war looking up from inside a bomb crater, their eyes imploring. Arvid and my grandpa machine-gun them to death, and a tractor covers the pit with dirt.

My cell phone rings and breaks my unholy reverie. It’s Milo. I don’t want to answer but do it anyway. “Guess where I am,” he says.

“No guessing games today. Where are you?”

“I’m at Meilahti hospital. Guess why.”

My mood is foul. “What the fuck did I just say?”

“Jesus, don’t have a cow. Sulo Polvinen’s father took matters into his own hands. He came here and stabbed the bouncers to death in their hospital beds.”

I can hear the glee in Milo’s voice.

“He plugged them in their chests with a hunting knife and didn’t even try to escape, just sat down in a chair after he killed the second one and waited to be arrested. He confessed to the attack at the Silver Dollar, too.”

“He didn’t attack them at the club. Sulo did. I’m sure of it. He confessed to keep Sulo out of prison so he wouldn’t lose a second son.”

“So? Taisto Polvinen got some justice, after all.”

I resist the urge to scream at Milo. “Has it occurred to you that Sulo has now lost his brother and his father? His mother lost a son and a husband. He’s going to rot in a cell for ten years for avenging his child.”

Remorse isn’t Milo’s strong suit. “Well, no, I hadn’t really thought about it, but still…”

I hang up on him, can’t stand to listen to unadulterated stupidity at the moment. I’m ten minutes away from downtown Helsinki and Hotel Kamp, and I still don’t have a fucking clue how I’m going to deal with Ivan Filippov.

Despite the cold and snow, Kamp’s restaurant is bustling. The hotel’s guests, mostly foreign businesspeople, need a place to eat and drink, and it’s easier to do it here than to go out in the cold and snow. Filippov and Linda sit side by side at a window table, he on the inside, she next to the glass. The table next to them is reserved and so unoccupied for the moment. I take a seat across from Filippov. They’re noshing on caviar and drinking Dom Perignon.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again,” Linda says. “Ivan, did I tell you how charming the inspector is?”

“You mentioned it.” Filippov gestures toward the champagne. “Inspector, would you care for a glass? Since dinner is on you, we thought it best to show no restraint.”

“No, thank you,” I say.

A waiter takes my drink order. I take kossu and beer.

“So,” Filippov says, “you have a proposition for me. What is it?”

I aim for middle ground, just to see if it will work. Jyri was right, I should promise him anything he wants to buy time, but if I seem soft, he’ll smell the lie.

“The murder goes unsolved,” I say. “You and Linda walk. You get the contracts you felt you were promised. We get the videos.”

The waiter brings my drinks, and a dozen raw oysters for Filippov and Linda. He takes a break from speaking to chow down, slurps an oyster, dabs his mouth with a linen napkin. “Unacceptable. My wife was brutally murdered. The culprit is Rein Saar. He has to serve a lengthy prison sentence.”

Strike one. Filippov is negotiating from a position of strength. He won’t compromise.

“Be reasonable,” I say. “You and Linda murdered your wife, but you’ll go unpunished, and the matter will be forgotten. Saar is innocent. Leave him be.”

He sticks a finger in my face. “You’re wrong. Saar is guilty. He fucked my wife for two years.” He raises his voice. “My wife! Mine! He deserves prison. He deserves worse. He’s getting off easy.”

Filippov pauses, slides another oyster down his throat. “As you pointed out last night,” he says, “my wife was a miserable slut. I can’t punish everyone who fucked my wife, but I can punish him. If he and others like him had respected my marriage and kept their hands off my wife, Iisa would still be alive, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The value of punishing Saar is symbolic to me. His incarceration is nonnegotiable.”

I have to admit, he makes an extreme but compelling argument. I look at Linda, hoping for help, but she only winks at me and chases an oyster with champagne.

The waiter brings their main courses. We halt our conversation while he sets their plates in front of them. Arvid walks in. My bewilderment mounts. The waiter leaves.

Arvid walks over to the table and stands beside Filippov.

“How did you get here?” I ask Arvid.

“By taxi. Cost me two hundred euros. Is this that Russian bastard?” he asks.

“That’s him. What are you doing here?”

He pulls a chair over from the next table and sits next to Filippov. Arvid has on a long overcoat. He shoots the sleeves and shows us the little Sauer suicide pistol that sat on the mantel over his fireplace, only now it has a silencer attached to it. He pulls his sleeve down again to hide it, and jams it against Filippov’s ribs. “As I said earlier,” Arvid says, “fixing our problems.”

Filippov blinks and licks his lips, confused. He knows something has gone wrong. I do, too, but haven’t the vaguest idea what it is.

“Old man,” Filippov says, “who the hell are you and what do you want?”

“Admit that you killed your wife,” Arvid says.

Filippov shrugs his shoulders. “Okay, I admit it.”

“Don’t move a goddamned muscle,” Arvid says.

Filippov senses that Arvid isn’t fucking around. He sits stockupright in his chair and stares straight ahead.

Arvid takes a wineglass from the table with his left hand, stands up, and with his right hand presses the pistol against the back of Filippov’s head. Low, where it meets his neck. Arvid smashes the wineglass on the floor and pulls the trigger, simultaneous. He shoots Filippov at the junction of his brain and brain stem, in the same way that Milo shot Legion. It’s obvious that Arvid has done this many times before. Arvid pockets his gun and holds Filippov up so he doesn’t pitch forward onto the table.