Harri Nykanen - Behind God's Back

After the funeral, I offered him a ride, because he had come by taxi. I wanted to get him home as directly as possible.

“No chance, little brother. I feel like stretching my legs.”

He shambled off, reeling like a sailor headed towards a ship waiting at the docks. I played bodyguard and shadowed him. The first signs of autumn were already showing in the cemetery. Some of the flowers were starting to wilt, and a few yellow leaves could be spotted in the birches. The sun was shining from the direction of Kaivopuisto, giving off a pleasant warmth.

Eli stopped and, leaning against a large oak, lowered himself to the grass. He took another swig from his pocket flask and offered it to me. I sat down next to him and wet my whistle on his cognac. Two days’ worth of stubble shadowed Eli’s cheeks, and there were stains on his white shirt.

“Are you wondering what happened to your brother, since he’s looking so much the worse for wear? I’ll tell you. The last time I was at home was the day before yesterday, and I haven’t changed shirts since then. What would Mom say if she could see her son now?”

Mom wouldn’t say anything , I thought. She would have just got a good grip on Eli’s hair, dragged him to the tub and scrubbed him with a hard brush till his skin was raw. Mom had always preferred action to words. The fact of the matter was, though, she was also perfectly capable of tossing barbs so sharp that their target felt like a dartboard. I had put my mind to it, but I couldn’t remember a single tender word ever having passed Mom’s lips.

“I’m not wondering what happened to you. I’m wondering what’s happening to you.”

“Well, what do you think? Let’s hear your analysis, Sherlock Holmes.”

“At least Silberstein didn’t care for your little show.”

“Good. Silberstein can kiss my ass. He’s nothing but a pompous old scarecrow. I’ve had it up to here with his bossing me around. The old fart thinks he’s Moses reincarnated, leading his people to the Promised Land.”

“I’d rather talk about you and Max.”

“Leave poor, dead Max alone. If he fucked up, he took responsibility for it. There’s not a whole lot more you can do, is there?”

“Responsibility for what?”

“I wish I knew. Max is six feet under now. That pretty much put an end to everything, so why don’t we, too?”

“You know I can’t. The investigation is still ongoing.”

“Baby brother. I’m going to tell you to your face that you don’t know what you’ve stuck your big fat nose into. You’re like a flyweight in a heavyweight match. That always ends badly. Here, have a swig.” Eli shoved the flask into my hand again.

I handed the flask back. “The fight’s not over until the last round. Besides, I’m fast on my feet.”

Eli looked at it and said: “Do you want to hear why I’m drunk?”

“Because you feel guilty that you went and screwed Max’s wife, on the sofa in your office no less, and it’s too late to ask for forgiveness.”

The flask paused on its way to Eli’s mouth. “She told you?”

“Who else?”

“Why would Ruth tell you that?”

“Because I asked her.”

Eli glared at me accusingly. “You fucker. Why’d you have to go and ask her about stuff like that?”

“How could I have known what you and Ruth had been up to? I just asked a general question.”

Eli shook his head and finished taking the swig. “You’re right. I feel bad about that too, but right now I’m mostly drinking because I’m so fucking afraid… And because I’m mourning what happened to Max. Max could be annoying and smug, but he had his good sides, too. You don’t know about them. To you Max was just a clown: Maxwell Smart. You’re the one who came up with that name.”

“What are you afraid of?”

An inquisitive squirrel circled down the trunk of a tree and bounded onto the grass. Eli held out his flask to it. The squirrel eyed it in an evaluative manner and twitched restlessly, as if unsure of what he was supposed to do with it.

“Would you care for some Hennessy XO, Mr Squirrel? XO means extra old. The best that money can buy… and there’s more where this came from.”

Eli pulled a flat half-litre bottle of cognac from the pocket of his trench coat.

“No? Squirrels sure are picky these days… When I was a little boy, squirrels ate whatever they could get their hands on. Those were the days of the post-war shortage, though… What am I afraid of? I can’t tell you, otherwise you’ll be afraid, too.”

“Try me.”

“No way. I don’t want to get you mixed up in anything, even though you seem to be getting me mixed up in just about everything. You are my baby brother, after all, despite the fact that you’re a fucking cop and you have the soul of a boy scout.”

“You’ve already mixed me up in whatever it is, whether you like it or not.”

Eli jabbed me in the ribs with an outstretched finger. “I don’t have anything to do with that… Max did, unfortunately. He paid a high price for it, the highest imaginable, even though I warned him a lot of times. Why the fuck did he have to be so cocky?”

“Are you talking about Baltic Invest?”

Eli grunted, but didn’t answer. “You cops are always so fucking nosey. Why? Tell me why. Is it something you’re born with?”

I knew from experience that Eli could be hard to manage and irritating when he was drunk, so I proceeded with caution. He was already so agitated that he was saying whatever popped into his head.

“Do you know who killed Jacobson?”

“You guys are the ones who should know.”

“If I tell you that we do know, what would you say to that?”

“Ari. Ever since we were kids you thought you were smarter than me, but you’re not.”

Eli leant back against the oak’s rough surface and closed his eyes.

Slightly modifying the truth, I said: “We know who killed him. The killer is a criminal named Nurmio, who now goes by Leo Meir. He works for Baltic Invest. He needed Jacobson’s help and tried to blackmail him. Jacobson refused, which is why he was killed. I’m sure that Nurmio or someone else was also blackmailing Max.”

Eli kept one eye closed, and for a second I thought he had passed out. He eventually continued: “So you’re sure. Well, go on then.”

“We believe that Nurmio is in Finland to kill Haim Levi, Israel’s new Minister of Justice, who has ordered the Hararin and Jakov investigations reopened. You know that Levi is coming to Finland in a few days.”

Eli cracked open both eyes warily, as if the light pained him.

“Have you noticed that there are lots of gorgeous women in Tel Aviv? Too many. Fuck! And you think you’re being careful,” Eli said angrily. He took a long swig from the bottle.

“I already know that you and Max were being blackmailed about women.”

“It’s thousands of miles away. For once you think you can have a little fun without someone you know coming out of the woodwork right when you’re feeling up a blonde.”

Eli’s words would have amused me if Max weren’t dead and he wasn’t in such bad shape.

“There were no blondes in Tel Aviv, even though I said there were… no, no one was using women to blackmail me, because my wife doesn’t care, believe it or not. Max, on the other hand, thought that his wife never noticed anything, but she noticed everything. Ruth told me that she knew about Max’s flings, but didn’t want to make a big deal about them. Pretty civilized… Let’s not make a fuss out of this. But Max went all soft because he was afraid the photos would be sent to Silberstein and the rest of the conclave and they’d be posted online and he’d be a laughing stock. He was jiggling like a bowl full of Jell-O.”