Evil Things Read online

  Katja Ivar grew up in Russia and the US. She travelled the world extensively, from Almaty to Ushuaia, from Karelia to Kyushu, before finally settling in Paris, where she lives with her husband and three children. She received a BA in Linguistics and a master’s degree in Contemporary History from Sorbonne University. Evil Things is her debut novel.

  EVIL THINGS

  Katja Ivar

  BITTER LEMON PRESS

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Bitter Lemon Press, 47 Wilmington Square, London WC1X 0ET

  © Katja Ivar, 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

  The moral right of Katja Ivar has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978–1–912242–09-2

  eBook ISBN 978–1–912242–10-8

  Typeset by Tetragon

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR40 4YY

  To Marguerite

  “Hell is empty, / And all the devils are here.”

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  The Tempest, Act I, Scene ii

  Content

  Introduction

  MONDAY 13 OCTOBER 1952

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  TUESDAY 14 OCTOBER

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  WEDNESDAY 15 OCTOBER

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  FRIDAY 17 OCTOBER

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  SATURDAY 18 OCTOBER

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  MONDAY 20 OCTOBER

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  TUESDAY 21 OCTOBER

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  It was only at the time of the Russian Revolution, after almost a thousand years of foreign rule, that Finland declared itself an independent nation. Gone were the days when it was ruled by the Russian tsars; nor was it Swedish Österland any longer. Finland had a lot on its plate – establishing democracy, rebuilding its economy and consolidating its national identity – but its biggest issue was the management of the country’s foreign relations. After all, Finland had the questionable privilege of having the longest frontier with the Soviet Union, while St Petersburg, the epicentre of the Russian Revolution, lay just eighteen miles from the Finnish border. That fact alone made Finland the object of close attention from the Soviet bear – and from the Western civilization that saw it as its weak link. Thus began for Finland a balancing act of guarding its independence in the shadow of its terrifying neighbour.

  The emancipation of Finland coincided with the emancipation of its women. With men at war, it was Finnish women who fought to rebuild the country, engaging in a number of previously unheard-of activities: driving, factory work … and policing – another endeavour that was not to everyone’s taste, least of all those who, in the 1950s, still viewed female officers as lesser beings who could only be trusted with body searches on female suspects and taking care of children brought into custody. Undeterred, the female police officers took advantage of their country’s emancipation to think for themselves. Aloud.

  Evil Things takes place in Finnish Lapland in 1952.

  MONDAY 13 OCTOBER 1952

  1

  She had to squint hard to see where the village was. Just a tiny speck of grey on the map, buried deep in the crevices of that ancient, frozen land. Surrounded by marshes and hills bristling with low, crooked shrubs typical of the permafrost. Inhabited mostly by Skolt Sami, indigenous people who lived off the land, hunting and fishing. Not exactly a tourist destination.

  She must have been out of her mind to have insisted on going there. And to do what? To solve a crime that her boss didn’t even believe was one.

  “It sounds just like an accident to me,” Chief Inspector Eklund said, his full lips pursed.

  He was standing next to her by the map that hung on the wall of his newly refurbished, obsessively clean office that reeked inexplicably of fish oil.

  “It could be a crime,” said Hella. She was careful not to sound too sure, too forceful. Eklund didn’t like her bossy attitude, as he called it, and for better or worse she was stuck with Eklund.

  “An old man, practically a recluse, goes missing from his home. Not a crime. He probably got lost in the forest, or drowned in a marsh. Or went over the Soviet border like they all do, got drunk on local Kremlevskaya and forgot who he even was. There’s nothing to it.”

  “He was born in that forest. He couldn’t possibly have got lost. And I don’t believe he went binge-drinking with the Soviets either. He left a young child behind. His grandson.”

  “Oh, that’s why!” Eklund lifted an accusatory finger. “He left a child behind! Of course, that immediately makes you think he was the victim of a crime. Mind you, I understand why you’d react like this, I really do, but that doesn’t make his disappearance a crime. Accidents happen. All the time. And that old man probably wasn’t the doting grandpa you imagine.”

  Lennart Eklund went back to his desk and dropped into his brand-new swivel chair, making it squeak under his weight. For him, this conversation was over. Not for Hella. She went on, her voice loud and clear, all her prudent resolutions forgotten.

  “So this priest’s wife, Mrs Waltari, writes to the police saying that an old man has gone missing, leaving a child behind, that it’s been six days since he was last seen, that she’s worried, and you’re telling me we do nothing? We just file her letter in one of our neat archive boxes and forget about it?”

  Eklund looked up at her, puzzled. “Police work isn’t about passion. It isn’t about people being worried. It’s about doing what is good – what is useful – efficient. It’s up to us to decide what’s best for this community. Which cases warrant our involvement, and which do not.”

  “Well, I guess we should just throw it away, then,” said Hella. “The letter, I mean. Destroy the evidence. Because if there really has been a crime, and we’ve been told about it but haven’t solved it, it will ruin our hundred per cent record.”

  Her boss shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and she knew she had made her point. For Chief Inspector Eklund, police work held little interest, but he had a passion for neatness and efficiency. Under his direc
tion, the Ivalo police district currently boasted the best crime resolution rate in the country, and even if the crimes they solved consisted only of petty thefts at the timber factory and the odd case of a poisoned dog, it didn’t matter. Only the numbers mattered to him.

  And now Eklund was hesitating, his plump hands playing with a paper clip, his pale blue eyes fixed on something just above her left shoulder.

  “We can write back to Mrs Waltari, explaining that her concern has been noted but that at this time of the year the risk of the police being caught up in a snowfall is just too great. We can tell her we’ll return to our investigation, if there is an investigation, in May next year, when the snow starts to melt and … at least, there could be something tangible …”

  His voice trailed off, but she understood exactly what he was getting at.

  “And if there is a body, we just find it when the spring comes?” she snapped. “Really? That is, unless that body has been eaten by wolves or bears, in which case we can still carry on pretending there was no crime?” Unable to stop, she added, rather viciously: “Is that your golden standard of police work?Just ignoring cases when the weather conditions are too harsh?”

  She had gone too far. Even a placid man like Lennart Eklund couldn’t take it any longer. She half expected him to throw her out of his office, or lecture her on the virtues of subordination, but what he said hit her far harder.

  “Why are you pushing this, my dear? You’re a woman. You can’t go out there alone, can you? And both Inspector Ranta and I are very busy right now. Take my advice, forget about it. I’m not talking to you as your superior, but as an older, wiser friend. There’s that ball next week everyone is talking about. Put on a dress if you have one, and go. Or you can borrow a shawl and some make-up from Esmeralda. Her dresses would probably be a bit large in the chest for you, but I’m sure we could find you something …” He paused, thinking, his gaze summing up her body. “Kukoyakka from the timber factory seems to quite like you. Maybe he just has a thing for women who are” – Eklund hesitated, in search of a word that would describe her best, then brightened as he found it – “angular.”

  Hella winced. Angular. For once, he was bang on target.

  And now he was wagging his fat index finger at her, a Victorian father admonishing his irrational daughter, his problem child. “You’d better not miss that opportunity; another one might never come along.”

  She looked at him in a blind rage, which he as usual didn’t notice, or at any rate recognize. “And why is that, may I ask, sir?”

  He looked at her in bewilderment. “Well, men have been scarce since the war, you know that as well as I do. For women your age, given your past and, well, your present, finding one would be a miracle. I mean, being a polissyster is a very honourable profession and you can quite legitimately be proud of yourself for that, but that’s surely not all you’re looking for in life.”

  Hella breathed in, slowly, counting to ten to cool off. This conversation was taking an unexpected turn. Was Eklund manipulating her, acting provocatively so she would forget about the crime and focus on her own inadequacies? Or was he just a hectoring middle-aged fool who really thought that pointing out her bleak future was his duty as her superior?

  She could have answered him in several ways. That she was not a polissyster, for a start. True, she had trained as one, because when she had started her studies women were not yet allowed to be fully fledged officers, and her ambition had been to join the police. But after she graduated, and other options did become possible, she took an advanced course at the police academy that put her on a par with her male colleagues. She had been an inspector in Helsinki, for God’s sake, even though she knew that was not an argument she could use.

  Or, she, too, could get personal. She could say she had noticed that his right-hand cuff button was missing and that there was an old grease stain on his tie, that it could mean only one of two things: either his wife, the strikingly exotic Esmeralda, was touring Southern Europe again, leaving her bland Finnish life behind, or else she was beyond caring. Hella could have also told him that she’d rather die than marry Kukoyakka, a fifty-something logging truck driver – a truck driver! – who only had one eye and whose breath stank of decay. But she chose not to say anything. Instead, she turned her attention to the map again, and with her index finger followed the jagged line of the road that led from Ivalo to the village of Käärmela. In October, the timber factory trucks went up north every day, working overtime to get as many pine trunks out of the forest as possible before the roads became impassable. And from the logging camp, she could reach Käärmela by foot in a couple of hours. It was doable. She could even try to convince one of the truck drivers to make a detour to Käärmela. She looked at Chief Inspector Eklund again. He was slumped behind his desk, his weary glance following her movements, his mouth pursed tight as a rosebud. As if powered by their own free will, his sausage-like fingers fumbled through a pale blue folder, the cover of which read, in block letters, STAFF EXPENSES.

  “How about I take a couple of days off work and pop to the village?” she asked brightly. “I’ve always been interested in northern architecture, especially Orthodox churches. Those people are Orthodox, aren’t they? The Skolts usually are. Where I come from, we don’t have that sort of thing.” She looked at him expectantly.

  The chief inspector sighed and, with visible effort, forced himself to meet her gaze. She could almost see the little wheels turning in his brain, weighing up the risks and benefits of giving in on this one for the sake of office peace. She wondered, not for the first time, if he was afraid of her. Or maybe not of her exactly, but of dealing with her. Then, reluctantly, he said:

  “You’re a nuisance, Mauzer, do you know that? Your parents must have entertained false hopes when they called you Hella the Gentle. Still, if you have nothing better to do, if you insist, go and see for yourself. Take your vacation, and if you uncover a murder, we’ll count it as duty time. If that’s the case – and it won’t be, I assure you – write every day to inform me of your progress.” He paused, staring at her as if she was some previously unheard-of species. “The village is nice, little log cabins with ornately carved windows, if you like that sort of thing. You can stay with Waltari and his wife. I hear she’s a great cook. Just don’t wander anywhere near the Soviet border – the last thing you’d want is to wake up the Soviet bear, so to speak – and be back before Monday. The winter snow could start any day now, and when it does, the road up north will be cut off. I can’t afford to lose one of my agents. Ivalo needs you.”

  He smiled, in what he clearly hoped to be a fatherly, reassuring manner, and poured himself some water from a plain glass carafe set on his desk. She could see little beads of perspiration on his baby-smooth forehead.

  Of course you need me, she thought. After all, her boss didn’t have much choice. The department consisted only of herself, Eklund and old Inspector Ranta, who spent most of his time at the sauna and whose last solved case dated back to before the war. If she was stuck in Käärmela for the whole of winter, Eklund would actually have to drag his backside out of his comfortable, tidy, overheated office and do some messy detective work. His superiors in Helsinki would expect him to. No hiding behind paperwork, behind regulations and staff reports. And it was not like he had any chance of hiring a replacement for her. No one in their right mind would willingly choose the sort of life they led here. Ivalo, the dullest city on earth, without contest. Buried under ten feet of snow for half of the year.

  Aloud, she only said:

  “I’ll be back as quickly as I can, sir. You have my word. I have no intention of spending six months in a priest’s wife’s kitchen, getting fat on pancakes and listening to her stories. I’ll be back in no time.”

  Then – because her superiors in Helsinki had once told her that if she didn’t learn to rein in her temper she would end up thrown out of the police – she forced herself to smile at him.

  2

  If she
was completely honest with herself, she would admit that Eklund had a point. In the coniferous taiga forest, people got lost all the time. Granted, they were usually young children or the very old, and the missing peasant, Erno Jokinen, was neither; but still, it was possible. So why had she insisted so hard that this particular disappearance be investigated? Did she want it to be murder, so she’d have something to sink her teeth into?

  Hella shuffled down the corridor to her poky little office. From a distance, she heard Anita’s clear voice, singing a joik. Warbling like some Laplandic nightingale. Anita was a distant cousin of Ranta, which was how she’d got her job on the reception desk, but luckily she and Ranta had nothing in common.

  Humming to the tune, Hella reached her office – H. MAUZER, POLISSYSTER read the sign, erroneously – noticed that the door was ajar, and stormed into the reception area.

  “Hel-lo there, Sergeant!” Anita cried enthusiastically. “What do you think?” The girl swung round in her chair.

  What did she think of what? Anita’s pink floral dress, so much at odds with the drab office furniture? She’d already worn it last week. Hella was almost sure of that. Her deerskin boots? Old stuff. Her new hairdo maybe, a French twist with a blonde lock sweeping across her forehead?

  Anita came to her rescue. “My lips!Just look at them! It’s this new lip gloss called ‘Cherry on the Cake’. Someone – a friend – brought it for me from Helsinki. Isn’t it lovely?” she said, batting her lashes.

  “It is,” Hella acknowledged. “If Perry Como dropped by, he’d fall for you. Absolutely. Do I have any messages?”

  She had been asking this very same question twice a day, every day, for two years now, and the answer was almost always “no”. Even when it was “yes”, the messages were not what she was hoping for. They were never from Helsinki. Never from Steve.

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  Hella turned abruptly, heading back to her office. She hadn’t left her door open when she went to see Eklund. She was certain of that. The door didn’t shut properly until it was pulled all the way, and the door handle tilted at a certain angle. She had got used to it, knew its tricks, but Ranta didn’t. Each time he crept into or out of her office, he’d accidentally leave the door ajar. She peeked inside. No one. Her colleague – her superior, even – was done with his little inspection. Hella wondered if he’d taken something this time. Ranta never went for big, really noticeable things, but he had a fondness for paper clips, and every once in a while he’d spirit away her comb. She had spent months wondering what he did with them, and if he was a hair fetishist, but the explanation turned out to be very simple: Ranta offered the three combs he’d pinched from her to Anita, as a Christmas gift. Hella had found this out on the first working day of the year, when a blushing Anita had given the combs back to her, whispering, “They are pretty, aren’t they? Please keep them locked away.”