Kate and I slather on suntan lotion, make sure Baby Anu is sun-protected head to toe, and sit side by side in deck chairs that fold out so you can lie down in them. Her hangover fades and her mood improves, and after a while she hooks her little finger around mine. We snack, sun, drink soft drinks, let Milo do all the work. I notice Sweetness isn’t boozing. I wonder if the change in his relationship with Jenna has sobered him up. The sea was crowded with all manner of craft when we left Helsinki, but the farther north we go, other vessels are fewer and farther between.
Life on a small island in ?land must be interesting. Waterworld. An alternate way of living. Inhabitants take boats to the grocery store, to bars in the evening if they want to socialize. Everywhere.
Milo has the map, and after several hours he tells us we’re now in waters that contain the islands donated by Saukko’s foundation, and it’s time to start watching. Some are only specks of rock, some are large. Kate softens, her bitterness dissipates. At a certain point, we go downstairs to a cabin and make love. When we come back up, the yacht is moored near a largish island. A dock juts out into the ocean, but beside and behind the dock is a cave. Its roof is several yards high and it goes about twenty yards back under the island. We’re on the south side of the island, and this end of it is lightly forested and around a hundred yards across.
Inside the cave are a twin-engine fishing boat and a Jet Ski. Whodda thunk? We’ve really found Antti.
“We saw no hurry and waited on you,” Milo says. He edges the yacht up to the dock. Sweetness hops over to it and ties us off.
I doubt we’ll need them, but we don bulletproof vests and the rest of our gear. After all, if my theory is correct, Antti did kill a man. We follow a narrow path and the smell of cooking meat. We walk about fifty meters and find a big ramshackle hut in a clearing with two people outside it in folding chairs, making dinner on a grill. One is Antti. He’s wearing a tie-dyed shirt, shorts and flip-flops. The other is a pretty woman in her mid-twenties, about eight months pregnant.
Antti smiles. “Damn, it’s been a year. I thought you’d have stopped looking by now. And we were going to leave next week and move to Fasta ?land where there’s medical care, before Mari gives birth. What can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry to say this,” I tell him, “but I have to arrest you.”
“For what?”
OK, we can play this out if he wants. “The faking of your kidnapping, your sister’s actual kidnapping, the theft of ten million euros, and the murder of Jussi Kosonen.”
He sits back, crosses his legs and sips at a beer. “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about. I was kidnapped and released. When they released me, I decided I didn’t want to go back to my old life. I came here with Mari for the peace and quiet, waiting to be forgotten. There’s no crime in any of that.”
“I’m pretty sure that when we search, we’ll find the ransom money. That’s our proof.”
“Search to your heart’s content,” he says.
Mari hasn’t said a word, but she looks scared. “Are you OK?” I ask her. “Do you need anything?”
“Just for you to go away.”
“Let’s start inside,” I say. “Antti, would you please accompany us?” I want to keep an eye on him.
What we find inside startles me. He’s built a small but lovely modern home with all the amenities, and then camouflaged the exterior with boards from old fishing cabins.
“This is great,” I say. “I’m impressed.”
“Thanks,” Antti says. “I did everything myself in my spare time. Took me five years. I’ve been waiting to get away from my old life for a long time.”
“Couldn’t you have found an easier way?”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know my father.”