I don’t have words of wisdom for him. I shrug. “It’s something that happened. You did the right thing. Time will make it better.”
“You killed a man once,” he says. “How did you live with it? Did time make it better for you?”
We’ve been drinking hard and fast, and the booze has gone to my head, too. I feel like I owe him the truth. “When I blew that gangster’s head off, I felt nothing but relief that it was him instead of me. I didn’t feel guilt, or anything at all. Never have. The only reason I went to therapy for it was because I thought my lack of guilt meant something was wrong with me.”
The others look at me for a long minute and try to decide if I’m joking or not. Jari decides that I am and starts laughing, so the others do, too. I’m pleased that Milo feels remorse. It lessens my worry that he’s disturbed beyond repair.
Jyri walks in and comes up behind me. “A word, Inspector.”
He’s disconcerted, uncomfortable. I feel like toying with him. “When you bring a round of beers and shots for the table, we can chat.” My voice turns sarcastic. “We’ll use veiled and secretive language to keep the others in the dark.”
He has no choice, does as he’s told. When he comes back, I ask, “What do you want to know?”
My phone rings again. I don’t see the caller on the display, but answer to interrupt and further disconcert Jyri.
“Inspector, this is Sulo Polvinen. Can I talk to you?”
I give him my stock drunken answer for the evening. “I’m celebrating the birth of my daughter at Hilpea Hauki. The address is Vaasankatu 7. Come here if you want to talk to me.” I hang up on him, too.
“What happened at Kamp?” Jyri asks.
He’s brought a round of kossu. I insist we drink it and toast to Kate again before I answer. Then I give him a most succinct account.
“Arvid Lahtinen murdered Filippov, because if he stands trial for murder in Finland, he won’t be extradited to Germany. He also did it as a favor to me, so you and your buddies won’t fuck me later. Filippov believed he was murdering his wife, but Iisa tricked him into murdering Linda, the woman he loved. I let Iisa go. She’s going to embezzle the funds from Filippov Construction, disappear and live out her life-I believe-as Linda Pohjola, probably in another country.”
“Did you retrieve the things we discussed?”
“I know where they are and will retrieve them in due course.”
He looks like he wants to reach across the table and choke me. “I want those things.”
“No, Jyri,” I say, “I think I’ll hang on to them for a while. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
He doesn’t know how to answer and scowls at me.
I have pity on him. “You’re safe now. Everything has been resolved to your satisfaction. You have my word. And about the job you offered me. I’ll take it.”
He brightens. “You will?”
“Yes. And now that we’re partners in crime, I’ll regard you as just that, a partner, rather than my boss.”
His brightness withers.
Sulo Polvinen comes in. I tell him to take a seat. “There’s no need,” he says. “I’ve come to turn myself in for attacking the bouncers at the Silver Dollar.”
“Have you got any money?” I ask.
He looks baffled. “Why?”
“Because the price of admission to sit at this table is a round of kossu. Until you bring it and drink with us, I won’t even consider arresting you.”
He screws up his mouth, doesn’t know what to say, goes to the bar and does as he’s told. He spreads the shots around the table and sits. “To my lovely wife and my darling daughter,” I say.
Our crowd is drunk now, and the toast is loud and raucous. “So, Sulo,” I say, “tell me why I should arrest you.”
“I tried to kill two men. My father is going to be punished for my crime.”
I chase the kossu with beer. “Your father is going to jail for murder. He’ll get ten years. If you confess to the attack, you go to jail and he still gets ten years. What would it help for you to sit in prison, too?”