centimetres between the two cars.
At this point the driver of the Micra became even more flustered and tried to restart the engine, but for some reason it had stalled completely. Then he got out of the car, a young man with headphones and a portable CD player on his belt, and waved his hands helplessly at Harjunpää.
‘Idiot,’ Harjunpää’s lips moved as the sirens continued to blare – wee wah wee wah! The lorry driver seemed to understand what was going on and with its back doors still open moved the lorry a few metres forward, leaving enough of a gap for Harjunpää to squeeze through and pass the stalled Micra.
He drove along Simonkatu without any trouble and the lights at the junction of Mannerheimintie were green. At this point Harjunpää managed to manoeuvre the Transporter on to the tram tracks. He put his foot down a little, but realised that he still had to drive very carefully, especially around the tram stops. Pedestrians weren’t always expecting a car to come racing along the tracks, they might think the sirens were coming from somewhere else and absent-mindedly step out in front of him and end up under the car. This had happened once in the past, but that time the vehicle in question had been an ambulance.
The Transporter sped across Long Bridge and, once the tram coming towards him had passed, Harjunpää could see in front of him a number of Emergency Service vehicles and a tide of flashing blue lights. They had gathered at the entrance to the underground station on the pavement along Siltasaarenkatu. There were at least four cars: the fire chief’s, a patrol car, an ambulance and another that looked like it was for the paramedics. There were two police Mondeos and another Transporter parked on the square outside the underground entrance. Harjunpää blinked, more out of satisfaction than anything else, content that the area had been successfully cordoned off.
Harjunpää did a U-turn outside the circular building on the corner. A van from forensics stood parked in front of the building, as there was another underground entrance on that side of the street. He gently drove his Transporter up on to the pavement and switched off the sirens. If not the silence, then at least the fact that he could hear again seemed almost miraculous: the roar of traffic, the urgent clatter of footsteps on the pavement, the screech of the trams as they turned the corner.
Harjunpää picked up his case file, stepped out of the car and opened up the sliding door on the right-hand side. He opened the lowest drawer of the interview cabinet, took out a handful of rubber gloves and stuffedthem into the file – his own supply of gloves had run out back in Lauttasaari. He removed his jacket from the hook and drew it over his head. On the chest was a lion, the police coat of arms; on the back stood the word POLICE in large reflective letters and beneath that, in much smaller print, Crime Squad. He slammed the sliding door shut.
Seagulls squawked in the air and the square was swarming with people – some were even wearing T-shirts – and life went on as if nothing had ever happened. That was exactly how it should be, he thought, the end of a particular world had taken place deep in a tunnel underground. He’d had this same thought before: the death of a person was always the end of a world, of the one world in which that person had been me , in the world where they had experienced everything else in the only way they could, the only way they knew how. And yet other worlds were bound to theirs: a lover, children, parents, colleagues. The end of one person’s own world also shook the worlds of all these other people.
The path downwards was not blocked because the first underground level in Hakaniemi station consisted of a small shopping mall full of little boutiques and customer service offices. On the stairs leading down an elderly and, for some reason, very agitated woman came up to Harjunpää. She had long, flapping,
At this point the driver of the Micra became even more flustered and tried to restart the engine, but for some reason it had stalled completely. Then he got out of the car, a young man with headphones and a portable CD player on his belt, and waved his hands helplessly at Harjunpää.
‘Idiot,’ Harjunpää’s lips moved as the sirens continued to blare – wee wah wee wah! The lorry driver seemed to understand what was going on and with its back doors still open moved the lorry a few metres forward, leaving enough of a gap for Harjunpää to squeeze through and pass the stalled Micra.
He drove along Simonkatu without any trouble and the lights at the junction of Mannerheimintie were green. At this point Harjunpää managed to manoeuvre the Transporter on to the tram tracks. He put his foot down a little, but realised that he still had to drive very carefully, especially around the tram stops. Pedestrians weren’t always expecting a car to come racing along the tracks, they might think the sirens were coming from somewhere else and absent-mindedly step out in front of him and end up under the car. This had happened once in the past, but that time the vehicle in question had been an ambulance.
The Transporter sped across Long Bridge and, once the tram coming towards him had passed, Harjunpää could see in front of him a number of Emergency Service vehicles and a tide of flashing blue lights. They had gathered at the entrance to the underground station on the pavement along Siltasaarenkatu. There were at least four cars: the fire chief’s, a patrol car, an ambulance and another that looked like it was for the paramedics. There were two police Mondeos and another Transporter parked on the square outside the underground entrance. Harjunpää blinked, more out of satisfaction than anything else, content that the area had been successfully cordoned off.
Harjunpää did a U-turn outside the circular building on the corner. A van from forensics stood parked in front of the building, as there was another underground entrance on that side of the street. He gently drove his Transporter up on to the pavement and switched off the sirens. If not the silence, then at least the fact that he could hear again seemed almost miraculous: the roar of traffic, the urgent clatter of footsteps on the pavement, the screech of the trams as they turned the corner.
Harjunpää picked up his case file, stepped out of the car and opened up the sliding door on the right-hand side. He opened the lowest drawer of the interview cabinet, took out a handful of rubber gloves and stuffedthem into the file – his own supply of gloves had run out back in Lauttasaari. He removed his jacket from the hook and drew it over his head. On the chest was a lion, the police coat of arms; on the back stood the word POLICE in large reflective letters and beneath that, in much smaller print, Crime Squad. He slammed the sliding door shut.
Seagulls squawked in the air and the square was swarming with people – some were even wearing T-shirts – and life went on as if nothing had ever happened. That was exactly how it should be, he thought, the end of a particular world had taken place deep in a tunnel underground. He’d had this same thought before: the death of a person was always the end of a world, of the one world in which that person had been me , in the world where they had experienced everything else in the only way they could, the only way they knew how. And yet other worlds were bound to theirs: a lover, children, parents, colleagues. The end of one person’s own world also shook the worlds of all these other people.
The path downwards was not blocked because the first underground level in Hakaniemi station consisted of a small shopping mall full of little boutiques and customer service offices. On the stairs leading down an elderly and, for some reason, very agitated woman came up to Harjunpää. She had long, flapping,
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