Light in a Dark House Read Online Free PDF Page A

must go home.
    ‘Kimmo?’
    ‘The giraffe,’ he said.
    ‘What?’ asked Sundström.
    ‘I must leave,’ said Joentaa.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Back very soon. I forgot something.’
    ‘Kimmo? Hey, hang on a minute!’
    Sundström’s voice in the distance. He walked along the corridors fast, the way he had walked along them on the night when Sanna’s pulse stopped beating.
    ‘Kimmo, for God’s sake!’ cried Sundström, and he was out in the open air, running to the car, driving away.
    He thought that he didn’t even know her name.
    And that he mustn’t lose her.

10
    THE LIGHT WAS on. It was difficult to spot that, because the sun was shining almost as brightly as the electric lights inside the house, but Joentaa saw that it was on.
    The light was still on. Larissa wasn’t there.
    Of course not. For a moment he wondered if she ever had been.
    As he opened the door and went into the hall, he thought of the occasional table with the telephone on it. Then he was standing in front of it, looking at the key.
    The second key to the house. Larissa had left it behind. For the first time. Whenever she went away for an unspecified time, she’d always taken her key with her, so that when she did come back days or weeks later, she could unlock the door, put the light out, and sit in the living room in the dark.
    The key hung from an ungainly wooden giraffe that had amused her enormously when they came upon it recently, as they strolled around a flea market down by Naantali harbour. She had gone back there that same day. To buy the giraffe pendant. And now she’d left the same ungainly giraffe behind for him, along with the key and her false name.
    His mobile hummed its usual tune. He didn’t reply. The landline telephone rang. Sundström, speaking in urgent tones, was leaving a message. Joentaa heard the voice but didn’t take in what it was saying. He must find Larissa. Not just look for her, find her. Now, at once. He must be with her now, put his arms round her, hold her close and ask the questions that he’d forgotten to ask. And the other questions that she had left hanging in the air as she smiled, or said nothing, or vaguely shook her head.
    He must ask questions, get answers.
    Now, immediately.
    He took his mobile out of his jacket pocket and called her number. The number where he could never reach her. The familiar anonymous voice spoke. The person he had called was not available. A new text. Nothing in his mailbox. His hands were beginning to shake. He went into the kitchen, poured a glass of water and sipped it.
    Then he hurried downstairs to the room that had been Sanna’s studio in another life. Before she fell ill, and stopped working for the firm of architects that had sent one of the most expensive wreaths on the day of her funeral. With a card signed by all the staff members.
    He sat down at the desk and started up his laptop. Went into his email and opened it. Two new messages. He had won a lottery that he’d never played. The second message was from his colleague Tuomas Heinonen. He felt a pang. He must visit Tuomas in the hospital where he had checked himself in a few weeks ago, when his gambling addiction came back. Heinonen had been off work for months. He hadn’t gone for treatment until he had gambled away the proceeds from the three-room apartment that he had inherited and sold, without telling his wife Paulina anything about it. Joentaa decided that he would call Paulina, and then he would go to the hospital with her and her little twin daughters and visit Tuomas, and then everything would be cleared up and all right again. He’d do that soon.
    No message from Larissa.
    He typed in her address: [email protected] .
    He wrote:
Dear Larissa,
I hope you’re well. I’m rather worried. The key is still here. Did you forget it? I’ll leave it in the grass under the apple tree, and then you can get in any time, even if I’m out.
Love from
Kimmo
    He looked at the message, and wondered why he