TH02 - The Priest of Evil Read Online Free PDF Page A

down quite what had caused this unease; whether it was the body, which he had given only a cursory glance and hadn’t yet had a chance to examine thoroughly, or Jari, the man standing silently next to him in a dress. Was it something else entirely? Something at home?
    ‘Harjunpää, you still there?’
    ‘Where else do you think I’d be?’ he growled quietly.
    ‘I’ve double-checked and they’re all on their way, a doctor too. You know what the morning traffic’s like.’
    ‘OK, we’ll wait here.’
    ‘I’ll tell the squad to get a move on if you think it’ll help. I told the ambulance not to rush though, it’s not as if anyone’s life is at risk.’
    ‘All right, just sort it out. There’s no real emergency here, but I can’t do anything until someone else turns up.’
    ‘Got it.’
    ‘Thanks,’ he added and for a brief moment something approaching weariness flashed across his face, but his expression soon returned to normal: it bore the look of a man who was used to waiting, who had seen too much.
    Harjunpää glanced at his watch: it was almost half past seven. He had already been at the scene for three quarters of an hour but still hadn’t been able to do anything except assess the situation and try to speak to Jari. He had no reason not to believe Jari’s story, but hadn’t dared leave him unattended for a second.
    Out of the corner of his eye he took another look at Jari: his expression was still the same. It was like a knot, a painfully tangled knot. Harjunpää could sense that same pain in his eyes and his mouth, particularly now that Jari had bitten his lips together into a tight groove. He looked as though he thought he was drowning or that he was trying desperately to bite something in two. On top of this, patchy stubble covered his face, disconsolate like the plague.
    Jari already looked like an old man, though he was only just over forty. He seemed to be constantly listening to a murmur deep within himself, his head tilted slightly to one side, shivering. He hadn’t wanted to put on the tracksuit Harjunpää had found in one of the wardrobes and was still standing there wearing only a thin summer dress and a pair of nylon tights wrinkled around his ankles. The doors were all wide open – they had to remain open, only now could they breathe without feeling nauseous. The breeze came in through the stairwell like somethingliving, tugging at the hem of Jari’s frock and making him tremble with cold, then gushed out of the balcony door, taking with it ton upon cubic ton of the nightmare inside.
    Suddenly it dawned on Harjunpää and he gave a start – it was as if someone had whispered to him: it was the hall cupboard. That’s what was bothering him. He still hadn’t looked inside it, partly because Jari had become almost hysterical when Harjunpää had touched the handle. He thought back to what had happened to one of his colleagues last winter. A caretaker had alerted the police to a flat in Eira because of a smell in the corridor. The patrol had discovered an old woman, who seemed to have died of natural causes, and had taken care of everything like normal, with the routine of having done it hundreds of times before. Only when the undertaker Stenberg had gone into the bathroom to wash his hands did he discover the other body: the old woman’s husband sitting on the toilet with a pistol in his hand and a bullet in his forehead.
    ‘What’s in there, Jari?’ asked Harjunpää, his words booming as if they had been standing in a cave.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘The cupboard.’
    ‘Daddy.’
    ‘You told me there was a dog in there. And you said that your daddy died when you were a little boy.’
    ‘I was ten. And he told me to take good care of Mummy, and now she…’
    ‘Your mummy’s dead, Jari. She was a very sick old lady and you took care of her as best you could.’
    ‘Is she dead?’ Jari seemed confused and for the first time he looked Harjunpää in the eyes. A