TH02 - The Priest of Evil Read Online Free PDF

restless muscle at the corner of his mouth began to quiver.
    ‘I’m afraid so. And we both went up to the door and had a look. Now put on that tracksuit or you’ll catch a chill. Some more people will be here soon.’
    ‘Who’s coming?’
    ‘A doctor, just like I told you. And some policemen who are going to take your dog to the vet’s until we get you back on your feet again.’
    ‘You can’t take the dog!’ Jari’s scream rebounded against the walls in the empty flat, its echo reverberating down the stairwell. His hands flew up to his forehead and his fingers looked like gnarled branches with which he was trying to hold his head together. ‘Daddy’ll be furious! If you open the door he’ll go straight for your throat!’
    ‘Listen to me, Jari,’ said Harjunpää gently waving his hands. ‘It’s only a dog. A Great Dane, just like you said.’
    ‘Well, that too,’ he conceded, then hesitated as if he were about to impart a terrible secret. ‘You see, he’s still Daddy. His spirit came down from Heaven when Mummy… I know that look. It’s Daddy’s look and he’s very angry with me. He’s come to take his revenge.’
    ‘All right, Jari,’ said Harjunpää trying to calm him. ‘All right.’
    Only now did he fully understand that there was absolutely nothing he could do but wait. Time passed so slowly, like watching an endless freight train crawling carriage after carriage over the level crossing. From the street below he still couldn’t hear the slamming of car doors that he so anxiously awaited.
    At least this gave him a moment to think about the body: she looked at peace, lying there in a normal sleeping position. Her right hand was beneath the pillow, the left lay beside her face. A grey woollen sock had been pulled over her left hand, according to Jari because her hand was cold and ached, and to Harjunpää this indicated heart disease of some sort. But the body was already badly decomposed, blackened. Fluids had seeped through the bed on to the floor and around the face were the first signs of drying and mummification. She must have been dead for well over a month; numerous porridge bowls lay strewn across the floor and on the window ledge stood a row of air fresheners.
    Harjunpää couldn’t work out the layout of the flat, because it simply didn’t exist. The only remaining item of furniture was the bed with the body lying on top of it. Only the lighter patches on the wallpaper indicated that other furniture had once been in place: presumably a large bookcase and maybe an armchair against the far wall, and there were indentations in the cork flooring where a sofa had once stood.
    ‘Everything all right up there?’ came a voice from the stairwell and Harjunpää realised that someone had heard Jari’s scream. The brightmorning sunlight shone in from behind the voice and all Harjunpää could see was a dark figure that he decided must have been a woman in her dressing gown.
    ‘You’re not manhandling him, I hope.’
    ‘Don’t worry, I’m a police officer,’ he replied and moved towards the corridor. Dead bugs and bluebottles crackled under his feet like small, crisp pieces of boiled sweets. The woman took a step backwards and tightened the belt around her waist.
    Harjunpää didn’t actually hear anything behind him; he merely sensed something, a sudden movement or a flicker of the shadows. He ducked swiftly, rolled over and stood up again. But he had been mistaken; Jari was moving in the other direction. He was already halfway across the living room, bounding towards the gaping balcony door.
    ‘Jari, no!’ Harjunpää yelled. He was already in motion; he wrenched impetus from the doorpost, and everything else seemed to happen by itself; it was as though his whole life he had been practicing for this very moment. His shoes pounded against the floor, the patterns on the wallpaper blurred in streaks around him and the open balcony doorway grew larger at an incredible speed, like a