Nights of Awe Read Online Free Page B

insurance-company fleece. Stenman and Simolin were sitting across from us.
    “Or a couple of theories, actually.”
    Oksanen sniffed his coffee, which Stenman had picked up for us from the Neste station at Eläintarha.
    It was eleven-thirty in the morning and they had earned their combined coffee break and warm-up. A freezing wind was blowing outside; I was shivering myself.
    “The first thing that comes to mind is drugs. Maybe this is a territorial war between drug gangs or something like that. No one heard the shots. Why not? Because the gun was equipped with a silencer. And right off that means we’re looking at the tool of a professional killer.”
    “So where are the shells, then?” Simolin asked. “Five shots and a silencer. The shooter must have used a semi.”
    “Maybe he picked them up from the ground.”
    “What about the other theory?” Stenman prodded. She had opened her green oilskin coat, revealing a high-collared Norwegian fisherman’s sweater. She managed to blend the freshness of a country girl with the class of a sophisticated woman who frequented Café Ekberg. The combination had its charms, I had to admit.
    “The victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something that meant he had to be killed.”
    Oksanen’s theories were so obvious that I had already considered them. Like Simolin’s, though, they were nothing more than theories, and I wouldn’t promote any of them above the others until I saw a solid reason to do so. On the other hand, playing around with theories occasionally generated valuable ideas.
    “If it was a coincidence, then why did they need to chop off the nose and ears? Plus, the victim would have been shot from behind as he was running away. I doubt he would have hung around waiting to be shot,” I said, before going on: “We know that there was a total of three men on the bridge, one of whom evidently fell when he was trying to escape from the other two. And yet the hands of the man who fell to the track were bloody. Based on that, it seems as if he stabbed the man on the bridge, got off a few shots just to make sure, cut off the ears and nose. What were the other two men doing on the bridge, and where are they now?”
    When no one answered, I continued: “At first I thought those two unknown men showed up by accident. When they saw what was happening, they apprehended the knifeman, but he got away and fell from the bridge. Afterwards, for whatever reason, the unknown men decided not to get in touch with the police. It’s possible that… unless…”
    I glanced at my subordinates.
    Simolin was the first to figure it out: “A twenty-two, a knife, a nose and an ear.”
    “Right. Where are they?”
    The coffee cup paused on its way to Oksanen’s mouth as he stopped to consider my question.
    “I have a better theory,” Stenman said. “What if we switched up roles and the chain of events a little. Two unknown men knife a third, who is waiting for his friend on the bridge, shoot him with a twenty-two, and cut off his nose and ears to desecrate the body.”
    I knew where Stenman was headed before she even finished and was annoyed that I hadn’t thought of such an obvious idea myself.
    “The dead guy’s buddy shows up, sees what’s happened, and rushes over to help. As he’s helping his friend, he gets covered in his blood. The killers notice him, go back and grab him. The rest goes the way Ari suggested. The motive might be simple, too. Both victims are foreigners. It might be a racist attack, skinheads or neo-Nazi retaliation.”
    “That sounds a lot more realistic,” I admitted. “But according to the locomotive engineer, the men were walking together towards Kallio. Why didn’t they kill the other guy right away, and where were they taking him?”
    “Maybe someone was approaching from Töölönlahti Bay and they had to keep moving.”
    “In any case, by far the best theory we have. But it might be smartest to let the theories be for now. There