As Red As Blood by Salla Simukka

Author:Salla Simukka
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471402470
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2014-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

THURSDAY, 3 MARCH

15

White, tufted, puffy, gauzy, like mountains of whipped cream. Far off and further off, rolling over and past and under each other. Slowly, languidly moving clouds.

‘Day cools towards evening time … ’ The words of a Swedish poem ran through her mind.

The day hadn’t cooled yet. The peak of the heat was just passing. The air was like nectar. As if stroking the contours of her body with a great feather, it caressed toes, thighs, and arms. Out on the dock they could lie completely naked looking at the sky and the clouds. Waiting. Yearning. Longing for the other while only separated by a matter of steps. Smiling to herself, feeling that look on her skin.

‘Take my slender, longing shoulders in your hands … ’

Warmth from the air and from within. Warmth that dispelled idle thoughts. Hastening leisure, languid haste. The endless, endless transience of summer. The moment when everything was still good and being together was better than being alone. The thought that this feeling could last and last. We could just stay here. I could be with this person. I could take that hand dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. And be quiet. Be quiet and hear our breath seek the same unforced, tranquil rhythm that could also accelerate together, in harmony.

When summer had passed and a cold undertone appeared in the wind as it scattered the first yellow leaves from the birch trees, those thoughts felt like a dream. Like a dream someone else had dreamed.

Lumikki sighed and moved her gaze from the sky towards the police station. The large windows of the bus depot offered an unobstructed view of it. This was her third hour of waiting for something to happen.

This was senseless.

She had followed Elisa’s dad, Terho Väisänen, from their home in Pyynikki through the bone-chilling cold to the highway. Then Väisänen had turned and gone to work and Lumikki had taken up her watch in the bus depot. She wasn’t about to go and wait at the police station itself. Although the passport processing lines were famous for how slowly they moved, a girl sitting in the waiting room for hours on end would have aroused suspicion at some point.

Now no one was glowering at her. She was well groomed enough that she didn’t look homeless and inconspicuous enough that no one would even remember her being here later.

Still, spending her day like this felt ludicrous. The most likely scenario was that Väisänen would stay at work until four or later and then walk home the same route he had come. Quite the madcap stakeout.

Lumikki was on her fourth paper cup of black coffee. She had to stay awake somehow.

Money. Men chasing Elisa. The young woman in the photographs. Polar Bear.

How did all these things connect?

Väisänen was the key. She was sure of that. Elisa was sure too, even though she didn’t want to believe anything bad about her dad. But she had to. After seeing the pictures, her face went somehow grey. Something inside her collapsed.

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