Fatal Headwind by Leena Lehtolainen Page A

Haaranen continued groping her, and the two in the front seat didn’t intervene. When they turned off at Riikka’s exit, she asked the driver to stop. But Haaranen told him to keep driving to the marina.
    Riikka couldn’t understand why Aki and the driver weren’t trying to stop Haaranen. Later she learned that Haaranen was an Ecstasy dealer to whom both boys owed a couple of thousand marks. Haaranen had a bad reputation. That spring someone who couldn’t pay had ended up with a cigarette in the eye.
    At an intersection, the car had to slow down, and Riikka had jumped out. In her fright she ran the wrong direction, though. At four o’clock on an April morning, the city was deserted and dark. It was drizzling and just one bird was singing.
    Tapio Holma had decided to drive out to Porkkala Peninsula to spend Sunday watching the spring bird migration, which was expected to be swift and dense. He was driving along the West Highway carefully because earlier he had nearly run over a rabbit. At an overpass, the beam of his headlights illuminated Riikka running on the road below with a large man in pursuit. Holma realized instantly that something was amiss, and he took the off-ramp. Haaranen was just about to catch Riikka when Holma’s car screeched to a halt, stopping them both.
    “What’s going on here?” Holma had asked as he got out of the car.
    “Just a little disagreement with my girlfriend here,” Haaranen said calmly.
    “I’ve never seen this guy before in my life! He’s trying to rape me!” Riikka screamed and literally threw herself into Tapio Holma’s arms.
    Holma had looked at the girl, who was surely twenty years younger than he, and at Haaranen, who was several inches taller than he, and he told the latter to get lost.
    “Get lost yourself, runt!” Haaranen replied.
    Then Holma grabbed his spotting-scope tripod out of the car. He was used to life in big cities and had learned to decide quickly when to stand a fight and when to just give your money to the junkie waving the knife around. On the dark street, Haaranen couldn’t quite make out what Holma had in his hands, but he was a realist. He had missed his Saturday screw, and it was best to clear out. So he started trudging back to his friends, throwing a few last insults as he went. Holma attempted to calm the sobbing Riikka as best he could. He took her home and demanded that Riikka file a police report.
    The next day Holma called to check in on Riikka. In the end they went together to report the crime and both were interviewed, Riikka as the complainant and Holma as a witness. The charge of attempted rape was added to Tuomo Haaranen’s already long rap sheet.
    I looked up the trial information next. Haaranen had appeared before a judge in July. Neither Holma nor Riikka had appeared to testify. Haaranen received a pathetically small fine for the incident, but he was doing a six-month stretch now for drug dealing and an earlier assault.
    That was how Tapio Holma became the hero in the drama of Riikka’s life. Too bad the case file couldn’t tell me how their relationship had developed since then. I was starting to understand why Riikka had fallen in love with Holma. In everyday life he was a normal, relatively short, broad-shouldered Finnish man, but on stage he changed. His Marquis de Posa had made an impression on me too. Holma had the tragic dissonance of a fanatic hero, and despite the ridiculous lace collar, he had managed to look handsome. Maybe Riikka had seen the Savonlinna Opera Festival version of Don Carlos too.
    It was a few minutes to one. I quickly powdered my face and headed to my meeting, painfully aware that we had a serious homicide investigation ahead of us.
    The division of labor in our department had been in constant upheaval in recent years. The centralization of police services for the entire western half of the county in our department had meant more work and yet another organizational chart. Organized Crime and Recidivism