TH03 - To Steal Her Love by Matti Joensuu Page B

but in practice that doesn’t really matter. Let’s leave it a while yet. Do give Helen my regards…’
    Kontio replaced the receiver, tightly pursed his lips, took a deep sigh and was clearly thinking things over, gathering the different parts ready to make his next move, and if a person’s brain really did consist of little cogs and wheels, the room would have been filled with an almighty humming and whirring. The telephone warbled again and interrupted him.
    ‘Kontio.’
    ‘Hi, Vaarala here.’
    ‘How’s tricks? Haven’t heard from you in a while.’
    ‘Well, you know what a circus this place can be.’
    ‘Suppose we should be grateful there’s enough money to put bread on the table.’
    ‘I suppose so. Gets a bit much sometimes, but can’t complain, eh… Actually, I wonder if I could have a word with you about a potential problem.’
    ‘I’ll pop by your place; I was just leaving.’
    ‘It’ll only take a few minutes. I’d…’
    ‘I’ll pop by.’
    ‘OK. Let’s say in half an hour? Pull up next to the office block and I’ll come out.’
    ‘Fine. Half past eleven on the forecourt.’
    Kontio ended the call, and for a brief moment he was able to forget about the depressing thoughts that had plagued him for months. He smiled, and it was a shame there was nobody there to see it, because when he smiled he was just like any other old man, and it wasn’t hard to imagine happy grandchildren in his arms. Kontio didn’t have any family; his marriage had been childless and his wife had died over ten years ago. Soon he wouldn’t have anything left: his department was being closed down, the Property Theft unit was already being transferred to the Public Order Division and his subordinates were disappearing by the day in compulsory transfers to other departments.
    It had been hard for Kontio to swallow. At first he hadn’t believed it would really happen, and when he finally accepted what was going on he thought that behind it all there must be a faction bent on crushing him. He’d used all his contacts and made frequent visits to the ministry – but to no avail. His only faint comfort was that he would have to be a department-less head of department for just four months, then retirement awaited him. But still, what was a pensioner? A frayed woollen sock that nobody respected.
    Kontio dialled an internal extension and someone answered immediately.
    ‘It’s me,’ he growled. ‘Get me a car. I’ll be in the parking bay in five minutes.’
    He stood up, pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and walked towards the filing cabinet. He unlocked one of the doors and slid it to one side. The upper shelf was full of neatly folded plastic bags, hundreds of them. He selected two of them, with firm fingers folded them smaller and pushed them into his trouser pocket. Finally he locked the cabinet, took his jacket from the back of his chair and stopped at the door to look behind him, as though he suspected that someone might come into the office and snoop around, but he couldn’t think of anything that others might have noticed and stepped out into the corridor.
     
    Hämäläinen was driving with Kontio in the passenger seat. The men sat in silence: Kontio because he was thinking and Hämäläinen because he’d learned to be quiet – he knew how to read his boss and his expressions.Hämäläinen was a slightly older senior constable who knew that this was as far as his career in the police force would go, and perhaps Kontio’s company fascinated him as it felt good even being close to power and everything that he himself had never achieved. He knew a lot about Kontio, things that many people would have paid to find out, but he was unflinchingly loyal to his superior, though he didn’t always understand why.
    ‘What kind of man is Harjunpää?’ Kontio asked out of the blue.
    ‘Just… part of the furniture, really.’
    ‘Does he drink?’
    ‘I’ve seen him have one or two in the sauna, but he’s