The girl managing reception heard it and smiled, the gold tooth in her mouth gleaming in the morning light. “Can I help you, Miss?”
She was wondering who I could be. I didn’t look like a prospective employee. I didn’t look like anybody’s wife either.
“My name’s Mauzer. I’m here to see Miss Nylund.”
The girl nodded, interested now. So the news had got around.
“Up the stairs, second floor.”
She didn’t offer to accompany me, so I made my own way there. The stairs were covered in thick carpet, and there were photographs on the walls. Lots of pretty girls, most of them blonde, all of them young. One of the frames was empty: Nellie.
Klara Nylund was standing on the landing when I got there. Without a word, she escorted me into her office, motioning towards a high-backed chair.
“Any luck with Maria?” she asked once I had sat down.
I shrugged. “She knows something, but she’s not telling. I’m guessing she was afraid. I need to know more about this place, when you started, who your clients are – that sort of thing. If you had other girls disappear in the past…”
The madam looked tired, dark circles under her eyes sinking deep into her skull. I caught my reflection in the splotchy glass behind her: I looked worse.
“Smoke?” The madam pulled a crumpled pack of unfiltered Chesterfields out of the pocket of her cardigan.
“No thank you.”
“You must be the only girl in Helsinki who’d say no to a cigarette.” She watched me with narrowed eyes. Her words, when she spoke again, came out drenched in smoke. “So, about this place. We first opened in December 1938. I inherited this house – I was already in the hospitality business, so I thought I’d open my own place. It was smaller then. Just me and two girls. And before you say anything, I know what women like you think about my trade. I’m not ashamed of who I am.”
“I’m not judging you.”
“You’d be the only one.”
“Maybe.”
Klara Nylund chuckled. “Anyway. We closed after a year.”
“Because all the men had gone to fight in the Winter War?”
She answered with another question. “Do you know that syphilis rates spiked when the war started?”
“They doubled, right?”
“Make it times eight. And gonorrhoea, times three. I couldn’t keep this place going. I spent the war years helping out at the Surgical Hospital in Ullanlinna.”
I had been there too, with my mother and my older sister, Christina, who had spent her time flirting with the soldiers. I wondered if Klara and I had met back then. Not that it mattered.
“When did you reopen?”
“1946. There were lots of girls on the streets, the locals and the refugees. They’d come knocking, ask me to take them in. Most of them would stay a couple of years, then find something different. The idea they have when they come here is that they’ll hook up with and marry one of the clients. It never happens, of course.”
“Nellie definitely hooked up with someone. She was pregnant at the time of her death. Did Chief Inspector Jokela tell you that? It was in the medical report he gave you, but it’s written in such a way that someone who’s not used to the terminology would never guess.” I showed her the report. “It’s here. Gravida. That’s Latin for pregnant.”
The madam nodded slowly. “Nellie had been looking unwell recently. I remember asking her about it, but she shrugged it off, told me it was just a bug she’d caught.” Klara Nylund frowned. “Do you think that could have been the reason?”
“That’s why I need to know the names of Nellie’s clients.” I pulled my notepad out of my bag, unscrewed the top of my fountain pen. “You cater to a well-off clientele. Those men have a lot to lose.”
Klara Nylund stood up. “That’s exactly why they come to my place and not other establishments, and that’s why there’s no list. I’d be risking more than my business if I gave you the names of my clients. No, you’ll have to do without.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Interview people working in the port. This isn’t someone she met through my place, and any regulars she had were not the type to kill anyone. We don’t cater to homicidal maniacs here.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said.
“Nothing surprises me any more. Being surprised is your job.”
Klara Nylund marched towards the door and opened it wide.
The interview was over.
10
Chief Inspector Mustonen
As my father-in-law was fond of saying, the only difference between a man and a boy was the price of their toys. I thought about that as I left the cafe through the back door and started walking down the busy street. Young Ahti had very expensive toys. They could spell trouble, not only for the Virtanen family but also for me now I was involved. I needed to tread carefully but act quickly. Assess the damage, see what could be done.
First, the car. No matter what Ahti’s father said, I needed to make up my own mind. People lie, objects don’t.
The Chrysler had been towed away to a garage on Ratakatu, where it sat awaiting assessment by the insurance company. I considered taking a cab there, but the morning traffic was already heavy, and besides, I wouldn’t be able to claim expenses on that one. So I walked, my felt hat pulled low over my face, my mind racing. Had I just made a mistake? And what would happen if I changed my mind?
All around me, the street was teeming with people. Men hurrying to their offices, armed with briefcases, dowdy housewives returning home from the market with their bags full. A newspaper boy peddling Helsingin Sanomat. The cover story was on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s campaign for clemency. I bought a copy. The boy barely looked at me. This was what I enjoyed the most about living in a big city – you could do your own thing and, as long as you looked respectable, no one took notice.
The garage was on a narrow street and I could hear banging – metal on metal – before I even turned the corner. There was no one in the reception area, so I strode right in, my warrant card in my pocket. Better to avoid showing it.
“What do you want?” A stocky guy in overalls glanced up from whatever he was doing on the carcass of a Ford. I pointed towards the cherry-red Chrysler in the yard.
“Assessment.”
“Sure.” Even as the mechanic answered, he was turning away, his mind already on other things. I looked the part: young, professional, wool coat, briefcase, hat. If the man in overalls had thought about it even for a moment, he would have realized that no lowly insurance expert could afford a coat like mine, but people like him don’t think. Besides, I’d never said I was sent by the insurance company. If things went belly-up, I could claim I’d showed him my card but that the mechanic hadn’t been paying attention.
The Chrysler was a beauty, with its swept-back roof, its curved rear windows. I walked around it, leaning close to the car in case the man was watching me. The car looked barely damaged. I’d been expecting worse. The right headlight was smashed, and there was a dent in the bumper. Probably a problem with the steering, too, given that the car had been towed here. I tried the doors, which opened easily. There was a jumble of clothes on the back seat: a stole, a tie, a woman’s pointy shoe. I picked up the objects one by one in my gloved hand, wondering whether at some point they might prove useful to the investigation. I thought about that girl, Elena; if she realized how lucky she had been. Lucky to have had the car skid on the ice, lucky that a passer-by had rushed over to help. Lucky to be alive.