The white Velodrome had been built in the late thirties for Helsinki’s 1940 Olympics, which were cancelled due to World War II. The stadium eventually fulfilled its purpose when Helsinki hosted the games in ’52. The Velodrome had fallen into considerable disrepair, but a million-dollar remodel at the end of the ’90s had returned the modernist design to a relatively functional condition.
Suhonen got out of his Peugeot, grabbed a backpack out of the trunk and hurried back to the intersection. The traffic was dense enough that he didn’t dare jaywalk, so he waited for the light. The Velodrome parking lot was visible from the intersection, but the Beamer was no longer in sight. The parking lot had no other outlets.
A woman dressed in a red coat and a black knit hat was pushing a baby carriage toward the intersection. She shot a wary glance at the stubbly, street-worn Suhonen in his biker jacket. He smiled, but the woman quickly looked away.
He crossed Mäkelä Avenue and approached the rear of the stadium. From this vantage point, the trees and the curvature of the cycling track obscured the parking lot. That was both good and bad. Maybe more good, since he’d be able to use it for cover to get closer.
Suhonen skirted the edge of the stadium past three tall lindens toward the parking lot. The rear wall of the cycling track formed a massive lean-to shelter. He considered circling around to the hill on the opposite side of the parking lot for a better view, but decided that this spot would suffice. After all, this was no official surveillance operation, just a hunch. He didn’t have the slightest clue what might be amiss.
Still, he unzipped his backpack, flipped on his Nikon SLR and checked that the settings were correct. A 300mm zoom lens was attached to the camera body. He had performed rapid photography numerous times before. It produced better shots and attracted less attention than scrunching down behind a tree.
His gait had to be ordinary and carefree. A leather jacket wasn’t the best garb-a parka and knit cap would have given a more relaxed impression. Suhonen was about twenty yards from the asphalt parking lot when he spotted Gonzales standing next to the Beamer on the other side of the parking lot.
The man’s clothes recalled the 1980s TV series Miami Vice. Despite the cool weather, Gonzales wore a blue blazer and a white T-shirt. His black hair was combed to the side and it reached over the tops of his ears. Gonzales’ features were nonetheless softer than those of the taller man standing next to him, whose brown leather jacket, buzzed haircut and gaunt cheeks signaled the toughness of the streets.
Gonzales had been alone in his car, so “buzz cut” must have come in his own ride. With dozens of cars in the parking lot, Suhonen couldn’t determine which one belonged to him.
The men stood side by side, in full view, a good fifty yards away, speaking fervently to one another.
This was the moment. With his backpack hanging over his left shoulder, Suhonen held the camera in his right hand and raised it into position. He didn’t stop walking, since his targets might have noticed the sudden change in movement. The camera’s motor whined and the picture came into focus. Suhonen pressed the shutter button and the camera took a series of four photographs.
Within four seconds, the Nikon was stashed back in the bag. The targets hadn’t noticed him and continued talking. Suhonen reached the edge of the parking lot and headed back toward Mäkelä Avenue, about thirty yards away. The lot was used by people working in the nearby office buildings of East-Pasila, so Suhonen’s presence didn’t attract attention.
Once Gonzales and his mysterious friend were well in the distance, Suhonen casually swung the backpack to his front and peeked into the bag to check the quality of the pictures. They were sharp-both men were recognizable. No need to clamber on the hill for more shots.
He smiled and decided to circle the high school and swimming pool before returning to the car. For a moment, he considered staying longer to observe the pair, but then decided against it. A more extensive surveillance operation would have demanded more units anyway, and there was no need.
Suhonen didn’t know if the photos would be useful, but they couldn’t hurt either. Gonzales was a player of some stature, and a meeting in the parking lot of the Velodrome was probably not connected to legitimate staffing negotiations. Suhonen had a vague notion that this “buzz cut” was Estonian, Russian or a mixture of the two. The man’s tough presence gave that impression. His stern facial expression, too, hinted at more eastern origins.
That vague notion might come into focus if someone could identify the man from the photo.
* * *
It took a few seconds for the computer to upload the photos from the camera. Suhonen was sitting at his own workstation in the back corner of the VCU’s shared office at Pasila Police Headquarters. Time had left this building behind as well. A massive remodel was in store.
He had taken off his leather jacket and draped it over the back of his chair, leaving only a black T-shirt. His pistol and holster were in the bottom drawer. Unlike in American TV shows, exposed weapons were not carried in the hallways of the Violent Crimes Unit. That would have called for a referral to a police psychologist for an excessive show of force.
Suhonen’s computer sat on a small, otherwise empty desk. The other officers in the room had more space, but they had more paper to fill it, too.
Mikko Kulta, a tall man with a shock of blond hair, sat nearest the door with headphones in his ears, poring over an interrogation transcript. Sergeant Anna Joutsamo was talking on the phone, and Kirsi Kohonen’s spot was empty. Suhonen seemed to recall that she was on vacation.
A teammate on vacation had no effect on Suhonen’s workload. Of the four officers on Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki’s team, Suhonen was the only one who didn’t deal with the daily grind: domestic abuse, missing persons, cause-of-death investigations and other routine cases. He carried out his work on the streets of the city, collecting intelligence at the behest of others or on his own hunches. Captain Karila, the head of the VCU, had often suggested that Suhonen should be transferred to the surveillance group, which fell under Narcotics, but Takamäki, Suhonen’s direct supervisor, was strongly opposed.
“They found him,” said Sergeant Anna Joutsamo, somewhat in disbelief. Joutsamo was in her thirties and wore blue jeans and a black wool cardigan. Her dark hair was swept into a loose ponytail.
“Who?” Suhonen asked. He didn’t know what case she was on, but finding someone or something was usually a positive development in police investigations.
“Mauri Laukka.”
“Should I know who that is?” Suhonen asked.
Kulta had interrupted his work and taken the headphones off. “Suhonen, I thought you knew it all.”
Suhonen ignored the ribbing. “Who is he?”
“You haven’t heard about this case yet, but last week we received an inquiry from Norway about an unidentified corpse. A month ago, the Oslo police found a dead man at a local beach. No papers, nothing. Supposedly about twenty years old and fairly clean. Nothing seemed to indicate homicide. Well, the fingerprints didn’t match anyone in their database, so they were at a loss. Sharp as they are, a week later they realized that a rented Mitsubishi with Finnish plates was still sitting in the parking lot.”
“Promising,” Suhonen noted.
“Yes, it was,” Joutsamo went on. “The case was being handled by Magnus, someone I know in Oslo, who called to ask if I could find out who rented the Mitsubishi. That’s when this Mauri Laukka stepped into the picture.”
“The guy who rented the car?”
“Correct. His age matched the body, and on top of that, he had been reported missing about a month ago. His father couldn’t get a hold of him and contacted the police. So I chatted with the investigator at the Vantaa PD, who told me that Laukka was a troubled kid suffering from depression. Booze and pills, et cetera, but nothing criminal, which is why he wasn’t in our database.”