Dad had cut her left ring finger off with a knife, removing her engagement and wedding rings. But the ring with three rubies was neither of those. I had a memory of a ring with a rock in it shining in the pool of blood. I did my best to wipe the memory and that other ring from my mind and focus o...
and “Upuh-upuh!” Then it grabbed my hair and started pulling. Opening my eyes, I saw Saku’s grinning, slobbery face hovering above my head. I swam for fifteen minutes and ate about three times more breakfast than usual before departing for town. I had decided to stop by Ella’s house before going ...
There was no sign of Antti and Iida, but Einstein rubbed up against my legs, seemingly in need of company. Stretching for a minute, I tried to get the knots in my shoulders to relax. Then I set off toward Espoo Central Park. After a few hundred yards, the running started to flow, and the damp aut...
The duty officer reported that the last time he had tried Kinnunen’s apartment, he had reached my boss’s new girlfriend. She had told him that Kinnunen was sitting on the esplanade on the patio of the Belle Époque Kappeli Café in the company of four pints. We had long since lost track of how many...
On Saturday morning I bought some tools Reiska would need to work on Helena’s apartment, and in the afternoon I rang Mrs. Voutilainen’s doorbell—from the aroma of caramelized almonds, I could tell she was baking a Tosca cake. My nose hadn’t fooled me. When I came in, Mrs Voutilainen was just pull...
Suddenly slimy, algae-covered hands stretched out of the water and began pulling me into the depths. Under the water, I saw Sanna’s green face. Her hair swirled around her, moving with the water current, and her body was covered in scales, all the way down to a mermaid tail. Sanna had come to tak...
No one answered at either, and the machine at the music institute said they would be starting classes again after Epiphany on January 6. After calling Elina’s lawyer to ask about her will—she promised to send me the main points by tomorrow morning—I decided to head back to...