Where Have All the Young Girls Gone Page 2

  Once we got out the door, Iida trudged to the bus stop a little ahead of us, and Taneli alternated between waltzing and split jumps. Iida had announced the previous summer that she was giving up synchronized skating, but Taneli was training for singles competition as enthusiastically as ever and was already executing the easier double jumps with confidence. The fact that he was no longer skating in his sister’s shadow seemed to have increased his motivation. Skating was his own thing now, and something he was clearly more gifted at than his older sibling.

  On the bus, Iida began to insist that she be allowed to ride to Tapiola instead of getting off in Leppävaara. She’d been increasingly involved in the Girls Club there, and they had improv theater on Friday nights.

  “You can go next week,” Antti snapped, crossly enough that Iida fell silent. Antti didn’t usually raise his voice at the children, preferring to leave the bossing to me. Iida glared at her father and then, in protest, began adding gloss to her already glistening lips.

  The Koivus’ apartment smelled of chilis and lemongrass, so I guessed Anu had fixed Vietnamese food. Despite her grousing, Iida immediately began playing hairdresser with Sennu, while Juuso dragged Taneli off to play Star of Africa, and Jaakko followed them. It was a simple enough board game that even the smaller kids could understand. Pekka brought aperitifs, and after a few sips Antti visibly relaxed. He even noticed my necklace and asked if it was new.

  “It came today in the mail from Ulrike Müller’s mother.”

  “To Ulrike,” Pekka said immediately, raising his glass. He and Anu had met Ulrike when we took the Afghan course participants on a tour of the Espoo Police Department. We clinked glasses in silence. Iida and Sennu’s laughter came from the adults’ bedroom, where they had gone to work on their hairdos in peace. Finally, Pekka broke the silence.

  “Did they ever figure out how the IED got on the road? It was supposed to be safe, wasn’t it?”

  “The army company that was supposed to have been watching that part of the road had come under attack, so first surveillance failed and then intel. The next week there was a roadside bomb in the same place that killed some Red Crescent workers. There were women in their group too. Most likely the drug lords were responsible, because the strengthening of the police force is a threat to them. It’s impossible to negotiate with those types.”

  During my visit I had toured the Afghan women’s prisons. Most of the prisoners weren’t criminals at all by Finnish standards; some were women who had been raped and young teenage girls who had fled arranged marriages to men decades their senior. The prison was almost a refuge, although it wasn’t always possible to trust the guards any more than the people the prisoners were running from.

  The Taliban opposed the police academy, even more so because women were allowed to train there. The protocols we established at the academy were not based on Sharia law, but rather on the idea that democratic police forces should be incorruptible and treat everyone equally. Though I’d only been in the country for ten days, I’d seen the futility of the enterprise. Most of the current police officers couldn’t even read, and corruption was a matter of course. One of the worst setbacks so far had occurred in early February, when a man dressed in a police uniform shot two Swedish soldiers and an interpreter. There had also been Estonian casualties, and it was only a matter of time before a Finn died.

  After the Afghanistan project, I’d continued teaching intensive courses at the police college in the Hervanta suburb of Tampere. In my next course for foreign female police officers, there had been students from several war-torn African countries: Sudan, Somalia, and Congo, just to name three. The end-of-term party had been in early February, and the EU-funded police training program was now being moved over to Swedish administration. I’d been offered the opportunity to work on that project as well, but I wasn’t thrilled about flying back and forth between Gothenburg, in Sweden, and Espoo, in Finland. Just being separated from my family two hours away in Tampere had been hard.

  “In a little more than a week, you’ll be able to get back to safer work again,” Anu said with a smile. “And you won’t be wasting time commuting.”

  “It’s good you can see the positive side of things. And, besides the short commute, I already know I’m going to like the people I’ll be working with.”

  For the past five years, I’d been working in various short-term positions. Before the international training assignments, I’d earned my daily bread from a domestic violence research project under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior, which they’d pulled me away from once on temporary orders to the Espoo Police Department. Now I was returning to that same department again, but its organizational structure had been turned inside out over the last year. Police departments all over the country had been merged, and the Espoo police station was now the headquarters of the Western Uusimaa Police District, which also included the towns of Raasepori, Lohja, and Vihti. The lead architect of the reforms at my old workplace had been my former boss, Jyrki Taskinen, who had stretched the limits set by the Interior Ministry Police Division as much as he possibly could. The Espoo police station still housed a Violent Crime Unit, which Anni Kuusimäki had been assigned to head up after me, but she’d had triplets a little over a year ago and was on parental leave. Her interim replacement was Markku Ruuskanen, a veteran police officer in his fifties. According to Koivu, Ruuskanen was a decent boss, if a bit distant.

  A year and a half ago, Taskinen had tried to lure me back to fill in for Anni, but to no avail. I didn’t want my old job or the stress that went along with it. Then he’d tried a new tactic. A couple of weeks after I returned from Afghanistan, he’d called and proposed a meeting at the Espoo police station.

  “I’d like to hear about your trip,” Taskinen said. “My heart almost stopped when I read about the police academy delegation driving over an IED. I was so relieved when we heard there weren’t any Finnish victims.”

  I always had time for Taskinen, so I agreed to coffee in the reception room upstairs at the police station. Anyone else in the upper echelons of the police force would have served jelly donuts with the coffee, but Taskinen was a health enthusiast and had ordered cheese and lettuce sandwiches. He was still able to run a marathon in three and a half hours, even though he was well past his fiftieth birthday. Nowadays, Taskinen spent more time chasing grandchildren than competing in races. His daughter, Silja, had moved her family from Canada to Finland and was coaching at the club where Taneli skated.

  After I told him all about my travels, Taskinen looked at me in a way that told me there was a larger purpose for the meeting. I prepared to respond with an absolute no to anything he proposed.

  “You’re up to speed on the organizational restructuring that led to the merging of the police departments, right?”

  “Well, I don’t know the specifics.”

  “Here in Espoo, we’re theoretically responsible for all violent crimes in the entire police district. Simple cases are still dealt with at the local level, but the more complicated ones come to us, along with all the atypical ones. Anyone can investigate drunken homicides and domestic violence incidents with witnesses, but we get the special ones: the cold cases, racially motivated crimes, school shooting threats—you know what I’m talking about. Investigating these cases requires a separate unit, a cell if you will, that comprises experienced detectives. A lieutenant and two sergeants. The lieutenant handles administrative duties but also does fieldwork and interrogations, assuming she’s the right type. This is not going to be a paper-pushing job—it’s going to be hard work. And I want you to take it on as commander of our new Special Crimes Unit. I’ve already spoken with Koivu and Puupponen. They’ve both had enough of wrangling alcoholics, and they’re willing to accept the assignment if you agree to lead the cell.”

  “Cell? That sounds more like a terrorist operation than a police unit,” I said. I was dumbfounded.

  “It has a sort of modern, dynamic ring to it. The top brass embraced
the term with enthusiasm. In this job, what everyone wants now is specialization and flexibility, and this is precisely that kind of police work. You’ll specialize in a particular subset of violent crimes, and other staff from the Violent Crime Unit will be brought in to help your cell as necessary.”

  “And what if there isn’t anything special going on?”

  “Koivu and Puupponen will assist Violent Crime, and you will do research in the meantime.”

  “So, you are offering me paper pushing after all?”

  Taskinen grinned. “This was how I got the brass to swallow it. You have experience both from that domestic violence project and your training work. During downtime, you could prepare some sort of report about what kinds of unusual violent crimes occur in the district. Welcome to the modern world. You can get anything past the policymakers if you use the right terminology.”

  I stood up and walked to the window. Pine trees swayed in the November wind. Rain clouds approached from the north, darkening the midday sky. It was true that I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do after the Police University College project ended in February. The coffee tasted bitter in my mouth. Its quality hadn’t changed at all in the time I’d been away from the department.

  “I don’t have very many years left until retirement,” Taskinen said. “I’m giving myself permission to be selfish: I want to spend the rest of my time here with the most competent group of people I can. And that includes you.”

  I let Taskinen sweet-talk me for another fifteen minutes before answering in the affirmative. The thought of letting Antti support our family alone horrified me. I already had enough of a moral hangover from when we’d bought our Nihtimäki apartment with money he’d inherited from his father. The package Taskinen was offering included all the perks. The independence of the job description intrigued me, and I missed Koivu, and Puupponen’s corny jokes. I couldn’t imagine two better partners.

  “A week from Monday, and it’s back to the mines. But let’s not talk about work,” I said quickly, because Antti’s expression had grown dark again. Sometimes he complained about feeling like an outsider when Anu, Pekka, and I started talking cop shop. Anu was still in the Juvenile Unit and the liaison between Patrol, Violent Crime, and Juvenile, as well as social services. Taskinen had also tailored her gig specifically for her, when it had become clear the Koivu family couldn’t survive two parents working unpredictable hours in the department. Taskinen had become the veritable éminence grise of Finnish police work, pulling strings however he saw fit.

  Koivu told stories about the strangest crimes that had occurred over the winter, including a flasher who’d been skulking around the Haukilahti neighborhood wearing nothing but tennis socks.

  “Now there’s a ‘special’ streaker for you. You’d think he’d get some serious shrinkage, being out in the cold like that. Puupponen calls him the King of Swing.”

  “Hopefully not when anyone else can hear. We’re not going to be expected to investigate cases like that, are we?”

  Koivu answered with a shake of his head. With Sennu and Iida’s help, Anu began carrying small dishes of various Vietnamese delicacies to the table. Iida thought no food could be too spicy, and Juuso seemed to agree. It was amusing to remember what Koivu had been like ages ago, when we first met in the early nineties, and any fresh herbs or spices had been exotic to the boy from nowheresville Nurmes.

  “We made satay sauce in cooking class at the Girls Club. The week before last we cooked Vietnamese food. When it’s the Finns’ turn, I’m going to make Grandma’s Karelian pies.” Iida batted her eyelashes at Koivu, her godfather.

  “You go there a lot, to the Girls Club?” Anu asked. “I’m planning on coming next month to talk about youth policing.”

  “What night? Don’t tell anyone you know me!”

  “I think it’s totally stupid that boys can’t go there,” Taneli muttered. We’d had this conversation before. When the city of Espoo decided the previous spring that it didn’t have the money to fund the Girls Club project, the retired former chair of the Central Chamber of Commerce of Finland, Sylvia Sandelin, had raised a stink and announced that she would pay for it herself. Sandelin had given notice to the accounting firm that was operating on the ground floor of an apartment building she owned in Tapiola, then turned the space into a girls-only youth center. She also paid the salaries for the two Girls Club permanent employees and the activity leaders, and she spent a lot of time with the girls herself. The seventy-year-old, in a skirt suit and without a single hair out of place, was a curious role model for the teenagers, but Iida thought Sandelin was “totally cool.” The Girls Club had been modeled on the Helsinki Girls’ House, and Antti and I had been overjoyed when Iida found a new hobby there after giving up skating.

  “Are they still having trouble with those catcallers over at the club?” Anu asked once the children had run off to resume their games after the main course. “Has Iida mentioned anything?”

  “There were boys hanging around sometimes, but Sylvia Sandelin drove them off single-handedly. They felt the same way as Taneli: irritated that there are places they can’t go. It’s hard to explain to some of them that there are immigrant girls who are only allowed to be with other girls.”

  Even though we’d given up on separate girls’ and boys’ schools in Finland a couple of generations earlier, sometimes gender segregation was imperative. Like in the case of the female-only prison in Afghanistan, which served as a refuge for abused Afghan women. Though, when all was said and done, that wasn’t anything more than a temporary and problematic solution.

  It had been four months since the police academy in Afghanistan had opened, and they’d been able to remain in operation so far, although some students and their families had received threats. In January, NATO ISAF forces had narrowly averted a suicide bombing at the training facility. I stayed in e-mail contact with my students, but sometimes their Internet connection would be down for days at a time. They all used initials instead of names in their e-mail addresses to maintain anonymity.

  My life had been threatened a few times in the line of duty, but those situations were transitory, caused by individuals—they weren’t systematic attempts to kill me. In Afghanistan, respect for authority didn’t always extend to the police: Malalai Kakar, who had headed up a unit working on crimes against women, had been killed in the fall of 2008 as a warning to other women.

  Ulrike’s necklace felt heavy around my neck. I had to watch my movements so the sharp, silver twigs wouldn’t scratch my skin. Perhaps the necklace was meant to be worn over a high-necked blouse. Anu began to clear the dishes from the table, and Antti rose to help her. I drained my wineglass and was about to go into the kitchen when Pekka took me by the shoulder and pressed me back into my seat. At first, I thought he was just trying to stop me from helping to clear the table, but then I saw his expression and knew he had something to say.

  “I didn’t want to say this in front of Antti, since he’s a civilian. I’ve been waiting all night to tell you that I’m already set to tackle our first case. We don’t have to hem and haw about where to start. Three young immigrant girls have disappeared in the last five weeks. No one has been taking it seriously, though they should have.”

  “What disappearances? I don’t remember seeing anything like that in the papers.”

  “Markku Ruuskanen didn’t think they were that important. He’s a decent guy, but he doesn’t want any trouble, and especially not publicity. There’s no definitive evidence of a crime having been committed, but what other explanation could there be? The families claim to be completely baffled. But I have a gut feeling that the cases are connected.”

  2

  “What do you think, Maria? Do we have a case?” Koivu asked excitedly. It was the afternoon of my second day of work, and Koivu had finally had an opportunity to give us the rundown on the series of disappearances. I was sitting with him and Puupponen in my new office. The men had a spacious shared workspace next to
mine, which we could use as a case room or a conference space as necessary. In addition to a desk, my office also fit a sofa, a coffee table, and an armchair. Koivu was standing in front of the whiteboard, writing. He’d pinned a picture of a young girl in a headscarf to the cork board right beside it. Dark eyes full of life looked out from a face framed by a multicolored scarf. On her lips I thought I could make out just a hint of light-red lipstick.

  “First disappearance: January second. Aziza Abdi Hasan, native of Afghanistan, seventeen years old. Moved to Finland four years ago. Family has a temporary residence permit. Aziza was in the eighth grade at Leppävaara Middle School, so she had one more year of compulsory education left after this one. She was studying with younger students due to insufficient language skills and a total lack of primary education—she entered school for the first time only after moving to Finland. Before that she didn’t even know how to read. But she’d been progressing well. According to the parents, she went to Stockholm with her uncle over Christmas vacation to visit relatives living there. When Aziza didn’t show up at school after the break and the parents weren’t able to say where she was, the school officials filed a missing person report. The Finnish embassy contacted the Stockholm police, who went to interview the relatives. Neither Aziza nor her uncle had ever arrived at their home. The uncle is a Swedish citizen who, according to the ferry company’s travel information, arrived in Finland on December twenty-seventh. There was no record of a return ticket being purchased. The Swedish police have a search underway. The family also has relatives in Denmark. If Aziza disappeared with the family’s consent, they’re covering for one another.