Harjunpää and the pyromaniac, post 3

Annala manor and gardens which feature in this section. They were built in the first half of the 19th century by a local industrialist and man of influence as a summer villa for his family, and named after his wife Anna. The family had it for a 100 years. I believe the gardens were restored to their original form only about 10 years ago or so.

Now, the spot in these excerpts was the most difficult to locate. I found two locations that might be it. Then again, neither might be, and if one or the other is, it may have changed in the past three decades, some rock may have been taken away or something. It IS the right approximate area, though.

The character here, called the Master, is an old man, a homeless alcoholic who used to be a painter master. He has retained his skill in mixing paints, which is why he is sometimes still offered work in construction projects, enough to keep him in booze. This summer, the Master has lived in the shack described in the excerpts.

"In the land of the Annala manor, close to the quiet Old Town road, had for nearly 20 years stood empty a tool shack. In defiance of natural laws the shack was still standing, although its walls were worn and threadbare. The miracle had apparently been caused by the location; the right side of the shack joined a rock that rose up to nearly three meters, whereas on the left side there were wild raspberry bushes the height of a man and apple trees that had grown bush-like with lack of care. The shack was sheltered from both weather and people. The Annala land was excellently located otherwise too; the Master had a short way to go to both Toukola and Kumpula, and he could find plenty of empty bottles on the streets of both districts."

" '... know anything. Guess you didn't... let him on your back... but your kids ok... Master will look after...' Tapani couldn't make just a word here and there. He had to lift his head. The old man was sitting with his back towards Tapani, without company, just droning on to himself. Tapani stretched his neck a little bit more and realized he'd been wrong - there was a pure-white cat between the man's legs. She was stretching her body and reaching with her paw at a piece of meat that the man was dangling in his hand. Kittens were playing in the grass and there were many of them, at least five."

The scene continues: The sight of the old man with the cats fills Tapani's mind with warmth, and he approaches, nervously, wanting to sit and chat. The tramp, however, is suspicious of the trespasser and thinking Tapani is trying to take something. He first shouts at Tapani to beat it, then orders him to look at the master's hands, and descends into a drunken, tearful, shaky droning about the things he achieved as a painter master. Suddenly he is enraged again, flails around swaying, finds a board and throws it at Tapani. The board hits him straight in the groin, making him take flight, crouching and groaning in pain. 

" 'Shitty rat. Throwing a board at someone's balls like that. He should be killed,' he said, but the words were heard only by the apple trees drooping in the heat of the afternoon. The white cat sneaked from behind the corner of the shack. Tapani turned and started limping towards the alder copse. A few meters before his hideout his will failed him and he started crying. He made into the shade of the branches, threw himself down in the ferns and didn't move for a long while.

***

The following day, crime scene:

"The rock's side dropped almost straight down for about three meters. The smell of smoke was now strong. Below there was a blackened area the size of a room. The grass was burned around it. The raspberry branches were grey, like the ash of a cigarette left to burn on its own. The apple trees were peculiarly trunkated; half of them were green, alive, but the branches on the other side reached up to the sky black. Only one end wall was visible of the building. It had fallen away from the flames and now was lying amongst the nettles like an upturned hide. The air was rippling and steam rose from the piles of rubbish in the blackened area."

"' The body, by the way', Kaartinen waved at the cinders a few meters away. 'It's by that intact wall over there. It's badly damaged. Maybe we wouldn't have noticed it immediately if one of the hands wasn't almost intact. I don't know - I'm thinking, maybe the man had stuck it out from some gap between the wall boards. Maybe he'd tried to get away. I may be wrong." 

"Harjunpää crouched down. He covered his mouth and nostrils, making it a little easier to breather. Actually he wanted to get a mask from Suttelin's bag, but didn't feel like doing it because he'd gone to the body on his own. The smell wasn't bad as such. It was like a burned steak, and that association made Harjunpää's empty stomach suddenly feel too full. 

"At first glance, the body was nothing but a formless lump. Harjunpää had to gather his thoughts before he could look at it systematically. The head was visible as a distinct ball, but you could guess where the face had been from four black holes only. The mouth was the largest of the four, gaping open as if still screaming in horrible pain. He couldn't look at it any more although he knew that it would've ended up like that, whether it'd been open or closed at the moment of death. The lower legs weren't there, they had burned entirely. The large knee joints were maybe among the ash and could be found if searched carefully. The left hand was missing but the right one was there. It stuck out from the elbow, slightly bent towards the fallen wall; up to the elbow it was completely burned, but as if by a miracle the palm had stayed. It had got fried but it was still a hand. The fingers were long, somehow similar to Harjunpää's own fingers, but scratched and worn. The hand was convulsed. It had reached desperately for help, Harjunpää thought, though he knew that the convulsion had been caused by the changes brought about by the heat in the tendonss and muscles."

"Holmlund came closer, holding the white cat in his arms. His face was pale and sombre. 'Timo, guess what we found under the body?', he asked. Harjunpää saw his lips twitch. 'There were... There were five dead kittens there. I guess he'd collected them into his shirt.. and ... they'd got crushed under him when he'd fallen. They'd suffocated.' 'Oh...' 'I buried them under an apple tree.' A restless muscle made Holmlund's cheek twitch. Harjunpää had to look down at his shoes. He felt sad too, because he was like everybody else; the shooting of police dog Lex had raised a storm of emotion in the press that lasted for a year. A book was written about him and there was a memorial statue planned, but when burglars in Mikkeli had killed the constable, a family man, who had come to arrest them, the matter was quickly forgotten. 'Yeah, it was good that you buried them,' Harjunpää said. 'The wood crows might have taken them', he added after a moment of thinking, but immediately regretted saying so."