It's Time to Read a Murder Mystery

My latest one is now out. The gripping murder mystery takes you from a cozy Cotswolds to mid-summer Finland to find out what really happened to Mikael Långberg.

The story follows Pekka Wall, an enigmatic and quite well-off translator and editor of famous writers, who goes back in time and to Finland, the homeland he escaped from over two decades ago.

I weaved in this story threads from theatre, the ugliness of ambition, and the evil use of power. But above all that, the wrap ropes were made of longing, love, and lust.

Read the first chapters and then you can decide to buy your copy of The Birthmark Murders.

The Birthmark Murders — Death is a Cabaret, Old Chum

1

Pekka loved the echo from the centuries-old wall. His steps made the ancient stones whisper tales of the past. The narrow alleyway led from the busy main streets toward his home, the small cottage of his dreams at the end of Chapel Street. He inhaled the summer and its sounds with all of his senses, alive and content.

The summer nights of the Cotswolds were much darker, softer, and gentler than the bright, sharp nights of Finland, his home country. Pekka didn’t miss those too-light summer nights or the depressing, dark, freezing winters. Not a bit. It’s better here, he thought, way better, as he ran his fingers along the stones that had guided so many generations of sheep to slaughter. But who can resist a good lamb shank?

The taste of his dinner from The Bell still lingered between his teeth, and his tongue discovered remnants of the indulgence he had savoured in so many mouthfuls. These slow evenings with some work on manuscripts, occasional chat with locals, and perfect stillness in his mind were all he wanted from his life. He didn’t miss the years of hectic search for whatever was available. Nothing was left from those years of youth — except the wisdom to let it be, preferably forgotten.

Pekka smiled. “You’re such a hard-nosed softie,” was the farewell from the matron of the pub. Janet was his favourite. She looked like the Queen herself but spoke like a brothel owner. Pekka liked contradictions — one of the greatest of them the fact that he would soon be 60 but behaved like a 20-year-old nerd.

Pekka was content with his life of contradictions — but he liked them surreptitious, subtle.

And what could be a more annoying contradiction to this late summer evening stroll than a call from an unknown number?

“Hello?”

“Is this Pekka Wall?” enquired a soft baritone from the unknown.

“Yes.”

A long pause. The abrupt answer had rendered the baritone silent.

“Sorry, I am calling from Ryväskylä Summer Festival office. My name is Tuomas…”

“Wrong call, young man.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m calling you because I have some exciting news for you from the Festival and Sci-fi Convention.”

“I don’t need any news. I’ve seen them all.”

The long pause amused Pekka. He felt he’d got the fish. The summer festival was the last thing he was interested in — ever.

“Nothing exciting comes from that organisation — or orgy organ,” said Pekka, when he thought he’d tormented the young man enough.

“This year, the theme is laughter through tears,” the young man tried again. “And we have extremely popular sci-fi and fantasy…”

Pekka cut him short.

“As you can hear, I am not laughing nor crying. Where did you get my number?“ asked Pekka, angrier than he sounded. “You have some nerve calling me on a Saturday night!”

“Sorry, but I thought you knew I was about to call. Didn’t you get my email?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Sorry.”

“You are too rich in sorries and poor in promised good news.”

“My boss, Helen Heimlich-Bruner, said you would be delighted about the news of the award when I asked if she could give me your number. And we’re in a bit of a tight corner with this.”

“That bitch. What did she promise this time on my behalf? What’s the ‘tight corner’ she wants to squeeze me in?”

After a long explanation and some poorly delivered flattery, Pekka had had enough. He said, in a tone that sounded to Tuomas’s young, eager, and very frustrated mind like disengaging the safety, “The answer is no. I am not interested, and that’s it. You can shove your awards into the place closest to your brain. You have a good evening — and I shall try to return to my peaceful slumber.”

Pekka couldn’t see the teardrop or two in the corners of Tuomas’s eyes. His flaming red hair was pale compared to his face. Tuomas looked at the iPhone and bit his lip.

It was still almost daylight in Finland, even though it was close to 11pm. “If you call him later in the evening UK time, he will be more receptive. He’s a night owl, you know,” Helen instructed Tuomas earlier in the day, rattling her bracelets. Did she know the outcome and just let him run against this impenetrable wall? For fun? To teach a ‘summer boy,’ as she called Tuomas, a lesson? Or just by accident? Bad luck, maybe? His mind was spiralling into the abyss of suicidal summer. “Shit!” he said, and put the iPhone in his pocket.

Tuomas wiped his lips with the back of his hand and saw a red line of blood gleaming in the light of the setting sun shining just above the horizon. Both were like strokes from Van Gogh’s brush. His bleeding lip echoed his thumping heartbeats, and the iron taste of blood didn’t ease his mind. The chilly summer night’s sharp smell intensified his distress. He had been so waiting for this call — and now he had ruined his opportunity to build a rapport with one of his literary heroes, whose work he had loved since he was a bookworm kid.

Meanwhile Pekka walked towards his lovely small Cotswold stone cottage some 2,600 km away from Ryväskylä, listening to the echoes of his steps and inhaling the faint whispers of history in the night. The old streets of Stow-on-the-Wold embraced him with a gentle warmth he had never experienced anywhere else.

But his evening was spoiled by the ballistic missile his ‘friend’ Helen had so skilfully directed at him, using this young fool as the launchpad. But it misfired, darling, thought Pekka grimly. My air defence is still working. He felt almost nauseated when he thought about Helen and her skilful manoeuvres. Even after more than 20 years, the picture of her with the bob-cut hair, greedy eyes and scarcely hidden avarice haunted him. Shit, it’s so good to be far away from her and the bloody Ryväskylä town. It gives me gas.

And a massive fart echoed from the ancient wall like thunder, confirming to Pekka that he was more than just hot air, and not history — at least not yet. It gave his irritation a tangible smell.

Pekka felt relieved and managed to smile. Better to let anger out than intruders in, he mused, and inhaled. This smells really bad, he thought, opening the beautiful old door to his cottage and using his hands as fans to get rid of the remaining odour of his irritation before stepping in. It’s the bloody beans.

Thank heavens Pekka didn’t check his mailbox next to his door, because its contents would have ruined the rest of his night. Instead he made some herbal tea, watched Ricky Gervais on his iPad, laughed aloud and went to bed still giggling, Gervais’s words lulling him to sleep: “Remember, when you are dead, you don’t know you are dead. It’s only painful for others. The same applies when you’re stupid.”

Pekka put his new Apple Watch on the charger on the little desk next to his bed and looked at it with great pleasure when it highlighted the early hours of the morning and dimmed after a while. He liked gadgets. They asked him for no favours as long as he remembered to charge them. They were more reliable than people — or cats.

It was well past 2 am when he finally got to sleep.

2

Pekka woke up to the sound of piercing meows. One of his neighbours’ cats was on the loose again.

Grizabella’s one-night stands, thought Pekka, trying to reach his Apple Watch to check the time.

Griz was actually a very virile dude, but the neighbours gave him a name before realising that this cute little curly furball had some balls. This Devon Rex had ears like pointy tents and an unflinching stare surrounded by a mismatch of curly ginger fur. The meows grew stronger, demanding attention.

Pekka liked to keep his audiences waiting. The old diva in him found subtle ways to indulge this trait with people, cats, and memories.

“OK, Griz, I’m coming,” shouted Pekka, getting up from the bed. After all, it was already late, and the sun was peeking through the little gap in the thick curtains which made the room so pleasantly dark at night.

Small specks of dust danced in the narrow sunbeam in an otherwise impeccably tidy bedroom that opened to the study where Pekka worked. The huge desk dominated by an iMac was covered with neat piles of scripts, books, and expensive-looking stationery.

Pekka opened the bedroom curtains; the new day was ready for him and Grizabella. He liked cats, but only as visitors. Griz shared his sentiment. Both were independent souls.

Pekka didn’t hurry. He went to have a shower. He liked them quick and cold. He knew Griz would be even more accommodating after waiting for him a bit. Timing is everything, thought Pekka, with cats and people.

Finally, Pekka was ready to invite Griz into his cottage. He walked downstairs to the door adjacent to his modern but cosy kitchen, and smiled while thinking how Griz would come and curl and rub around his legs, waiting for him to fix some breakfast and cat food for his regular visitor. Perfect, thought Pekka, and opened the door.

“Who the fuck are you?” Pekka blurted out when he saw Griz comfortably spreading his legs on the lap of a young man who leaned half asleep against the little wooden rail that led to the house. He was an accurate dictionary description of tranquillity.

“It seems you didn’t read the message I left in your mailbox yesterday evening — or hear me knocking a few minutes ago,” said the young man, yawning and stroking Griz, whose meows had transformed into an ecstatic purr. “I’m Mikael Allardice, but very soon, hopefully, Mikael Långberg.”

A disorienting sense of déjà vu washed over Pekka when he looked at this handsome bloke — compounded quickly by a sudden sensation in his gut of his stomach being violently cut open and filled with ice. The suppressed memory of 25 years ago seemed to be standing before him — not as a grim, hanged corpse, but as an attractive man. And Pekka was desperate to rid himself of both the memory and the man.

An unsettling coincidence and nothing more, he rationalised. But Pekka was shaken — more than he wanted to accept — and somehow even scared.

Mikael noticed Pekka’s confusion and reacted with a playful wiggle of his eyebrows. His warm, open smile made Pekka feel even stranger. The young men he usually looked at didn’t look back, and certainly not in such an open, warm manner.

Mikael put the cat on the floor and stood up, reaching out his hand for Pekka to shake. He was so tall that Pekka had to look up to meet his mischievous eyes. Despite the advice of his inner voice, Pekka took the offered hand. Something about this young man was quite commanding, and Pekka didn’t like being commanded. Yet, he was also so eerily familiar that Pekka forgot to be offended.

Pekka tried to remain calm and thought hard about why this man and the old memories he evoked attacked him with such force. The resemblance of his long lost, dead and buried friend to this lively young man was uncanny, but it was just a spooky coincidence.

“You stink,” said Pekka, still holding Mikael’s hand and avoiding his gaze. Attack is the best defence, thought Pekka, but he knew he had already lost the battle. He wanted to know more — but at the same time, he used all his reasoning to prepare an escape route from the situation.

“I might smell a bit,” admitted Mikael. “I slept in my rental car because the hotels and B&Bs are expensive here, and you weren’t home in the evening when I first came and tried to visit you. Can I come in?”

Without saying anything, Pekka let Mikael enter the kitchen. Griz was so taken by him that Pekka planned to throw the cat out, but Mikael picked him up and let him lick his cheeks. “Is this charmer yours?” asked Mikael and gave the cat to Pekka, who again, against his better judgement, obediently took him. Griz wriggled out, scratching Pekka’s hands, jumping to the floor, and pushing Mikael’s legs with his muzzle and tail upright like an exclamation mark: Do not try to stop me from loving this man.

Pekka couldn’t believe his eyes.

This young man had the gall to come in and behave as if he had every right to be here, and Pekka’s blood was starting to boil. This man was uninvited; Pekka had never seen this Adonis before, and didn’t know what was happening in his cosy kitchen anymore. He opened the door and threw Griz out.

“Explain,” demanded Pekka, slamming the door closed and leaning on the immaculate marble kitchen benchtop. Its coolness against his thigh helped him to remember that this was his house, after all.

“Can I first take a shower?” asked Mikael with the wiggling eyebrows. “Please?”

Suddenly, Pekka burst into laughter. He had never witnessed such a gesture before, and the untamed eyebrows above the big amber eyes looked so comical that he couldn’t contain himself. The entire scene was so absurd that it amused him and sparked his curiosity.

“OK, but you’d better have a bloody good story to tell if I let you use my shower,” said Pekka.

Mikael took his backpack from the porch, and Pekka led his strange visitor upstairs to where the bathroom was.

“Holy shit!” said Mikael when he entered the bathroom, “this is something else!”

Pekka had renovated the bathroom to five-star hotel standard, with marble benchtops, handmade tiles, and a huge bathtub under the ceiling window. The impeccable cleanliness made the surprisingly large bathroom shine and sparkle. The shower was in a glass cubicle opposite the marble benchtop and enormous mirror, with enough space for a small army. Pekka liked his showers cold but baths hot — and bathrooms as if they were from House & Garden’s luxury editions.

“Take your time,” said Pekka, handing Mikael a towel from the cupboard. “I’ll make some breakfast for us. I gather you must be hungry, too.”

Mikael showed no sign of recognising the sarcasm in Pekka’s voice. He just smiled with his eyes and thanked Pekka in a way that made the old bugger smile. And then the bathroom door closed.

Back down in the kitchen, Pekka was puzzled. Who was this Mikael Allardice? He felt uncomfortable, uncertain, afraid. There was something he felt he knew, and he couldn’t understand why it was impossible to remember or grasp what it was. Why did he feel a tinge of fear — or was it guilt — in the pit of his stomach? Some old cracks in his polished walls started to open, and Pekka didn’t like it at all.

The worst puzzle was Pekka’s sudden and uncharacteristic compliance, swallowing his pride and letting this man just come in, have a shower — and what next? He didn’t look like a serial killer or a psychopath, but you could never tell. Was this man a devotee of the sci-fi series he edited and translated into Finnish, and was so famous for? Was he a disturbed, obsessed fan trying to slither into Pekka’s life to get to know the famous writer Trampolino? And what was that strange accent?

Too many fans had tried to take advantage of Pekka in his time, and he had built a thick barrier around himself — a true emotional wall, as his name suggested.

Once again, Pekka felt his normally well-regulated blood rising to a boiling point. It didn’t help that Mikael was singing in the shower like a combination of all operatic clichés, and Griz responded with high-pitched meows outside the kitchen door.

“Fuck this all,” said Pekka, letting the cat in.

Griz looked at him with daggers in his eyes and sprang upstairs. Pekka put the kettle on, boiled some eggs, and made a pile of ham sandwiches. After all, it was better to be angry with a full stomach.

The shower took Mikael a long time. Finally the singing stopped, the bathroom door opened, and Pekka heard bare feet flapping on the wooden stairs. Pekka had already eaten breakfast and was reading the news on his iPad in the living room.

Griz had decided to establish diplomatic relationships again with Pekka and was napping on his lap when Mikael came to the room.

Pekka still had a decent dose of venom in his verbal fangs when he looked up at the smiling Mikael, his hair wet, curly, and dark. He had the bath towel around his waist. Bloody hell! thought Pekka. I have not seen six packed so tightly for a long time. But then something other than the obvious sexiness caught his eye when Mikael turned sideways, walking to sit on the coach.

Suddenly Pekka felt a rush of emotions, memories, and pain; he dropped the iPad onto the purring cat. Griz sprang high, landed, scratched Pekka’s tights, and ran away hissing. “Fucking cat!” Pekka shouted. Mikael looked surprised, and for once said nothing. Instead, he just stared at Pekka, perhaps a bit afraid.

“What is that tattoo on your waist? “ Pekka snarled after a long pause, still staring at Mikael’s torso, where a palm-size spiral figure was much darker than the skin around it.

Mikael hastily moved his hand on his waist, as if he was trying to remember where the spiral was. “It’s not a tattoo, it’s a birthmark. What’s wrong with it?”

Now, both men stared at each other. Pekka was tense; he took a few deep breaths, and Mikael did the same. Both men were thinking that this could end in a very bad way.

What the fuck brought you here? Pekka wondered.

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