He went to a quiet corner of the lobby and used the cell phone he had bought at the airport to call Kuro’s apartment in the city. The phone went to voicemail. A man’s deep voice spoke in Finnish for about twenty seconds and then there was a beep where he could leave a message, but Tsukuru hung up without saying anything. He waited a while and dialed again, with the same result. The voice on the message was probably Kuro’s husband. Tsukuru had no idea what he was saying, of course, but he got an impression of a straightforward, positive person. The voice of a healthy man who lived a comfortable, relaxed life.

Tsukuru hung up, put the phone back in his pocket, and took a deep breath. He didn’t have a good feeling about this. Kuro might not be in the apartment now. She had a husband and two small children. It was July, and maybe, as Sara had thought, the whole family had decamped on a summer vacation to Majorca.

It was six thirty. The travel agency Sara had told him about was no doubt closed, but it couldn’t hurt to try them. He took the cell phone out again and dialed the office number. Surprisingly, someone was still there.

A woman’s voice answered in Finnish.

“Excuse me, is Olga there?” Tsukuru asked in English.

“I’m Olga,” the woman replied in unaccented English.

Tsukuru introduced himself and explained that Sara had suggested that he call.

“Yes, Mr. Tazaki. Sara told me about you,” Olga said.

Tsukuru explained the situation. How he’d come to see a friend, but when he called her, all he got was a recording in Finnish.

“Are you at your hotel now?”

“I am,” Tsukuru said.

“I’m about to close the office for the day. I can be over there in a half hour. Can we meet in the lobby?”

· · ·

Olga was blond and wore tight jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt. She looked to be in her late twenties. She stood about five foot seven and had a full face with a rosy complexion. She looked liked a girl born to a well-off farming family, raised with a gaggle of garrulous geese. Her hair was pulled back, and a black enamel bag dangled from her shoulder. She had good posture, like a courier with an important package to deliver, and took long strides as she walked into the hotel.

They shook hands and sat down next to each other on a sofa in the middle of the lobby.

Sara had been to Helsinki a number of times, and each time she visited, she had worked with Olga. So Olga was not only a business partner but also, it seemed, a friend.

“I haven’t seen Sara for a while. How is she?” Olga asked.

“She’s fine,” Tsukuru replied. “Work keeps her busy, and she’s always flying off somewhere.”

“When she called me she said you were a close, personal friend.”

Tsukuru smiled. A close, personal friend, he repeated to himself.

“I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. Don’t hesitate to ask.” Olga beamed and looked him right in the eye.

“Thank you.” He felt like she was sizing him up, deciding if he was good enough to be Sara’s boyfriend. He hoped that he passed the test.

“If you don’t mind, let me listen to the message,” Olga said.

Tsukuru took out his cell phone and dialed the number for Kuro’s apartment. Olga, meanwhile, took out a memo pad and a thin gold pen from her bag and placed them on her lap. As soon as he heard it ring he handed her the phone. Olga listened to the message, with a serious look on her face, and quickly noted down the requisite information. Then she hung up. She seemed like a smart, capable woman, and Tsukuru could imagine her and Sara getting along well.

“The voice is the woman’s husband, I think,” Olga said. “Last Friday they left their apartment and went to their summer cottage. They won’t be back until the middle of August. He gave the phone number for the cottage.”

“Is it far away?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t say where it is. What we know from the message is just the phone number, and that it’s in Finland. If you call the number, you should be able to find out where it is.”

“If you could do that for me, I’d really appreciate it. But I do have one request,” Tsukuru said. “I don’t want you to mention my name on the phone. If possible, I’d like to visit her without her knowing that I’m coming.”

Olga seemed curious.

Tsukuru explained. “She’s a really good friend of mine from high school, but I haven’t seen her for a long time. I don’t think she has any idea that I came to see her. I’m hoping to surprise her.”

“A surprise,” she said, opening her hands on her lap palms up. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

“I hope she’ll agree.”

“Was she your girlfriend?” Olga asked.

Tsukuru shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that kind of relationship. We belonged to the same group of friends. That’s all. But we were very close.”

She inclined her head a bit. “Good friends in high school are hard to come by. I had one good friend in high school. We still see each other often.”

Tsukuru nodded.

“And your friend married a Finnish man and moved here. You haven’t seen her for a long time. Is that correct?”

“I haven’t seen her for sixteen years.”

Olga rubbed her temple with her index finger a couple of times. “I understand. I’ll try to get her address without mentioning your name. I’ll think of a good way. Can you tell me her name?”

Tsukuru wrote down Kuro’s name in her memo pad.

“What’s the name of the town your high school was in?”

“Nagoya,” Tsukuru told her.

Olga took his cell phone again and dialed the number given on the answering machine. The phone rang a few times, and then someone answered. Olga spoke to the person in Finnish, using a friendly tone. She explained something, the other person asked her a question, and again she gave a concise explanation. She said the name Eri several times. After a few rounds of this, the other person seemed convinced. Olga picked up her ballpoint pen and noted something down. She politely thanked the person and hung up.

“It worked,” she said.

“I’m glad.”

“Their last name is Haatainen. The husband’s first name is Edvard. He’s spending the summer at their lakeside cottage outside a town called Hдmeenlinna, northwest of Helsinki. Eri and the children are with him, of course.”

“How did you find that out without mentioning my name?”

Olga smiled impishly. “I told a tiny lie. I pretended to be a FedEx delivery person. I said I had a package addressed to Eri from Nagoya, Japan, and asked him where I should forward it. Her husband answered the phone and didn’t hesitate to give me the forwarding address. Here it is.”

She passed him a sheet from her memo pad. She stood up, went over to the concierge desk, and got a simple map of southern Finland. She spread the map open and marked the location of Hдmeenlinna.

“Here’s where Hдmeenlinna is. I’ll look up the address of their summer cottage on Google. The office is closed now, so I’ll print it out tomorrow and give it to you then.”

“How long would it take to get there?”

“Well, it’s about 100 kilometers, so from here by car you should allow about an hour and a half. The highway runs straight there. There are trains, too, but then you’d still need a car to get to their house.”

“I’ll rent a car.”

“In Hдmeenlinna there’s a lovely castle by the lakeside, and the house where Sibelius was born. But I imagine you have more important matters. Tomorrow why don’t you come by the office whenever’s convenient for you? We open at nine. There’s a car rental place nearby, and I’ll take care of renting a car for you.”

“You’ve been a big help,” Tsukuru said, thanking her.

“A good friend of Sara’s is a friend of mine,” Olga said, and winked. “I hope you can meet Eri. And that she’ll be surprised.”

“I hope so. That’s really why I came here.”