I don’t know if there is any official guidance on how to run an adventure park, but I know that if there were, it wouldn’t recommend sending the body of a criminal subcontractor back to his accomplices. I try to think of possible ways of approaching the subject once they realise what has happened, but I can’t come up with a single way of making it all go away. Otto Härkä didn’t crawl inside that canoe by himself. And the final result doesn’t reflect what actually took place: that it was a work accident, a mishap, an unforeseen turn of events. There’s a hole in his forehead and he’s wrapped in a carpet. It doesn’t look like an accident; it looks more like something out of The Godfather.
I sit in my office as the morning daylight grows behind the window.
I have lots of park-related work on my desk and computer, but right now it’s hard to decide where to start: how can I put things in order of urgency or importance in a situation with so many moving parts – some of which are probably armed? Right now, the sugar invoice for the Curly Cake Café feels a little less … consequential. As does the matter of putting all my problems in a timeline to find the optimal way of resolving them. What use is there in knowing where the line ends, if right at the start I’m next in line to be wrapped up in carpet?
As I am about to get up from my chair – I’m not entirely sure what I am doing or where I am going – I hear footsteps in the corridor. I wonder whether the delivery has reached its destination and whether the remaining owners of Toy of Finland could have got here already. I don’t think it’s likely, but it’s possible.
I move instinctively to the side, away from my chair, to where there is a direct sightline to the door, and grab a metallic miniature slide from on top of a pile of folders. I don’t know what I’m planning to do with it, especially if Otto Härkä’s undoubtedly armed accomplices have decided to attack me. And I’m not at all sure whether an attacker armed with a handgun would back away if faced with a man brandishing a miniature slide. Irrespective, I instinctively raise my hand in readiness.
Kuisma Lohi doesn’t knock or announce himself in any way. He simply walks right into my office, with Juhani following behind him. Lohi sees the slide in my hand.
‘Self-defence,’ he says. ‘I perfectly understand. I’d want to protect myself too if the customers were to attack. And I wouldn’t spare my wrath either. Those sticky, messy little creatures shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near your office.’
I lower my hand and glance at Juhani. He looks both extremely nervous and as though he has just woken up. Something has happened, that much is obvious.
‘This will only take a moment,’ says Lohi. ‘Number one: the validity of my offer has been shortened since our previous conversation, and that was a shortened offer too. Number two: Toy of Finland.’
Again, I glance at Juhani. He looks like he wants to say something but can find neither the right words nor an appropriate moment. This isn’t typical of Juhani. In fact, it’s very out of character.
‘I believe I made it quite clear that I want to buy an adventure park,’ Kuisma Lohi continues. ‘One that operates as seamlessly and as cost-effectively as yours. But it’s come to my attention that this might not be the case after all.’
I say nothing. I genuinely don’t know what we’re talking about, and I think my best option is to keep hold of the model slide and listen.
‘I realise your park has an exclusive deal with Toy of Finland,’ says Kuisma Lohi. ‘And I’d like to hear how you think that collaboration is going.’
I quickly go through everything I can already see and conclude. Kuisma Lohi is not Pentti Osmala, he’s not investigating a suspicious death. The next thought that comes to mind is, I believe, the most likely scenario: he is protecting his future investment. At the same time, I note that Juhani doesn’t need to know any more than is necessary: it seems as though everything he finds out can and will be used against me, one way or another.
‘The new owners’ understanding of the general price of things is rather different from what we’re used to,’ I say, then add: ‘Considerably different.’
Kuisma Lohi’s light-blue eyes don’t give any hint of what is going on inside him. But for some reason, he doesn’t look at all upset about what I’ve said.
‘Sounds perfectly normal. It’s to be expected after a change of ownership,’ he says. ‘What exactly has taken you by surprise?’
The threats, the blackmail, the gun (which I have hidden in the park’s tool cupboard). Returning a body to its sender, I think to myself.
‘Their reluctance to compromise,’ I say quite honestly. ‘It’ll take some getting used to.’
Kuisma Lohi remains silent. Eventually he looks over his left shoulder at Juhani, then at me again.
‘When I mentioned the matter to your brother just now,’ he says, ‘he thought he might be the right man to handle the negotiations.’
There it is – one of the reasons Juhani seems so confused and agitated. Not only has he been operating behind my back, but he’s been promising the impossible. Again. Of course, there’s nothing new about this, but there’s something about his body language that tells me there’s more to come. Normally he would butt into the conversation and, in his usual manner, talk a whole lot of gibberish. Now he’s just standing by the wall, seemingly at a loss.
But another matter altogether is what Kuisma Lohi is talking about. He is behaving as though he already owns the park, which is most emphatically not the case. I’d like to ask him to leave by the most direct route, but I won’t, I can’t. I’m unsure how much he knows about the state of affairs between me and Toy of Finland. Furthermore, I don’t know what he knows about the state of affairs between me and Juhani either, not to mention our recent activities. Juhani is tugging his shirt sleeves and looks like a man who could well have let something slip.
‘I’ll discuss that with my brother,’ I say.
Kuisma Lohi turns to look at Juhani again. He stops fidgeting, takes his fingers from his jacket pocket. He nods.
‘Yeah, that’s what I meant. We’ll talk about it, then we’ll decide – what’s best.’
That’s all Juhani says on the matter. I notice that Kuisma Lohi and I both seem to have expected him to say more. Lohi and I look at each other again.
‘In that case,’ says Lohi, and for the first time I see an inkling of a smile on his lips, ‘I will consider this little bump in the road with the suppliers resolved. I’ll leave you to discuss the particulars.’
Once Kuisma Lohi has left, Juhani and I find ourselves alone in the office, and I realise I am wondering yet again quite how well I know my brother. Or rather, how badly I know him. He glances at me and shrugs. I think of Osmala’s story about the man who floated to the surface of the pond, the man who was completely coincidentally staying at the same campsite as Juhani.
Of course, there are a number of reasons I can’t start grilling Juhani directly. Firstly, he wouldn’t answer my questions honestly or in full, because he seems pathologically incapable of doing so. Secondly, a barrage of questions might put me in jeopardy too, and Juhani must not come across any information that he might use against me in his own shady dealings.
Juhani still hasn’t sat down. He is standing in the middle of the room, his arms swaying almost imperceptibly. I sit in my chair and wait.
‘As I see it, there are only good outcomes here,’ he says eventually. ‘And it’s not just because I always think positively. Either we take his offer of quick cash or we start up a long-term partnership with him. Both excellent options – brilliant ones, if I’m honest. I might even say fantastic, but…’
‘But?’
‘I’m glad you asked that,’ says Juhani, and I can hear he is trying to muster that jovial style of his, but now the tone is wrong and forced. ‘That’s exactly the way I think we should approach this too. By asking questions. But we need to answer them too. And the answer, my friend, that’s something that requires real bravery…’
Juhani continues talking, but I’ve already understood the gist.
‘You need money,’ I say, interrupting him. ‘And you need it quickly.’
Juhani’s arms stop swaying. He sighs.
‘As you know, I was dead,’ he says, and I don’t have the energy or inclination to correct his limping logic. ‘And before my death, I took out a substantial life-insurance policy, and on that policy I named the person who, shall we say, funded my dead lifestyle in eastern Finland.’
He pulls a chair from under the desk and sits down.
‘The insurance money hasn’t come through yet,’ he says, and it sounds as though he is genuinely shocked and affronted at this turn of events. ‘And now this guy wants his money back. With interest. A bit quicker than I’d been planning, actually.’
‘You’ve promised too much,’ I say, ‘and you believed it when someone did the same to you too.’
Juhani looks at me. He looks expectant.
‘Is that it?’ he asks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m in the biggest jam for … a while. And all you can offer me is hindsight. Of course, after the fact you can always say so-and-so wasn’t such a great idea after all and you should have done such-and-such instead. But at the very moment you’ve got to make a decision, it’s impossible to weigh up all the pros and cons. You can’t predict the future.’
Juhani is both right and completely and utterly wrong.
‘I suggest we take Lohi’s offer,’ he continues. ‘The quicker one. It’s the best outcome all round.’
‘And by all round, I suppose you mean…’
‘You, me, the park’s employees.’
‘How will it benefit me?’
One minute, Juhani is looking me right in the eyes, the next he has turned away.
‘You’ll finally be able to get rid of the park and all its troubles,’ he says. ‘And all it needs is a bit of quick decision-making.’
I am about to ask a follow-up question when I notice something. Juhani is doing his best to hide it, but the fact is he looks genuinely desperate. I realise two things at once. These two assumptions are based on probabilities, on what I know and what I’ve seen and experienced. If Juhani can’t pay off his debts, sooner or later someone will turn up asking me to pay them. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened. If, on the other hand – hypothetically speaking – I were to sell the park, I won’t be able to put the park’s business behind me, because in all probability I will still be blackmailed by Toy of Finland once they locate Otto Härkä in his canoe. And more probable still: first they will blackmail me, then they will provide me with a canoe of my own. The only option is to continue and to find another solution altogether. And for that I need time. Naturally, the idea of time goes against the general lay of the land right now.
‘We still need to—’
‘I knew it,’ says Juhani. ‘No matter what I suggest or what I do, you’ll always find an excuse to oppose it.’
‘This is about—’
‘It’s about me,’ he says and looks me in the eyes. ‘I get it.’
He stands up, straightens his blazer once more, and walks out.
The very idea of picking up a screwdriver or a wrench or hammer feels absurd in so many ways right now. What’s the use in fixing a single pedal on the Komodo Locomotive when floating somewhere around the city is a moustachioed body packed inside a plastic crocodile, heading inexorably towards its final resting place, and my own brother is prepared to resort to even more desperate measures with every passing day?
At first glance, one might say there is no use to it at all. And yet, mathematics tells us that the matter is quite the opposite of what we might reactively and spontaneously think. We can illustrate this with a measurement that is only a millimetre out. In three years’ time, that millimetre, which today feels quite insignificant, will have grown into a discrepancy of over a metre. This is the main reason that so many plans and projects grind to a halt or fall apart altogether. Today there would be nothing easier than to give a millimetre. With the whole project in mind, it feels like nothing, and with the naked eye it looks as though it won’t cause any significant damage. However, mathematics tells us quite clearly and unequivocally that the distance from our original point has grown.
Every millimetre counts.
I finish replacing the pedal, which I have put together from a variety of different parts, and attach it to the Komodo Locomotive. I push the carriage onto the track and watch what happens. There are quite a few customers in the park, and everything looks as it should. The carriage soon has a driver, and it seems to work perfectly well.
I haven’t forgotten the next item on my to-do list. I head to Esa’s monitor room.
I don’t know why I still haven’t learnt to prepare myself for the change of air pressure in the room. Again, I think I should have remembered to fill my lungs out in the corridor and step inside the monitor room while exhaling. It’s too late for that now. The smell is like wading up to my neck through an old-school cellulose factory filled with rotten eggs. A new symptom I notice is a distinct change in my intraocular pressure. I aim for maximum efficiency. I tell Esa that one evening I noticed the door to his monitor room was left unlocked. I’m referring, of course, to the moment when Otto Härkä appeared from the room, but naturally I don’t tell Esa this. Contrary to what I had expected, Esa tells me this was a deliberate plan.
‘To be honest, I’m making a few other changes round here too,’ he says. ‘My new demob diet is a lot richer in fibre than before. Keeping the park’s response units at the ready is fundamentally important, so I will be starting this new diet next week.’
‘Right,’ I say, and try once again to urge him towards the point. ‘The door was—’
‘Open, yes,’ he says with a firm nod. ‘I suspect a few of our customers are operating as double agents. They visit both us and our competitors, and sell their services to the highest bidder. I’ve gathered a number of alien juice cartons and sweet wrappers that point to this conclusion. I intend to feed these agents with false intel and see where it leads us.’
‘Yes,’ I say, though I don’t really understand what Esa is saying. I thank him and reverse out of the room.
‘Lots more peas and beans,’ I hear him say, ‘and onions, celery and leek too. Tough and sinewy.’
Laura Helanto and Tuuli arrive at the adventure park later that afternoon. Tuuli asks me to perform more multiplications in my head; it always tickles her when I give her the right answer. Then she disappears into the park and I start helping Laura. I realise quite quickly that my thoughts are a long way from art, and even from my role as artist’s assistant. I think through the conversations I had that morning with Juhani and Kuisma Lohi. I go through everything that has happened and try to form an overall picture of the current state of play. It seems impossible, but all I can do is try to come up with a solution. Maybe Laura Helanto is reading my thoughts again – either this or she simply notices me about to bend the length of plywood differently from her instructions. I apologise for my absent-mindedness.
‘It’s okay,’ she says, then gives me a light kiss on the lips. ‘You’ve got a lot on your mind.’
I imagine she must be referring to the adventure park in general, and I’m about to say something to that effect when she asks:
‘Is Juhani still here?’
I haven’t seen Juhani since our conversation this morning. But that isn’t the reason I am once again filled with a sense of something cold and unpleasant. I tell her I haven’t seen Juhani for some time.
‘Why do you ask?’ I ask, trying to sound as neutral as possible.
‘He promised me some materials.’
‘When was that?’ I ask before I even notice it.
‘A while ago. Last week.’
I say nothing.
‘Well,’ she sighs, and turns away and looks at her unfinished piece. ‘I don’t need them today. But if you see him, you can tell him where to find me.’