The Moose Paradox E-Book

Antti Tuomainen

• Herausgeber: Orenda Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Rabbit Factor
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 404

Beschreibung

Insurance mathematician Henri has his life under control, when a man from the past appears and a shady trio take over the adventure park's equipment supply company … Things are messier than ever in the absurdly funny, heart-stoppingly tense second instalment in Antti Tuomainen's bestselling series… 'In these uncertain times, what better hero than an actuary?' Chris Brookmyre 'One of those rare writers who manages to deftly balance intrigue, noir and a deliciously ironic sense of humour … a delight' Vaseem Khan 'What a book! Antti has managed to put the fun into funerals and take it out of fun fairs in a gripping nail-biter … a thrilling and hilarious read' Liz Nugent **Soon to be a major motion picture starring Steve Carell** _______________________________ Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen has finally restored order both to his life and to YouMeFun, the adventure park he now owns, when a man from the past appears – and turns everything upside down again. More problems arise when the park's equipment supplier is taken over by a shady trio, with confusing demands. Why won't Toy of Finland Ltd sell the new Moose Chute to Henri when he needs it as the park's main attraction? Meanwhile, Henri's relationship with artist Laura has reached breaking point, and, in order to survive this new chaotic world, he must push every calculation to its limits, before it's too late… Absurdly funny, heart-stoppingly poignant and full of nail-biting suspense, The Moose Paradox is the second instalment in the critically acclaimed, pitch-perfect Rabbit Factor Trilogy and things are messier than ever… ________________________________ 'Finnish crime maestro Antti Tuomainen is unique in the Scandi-crime genre, infusing his crime narratives with the darkest humour … [his] often hilarious, chaotic narrative never vitiates the novel's nicely tuned tension' Financial Times 'Enter hitmen, serendipity, offbeat comedy and the reappearance of literally the last person Henri expects to see … unlike anything else out there' The Times 'A thriller with black comedy worthy of Nabokov' Telegraph Book of the Year Praise for The Rabbit Factor Trilogy **Shortlisted for the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger** **Shortlisted for the Last Laugh Award** 'The antic novels of Antti Tuomainen prove that comedy is not lost in translation …Tuomainen, like Carl Hiaasen before him, has the knack of combining slapstick with genuine emotion' The Times 'The funniest writer in Europe, and one of the very finest … original and brilliant story-telling' Helen FitzGerald 'British readers might think they know what to expect from Nordic noir: a tortured detective, a bleak setting, a brutal crime that shakes a small community. Finnish crime novelist Tuomainen turns all of this on its head … The ear of a giant plastic rabbit becomes a key weapon. It only gets darker and funnier' Guardian 'Dark, gripping and hilarious … Tuomainen is the Carl Hiaasen of the fjords' Martyn Waites 'A triumph, a joyous, feel-good antidote to troubled times' Kevin Wignall 'Finland's greatest export' M.J. Arlidge 'You don't expect to laugh when you're reading about terrible crimes, but that's what you'll do when you pick up one of Tuomainen's decidedly quirky thrillers' New York Times 'Tuomainen is the funniest writer in Europe' The Times 'Right up there with the best' Times Literary Supplement 'Tuomainen continues to carve out his own niche in the chilly tundras of northern' Daily Express

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR THE RABBIT FACTOR TRILOGY

‘Antti Tuomainen is one of those rare writers who manages to deftly balance intrigue, noir and a deliciously ironic sense of humour. In The Moose Paradox he makes a triumphant return to the world of uptight actuary Henri Koskinen, a man grappling with gangsters, debt, murder, mutinous staff and incipient love … The prose is a delight, the setpieces unbearably good, and the whole a crime novel to be savoured. A master at work.’ Vaseem Khan

‘What a book! Antti has managed to put the fun into funerals and take it out of funfairs in a gripping nail-biter that was a thrilling and hilarious read. The Moose Paradox is thoroughly enjoyable’ Liz Nugent

‘The Moose Paradox is tremendous fun: disorderly and uncontrollable … readers of this book are guaranteed enjoyment’ Café Thinking

‘Laconic, thrilling and warmly human. In these uncertain times, what better hero than an actuary?’ Chris Brookmyre

‘Readers might think they know what to expect from Nordic noir: a tortured detective, a bleak setting, a brutal crime that shakes a small community … Tuomainen turns all of this on its head … The ear of a giant plastic rabbit becomes a key weapon. It only gets darker and funnier’ Guardian

‘Inventive and compelling’ Vaseem Khan

‘The funniest writer in Europe, and one of the very finest … original and brilliant story-telling’ Helen FitzGerald

‘Dark, gripping and hilarious. Tuomainen is the Carl Hiaasen of the fjords’ Martyn Waites

‘The biting cold of northern Finland is only matched by the cutting, dark wit and compelling plot’ Denzil Meyrick

‘Combines a startlingly clever opening, a neat line in dark humour and a unique Scandinavian sensibility. A fresh and witty read’ Chris Ewan

‘Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I enjoyed every single sentence’ Thomas Enger

‘Antti Tuomainen is a wonderful writer, whose characters, plots and atmosphere are masterfully drawn’ Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

‘An original and darkly funny thriller with a Coen brothersesque feel and tremendous style’ Eva Dolan

‘A triumph … a joyous, feel-good antidote to troubled times’ Kevin Wignall

‘Finland’s greatest export’ M.J. Arlidge

‘The antic novels of Antti Tuomainen prove that comedy is not lost in translation … Tuomainen, like Carl Hiaasen before him, has the knack of combining slapstick with genuine emotion’ The Times

‘A thriller with black comedy worth of Nabokov’ Telegraph

‘Full of refreshing wit and wisdom … a treat’ Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

‘A dark and delightful novel with an intelligent, brave, and pernickety hero’ Foreword Reviews

‘You don’t expect to laugh when you’re reading about terrible crimes, but that’s what you’ll do when you pick up one of Tuomainen’s decidedly quirky thrillers’ New York Times

‘Tuomainen is the funniest writer in Europe’ The Times

‘Right up there with the best’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Tuomainen continues to carve out his own niche in the chilly tundras’ Daily Express

‘Dazzles the reader due to its wittiness and dark humour that pervades the plot and provides the necessary relief from some truly heinous acts’ Tap The Line Magazine

‘Funny, brilliant and enjoyable’ Bookoholic

‘A delight from start to finish’ Raven Crime Reads

‘So stylishly written and the translation from David Hackston is wonderful … One of my favourite books of the year’ Random Things through My Letterbox

‘Mad-cap scenarios to get your head around … the unpredictability of the plot make this compulsive reading’ Fiction from Afar

‘The sense of place is superlative, the characterisation exemplary, the perceptive humour outstanding and it is all written with such enormous heart’ Hair Past a Freckle

THE RABBIT FACTOR is currently in production for TV with Amazon Studios, starring Steve Carell

SHORTLISTED for the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award

SHORTLISTED for the CWA International Dagger

The Moose Paradox

ANTTI TUOMAINEN

Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston

For Anu

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEDEDICATIONNOWEIGHT DAYS EARLIER12345678910NOW123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627THREE WEEKS LATERACKNOWLEDGEMENTSABOUT THE AUTHORABOUT THE TRANSLATORALSO BY ANTTI TUOMAINEN AND AVAILABLE FROM ORENDA BOOKSCOPYRIGHT

NOW

The new budget forecast is ready by half past ten. Because of the rapidly changing circumstances, I’ve had to cut our expenditure even more radically and cancel a number of investments that we had previously agreed upon; but I have tightened the belt equally, spreading the burden across all our departments. I have lowered my own salary to zero. Separately, I have drawn up a plan to create a financial buffer in case of an emergency, so that a situation like the current one – not to mention the recent threat of wholesale bankruptcy – will never happen again. Building up a buffer like this requires patience and frugality over many years, but the chances of it paying off one day will be greatly increased. The numbers speak for themselves: if we work systematically and trust in the facts, we will survive. This I know from personal experience.

Mathematics has saved my life, both figuratively and literally. This is what mathematics does: it saves us. It brings balance, clarity and peace of mind; it helps us see how things really are, it tells us what we should do in order to reach our goals. Though the current situation at the adventure park is challenging, I still believe that the future is bright, and it’s all thanks to mathematics – and a little bit of effort. Of course, my views and feelings about this have reconfigured slightly, mostly because I’ve been able to dedicate myself to the data and have been left to calculate things in peace.

The last customers left the park a while ago, and, according to the rota, today Kristian has locked everything up. During the daytime, the background noise in the park is like the rush of crashing waves. Now the sea has calmed, and everything is perfectly still.

I go through the Excel file one more time. The rows flow beautifully, complement one another, and the sums are correct. I notice I’m not so much checking things as going through them one more time, simply for my own pleasure. Perhaps this is just what I need after all the recent twists and turns and surprises: good old-fashioned arithmetic, clarifying and illuminating matters and the relationships between them. I have to remind myself that Schopenhauer needs his supper and maybe even someone to talk to (which, while not entirely unprecedented, is, statistically speaking, a much rarer occurrence), and I click the file shut. I stand up from my chair and blink my dry eyes; I can almost feel how red they are.

The door into the corridor is open, and I can’t hear anything coming from Minttu K’s room either: neither her rough, ratchety voice on the phone nor the radio, let alone a low-pitched snore infused with cigarettes and gin lonkero. My back feels stiff, and again I am reminded that I really ought to take up some kind of exercise, though I have no idea when I would find the time. I’m coming to realise there’s no rest for the director of a successful adventure park.

I stare out of the window for a moment and see nothing but the empty, November-grey car park in front of me. Suddenly my attention is drawn to the furthest left-hand edge of the car park. It takes a few seconds for my brain to process what I see. The spot is right between two streetlamps, each pool of light barely touching the metal and the rubber, and this is why it takes a little while to put the shapes and contours together.

A bicycle.

It is propped on its kickstand, and in every respect it looks like a very average bicycle, parked and waiting for its owner. What seems somewhat out of the ordinary, however, is the bike’s location, which cannot be considered remotely sensible: it is far away both from the road and from the main entrance to the park. In fact, it is far away from everything. I look at it a moment longer, unsure what I’m expecting to see. The bicycle is parked in the half-light. Eventually, I come to the obvious conclusion: someone has simply left it there.

I switch off my computer, take my scarf and coat from the stand and pull them on. I switch off the lights in my office and walk across the dusky main hall to the back door. I don’t want to use the front door because opening and closing it again would require a complex series of checks and double-checks. The back door is quicker and handier.

I step out onto the loading bay, take the metallic steps down to ground level and set off around the building. I can hear the roar of traffic in the distance, and my own steps sound almost amplified.

The night air has that crisp, late-autumn note to it, and the earth is wet even without the rain. I arrive at the corner of the building, where I have a view of the full length of its left-hand wall, and the left side of the car park. This is the narrowest strip of the park’s grounds. From the outer wall, it is only about five metres before the asphalt comes to an end and the terrain dips steeply down into a ditch, then rises up just as steeply at the edge of a small stretch of tangled woodland on the other side. I walk alongside the wall, and the strip feels more narrow and corridor-like with every step, as though the adjoining woodland were a united front, growing in strength and tightening its grip on the building with small, inexorable steps. Of course, this isn’t literally true. What is true, however – though at first I think my eyes must be playing tricks on me – is that the bicycle has now disappeared.

Perhaps someone simply had a spot of acute, late-night business to attend to in the woods. We’re all different, as I’ve come to appreciate on many occasions. If you have something to take care of, something you might not necessarily do elsewhere, then here, in a spruce forest in the middle of Vantaa, you can do it to your heart’s content – spend a moment of time in your thicket of choice, before continuing on your way, the richer for it. But these thoughts are like matchsticks that won’t quite light; they flare up only to go out right away. I’m indulging in wishful thinking, and I know it.

Then I see him.

A man running right towards me.

Like a bowling ball with legs, I think to myself.

And, in fact, it is in a bowling alley of sorts that we find ourselves. The strip of tarmac is long and narrow, and the bowling ball is hurtling towards me at a ferocious pace, right in the middle of the alley – and I am standing at the end. On top of this, the ball seems to be speeding up. I turn as soon as I realise what’s happening. I set off running, and at the same moment I see that the corner of the building and the back yard are much further away than I had estimated.

I’m still stiff from all the hours sitting at my desk. The bowling ball’s speed is quite simply greater than mine, I realise this from the very first step. But I have to run.

I quickly glance over my shoulder. The bowling ball is wearing a dark-blue tracksuit, a black or blue hoodie and a black woolly hat pulled almost right down over its face. Its short little legs look like something out of a cartoon, where the legs are replaced with a wildly spinning tornado. Arms punctuate its frantic run like a pair of pistons on overdrive. If this were any other situation, I would stand there watching the bowling ball’s acceleration out of sheer fascination. Instead, I run as fast as I possibly can, and still I can hear the whirring machine gaining on me.

The corner is just up ahead.

The loading bay is right around the corner. At the other end of the loading bay is a ladder leading up to the roof. I can’t think of anything else. If I can just reach the foot of the ladder and start climbing, I’ll be able to kick at the fingers of anyone trying to climb up behind me. Naturally, this is a far from optimal solution. It’s hard to think of many alternative scenarios, let alone consider which of them is the best choice, because the ball is rolling ever closer, and I am the tenpin.

I’m nearing the corner, it’s only fifteen metres away. I reach the corner and change course.

I run towards the loading bay, only a few more steps until the steel stairs. I reach the foot of the stairs and start climbing up to the loading bay, one rattling rung at a time. I see the ladder in front of me and think I might just reach the lowest rung and make it up to the roof when…

The bowling ball slams into my back.

The impact knocks me forwards, as though someone has flung me up into the air. I slump face first to the latticed floor of the loading bay. I try to stand up, but I can’t. Instead, a horse appears on my back. At least, that’s what it feels like, as though rider and ridee have suddenly changed place.

The bowling ball presses down on my back, gripping my head in its hands – its cold fingers, stubby but strong, against my temples – then it lifts my head up … and slams it right down again.

My forehead strikes the steel grille once, twice, thrice. I hear a dull metallic sound ringing in my ears and vibrating through my body. I grip the man’s wrists, but they are thick and sturdy as pipes buried in the ground, which means I can’t stop their movement. My forehead is battered against the grille over and over. When my head rises again, or, rather, when it is yanked upwards, ahead and to the left I see some wooden planks that I’ve been using to mend the Strawberry Maze.

I stretch out my arm, elongating my entire upper body, and manage to grab hold of an L-shaped length of wood. I pull it closer, inch by inch, and eventually clasp my fingers tightly around it. At the same time, my forehead is still being thwacked against the steel floor, and I get the distinct impression that the steel will soon give way under the force of the blows. There isn’t much time. I grip the plank as firmly as I can, make a quick assessment of the length of the bowling ball’s back and the position of its head, and fling my arm backwards with all the strength I can muster.

As it lands, the sound the plank makes is surprising. It’s soft and wet.

The ball’s fingers release their grip and the horse on my back wobbles. I push myself up, and the horse staggers again, a little more violently this time, and I manage to crawl out from underneath it. I move my legs, stand up, and my first thought is that I ought to start running again. But that’s not what happens. The beating my head has taken causes me considerable dizziness, and I have to move in careful, fumbling steps. I glance over my shoulder. The bowling ball is staring at something in his fingers, then he looks at me and holds up the focus of his attention for me to see. A tooth. It quickly dawns on me exactly where my wooden hammer struck him.

Square in the mouth.

The bowling ball throws the tooth from his hand. It arches through the air and disappears into the darkness. He wipes his bloody mouth on the back of his sleeve. Then he lunges at me again. I turn and dash into a sprint. Another mismatched bout of wrestling will be too much for me, I know that. But I run all the same, and it’s only ten or so metres to the foot of the ladder. Every step requires the utmost concentration. Maybe that’s why I haven’t noticed that a third person has appeared on the loading bay too.

This new arrival is wearing a balaclava and is approaching me from the dark end of the loading bay. The balaclava first runs towards me then changes tack, and I can see he is trying to pass me.

A lot happens in the next two and a half seconds.

The bowling ball is about to catch up with me again; now he is only an arm’s length away. The balaclava is approaching from the opposite direction, out of the darkness behind me, so it’s likely that the bowling ball hasn’t seen him.

As he runs forwards, the balaclava crouches down, snatches up the strawberry, and finally reaches me.

The strawberry in the balaclava’s hands is part of the Strawberry Maze. It’s a decoration, the same one I brought out here earlier this afternoon to take apart and put the pieces in two separate recycling bins, the plastic with the plastic and the metallic parts with the metal. It has a diameter of around sixty centimetres, and I’ve removed it from the park because it is broken and its cracked edges might injure the children.

I try to change direction, but this only makes me stumble and partially turn around. And then I see what happens next.

The balaclava and the bowling ball collide at full pelt. It might be more correct to say that the balaclava strikes the bowling ball with the strawberry, bringing it crashing down on his head. Or, to be even more precise, I should say that the bowling ball slams into the strawberry. The plastic cracks even further, and the bowling ball’s head disappears inside the strawberry.

The strawberry becomes lodged around the man’s shoulders, and the whole thing looks like a giant cochineal crown with a tuft of green hair on top. At the same time, the sharp straggles of steel wire cut into the man’s neck, specifically his jugular. Which tears open. And the result of all this is…

…a strawberry-headed man staggering to regain his balance on the loading bay with a fountain of blood gushing from his neck.

I feel dizzy, my ears are rushing, and the only way I can remain upright is by gripping my knees for support. I assume there are several reasons for the dizziness: lack of oxygen, the sustained pummelling of my forehead against the steel grille and the gruesome sight in front of me. It’s as though I’m watching a complex magic trick that has gone wrong somewhere along the line, or perhaps even an attempt at some kind of world record.

The man is clearly bewildered, a little discombobulated – who wouldn’t be, after getting lodged inside a plastic strawberry and sustaining a deep laceration to the neck? And his subsequent actions aren’t at all sensible. His arms are flailing here and there, and he seems to jump up and down on the spot, though what he really should do is…

The balaclava takes a few steps towards him, says something I can’t hear, then approaches the man, his hands outstretched in what I assume is an attempt to help him. Perhaps the man hears the approaching footsteps and fatally misreads the situation. Either that, or something else makes him panic, and he suddenly spins round 180 degrees and bursts into a run.

My strawberry-headed assailant dashes across the loading bay, sputtering blood as he goes, his legs moving like little propellers.

The balaclava runs after him and shouts something again. It looks as though the man is speeding up. Then, only a few steps later, the strawberry starts to sway, and the orbit of the swaying motion increases with every step. The balaclava is about to catch up with him when the final sway makes any kind of assistance virtually impossible. The man dives from the bay into the night.

For a brief moment he flies through the glare of the streetlamps, the strawberry gleams, the blood spurts a red rainbow through the air, his legs paddle hard…

Then all the variables change at once.

Gravity has the last word.

EIGHT DAYS EARLIER

1

The adventure park could be seen from afar. It was a brightly coloured, red-yellow-and-orange box, in size somewhere between Stockmann’s department store and an average airport terminal. It was almost two hundred metres in length, stood fifteen metres tall, and on its roof in giant lettering was the park’s name: YouMeFun. Right now, the wistful, beautiful November sunlight struck the sign, bathing the car park the size of three football pitches in gold and lending a soft sheen to the great mass of tin and steel standing proudly behind it.

I stopped at the traffic lights, looked up at the adventure park across the road and thought once again that something really was different.

Something had changed and changed for good.

This was my park, I thought to myself. The thought gave me strength. I had almost died trying to save this park. I had steered it out from under a mountain of debt, and though it might not be profitable yet, at least, in all probability, it would be a survivor.

Only six months ago I’d been forced to resign from my job as an actuary at a leading insurance company. I was faced with choosing between a change in my job description that would have seen me moving into a broom cupboard to conduct an endless stream of meaningless pseudo-calculations or taking part in an emotion-oriented, time-dynamic training programme, not to mention group yoga sessions. But only a moment after handing in my resignation, I learnt that my brother had passed away and that I had inherited his adventure park. Upon arrival at said adventure park, I learnt that I had inherited my brother’s considerable debts too, debts that he had taken out with an assortment of hard-boiled criminals. One thing led to another, and to save my own life, the jobs of the staff, and the park itself, I had to resort to some radical acts of self-defence, and as a result of this one of the gangsters died after finding himself on the receiving end of the kinetic intersection between me and a giant plastic rabbit’s ear, I ended up opening a payday-loan operation, then quickly running it down again, I met an artist who aroused feelings I had hitherto never experienced, I had to avoid both the crooks and the police and witness an event that still makes me nervously fumble with my neck.

After all this, the park’s financial situation was still tough. There was no other word for it.

I’d already resorted to numerous money-saving measures, and I suspected there would be more of them down the line. I’d tried to lead by example in every respect. My salary was already lower than anybody else’s, and I paid for my lunch and snacks myself at the park’s main eatery, the Curly Cake Café. I didn’t want to cut the other employees’ salaries, but obviously I’d been forced to take a closer look at budget allocations for each department. This initially met with some resistance, but I defended my solutions with a series of carefully compiled spreadsheets and stressed to the staff at every turn that we had to look at things over a five- to ten-year timeframe. This was greeted with silence. Which, in turn, gave me the chance to outline my money-saving proposals in more detail, ranging from the largescale (energy saving: the ambient temperature in the main hall was now on average one and a half degrees cooler than a month ago. Naturally, the children haven’t noticed the change, and I’ve provided the staff with warm sweatshirts sporting the park’s logo) to the smaller scale (I repainted the Loopy Ladder in Caper Castle by myself, which is evident in the splashes of paint on the wall behind it, but the saving was not insignificant).

I crossed the road and walked into the car park. My mood improved with every step because all the pieces were finally falling into place, both in general and individually, in the long term and on a day-by-day basis. The equation was beginning to take shape. All was well.

This was my life now. And most importantly of all, my life was orderly again.

A series of brisk steps brought me to the main entrance, the sliding doors slid open and I stepped into the foyer, which was well lit and decorated in bright colours. This was always the point at which I felt like I was stepping into another world, and something akin to that happened now too. Alongside this, another feeling appeared too, one that I recognised right away. I realised that I felt at home. Was that what all this was about – that this adventure park had become a home from home?

Kristian was standing behind the ticket counter, handing a set of tickets to a tired-looking man trying to shepherd three shorter customers, all actively pulling in different directions. The man took his tickets, turned reluctantly, herded his flock, and together they all disappeared inside the main hall.

I bade Kristian good morning. I expected to see that broad, eager smile of his and to hear him give some variation on the theme of how fabulous or magnificent this particular morning was.

‘Morning,’ he said politely and continued staring at his computer screen.

Kristian was highly effective in his role as sales manager, and on the whole he was extraordinarily enthusiastic. He was in the habit of calling me and sending me messages, even outside of work hours. Hi Boss, there’s a SUPER-AMAZING surprise here waiting for you!!! he might text, though upon arrival at the park I would learn that this super-amazing surprise was nothing more than the release of a new flavour of ice cream at the self-service counter at the Curly Cake Café. For Kristian, every day was a great day, and he never tired of telling me so. Now, however, he stood sullenly clicking his mouse. The clicks sounded like nervous little fillips. I glanced over my shoulder. There was no queue at the counter. By the volume of cars parked outside, I concluded that we had a moderate number of customers right now, just as one would expect on an unremarkable Wednesday morning in November.

‘What a fantastic morning,’ I heard myself saying and realised that the words came out of my mouth precisely because I hadn’t heard them from anyone else.

‘What?’ asked Kristian. It was only now that he looked at me properly. He made eye contact with me, but his gaze was somehow unfocussed, as though while looking at me he had forbidden himself from actually seeing me. I was about to ask if there was anything troubling him, something pulling him closer and closer to the screen in front of him – he was stretching his neck in a most unnatural fashion – when I noticed the large clock in the park’s foyer.

I was at the start of the Komodo Locomotive, and it was already eleven o’clock. The Komodo Locomotive was one of our oldest rides, a perennial favourite among our younger clientele. It was also one of the safest rides we had, suitable for those who weren’t even old enough to ask to get in it. To increase security further, we had decided to install additional airbags in each of the seats. I thought this a bit over the top, but Esa was the park’s head of security, and he believed we should prepare for any eventuality. I’d realised some time ago that when Esa says ‘any eventuality’, he really means it.

I found Esa behind one of the carriages. He was lying on his stomach, tapping it from underneath with a hammer. As always, the air around him was stale and thick. And even though he was lying flat on the floor, he looked as though he would be ready to leap into action at any moment. The sweatshirts of the US Marine Corps, which he had worn religiously until only a few weeks ago and which listed the bearer’s years of service, might have had something to do with it. Though he had recently switched these sweatshirts with cosy-looking woollen jumpers, complete with colourful animal figures, I saw the same military demeanour and physical readiness that one might expect from a former US Marine.

‘Aren’t the airbags supposed to be on the inside?’ I asked.

The hammer stopped in mid-air. Esa didn’t turn or take his eyes from the underside of the carriage.

‘All in good time,’ he said.

‘Meaning?’

‘Once we’ve secured our position.’

I couldn’t imagine what Esa was referring to, but this style of communication was typical.

‘How long do you think it will take to … secure our position?’

‘Hard to say with our current intel. We’re vastly outnumbered and constantly having to make do with inadequate coordinates. And seeing as there’s no let-up in hostilities—’

‘Quite,’ I interrupt him. ‘I have to take an important call at eleven-thirty…’

‘It’ll take longer than that,’ said Esa, this time speaking more quickly than ever before, the words spilling from his lips in a single jumble of sounds.

I looked around. Getting the Komodo Locomotive up and running wasn’t a matter of life and death. There were still only relatively few customers, and most of them were larger than the median passenger on the Komodo Locomotive, and in all respects it looked as though today would be a fairly quiet day. Just then, Esa audibly passed a cloud of noxious gases from deep within. I felt a warm puff of air on my face, stopped breathing through my nose so as not to trigger my gag reflex, opened my mouth and instantly felt a burning sensation at the top of my larynx.

‘I’ll come back later,’ I suggested.

The hammer resumed its tapping. Esa said nothing.

I walked off towards the Big Dipper, and once I was sufficiently far away – in Esa’s case, I considered a safe distance around fifteen metres – I filled my lungs with fresh air once again.

The Curly Cake Café smelt of salmon soup and pastries fresh from the oven. Our shorter clients were often at the louder end of the scale, and that was the case now too. Though the air conditioning had recently been enhanced and optimised, the café was still very warm. Taken together, the cumulative effect of these factors – the thick, greasy smells, the shrill squeals, the higher than usual temperature – made the place feel quite exhausting. I often felt conflicted when visiting the café, my mood a vexing combination of drowsiness and dread.

I walked up to the counter and saw Johanna in the kitchen. I took a butter-and-sugar bun from the glass cabinet and raised my plate so that Johanna could see it. She noticed me, lowered a batch of French fries into the vat of bubbling oil and walked to the other side of the counter. I was about to say I would pay for the bun and take it back to my office when Johanna cut me short.

‘This one’s on me,’ she said. ‘Do you want another one too?’

I looked at the plate in my hand, the bun sitting on the plate. Then I looked up at Johanna again. The very first time I had met her, several months ago, I’d been struck by the way her face made me think of a former convict training for an iron-man competition. I wasn’t wrong. And the café meant everything to her. Here, nothing happened without her say-so, and nobody circumvented the rules, both the written and the unwritten varieties. But more to the point, she never, under any circumstances whatsoever, gave anything away for free. And now she was offering me a second bun.

‘I only need one,’ I said.

‘Just a thought, in case a second one might come in handy.’

‘By my initial calculation, one should be enough to sufficiently raise my blood-sugar levels,’ I replied, and in a curious way I felt like a turtle that had been turned upside down: I couldn’t move, and even if I could, it would have taken far too long.

‘What about lunch?’ she then asked.

‘Lunch?’

‘We have Sailor’s Salmon Soup, Cock-a-Noodle-do, and today’s vegan option is Tearaway’s Tofu Tart. For dessert there’s Spotted Quick and all the grown-ups’ favourite, Caramel Cannons. My treat.’

‘I think I’ll be fine with this for now…’

‘I meant later on,’ she explained.

I was about to say something – I didn’t quite know what – when I noticed a queue had formed behind us. Johanna seemed to notice this too. She looked at me and gave a curt nod. I assumed this meant I was excused, for now. I took the opportunity and, once my legs started obeying me again, left.

I walked towards my office, passing the Strawberry Maze and the usual cries and stampede of footsteps coming from inside it, then I turned right at the noisy, rattling Caper Castle, made my way around the Turtle Trucks, whose loud and over-excited drivers were currently changing seats, and headed towards the corridor, at the end of which was my office. I had only taken a few steps along the corridor and I was about to pass the office belonging to Minttu K, our head of sales and marketing, when she stopped me in my tracks.

‘Hi,’ she whispered. At least, I thought it was a whisper. The voice was gravelly and demanding, like a serrated saw against a plank of hard wood, only much, much lower. It was morning, but Minttu K’s room already exuded the unmistakable scent of tobacco and gin. She raised her right hand and waved me over, beckoned me inside. ‘Let’s talk money.’

‘The marketing meeting isn’t until Thursday,’ I said. ‘It’s probably best if we return to the—’

Minttu K shook her head and raised a well-tanned hand to silence me. Her silver rings sparkled.

‘Honey, this Tesla waits for no man. Imagine – a real-life karate sensei. Thirty-five thousand followers on Instagram.’

Minttu K took a sip from her black mug. From her expression, it was hard to tell whether there was coffee in it or something else. The mug was as black as her blazer, which was at least one size too small for her.

‘And why do we need a … karate sensei?’ I asked.

‘Karate Kids,’ she replied. ‘There’s plenty of them round here. All we need is a good slogan.’

Minttu K ruffled her short blonde hair. She seemed utterly convinced of whatever it was she was trying to tell me, which didn’t particularly surprise me.

‘First, this sounds like it could be a little dangerous, and the park isn’t really a martial-arts college…’ I began but started to feel a slight wooziness. I had to get to my office. ‘We don’t have the funds to cover any extra activities. As I’ve said several times.’

Minttu K twiddled a cigarette in her fingers. It had appeared there without my noticing.

‘So you’re just going to let this fish get away?’ she asked huskily, and before I could say anything at all, she answered the question herself: ‘Fine then. We’ll forever be second best.’

I was genuinely taken aback. Usually Minttu K was ready to fight to the bitter end, figuratively speaking. Now, barely seconds after the apparent end of our conversation, she was calmly sipping from her mug again, sucking intensely on the end of her cigarette and tapping her computer keyboard as before, as though she was reprimanding it for doing something naughty.

There was one final corner in the corridor.

The morning’s encounters started replaying in my mind. And I realised that the brief wooziness of a moment ago had very concrete origins: it had grown exponentially with each encounter. Now everything was playing through my mind on fast-forward, getting stronger and sharper, taking on depth and life, and I started seeing and hearing things in these brief encounters that I hadn’t registered at the time. Kristian wasn’t bursting with enthusiasm, he hadn’t suggested any changes or offered to make improvements first thing in the morning, the way he usually did; Esa was in no hurry to shore up the park’s security, and instead he was carrying out repairs at a leisurely pace and without any sense of impending disaster; Minttu K caved in quickly and easily; Johanna offered me a second bun in case I needed it. As that last thought came into focus and began echoing more vividly through my mind, I felt the hand holding the plate with my bun begin to tremble.

I turned the final corner, stepped into my office and stopped in my tracks.

The butter-and-sugar bun leapt into the air.

The plate flew from my hand and smashed to smithereens.

The dead had come to life.

2

A pair of bright, sincere blue eyes, fair hair parted on the right, making his round head look even rounder, and a small, deep dimple in his chin. A blazer, a shirt (no tie), and that beaming, contagious smile.

The sounds from the hall carried into the office like waves, by turn fading then surging over me, as though their crests were crashing above my head. The children were running and screaming, banging and clanging on the rides, and above it all hung the thick, sweet, creamy smell of pastries and salmon soup.

The man held out his short arms, as if to introduce himself. There was no need. I knew perfectly well who he was. Thousands of images and memories hurtled through my mind – the most recent being the clearest. Standing in front of me was a man who had almost got me killed, a man who had left me with debts to the tune of several hundred thousand euros. And by the looks of it, he had risen from the dead.

My brother. Juhani.

Alive and well, and in my office.

He took two or three steps towards me. He said my name, wrapped his arms around me and bear-hugged me. I was a head taller than him, and the familiar smell of his aftershave rose into my nostrils like smoke from a bonfire. But the bear-hug had another significance too. It made everything real; his hug was the crushing evidence of it. My desire to snap out of the bear-hug was every bit as physical and as concrete as the arms around me.

Juhani brought our embrace to an end, took a step back and gave a characteristically sunny smile.

‘This is brilliant,’ he said. ‘We did it.’

The speed of light is three hundred thousand kilometres per second. I was certain that something in me or in the room was moving at that speed, and I realised it must have been the decision I made there and then, in the blink of an eye. I moved, walked behind the desk and sat down in my chair.

‘You’re probably wondering where I’ve been,’ Juhani said, still breezy.

‘I haven’t had time,’ I said, honestly, and realised this was the first time I’d been able to speak. My voice sounded somehow more distant than usual. ‘I assumed you were in Malmi. I buried you there myself, lowered you into the ground, shovelled sandy earth on top of you.’

‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ said Juhani and took a few short steps into the middle of the room. ‘But no, I wasn’t there. Anyway, moving on. While I was waiting for you, I did a little walkabout around the park. I chatted to people, tried to take in the vibe of the place. So, I’ve been thinking…’

I stared at him. Juhani looked and sounded as though this was a perfectly normal morning and we were perfectly normal brothers. In a certain sense, that was true, but in another – no, it was not, not at all. I had finally woken up. That’s what it felt like.

‘You deceived me,’ I said.

Juhani stopped and seemed a little more serious now.

‘That’s putting it a bit strongly,’ he said. ‘But you’re right, I owe you an explanation. I needed your help. As you know, the situation here had got a bit out of hand. We needed a mathematical intervention. Enter, my brilliant brother Henri, who can magically sort everything out. Meanwhile, I had to take a back seat for a little while. So, we both did what we had to do. You were here sorting out the park, I was lying low in a campsite. In eastern Finland. Rain, mosquitoes … waiting for the life insurance to pay out. In vain, as it happens. I’ll come back to that little problemo in a minute. But I’m sure you agree, the end result is a towering success.’

Juhani had been talking so quickly that by the time I’d fully understood what I’d just heard, he was already quiet.

‘I could have died,’ I said.

‘That wasn’t part of the plan though,’ said Juhani, pulling a chair from beside the conference table and sitting down. He sounded almost offended. ‘There’s no way I could have predicted—’

‘You were in debt to criminals,’ I said. ‘Very dangerous criminals. And I attended your funeral.’

‘My lawyer thought a funeral would be a good idea.’

‘Even though you weren’t dead?’

‘I wasn’t far off.’

‘But you were not dead. You were in eastern Finland.’

‘If you saw the place, you’d know it’s basically the same thing.’

‘But it is not the same thing, that’s what I’m trying to say. I had to clean up your mess.’

At first Juhani didn’t say anything, then he gave another smile.

‘But we survived,’ he said, placing his hands together in front of him as though he were thanking some higher power. ‘And here we are, victorious. And I’m absolutely bursting with new ideas.’

‘Ideas about what?’

‘This place. The park. I’m ready. Let’s go.’

Everything seemed to be moving too quickly, as though someone had pressed fast-forward and there was no way of switching it off again.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said, and it was the truth.

‘Henri, I’ve come back to liberate you,’ Juhani smiled. ‘To lift the burden from your shoulders, as they say. I’ll take it from here. Full steam ahead. And a very grateful steam it is too.’

Had a cold November wind just blown through the room, or a draught of chilled air, perhaps? The feeling was very real; it was powerful and bracing. My initial shock, my surprise and general confusion were gradually replaced with a cool serenity, the same composure I’d often thought it must take to work in a bomb-disposal unit, the same feeling I had experienced in my brother’s company dozens, hundreds of times before. I looked Juhani in the eyes and remembered everything: our peculiar childhood, our parents and their constant financial chaos and general lack of life skills, the upheaval of our teenage years as we moved from one place to the next, then, later on, Juhani’s string of failed business enterprises, my own trials and tribulations over the past few months and how everything very nearly imploded. And just as clearly, I understood what I had to do, what was required of me under the circumstances: I had to use mathematics and logic. Because they had brought the park balance, clarity, reliability and a positive outlook for the future.

‘We are still going through a strict period of austerity,’ I said. ‘We’ve done away with everything unnecessary, and in the near future it’s likely we may have to tighten our belts in other ways too. We have to consider any investments extremely carefully, and we need to raise our debt repayment capacity. On top of this, competition in the adventure-park sector is only going to increase in the near future. The good news is that there shouldn’t be any nasty surprises coming our way – in the form of new criminal elements, for instance. If we hold our course and budget carefully, we have the chance not only to retain the staff we already have and maybe make the park profitable again, but, one day, we might even be able to pay everyone the Christmas bonuses you promised them.’

Juhani looked as though he had been listening to me intently and sincerely. His bright-blue eyes were wide open, his cheeks healthy and pink.

‘This is exactly what I was expecting from you,’ he said. ‘All in all, excellent work.’ He paused for a moment, then continued:

‘Of course, I’ll bear all this in mind once I’m back in the saddle again. I’ll just add a little bit of my own magic too. Ideas, innovations, openness, happiness.’

We looked at each other.

‘No,’ I said.

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘No … what?’

‘No … everything. The park’s long-term prosperity requires—’

‘Henri, this is my park.’ Again, he sounded offended.

‘Which you left me on the verge of bankruptcy, not to mention that you’d taken out debts with a bunch of extremely dangerous gangsters. Then you ran away.’

Juhani tilted his head to the side. I knew this gesture. Nobody else tilted their head time after time in exactly the same fashion and in similar circumstances, after being caught out one way or another. And though this was only a microscopic shift compared to everything else that had happened in the last few minutes, the movement was like the hint of brightness that comes after a downpour. There it was, an admission, right in front of me. And if I needed any confirmation, it proved two things: my brother Juhani truly had returned and, what’s more, he had returned with all his character traits intact.

‘Okay, that’s how you see things,’ he said. ‘I get it. We can negotiate. We’re talking about a week or two, maybe a month at most?’

I thought for a moment, carried out some quick calculations.

‘To be honest, I was thinking in terms of years. And even then, we’re still only talking about share ownership and not…’

Juhani shook his head. ‘I haven’t got years,’ he said. ‘And neither does the park.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Henri, can’t you see what’s happening out there?’ Juhani asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. He was clearly shifting up a gear. ‘Like I said, I walked around the place before coming here to wait for you. I heard all about the scrimping and saving, how you’ve put the park on ice so that everything will be groovy a hundred years from now. People don’t like that kind of thing, Henri. They want things to be groovy today. I told them we’ll be putting that right straight away.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I want to bring back a bit of creative madness,’ he said. ‘You said yourself the park has to do a spot of penny-pinching. You solve that by increasing the volume of customers. And that means getting all our ducks in a row, as they say. Who wants to visit an adventure park where everybody is sad and crying all the time?’

‘I haven’t seen anybody crying, and besides—’

‘Henri,’ said Juhani, again gesticulating as he spoke. It looked to me as though he might be getting a little agitated. ‘You have a tendency to get bogged down in the details. We’ve got to look at the bigger picture, assess the situation on the ground and … understand that one plus one isn’t always two.’

‘But it is,’ I said. ‘Every single time.’

‘Henri,’ he cried. ‘I’ve come back from the dead!’