Death.
I knew a lot about death.
Not from first-hand experience, but from my work as an actuary. Insurance companies and their feel-good advertising never tell you this, but they know that some of the people they insure will stop their monthly payments in a heartbeat, as it were, and take a one-way trip somewhere their insurance payout will never reach them. I could have tried doing the same: running out of the office and throwing myself under the Komodo Locomotive.
But no.
I wasn’t that kind of man. I was more of the belief that we don’t have to go out of our way to find difficulties in this life; before long, they will find us.
My hand reached up to loosen my tie, but I’d already loosened it hours ago. The sense of claustrophobia was coming from somewhere else. While looking at the figures, it had dawned on me that with the park came every last object in this building. It was a terrifying, overwhelming thought. The chair beneath me, the pen on the desk, the trapeze swings, the slowest go-carts in the known universe, the jacket with the chocolate-bar sponsor logo hanging in the doorway.
Everything.
Juhani was dead, so his belongings were now my belongings. Death wasn’t abstract, empty and silent; it was a thousand and one objects of different shapes and sizes, each of which took up space and made a noise when it was thrown in the bin or placed in apparently temporary storage boxes.
I wasn’t planning on setting everything ablaze. Again, I wasn’t that kind of man. I knew there were men who set buildings alight then masturbated in the nearby woods as they admired the flames, but I didn’t imagine such actions would achieve the results I needed.
More importantly, there was another pile of papers too, this one almost a centimetre thick. And this pile disconcerted me far more than the pile of bills and final demands.
The park’s business activities were sustainable, almost profitable.
But still Juhani had neglected to pay almost all the bills and taken out an extra loan in the park’s name.
I didn’t understand the equation.
Through the course of my studies, I’d learned the basics of accounting. So far, I hadn’t needed these skills for my own work, but accounting employed the same principles that I so loved in mathematics. The pursuit of perfect clarity, precision, impeccable balance, water-tight presentation, flawlessness. I liked that. Of course, the material in front of me was wholly inadequate and full of errors, but it gave the impression of a park whose business operations were satisfactory or even rather good. I located the financial statement drawn up by the park’s accountant, but in the other pile was the same accountant’s notification of termination of contract and a bill, dated earlier this year, which had already been forwarded to a debt-collection agency. I couldn’t find anything to suggest a new accountancy firm had been hired. Perhaps there was no new accountancy firm.
If the park’s operations were indeed profitable, why had Juhani taken out another loan to keep it running? What was the extra money for? It can’t have been for the park’s latest acquisition, the Crazy Coil, a twisting, turning slide, shaped like a corkscrew, attached to the Big Dipper. For this Juhani had only paid the initial down payment – in cash – and the first instalment. Looking at the timeline, the bills had started to pile up around the same time the accountancy firm had terminated its contract. After that, almost everything was in arrears. Something had happened. With one exception, all the bank loans had been taken out after that point in time. Adding up the loans and unpaid bills on the table, it seemed that just shy of two hundred thousand euros had disappeared into thin air.
Two hundred thousand euros. In just under a year. One would expect there to be evidence of the existence of such a sum of money. But where was it?
Juhani had been driving an old, part-owned Volvo for the better part of two years and was living in the same one-bedroom apartment, fitted out with MDF furniture, where he had been living since his divorce. His clothes were from Dressmann and he ate at a cheap local Chinese buffet. The Juhani I knew – badly, I admit – barely knew what Versace and the Savoy meant. I couldn’t imagine the money being squandered on skin treatments, manicures or extravagant trips abroad. Juhani had visited Tallinn, spent one night at the Viru Hotel, then returned to Finland. On the surface, he looked like a very average middle-aged Finnish man who didn’t like anything excessively, didn’t have any particular hobbies, and certainly nothing for which you might say he had a passion. Men like that got by with less money than most sparrows. But all that money had to have gone somewhere.
I was again about to ask myself where, when there was a knock at the door.
6
I hadn’t closed the door at any point. Then I remembered the steps I’d heard first getting closer, then moving away again. Someone else had closed the door. Why? Another knock. I had to say something.
‘I’m here,’ I said, then, ‘Come in.’
The handle turned, the door cautiously swung open. Had the park already closed for the day? I looked at my watch. Yes, half an hour ago. I could have been alone in the building – well, of course I wasn’t alone because someone had knocked at the door. Still nobody ventured into the office. Then I caught a glimpse of a shoulder, a shirt, then half a face.
‘What?’ asked Kristian.
‘Yes, I’m … here. I tried to say so.’
‘I didn’t hear,’ he said, still in the doorway. Kristian didn’t move.
‘Come in,’ I said, this time almost a shout.
‘Okay,’ said Kristian and stepped into the room.
He stopped across the desk from me. I gestured to the chair and he sat down, the tools on his belt rattling against the plastic seat. His brown eyes were like almonds. His pectoral muscles tested the seams of his YouMeFun shirt.
‘Were you at the ticket office all day?’ I asked.
Kristian nodded. ‘Brilliant sales today,’ he said. ‘I sold loads of Newt Bracelets.’
‘I take it Venla didn’t come to work.’
Kristian lowered his eyes. ‘No, she’s probably still ill.’
I thought of the missing two hundred thousand euros and what Laura had told me: Juhani had taken on Venla at least in part for reasons that had nothing to do with her ability to sell Newt Bracelets. Was there a connection between the two? I had to talk to this Venla – assuming she ever turned up for the full-time job for which we paid her wages. The thought was both absurd and infuriating.
‘Did she call you?’ I asked. ‘Do you talk to her often?’
Kristian looked even more confused, then I saw the blood rushing to his cheeks.
‘Yes. I mean, no.’
I waited.
‘Not really,’ he corrected himself. He was bright red. ‘Well, not at all.’
‘So the two of you don’t talk?’
‘No.’
‘But you’re filling in for her.’
‘Yes.’
‘And yet you’re the maintenance man.’
‘Yes.’
‘Shouldn’t Venla take care of her own job?’
Kristian looked as though he’d swallowed something he couldn’t get down but was either unable or unwilling to show it.
‘It’s no trouble.’
‘Why don’t you do the others’ jobs too?’
‘Why?’
‘If it’s no trouble.’
‘Everyone else’s jobs? Where are they going?’