And so on.
There was never any sense to anything.
When I was young, I swore my life would be based on recognising facts, on reason, forward planning, control, assessing what was advantageous and what was not. Even as a child I saw mathematics as the key. People betrayed us, numbers did not. I was surrounded by chaos, but numbers represented order. After finishing my homework, I would calculate all kinds of things for pleasure. In mathematics, I was two years ahead of everyone in my class.
Our parents died when Juhani and I were in our early twenties. Their deaths weren’t at all dramatic. In a way, my parents died of old age, though they were relatively young, just shy of sixty. I assumed the reckless lifestyle must have eventually taken its toll on them, aged them; that their unfathomable antics had quite simply worn them out. At the time of their death the latest hairbrained scheme was a Bulgarian-yoghurt festival that they had, yet again, organised completely the wrong way round: by importing vast quantities of yoghurt first and storing it in the house while they waited for the festival to begin.
But what did this have to do with Juhani and grieving his death?
I supposed, as I leaned against the metal railings of my balcony, that in a way I had already grieved for him long ago, when I grieved for my parents. Juhani and our parents were very much of a kind. This didn’t seem to bother him. He had similarly slid from one desperate situation to the next, inevitably leaving smouldering ruins behind him, time and again fleeing the scenes of devastation he had caused, laughing as he went. I think this was why I was so angry at him. And, of course, the fact that he had left me an adventure park with mysterious debts to the tune of hundreds of thousands of euros.
For now I finally realised, as I gripped the cold, square railing in my hands and filled my lungs with night-chilled air, that this was the story of my family.
YouMeFun was Juhani – it was my mother and father.
YouMeFun was our family.
And that was precisely what made all this so difficult.
I hadn’t forgotten all those conversations with my family members. I’d tried to make each of them see the inconsistency of a given course of action and point out the pitfalls of the rose-tinted, laissez-faire attitude that infused everything they did. In each instance I explained the facts, how much everything was likely to cost – in contrast to what they thought things would cost – how one decision affected the next, and explained what the most probable outcome might be. These conversations always ended the same way: arguments, insults, offence, silent treatment, tensions – and fresh arguments.
Until they were all dead.
The concrete floor radiated cold, and the soles of my feet were starting to ache. The stars were like pinheads lit with bright LEDs.
The thought was like a wave born long ago, like a train gathering speed, and I knew it was heading right towards me. I knew its content long before I was able to put it into words. I knew what decision I would eventually reach, though for a fraction of a second I wanted to avoid it alclass="underline" the thought, the conclusions, the implications, the responsibility I would have to bear.
8
Laura Helanto was sitting alone, eating her lunch in the yard behind the adventure park, in the delivery area, where a set of garden furniture had been laid out for the staff. I walked down the clanging metallic steps from the loading bay and headed towards her, the table and chair. Given the time of year, the day was calm and warm, the cloudless sky a deep blue. The world was bright and open and as motionless as could be.
I took a deep breath.
I had spent the previous evening and the early hours of this morning with Juhani’s paperwork. My sense of despair had, if anything, only deepened. That said, I thought I might have found a small glimmer of financial hope amid the chaos.
Laura was holding a fork in her right hand while flicking through her phone with her left. She only looked up once I was three steps away from the table. Her glasses reflected the sunshine, but I caught a fleeting look of bafflement in her eyes before a smile spread across her face.
‘Oh, hi,’ she said.
‘I see the accounting for the petty-cash register lives a life of its own,’ I said and sat down across the table from her. ‘Whose responsibility is that?’
Laura said nothing at first, instead skewering cubes of cucumber from a plastic box with her fork. Her smile had gone.
‘Juhani made it my responsibility,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Is there a problem with the accounting? I always submitted the previous day’s sales report to him, every morning, just as we agreed. And a weekly report every Monday and a monthly report at the end of the month. Hard, printed copies. On his desk. Just as he asked.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘It looks strong – the petty-cash register, I mean. I found the most recent report on the desk, and a few dozen previous reports too. But why…? Did Juhani say…? Or were things done a different way in the past?’
The cucumber cubes remained suspended in mid-air. The fork was almost diametrically halfway between her mouth and the box.
‘If I’ve understood right, everything used to go straight to the accountant in one attachment, directly from the computer,’ she said. ‘But Juhani told me he’d sacked the accountant and that he was looking for a new one, so in the meantime he asked me to look after the cash register and deliver the reports to him directly.’
Just then there was a hint of hesitation, of uncertainty, in Laura’s expression. She lowered the fork back towards the box.
‘Is there a problem?’ she asked.
The short answer was: yes. The fact was that quite a lot of money came into the accounts, but a far greater amount was flowing out again. And the more I put everything together – the lawyer who’d visited my apartment; Kristian with his dreams of becoming general manager; the two accounting reports, one of which was drawn up by a painter; Juhani’s recent loans; the park’s other debts – the more peculiar everything started to look. I hadn’t yet answered when Laura Helanto spoke again.
‘All I know is, the park is doing quite well and I have taken care of everything, as we agreed.’
Laura Helanto sounded genuine. This too was a problem. Kristian seemed genuine; so did the lawyer, in his own way. Everyone was genuine, but that still didn’t explain why a large sum of money was now nowhere to be found.
‘Do you have any previous experience of these matters?’ I asked.
‘What kind of matters?’
Her answer was quick, and it came with a flash, another reflection from her glasses.
‘Experience with corporate finance,’ I said. ‘YouMeFun is more a mid-sized company than a small start-up, so…’