I noticed I was smiling.
‘Are you alright?’ Laura Helanto asked when we met at midday.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You look a bit … No offence, but you look a bit ill. You’re different somehow.’
I realised that this misunderstanding was probably due to my expression. I stopped smiling, and Laura didn’t ask anything else. She explained that the giant rabbit, which greeted everybody as they arrived, suffered from a loose, flapping ear. Just then, she turned and pointed at the rabbit.
‘Its ears aren’t supposed to flap around,’ she added, and now she was smiling too. I was unsure whether the smile was intended for me or the rabbit.
‘I’ll fix it myself,’ I said because I knew Kristian was currently at the entrance counter, standing in for Venla. Again. Then I remembered the other pressing matters on today’s schedule and added: ‘Once we’ve closed for the day.’
Laura looked at me again. I’d noticed that I liked her eyes. There was something about their brightness, their inquisitiveness, something that made even me realise it is possible to look at certain things and experience joy and excitement. Perhaps. And I noticed I liked her wild hair too. Its bushiness was both fun and attractive, all at once. But I didn’t want to prolong our meeting. All week Laura had been asking awkward questions about the men’s visit and why I wanted to pay greater attention to the petty-cash register and all other financial transactions.
‘Is it alright if I leave a bit early today?’ she asked.
The question took me aback. Then I realised that, naturally, I was the one who made these kinds of decisions now.
‘If everything is in order,’ I said.
Laura glanced quickly to her side.
‘I think everything is in order.’
Had her tone of voice changed?
‘Of course, I’ll go around the park once more,’ she continued, ‘and I’ll tell the others I’m leaving. And I’ll remind people to make sure they don’t accidentally do any overtime.’
Excellent, I thought. Sunday overtime pay was poison to the park’s finances and might upset our new-found financial equilibrium. If we could put Sunday overtime behind us, so much the better. And if some chores were left unfinished, they could be done on Monday, the quietest day of the week.
‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘I can close up.’
Another quick glance to the side.
‘So I can tell everyone they can leave as and when they are done?’
‘That will be fine too,’ I replied. ‘I can glue the rabbit’s ear by myself.’
Laura Helanto looked first at me, then the rabbit.
‘It can be quite an unpredictable rabbit,’ she said. ‘Be careful.’
NOW
1
The German rabbit’s large ear looks like it is growing right out of the dead man’s forehead.
I manage to raise my eyes and spin around. My legs are trembling, my heart is thundering like an icebreaker pushing through the frozen sea. I am standing in the middle of the adventure park, in the area between the Komodo Locomotive and the Trombone Cannons with the giant rabbit behind me, a dead man at my feet, and I’m bleeding. At times I can almost fathom all this, at others it threatens to hurtle out of my control, turn to panic and terror. Instinctively, I know that the wisest thing to do is to stay still, to try and stand on the spot and wait.
Time passes slowly.
I can feel the seconds ticking within me, like someone knocking the wind out of me over and over. Gradually I start sensing things outside my own body again. The smells of the adventure park, the permeating sweetness wafting out of the cafeteria, the building materials around me: veneer, metal, plastic. Small, brightly coloured spots of light. The sheer motionlessness. The silence. My breathing slowly steadies, my sweaty clothes start to feel cold and tacky against my skin. My left shoulder is pulsing, blood is pumping into my adventure-park T-shirt and seeping through the fabric. The lactic acid gradually fades from my limbs, and I can sense the feeling and mobility returning to my thighs and calves. I realise I must be in shock, in a state of post-adrenaline rush, and maybe I’m not entirely myself. But to some extent, I am.
Therefore, I count.
Three days ago, two men visited me, one of them twisted my fingers, the other demanded money. I refused to pay, and they said they would be back. It’s not a very complicated equation – despite the indisputable fact that the man lying on the floor is neither of the men that visited me. Still, I don’t need to know who he is to know that he represents the same organisation. And this organisation doesn’t appear to operate the way banks usually do. Though banks have a habit of continuously and systematically making their customer service worse, they haven’t quite reached the point where they send knife-throwers after their debtors in the dead of night. I can hear the man’s cries as though they are still echoing around the hall.
This is your final warning.
If the knife that struck my shoulder was my final warning, what will the next step be? Again, it’s a simple calculation. It also tells me who – or rather what – I’m dealing with.
Juhani was in debt to a bunch of criminals. Either they will get their money or…
I am beginning to appreciate both the scope and the true nature of my problem.
Only a few seconds, a few blinks of an eye ago I was about to call the police, an ambulance.
But if I were to do that, what would happen next? The chain of events is obvious: the park would be closed indefinitely, its reputation would be gone, its finances would collapse for good, I would still be in debt to the crooks and I wouldn’t have a park to help me clear that debt, which was accruing interest with every passing day. If I sold my one-bedroom flat, I might be able to survive for a short while, but then I would be in an even worse situation: homeless, park-less and penniless – and what would these men do to somebody like that?
No, absolutely not. The solution must be elsewhere. And what was it I was thinking only a moment ago? How I am sick to the back teeth that I am continually – and unjustly – placed in situations for which I am not in any way responsible, I am sick of being snubbed with a mixture of cunning, plotting, lying – and now crime.
But first things first…
I need some distance, some time to think. Time to draw up a plan, to make the necessary calculations, to see things more clearly. To know how best to proceed. I need…
That’s right.
I spin round again. My first steps are unsure, my legs are still stiff with exertion. They start to work again as I walk towards the doors and look outside. The car park is like the surface of the moon, cold, motionless and devoid of people. I might just have survived the first test. I return to the hall, walk up to the man and kneel down in front of him. I look somewhere else. I don’t like doing it one bit, but I pat the man’s pockets. The feeling is extremely unpleasant. The man is still lukewarm, gradually cooling, his body strangely broader than one might expect. The zip pockets in his coat are far away from each other, like two little bags of assorted belongings dropped at two different sides of the park. Finally I find what I’m looking for.
A set of car keys.
This is the second piece of good news. If there is a set of car keys in his pocket, in all probability he must have come here alone. I must admit, this conclusion isn’t based on rigorous logical probability, but on so-called gut feeling – something for which, as a mathematician who is serious about statistical analysis, I cannot say I have much time. But this is an exceptional situation, and there isn’t nearly enough observable evidence to reach a more thorough conclusion. I’m not sure which I’m trying to convince myself of more: what I have to do next or the fact that I can so easily dismiss serious probability equations for the nth time in the same week.