‘Perhaps it’s the wrong time to ask something like this, but did you and your brother ever talk about the running of the park?’
‘He sometimes told me about new acquisitions, the Komodo Locomotive, for instance, I remember him telling me about that.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That the train resembles a long, shiny Komodo dragon and that the creature’s smiling head, complete with a long forked tongue, is the engine, that the ride can carry forty children at once and that, depending on how fast you pedal, the circuit takes about five and a half minutes.’
‘I mean, did he ever talk to you about how he financed these acquisitions, where the money came from and where it went? Did he mention any business partners?’
‘No,’ I say, again perfectly truthfully. ‘We never talked about money. And I never had any idea of what kind of people he associated himself with. Or persons, such as the man in that photograph.’
‘A very dangerous man,’ Osmala nods.
‘Certainly looks like it,’ I admit.
‘How is the park doing?’
Osmala’s question has the same intonation, the same tone of voice as everything else he says, soft, almost like a passing comment. I realise he does this on purpose. Osmala looks as though he is pondering something.
‘We’re in a transitional phase,’ I say. ‘I must admit, I haven’t worked in the adventure-park sector before, and it has taken me by complete surprise. Everything is new. The park’s footfall seems to be increasing, sales figures are up and our balance sheet is strong. It’s our intention to expand…’
‘What about the staff? Are they the same as during your brother’s tenure?’
‘Yes, every one of them.’
‘Would you mind if I showed them this photograph and asked if any of them has seen him?’
‘By all means.’
Osmala stuffs a piece of cake the size of a tennis ball into his mouth, leaving vanilla filling smeared across his face. He wipes his lips as his giant jaw chews the sticky mass. We don’t speak for the duration of this process. I have nothing to say, and Osmala’s tongue is weighed down by half a kilo of dough. I’m beginning to realise that everything Osmala says is some kind of fishing expedition in which every word has at least one extra meaning. The children around us run, shout and whinge, the adults wipe their little faces and ask them to sit nicely. This doesn’t have the slightest impact. Osmala finally manages to swallow his mouthful. Even amid the ruckus, I’m sure I can hear the cake squelch on its way down his wide gullet.
‘Do you like this?’ he asks.
‘The cake?’
‘The adventure park,’ he says and nods towards the hall.
‘I haven’t thought about whether I like it or not. I inherited it. People rarely get to choose what they inherit.’
‘What did you do before this?’
‘I am an actuary.’
I briefly explain to Osmala how everything happened. Then I make my apologies and say I really should be getting back to work, if that’s alright. Osmala replies that it’s more than alright. We stand up, and we have taken about a step and a half when Osmala stops in his tracks, and he does it so forcefully that I have to stop too.
‘Would you like me to leave the photograph I showed you?’
With that question, something about Osmala’s face changes. Though his voice is low and soft, and though again he asks the question almost in passing, there’s something else to his expression. I am suitably alert. If anything useful has come of recent events, I’d say that right now it’s much harder to take me by surprise than, for instance, when I was in Perttilä’s office for what was to be the last time.
‘There’s no need,’ I say, fully sincere. ‘At least, not for my sake. I’m sure I wouldn’t forget a face like that.’
Osmala glances at my uneaten blueberry pie.
‘You’re not going to leave that, are you?’
‘Of course not. There are plenty of happy, hard-working little cake-mice in a place like this.’
I have no idea where those words came from. Maybe it’s the influence of the Curly Cake Café: all those peculiar product names and weird and wonderful pictures used to promote the food. Osmala is still staring at my pie, then raises his light-blue eyes to look at me.
‘You could always freeze it,’ he says in that same low, soft voice.
12
The week passes quickly. It’s only on Friday, at the hardware store, that I finally relax. Well, maybe it’s not exactly relaxation, but my problems seem to fade slightly, to move further away. When Laura asked, I promised there and then to go with her. It’s evening and the adventure park has closed its doors. All week I have been granting loans. And I’ve spent many days thinking about the policeman’s visit. All week I’ve been trying to solve my problems, but so far I haven’t found many speedy solutions.
There’s a surprise for me at the hardware store too. This surprise is similar in nature to many of the other surprises I’ve experienced these last few weeks; it feels like suddenly coming round, as though one of my senses has been asleep and is only now shaken awake. I’ve never felt at home in places like this, but now … now there’s something deeply relaxing about the smell of the hardware store. Here there’s a feeling that we’re dealing with something profound and fundamental. Here people build floors, walls and ceilings. They buy stone, wood and steel. They grip handles, tools and rods. Their actions make their own loud, distinctive sounds. Their work can be felt throughout the body, and you can see progress with the naked eye. You can smell the wood, touch the chill of metal. Everything here is concrete, tangible: work progresses one nail, one screw at a time.
Such are my thoughts. They’re not especially realistic because I know what home renovations are really like. They cost twice as much as the original quote and take twice as long as was originally intended. But my reverie has more to do with the person I am accompanying to the store. Whether I like it or not, something always happens when I am in Laura Helanto’s company. I can feel a certain élan flicker inside me, a combination of physical tingling, the images flooding my imagination and an incomprehensible need to start talking and – as I have come to realise – it usually involves something completely unplanned happening.
‘Let’s head straight to the paint section,’ says Laura once we have approached the long chain of trolleys and tugged one free. ‘Let’s try and be quick.’
I tell her I’m in no hurry, so long as I’m at work tomorrow morning. Laura chuckles. I am serious. I push the empty trolley; it makes that familiar trolley sound, something between a low-pitched rattle and a high-pitched squeak. Laura’s fragrance mixes with the smell of the hardware store, and I begin to forget the events of the day. Laura looks up at me, gives a short smile, her glasses catch the light. I could easily push this trolley for a thousand kilometres, I think, as long as she is by my side. At the same time, it occurs to me that we didn’t speak much on the drive out here. And that after asking me to help her carry things this morning, she has only allowed me to catch her eye in passing.
We arrive at the paint section, manage to flag down a sales assistant, who initially tries to walk right past us, as though we weren’t standing right in front of him and didn’t have a physical form at all. Laura begins the process of picking out the paints. She has a selection of samples with her, she shows the assistant the sketches and drafts on her iPad, lists colour codes. The assistant is a young man with gleaming blond hair, who looks like he doesn’t have enough muscle to lift the heavier pots of paint. Nonetheless, he manages to mix the colours according to Laura’s specifications. The trolley fills up, one pot at a time. The assistant is mixing a shade of green for the O’Keeffe wall when I hear a man’s voice at my side.