She doesn’t look at all convinced. I need to get her out of the kitchen. I decide that what is about to happen here is my responsibility and mine alone.
‘Can she go and serve the customers?’ I ask Osmala. ‘There’s quite a queue in the café.’
Osmala is still weighing the pastries in his hands.
‘Why not,’ he says eventually.
I look at Johanna. Perhaps my expression tells her it’s probably best to leave. She glances over at the freezer once more, almost offended, then leaves. Osmala and the officer continue emptying the freezer. I note that the other officer doesn’t seem to be watching the freezer, which is motionless, but me – unlike the freezer, I have a pair of legs. He has moved quietly, imperceptibly, and has positioned himself between me and the kitchen door. It’s hardly surprising.
The freezer is gradually emptied of its contents. Now the chicken wings are beginning to appear on the counter. After the bags of chicken wings, there is a thick layer of croissants, which I recall only too well. I can’t remember the exact number of croissants, but I’m sure the packet Osmala is currently pulling up is one of the last. I am right. He stops. I assume that right now he is looking at the layer of polystyrene panels and white paint, and it will confuse him for a few seconds at most. But he remains in the same position for far longer than I presumed he would, and when he finally moves, he moves in a way that doesn’t suggest he has discovered anything out of the ordinary. He begins pulling more bags of chicken wings from the freezer.
I don’t know how many packets of wings come out of the freezer because I don’t have the strength to count them. There are a lot. The volume of chicken wings building up on the counter represents more or less that of one professional hitman. Osmala leans forwards and his upper body, which is broad and large, disappears inside the freezer. I hear him tapping his knuckles against the walls and bottom of the freezer, running his fingers along the insides. Judging by the noises he is making, he sounds like a man who is disappointed. The anonymous email specified that this was the freezer in question. I should know, because I wrote it myself.
Eventually Osmala reverses out of the freezer. His face has turned a shade somewhere between cherry violet and fire-extinguisher red: he has been dangling, head upside-down in minus twenty degrees for several minutes.
‘Let’s see the other one,’ he says.
‘By all means.’ I don’t know what else to say, to him or myself. To say that this doesn’t line up with my calculations would be something of an understatement.
The other freezer is full of frozen goods too. By that, I mean frozen food. I have not mistaken the freezer.
I repack the freezers in the order that Osmala emptied them and see with my own eyes that the freezer I thought contained something altogether different is exactly like the freezer I once emptied out: it is simply a freezer, no more, no less. By the time I’m finished, my fingers are stiff from the cold. Osmala has sent the uniformed officers on their way, presumably for more pressing cases than those involving frozen Belgian buns and hundreds of chicken wings. He gives the kitchen the once over, looking but not touching anything. I know what he is looking for, but I know it won’t be found in any of the cupboards or shelves.
‘Do you remember the photograph I showed you?’ he asks suddenly.
I tell him I do.
‘Have you seen that man since our conversation?’
‘No,’ I say with a shake of the head.
He takes a few brisk steps towards the kitchen door. Then he turns, tugs the sleeves of his blazer back into place, stretches his back. His face has regained its usual deathly grey hue.
‘You never asked what we were looking for.’
‘I assumed you knew what you were looking for,’ I say, genuinely.
Osmala seems to consider my answer, then accepts it.
‘Indeed,’ he says. ‘Obviously, I can’t comment any further.’
Neither can I. I realised that as I was repacking the freezers.
Just then, my phone starts to ring in my trouser pocket. Osmala takes this as a sign, turns, pushes the door open and disappears into the café. Through the chink of the swinging door, I watch as, like a flickering film, he walks heavily and decisively towards the entrance hall and the front door. I take out my phone and look at it. An unknown number, but I decide to answer, thinking it’s extremely unlikely I can be taken by such surprise for a second time in one day.
It turns out I might very well be wrong.
29
Esa is no longer in his room, but his car keys are still on his desk. I pick them up, drop them in my pocket and write him a note in which I tell him I’m going to borrow his Škoda for park business for the next few days and, obviously, that I’ll reimburse him for the petrol. I hold my breath until I have returned to the hall and started heading towards the back door.
I see the change immediately.
This section of the park was always a strictly children-only zone. Now there are just as many adults too. They are either standing on the spot or slowly walking and pointing at the murals, stopping in front of them, taking a few steps back and moving closer again. More seem to arrive with every passing minute. Small throngs have formed in front of some of the murals. I can’t see Laura anywhere, but I notice I’m hoping she can see the crowds of people who have turned up to admire her work. The thought makes me feel both proud and sad. I leave before I start to feel any worse.
I follow the Highway Code to the letter, making sure to check regularly in my rear-view mirror. I’m not being followed. The journey takes thirty-four minutes.
The small industrial building is grey and wine-red; the grey section is made of concrete and the wine-red bits are corrugated iron. On the wall is an illuminated sign that isn’t currently switched on. It shows a faded strawberry and some slightly wonky lettering reading Southern Finland Preserves and Berries. The name feels somehow ungrammatical, unfinished, as do the surroundings. The road comes to an end just in front of the factory complex. The way it ends inevitably suggests that the original intention was to continue the road, until someone interrupted the act of digging, looked up and realised there wasn’t a single good reason to carry on. The embankments on either side of the road leading up to the factory are empty; on the way here I passed forests of various trees, and fields and unkempt clearings. We are not surrounded with the buzz of innovation; this is not the heart of a thriving start-up community.
From the road, I drive a short distance uphill to the forecourt outside the factory, where I see two other vehicles: a relatively new, black Land Rover SUV and a slightly older-looking red Audi, a gas-guzzler from yesteryear. I park Esa’s car behind the others, forming an orderly line, and step out of the vehicle. The sun flickers between small yet thick, grey clouds; at times it is bright, at others almost dark. Just then the clouds part, and the effect is like that of a surprise camera flash. The landscape flares up: the birches have already lost half of their leaves, and those left on the branches are yellowed and dry, most of them shrivelled. The light-grey gravel on the ground is streaked from the rain, with larger puddles here and there. The building needs some renovation and a fresh coat of paint.
At the top of a short flight of stairs, a door opens and a familiar man steps onto the landing. This time I doubt he intends to show off his baking skills. The big man is dressed in a green hunting jacket, some kind of hiking trousers and a pair of heavy-duty outdoor shoes. Combined with his expression and the colour of his face, the overall effect is one of someone about to kill an elk, quite possibly with his bare hands. He waits for me at the top of the steps and holds the door open. I step directly into the main hall of the factory.