The metallic bench at Malmi cemetery is cold and slightly damp. I don’t mind. I’m sitting beneath a large oak tree. I can make out Juhani’s headstone and the mound of fresh soil where his urn disappeared into the earth. I haven’t brought flowers or anything else because I didn’t know I would be coming here. You could say I was merely driving the car that brought me to the cemetery. I don’t expect Juhani to have any answers – and I don’t know how I would hear them if he did – or what I could find here that might change things. Perhaps I came out here just to be somewhere. And to think.
The missing body isn’t my only problem. I was convinced the big man must have been responsible for the dead man’s disappearance in one way or another, but now I’m just as convinced that if he really knew something about the body’s movements and whereabouts, he would have said something. It’s not his style to do people favours out of the goodness of his heart. Which reminds me of his collection agency and the idea of selling on people’s debts.
The big man had been planning this all along. I was just a middleman, a conduit. And there isn’t a shred of doubt that the collection agency would be a conduit too. I can already envisage the collection agency taking out a loan in order to buy up my loan, and once their own money has flowed through the books, the agency’s only capital will be the unpaid loans, and eventually it will go bankrupt. Which was the point all along. Just as the adventure park is intended to go bust once it has been bled dry. The big man must have been so caught up with his fruit crusher and his soaring rhetoric that he inadvertently let that particular cat out of the bag. But I understood what was going on right away and what that might mean for the adventure park: it will eventually fall under the weight of its debts and loans, money that has ended up somewhere altogether different from funding the park’s activities. I sigh, my breath steams up in the buzzing glow from a circular bollard light that has just switched itself into life. The big man’s business model leaves nothing to the imagination, and he has demonstrated the practical implications of that model both in the barn and most recently at the jam factory.
When the steamroller’s brakes malfunctioned, I ended up being crushed. That I can accept. I have made mistakes in the last few months. I have erred and misread things. The fact that I am where I am is logical; it is as just as life ever can be.
But ultimately this isn’t about me.
What’s at stake is the adventure park and all its staff. Their jobs. They have taken out loans because I told them it was sensible, and they trusted me. I think of Samppa and his Kiddies’ Day, Laura and her daughter Tuuli, Kristian and his new-found thirst for study, Esa and his lifestyle changes, Johanna and her dedication to the cafeteria. Every last one of them deserves better than broken promises, bankruptcy and financial ruin. I think of Juhani, his dreams, his wishes, and above all his child-like enthusiasm and indefatigable ingenuity. I don’t know if these things have any more or less to do with reality than before, but I want them to thrive all the same. I want the park to thrive. But to do that, it first needs to survive.
I realise something else too. At first the significance of the big man’s words eluded me, but only for a moment. He said that Lizard Man knows what I have done to his two partners. That means not only the drowning incident on the cycle path but the freezer too. And there’s another reason I am glad I remember his comment. It gives me the germ of a plan.
I sit on the bench for a long time, the evening darkening around me.
Then I set off.
31
I walk around the deserted adventure park in the half-dark. It’s just gone eleven o’clock. My walk-around is unnecessary: I already know that the park is empty and the doors locked. For now.
The foyer is lit up, and because it is dark outside I can’t see what is on the other side of the door. I flick the manual switch, and the doors slide open. I step outside. The night air is cool, the cloudless sky reaches right up to the stars. The car park is empty, further off I can see the front and rear lights of passing cars.
I head left, turn the corner, continue for a short distance, turn again, walk back all the way to the opposite corner and beyond, I head towards the road and walk almost right to the intersection, then in a sweeping curve return to the doors. I don’t know what my evening walk must look like, but I don’t care. The point is that, no matter which angle you look from, I will be seen in and around the park. Then I walk through the doors and back inside.
And leave the doors open behind me.
On the dark side of the Big Dipper is a bench that the parents can use. I sit down and wait. I can feel the draught from the front door against my ankles. I am wearing my suit trousers, a shirt and tie. I have taken off my blazer and folded it next to me on the bench. The car’s keys are in my pocket.
‘You’re about as good at setting an ambush as you are at everything else,’ says Lizard Man. ‘I don’t know what the big boss sees in you.’
I see his silhouette. He is standing only about fifteen metres in front of me. He has strolled into the park silently and managed to get this close without my noticing a thing.
‘If you want to take someone by surprise,’ he continues, ‘a word of advice: you need the element of surprise. You understand what I’m saying, Emmental?’
‘Einstein,’ I say and stand up.
‘What?’
‘Einstein. He was a physicist. Emmental is a cheese.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ he shouts. ‘I know that. The question is, do you?’
I can only see his outline. Judging by that, he is approaching me and shaking his head.
‘Now listen the fuck up.’
I take a few steps, small sideways steps towards the Big Dipper.
We are both moving now. He is approaching me directly, I am slowly inching my way towards the Big Dipper.
‘Are you really that thick? Is this your idea of an ambush? This shithole?’
Ten metres. Nine, eight…
A knife. It flashes quickly, then disappears back into the shadows.
‘How do you know I’m alone?’ I ask.
‘Listen, errand boy, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but you opened the doors over an hour ago. It’s just you and me in this dump of an amusement park…’
‘It’s an adventure park,’ I say emphatically, and as soon as I’ve uttered the words I take my first running steps.
I hear Lizard Man doing the same. We both break into a run. He wants to exact his revenge up close and personal. I dash behind the slides, arrive at the opening between Caper Castle and the Big Dipper and sprint towards the entrance. But I’m not heading for the doors. My destination is far closer: when people arrive at the park, it greets them happily and cheerily. Its smile is always broad and sunny, its front teeth are like bright, white oar blades. It waves its front paw so enthusiastically that it compels you to respond, though you know it’s only made of metal and plastic.
Lizard Man is gaining on me with almost every step, I don’t have to slow down at all. He is maybe only five metres behind me when I reach the rope. I have to slow down to give the rope a firm yank, then I slightly alter the direction of my run and place my trust in physics and mathematics. Lizard Man and I are only about two metres apart when the giant rabbit starts to topple.
Velocity, the ratio of mass and speed: gravity does its job.
‘You fucking shit-for-brains number-crunching freak…’
A hundred and forty kilos of jolly leporid hits Lizard Man squarely in the face. He slams into the rabbit as if it were a wall.
A wall that cracks ever so slightly.
Of course, this is only a figurative wall. In reality, it is only a man and a giant plastic rabbit colliding at speed. The crack is followed by a loud crash, after which there is utter silence.