The Rabbit Factor

TWO WEEKS LATER

The parking lot fills up at midday. The sheer noise and frantic movement inside the park suggest that this might be our best Sunday – or any day – this year. The number of tickets sold offers solid proof: it is our best day of the year. While this feels rewarding in both personal and financial terms – at this rate we will be back in the clear sooner than I had anticipated – it also means I’m running at great speed from one crisis to the next.

In the last hour alone, there have been incidents ranging from a sprained wrist, counterfeit entrance tickets and a bubble-gum-induced blockage at one of the slides, to a pair of quarrelling mothers who are first escorted outside, then all the way to their respective cars.

I stand by one of the cars on this cloudless, chilly October afternoon, and I can still hear the cursing coming from inside the vehicle when I receive a text message from the Curly Cake Café. The message is short and to the point; from Johanna, I would expect nothing else. The mother in the car twice shows me her extended middle finger: first as she backs out of her parking space and again a second later as she speeds away.

I find Johanna in the kitchen, which is both spotless and full of action. This in itself is unsurprising. Johanna is dedicated to her café and she keeps it running like clockwork. She sees me and nods. My first impression of her as a fearless Ironman competitor, hard as rock, hasn’t changed. I still haven’t had an actual conversation with her, a conversation longer than a few words here and there. There’s been no need. Even now, everything in the kitchen seems to be running in synchronised harmony: the ovens, the fryers, both dishwashers, the big steel dough kneader the size of a small cement mixer. At a quick glance, I can’t see anything that I could help her with. Before I can ask or say anything, she gestures toward one of the tall stools.

‘Sit down,’ she says. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Very well.’

‘Eight minutes,’ she says as she slides a tray of croissants into the oven the way curling players send off the pin, only she does it faster and with even more precision. She closes the oven door and consults her smart watch. ‘That should do it.’

I am unsure whether she is referring to the croissants or the estimated length of our conversation, so I remain seated and wait. I realise this is the second time in recent weeks that I’ve found myself racing against the clock and buns in ovens.

‘I’m sure you’ve noticed something is missing,’ she says, and I think I see her nod in the direction of the freezer, but I’m not sure. ‘All you need to know is that you don’t need to worry about it.’

Now I am absolutely positive, one-hundred-percent certain.

‘Thank you,’ I say hesitantly. ‘For the chicken wings.’

‘As I said before, I’m the one who should be thanking you. But there’s something else missing too, right?’

This is all going too fast, I think. On the other hand, if Johanna already knows … If the freezer is anything to go by, she might even know more than I do. A lightning-quick re-evaluation of the situation tells me this must be the case.

‘The hundred and twenty-five thousand euros,’ I say.

‘Any theories?’

Again, this is too fast, but I conclude that since she must already have a grasp of the basics, so to speak, I can safely present a theory of my own. Because that’s all I have. A theory.

‘She did it,’ I say. ‘Laura did it. I can only guess when it all started, but I think I know. When those two men visited, she recognised the one I call Lizard Man. Perhaps he was one of her ex’s acquaintances, the ex whom she eventually joined in prison. Laura realised the park was in financial difficulty, maybe she noticed something during Juhani’s tenure here too. Then you looked in the freezer and discovered the man I had temporarily hidden there. The way she talked about you and the fact that she let you look after her daughter told me you two were close. I think I know where you and she met and when.’

I pause. Johanna remains silent – but she doesn’t deny it. So I continue.

‘Perhaps one of you recognised the man in the freezer. Then I told Laura about the plans to set up the bank. As someone very familiar with the park’s finances, she knew that the park itself didn’t have any capital. She knew the money must have come from outside, and because she knew who I was dealing with, she also knew that money would be tainted. Everybody learned how to work the bank’s new software. Laura has experience of how certain kinds of transfers can take place under the radar and how everything can be made to look legal as long as those transfers meet certain criteria. She knows I don’t think collection agencies charge a fair interest rate and she knew I wouldn’t contact Osmala, whom you recognised right away – of that I’m quite sure. She trusted that eventually I would put a stop to it all. The rest was about making sure there was nothing to connect her to the park any more. Laura took the money, and now she’s gone.’

Johanna’s expression hasn’t flinched. She looks at her smart watch, and perhaps there is a slight flicker of something on her face. For the first time in my presence, she looks worried. Perhaps at the thought of the croissants over-heating, I think, but dismiss the idea. This is something else.

‘No,’ she says.

Her eyes are fixed on mine.

‘It’s a theory…’

‘I don’t mean that,’ she says.

The machines hum steadily. The only sound in the kitchen is their low purr.

‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘She did know where the money was coming from. She also knew the park was in danger – and she knew you were in danger too. She wanted to help the park and to help you, but she had to stay away from both once the detective turned up. The detective I recognised. You were right about that too.’

‘But when I said she took the money, you said “no”.’

‘Because your theory was wrong,’ she says. ‘She didn’t take the money.’

Given all the nonsensical things I’ve heard lately, this last sentence makes the least sense of all. I’m trying to see any new scenarios, new ways the chain of events could have panned out, but they are scarce. In fact, they are non-existent. Johanna must sense the cogs aimlessly ratcheting in my brain.

‘Not for herself,’ Johanna says. ‘For the park. The money is ready to be used for the park when the time comes. As far as I’ve understood, certain parties might still show an interest in the park’s finances.’

She is, of course, referring to Detective Inspector Osmala. From what I gather, the police are winding up their investigation into the park. But that is not the reason I feel as though the world is fading away, the reason I can no longer hear the noise of the park behind me, the hum of the kitchen, the reason that my ears are now filled with the sound of my own heart and blood.

‘Assuming that is what happened…’

‘It is.’

‘Why would she … go through all that?’

Johanna no longer looks like an Ironman competitor. Now she looks like an Ironman winner, the toughest, the hardiest of them all.

‘You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?’

‘I’m just trying to understand…’

‘She loves you.’

The road curves slightly uphill. The evening is dark and the sky is clear. A few stars are already visible. I walk faster and faster and make observations that, even as I register them, I know are only an attempt to distract myself from the matter at hand. As I turn onto the short, crescent-shaped road that leads to the right apartment block, I look at my surroundings and think that this really is a very well-chosen neighbourhood given its location, its proximity to the nature preservation area, the general quality of the housing – all built during the 1950s when functionality rather than fantasy was the main design principle – and the steadily rising market value of the properties.

Indeed, it’s a 1950s building I’m looking for, a very well-maintained one, beautifully situated on a slope giving marvellous views of the bay on the other side of the building, most likely with apartments ranging from one to three bedrooms with straightforward layouts that allow for maximum utility. Logical, sensible, beautiful…

And all of a sudden it’s as clear as the evening sky that I can’t distract myself any longer, not for a single moment. At the same time, it’s obvious that being logical and rational alone is no longer enough; now I will have to be something else too. What that something else might be, I don’t know exactly, but it feels as though I have to let go of something I’ve been holding on to, something I’ve been clinging to with frozen fingers.

I stop in a dimly lit doorway in eastern Helsinki and ring the downstairs doorbell. Sunday evening in the suburbs. The birds have flown south for the winter, there is no wind, and the hum of traffic is far away. I hear a voice in the intercom. A very young voice.

‘Who is it?’

‘My name is Henri Koskinen.’

There is a pause.

‘Who’s there?’ the young voice asks again.

‘Henri Koskinen,’ I repeat.

‘Why?’

‘Why is my name Henri Koskinen?’

‘What?’

I find myself at a loss. I’m about to ask who it is I’m negotiating with when the buzzer sounds and the door’s lock is released. I grab the handle and step inside. There is no lift, so I take the stairs to the fourth floor. The apartment door is open, and as I climb the final steps I see a small face disappear from view. That must be…

‘My daughter,’ says Laura Helanto. ‘Tuuli.’

Laura is standing in the hallway beneath a ceiling lamp that seems to set her wild hair on fire. Figuratively, of course. Tuuli is half hiding in the doorway to the right. I say hello and she disappears altogether.

‘Come in,’ says Laura.

I take a few steps and close the door behind me. I turn, and there we are, the two of us standing in Laura Helanto’s home. It is warm and cosily lit, and I catch the aroma of lasagne. I find myself thinking that this is what a home should feel and smell like. Laura stands looking at me, and it takes me a moment to realise that she seems to be waiting for me to say something.

‘I talked to Johanna today,’ I say. ‘She told me why you did it.’

Laura looks over her shoulder, then back at me. Light reflects from her glasses like a beam. But I’ve already understood the situation. I understood it long ago. With Tuuli still within earshot, I won’t say aloud that her mother did an excellent job on the bank-fraud front, that she managed to mislead both the police and myself, and to shelter me from further harm while I was involved in hiding a body, learning the ins and outs of hanging techniques, and otherwise dealing with a gallery of unscrupulous criminals with dangerously – and lethally – low levels of self-restraint. But that’s all water under the bridge. Now there is only one thing left to do.

‘And so,’ I continue, ‘I wanted to thank you.’

Laura seems unmoved, and I don’t know why it takes so long for her to speak.

‘You’re welcome,’ she says eventually.

‘That’s not all.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

We stand there for what seems like an eternity, the seconds feel longer than usual, until I manage to prise open the frozen fingers gripping me from the inside.

‘From the very first day we met, I’ve felt extremely uncomfortable in your presence,’ I begin. ‘It’s the best feeling I’ve ever experienced. I’ve concluded this is due to at least three separate factors. First, you are the smartest person I have ever met. You fooled me, and nobody has ever been able to fool me. Second, your art makes me feel things I’ve never felt before. I can’t explain it, and actually I don’t even want to explain it. Third, you make me forget about mathematics. Not all the time, of course, that wouldn’t benefit the business and would probably ruin the promising growth we’re experiencing. But you make me see things in a new light; you make me want to live my life differently. Or, at least, you make me want to try and live it with less of a focus on probability calculus. And now I’m starting to feel there was a fourth factor too, but as I said, you make me forget things, and I like that too.’

The words have come out very fast, and most of them are different from the ones I’d been planning to use. Just as surprisingly, I mean every single one of them. At first I think Laura is smiling, then I see a tear roll down her cheek. No. Yes. She is doing both – smiling and crying.

‘Henri, I can honestly say that nobody has ever said anything like that to me before.’

‘That’s not all,’ I say.

‘No?’

‘No.’

I step closer. Just then Tuuli comes out of hiding. She is short and looks very much like her mother.

‘You’re Henri Koskinen,’ she says.

‘And you’re Tuuli,’ I say.

This brings a smile to her face. I smile too. Then I look at Laura Helanto and remember that I still have two things to take care of. The first is something I’ve been waiting to do since my chat with Johanna.

‘I love you, Laura,’ I say.

And the second one…

‘I love you, Henr—’

I kiss her, she kisses me, we hold each other. And if I could speak, I would tell her what a perfect equation this makes.