The Burning Stones E-Book

Antti Tuomainen

• Herausgeber: Orenda Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 353

Beschreibung

A top saleswoman at a Finnish sauna company must outwit the police and a murderer when her boss is found dead … in a sauna. A darkly funny, tense new thriller from `The funniest writer in Europe´ (The Times) 'The best comic crime novel you'll read this year´ Abir Mukherjee `Suspense is uppermost in this adroit mix of psychological thriller, whodunnit and middle-aged rom-com. Comedy is still pervasive … the novel's glorious gallery of weirdos´ Sunday Times Book of the Month `Finnish author Tuomainen has a talent for creating offbeat characters … [a] tense, pacy novel, laced with the author's trademark laconic humour´ Guardian Book of the Month `It may seem hard to find good comic crime-writers, but clearly we haven't been looking in Finland … simultaneously thrilling and evocative of the mundanity of life, and also very funny indeed´ Telegraph ______ Saunas, love and a ladleful of murder… A cold-blooded killer strikes at the hottest moment: the new head of a sauna-stove company is murdered … in the sauna. Who has turned up the temperature and burned him to death? The evidence points in the direction of Anni Korpinen – top salesperson and the victim's successor at Steam Devil. And as if hitting middle-age, being in a marriage that has lost its purpose, and struggling with work weren't enough, Anni realizes that she must be quicker than both the police and the murderer to uncover who is behind it all – before it's too late… From the international bestselling author of The Man Who Died and The Rabbit Factor, comes a darkly funny, delightfully tense new thriller that showcases humanity at its most bare – in middle age, suspected of murder and, of course, in a sauna… _____ `Showcases Antti's trademark deadpan humour and crime plots focused on intriguingly quirky individuals. An utter delight´ Vaseem Khan `Just what you want from Antti Tuomainen, the brilliant moulding of apparent mundanity into a which-way-now thrill ride, with humour drier than a desert snake's belly´ Ian Moore `The funniest writer in Europe´ The Times `Hilarious, beautifully penned and startlingly inventive. No other writer can come up with more ways to kill you in a sauna, and The Burning Stones cements Tuomainen's position as the king of the humorous crime caper´ Abir Mukherjee `Laconic, thrilling and warmly human – hugely enjoyable´ Christopher Brookmyre `Antti turns the heat up with this wryly comic thriller. You'll sweat along with the characters!´ Douglas Skelton `You don't expect to laugh when you're reading about terrible crimes, but that's what you'll do when you pick up one of Tuomainen's decidedly quirky thrillers´ New York Times `Finland's greatest export´ M.J. Arlidge `A refreshing change from the decidedly gloomier crime fiction for which Scandinavia is known´ Publishers Weekly `Right up there with the best´ Times Literary Supplement Praise for Antti Tuomainen `Delightfully funny´ Guardian `Deftly plotted, poignant and perceptive in its wry reflections on mortality and very funny´ Irish Times `Fresh and witty´ Chris Ewan `A thrilling and hilarious read´ Liz Nugent `Charming, funny and clever´ Literary Review `A delight from start to finish' Big Issue `Original and brilliant story-telling´ Helen FitzGerald `Finnish criminal chucklemeister Tuomainen is channelling Carl Hiassen´ Sunday Times `A thriller with black comedy worth of Nabokov´ Telegraph

Leseprobe

A cold-blooded killer strikes at the hottest moment: the new head of a sauna-stove company is murdered … in the sauna. Who has turned up the temperature and burned him to death?

The evidence points in the direction of Anni Korpinen – top salesperson and the victim’s potential successor at Steam Devil. And as if hitting middle age, being in a marriage that has lost its purpose and struggling with work weren’t enough, Anni realises that she must be quicker than both the police and the murderer to uncover who is behind it all – before it’s too late…

International bestselling author Antti Tuomainen returns with a darkly funny, delightfully tense new thriller that showcases humanity at its most bare – in middle age, suspected of murder and, of course, in a sauna…

The Burning Stones

ANTTI TUOMAINEN

Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston

For Anu

’Tisadimandduskyevening,andsaunachimneysbillow.

—Kaarlo Sarkia

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEDEDICATIONEPIGRAPHPROLOGUE123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSABOUT THE AUTHORABOUT THE TRANSLATORALSO BY ANTTI TUOMAINEN AND AVAILABLE FROM ORENDA BOOKSCOPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE

Aaaaahhhhhh.

The steam spread over his skin like a hot, damp blanket and flowed evenly and satisfyingly slowly across his whole body, first his back and flanks, of course, which made his ears tingle, then gently squeezing his calves. Ilmo Räty concluded, once again, that having a sauna by yourself certainly had its benefits. It allowed you to concentrate, to throw as much or as little water on the stones as you wanted, to sit on the bench for as long and for as many times as you liked, and simply to enjoy the sacred, holistic experience that was … the sauna.

And that’s exactly what he had been doing for over an hour. He had just returned from a short dip in the lake to cool off – his third that evening. The lake was still and pleasantly warm, and the flicker of the fire chamber lit up the sauna like a lantern. He had added a few more logs, just enough to keep the temperature at a steady 80°C.

The shorter, darkening August evenings were made for bathing in the sauna, for bathing was exactly what this was, in every sense. In the old days, before running water, the sauna was considered a bathhouse – an almost holy place where families would come together and spend time washing themselves.

Right now, however, his thoughts were racing, galloping far beyond the confines of the sauna, which was, perhaps, under- standable. He was about to be appointed CEO of the company. He had to admit, even he had been a little taken aback by the announcement.

That spring hadn’t exactly been the finest period of his life. 2

His wife, Saija, had left him after he’d had a foolish dalliance at a skiing resort. The affair with a skiing instructor considerably his junior had ended with him learning to ski and the skiing instructor learning that after a hard day’s skiing a man in late middle age doesn’t have the energy for both dancing and romance. Not for more than a week, at any rate. To cap it all off, his adult children weren’t speaking to him because they had heard from their mother that he had sent the skiing instructor (who was their age) a series of high-resolution photographs of his penis. They baulked at his explanation about the fateful combination of drink and impotence drugs taken at the wrong time – it was a whim, a moment of madness – and now they considered him just a dirty old man. All this meant that he’d had difficulty concen- trating, difficulty sleeping, difficulties in general. But despite this – he was the chosen successor, and soon…

Why was his bottom suddenly tingling and tightening?

The steam couldn’t get underneath him; and when he had sat down, the wood had been damp. Now it felt as though the bench had been replaced by a stove, and he was sitting on the red-hot stones, as though the stones themselves were on fire. He had to stand up…

The pain was the same as if something had exploded within his skull, as though every nerve ending had shattered into a thousand separate parts. He couldn’t stand up, he was unable. It wasn’t possible. He was … stuck to the bench. How could this have happened?

And what was that noise coming from the changing room? He recognised the sound. Someone was taking logs out of the box then slamming the lid shut. The door into the sauna opened, and in walked…

The intruder, who was wearing a tight-fitting black outfit, complete with balaclava, turned directly towards the stove, 3opened the hatch and began piling fresh logs into the fire chamber.

Ilmo Räty asked what this was all about and again tried to stand up. Still to no avail. His buttocks and the back of his thighs were glued tight, perhaps even melted into the wooden bench. He thought – in fact, he was sure – that his superglued backside and the intruder putting more logs into the stove must somehow be linked. The intruder closed the stove’s hatch with a clank, slipped out of the sauna and pressed the door firmly shut.

Ilmo Räty started to shout. First in an enquiring tone, then more stridently.

The logs in the fire chamber got to work. The temperature began to rise – and rise. The stove rumbled like a forest in a storm.

The intruder returned, added more logs, then left again.

Ilmo Räty had been in the sauna-stove business for almost ten years. He bathed several times a week. He knew a great deal about the effects of the sauna, both mental and physiological. He knew saunas were a clean and safe space – so much so, women used to give birth in them. But right now, that knowledge did little to calm him down; quite the opposite. He knew what lay ahead. And that’s why he had to make at least some effort to resist.

The next time the figure in black stepped inside (by now, all Ilmo could see was a blur), he hurled the water ladle towards the door, managing to strike the intruder right in the forehead. But this did not stop the intruder, who once again filled the fire chamber with logs and left. But not immediately, not before wagging a reproachful forefinger at him.

That gesture! He knew it from somewhere.

He was certain of it. One last time, he tried to focus his gaze, but it was impossible. Then he remembered. 4

That finger!

Now he knew who the intruder was, who had adhered his backside to the bench, and who had wagged a finger at him.

At times he was unconscious, at times awake. The latter began to feel the stranger of the two. He thought to himself that somewhere there must surely be someone else who had sent penis pictures to his skiing instructor, then taken a 150-degree sauna and survived, but the idea began to feel increasingly improbable.

He wasn’t sure whether he was imagining it or whether the sauna door did open, and the figure dressed in black did stand in the doorway one last time. Then the door closed. And it was closed regardless of whether he had imagined it being opened or not.

Ilmo Räty thought of the intruder again.

The thought surprised him.

Because now he knew why this had happened, why he was enjoying his sauna for the last time.

Why the temperature was continuing to rise.

In this sauna and in many other saunas too.

1

I steered the car into the lay-by and stepped out.

It was a warm morning, August still in full bloom. There were only a few scattered strips of cloud in the sky, gentle white brushstrokes far away along the horizon; another sweltering day to add to the week and a half of sweltering days that had just passed. I had driven a hundred kilometres, and there were about another three until I arrived at my destination. I was well ahead of time, and there was a good reason why.

Sixty-four hand-crafted wood-burning sauna stoves. It was a lot. Perhaps not in the grand scheme of things, perhaps not for factories that churn out mass-produced stoves, but for us, and for me, this order was a big one; it could even be make-or-break. Above all, it felt like a reward, because I’d been laying the groundwork for this deal since early spring.

I took a deep breath. The forest still smelt of summer, of blossoms, greenery and life.

I had plenty of experience of situations just like this one, and I don’t think I’d misread the signals; I was certain that today we would finally seal the deal and place that order.

I was fifty-three years old, and I’d been selling handmade sauna stoves for twenty years. I’d met this potential customer several times, and as far as I could tell we understood each other’s needs. I was intimately acquainted with every stage of the manufacturing and retail process, right from the original stove design to the bliss of bathing in the steam, from the initial brochures to closing the deal. Sometimes it felt as though I understood stoves better than anything else in my life. 6

I’d sold more stoves than anyone else in the history of Steam Devil, with the exception of the company’s founder, Erkki ‘The Stove King’ Ruusula. I’d been able to match any and all offers made by our competitors – on both price and quality – and had gained people’s trust one week, one phone call, one email at a time. And when, two weeks ago, I’d made another short phone call and asked if I could come and visit the site again, I was welcomed in the warmest of terms.

I watched a group of birds fly from one dark-green edge of the forest to the other. They crossed the marshlands quickly and effortlessly; they didn’t have to worry about getting themselves stuck in the boggy ground. It didn’t seem like a bad way of approaching my own situation.

I filled my lungs with the forest’s fragrance one last time and felt better than I had done in a long while.

I returned to the car and started driving.

‘Anni Korpinen, the master saleswoman, in the flesh,’ said the man as soon as we were within speaking distance. His name was Lauri Kahavuori. He was the founder and owner of Kaha Cabins Ltd, a semi-detached chalet conglomerate – as he called his medium-sized business. I was about to respond to his greeting when he continued: ‘Quite the situation you’ve got going on.’

Of course, I knew what he was referring to, and his curiosity was understandable, but the utterance still took me by surprise. As did his expression, his body language. They had somehow changed since our last meeting a week and a half ago. Of course, a lot had happened at Puhtijärvi since then.

‘It was a terrible shock,’ I admitted, candidly, and I was reminded that one and a half weeks after Ilmo Räty’s tragic death 7I still had no more information on the matter than what the staff at Steam Devil had heard the day after the fire: a lakeside sauna had burned down, the fire brigade had discovered Ilmo inside, and the police had reason to believe that the fire had been started deliberately.

‘The police are looking into it,’ I said eventually. ‘And, naturally, we’re helping in any way we can.’

I hoped the subject was now dealt with and that we could move on. All the speculation and rumination on the matter had begun to feel voyeuristic, and as the days passed, it felt futile too.

‘Quite,’ said Kahavuori. ‘I’m helping too.’ His eyes seemed to sharpen.

I didn’t understand what he meant. ‘So…’ I began, waited a moment, then continued. ‘Obviously, I’m here to get things moving with those stoves and—’

‘Of course,’ he nodded. ‘Always a good idea to get things moving.’

Kahavuori turned, the car-park gravel crunching beneath his shoes. We climbed up a small hill and passed a row of incomplete semi-detached chalets. The whole hillside was dotted with them. Thirty-two semi-detached chalets in total, each unit to be fitted with its very own sauna. And that meant sixty-four stoves.

Kahavuori came to a stop about halfway along the cluster of chalets, where a stretch of the terrain had been levelled flat.

‘The sun is shining,’ he said. ‘These things almost build themselves, you know. Everything’s going great.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. So, we have—’

‘And yet,’ he said, and raised his hand, moving it in a horizontal line from left to right, from right to left, as though trying to sculpt the air in front of him. ‘There are shadows, over there, over there, over there.’

Throughout the spring and summer months, Kahavuori had 8turned out to be a tough negotiator. But I could never have imagined there would come a time when I genuinely had no idea what we were talking about.

‘Of course, it’s none of my business,’ he added, ‘but I have a few thoughts on the matter.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, still unsure what he was referring to. ‘That’s good to know.’

I remained silent for a moment, then decided to give it another shot. ‘In our last counteroffer, we agreed that—’

‘Seeing as we’re talking about stoves, what say we talk in the sauna?’

This obviously wasn’t an invitation to bathe with him. He meant the sauna facilities of the unfinished semi-detached chalet next to us.

The chalet was still nothing but a skeleton. The floors were nothing but bare, unsmoothed concrete. Our footsteps scuffed through the dim interior. I followed Kahavuori across the living room, into the utility room then through the changing room into the sauna. And with that, the glare of the summer’s day was gone. Inside, the sauna was almost dark, and the sounds of construction work, which only a moment earlier had surrounded us, were now muffled echoes. Naturally, this sauna was only a sauna on paper; the wood panelling was missing, as was the stove, not to mention the benches. But nonetheless, here we were in the sauna, just the two of us, far away from the world outside.

‘Jeffrey Dahmer,’ Kahavuori almost whispered. ‘Ted Bundy.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I mean, for instance,’ he said, and his voice was different now, coarser, closer to me. ‘Someone who seems just like anybody else, roaming about the village of Puhtijärvi. Of course, those are extreme examples. Our guy wouldn’t have to dismember his victims, keep their body parts in the fridge and turn them into 9dinner, or help the lonely by day only to turn into a bloodthirsty killer by night.’

Kahavuori’s expression was expectant, and I couldn’t see any other option but to answer him.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I suppose not.’

‘But the principle is the same,’ he continued in that gravelly voice, ‘because we know how many of them start by lighting fires. It’s not so much the exception as the rule. And we know how many of them were the guy next door that everybody liked. Then afterwards everybody says, oh I’d never have thought Ed or Dennis or Asko from down the road could do a thing like that. What if this is, you know, a serial killer who’s just getting started on his … series? I mean, it’s always a possibility. That’s all I’m trying to say.’

It was clear that Kahavuori’s thoughts were focussed on something other than the sauna stoves. There was an intensity in his angular features, something I’d never seen before. His sharp nose looked more like a tool than part of a human face.

‘It could be me,’ he said quietly.

We looked each other in the eyes. He had turned his whole body to face me and was standing very close. There were several walls between us and the late-summer’s day outside. I could hear neither Kahavuori’s breath nor my own. I didn’t think it particularly likely that he was about to kill me and then eat me, though I did worry that we were straying dangerously far from the topic of the stoves. But I didn’t know what else I could do but engage with the discussion he had started, and moreover, do so on the wavelength he had chosen.

‘Anything is possible,’ I said eventually, in the gravelliest voice I could muster.

Kahavuori’s expression brightened. ‘That’s what I mean,’ he said. ‘It could be somebody you know. I watch a lot of true crime, and I look into old cases. I’m really inside the discourse.’ 10

‘Is that so?’

Kahavuori nodded. ‘As an escape from all this,’ he said, waving his hand, and immediately sounding a little less enthusiastic. ‘The building trade can be heavy stuff.’

Now he looked stressed, even a little troubled.

‘So, to bring us back to these stoves,’ he said and pointed to the small space in the corner where the stove belonged. ‘You know I want a genuine Steam Devil stove, right there. The product is second to none, as they say, and the offer was very well put together – I would expect nothing less from you and the company. But … we’re a family business – we sell our houses to families – and the cornerstone of our brand is reliability and a certain … decency. So, if, under the present circumstances, we install a Steam Devil, and then a nice, happy, sauna-loving family arrives here on holiday and sits down on that bench right there…’ Kahavuori indicated the empty space on the wall where the benches would eventually be situated ‘… and they throw some water on the stones and see the company insignia on the side of the stove,’ he continued, and I was sure I even heard a sigh, ‘then they might start wondering which of them is going to be brutally murdered first. If nothing else, it’d be a vibe-killer. And that wouldn’t be the kind of happy family moment that we’re known for, that I want people to know us for. The attraction of Kaha Cabins lies in their harmony and security – not serial-killer stoves.’

I looked at him. He seemed genuine in what he said. A feeling began to rise within me, and I quickly realised it was panic – or maybe simply horror. But it wasn’t horror at the idea of murder or dismemberment – real or imagined – it was at the possibility that I saw forming before me. I had to get this conversation back on track.

‘I’m sure there are no serial killers roaming the streets of Puhtijärvi,’ I said calmly, though I could hardly believe such a 11thing needed to be said. ‘And I don’t believe that our stoves will in any way—’

‘I’m afraid I can’t commit to the purchase right now,’ Kahavuori interrupted. ‘Not before we’ve got to the bottom of the matter.’

Now I knew precisely what he was getting at.

Something enormous descended onto my shoulders, a great burden, and at the same time the ground disappeared from under my feet. I caught my breath, trying to do so as imperceptibly as possible. I could smell the building materials – the wood, the paint, the coatings. I was certain that, outwardly, I looked the same as when I’d arrived – calm and confident – and I reminded myself that twenty-two years’ experience of selling sauna stoves and fifty-three years of life experience were distinctly good things. Say what you like about middle age; at least it gives you the chance to slow down.

I looked again at Kahavuori, and I knew with the fullness and certainty of all that experience that he wasn’t going to change his mind.

I said I was sorry and that I was very sad to hear that. I told him I would get back to the matter of the stoves as soon as the other, more unfortunate, matter had been cleared up, which would be very soon indeed, and that we could then continue from where we had left off. Kahavuori nodded; he genuinely seemed to agree. I glanced at my watch, thanked him for the meeting and said that I had to get going.

Kahavuori seemed to perk up. ‘I have a couple of alternative theories…’

We exited the chalet, walked back down the hill to my Volvo, and Kahavuori talked. He certainly did have theories, most of them even further removed from Puhtijärvi than the aforementioned American cannibals. 12

The day was getting sultrier by the minute. I could only see a single sliver of cloud in the sky. It occurred to me that only a short while ago I’d felt the power and vitality of the day inside me. Now it just felt hot, the air almost glued to my skin.

We arrived at the car park. I got into my car and started the engine. I reversed, turned, then slowly pulled up next to Kahavuori. I rolled down the window to remind him that I would get back to him very soon, but he got there first. His sharp nose seemed to jut right out of his face and felt as though it was poking its way into the car.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘saunas can be fatal.’

2

I was clenching the steering wheel. Tight.

I only realised it when I reached a long, straight section of road. I loosened my grip a little and adjusted my position in the seat, but now it felt like something was tightening its grip on me. And it couldn’t all be because, instead of signing on the dotted line, my client had volunteered his help in hunting down notorious cannibals. A delay to the deal would be a huge headache, though, and if it were cancelled altogether, it would be a catastrophe, like a bucket of cold water thrown over an already dangerously cooling stove.

No, this sense that some greater force was clenching me in its grip was the result of an even greater uncertainty, one that had far-reaching implications.

It had all started at the end of January, when Erkki ‘The Stove King’ Ruusula, founder and main shareholder of the sauna-stove factory, informed us of his intention to step down from his position as CEO and reduce his stake in the business considerably. On the surface, this decision wasn’t exactly unexpected. Erkki was seventy-five years old, the sauna-stove business no longer seemed as close to his heart as it once was, and he had become a little distant and even inconsistent in his decision-making. He’d told us that ever since becoming a widower, he’d felt very lonely in his vast lakeside villa, that he needed a little more sunshine, while in the same breath mentioning the terraced house he owned on the Costa del Sol and all the wonders that awaited him there: fresh figs in the bowl on the balcony table, the Andalucian vigour of the local 14masseuse – a firm tenderness, he called it – and flamenco. Some of these things I’d heard from him directly, others I’d picked up elsewhere. All in all, it was in many ways perfectly understandable that he was keen to pass on responsibility for the company to someone else.

Erkki’s children didn’t seem particularly interested in handcrafted sauna stoves, though, except when it came to their annual dividends, so he had plumped for another solution. He had announced a competition would be held to select his successor from the ranks of the company, and a few months later the winner was named as Ilmo Räty. Who, a few weeks later, ended up dead.

And now, nobody appeared to know what was going to happen next.

Not that the future of Steam Devil had been clear while Ilmo Räty was alive, either. For a long while, Ilmo had said that as long as you agree on a price, everything else should be up for renegotiation – even the company’s independence and its geographical location. Like our five other employees, I too had been in the race to succeed Erkki, and I had completely disagreed with Ilmo. I still did.

For me, in order for Steam Devil to survive, it had to remain independent, and it had to remain in Puhtijärvi. On more than one occasion, I’d pointed out that I had been in the sauna-stove business long enough to know what would happen if we were to sell off parts of our company and end up being absorbed into a larger concern. The big stoves always swallow up the smaller ones, like wood for their fire chambers; then they puff them up into the sky, producing very little heat in the process. Relocating would do the same: Steam Devil would lose first its steam, and eventually all the devils who worked for it.

The idea plagued me now too, as I sped between the walls 15of dark-green forest slightly in excess of the speed limit, all the while trying to resist the temptation to drive even faster. The risk of colliding with an elk, which the road signs warned me about, was very real.

I knew that I thought about Steam Devil – and stoves in general – far too much. And while I was a middle-aged woman in the prime of her life and not a hand-crafted premium stove, I did seem to be taking the matter very personally, as though every stove was a small part of me, and if something threatened them, it threatened me too.

Not only that: the way I thought of Puhtijärvi seemed to have changed recently. I still enjoyed the small, peaceful village with all its bays and coves, the village where I’d spent my whole life. I truly believed that this was where I belonged. But I’d felt more conflicted about it in recent weeks than I had for a long time. For thirty years, to be precise. For some curious reason, Puhtijärvi now felt the same as it had back then, all those years ago – small and claustrophobic, and placing restrictions on my movements.

Everything suddenly felt more alive to me than it had in years, but I couldn’t say why, nor why my mind was constantly and repeatedly pulling up flickering, fleeting memories of that autumn evening thirty years back.

Each image like a flash in a dark theatre.

The nocturnal lake.

The rocking boat.

The bloodied lure.

My trembling hands.

The flashes were followed by a familiar heaviness, familiar shadows – of things I’d learnt to live with but that seemed more and more reluctant to stay where I had thrust them.

Perhaps this was why Kahavuori’s refusal to sign on the dotted line had felt so bad. 16

I knew what it felt like when the sky came crashing down on your shoulders. And I was afraid it might happen again. I was afraid that everything would collapse, and I instinctively thought that cancelling the deal would set off a chain reaction that would lead directly to that collapse. I felt as though something frightening was on its way, something that had been biding its time beneath the surface, something that would change everything.

The phone rang, and I flinched back to reality. When I saw the caller’s name, I was perplexed. I flicked the button on the steering wheel, and Erkki Ruusula’s voice filled the car.

‘How did you get on with Kahavuori?’ he asked.

I paused for a moment.

‘In what sense?’ I asked, playing for time, because I had no idea how he’d found out about my meeting. I’d certainly not told him.

‘Is he going to order our stoves?’ Erkki asked. ‘For his cottage conglomerate?’

‘I’m working on it,’ I said.

‘What’s the hold-up?’

American psychos. I decided not to try and explain this to Erkki. It would only lead to an even less productive conversation than the one we were having right now.

‘Just some minor details about the stoves,’ I said. ‘I’ll go back again early next week.’

Erkki was silent for a moment.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ he asked.

I was unable to answer. Erkki hadn’t suggested anything like this for years. I had always worked pretty independently, to put it mildly. For Erkki, results were all that mattered. Which might in fact have been the reason for his surprise suggestion. We both knew I’d fallen short of my usual sales targets this year. 17But what he was suggesting was not a solution to the matter. It was the polar opposite.

‘Kahavuori and I have established a strong line of communication,’ I said, and this was certainly true. ‘But if the situation changes or I need some help, I’ll let you know right away.’

Again, Erkki was silent. The grey road and the blue sky stretched out in front of me.

‘I’m only too happy to help,’ he said. ‘And you’ll remember, I have all kinds of experience when it comes to selling stoves.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, then waited a second, two… ‘Yes, I remember. You managed to sell stoves to Oman.’

I admit, this last bit was flattery: a reference to Erkki’s own favourite anecdote about how he sold a turbo-stove to people living on the edge of a desert, a place where the temperature in an outdoor sauna would have been 60°C even without a stove. But I had to avoid, at all costs, a situation in which Erkki decided that a joint sales mission was the solution to our problems. I hoped that flattering him would make that possibility a little more distant.

‘Oh yes,’ he began, and I could hear how chuffed he was. ‘I started by telling them that here in Finland we have a place even warmer than your desert, and once we started talking…’

I let Erkki tell the story that I’d first heard over twenty years ago. The late summer hummed around the car on both sides. Lakes and ponds glistened through the trees as I passed. I wasn’t thinking about the story but about the call itself, its timing and Erkki’s suggestion. In fact, I was thinking about it so intensely that I only noticed the silence a few seconds after the end of the story.

‘Yes…’ I said, and was about to continue when Erkki jumped in. 18

‘One more thing,’ he said, and now his tone of voice was more formal, not quite as yarn-spinning as before. ‘There’s a meeting tomorrow, and I’d like you to be there.’

Erkki told me the time of the meeting, and I was about to end the call when he said: ‘Thank you for this little chat. It really cheered me up.’

I managed to blurt out something like the feeling was mutual then ended the call, and Erkki disappeared from my speakers. I watched the road gently curving ahead of me, and I thought I could see the air shimmering from the heat.

Three things:

There was no doubt that, if need be, Erkki was capable of running his business with an iron fist, but for a long time now he hadn’t wanted to be involved in the day-to-day minutiae; at times he was even becoming, dare I say it, a little careless. So what had changed? Finances were tight – but that was nothing new. Artisanal sauna stoves were hard to sell and didn’t really excite the masses. In practice, we’d always had our backs to the wall.

My second concern was the prospect of joint sales trips. The very thought was nerve-wracking. I had done my job alone and quite successfully for twenty years – the last six months notwithstanding. I didn’t think that Erkki, with his new style of bouncing from one subject to the next, would be of any use in tricky negotiations.

Finally, and strangest of all, was that he seemed to know all about my visit to Kahavuori. I hadn’t told anybody that I was going to see him and I hadn’t gone to the office beforehand; I’d set off from my very own driveway. And despite all his wild and gory theories, Kahavuori didn’t seem like the kind of person who would first tell me of his radical change of heart, only to call Erkki a moment later, especially given that the two 19had never been in direct contact. For the life of me, I couldn’t think how Erkki had heard about my visit, or why.

I glanced at the clock. I didn’t have any meetings scheduled at the office or anything else that required my presence. I decided to take care of my remaining emails and bits and bobs remotely, at home. I drove straight back to Pilviniemi.

I noticed I was clenching the steering wheel again.

3

The yellow house glided into view from behind the birches, and for a moment it looked like it was slowly but surely sliding towards the lake opening up before me. Of course, this wasn’t the case. The house was located on a gentle slope along the eastern shore of a narrow peninsula, in precisely the same place where it had been erected eighty years earlier. Its elevated granite foundations would make sure it stayed there too.

I took the final turn towards the house, heard the crunch of the gravel beneath my tyres. Again I wondered at how that perfectly mundane, everyday sound could seem so pleasantly familiar. And the thought felt a lot less nerve-wracking than my previous ones. Throughout the journey, I’d tried to get to the bottom of my problems, which seemed like a whole cluster of challenges, both new and old. I stopped the car, switched off the engine and looked, perhaps a little longer than usual, at the two-storey house, the unmown lawn and the open window, and I quickly realised that arriving home was going to help me with my thoughts no more than being on the road. I supposed I hadn’t expected it to. I stepped out of the car.

The air was still, the tall birches cast just enough shade across the front garden. The lake looked as though it had been stuck onto the landscape, never to move or change again. From this place, this spot, there was no way of seeing into the neighbours’ gardens, either to the right or the left. Two kilometres away, across the lake, was the national park, a distant green strip along the horizon. I’d sometimes thought that if paradise existed, or if such a thing were ever created, it needn’t differ from the 21landscape in front of me. That being said, paradise might not

sound quite like this.

When it came up in conversation or when people asked me, ‘What’s the best thing about living out by the lake?’ I never said it was the silence. I certainly couldn’t have said that now.

The motors wailed, almost in agony. The commentator sounded like he was about to leap out of his skin.

I looked up at the open window, where the sound was coming from, and I looked at the garden, which needed some attention. I collected my stuff from the car and took the three steps up to the front door. Once inside, I took off my shoes, walked into the kitchen, drank a glass of cold water, then another. I stood for a moment, my hip resting against the kitchen counter, and considered my options. Eventually, my eardrums made the decision for me.

I walked across the living room, my whole body feeling the wall of sound growing, both in pitch and intensity. I opened the first sliding door and arrived in the hallway that we had once intended to turn into an extension of the living room. It hadn’t happened. The hall was still a hallway.

I opened the second sliding door. The noise was dizzying. It felt as though I was following the race from right next to the track.

Santeri was sitting in his armchair; the cars were whizzing around their course. The image on the large TV screen was faint and unclear. Which was understandable; manually recorded VHS tapes from the 1980s and 1990s were like that. This was one of hundreds of such tapes. Still, I was sure I’d seen – or should I say, heard – this particular tape before. I said this aloud, making sure Santeri heard me.

He flinched, fumbled for the remote control between his bare thighs. 22

‘What?’ he asked as the grainy cars froze on the screen.

‘Monaco, nineteen eighty-eight,’ I said, nodding at the television.

Santeri looked at me as though I were speaking a foreign language, then I saw the penny drop. A pout, a shake of the head.

‘Zandvoort, Holland,’ he said. ‘Nineteen eighty-two.’

‘Close,’ I said.

‘What?’ he asked again; he sounded about as incredulous as if I’d just told him I’d been elected president. ‘No, no, not even close, no, that’s—’

‘Fried sprats for dinner?’ I suggested. ‘I thought, if you mow the lawn, I’ll heat up the sauna and fry the sprats. Or the other way around. If I mow the lawn, you could—’

‘I can’t,’ he said, quickly glancing at the television, then at me, a deep furrow between his eyebrows. ‘Haven’t got time. I’ve got to finish watching this. There’s a panel discussion on Zoom later. We’re going to go through the race.’

‘The race ended forty years ago,’ I said without thinking.

At this, the room seemed suddenly a little darker. Or perhaps a change in Santeri caused the light to dim. I knew what I’d said. It was a touchy subject. No, not touchy; it was sacred.

And right now, we were in the inner sanctum, the Holy Church of Formula One, Santeri’s very own Sagrada Familia. The room was quite large, but it was also full. The walls were lined with shelves of video tapes, all of long-gone races that played out in our house time and time again. The tables, glass cabinets, plinths and various display panels were adorned with collector’s items, everything from helmets to jumpsuits, hundreds of sashes, stickers, badges and assorted paraphernalia. And on one of the tables there was a bona fide, used Formula One tyre: Mika Häkkinen’s front left tyre from his world championship race. The real deal. According to Santeri, at least. 23

Our living room was a hub for the buying and selling of Formula One collectibles. In theory.

The Formula One collectors’ club was a business idea Santeri had set up about ten years ago. It was his life, and that was why he’d left his day job as an electrician. The business wasn’t exactly a roaring success. It didn’t turn a profit – it never had – and as the years went by the reason for this became apparent, even to me: Santeri himself was his own business’s greatest client.

‘You know I don’t like sprats.’

Oh, Santeri, always so boyish. I suppose that’s what I’d been so taken with at first, perhaps even what I’d fallen in love with. He was boyishly handsome, even now. Which, in fact, was nothing short of a miracle given that he spent most of his time in this room, and most of that time in his armchair. Yet there he was, in his fifties, still well proportioned, still with his dimples, his big round eyes and hair that looked like it wanted to curl but couldn’t quite manage it. And, of course, telling me what food was good enough for him and what was not.

‘I forgot,’ I said, though suddenly I wasn’t so sure I had forgotten. ‘But if you could tear yourself away from Nigel Mansell for a—’

‘This isn’t Nigel Mansell!’ Santeri snapped, and I almost detected a note of hurt in his voice. ‘Pironi, Piquet, Rosberg.’

It had already been a difficult, muggy day. Now I felt as though I was glued to the spot.

‘Have it your way,’ I said. ‘Maybe one of them could cut the grass.’

Santeri leapt out of his chair. He took a few steps then spun round to look at me. I noted that he was now standing on the spot where he often stood when we talked about difficult matters: right next to Häkkinen’s tyre.

He pursed his lips and exhaled slowly. ‘You don’t take this seriously,’ he said. ‘You never have.’ 24

Of course, we’d spoken about this before, but this time Santeri looked particularly upset. As though I’d said something far worse than simply mentioning Nigel Mansell and suggesting Piquet might be a dab-hand with a lawnmower.

‘How about I heat up the sauna?’ I suggested, trying to sound as conciliatory as possible.

‘I’ve already had a shower,’ said Santeri.

‘A shower?’

‘Yes.’

‘The lake’s over twenty degrees today. Why didn’t you just go for a swim?’

Santeri quickly glanced at the racing tyre next him, then looked up at me again. ‘It was windy,’ he said.

‘Windy?’

‘Yes, the lake … was windy.’

‘When?’ I asked. I was genuinely curious. I recalled the shimmering road, the stagnant air in the garden.

I could see the agitation on his face. The redness spreading across his cheeks only seemed to heighten the impression of boyishness.

‘Does it really matter when exactly it was windy?’ he asked. ‘I suppose it must have been when I decided not to go for a swim.’

‘I just didn’t notice any wind,’ I said. ‘And it was a hot day today.’

Santeri shook his head. ‘I haven’t got time for all this … hot air,’ he said. ‘I’m in a hurry…’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Zandvoort, of course,’ he said, and now he sounded distinctly agitated. ‘They still haven’t had the first tyre change. The race is only halfway through.’

I was about to say something, but I didn’t. I looked at Santeri in his McLaren polo shirt and light-blue shorts. He could have 25