The Mine Read online

  PRAISE FOR ANTTI TUOMAINEN

  ‘Tersely written, full of twists and sudden violence, this is nothing less than the birth of a new genre: dystopian detection’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Tuomainen’s spare style suits the depressing subject and raises a serious question: how do you find hope when law and order break down?’ Financial Times

  ‘This chilling novel compels … Clever, atmospheric and wonderfully imaginative’ Sunday Mirror

  ‘Antti Tuomainen is a wonderful writer, whose characters, plots and atmosphere are masterfully drawn’ Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

  ‘Tuomainen reaffirms your faith in the crime novel … In the genre of crime, Tuomainen has created his own style, both linguistically and story-wise. There is the social aspect, the protagonist … who acts according to his own high sense of morals, and the language: descriptive and evocative, it is at times a pure joy to read’ Etelä-Saimaa, Finland

  ‘Exquisite suspense without any unnecessary frills’ Helsingin Sanomat, Finland

  ‘You can practically taste the Nordic class – the intensity of Stieg Larsson and the deliberately faded tones of the TV series The Bridge … The style is close to perfect’ Kainuun Sanomat, Finland

  ‘The ability to use all the tricks of crime fiction and all the tools of poetry makes Tuomainen’s work unique, and that combination makes the reader fall in love with his style. You cannot but value things around you more after reading The Healer’ Sofi Oksanen

  ‘Dark As My Heart contains passages of lyrical intensity, along with bloody scenes that would not be out of place in a Jacobean revenge drama’ Sunday Times

  ‘Dark As My Heart, the most lauded Finnish crime novel of recent years, lives up to its acclaim’ The Times

  ‘Its sparse prose style suits the dark, treacherous, rain-soaked environment of this dystopian vision of Helsinki’ Glasgow Sunday Herald

  ‘In Tuomainen’s first appearance in English translation, a long-unpublished poet takes to the streets of a grimly dystopian Helsinki in search of his vanished wife … Tapani’s search, which will lead him through an appalling series of cityscapes to some shattering discoveries about the wife he though he knew so well, is the stuff of authentic nightmares’ Kirkus Reviews

  ‘Good news, fans of Nordic thrillers! Tuomainen has won the Clue Award for Best Finnish Crime Novel and has been translated into 23 languages, so he’s bound to be good’ Library Journal

  ‘Tuomanien’s third book evocatively explores a near-future Helsinki … Tuomainen writes beautifully … Tapani’s progression from a dreamy poet content with staying at home to a man of action elevates this bleak tale and brings a glimmer of hope to rain-soaked Helsinki’ Publishers Weekly

  ‘This dystopian tale snagged the Clue Award for best Finnish crime novel of 2011, and U.S. audiences should prepare to be every bit as enthralled as the Finns … Tapani’s amateur sleuthing is all the more fascinating in light of the unimaginable barriers posed by the changing city, with inhabitants focused on their own survival. Readers attracted either to dystopian fiction or to Scandinavian crime will find gold here: Tuomainen’s spare, nostalgic style emphasizes the definitive nature of climate catastrophe’ Booklist

  The Mine

  ANTTI TUOMAINEN

  translated by David Hackston

  To my father

  ‘We run carelessly over the precipice, after having put something before us to prevent us seeing it.’

  Blaise Pascal

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part One: Nickel

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Part Two: Lead

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Part Three: Gold

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  Copyright

  PART ONE

  NICKEL

  Finally the blood started flowing.

  It rushed and flowed as the hot water caressed his body, as it pressed evenly against every inch of his skin. It was as though he’d found someone bigger than himself, someone who knew his body well, knew how to hold it, how to take it in its embrace and warm it. He stretched his short, stocky legs. The bathtub was the perfect length. He tensed his chubby thighs, his round calves, and relaxed them again. The water buoyed him up, slowed his movements. On an evening like this, after spending all day in the freezing cold, he had earned a soak in the steaming bath.

  Outside the wind was whipping up a flurry of snow, the January cold and the darkness swallowing all living things. A moment earlier Pirjo had packed the boys and their ice-hockey equipment into the car and left. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he had the house to himself.

  He moved his right arm, scratched his chest.

  He leaned the back of his head against the edge of the bathtub and closed his eyes.

  It is an unfortunate truth that with your eyes closed you often see much more than usual. The day’s people and events all flickered behind his eyelids like a confused news bulletin. A clear indication of stress.

  He opened his eyes. The pressure! All the decisions that had to be made quickly and implemented regardless of whether someone disapproved. Someone always disapproved.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow. The bath water was almost scalding. He glanced at the windows. They were covered in a thin layer of steam. The lights on the veranda were switched on, and through the steam he watched the whirl of the snow. There was something hypnotic about it, something relaxing.

  Maybe one day some people would realise they didn’t have a monopoly on being in the right; weren’t the only ones possessed of ultimate truths. Maybe…

  An exceptionally dense swirl of snowflakes flurried past the window and the thick ice on the window ledge crackled as though a packet of boiled sweets had been scattered on the floor.

  That’s a lot of snow, he thought. He turned his head and gazed at something even more relaxing than the snow: the white tiling and dark-grey grout, the purity and cleanness of the pattern, its exactitude, its repeating logic. How beautiful, how practical. One of mankind’s greatest achievements.

  What was it he’d been thinking about? Ah yes, decisions. Making tough decisions. People who didn’t like his decisions. That’s what it had come to. Whenever you wanted something and tried to get something done…

  The bedroom.

  As though someone had pushed a plug into a socket.

  Was there someone in the house? Surely not.

  Only the moan of the wind in the chimney flue and the waves of snow washing past the window.

  He lay still, and a moment later the water followed suit. This was the best thing about taking a bath: stopping, as though you had succeeded in stepping outside time itself, into its centre, a plac
e where everything condensed. Again he closed his eyes. His breath was light and shallow. Old air out, fresh air in.

  Almost as though someone was approaching.

  Not quite footsteps, but something, somewhere.

  He saw the bathroom’s white tiled wall and through the door a strip of the bedroom. Again he heard the wind whistling through the flues. A sudden thought entered his head: something bursting into flames.

  An ‘electric shock’ is a misleading term. The word ‘shock’ gives the impression that the electricity only hits you and leaves the body. That’s not what happens. Electricity flows, that’s what electricity does. As it courses through the body, electricity causes massive burns, interferes with the functioning of the heart, fills the lungs with water, suffocates you.

  Electricity clotted his heart, burned his organs, snapped his arteries, pummelled his muscles.

  He writhed and trembled. Water sputtered and splashed.

  Then, a moment later, an immense calm. It was hard to establish where his body ended, where the water’s surface began. Both lay utterly still, as though fused together.

  A column of snow blew past the window. Snowflakes whipped against the window frame.

  To: Janne Vuori <>

  From: Pain Increases Knowledge <> Subject: Suomalahti

  Hello Janne,

  We have been reading your articles on tax avoidance and the grey economy. You might just be the journalist we’ve been looking for. Perhaps you’re not. We’ll soon find out.

  You will probably be familiar with the nickel mine at Suomalahti in northern Finland. We recommend you look more closely at both the mining complex itself and the company administering the site. According to information we have received, the mine is engaged in hazardous activities and, what’s more, the company is fully aware of the matter. We are convinced that we will soon be looking at a full-blown environmental catastrophe.

  A little background. The mine at Suomalahti was opened seven years ago. Its owner, a company called Finn Mining Ltd, owns three other mines. The Suomalahti complex differs significantly from the other three. This mine was opened with the blessing of government authorities and the business world. One of the mine’s primary goals is to promote an innovative new technology, using the precious metals that can be extracted from Finland’s ore-depleted ground in an efficient and environmentally friendly fashion. This method has been extolled as the future of the mining industry, and it is hoped that this will propel Finland towards a new economic boom, the like of which has not been seen since the advent of Nokia in the 1990s.

  This is all a pack of lies. The truth is we’re digging our own grave.

  If we see evidence that you are serious about our case, we will be in touch. We guarantee it will be worth your while.

  1

  The mining complex must have been several kilometres in diameter; we were at the western edge of the site. I steered the car to the right-hand side of the car park and switched off the engine. The wind beat snow against the windows. Snowflakes as wide as mittens flew horizontally and vertically, occasionally gathering into fans whirling on an invisible axis, until they spun off their orbit and attacked us like a swarm of mosquitoes.

  ‘What are we doing here?’

  I took the keys from the ignition.

  ‘Looking for the truth,’ I said.

  Rantanen folded his arms across his chest. ‘In this weather that’s probably easier than taking photos.’

  I tightened my scarf, pulled on my woolly hat and checked my pockets: phone, notepad, pen, gloves. I opened the door. Snow slapped me in the face like an enormous, cold hand.

  ‘Keys,’ I heard Rantanen shouting.

  ‘Camera,’ I replied.

  Jari Rantanen: fifty-four years old; just old enough to have become used to a nice, easy job in the media.

  The command tower, complete with mirror-glass windows, looked like a checkpoint on the border of a closed-off country. The words PERMITS REQUIRED were displayed in large letters on the wall. Behind the building blew flags belonging to the mining company. I didn’t understand why there had to be three of them on three separate flagpoles.

  Snowflakes caught on my face, melted. The wind tore through my jeans and long underwear. My thick down jacket offered marginally more protection; after only a few steps it felt as though I’d been walking through a snowfield in nothing but my coat. Behind the command tower rose the silhouettes of the mine’s factory buildings: the crushing plants, refineries and drainage silos. I walked up the steps to the closed door and pressed the buzzer.

  The door opened, and warmth engulfed me in an instant. The man who’d opened the door was wearing a jacket bearing the company logo, and for some reason he had a hard hat on his head.

  ‘I’ve come to get a permit,’ I said.

  The man was short and dark-haired, and the area around his mouth was, for want of a better word, untidy.

  ‘Permit?’

  I nodded towards the sign, a metre and a half tall, hanging on the wall. ‘That says I can get an authorisation pass here.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘How do I get into the complex, then?’

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘I’m a reporter. I’m writing an article about the mine.’

  ‘You’ll have to contact head office in Helsinki. The PR people are all down south.’

  ‘What about the people who take care of the day-to-day mining operations? Surely they must be here?’

  The man seemed to think about this.

  ‘Wait out in the car park,’ he said, and pulled the door shut.

  I walked down the steps and stopped by a van, which offered a little shelter – brief respite from the flurrying snow and whirling wind.

  Ten hours’ driving. A glacial car park.

  I’d wanted this. Only a day had passed since I’d received the anonymous email.

  ‘Hello.’

  I hadn’t noticed the man’s arrival. It was strange, especially when I considered what size of man we were talking about. Perhaps the snow had muffled his footsteps and the wind had swept their weight away.

  ‘Janne Vuori, Helsinki Today.’

  The man’s hand was like the fork of a truck.

  ‘Antero Kosola, head of security. So, you’re writing an article?’

  The man’s voice was so calm and warm, it seemed to melt the snow around us. Kosola was over one hundred and ninety centimetres tall and must have weighed about one hundred kilogrammes. Everything about him was wide: his shoulders; his jaw, mouth and nose. Only his cheeks were slender. Brown eyes, soft voice. Despite his size there was something small about him, like a bull that knows how to behave in a china shop after all. His black woollen hat was pulled down firmly over his large, round head. He smiled.

  ‘Are we talking unofficially?’ I asked.

  ‘Off the record, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m old enough to know one thing about reporters: you’re never off the record.’

  That was that. We looked at one another.

  ‘May I ask, who is your superior?’

  A sunny smile. No answer.

  ‘How long have you been working with Finn Mining?’ I asked instead.

  ‘From the time the actual digging started. Two and a half years.’

  ‘And has everything been going smoothly? Does the snow and the cold complicate things? Can, say, prolonged heavy snowfall affect the mining?’

  ‘This stuff?’ asked Kosola, and looked to the sky as though he’d only just noticed it was snowing. ‘Down in Helsinki this kind of weather might make the headlines. No weather for brogues.’

  Kosola looked at my feet. My leather ankle boots looked like ballet shoes.

  ‘You can get yourselves kitted out in the village,’ he said, like a tourist guide. ‘If you’re planning on staying around.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Well, are you?’ Kos
ola asked again.

  I was about to say something when Rantanen appeared beside me. I introduced the men to one another and asked if we could take a photograph of Kosola.

  ‘I’d rather not. I’m not at my best in photos.’

  ‘It’s to go alongside the article about the mine.’

  ‘Well, it would hardly go on the fashion pages. One question: why are you here? The main office is in Helsinki. Everyone that can answer your questions is down there.’

  ‘That’s precisely why we’re here,’ I said.

  Kosola looked at me. ‘Thank you, gentlemen. I have to go.’

  He turned and walked off towards the command tower.

  ‘One more question,’ I called after him.

  Kosola stopped and turned.

  ‘Just in case we do stick around, is there a number where we can contact you?’

  ‘My mobile,’ he said and gave me the number, which I typed into my phone’s memory.

  I slipped my phone into my pocket and stood looking in the direction Kosola had left. I couldn’t see him; couldn’t even see footprints in the snow. For some reason I thought of a phrase from the email I’d received: …we’re digging our own grave.

  2

  He was standing at the corner of Museokatu and Runeberginkatu. It was a cold, windy January day; a blizzard was blowing, and he drew the air into his lungs.

  New York smelled of hot dogs and exhaust fumes, London smelled of the Underground, Paris of fresh bread, Berlin of heating oil.

  As for Helsinki…

  Its innocent smell was like an old cardigan left out in the freezing cold, spattered with salty seawater, fresh pine needles caught in its threads.

  He realised he had missed his hometown more than he’d ever realised – or at least admitted to himself. He’d been away for thirty years.

  When he had left, Helsinki had been a small city in the truest sense – grey both on the inside and the outside. What he saw now, however, was not the same city.