The Man Who Died Read online

  PRAISE FOR ANTTI TUOMAINEN

  ‘Antti Tuomainen’s The Mine, set in snowy winter darkness in northern Finland and amid a miasma of murky state corruption is right up there with the best … offering a sympathetic, politically engaged investigative journalist and a profound concern for the environment’ The Times Literary Supplement

  ‘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

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

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

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

  ‘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

  ‘Antti Tuomainen again creates a powerful book, set firmly within the boundaries of strong themes and unforgettable characters, with a huge dose of beautiful sensitive style, masterfully translated from Finnish by David Hackston … The King of Helsinki Noir is a writer of life. I cannot wait to see his atmospheric work appearing on screen’ Crime Review

  ‘As I read I felt a storm gathering, a force, a reckoning started to hurtle towards me, and in the middle of this the importance of family sits centre stage. The violence is prominent, yet there is a subtle, thought-provoking energy that twists through this tale, and ensures that The Mine is an absolutely cracking read’ Love Reading

  ‘The Mine is another beautifully written and absorbing read from the Orenda books stable – it is not a long read but it is an extremely compelling one … I adored the sense of place that Antti Tuomainen brings to this book, descriptively speaking it is intense and gorgeous, one of those stories that absorbs you into its vortex for the time you spend reading it’ Liz Loves Books

  ‘This was a truly beautiful book – deliciously dark, thoughtprovoking, and gorgeously written. It gave me chills, and not only because of the endless snow and cold. I see why Antti is so revered in Finland’ Louise Beech, author of How To Be Brave

  ‘The Mine is a gripping and traumatic environmental thriller about how far people will go in order to hide the truth. The book is well written and it has been translated by David Hackston, so that none of the beauty and elegance of Tuomainen’s prose is lost to the reader. The Mine is a thriller that shows off the best of Finnish noir and raises the question of why has it been hidden from the English reader for so long. I’m extremely thankful to Orenda Books for bringing Antti Tuomainen to my attention and I can guarantee this is a book you cannot put down’ Nudge-Book Reviews

  ‘I can highly recommend this fast-paced thriller with its sparse yet highly descriptive language. It works as an emotional thriller too as the reader is unsure of how Janne’s actions will affect his delicate family situation’ Shaz’s Book Blog

  ‘An excellent thriller with all the hallmarks of Scandi Noir, gripping, elegant and looks to the bigger issues that play an important role in society – in this case the environmental disasters surrounding the mine and the corruption in covering it up’ The Quiet Knitter

  ‘Topical. Frightening. Beautifully written, with a fast-moving story, which makes it almost impossible to put down. Plus it’s a standalone, so you haven’t missed anything up until now. This is another absolute belter from Orenda, but, really, you wouldn’t expect anything less by now, would you?’ Crime Worm

  ‘Antti Tuomainen begins The Mine with an intriguing and enticing prologue. The reader doesn’t know who the character is, but these couple of pages are written with such care and clarity that you are captured straight away … and then left wondering … The Mine is an excellent thriller that deals with extremely topical issues. The setting is perfect and the translation is so well done. Oh, and that ending…’ Random Things through My Letter Box

  ‘The writing is utterly compelling – I read this book in a sitting. I shivered at the bleakness and cold of a wintery Finland. The layers of Janne’s character – his need to write, his desire not to let his family down, his demand for validation and support despite offering little in return – made for thought-provoking reading. It was hard not to sympathise with all concerned. The denouement tied up each plot thread whilst skillfully maintaining the bones of all that had gone before. Questionable decisions were made but they fit perfectly the characters and story. In many ways this is a straightforward crime thriller but the execution achieves so much more. It provides a dark and altogether satisfying read’ Never Imitate

  ‘Antti Tuomainen’s skillful storytelling is as sharp as an ice pick, and I cannot wait to read more from him … If you like your thrillers to be peppered with a little bit of conspiracy and action, then The Mine is most certainly one to pick up!’ Bibliophile Book Club

  ‘Part crime story, part conspiracy, with a dash of mystery thrown in for good measure. It’s a splendid concoction of beautifully evocative locations and compelling characters … Definitely a pageturner that’ll keep you up into the wee small hours’ Espresso Coco

  ‘The pacing and style are brilliantly effective; calmly drawing you in until you realise you’re practically up to your knees in Finnish snow and up to your neck in a complex mystery and there’s no way you’re gonna want to leave this story even after the last page is turned’ Mumbling About

  ‘The Mine is an emotionally charged, thought-provoking Finnish environmental thriller. It’s stunningly written and translated seamlessly – no word is out of the place and the descriptions provide an amazing sense of the chilling frozen setting. I was totally gripped throughout and struggled to put the book down … This is a stunning book – yet another winner from Orenda. The Mine is a book that will stay with me for a long while’ Off-The-Shelf Books

  ‘The author’s beautiful writing is one of the reasons I loved this book as much as I did because it played out like a movie in my mind and I could really buy into what was happening in the story because of that. The entire book had me gripped from start to finish and did not disappoint come the end’ Reviewed The Book

  ‘I could just picture the snow and hear the silence due to the fact no one was around. It was extremely atmospheric. More important, current topics are covered in this book as it touches on environmental activists and the damage that we as humans are doing to the world. It was very cleverly done and showed different ways that people go about raising awareness. Overall a great book and another one I have already been recommending’ Life of a Nerdish Mum

  ‘The book is really well written and the author painted such a vivid picture of Finland that I could imagine I was there. In fact, all the descriptions of the snow made me dig out my fleecy blanket and thermal socks as I really began to feel that cold … 4* out of 5*’ Ginger Book Geek

  The Man Who Died

  ANTTI TUOMAINEN

  translated from the Finnish by David Hackston

  For Anu,

  With love, once again

  The author has taken considerable artistic licence with regard to geographical, medical, temporal and natural scientific details. In all other respects this story is factually correct.

  ‘He was some kind of a man.

  What does it matter what you say about people?’

  – Marlene Dietrich, Touch of Evil

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  PART ONE: DEATH

  1

&nbs
p; 2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  PART TWO: LIFE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  PART THREE: LOVE

  1

  2

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  COPYRIGHT

  PART ONE

  DEATH

  1

  ‘It’s a good job you provided a urine sample too.’

  The oval face of the doctor sitting behind the desk exudes seriousness and gravitas. The dark rims of his spectacles accentuate the blue, almost three-dimensional intensity of his gaze.

  ‘This…’ he stumbles. ‘This requires a little background. I’ve contacted my colleagues in Kotka and Helsinki. They said essentially the same as what we’ve been able to deduce here. Even if we’d picked this up the last time you visited, there’s nothing else we could have done. How are you feeling?’

  I shrug my shoulders. I go through the same information I told the doctor the last time I was here and give an account of the latest symptoms. It all started with a sudden, powerful wave of nausea and vomiting that quite literally knocked me off my feet. After that my condition seemed to stabilise, but only for a while. Sometimes I feel so dizzy that I’m worried I might faint. I have coughing fits. Stress keeps me awake at night. When I finally fall asleep, I have nightmares. Sometimes my headaches are so intense it feels like someone is scraping a knife behind my eyeballs. My throat is constantly dry. The nausea has started again and it hits me without any warning.

  And all this just when my business is getting ready for the most important time of the year, the greatest challenge we’ve ever faced in the short time we’ve existed.

  ‘Right,’ the doctor nods. ‘Right.’

  I say nothing. He pauses before continuing. ‘This is not to do with prolonged, complicated flu symptoms, as we thought at first. Without a urine sample we might never have found out what was wrong. The sample told us a lot, and that’s what led us to conduct the MRI scan. With the results of the scan we’ve now got a fuller picture of what’s going on. You see, your kidneys, liver and pancreas – that is to say your most important internal organs – are extremely badly damaged. Given what you’ve told us, we can deduce that your central nervous system is severely compromised too. In addition to that, you may have experienced some amount of brain damage. All this is a direct result of the poisoning that showed up in your urine sample. The levels of toxicity – that is, the amount of poison in your system – would be enough to knock out a hippopotamus. The fact that you’re even sitting here in front of me and still going to work is, in my estimation, due to the fact that the poisoning has taken place over an extended period of time and in such a way that the poison has had time to accumulate in your body. In one way or another, you’ve become used to it.’

  In my gut it feels as though I’m falling, as though something inside me tears free and hurtles down into the cold abyss beneath. The sensation lasts a few seconds. Then it stops. I’m sitting on a chair opposite the doctor, it’s a Tuesday morning and I’ll soon be on my way to work. I’ve read stories of how people act with great clarity in a fire or of how they don’t panic after they’ve been shot, though they’re bleeding profusely. I sit there and look the doctor in the eyes. I could be waiting for the bus.

  ‘You mentioned you work with mushrooms,’ the doctor says eventually.

  ‘But the matsutake isn’t poisonous,’ I answer. ‘And the harvest is just around the corner.’

  ‘The matsutake?’

  I don’t know where to start.

  I decide to tell the short version: back in Helsinki my wife worked in institutional catering, and I was a sales officer. Three and a half years ago the recession hit both our workplaces, and we were made redundant at around the same time. Meanwhile Hamina – like dozens of similar small Finnish towns – was desperately looking for new commercial activity to replace the empty harbour and recently decommissioned paper factory. We had a series of quick negotiations, secured a generous start-up grant, acquired premises that cost next to nothing and staff who were well acquainted with the local woods and terrain. We sold our one-bedroom apartment in suburban Helsinki, and for the same money bought a detached house in Hamina and a small fibreglass boat that we could tether to the jetty a mere seventy metres from our post box.

  Our business idea was simple: the matsutake – the pine mushroom.

  The Japanese were crazy about it, and Finnish forests were full of it.

  The Japanese would pay up to a thousand euros per kilo of mushrooms in the early, sprouting phase. To the north and east of Hamina there were forests where picking pine mushrooms was as easy as plucking them from a plate in front of you. In Hamina we had treatment facilities, a dryer, a packing area, chilled spaces and employees. During the harvest season we sent a shipment to Tokyo once a week.

  I have to catch my breath. The doctor seems to be thinking about something.

  ‘What about your lifestyle otherwise?’

  ‘My lifestyle?’

  ‘Your diet, how much you exercise, that sort of thing.’

  I tell him I eat well and with a good, hearty appetite. I haven’t once cooked for myself since I met Taina, and that was over seven years ago. And Taina’s meals aren’t the kind in which a teaspoon of celery purée stares dejectedly across the plate at a solitary sprig of wheatgrass. Taina’s basic ingredients are cream, salt, butter, cheeses and plenty of pork. I like Taina’s food, always have done. And it shows around my waistline. I weigh twenty-four kilos more than when we first met.

  Taina hasn’t gained weight; it might be because she’s bigger-boned than I am and has always looked like a weightlifter in peak physical condition, ready for a competition. I mean that in the nicest possible way: her thighs are solid, round and strong. Her shoulders are broad and her arms powerful without being masculine; her stomach is flat. Whenever I see pictures of female bodybuilders who are not ripped and grotesque, I think of Taina. Besides, she exercises too: she goes to the gym, takes aerobics classes, and ever since we moved here she goes rowing out at sea. Sometimes I try to keep up with her, though that too is becoming a rare occurrence.

  I don’t know why I’m speaking so quickly, so effusively, why I have to talk about Taina in such detail. The next thing we know, I’ll be giving the doctor her measurements down to the nearest centimetre.

  Then, as it seems the doctor isn’t focussing his healing eyes in the right direction, I ask him what we’re going to do about it. The doctor looks at me as though he’s just realised I haven’t listened to a single word he’s been saying. I notice his eyes blinking behind his spectacles.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

  The overexposed room is so full of summer and sunshine that I have to squint my eyes at him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. We can’t say for sure what kind of poison has caused this. It appears to be a combination of various natural toxins. And like the poison itself, judging by your symptoms and the account you’ve given, the extent of your poisoning seems, from a toxicological perspective, to be an optimal combination of exposure over an extended period of time and exceptionally highly developed levels of tolerance. If this were a case of specific, one-off poisoning that we were able to attend to promptly, there are a number of measures we could have taken – antidotes we could have administered. But, in your case, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do. There is nothing that will return your body to its norma
l state or that will change the … how should I put it? … the direction of travel. It is simply a matter of waiting for the body’s functions to shut down one by one. I’m sorry, but the condition will inevitably lead to death.’

  The brightness of the summer’s day streaming through the window only serves to heighten the luridness of his final word. The word must surely be in the wrong place. I must be in the wrong place. I came here with a simple bout of the flu, I tell myself, with a few stomach cramps and occasional dizziness. I want to hear him tell me that all I need is rest and a course of antibiotics; or that, in the worst-case scenario, I might need my stomach pumped. Then I’ll recover and get back to…

  ‘I might compare this situation to a patient with pancreatic cancer or cirrhosis of the liver,’ the doctor continues. ‘When a crucial organ exceeds its capacity, it never returns to normal but runs down, as it were; it burns itself out until it finally snuffs out like a candle. There’s simply nothing to be done. An organ transplant would be out of the question, because the surrounding organs are damaged too and would be unable to support the new organ; on the contrary, they would likely cause the new organ to malfunction too, in my opinion. What’s more, in your case every organ appears to be in an equally advanced state of degeneration. On the plus side, that might be the secret of your relative state of wellbeing – a balance of horror,